Most Maldivians are by now familiar with the drama unfolding in Makunudhoo. It has been on the news a lot and has been blogged about a lot but photos haven't been very forthcoming - well, except for a blurred image on Haveeru Daily and a photo stolen from my Flickr stream published on Miadhu News. So here are some images of the historic Makunudhoo School where Man and Jinn live side by side and study side by side, though not always in harmony as has been revealed. The school may replace the island's currently most famous landmark: the residential ruins of the infamous Bodufenvalhugey Seedhee (known for various supposed supernatural feats such as "walking on water" between islands, "helping" the infertile conceive etc) including its "teleportation well".

And yes, in case you wonder, it is ridiculous to believe this is a battle between invisible Jinn and humans, especially when there are good explanations.

Enjoy... stand awed.

Yesterday, I called up a friend in Makunudhoo who is pretty familiar with the mass hysteria (or jinn possession, depending who you ask) that has gripped the students of the island's school for the past month to have a little chat about the events taking place there. Some of the events, including the digging of the school grounds, are missing from here because we had talked about it an earlier conversation which I sadly didn't record. I am posting a transcript of the later conversation here (with permission). It is a translation from Dhivehi ofcourse but I've avoided doing the sort of fancy rephrasing and rearranging that is advocated in Dhivehi translation classes in the hopes of preserving the original as much as possible. The bits inside brackets were added by me to help make subjects and contexts clearer.

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Me: Hey, this is Jaa. You busy?
ZZ: No. No. Excellent time.
Me: I just wanted to get some more details on what's happening in the island. I am hoping to write it up on my blog.
ZZ: Great. Go ahead.
Me: Can you tell me how this happened. Did it happen to many at once or was it just one kid?
ZZ: It was one kid at first. It was about a year ago.
Me: Is it! How does that relate to this event?
ZZ: It happens to this kid every now and then. But it got so serious only this month.
Me: So the kid has fits? Regularly?
ZZ: Yes. There are about 3 or 4 kids in the school that gets fits.
Me: So what happened this time?
ZZ: What happened this time was that one of the kids got possessed, by Jinn. Following that, a boy in Grade 10 said it was happening because of a tree in the school. He said he was going to hit the tree with a ball and went ahead to kick a ball into the tree. When he did that the ball is said to have hit the hand/fingers of a Jinn child and broke it. The boy fell unconscious immediately following that.
Me: I see.
ZZ: The boy's hands were contorted as well.
Me: Uhuh. So that was the first two kids?
ZZ: Those two escalated the situation. There are a total of about 6... err 10, 12 kids now. 10-12 have been admitted sick now.
Me: I see. The kid that this first happened to... you say it's regular... Had a doctor been consulted earlier?
ZZ: They went to a doctor even the first time. They didn't call it a Jinn event then, it was diagnosed as fits then. It is only now this became a Jinn possession. So many kids had fallen sick at the same time so it wasn't believed to be fits.
Me: Newspapers made it seem that this happened to a lot of kids, at the same time. Did it happen that way or was it gradual... one by one... a few at a time?
ZZ: No no. This school is 40 years old. And in this 40 years, about every year or every six months a kid would fall sick. That is fall during assembly. Whether that's because of fainting or something else, it's not known. But since talking to the Jinn (by the fanditha/blackmagic practitioners), it has appeared that the school is also attended by 1000 Jinn children. And that the Jinn parents number to 300,000...
Me: Uhuh
ZZ: And that their kids are not as good at studies as us Dhivehi, us humans. They are taking revenge because they haven't been improving and also because when our kids play ball during assembly, err PE, the ball hits their kids.
Me: How did this spread to other kids?
ZZ: Apparently the Jinns have made a list... those Jinns. So all kids on the list are to get sick and it's been happening that way.
Me: So the first day this happened, a lot of kids fell sick and the second day more kids fell? Is that how it happened?
ZZ: Yes that is how it happened this week... this month.
Me: I see.
ZZ: Yea.
Me: Has any of the kids gotten better?
ZZ: No. None of the kids have gotten better.
Me: But the fanditha is still going on?
ZZ: The fanditha is proceeding very strong. They have now put 150 Jinns into a can and sunk them into the sea... the fanditha men have said.
Me: I see.
ZZ: A psychologist came to the island last night. The psychologist assessed the kids and said it wasn't related to Jinns. But the parents didn't believe that. They say it was caused by Jinns and no treatment by the psychologist will treat that.
Me: I see.
ZZ: So the psychologist had to leave (the island) immediately.
Me: Hehe. I see. Umm. Is there any news if any sort of change, like that of odour, was noticed in the area?
ZZ: This is happening not because of a change in odour. There are no smells. There were a number of trees. Even the affected sick children are saying that something lives in those trees and they see it as their land. So when the tree was cut, those Jinns got furious and many more children fell sick.
Me: But wasn't the tree felled recently?
ZZ: Yes. Things got this bad when the tree was felled.
Me: I see. But why did the tree have to be felled? Didn't one of the kids say things would get better once the tree is felled?
ZZ: No no. Not that because it would release the kids. It was done with the intent of sending the Jinn off. It was assumed that they wouldn't stay there once their home was destroyed and so when the parents requested for the tree to be felled it was done so.
Me: Uhuh.
ZZ: Now the Jinns have moved to the largest "nika" tree in the island.
Me: So how far has the fanditha proceeded? How long is it to take?
ZZ: It is going on full speed. They had a 40 man chanting last night and they are going to do chants tonight too. He (the fanditha practitioner) says he doesn't want to "cure" the kids just yet because he still needs to question the Jinn over certain things. He assures though that he is going to leave only once he "cures" the kids.
Me: Did he say how long he is going to take?
ZZ: He hasn't given a date yet.
Me: So hopefully the Jinns would go away soon? To a nearby island.
ZZ: (Laugh) People have asked for the Jinns to be sent off to another island.
Me: How about the two near uninhabited islands?
ZZ: Not those two islands. People have requested the Jinns to be expelled from the island, to make it so that they are unable to enter the school. People would like a (magic) barrier to be placed around the island to prevent the Jinns from coming in. The fanditha men has now created the wall around around and they have expelled around 300,000 Jinns from out the wall. They say that only a few infidel crippled Jinn remain now.
...
Me: Thanks!
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I made a short post earlier about this incident in Makunudhoo and linked to a few interesting research papers related to mass hysteria in hopes of putting things into a more scientific perspective. MaldivesHealth has since posted on the amusing case of the genitalia vanishing epidemic in Nigeria and more. It maybe true that it really are the Jinns that are at the root of the problem Makunudhoo is facing, yet centuries of (global) experience and amassed knowledge tells us that it is far far far more likely to be a ...

This whole throwing fits and going berserk business in the Makunudhoo School is becoming utterly ridiculous. It has been a month since it was first reported and apparently things have now escalated into becoming a full-on circus complete with clowns and flying elephants. More kids are apparently joining the madness by the day while the health authorities and the government at large seems to have ignored it for the most part.

The fanditha men who are being imported into the island by the worried parents to bring an end to this "supernatural" problem are probably having the time of their life. It is absolutely mad that in this day in age, people could forgo rationality and scientific understanding to attempt to solve the afflictions by letting fanditha practitioners chant and perform silly rituals around an island and go about cutting down trees in the belief that they harbour Jinns. The mentality of attributing anything even slightly mysterious or unexplainable as something within a supernatural realm is self-defeating, non-explanatory and should have been left behind in the past centuries of ignorance. I find it especially amusing that these Jinns always seem to have a knack for stirring a total ruckus in human societies by engaging in petty, retarded behaviour like taking "possession" of a person for "revenge". Then again, all non-existent imaginary constructs have their own unique quirks.

Edit (17/05/2008):
Jinns are mythical creatures lacking evidence and scientific validation. This fact should not be taken lightly because:
a) the role of such a priori beliefs in making people susceptible to and triggering hysteria has been noted in research,
b) the "treatment" being pushed by fanditha men and priests/imams involves reinforcement of those very beliefs that set it off and that has been noted to enhance the outbreaks.
c) the immediate attribution to illnesses to the supernatural delays/avoids proper medical diagnosis in favour of meaningless rituals, which is especially worrying if the illness were to be due to or a symptom of a serious medical condition.

Edit (11/05/2008):
Some interesting papers on the matter:-
- Episodic Neurological Dysfunction Due to Mass Hysteria
- Epidemic Hysteria: A review of the Published Literature
- Possession "hysteria" in a Kenya Tribe

They say time flies when you are having fun but I reckon time flies even faster when you are bored shitless - like when I've been since arriving back from Makunudhoo two weeks ago...

I had a terrific time in HDh. Makunudhoo, exploring the island itself and the neighbouring three uninhabited islands, all of which lie within the same 17 mile long reef. Makunudhoo is amongst a natural geographical atoll called "Maa Makunudhoo Atoll" which sits situated all by itself in the North of the Maldives, displaced slightly to the West from the typical Maldivian North-South stretch of atolls (see map).

Makunudhoo is famous for being the home to President Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom when he was sentenced to banishment during President Nasir's rule. The owners of the house he stayed in then, infact, now proudly hang pictures of him on their walls! The island also played host to the infamous Bodufenvalhugey Seedhee who gained country wide fame for his supposed supernatural feats and healing powers - abilities which led to the "Seedhee" title. He is (still) well-respected by the elderly for feats as "walking on water" across the seas, instantaneous travel, healing the sick, "helping" the infertile conceive etc. His long abandoned house in Makunudhoo now lie in ruins.

The sea, the reef and the lagoon of the atoll were nothing short of being deliciously exquisite and as a Maldivian who'd been away from these beauties for a number of months, I was simply overwhelmed! I hadn't seen starfishes, jellyfishes, different kinds of rays, turtles, dolphins, eels, sea cucumbers and multicoloured fishes and numerous weird sea creatures for ages and it was a thrilling experience to see them again while snorkelling in the reef and/or while strolling along the beach. Most notable was the presence of turtles in and around the atoll. We even sighted turtles cruising in the shallow waters near the beach. I also got to travel to the west-most piece of land in the Maldives - which is one of the uninhabited islands in the Maa Makunudhoo atoll. Exploring along its beaches and lagoon made it clear that the island was slightly different from the typical rest I'd seen (but then again, I haven't seen much of Maldives!).

I was pretty sad to hear that the island people still do catch turtles, which are a protected specie in the Maldives for fear of extinction, for food and that too on a regular basis. I'm not a particularly big supporter of the animal protection schemes but these animals, if they do disappear, are something I would miss indeed. There were other sea animals that had depleted significantly as well - including sea cucumbers and "raakani" (English name?) - which were aplenty in the atoll when I visited the place 10 years so ago!

I've uploaded some of the photos from the trip to Flickr. Check 'em out!

UPDATE (18/08/2007): Azeem has uploaded a lot more beautiful pictures from the trip to his Flickr gallery as well.