if endured by human beings, excites in them but little sympathy or
compassion, and to the beasts that perish they are often almost as
wantonly cruel as an English drayman. The theory that men owe any duties
to the lower animals, is one which the Malays cannot be readily made to
understand; and the idea of cruelty to a beast can only be expressed in
their language by a long and roundabout sentence. The Malays can hardly
be blamed for this perhaps, seeing that, even among our immaculate
selves, a consideration for animals is of comparatively modern origin,
and the people of the Peninsula, as I have been at some pains to show,
are in their ideas on many subjects, much what our ancestors were some
hundreds of years ago. A few animals, however, are hedged about and
protected by some ancient superstition, the origin of which is now
totally forgotten, but even these do not escape scot free. Thus, it is a
common belief among Malays, that, if a cat is killed, he who takes its
life, will in the next world, be called upon to carry and pile logs of
wood, as big as cocoa-nut trees, to the number of the hairs on the
beast's body. Therefore cats are not _killed_; but, if they become too
daring in their raids on the hen-coop, or the food rack, they are tied
to a raft and sent floating down-stream, to perish miserably of hunger.
The people of the villages, by which they pass, make haste to push the
raft out again into mid-stream, should it in its passage adhere to bank
or bathing hut, and on no account is the animal suffered to land. To any
one who thinks about it, this long and lingering death is infinitely
more cruel than one caused by a blow from an axe, but the Malays do not
trouble to consider such a detail, and would care little if they did.
In spite of the stupid callousness with regard to pain inflicted on
animals, of which this is an instance, the Malays are not as a race
cruel in the sports wherein animals take a part, and, on the East Coast
especially, little objection can be raised, save by the most
strait-laced and sentimental, to the manner in which both cock and
bull-fights are conducted. Many, of course, hold that it is morally
wrong to cause any animals to do battle one with another, and this is
also the teaching of the Muhammadan religion. The Malays, however, have
not yet learned to breathe the rarefied atmosphere, which can only be
inhaled in comfort, by the frequenters of Exeter Hall, and, seeing that
Allah has implanted an instinct of combat in many animals, the Malays
take no shame in deriving amusement from the fact.
In the Archipelago, and on the West Coast of the Peninsula, cock-fights
are conducted in the manner known to the Malays as _ber-tâji_, the birds
being armed with long artificial spurs, sharp as razors, and curved like
a Malay woman's eyebrow. These weapons make cruel wounds, and cause the
death of one or another of the combatants, almost before the sport has
well begun. To the Malay of the East Coast, this form of cock-fighting
is regarded as stupid and unsportsmanlike, an opinion which I fully
share. It is the marvellous pluck and endurance of the birds, that lend
an interest to a cock-fight,--qualities which are in no way required, if
the birds are armed with weapons, other than those with which they are
furnished by nature.
A cock-fight between two well-known birds is a serious affair in Pahang.
The rival qualities of the combatants have furnished food for endless
discussion for weeks, or even months before, and every one of standing
has visited and examined the cocks, and has made a book upon the event.
On the day fixed for the fight, a crowd collects before the palace, and
some of the King's youths set up the cock-pit, which is a ring, about
three feet in diameter, enclosed by canvas walls, supported on stakes
driven into the ground. Presently the _Juâra_, or cock-fighters,
appear, each carrying his bird under his left arm. They enter the
cock-pit, squat down, and begin pulling at, and shampooing the legs and
wings of their birds, in the manner which Malays believe loosen the
muscles, and get the reefs out of the cocks' limbs. Then the word is
given to start the fight, and the birds, released, fly straight at one
another, striking with their spurs, and sending feathers flying in all
directions. This lasts for perhaps three minutes, when the cocks begin
to lose their wind, and the fight is carried on as much with their beaks
as with their spurs. Each bird tries to get its head under its
opponent's wing, running forward to strike at the back of its
antagonist's head, as soon as its own emerges from under its temporary
shelter. This is varied by an occasional blow with the spurs, and the
Malays herald each stroke with loud cries of approval. _Bâsah! Bâsah!_
Thou hast wetted him! Thou has drawn blood! _Ah itu dia!_ That is it!
That is a good one! _Ah sâkit-lah itu!_ Ah, that was a nasty one! And
the birds are exhorted to make fresh efforts, amid occasional bursts of
the shrill chorus of yells, called _sôrak_, their backers cheering them
on, and crying to them by name.
Presently time is called, the watch being a small section of cocoa-nut
in which a hole has been bored, that is set floating on the surface of a
jar of water, until it gradually becomes filled and sinks. At the word,
each cock-fighter seizes his bird, drenches it with water, cleans out
with a feather the phlegm which has collected in its throat, and
shampoos its legs and body. Then, at the given word, the birds are again
released, and they fly at one another with renewed energy. They loose
their wind more speedily this time, and thereafter they pursue the
tactics already described, until time is again called. When some ten
rounds have been fought, and both the birds are beginning to show signs
of distress, the interest of the contest reaches its height, for the
fight is at an end if either bird raises its back feathers, in a
peculiar manner, by which cocks declare themselves to be vanquished.
Early in the tenth round the right eye-ball of one cock is broken, and,
shortly after, the left eye is bunged up, so that for the time it is
blind. Nevertheless, it refuses to throw up the sponge, and fights on
gallantly to the end of the round, taking terrible punishment, and doing
but little harm to its opponent. One cannot but be full of pity and
admiration for the brave bird, which thus gives so marvellous an example
of its pluck and endurance. At last time is called, and the
cock-fighter, who is in charge of the blinded bird, after examining it
carefully, asks for a needle and thread, and the swollen lower lid of
the still uninjured eye-ball is sewn to the piece of membrane on the
bird's cheek, and its sight is thus once more partially restored. Again
time is called, and the birds resume their contest, the cock with the
injured eye repaying its adversary so handsomely for the punishment
which it had received in the previous round, that, before the cocoa-nut
shell is half full of water, its opponent has surrendered, and has
immediately been snatched up by the keeper in charge of it. The
victorious bird, draggled and woebegone, with great patches of red flesh
showing through its wet plumage, with the membrane of its face, and its
short gills and comb swollen and bloody, with one eye put out, and the
other only kept open by the thread attached to its eyelid, yet makes
shift to strut, with staggering gait, across the cock-pit, and to notify
its victory, by giving vent to a lamentable ghost of a crow. Then it is
carried off followed by an admiring, gesticulating, vociferous crowd, to
be elaborately tended and nursed, as befits so gallant a bird. The
beauty of the sport is that either bird can stop fighting at any moment.
They are never forced to continue the conflict if once they have
declared themselves defeated, and the only real element of cruelty is
thus removed. The birds in fighting, follow the instinct which nature
has implanted in them, and their marvellous courage and endurance
surpass anything to be found in any other animals, human or otherwise,
with which I am acquainted. Most birds fight more or less; from the
little fierce quail, to the sucking doves which ignorant Europeans,
before their illusions have been dispelled by a sojourn in the East, are
accustomed to regard as the emblems of peace and purity; but no bird, or
beast, or fish, or human being fights so well, or takes such pleasure in
the fierce joy of battle, as does a plucky, lanky, ugly, hard-bit old
fighting-cock.
The Malays regard these birds with immense respect, and value their
fighting-cocks next to their children. A few years ago, a boy, who was
in charge of a cock which belonged to a _Râja_ of my acquaintance,
accidentally pulled some feathers from the bird's tail. 'What did you do
that for? Devil!' cried the _Râja_.
'It was not done on purpose Ungku!' said the boy.
'Thou art marvellous clever at repartee!' quoth the Prince, and, so
saying, he lifted a billet of wood, which chanced to be lying near at
hand, and smote the boy on the head so that he died.
'That will teach my people to have a care how they use my
fighting-cocks!' said the _Râja_; and that was his servant's epitaph.
'It is a mere boyish prank,' said the father of the young _Râja_, when
the matter was reported to him, 'and moreover it is well that he should
slay one or two with his own hand, else how should men learn to fear
him?' And there the matter ended; but it should be borne in mind that
the fighting cock of a Malay Prince is not to be lightly trifled with.
I have said that all birds fight more or less, but birds are not alone
in this. The little wide-mouthed, goggled-eyed fishes, which Malay
ladies keep in bottles and old kerosine tins, fight like demons. Goats
sit up and strike with their cloven hoofs, and butt and stab with their
horns. The silly sheep canter gaily to the battle, deliver thundering
blows on one another's foreheads, and then retire and charge once more.
The impact of their horny foreheads is sufficient to reduce a man's hand
to a shapeless pulp, should it find its way between the combatants'
skulls. Tigers box like pugilists, and bite like French school-boys; and
buffaloes fight clumsily, violently, and vindictively, after the manner
of their kind.
The natives of India have an ingenious theory, whereby they account for
the existence of that ungainly fowl, the water-buffalo,--a fact in
natural history, which certainly seems to call for some explanation.
The High Gods, they say, when creating all things, made also the cow,
the highest of the beasts that perish. This the devil beheld, and, in
futile emulation, striving to outdo the work of the High Ones, he
imitated their creation, and produced the water-buffalo! Every one who
knows this brute, must admit that the Indian theory bears on its face
the imprint of truth; for a more detestable beast of the field does not
exist, and it would be difficult, for any one less skilled in evil than
His Satanic Majesty, to have conceived the idea of so diabolical an
animal. In the Malay Peninsula, its principal functions would appear to
be stamping bridle-paths into quagmires; dragging unwieldy lumbering
carts, and thereby frightening horses into fits; tugging and frequently
running away with, all manner of primitive ploughs and sledges; and
humiliating as publicly as possible, any white man that it does not
gore. It seems to cherish a peculiar spite against all Europeans; for a
buffalo, that is as mild as a lamb with the most unattractive native,
cannot be brought to tolerate the proximity of the most refined, and
least repulsive of white men. Which one is there amongst us, who does
not bear a grudge against the water-buffalo as a class, and against some
one black or pink bully in particular? Which of us is there, who has not
passed moments in the company of these brutes, such as might well 'score
years from a strong man's life'? Some of us have been gored by the
brutes, and most of us, who have pursued the crafty snipe bird in his
native _pâdi_ swamps, have put in various _mauvais quarts d'heure_, with
some of these sullenly vindictive animals mouching after us, much in
the way that a _gendarme_ pursues a _gamin_. Then has entered upon the
scene a Delivering Angel, in the shape of a very small, very muddy, very
naked child of exceedingly tender years. This tiny _deus ex machina_ has
straightway tackled the angry monster, with all the fearlessness of a
child, has struck it twice in the face, in a most business-like manner,
has piped '_Diam! Diam!_'[8]--which sounds like a curse word,--in a
furious voice, and finally has hooked his finger into the beast's nose
ring, and has led it away reluctant, and crestfallen, but unresisting.
Most of us, I say, have experienced these things at the hands of the
small boy and the water-buffalo; and, when both have disappeared in the
brushwood, and the sweat of fear has had time to dry on our clammy
foreheads, we have one and all cursed the Devil who made the brute, and
have felt not a little humiliated at the superiority of the minute
native boy over our wretched and abject selves.
[Footnote 8: _Diam!_ = Be still!]
All these bitter memories crowd into our minds, when we find ourselves
in a Malay bull-ring, and we should be more than human if we felt any
keen sympathy for the combatant buffaloes. We are apt to experience also
an intense sense of relief at the thought that the brutes are about to
fight one another, and will be too busy to waste any of their energies
in persecuting the European spectators, with the amiable intention of
putting them to the shame of open shame, and generally taking a rise out
of them.
The bulls have been trained and medicined, for months beforehand, with
much careful tending, many strength-giving potions, and volumes of the
old-world charms, which put valour and courage into a beast. They stand
at each end of a piece of grassy lawn, with their knots of admirers
around them, descanting on their various points, and with the proud
trainer, who is at once keeper and medicine man, holding them by the
cord which is passed through their nose-rings. Until you have seen the
water-buffalo stripped for the fight, it is impossible to conceive how
handsome the ugly brute can look. One has been accustomed to see him
with his neck bowed to the yoke he hates, and breaks whenever the
opportunity offers; or else in the _pâdi_ fields. In the former case he
looks out of place,--an anachronism belonging to a prehistoric period,
drawing a cart which seems also to date back to the days before the
Deluge. In the fields the buffalo has usually a complete suit of grey
mud, and during the quiet evening hour, goggles at you through the
clouds of flies, which surround his flapping ears and brutal nose, the
only parts that can be seen of him, above the surface of the mud-hole,
or the running water of the river. In both cases he is unlovely, but in
the bull-ring he has something magnificent about him. His black coat has
a gloss upon it which would not disgrace a London carriage horse, and
which shews him to be in tip-top condition. His neck seems thicker and
more powerful than that of any other animal, and it glistens with the
_chili_ water, which has been poured over it, in order to increase his
excitement. His resolute shoulders, his straining quarters,--each vying
with the other for the prize for strength,--and his great girth, give a
look of astonishing vigour and vitality to the animal. It is the head
of the buffalo, however, which it is best to look at on these occasions.
Its great spread of horns is very imposing, and the eyes which are
usually sleepy, cynically contemptuous and indifferent, or sullenly
cruel,--are for once full of life, anger, passion, and excitement. He
stands there quivering and stamping, blowing great clouds of smoke from
his mouth and nose:
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim.
And with circles of red for his eye-socket's rim.
The wild joy of battle is sending the blood boiling through the great
arteries of the beast, and his accustomed lethargic existence is
galvanised into a new fierce life. You can see that he is longing for
the battle, with an ardour that would have distanced that of a Quixote,
and, for the first time, you begin to see something to admire even in
the water-buffalo.
A crowd of _Râjas_, Chiefs, and commoners are assembled, in their gaily
coloured garments, which always serve to give life and beauty to every
Malay picture, with its setting of brilliant never-fading green. The
women in their gaudy silks, and dainty veils, glance coquettishly from
behind the fenced enclosure, which has been prepared for their
protection, and where they are quite safe from injury. The young _Râjas_
stalk about, examine the bulls, and give loud and contradictory orders,
as to the manner in which the fight is to be conducted. The keepers,
fortunately, are so deafened by the row which every one near them is
making, that they are utterly incapable of following directions which
they cannot hear. Malays love many people, and many things, and one of
the latter is the sound of their own voices. When they are excited--and
in the bull-ring they are always wild with excitement--they wax very
noisy indeed, and, as they all talk, and no one listens to what any one
else is saying, the green sward, on which the combat is to take place,
speedily becomes a pandemonium, compared with which the Tower of Babel
was a quiet corner in Sleepy Hollow.
At last the word to begin is given, and the keepers of the buffaloes let
out the lines made fast to the bull's noses, and lead their charges to
the centre of the green. The lines are crossed, and then gradually drawn
taut, so that the bulls are soon facing one another. Then the knots are
loosed, and the cords slip from the nose-rings. A dead silence falls
upon the people, and for a moment the combatants eye one another. Then
they rush together, forehead to forehead, with a mighty impact. A fresh
roar rends the sky, the backers of each beast shrieking advice, and
encouragement to the bull which carries their money.
After the first rush, the bulls no longer charge, but stand with
interlaced horns, straining shoulders, and quivering quarters, bringing
tremendous pressure to bear one upon the other, while each strives to
get a grip with the point of its horns upon the neck, or cheeks, or face
of its opponent. A buffalo's horn is not sharp, but the weight of the
animal is enormous, and you must remember that the horns are driven with
the whole of the brute's bulk for lever and sledge-hammer. Such force as
is exerted, would be almost sufficient to push a crowbar through a
stone wall, and, tough though they are, the hardest of old bull
buffaloes is not proof against the terrible pressure brought to bear.
The bulls show wonderful activity and skill in these fencing matches.
Each beast gives way the instant that it is warned by the touch of the
horn-tip that its opponent has found an opening, and woe betide the bull
that puts its weight into a stab which the other has time to elude. In
the flick of an eye,--as the Malay phrase has it,--advantage is taken of
the blunder, and, before the bull has time to recover its lost balance,
its opponent has found an opening, and has wedged its horn-point into
the neck or cheek. When at last a firm grip has been won, and the horn
has been driven into the yielding flesh, as far as the struggles of its
opponent render possible, the stabber makes his great effort. Pulling
his hind legs well under him, and straightening his fore-legs to the
utmost extent, till the skin is drawn taut over the projecting bosses of
bone at the shoulders, and the knots of muscle stand out like cordage on
a crate, he lifts his opponent. His head is skewed on one side, so that
the horn on which his adversary is hooked, is raised to the highest
level possible, and his massive neck strains and quivers with the
tremendous effort. If the stab is sufficiently low down, say in the
neck, or under the cheek-bone, the wounded bull is often lifted clean
off his fore-feet, and hangs there helpless and motionless 'while a man
might count a score.' The exertion of lifting, however, is too great to
admit of its being continued for any length of time, and as soon as the
wounded buffalo regains its power of motion,--that is to say, as soon
as its fore-feet are again on the ground,--it speedily releases itself
from its adversary's horn. Then, since the latter is often spent, by the
extraordinary effort which has been made, it frequently happens that it
is stabbed, and lifted in its turn, before balance has been completely
recovered.
Once, and only once, have I seen a bull succeed in throwing his
opponent, after he had lifted it off its feet. The vanquished bull
turned over on its back, before it succeeded in regaining its feet, but
the victor was itself too used up, to more than make a ghost of a stab
at the exposed stomach of its adversary. This throw is still spoken of
in Pahang as the most marvellous example of skill and strength, which
has ever been called forth, within living memory, by any of these
contests.
As the stabs follow one another, to the sound of the clicking of the
horns, and the mighty blowing and snorting of the breathless bulls, lift
succeeds lift with amazing rapidity. The green turf is stamped into mud,
by the great hoofs of the labouring brutes, and at length one bull owns
himself to be beaten. Down goes his head,--that sure sign of
exhaustion,--and in a moment, he has turned round, and is off in a
bee-line, hotly pursued by the victor. The chase is never a long one, as
the conqueror always abandons it at the end of a few hundred yards, but
while it lasts, it is fast and furious, and woe betide the man who finds
himself in the way of either of the excited animals.
Mr. Kipling has told us all about the Law of the Jungle,--which after
all is only the code of man, adapted to the use of the beasts, by Mr.
Rudyard Kipling,--but those who know the ways of buffaloes, are aware
that they possess one very well recognised law. This is 'Thou shalt not
commit trespass.' Every buffalo-bull has his own ground; and into this
no other bull willingly comes. If he is brought there to do battle, he
fights with very little heart, and is easily vanquished by an opponent
of half his strength and bulk, who happens to be fighting on his own
land. When bulls are equally matched, they are taken to fight on neutral
ground. When they are badly matched, the land owned by the weaker is
selected for the scene of the contest. This is an interesting fact, in
its way, as it tends to prove that it is not only the unhappy Malay of
Malacca who feels that he is born possessing some rights in the soil
from which he springs, and on which he lives, moves, and has his being.