Haunt­ed by a shad­owy spir­it crea­ture which they say lives in­side their home, a Gas­par­il­lo fam­i­ly is now seek­ing spir­i­tu­al help to re­move their un­want­ed guest.

Kr­ish­na Mathu­ra, 60, of Hill­top Dri­ve, Gas­par­il­lo, says over the past sev­en months a three-feet tall spir­it-like crea­ture be­lieved to be a buck has been roam­ing his home. The house is perched on an in­cline over­look­ing the Cen­tral Range. It is fenced and Mathu­ra says the su­per­nat­ur­al oc­cur­rences have been caus­ing them sleep­less nights.

Dur­ing an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at the fam­i­ly’s home yes­ter­day, Mathu­ra said last year his wife Bal­mat­tee and son Govin­da be­gan hear­ing a voice in­side the house. The voice was telling Bal­mat­tee he want­ed sex.

Mathu­ra, who re­tired from his work­place re­cent­ly, said it was on­ly when he start­ed stay­ing home he re­alised what his fam­i­ly was go­ing through. The crea­ture, Mathu­ra claimed, has al­so been eat­ing valu­able rac­ing pi­geons he rears be­hind his home. Their goats have al­so been poi­soned and sausages, meat and oth­er items are eat­en from his fridge.

Bal­mat­tee claimed the crea­ture ap­pears and van­ish­es be­fore their eyes. She said last week she was in the liv­ing room when the table­cloth flew up and went fly­ing out the win­dow. Govin­da was al­so there. They chased af­ter it and Bal­mat­tee said it dropped in some bush­es and then dis­ap­peared. This is not the on­ly item that van­ished. Govin­da said an ex­pen­sive vase and a pic­ture of Je­sus Christ al­so went miss­ing, along with their Bible.

Play­ing a record­ing of a voice he claimed be­longed to the buck, Govin­da said the crea­ture ad­mit­ted to steal­ing the Bible and the pic­ture to take to his “boss.”

“If is one thing I won’t do is lie to you. I car­ry it by the boss and he tell me bring it back be­fore I get in trou­ble,” the voice on the au­dio drawled.

In an­oth­er record­ing, the voice said he came from Ja­maica.

“I doh fraid Pun­dit Ramesh... and I doh fraid no pas­tor,” the voice said.

A deep-throat­ed laugh and the mew­ing of a cat were al­so record­ed as ev­i­dence of the spir­it crea­ture.

Govin­da said the voic­es were record­ed at nights.

Govin­da used clay and cre­at­ed a horned idol to ward away the buck but Mathu­ra said this has not worked.

“We tried every­thing, we burn in­cense, goo­gool, sprin­kle salt, gar­lic, red laven­der. We called the pun­dit and the pas­tor. They told us it is a buck. This thing dis­tress­ing us. We can­not sleep. Every night we hear­ing bang­ing. It loves to wake us up. Every time we can hear it through the cracks in the house say­ing ‘oye,’” he added.

Govin­da said the “buck is a short fat man with a fat face, big hair and big ears.”

“He doesn’t walk on his foot. He walks on his toes. His left hand is on his right side and his right hand is on his left. He does cuss me. A few days ago he came with a match to burn down my fa­ther’s car. Most times he is in­vis­i­ble but I could hear his voice. He fol­lows us,” Govin­da said.

Ac­cord­ing to Caribbean folk­lore, the buck has ties with both Guyanese and African folk­lore. They are be­lieved to have orig­i­nat­ed in West Africa, where the short races (pyg­mies) were be­lieved to have mag­i­cal pow­ers. They were re­ferred to as “Baku,” which in many West African lan­guages means “lit­tle broth­er” or “short man.” There are al­so sto­ries of rich Trinida­di­ans who came up­on their wealth not through hard work, but rather through a trip to the forests of Guyana to cap­ture one of these lit­tle wish granters. The bucks usu­al­ly live in dark places like at­tics and usu­al­ly de­mand blood and milk.

Pas­tor: A de­mon­ic at­tack

Pas­tor Deena Ram­nar­ine, from the Christ Cru­saders As­sem­bly in White­land, con­firmed to the T&T Guardian she had vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly and said she be­lieved they were fac­ing a de­mon­ic at­tack.

“When I vis­it­ed them it was al­most night and I prayed with them and they said they slept well. I told them that they have to pray and be­lieve in God,” Ram­nar­ine said.

Asked whether she be­lieved it was a buck, Ram­nar­ine said yes.

“I have en­coun­tered things like that be­cause I worked in the in­te­ri­or of Guyana. I have seen a buck in Guyana so I be­lieve them. We can­not be afraid of it. We have to take au­thor­i­ty and the Lord de­liv­ers,” Ram­nar­ine said.

“The buck will usu­al­ly beat up the house, whis­tle at them. You will see things fly­ing all over the room. It will take time for it to leave but they have to stop play­ing with it by talk­ing about it and talk­ing to it. Just ig­nore it and call to Je­sus for de­liv­er­ance.”