SANDAKAN – A distressed local father found himself forced to hide his newborn daughter’s dead body in a box to avoid rejection when boarding a boat to his village in Tg Batu, near here, recently.
Yunizam Yusop, a local volunteer providing free hearse services in Sandakan, recounted the incident, explaining that the father’s actions were driven by the prevailing local belief that transporting a dead body on a boat brings bad luck.
Yunizam, widely known as “Abam Botak,” told Scoop that the father reached out to him for transport from Duchess of Kent Hospital to the town’s jetty.
“He was holding a box, and he informed me that his deceased daughter was inside. She had just been born but unfortunately passed away. His wife, still at the hospital, couldn’t attend the burial service as she hadn’t been released yet,” Yunizam said.
Fearing the social repercussions of carrying a dead body on a boat, the father disguised the box as containing ordinary items to avoid scrutiny.
Concerned that people might discover the truth, the father had Yunizam park the hearse further away from the jetty to minimise attention.
Another option considered by the father was renting a private boat, but at a significantly higher cost than a regular boat ride.
Moved by the father’s plight, Yunizam took to Facebook to raise awareness about the challenges posed by such taboos.
“I shared it on Facebook to spread awareness about the trouble that a father had to go through just because of a taboo. ‘Taboo or not taboo,’ bad luck or not, people should be kind to one another, he should not be stopped from taking a boat ride even if he was bringing a dead body. We should all help the deceased to be buried properly,” Yunizam said.
In response to his post, many commenters rejected the validity of such taboos, particularly emphasising that, as Muslims, kindness and compassion should prevail over superstitions.
“Instead of believing in a nonsense taboo, why not believe in helping other Muslims in Allah’s name,” a netizen said. – December 13, 2023