The Tale of the Chuukese Chanuukun

The Chuukese folk are avidly religious. The Church is the center of life and steers the beliefs and actions of most of the islanders. The Church’s influence has been so profound and widespread that it has succeeded in supplanting almost all traditional beliefs. The locals have no remnants of ancient religion or pre-colonial belief systems. Traditional island clothes, dances, stories and cultural practices can sometimes be spotted masked in a Christian sheath of censorship. But even that is rare. For the most part, the Chuukese have done away with ancient beliefs and adopted the western ideals of Jesus and ecclesiastic system of thought.

            However, there is one archaic conviction that has not been tossed by the wayside. There is one thing that they have continued to believe and continued to fear for thousands of years. They have accepted the Christian God and its conception of reality, but they have not allowed this singular legend to slip through the cracks. The fear of this thing has been so deeply engrained that they have refused to throw it in the pile of defunct traditions. For some powerful reason, this belief has endured. I am speaking about ghosts. Specifically the sea ghost, locally referred to as a Chanuukun.

            I heard stories of the sea ghost from the first week that I arrived in Chuuk. I enjoyed the stories and listened with interest as old men recited tales of the horrible fates that have come to foolish water goers. There are many versions of stories involving the Chanuukun, but most of them involve somebody getting punished for disturbing the peace of the sea. If you upset the balance of the ocean, the female sea ghost may come to you and work its deadly black magic against you. I liked hearing these stories, but I didn’t really believe that they were true. I just thought it was fun to hear about some real indigenous beliefs. My overanalyzing logical brain has long since stripped away childhood fears of ghosts and monsters .

            A few months an ago incident occurred. There have been varying stories to explain the reality of the situation, but I will explain how it was relayed to me. A young boy was visiting the lagoon from the outer islands of Chuuk. He was out on a picnic on a small uninhabited island with his family and friends. The child was being kind of wild and making all types of loud noises and splashing around in the water. His mother warned him to quiet down, but he simply wandered farther down the beach and out of earshot so he could continue his frolicking in the ocean.

            That evening when they returned home from the picnic, the boy’s mother noticed scratches on his forearms and chest. She asked the kid what they were from, but he wouldn’t respond. She just figured he hurt himself on some coral and was embarrassed to admit his clumsiness. The next morning, the boy awoke and was terribly sick. He had a horrid fever and was too weak to rise from bed. This sickness wore on for days, but since the hospital was a lengthy boat ride away and is infamous for its shoddy care, they decided to take care of him at home.

            The family was grief stricken and didn’t know what could have caused such a severe onset of this horrible sickness. The boy became more and more ill, until one night he called his mother to his bedside. She sat near him and he beckoned her to come close so he could tell her a secret. The mother knelt down and bent her ear towards the boy. In a raspy and ailing voice, the boy whispered, “mother, I am scared and must tell you something. The other day at the picnic when I went to play by myself, I saw a woman. She came to me in the water and gave me these scratches for making too much noise in the sea. And then she warned me that if I ever ever told anybody about our encounter, I would die” The next morning, the little boy was dead.

            News of this disaster spread like wildfire and my host family was talking about it all the time. The boy died on my host mother’s home island, so she was particularly in tune with all the gossip. A couple of days later, I was preparing to go out spear fishing at night with a friend. My host mother looked at me with terror in her eyes and told me not to go. She said the Chanuukun is known for going after visitors or foreigners and it was unsafe for me to go in the ocean. Her reaction irked me a little bit, but in the end I disregarded it. I didn’t believe in ghosts and I certainly wasn’t scared of some imaginary mermaid lady, so I wasn’t gonna let it ruin an exciting spear fishing expedition.

            It was a moonless night. The blackness was overwhelming. Clouds covered the sky and not even a star could be seen. A slight drizzle trickled down, but it wasn’t enough to be cause for concern. I slunk into the liquid blackness and followed the stream of light beaming from my buddy’s underwater flashlight. We followed the far edge of the reef and worked our way eastwards away from the island. After a couple of hours of swimming, we were beyond the point of being able to see land in the stark darkness of the night. The rain picked up a bit and everything became bland with a blanket of black.

            I came up to adjust my mask after a deep dive and heard something as I peeked above the surface. It was a woman speaking. She was speaking faintly in Chuukese. Through the rain and confusion, I couldn’t quite understand what she was saying, but I was quite sure that it was a young woman’s voice babbling in Chuukese. I looked around in a circle and tried to get my bearings. Could it be from a house back on land? No, that was impossible because I was far away from the shore and the wind was blowing in the opposite direction. Could it be from a boat? No, women almost never go fishing. Especially not at night and especially not in the rain. I figured I was just light headed from  oxygen deprivation and must be imagining things.

            I dove back down and continued my fishing. A couple of minutes later, I came back to the surface to take a big breath and reaffirm to myself that the voice wasn’t real. But it was. I heard the same voice again. This time it was louder. I still couldn’t figure what she was saying, but it was unmistakably real. Now I was scared. My mind began to race with a million explanations, but none of them made any sense. It could only be one thing talking to me in the deep dark night of the lonely ocean…Chanuukun!

            I spun in a circle and frantically searched for a sign of anything. I was fidgety and nervous. Was this ghost really coming after me? No, I didn’t believe in ghosts. It couldn’t be. I must be going nuts. I dove back under and rapidly swam towards the glowing figure of my fishing partner. I needed to ask him if he also heard the voice. I tried to get his attention, but he was busy doing his business below the surface and I couldn’t get him to come up and talk. I once again popped up above the water and brought my head into the warm misting air. The sound that greeted me will haunt me for years. Ahhahhhaaahhh …..eeehheeheee!! A witchlike cackle echoed in my ears and then faded into a girlish giggle. The evil undertones replaced by innocent happiness shook me to my core. I hurried to my partners’ side and refused to pull my head out of water for the rest of the night.

            You can interpret this story however you want. My rational brain is still trying to conjure up explanations, but nothing seems plausible. I have tried to disregard it as a hallucinatory episode, but every time that I tell the story I get shivers down my spine and my eyes begin to water. The ghost might not have been real, but the fear was real.

Maybe the Chanuukan has refused to fade into forgotten obscurity for a reason. Maybe its presence has remained for a reason. Maybe pastors, parents and politicians believe for a reason. Maybe it still patrols the reefs of Chuuk Lagoon and preys on unsuspecting victims.

Or maybe we are all just crazy!