This was the time that mom… she was telling me the story about the time when one of her elder …I don’t remember if it’s the distant aunt or just a very close friend of the family had passed away. And the person that was very dear to that deceased, she decided to keep the skull of the deceased, and instead of cremating the whole entire body she kept the skull. A couple of days later another family member… and she said whatever happened to her she has no memory of it, but she was possessed by the deceased who came to the village looking for her skull and she said in Thai to the woman who kept the skull in her same mannerism… everybody knew how this person was before… she sat down in her usual spot and started looking at everybody because this person was possessed in trance like state “Ni (the person’s name) give me my skull back” in rude, old Thai, in an olden way. In a very… um… not so nice language. And everybody was shocked and of course … somebody who was possessed … had kind of pointed out to the person who took the skull and said put it back in its rightful place. Everybody was shocked. And then I think after that moment the possessed person just collapsed and she woke up from this trance and could not recall anything. She just remembered she was on the bus and then she was here with the family.

Background: My aunt knows this story because her mom told it to her, and she remembers this piece specifically because it is so creepy. To her it symbolizes the need for respect for those who have passed away and the need for people to let them go instead of holding on to them, whether it be literally (with the skull) or figuratively. I conducted this interview in person, live at my uncle’s house. I think this is such a creepy piece yet such a good piece of folklore as my aunt and her mother (my great-aunt) both claim it to be true.