Tasik Chini is the second largest lake in Peninsular Malaysia located in the state of Pahang. Being a biosphere reserve, various mining projects by royalty-linked companies have been carried out despite rehabilitation and gazettement pledges, causing pollution and damaging the natural ecosystem of Tasik Chini. It is also home to myths of an ancient city once part of the Khmer kingdom at the bottom of the lake guarded by a special buffalo creature and the Salur Bidar was cross between a carpet with four heads that would wrap those who got to close and drag them underneath.

Home to a number of Nagas as well, the Seri Gumum Naga typically visualised as a Chinese dragon believed to have created and guards the lake to this day while Seri Pahang, a saltwater crocodile defended the lake by fending off the sea demon Seri Kemboja. Such myths have permeated Malaysia’s popular culture with movies and poetry driving its once vibrant tourist industry. With Tasik Chini estimated to be completely dried up by 2030 at the rate of environmental destruction, this study attempts to reassess the meaning-making of these myths surrounding the lake through the lens of spectrality. Not to mention, to contrast this with contemporary retellings of oral tradition myths by the indigenous communities and Malaysia’s popular and political culture with the near end of the existence of the lake and just maybe the mythical creatures that have dwelt in it.

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Yvonne Tan is a freelance writer and researcher based in Kuala Lumpur. Her published works include 509: The People Have Spoken (SIRD, 2018) which has been published in three languages and a chapter on the Mat Salleh Rebellion in Race and Colonial Wars in the 19th century, edited by Farish Noor and Peter Carey (Amsterdam University Press, 2021). She also has bylines in Malaysiakini, MalaysiaNow and Malaysia Insight.