Orang Minyak – Supernaturally Sick or Real Rascal?

The black hand crawling through the bedroom window. This is how Elaine Khor remembers her encounter with the Orang Minyak or Oily Man.

Elaine was assigned to a training course at a hostel in Malacca and shared a room with her colleagues. During the first three weeks of their stay, they discovered that money and underwear had been stolen from their room, even though it was locked.

“We worked the same shift, so it was unlikely that it was one of us. It was so strange that one’s belongings were stolen without any sign of a break-in,” said this 34-year-old professional in an interview with Yahoo! Malaysia.

Even more bizarre are the frequent visits of a “black hand” – a black hand that is not connected to any human body.

“I was sleeping but woke up in the middle of the night feeling very uncomfortable. Then I saw this black hand, just a hand, crawling through an open window as if it was looking for something,” she explained.

She started screaming and the hand disappeared. Her roommate witnessed a similar hand enter her room the following night. More strange things happened at the hostel, from increased sightings of the “black hand” to a bed being thrown on the floor in an empty guest room.

“We were fed up with this charade. After seeing the black hand again and again, we decided to fight it.”

So one night, Elaine and her colleagues collected some wood from a nearby construction site and decided to go in search of the “source” of this hand.

The group of boys and girls then left the dorm and began to wander around. Suddenly, one of their roommates saw a black figure walking past them.

“It went by so fast! The boys chased after him but lost sight of the figure, it just disappeared! Apparently the figure looked greasy,” she added.

Supernatural or supercriminal?

Malaysians know the Orang Minyak as a supernatural being. However, in some cases the Orang Minyak takes on human form.

According to legend, the Orang Minyak was a supernatural serial rapist who made a pact with the devil to gain supernatural powers by raping several virgins within seven days – some say 21, others 40.

This version of the supernatural being served as the plot for the 1958 film “Sumpah Orang Minyak” (The Curse of the Oily Man), in which the late P. Ramlee played the leading role.

Another version of the Orang Minyak, created in the 1960s, was described as a naked man covered in oil.

The greasy man looked like this to make it difficult for people to catch or hold him. His black camouflage also makes it easier for him to disappear into the night.

In human form, criminals adopt this Orang Minyak disguise to hunt victims in women’s dormitories or villages.

In September, residents of Taman Pinggiran Batu Caves Gombak arrested a man who claimed to be Orang Minyak. Police arrested the man, suspected of being a black magic practitioner.

Slimy and shady

Evelyn Khoo recalls Orang Minyak’s story as a shapeshifting spirit. She recalls many reports of thefts from the village near her grandparents’ house in Butterworth, Penang.

“It all erupted one night when neighbors said they saw a glowing black figure running away,” she said.

Soon after, villagers armed with machetes and sticks began night patrols.

“I was 14 at the time and they told us that the Orang Minyak can transform itself into a black dog or a mosquito to deceive its pursuers,” Evelyn explained.

Her grandfather’s dog was not spared. Some villagers almost killed it because they thought it was a different form of Orang Minyak.

“We were told more stories. The Orang Minyak could transform into a mosquito and then back into a human and used this as an opportunity to sneak into our rooms and harass us! It was scary!”

Many believed that women had to wear sweaty clothes to scare away the Orang Minyak and give the supernatural being the impression that men were nearby.

Another common remedy is to bite the Orang Minyak’s left thumb and cover it with a batik cloth.

But think about it. Would you want to approach a slimy, greasy, oily supernatural spirit?