The victim
It is clear from village description that it is women, both married and
unmarried, who are the most common victims of phii paub. Children of
both sexes may also be victims. Adult men are rarely or never attacked.
Phii paub afflictions have been on the decline in recent years: the last
appearance, according to villagers, was around 1960 in a nearby village.
But there are in the village women who were previously possessed and
have been cured.
The symptoms of affliction are that the victim cries out or laughs
loudly and, when addressed, hides her face. These appear to be hysterical
symptoms. The patient may also complain about lack of attention, that
she has not been given the food she has asked for. Such complaints appear
to signify unfulfilled wishes and a demand for attention, and probably
come to a head or are culturally permitted at the time of pregnancy and
impending childbirth. The villagers describe the affliction as a mental
disturbance, and when actual cases occur they readily diagnose it as
phii paub possession. Sometimes the possession takes place right at childbirth,
in which case in addition to the behaviour described the patient
also bleeds profusely. Here the phii paub is described as sucking the
mother's blood, and behaves like the phii prai (the spirit of the dead
child in a dead mother's womb) which I have already described.
