Produced by a Project Gutenberg volunteer working with
digital material generously made available by the Internet
Archive
IN COURT AND KAMPONG
IN
COURT & KAMPONG
BEING
TALES & SKETCHES OF NATIVE LIFE
IN THE MALAY PENINSULA
BY
HUGH CLIFFORD
LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS
48 LEICESTER SQUARE
_First printed April 1897_
_Reprinted September 1903_
To My Wife
My knowledge of all these things was won
Ere to gladden my life You came,
But the Land I knew, the Deeds saw done
Will be never again the same,
For You have come, like the rising Sun,
To golden my World with your flame.
H. C.
PREFACE
The nineteen tales and sketches, which are enclosed within the covers of
this Book, relate to certain brown men and obscure things in a distant
and very little known corner of the Earth. The Malay Peninsula--that
slender tongue of land which projects into the tepid seas at the extreme
south of the Asiatic Continent--is but little more than a name to most
dwellers in Europe. But, even in the Peninsula itself, and to the
majority of those white men whose whole lives have been passed in the
Straits of Malacca, the East Coast and the remote interior, of which I
chiefly write, are almost as completely unknown.
It has been my endeavour, in writing this book, to give some idea of the
lives lived in these lands by Europeans whose lot has led them away from
the beaten track; by the aboriginal tribes of _Sâkai_ and _Semang_; but,
above all, by those Malays who, being yet untouched by contact with
white men, are still in a state of original sin. My stories deal with
natives of all classes; dwellers in the Courts of Kings; peasants in
their _kampongs_, or villages, by the rivers and the rice-fields; and
with the fisher-folk on the seashore. I have tried to describe these
things as they appear when viewed from the inside, as I have myself seen
them during the many dreary years that I have spent in the wilder parts
of the Malay Peninsula. It will be found that the pictures thus drawn
are not always attractive--what man's life, when viewed from the inside,
ever is pretty to look at? But I have told my tales of these curious
companions of my exile, nothing extenuating, but setting down nought in
malice.
The conditions of life of which I write, more especially in those
sketches and tales which deal with native society in an Independent
Malay State, are rapidly passing away. Nor can this furnish matter for
regret to any one who knew them as they were and still are in some of
the wilder and more remote regions of the Peninsula. One may, perhaps,
feel some measure of sentimental sorrow that the natural should here, as
elsewhere, be replaced by the artificial; one may recognise with
sufficient clearness that the Malay in his natural unregenerate state is
more attractive an individual than he is apt to become under the
influence of European civilisation; but no one who has seen the horrors
of native rule, and the misery to which the people living under it are
ofttimes reduced, can find room to doubt that, its many drawbacks
notwithstanding, the only salvation for the Malays lies in the increase
of British influence in the Peninsula, and in the consequent spread of
modern ideas, progress, and civilisation.
I feel this so strongly that, in common with many of my countrymen, I am
content to devote the best years of my life to an attempt to bring about
some of those revolutions in facts and in ideas which we hold to be for
the ultimate good of the race. None the less, however, this book has
been written in a spirit of the deepest sympathy with all classes of
Malays, and I have striven throughout to appreciate the native point of
view, and to judge the people and their actions by their own standards,
rather than by those of a White Man living in their midst.
With regard to the tales themselves, many of them have been told to me
by natives, and all are more or less founded on fact. Some of the
incidents related have come under my personal observation, and for the
truth of these I can vouch. For the accuracy of the remaining stories
others are responsible, and I can only be held answerable for the
framing of the pictures.
HUGH CLIFFORD.
BRITISH RESIDENCY,
PAHANG, MALAY PENINSULA,
_November 7, 1896._
CONTENTS
As I came through the Desert thus it was,
As I came through the Desert.
_The City of Dreadful Night._
PAGE
1. THE EAST COAST 1
2. THE PEOPLE OF THE EAST COAST 17
3. THE EXPERIENCES OF RÂJA HAJI HAMID 30
4. THE BATTLE OF THE WOMEN 37
5. IN COCK-PIT AND BULL-RING 46
6. THE WERE-TIGER 62
7. THE ÂMOK OF DÂTO KÂYA BÎJI DERJA 78
8. THE FLIGHT OF CHÊP THE BIRD 96
9. THE VAULTING AMBITION 111
10. 'ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE' 125
11. AMONG THE FISHER-FOLK 134
12. THE STORY OF BÂYAN THE PAROQUET 151
13. THE TALE OF A THEFT 161
14. IN A CAMP OF THE SEMANGS 171
15. HIS HEART'S DESIRE 182
16. A NIGHT OF TERROR 196
17. IN THE DAYS WHEN THE LAND WAS FREE 210
18. UN MAUVAIS QUART D'HEURE 230
19. UP COUNTRY 245
L'ENVOI
THE EAST COAST
The charmed sunset linger'd low adown
In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seem'd the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
_The Lotos-Eaters._
In these days, the boot of the ubiquitous white man leaves its marks on
all the fair places of the Earth, and scores thereon an even more
gigantic track than that which affrighted Robinson Crusoe in his
solitude. It crushes down the forests, beats out roads, strides across
the rivers, kicks down native institutions, and generally tramples on
the growths of nature, and the works of primitive man, reducing all
things to that dead level of conventionality, which we call
civilisation. Incidentally, it stamps out much of what is best in the
customs and characteristics of the native races against which it
brushes; and, though it relieves them of many things which hurt and
oppressed them ere it came, it injures them morally almost as much as
it benefits them materially. We, who are white men, admire our work not
a little--which is natural--and many are found willing to wear out their
souls in efforts to clothe in the stiff garments of European
conventionalities, the naked, brown limbs of Orientalism. The natives,
who, for the most part, are frank Vandals, also admire efforts of which
they are aware that they are themselves incapable, and even the
_laudator temporis acti_ has his mouth stopped by the cheap and often
tawdry luxury, which the coming of the Europeans has placed within his
reach. So effectually has the heel of the white man been ground into the
face of Pêrak and Selângor, that these Native States are now only
nominally what their name implies. The alien population far out-numbers
the people of the land in most of the principal districts, and it is
possible for a European to spend weeks in either of these States without
coming into contact with any Asiatics save those who wait at table, wash
his shirts, or drive his cab. It is also possible, I am told, for a
European to spend years on the West Coast of the Peninsula without
acquiring any very profound knowledge of the natives of the country, or
of the language which is their speech-medium. This being so, most of the
white men who live in the Protected Native States are somewhat apt to
disregard the effect which their actions have upon the natives, and
labour under the common European inability to view matters from the
native standpoint. Moreover, we have become accustomed to existing
conditions, and thus it is that few, perhaps, realise the precise nature
of the work which the British in the Peninsula have set themselves to
accomplish. What we are really attempting, however, is nothing less than
to crush into twenty years the revolutions in facts and in ideas which,
even in energetic Europe, six long centuries have been needed to
accomplish. No one will, of course, be found to dispute that the strides
made in our knowledge of the art of government, since the Thirteenth
Century, are prodigious and vast, nor that the general condition of the
people of Europe has been immensely improved since that day; but,
nevertheless, one cannot but sympathise with the Malays, who are
suddenly and violently translated from the point to which they had
attained in the natural development of their race, and are required to
live up to the standards of a people who are six centuries in advance of
them in national progress. If a plant is made to blossom or bear fruit
three months before its time, it is regarded as a triumph of the
gardener's art; but what, then, are we to say of this huge moral-forcing
system which we call 'Protection'? Forced plants, we know, suffer in the
process; and the Malay, whose proper place is amidst the conditions of
the Thirteenth Century, is apt to become morally weak and seedy, and to
lose something of his robust self-respect, when he is forced to bear
Nineteenth-Century fruit.
Until the British Government interfered in the administration of the
Malay States in 1874, the people of the Peninsula were, to all intents
and purposes, living in the Middle Ages. Each State was ruled by its own
Sultân or _Râja_ under a complete Feudal System, which presents a
curiously close parallel to that which was in force in Mediæval Europe.
The _Râja_ was, of course, the paramount authority, and all power
emanated from him. Technically, the whole country was his property, and
all its inhabitants his slaves; but each State was divided into
districts which were held in fief by the _Ôrang Besar_, or Great Chiefs.
The conditions on which these fiefs were held, were homage, and military
and other service. The Officers were hereditary, but succession was
subject to the sanction of the _Râja_, who personally invested and
ennobled each Chief, and gave him, as an ostensible sign of authority, a
warrant and a State spear, both of which were returned to the _Râja_ on
the death of the holder. As in Europe, high treason (_derhâka_) was the
only offence which warranted the _Râja_ in forfeiting a fief. Each of
the districts was sub-divided into minor baronies, which were held, on a
similar tenure, from the District Chief by a _Dâto’ Mûda_; and the
village communes, of which these baronies were composed, were held in a
like manner, and on similar conditions, by the Headmen from the _Dâto’
Mûda_. When war or any other public work was toward, the _Râja_ summoned
the Great Chiefs, who transmitted the order to their _Dâto’ Mûda_. By
the latter, the village Headmen and their able-bodied _räayat_[1] were
called together, the free-holders in each village being bound to the
local _Penghûlu_[2] by ties similar to those which bound him to his
immediate Chief. In the same way, the _Râja_ made his demands for
money-grants to the Great Chiefs, and the _räayat_ supplied the
necessary contributions, while their superiors gained the credit
attaching to those who fulfil the desires of the King. Under this
system, the _räayat_ of course, possessed no rights, either of person or
property. He was entirely in the hands of the Chiefs, was forced to
labour unremittingly that others might profit by his toil; and neither
his life, his land, his cattle, nor the very persons of his women-folk,
could properly be said to belong to him, since all were at the mercy of
any one who desired to take them from him, and was strong enough to do
so. This, of course, is the weak point in the Feudal System, and was
probably not confined to the peoples of Asia. The chroniclers of
Mediæval Europe tell only of Princes and Nobles, and Knights and
Dames--and merry tales they are--but we are left to guess what was the
condition of the bulk of the lower classes in Thirteenth-Century
England. If we knew all, however, it is probable that their lot would
prove to have been but little more fortunate than is that of the Malay
_räayat_ of to-day, whose hardships and grievances, under native rule,
move our modern souls to indignation and compassion. Therefore, we
should be cautious how we apply our _fin de siècle_ standards to a
people whose ideas of the fitness of things are much the same as those
which prevailed in Europe some six centuries agone.
[Footnote 1: _Räayat_ = Peasants, villagers.]
[Footnote 2: _Penghûlu_ = Headman.]
Those who love to indulge in that pleasing but singularly useless
pastime of imagining what might have been under certain impossible
circumstances, will find occupation in speculating as to whether the
Malays, had they remained free from all extraneous influence for
another thousand years, would ever have succeeded in evolving a system
of Government in any way resembling our own, out of a Feudal System
which presents so curious a parallel to that from which our modern
institutions have sprung. Would the Great Chiefs have ever combined to
wrest a Magna Charta from an unwilling King, and the _räayat_ have
succeeded in beating down the tyranny of their Chiefs? No answer can be
given; but those who know the Malays best will find reason to doubt
whether the energy of the race would ever, under any circumstances, have
been sufficient to grapple with these great questions. The _räayat_
would have been content, I fancy, to plod on through the centuries
'without hope of change'; and, so far as the past history of a people
can be taken as giving an indication of its future, it would seem that,
in Malay countries, the growing tendencies made rather for an absolute
than for a limited monarchy. The genius of the Malay is in most things
mimetic rather than original, and, where he has no other model at hand
to copy, he falls back upon the past. An observer of Malay political
tendencies in an Independent Native State finds himself placed in the
position of Inspector Bucket--there is no move on the board which would
surprise him, provided that it is in the wrong direction.
Such changes have been wrought in the condition of the Malay on the West
Coast, during the past twenty years of British Protection, that there
one can no longer see him in his natural and unregenerate state. He has
become sadly dull, limp, and civilised. The gossip of the Court, and
the tales of ill things done daringly, which delighted his fathers, can
scarcely quicken his slackened pulses. His wooings have lost their spice
of danger, and, with it, more than half their romance. He is as frankly
profligate as his thin blood permits, but the dissipation in which he
indulges only makes him a disreputable member of society, and calls for
none of the manly virtues which make the Malay attractive to those who
know and love him in his truculent untamed state. On the East Coast,
things are different, and the Malay States are still what they profess
to be--States in which the native element predominates, where the people
still think boldly from right to left, and lead much the same lives as
those their forbears led before them. Here are still to be found some of
the few remaining places, on this over-handled Earth, which have as yet
been but little disturbed by extraneous influences, and here the lover
of things as they are, and ought not to be, may find a dwelling among an
unregenerate and more or less uncivilised people, whose customs are
still unsullied by European vulgarity, and the surface of whose lives is
but little ruffled by the fever-heated breath of European progress.
As you crush your way out of the crowded roadstead of Singapore, and
skirting the red cliffs of Tânah Mêrah, slip round the heel of the
Peninsula, you turn your back for a space on the seas in which ships
jostle one another, and betake yourself to a corner of the globe where
the world is very old, and where conditions of life have seen but little
change during the last thousand years. The only modern innovation is an
occasional 'caster,' or sea tramp, plying its way up the coast to pick
up a precarious profit for its owners by carrying cargoes of
evil-smelling trade from the fishing villages along the shore. Save for
this, there is nothing to show that white men ever visit these seas,
and, sailing up the coast in a native craft, you may almost fancy
yourself one of the early explorers skirting the lovely shores of some
undiscovered country. As you sprawl on the bamboo decking under the
shadow of the immense palm leaf sail--which is so ingeniously rigged
that, if taken aback, the boat must turn turtle, unless, by the blessing
of the gods, the mast parts asunder--you look out through half-closed
eyelids at a very beautiful coast. The waves dance, and glimmer, and
shine in the sunlight, the long stretch of sand is yellow as a
buttercup, and the fringes of graceful _casuarina_ trees quiver like
aspens in the breeze, and shimmer in the heat haze. The wash of the
waves against the boat's side, and the ripple of the bow make music in
your drowsy ears, and, as you glide through cluster after cluster of
thickly-wooded islands, you lie in that delightful comatose state in
which you have all the pleasure of existence with none of the labour of
living. The monsoon threshes across these seas for four months in the
year, and keeps them fresh, and free from the dingy mangrove clumps, and
hideous banks of mud, which breed fever and mosquitoes in the Straits of
Malacca. In the interior, too, patches of open country abound, such as
are but rarely met with on the West Coast, but here, as elsewhere in the
Peninsula, the jungles, which shut down around them, are impenetrable to
anything less persuasive than an axe.
These forests are among the wonderful things of the Earth. They are
immense in extent, and the trees which form them grow so close together
that they tread on one another's toes. All are lashed, and bound, and
relashed, into one huge magnificent tangled net, by the thickest
underwood, and the most marvellous parasitic growths that nature has
ever devised. No human being can force his way through this maze of
trees, and shrubs, and thorns, and plants, and creepers; and even the
great beasts which dwell in the jungle find their strength unequal to
the task, and have to follow game paths, beaten out by the passage of
innumerable animals, through the thickest and deepest parts of the
forest. The branches cross and recross, and are bound together by
countless parasitic creepers, forming a green canopy overhead, through
which the fierce sunlight only forces a partial passage, the struggling
rays flecking the trees on which they fall with little splashes of light
and colour. The air 'hangs heavy as remembered sin,' and the gloom of a
great cathedral is on every side. Everything is damp, and moist, and
oppressive. The soil, and the cool dead leaves under foot are dank with
decay, and sodden to the touch. Enormous fungous growths flourish
luxuriantly; and over all, during the long hot hours of the day, hangs a
silence as of the grave. Though these jungles teem with life, no living
thing is to be seen, save the busy ants, a few brilliantly-coloured
butterflies and insects, and an occasional nest of bees high up in the
tree-tops. A little stream ripples its way over the pebbles of its bed,
and makes a humming murmur in the distance; a faint breeze sweeping over
the forest gently sways the upper branches of a few of the tallest
trees; but, for the rest, all is melancholy, silent, and motionless. As
the hour of sunset approaches, the tree beetles and cicada join in their
strident chorus, which tells of the dying day; the thrushes join in the
song with rich trills and grace-notes; the jungle fowls crow to one
another; the monkeys whoop and give tongue like a pack of foxhounds; the
gaudy parrots scream and flash as they hunt for flies;
And all the long-pent stream of life
Bursts downwards in a cataract.
Then, as you lie listening through the long watches of the night, sounds
are borne to you which tell that the jungle is afoot. The argus
pheasants yell to one another as the hours creep by; the far-away
trumpet of an elephant breaks the stillness; and the frightened barking
cry of a deer comes to you from across the river. The insects are awake
all night, and the little workman bird sits on a tree close by you and
drives coffin nails without number. With the dawn, the tree beetles
again raise their chorus; the birds sing and trill more sweetly than in
the evening; the monkeys bark afresh as they leap through the branches;
and the leaves of the forest glisten in the undried dew. Then, as the
sun mounts, and the dew dries, the sounds of the jungle die down one by
one, until the silence of the forest is once more unbroken for the long
hot day.
Through these jungles innumerable streams and rivers flow seawards; for
so marvellously is this country watered that, from end to end of the
Peninsula, no two hills are found, but there is a stream of some sort in
the gut which divides them. Far up-country, the rivers run riot through
long successions of falls and rapids, but as they near the coast, they
settle down into broad imposing looking streams, miles wide in places,
but for the most part uniformly shallow, the surfaces of which are
studded with green islands and yellow sandbanks. These rivers, on the
East Coast, form the principal, and often the only highways, many of
them being navigated for nearly three hundred miles of their course.
When they become too much obstructed by falls to be navigable even for a
dug-out, they still serve the Malays of the interior as highways. Where
they are very shallow indeed they are used as tracks, men wading up them
for miles and miles. A river-bed is a path ready cleared through the
forests, and, to the Semang,[3] Sâkai,[4] and jungle-bred Malay, it is
Nature's macadamized road. More often the unnavigable streams serve as
guides to the traveller in the dense jungles, the tracks running up
their banks, crossing and recrossing them at frequent intervals. One of
these paths, which leads from Trenggânu to Kelantan, crosses the same
river no less than thirty times in about six miles, and, in most places,
the fords are well above a tall man's knee. The stream is followed until
a _ka-naik_--or taking-off place--is reached, and, leaving it, the
traveller crosses a low range of hills, and presently strikes the banks
of a stream, which belongs to another river basin. A path, similar to
the one which he has just left, leads down this stream, and by following
it he will eventually reach inhabited country. No man need ever lose
himself in a Malay jungle. He can never have any difficulty in finding
running water, and this, if followed down, means a river, and a river
presupposes a village sooner or later. In the same way, a knowledge of
the localities in which the rivers of a country rise, and a rough idea
of the directions in which they flow, are all the geographical data
which are required in order to enable you to find your way, unaided,
into any portion of that, or the adjoining States which you may desire
to visit. This is the secret of travelling through Malay jungles, in
places where the white man's roads are still far to seek, and where the
natives are content to move slowly, as their fathers did before them.
[Footnote 3: _Semang_ = Aboriginal natives of the Peninsula,
belonging to the Negrit family.]
[Footnote 4: _Sâkai_ = Aboriginal natives of the Peninsula,
belonging to the Mon-Annam family.]
The Malay States on the East of the Peninsula are Senggôra, Petâni,
Jambe, Jâring, Râman, Legeh, Kelantan, Trenggânu, Pahang, and Johor.
Senggôra possesses the doubtful privilege of being ruled by a Siamese
Official, who is appointed from Bangkok, as the phrase goes, to
_kin_--or eat--the surrounding district.
The next four States are usually spoken of collectively as Petâni, by
Europeans, though the territory which really bears that name is of
insignificant importance and area, the jurisdiction of its _Râja_ only
extending up the Petâni river as far as Jambe. It is said that when the
Râja of Petâni and the ruler of the latter State had a difference of
opinion, the former was obliged to send to Kelantan for his drinking
water, since he could not trust his neighbour to refrain from poisoning
the supply, which flows from Jambe through his kingdom. Uneasy indeed
must lie the head which wears the crown of Petâni!
All the States, as far down the coast as Legeh, are under the protection
of the Siamese Government. Kelantan and Trenggânu still claim to be
independent, though they send the _bûnga amas_--or golden flower--to
Bangkok once in three years. Pahang was placed under British Protection
in 1888, and Johor is still independent, though its relations with the
Government of Great Britain are very much the same as those which
subsist between Siam and the Malay States of Kelantan and Trenggânu.
The _bûnga amas_, to which reference has been made above, consists of
two ornamental plants, with leaves and flowers, fashioned from gold and
silver, and their value is estimated at about $5000. The sum necessary
to defray the cost of these gifts is raised by means of a _banchi_ or
poll-tax, to which every adult male contributes; and the return
presents, sent from Bangkok, are of precisely the same value, and are,
of course, a perquisite of the _Râja_. The exact significance of these
gifts is a question of which very different views are taken by the
parties concerned. The Siamese maintain that the _bûnga amas_ is a
direct admission of suzerainty on the part of the _Râja_ who sends it,
while the Malay Sultâns and their Chiefs entirely deny this, and hold
that it is merely _tanda s’pakat dan ber-sehâbat_--a token of alliance
and friendship. It is not, perhaps, generally known that, as late as
1826, Pêrak was in the habit of sending a similar gift to Siam, and that
the British Government bound itself not to restrain the Sultân of Perak
from continuing this practice if he had a mind to do so. From this it
would seem that there is some grounds for the contention of Trenggânu
and Kelantan that the _bûnga amas_ is a purely voluntary gift, sent as a
token of friendship to a more powerful State, with which the sender
desires to be on terms of amity. Be this how it may, it is certain that
Sultân Mansûr of Trenggânu, who first sent the _bûnga amas_ to Siam in
1776, did so, not in compliance with any demand made by the Siamese
Government, but because he deemed it wise to be on friendly terms with
the only race in his vicinity which was capable, in his opinion, of
doing him a hurt.
Direct interference in the Government of Kelantan and Trenggânu has been
more than once attempted by the Siamese, during the last few years,
strenuous efforts having been made to increase their influence on the
East Coast of the Peninsula, since the visit of the King of Siam to the
Malay States in 1890. In Trenggânu, all these endeavours have been of no
avail, and the Siamese have abandoned several projects which were
devised in order to give them a hold over this State. In Kelantan,
internal troubles have aided Siamese intrigues, the present _Râja_ and
his late brother both having so insecure a seat upon their thrones that
they readily made concessions to the Siamese in order to purchase their
support. Thus, at the present time, the flag of the White Elephant
floats at the mouth of the Kelantan river on State occasions, though the
administration of the country is still entirely in the hands of the
_Râja_ and his Chiefs.
The methods of Malay rulers, when they are unchecked by extraneous
influences, are very curious; and those who desire to see the Malay
_Râja_ and the Malay _räayat_ in their natural condition, must nowadays
study life on the East Coast. Nowhere else has the Malay been so little
changed by the advancing years, and those who are only acquainted with
the West Coast and its people, as they are to-day, will find much to
learn when they visit the Eastern sea-board.
Until British interference changed the conditions which existed in
Pahang, that country was the best type of an independent Malay State in
the Peninsula, and much that was to be seen and learned in Pahang, in
the days before the appointment of a British Resident, cannot now be
experienced in quite the same measure anywhere else. Both Trenggânu and
Kelantan have produced their strong rulers--for instance, Baginda Ümar
of Trenggânu, and the 'Red-mouthed Sultân' of Kelantan--but neither of
the present _Râjas_ can boast anything resembling the same personality
and force of character, or are possessed of the same power and
influence, as distinguished Sultân Âhmad Maätham Shah of Pahang, in the
brave days before the coming of the white men.
In subsequent articles, I hope, by sketching a few events which have
occurred in some of the States on the East Coast; by relating some
characteristic incidents, many of which have come within my experience;
and by descriptions of the conditions of life among the natives, as I
have known them; to give my European readers some idea of a state of
Society, wholly unlike anything to which they are accustomed, and which
must inevitably be altered out of all recognition by the rapidly
increasing influence of foreigners in the Malay Peninsula.
THE PEOPLE OF THE EAST COAST
I have eaten your rice and salt.
I have drunk the milk of your kine,
The deaths ye died I have watched beside,
And the lives that ye lived were mine.
Is there aught that I did not share,
In vigil, or toil, or ease,
One joy or woe that I did not know,
Dear hearts beyond the seas?
KIPLING (adapted).
Although the States on the East Coast lie in very close proximity one
with another, the people who inhabit them differ widely among
themselves, not only in appearance, in costume, and in the dialects
which they speak, but also in manners, customs, and character. The
Pahang Malay, in his unregenerate state, thinks chiefly of deeds of
arms, illicit love intrigues, and the sports which his religion holds
to be sinful. He is a cock-fighter, a gambler, and a brawler; he has
an overweening opinion of himself, his country, and his race; he is at
once ignorant, irreligious, and unintellectual; and his arrogance has
passed into a proverb.[5] He has many good qualities also, and is,
above all things, manly and reckless,--as those who know him well, and
love him, can bear witness,--but his faults are very much on the
surface, and he is at no pains to hide them, being proud rather than
ashamed of the reputation which they cause him to bear. He is more
gracefully built than are most other natives on the East Coast, he
dresses within an inch of his life, and often carries the best part of
his property on his back and about his person,--for, like all
gamblers, he is hopelessly improvident. He is a sportsman as soon as
he can walk upon his feet without the aid of the supporting _âdan_;[6]
he is in love as a permanent arrangement, and will go to any length,
and run any risk, in order to satisfy his desires; and, as he is
exceedingly touchy, and quick to take offence, he frequently seems to
be in the condition which is known as 'spoiling for a fight.' He is
apt to 'buck' about the brave deeds of himself and his countrymen, in
an untamed way which would discredit the Colonel of a Regiment--who is
privileged to 'buck' because his officers cannot attempt to check him.
He knows many strange tales of 'lamentable things done long ago and
ill done'; he is extraordinarily loyal to his _Râjas_ and Chiefs, who
have not always acted in a way to inspire devotion; he is capable of
the most disinterested affection; he loves his wives and his little
ones dearly; and, if once he trusts a man, will do anything in the
wide world at that man's bidding. He is clean in his habits; nice
about his food and his surroundings; is generally cheery; and is blest
with a saving sense of humour, provided that the joke is at the
expense of neither himself nor his relations. Like many people who
love field sports, he hates books almost as much as he hates work. He
can never be induced to study his Scriptures, and he only prays under
compulsion, and attends the mosque on Friday because he wishes to
avoid a fine. He never works if he can help it, and often will not
suffer himself to be induced or tempted into doing so by offers of the
most extravagant wages. If, when promises and persuasion have failed,
however, the magic word _krah_ is whispered in his ears, he will come
without a murmur, and work really hard for no pay, bringing with him
his own supply of food. _Krah_, as everybody knows, is the system of
forced labour which is a State perquisite in unprotected Malay
countries, and an ancestral instinct, inherited from his fathers,
seems to prompt him to comply cheerfully with this custom, when on no
other terms whatsoever would he permit himself to do a stroke of work.
When so engaged, he will labour as no other man will do. I have had
Pahang Malays working continuously for sixty hours at a stretch, and
all on a handful of boiled rice; but they will only do this for one
they know, whom they regard as their Chief, and in whose sight they
would be ashamed to murmur at the severity of the work, or to give in
when all are sharing the strain in equal measure.
[Footnote 5: Kêchek ânak Malâka; bûal ânak Menangkâbau; tîpu
ânak Rambau; bidaäh ânak Trenggânu; pen-âkut ânak Singapura;
penjelok ânak Kelantan; sômbong ânak Pahang.
Wheedlers are the men of Malacca; boasters the men of
Menangkâbau; cheats the men of Rambau; liars the men of
Trenggânu; cowards the men of Singapore; thieves the men of
Kelantan; and arrogant are the men of Pahang.]
[Footnote 6: Adan = A hand-rail by means of which Malay children
are taught to stand and walk.]
The natives of Trenggânu are of a very different type. First and
foremost, they are men of peace. Their sole interest in life is the
trade or occupation which they ply, and they have none of that pride of
race and country, which is so marked in the Pahang Malay. All they ask
is to be allowed to make money, to study, or to earn a livelihood
unmolested; and they have none of that 'loyal passion' for their
intemperate Kings, which is such a curious feature in the character of
the people of Pahang, who have had to suffer many things at the hands of
their _râjas_. When Baginda Ümar conquered Trenggânu in 1837, the people
submitted to him without a struggle, and, if a stronger than he had
tried to wrest the country from him, the bulk of the people would most
certainly have acquiesced once more with equal calmness.
Study, trade, the skill of the artisan, 'and fruitful strifes and
rivalries of peace,' these are the things in which all the interests of
the Trenggânu Malay are centred. From his earliest infancy he grows up
in an atmosphere of books, and money and trade, and manufactures, and
bargainings, and hagglings. He knows how to praise the goods he is
selling, and how to depreciate the wares he is buying, almost as soon as
he can speak; and the unblushing manner in which he will hold forth
concerning the antiquity of some article which he has made with his own
hands, and the entire absence of all _mauvaise honte_ which he displays
when detected in the fraud, have earned for him the reputation he
proverbially bears of being the best liar in the Peninsula. The Pahang
boy grows up amid talk of war and rumours of war, which makes him long
to be a man that he may use his weapons, almost before he has learned to
stand upon his feet. Not so the young idea of Trenggânu. Men go about
armed, of course, for such is the custom in all Independent Malay
States, but they have little skill with spear or knife, and, since a
proficiency as a scholar, an artisan, or as a shrewd man of business
wins more credit than does a reputation for valour, the people of
Trenggânu generally grow up cowards, and are not very much ashamed of
standing so confessed. In his own line, however, the Trenggânu Malay is
far in advance of any other natives on the East Coast, or indeed in the
Peninsula. He has generally read his _Kurân_ through, from end to end,
before he has reached his teens, and, as the Malay character differs but
slightly from the Arabic, he thereafter often acquires a knowledge of
how to read and write his own language.
But a study of the Muhammadan Scriptures is apt to breed religious
animosity, in the crude oriental mind, and the race of local saints, who
have succeeded one another at Pâloh for several generations, have been
instrumental in fomenting this feeling. Ungku Saiyid of Pâloh--the
'local holy man' for the time being--like his prototype in the
_Naulahka_, has done much to agitate the minds of the people, and to
create a 'commotion of popular bigotry.' He is a man of an extraordinary
personality. His features are those of the pure Arab caste, and they
show the ultra-refinement of one who is pinched with long fasts and
other ascetic practices. Moreover, he has the unbounded vanity and
self-conceit which is born of long years of adulation, and is infected
by that touch of madness which breeds 'Cranks' in modern Europe, and
'Saints' in modern Asia. He preaches to crowded congregations thrice
weekly, and the men of Trenggânu flock from all parts of the country to
sit at his feet. The Sultân, too, like his father, and his great-uncle,
Baginda Ümar, has been at some pains to ensure the performance of
religious rites by all his people, and, as far as outward observances
go, he appears to have been successful. Moreover, the natives of
Trenggânu love religious and learned discussions of all kinds, and most
of them:
When young, do eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint and hear great argument
About it and about,
though, like poor Omar, they never seem to arrive at any conclusions
which have not previously been used by them as a starting-point. All
this makes for fanaticism,--which, however, with so cowardly a people,
is more likely to be noisy than violent,--and all such sinful sports as
cock-fighting, bull fights, gambling, and the like, are forbidden by law
to the people of Trenggânu. In spite of all this, however, the natives
of this State do not really lead lives in any degree more clean than is
customary among other Malays. Their morals are, for the most part, those
of the streets of London after eleven o'clock on a Saturday night.
It is as an artisan, however, that the Trenggânu Malay really excels.
The best products of their looms, the brass and nickel utensils, some of
the weapons, and most of the woodwork fashioned in Trenggânu, are the
best native made wares, of their kind, in the Peninsula, and the extreme
ingenuity with which they imitate the products of other States, or
Islands of the Archipelago, is quite unrivalled in this part of the
world. Silk _sârongs_, in close imitation of those woven in Pahang and
Kelantan, are made cheap, and sold as the genuine articles. Bales of the
white turban cloths, flecked with gold thread, which are so much worn by
men who have returned from the _Haj_, are annually exported to Mecca,
where they are sold, as articles of real Arabic manufacture, to the
confiding pilgrims. All these silks and cloths fade and wear out with
inconceivable rapidity, but, until this occurs, the purchaser is but
rarely able to detect the fraud of which he has been a victim. Weapons,
too, are made in exact imitation of those produced by the natives of
Celebes or Java, and it is often not until the silver watering on the
blades begins to crack and peel--like paint on a plank near a
furnace--that their real origin becomes known. At the present time, the
artisans of Trenggânu are largely engaged in making exact imitations of
the local currency, to the exceeding dolor of the Sultân, and with no
small profit to themselves.
In appearance, the Trenggânu Malay is somewhat larger boned, broader
featured, and more clumsily put together than is the typical Pahang
Malay. He also dresses somewhat differently, and it is easy to detect
the nationality of a Trenggânu man, even before he opens his mouth in
speech. The difference in appearance is subtle, and to one who is not
used to Malays, the natives of Pahang, Kelantan, and Trenggânu have
nothing to distinguish them one from another, whereas, after a year or
two on the East Coast, what at first are almost imperceptible
differences, are soon recognised as being widely distinguishing marks.
The Kelantan man is, to the native of Pahang, what the water-buffalo
is to a short-horn. To begin with, to the uninitiated he is wholly
unintelligible. He grunts at one like the fatted pig at the
Agricultural Shows, and expects one to understand the meaning which he
attaches to these grunts. This proves him to be sanguine but
unintelligent. He cannot understand any dialect but his own,--which is
convincing evidence to non-Kelantan Malays that he is a born
fool,--and he is apt to complain bitterly of the accents of strangers,
whereas, to all but his own countrymen, it is _his_ accent which
appears to be the real grievance. He is plain of face, fat, ugly, and
ungainly of body, huge as to the hands and feet, not scrupulously
clean in his person and habits, and, like most very fleshy people, he
is blessed with an exceedingly even temper, and is excessively happy,
good-natured, and stolid. He can break open a door by butting it with
his head, and the door is the only sufferer. [Âwang Kepâla Kras--Âwang
of the Hard Head--who is a Kelantan Malay, backs himself to butt a
trained fighting ram out of time!] He can lift great weights, walk
long distances, pole or paddle a boat for many hours at a stretch, and
can, and does, work more than any other Malay.
This huge mass of fleshy brown humanity is reared on a pound or two of
boiled rice, and a few shreds of fish. To see him eat is to be attacked
with a lasting loathing for food. He takes in his rice as though stoking
a steamboat. The coal shovel is his ponderous fist, and the extent to
which his cheeks are capable of stretching alone regulates the size of
his mouthfuls. He is, in every way, coarser-grained than any other
Malay. He has much less self-respect; is rarely touchy and sensitive, as
are other natives of the Peninsula; and when he is brave, it is with the
courage of the blind, who know not the extent of the danger which they
are facing. An utter want of imagination goes to the making of more
heroes than it is pleasant to think about, since people who cannot
picture consequences, and forecast risks, deserve but little credit for
the courage which they display, but are unable to appreciate.
To his neighbours on the East Coast, however, all the other remarkable
characteristics of the Kelantan Malay are lost sight of, or rather, are
completely overshadowed, by his reputation as a thief among thieves. In
vain have successive generations of Kelantan _râjas_ cut off the hands,
feet, and heads of detected or suspected burglars and robbers; in vain
have all sorts of stratagems been adopted by travellers as precautions
against thieves; and in vain have the families of convicted men been
punished for the deeds of their relations. Nothing, apparently, can
stamp out the instinct which prompts high and low, rich and poor, to
take possession of any property belonging to someone else whenever the
opportunity offers. Men with flocks and herds, and _pâdi_ swamps, and
fruit orchards, steal if they get the chance just as much as does the
indigent peasant who has sold his last child into slavery for three
dollars in cash. Most of the great chiefs of the country do not steal in
person, but they keep bands of paid ruffians who do that work for them,
in return for their protection, and a share of the takings. The skill
with which some Kelantan Malays pick a pocket, and the ingenuity
displayed in their burglaries, would not discredit a pupil of Fagin the
Jew; and robbery with violence is almost equally common. Their favourite
weapon is an uncanny looking instrument called _pârang jengok_--or the
'peeping' knife--which is armed with a sharp peak at the tip, standing
out almost at right angles to the rest of the blade. Armed with this, on
a dark night, the robber walks down a street, and just as he passes a
man, he strikes back over his left shoulder, so that the peak catches
his victim in the back of the head, and knocks him endways. He can then
be robbed with ease and comfort, and, whether he recovers from the blow
or dies from its effects is his own affair, and concerns the thief not
at all. It is not very long ago since two men were found lying senseless
in the streets of Kôta Bharu, each having put the other _hors de combat_
with a _pârang jengok_, striking at the same moment, in the same way,
and with the same amiable intention. To save further trouble they each
had their hands cut off, as soon as they came round, by the Sultân's
order. This, when you come to think of it, was a sound course for the
Sultân to pursue.
The women of Kelantan are, many of them, well favoured enough. They are,
for the most part, fine upstanding wenches, somewhat more largely built
than most Malay women, and they appear more in public than is usual in
the Peninsula. At Kôta Bharu, women, both young and old, crowd the
markets at all hours of the day, and do most of the selling and buying.
They converse freely with strangers, go about unveiled, and shew no
signs of that affected bashfulness, which cloaks the very indifferent
morals of the average Malay woman, but which it is a point of honour
with her to assume when in the presence of men.
In Kelantan, both men and women dress differently from Malays in other
States. The men wear neither coats nor trousers, but they bind a
_sârong_ and three or four sashes about their waists. The _sârong_
generally comes down to the knee, and, when seated, the knee-caps are
often exposed, even in the King's _Bâlai_,--a practice that would not be
tolerated in any other part of the Peninsula. The women also dispense
with an upper garment, and make up the deficiency by a lavish use of
_sârong_ and scarves. The shoulders and upper portion of the chest,
however, are left bare. These and other practices, cause the Kelantan
Malays to be much despised by the peoples of other Native States, who
regard them as unmannerly and uncouth. Indeed, prior to 1888, few
Kelantan men dared to set foot in Pahang, for, as an old Chief once said
in my presence, the only use a Pahang native had for a Kelantan Malay,
before the coming of the white men, was 'as a thing wherewith to sharpen
the blade of his dagger,' and this, be it remembered, is not a mere
_façon de parler_.
After straining my jaws, doing violence to my tongue, and racking my
throat, I have acquired a working knowledge of the Kelantan _patois_,
and can now understand and speak it almost as easily as I do the more
refined dialects. This has helped me to, in some degree, understand the
people, and, though they have many bad qualities, I like them. In a
rude, rough way, and without the swagger of the Pahang Malay, they are
sportsmen. I shot over one of them for four years, and, until he went
blind, he was as good a retriever as one would desire to possess. At
Kôta Bharu bull fights, matches between rams, cocks, quails, and human
prize fighters, are the chief amusement of the people. The latter sport
is peculiar to Kelantan. The fights begin with the ungainly posturing,
and aimless gesticulation, with which all who have witnessed a Malay
sword-dance are familiar, but when the fencers come to close quarters
the interest begins. They strike, kick, pinch, bite, scratch, and even
spit, until one or the other is unable to move. No time is called, catch
as catch can, and strike as best, and where best you may, are the simple
rules of these contests, and the sight is a somewhat degrading and
unpleasant one, though it excites the spectators to ecstasies of delight
and laughter. Most big Chiefs in Kelantan keep trained men to take part
in these prize fights, and heavy bets are made on the result.