Evil Spirits
Most of the popular tales in Maldives are about evil spirits and their interaction with the islanders. These stories contain always a lesson in some form or the other. Certain actions became necessary in order to avoid trouble with the spirit world. These patterns of behaviour, like the importance of keeping a secret, as well as the avoidance of certain areas of the island and of inauspicious times, were an essential component of the ancient popular spirituality.
The Maldivian spirits can take human form, even if it is not known whether they have a human origin or not. While in human shape, the malevolence of those spirits is often masked by beauty and youth. Certain Maldivian evil spirits (handi) have the appearance of charming, beautiful women. These stories about female spirits have their origin in the Ancient Dravidian Village Goddess worship and they point to the ethnic origin of the Maldive people.
Other evil spirits which are the subject of many folk stories in the Maldives (furēta) are crude monsters coming from the ocean waters. The tales about sea monsters are part of the local cultural background, which is characterized by the oceanic environment in which, along the millennia, the Maldivian culture developed.
Read more about this topic: Maldivian Folklore
Famous quotes containing the words evil and/or spirits:
“O you spirits,
how men hate the gods,
for they say evil comes of us,
when they themselves,
by their own wickedness,
court peril....”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoitre the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox will eventually occupy.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)