Malaysian museum turns to spiritual means to lure visitors

Malaysian museum turns to spiritual means to lure visitors

Carolyn Lim, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Kuala Lumpur

Faced with competition from Kuala Lumpur's spanking new shopping
malls, lush parks and other newer museums, Malaysia's national
museum Muzium Negara is counting on ghosts and goblins to help
lure visitors.

On June 26, the 39-year-old museum launched its "Exploring
Ghosts" exhibition featuring a goblin, known in Malay folklore as
a toyol, as its star exhibit. If you are hoping to cast your eyes
on a live toyol, be prepared for disappointment.

Though recognizable from its frail and tiny skeletal
structure, the anak keruak or toyol in question is very much dead
and preserved for "security reasons", said Museum and Antiquity
Director-General Adi Taha.

Shrunken and dried over the past 70 years, the toyol, which
hails from Pattani in southern Thailand, is housed in a glass
case with all sorts of paraphanelia to keep it happy, Adi said.

Lying on a tiny mattress, the toyol is flanked by two bottles
of infant milk and two tiny bolsters. Also in the display case is
a cradle, a mosquito netting to keep bugs away, and a pillow for
the toyol to lie on.

The paraphanelia are aimed at appeasing the spirit of this
toyol, which is believed to be the foetus of a first-born baby of
first-time parents. The toyol in this case can be used for
healing rituals and evil spells, Adi added.

Apart from the shrunken toyol, the exhibition paints a good
picture of the cross-cultural influences on Malaysians'
spiritualism.

For instance, Chinese worshippers are shown praying at shrines
to the Malay ancestors of the country, known as Datuk-Gong,
literally Grandfather Gods, which is unusual because Malays are
mostly Moslems while most Chinese are Buddhists, Taoists or
Christians.

The exhibition also includes recent "sightings", including
most famously, a "langsuir" or vampire-ghost which preyed on
young women in certain rural areas.

Newspapers had reported as recently as late last year of a so-
called langsuir which a shamanistic healer, or bomoh, had
captured and tricked into a tiny bottle. Looking like a benign
Mogwai from the Star Wars series, the langsuir is featured in a
photograph at the exhibition. Since the incident, the bomoh
claimed the langsuir had been thrown lock, stock and bottle into
the sea.

The de facto Islamic affairs minister, Abdul Hamid Othman,
condemned the langsuir coverage then as archaic and unbefitting
of an age where technology was dominant.

But Muzium Negara's Adi is adamant that visitors should judge
for themselves whether creatures featured at the exhibition are
real or not.

Asked if the two-month exhibition, which is expected to draw
about 250,000 more visitors in addition to about half a million
who come to the museum each year, contradicted Islamic teachings,
Adi was ambivalent.

In Islam, ghosts or jinns are recognized as creatures that God
created just as men were, said Adi, a trained archaeologist.
"Some jinns are evil, such as Iblis or Satan, while others are
good."

But he also praised his Western counterparts for their ability
to ignore spiritual aspects when working with artifacts such as
bones and skulls. "That's progress," he said.

Still, judging by the turnout at the exhibition's first
weekend, fear of ghosts and spirits might be just what Muzium
Negara needs. Some 10,000 people visited the exhibition each day
at the weekend, museum spokesperson Janet Tee said, far exceeding
even her expectations.