There is an old tale people don't talk about much anymore. It says that in the bamboo clusters live spirits that are curious about humans. So curious, that they choose to be born as a human. They do this by eating the soul of a human child that isn't born yet and then occupy the empty body. When the child is born no one can tell that its possessed until the child starts to grow. Children possessed by bamboo spirits grow to be much taller and thinner than normal. Some people used to call them giants in old days, our family has had a few.
Granny Mera is currently the tallest person in our family, 7 feet she is, mother said its because she's a bamboo spirit. Like much of the older generations, Granny's mother lived on our family's mountain. Our family kept the mountain as undeveloped and unsettled as possible, so the waterfall, river, pools, and forests are largely undisturbed. This leads to there being a lot of areas spirits make home in, especially the bamboo clusters on the river banks.
To keep the spirits from leaving the mountain and wander the villages, great-great-great grandmother gave two churches land at the foot of the mountain. A village developed around the churches. We don't oversee the village, but some of the family live on the edge of the village as a precaution. The river snakes across the mountain on it's way down, so the path has 3 bridges. Near the bridges on the banks of the river grow bamboo clusters.
Granny's mother worked as a nurse at a hospital in the capital. Many times she returned home it was dark and crossing the 3 bridges to get home meant she walked past a lot of spirits. It wasn't until Granny was 10, they realized she was a bamboo spirit. Grand Mother said granny was tall as a grown man. Children at school were afraid of her some of them would tease her, pulling at her clothes telling her to go back to the bamboo or running away saying the bamboo spirit was trying to eat them. Even adults used to fear her, as ignorant as others maybe our family knows that bamboo spirits don't hurt people. They might eat an unborn's soul and possess the body but they are no different from people, other than their height and longevity.
People with bamboo spirits live to be over 100, it's said that their bodies seem to stop aging at 70. Everything about them seems to stop, except their eyes, they go blind and their eyes turn white. When they die, their bodies dry like cut bamboo. We don't bury bamboo spirits, we burn the body and send the ashes down from the source of the river. Those were the directions from our first bamboo spirit ancestor, who said the ashes will find their way home, so the spirit can return to it's bamboo cluster.
Granny's 91, her eyes are almost all white, and she can't see anything that's not directly in front her. But our family's mountain isn't what it used to be. Most of the family from Granny's generation left the mountain to live elsewhere. Grand mother and some of the others moved to the valley, most moved to other countries or into the cities. In mother's generation a few moved back to the mountain, but the main houses are still abandoned, and most of the family live before the 3 bridges, near the village.
Mother took me up the mountain a while back, we did not go to the source of the river but to the first house. The first house is where the vehicle path ends, past the house is a foot path that leads to the source of the river. Mother said the path was made with stones and nutmeg shells to keep the grass down and make it easier to climb in wet weather. Since no head of the family was named after great-great grandmother died, the first house and path returned to nature. As amazing as our history sounds in the stories, everyone just fights over who has the right to be head and control the land. Even though Granny is the oldest, she is a bamboo spirit so she cannot be head of the family. She was also the youngest in her generation so the right as head would never have been hers.
Granny's got another 30 or so years to live, hopefully the right of inheritance is settled before she dies. Although her family often travels abroad, and are more taken in by wealth and material possession, and those of my generation believe in science. They believe most of the old stories to be just stories designed to scare children. Sometimes I wonder, if we do not send her ashes down from the source, will the spirit be vengeful? Will we be cursed again?
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