(586) "Shopping basket" aunt

In response to the sudden interest from my Russian readers in stories regarding spirits, I am making an effort to recall incidences and memories from my childhood. Happy reading!

As a child, I used to live in a tiny unit in a long row of wooden houses with zinc roof. There were many families living in each unit. Hence it was a densely populated area with lots of poor citizens. One Sunday morning my buddies called and a whole bunch of street urchins moseyed over to see a group of adults calling down what they called "Shopping basket" aunt.

What actually happened was they found a young man to dress a round cane basket in a lady's shirt (it happened to be an old samfu top, a short sleeve blouse opened in front with fabric Chinese buttons). Then with some plant fibers a ladle is tied to the handle of the basket. Two sticks were then tied to the handle of the cane basket.  Two young men were chosen to hold the basket by the two handles. Neither of the basket holders was supposed to touch the ladle.

An old lady chanted and called down spirits. Soon the ladle moved on its own accord. It knocked the side of the basket repeatedly. A take charge lady respectfully addressed the spirit and arranged to have it knock once for yes and two times for no. And so the session started. I remember wondering how the two young men conspired to swing the basket into causing the ladle to go up and knock down. I looked this way and that, the holders did not seem to be up to any tricks. The ladle seemed to genuinely move on its own. All those present inquired about something or some one in the future.

All these happened at least forty odd years ago. All I remember now is that the spirit refused to leave. In the end the two holders had to take it to the out house. It was so smelly there that even the naughty spirits did leave after an hour in the dirty place. My brothers and I went home and asked my grandma how such sessions worked. She told us that "Shopping basket" aunt usually called down spirits of females who were killed or die because of ill treatment. Many years ago, poor families would give their daughters that they could not feed to other families as future daughters-in-law. Such girls were generally badly treated and used as unpaid house hold helpers. They were beaten and starved by the future mothers-in-law. My grandma cautioned us not to meddle with such spirits. We were told not to go and witness any other such activities as harm could come from malicious spirits.