The Mystery of the Bitoon Tree in Our Backyard

Happy Saturday Hivers!

According to the elders, large trees are believed to be the mansions of enchanted beings or spirits. They also say that when a tree is surrounded by many fireflies, it is a sign that these mystical beings have made it their home. Is there any truth to this belief, or is it simply an old superstition passed down through generations? Let's find out.

I still remember when I was a kid, our small house stood right beneath a huge Bitoon tree. Even though many years have passed, those memories remain fresh in my mind because strange and unexplained things seemed to happen in our home all the time.

One of the strangest incidents happened while my mom was making bananacue. Before she started cooking, she had already prepared all the ingredients and placed them neatly on the table. When it was time to cook, she reached for the brown sugar, but it was nowhere to be found.

She searched everywhere and eventually became frustrated. She even scolded us, thinking we had been playing with her things. We were confused because none of us had gone near the table. We all helped her look for the brown sugar, but despite searching carefully, we couldn't find it.

After a while, we gave up and walked away from the table. Since my mom was already familiar with these strange occurrences, she simply said, "I know you took it again. Please bring it back."

A few minutes later, she looked at the table in disbelief. The brown sugar was sitting exactly where she had originally placed it, as if it had never disappeared.

Experiences like this happened to us many times while we were living in that house.

It wasn't just our family who noticed that there was something unusual about the Bitoon tree.

One evening, one of our neighbors went to the foreshore to gather shellfish. Since our house was close to the coast, it could easily be seen from there. While she was at the foreshore, she was surprised to see a bright light shining above our house. According to her, it looked as if there was a party going on because the place was glowing so brightly.

The next morning, she asked my mother why our house had been so lively the night before. My mother was completely shocked. She told our neighbor that we had gone to bed early, as we always did. At that time, we didn't even have electricity, so there was no way our house could have been that bright.

What made the story even more intriguing was that this wasn't an isolated incident. It wasn't just one neighbor who claimed to have seen the mysterious lights, several others shared the same experience.

My grandfather on my father's side was a traditional healer. He had a handwritten prayer in Latin, and he asked my mother to bury it beneath the Bitoon tree. Surprisingly, after that, all the strange occurrences stopped. We also noticed that the fireflies gradually disappeared from the tree. According to the elders, once the fireflies are gone, it means the mystical beings no longer live there. Perhaps they were right, because we never experienced those strange incidents again.

By the way, this Bitoon tree had already been there since my mother was a child. It is a coastal tree that usually grows near the shore. It also has beautiful flowers, and as kids, we loved playing with them. The flowers shown in the photos are from that very tree.

Its fruit is heart-shaped, and I remember that whenever we placed it in the seawater, it would float instead of sinking. I also heard people say that the fruit could be used as a traditional remedy for goiter. Back then, many people would ask for its fruit because they believed it had medicinal properties, although I don't see anyone doing that anymore. I'm not sure what the English name of the Bitoon tree is, since that's simply what we have always called it in our hometown.

Because of everything we experienced, I can understand why many elders believe that a tree filled with fireflies is home to mystical beings. I can't say whether the belief is true or not, but our family's experiences were certainly strange and difficult to explain. Whether they were mere coincidences or something beyond our understanding, I'll leave that for you to decide.

Thank you for reading and see you on my next blog. Cheers!

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