Research source

foster's daily democrat (dover, n.h.) 1873-current — spirit rapping

Date of account: Newspaper page published 1896-12-17
Location: dover, new hampshire, united states
Source: Chronicling America paranormal and anomalous-report excerpts
Reference: foster's daily democrat (dover, n.h.) 1873-current · 1896-12-17 · page 6
Rights: public_domain
Language: English OCR
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

A 1896-12-17 newspaper page contains wording relevant to “spirit rapping”. This is historical reporting or commentary preserved by the Library of Congress; it is not treated as verification that the described event occurred.

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

... Slaves In the Spirit World. Spirit rapping is unknown to the natives of Borneo, but, acoording to the report of a recent traveler, they are not without methods of communication with departed friends. The cugtoms of *Surmungup,’ which take the place of table turning in Borneo, are curious, to say the least otß it. When the friends of a dead chief wish to communicate with him, they subseribe to gether and purchase a slave. After certain preliminary dancings and howlings, each subscriber drives his spear into *he victim while at the same time he shouts out a message which he wishes to have conveyed by the slave te his friend in the other world. This ...

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This OCR excerpt may mix reporting, humour, folklore, syndicated copy, editorial comment and witness claims. Newspaper title, date and original page remain available for source-critical reading.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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