illegal. To pass a prohibitionary regulation, however, without the full
consent of the Chiefs and people of Pahang, would be a distinct breach
of the understanding on which British Protection was accepted by them.
The Government is pledged not to interfere with native customs, and the
sports in which animals are engaged are among the most cherished
institutions of the people of Pahang. To fully appreciate the light in
which any interference with these things would be viewed by the native
population, it is necessary to put oneself in the position of a keen
member of the Quorn, who saw Parliament making hunting illegal, on the
grounds that the sufferings inflicted on the fox, rendered it an
inhuman pastime. As I have said in a former chapter, the natives of
Pahang are, in their own way, very keen sportsmen indeed; and, when all
is said and done, it is doubtful whether hunting is not more cruel than
anything which takes place in a Malay cock-pit or bull-ring. The longer
the run, the better the sport, and more intense and prolonged the agony
of the fox, that strives to run for his life, even when he is so stiff
with exertion, that he can do little more than roll along. All of us
have, at one time or another, experienced in nightmares, the agony of
attempting to fly from some pursuing phantom, when our limbs refuse to
serve us. This, I fancy, is much what a fox suffers, only his pains are
intensified by the grimness of stern reality. If he stops, he loses his
life, therefore he rolls, and flounders, and creeps along when every
movement has become a fresh torture. The cock, quail, dove, bull, ram,
or fish, on the other hand, fights because it is his nature to do so,
and when he has had his fill he stops. His pluck, his pride, and his
hatred of defeat alone urge him to continue the contest. He is never
driven by the relentless whip of stern inexorable necessity. This it is
which makes fights between animals, that are properly conducted, less
cruel than one is apt to imagine.
The necessity that knows no law, is the only real slave driver, as the
sojourner in Eastern exile knows full well. No fetters ever gall so
much, as the knowledge that the chain is made fast at the other end.
THE WERE-TIGER
Soul that is dead ere life be sped,
Body that's body of Beast,
With brain of a man to dare and to plan,
So make I ready my Feast!
With tooth and claw and grip of jaw
I rip and tear and slay,
With senses that hear the winds ere they stir,
I roam to the dawn of day.
Soul that must languish in endless anguish,
Thy life is a little spell,
So take thy fill, ere the Pow'rs of Ill
Shall drag Thee, Soul, to Hell.
_The Song of the Loup Garou._
If you ask that excellent body of _savants_ the Society for Psychical
Research, for an opinion on the subject, they will tell you that the
belief in ghosts, magic, witchcraft, and the like having existed in all
ages, and in every land, is in itself a fact sufficient to warrant a
faith in these things, and to establish a strong probability of their
reality. It is not for me, or such as I am, to question the opinion of
these wise men of the West, but if ghosts, and phantoms, and witchcraft
and hag-ridings are to be accepted on such grounds, I must be allowed to
put in a plea, for similar reasons, in favour of the Loup Garou, the
Were-Tiger, and all their gruesome family. Wherever there are wild
beasts to prey upon the sons of men, there also is found the belief that
the worst and most rapacious of the man-eaters are themselves human
beings, who have been driven to temporarily assume the form of an
animal, by the aid of the Black Art, in order to satisfy their
overpowering lust for blood. This belief, which seeks to account for the
extraordinary rapacity of an animal by tracing its origin to a human
being, would seem to be based upon an extremely cynical appreciation of
the blood-thirsty character of our race. The white man and the brown,
the yellow and the black, independently, and without receiving the idea
from one another, have all found the same explanation for the like
phenomena, all apparently recognising the truth of the Malay proverb,
that we are like unto the _tôman_ fish that preys upon its own kind.
This general opinion, which seems the more worthy of acceptance in that
it is the reverse of flattering to the very races that have formed this
curious estimate of their own unlovely character, might by the ignorant
and vulgar be supposed to be the real basis of the belief of which I
speak, were it not for that dictum of the Society for Psychical Research
to which I have above referred. But bowing to this authority, we must
accept the Loup Garou and all its kith and kin as stern realities, and
not attribute it, as we might perhaps have been inclined to do, to a
deadly fear of wild beasts, coupled to a thorough knowledge of the
unpleasant qualities of primitive human nature.
Educated Europeans, who live in a land where even Nature, when she can
be seen for the houses, has had man's hall-mark scarred deep into her
face, are apt to think that the Age of Superstition has gone to fill the
lumber-room of the past. Occasionally they are awakened from this belief
by the torturing of a witch in a cabin by an Irish-bog; but even an
event so near home as that is powerless to altogether disabuse their
minds of their preconceived opinion. The difficulty really is, that they
cannot get completely rid of the notion that the world is peopled by
educated Europeans like themselves, and by a few other unimportant
persons, who do not matter. They know that, numerically, they are as but
a drop in the ocean of mankind, but it is possible to know a thing very
thoroughly and to realise it not at all. Thus they come by their false
opinion; for, in truth, the Age of Superstition lives as lustily to-day,
as when, in past years, witches blazed at Smithfield, or died with
rending gulps and bursting lungs, lashed fast to an English ducking
stool.
In the remote portions of the Malay Peninsula we live in the Middle
Ages, with all the appropriate accessories of the dark centuries. Magic
and evil spirits, witchcraft and sorcery, spells and love-potions,
charms and incantations are, to the mind of the native, as real and as
much a matter of everyday life as are the miracle of the growing rice,
and the mysteries of the reproduction of species. This must be not only
known but realised, not only accepted as a theory, but acknowledged as a
fact, if the native view of life is to be understood and appreciated.
Tales of the marvellous and the supernatural excite interest and fear in
a Malay audience, but they occasion no surprise. Malays know that
strange things have happened in the past, and are daily occurring to
them and to their fellows. Some are struck by lightning, while others go
unscathed; and similarly some have strange experiences, which are not
wholly of this world, while others live and die untouched by the
supernatural. The two cases, to the Malay mind, are completely parallel;
and though both furnish matter for discussion, and excite fear and awe,
neither are unheard of phenomena calculated to awaken wonder and
surprise.
Thus the existence of the Malayan Loup Garou to the native mind is a
fact and not a mere belief. The Malay _knows_ that it is true. Evidence,
if it be needed, may be had in plenty; the evidence, too, of
sober-minded men, whose words, in a Court of Justice, would bring
conviction to the mind of the most obstinate jurymen, and be more than
sufficient to hang the most innocent of prisoners. The Malays know well
how Haji Äbdallah, the native of the little state of Korinchi in
Sumatra, was caught naked in a tiger trap, and thereafter purchased his
liberty at the price of the buffaloes he had slain, while he marauded in
the likeness of a beast. They know of the countless Korinchi men who
have vomited feathers, after feasting upon fowls, when for the nonce
they had assumed the forms of tigers; and of those other men of the same
race who have left their garments and their trading packs in thickets,
whence presently a tiger has emerged. All these things the Malays know
have happened, and are happening to-day, in the land in which they live,
and with these plain evidences before their eyes, the empty assurances
of the enlightened European that Were-Tigers do not, and never did
exist, excite derision not unmingled with contempt.
The Slim Valley lies across the hills which divide Pahang from Pêrak. It
is peopled by Malays of various races. Râwas and Menangkâbaus from
Sumatra, men with high-sounding titles and vain boasts, wherewith to
carry off their squalid, dirty poverty; Pêrak men from the fair Kinta
valley, prospecting for tin, or trading skilfully; fugitives from
Pahang, long settled in the district; and the sweepings of Sumatra,
Java, and the Peninsula. It was in this place that I heard the following
story of a Were-Tiger, from Penghûlu Mat Saleh, who was, and perhaps is
still, the Headman of this miscellaneous crew.
Into the Slim Valley, some years ago, there came a Korinchi trader named
Haji Äli, and his two sons, Äbdulrahman and Äbas. They came, as is the
manner of their people, laden with heavy packs of _sârongs_,--the native
skirts or waist-cloths,--trudging in single file through the forests and
through the villages, hawking their goods to the natives of the place,
with much cunning haggling or hard bargaining. But though they came to
trade, they stayed long after the contents of their packs had been
disposed of, for Haji Äli took a fancy to the place. Therefore he
presently purchased a compound, and with his two sons set to work upon
planting cocoa nuts, and cultivating a rice-swamp. They were quiet,
well-behaved people; they were regular in their attendance at the mosque
for the Friday congregational prayers, and as they were wealthy and
prosperous they found favour in the eyes of their poorer neighbours.
Thus it happened that when Haji Äli let it be known that he desired to
find a wife, there was a bustle in the villages among the parents with
marriageable daughters, and, though he was a man well past middle life,
Haji Äli found a wide range of choice offered to him.
The girl he selected was Patimah, the daughter of poor parents, peasants
living on their land in one of the neighbouring villages. She was a
comely maiden, plump and round, and light of colour, with a merry face
to cheer, and willing fingers wherewith to serve a husband. The wedding
portion was paid, a feast proportionate to Haji Äli's wealth was held to
celebrate the occasion, and the bride was carried off, after a decent
interval, to her husband's home among the fruit groves and the
palm-trees. This was not the general custom of the land, for among
Malays the husband usually shares his father-in-law's house for a long
period after his marriage. But Haji Äli had a fine new house of his own,
brave with wattled walls stained cunningly in black and white, and with
a luxuriant covering of thatch. Moreover, he had taken the daughter of a
poor man to wife, and could dictate his own terms to her and to her
parents. The girl went willingly enough, for she was exchanging poverty
for wealth, a miserable hovel for a handsome home, and parents who knew
exactly how to get out of her the last fraction of work of which she was
capable, for a husband who seemed ever kind, generous, and indulgent.
None the less, three days later she was found beating on the door of her
parents' house, at the hour when dawn was breaking, trembling in every
limb, with her hair disordered, her garments drenched with dew from the
brushwood through which she had forced her way, with her eyes wild with
horror, and mad with a great fear. Her story--the first act in the drama
of the Were-Tiger of Slim--ran in this wise, though I shall not attempt
to reproduce the words or the manner in which she told it, brokenly,
with shuddering sobs, to her awe-stricken parents.
She had gone home with Haji Äli to the house where he dwelt with his two
sons, Äbdulrahman and Äbas, and all had treated her kindly and with
courtesy. The first day she cooked the rice ill, but though the young
men grumbled, Haji Äli said never a word of blame, when she had expected
blows, such as would have fallen to the lot of most wives under similar
circumstances. She had no complaint to make of her husband's kindness,
but none the less she had fled his dwelling, and her parents might 'hang
her on high, sell her in a far land, scorch her with the sun's rays,
immerse her in water, burn her with fire,' but never again would she
return to one who hunted by night as a Were-Tiger.
Every evening after the Isa[9] Haji Äli had left the house on one
pretext or another, and had not returned until an hour before the dawn.
Twice she had not been aware of his return until she found him lying on
the sleeping-mat by her side; but, on the third evening, she had
remained awake until a noise without told her that her husband was at
hand. Then she had hastened to unbar the door, which she had fastened
after Äbas and Äbdulrahman had fallen asleep. The moon was behind a
cloud, and the light she cast was dim, but Patimah saw clearly enough
the sight which had driven her mad with terror.
[Footnote 9: Isa = The hour of evening prayer.]
On the topmost rung of the ladder, which in this, as in all Malay
houses, led from the ground to the threshold of the door, there rested
the head of a full-grown tiger. Patimah could see the bold, black
stripes which marked his hide, the bristling wires of whisker, the long
cruel teeth, and the fierce green light in the beast's eyes. A round
pad, with long curved claws partially concealed, lay on the ladder rung,
one on each side of the monster's head, and the lower portion of its
body reaching to the ground was so foreshortened that to the girl it
looked like the body of a man. Patimah gazed at the tiger, from the
distance of only a foot or two, for she was too paralysed with fear to
move or cry out, and as she looked a gradual transformation took place
in the creature at her feet. Slowly, as one sees a ripple of wind pass
over the surface of still water, the tiger's features palpitated and
were changed, until the horrified girl saw the face of her husband come
up through that of the beast, much as the face of a diver comes up to
the surface of a pool. In another moment Patimah saw that it was Haji
Äli who was ascending the ladder of his house, and the spell that had
hitherto bound her was snapped. The first use she made of her regained
power of motion was to leap through the doorway past her husband, and to
plunge into the jungle which edged the compound.
Malays do not love to travel singly through the jungle even when the sun
is high, and under ordinary circumstances no woman could by any means be
prevailed upon to do such a thing. But Patimah was wild with fear of
what she had left behind her, and though she was alone, though the
moonlight was dim, and the dawn had not yet come, she preferred the
dismal depths of the forest to the home of her Were-Tiger husband. Thus
she pushed her way through the underwood, tearing her garments and her
flesh with thorns, catching her feet in creepers and trailing vines,
stumbling over unseen logs, and drenching herself to the skin with the
dew from the leaves and grasses against which she brushed. A little
before daybreak she made her way, as I have described, to her father's
house, there to tell the tale of her strange adventure.
The story of what had occurred was speedily noised through the villages,
and the parents with marriageable daughters, who had been disappointed
by Haji Äli's choice of a wife, rejoiced exceedingly, and did not forget
to tell Patimah's papa and mamma that they had always anticipated
something of the sort. Haji Äli made no effort to regain possession of
his wife, and his neighbours drawing a natural inference from his
actions, avoided him and his sons until they were forced to live in
almost complete isolation.
But the drama of the Were-Tiger of Slim was to have a final act.
One night a fine young water-buffalo, the property of the Headman,
Penghûlu Mat Saleh, was killed by a tiger, and its owner, saying no word
to any man upon the subject, constructed a cunningly arranged spring-gun
over the carcase. The trigger-lines were so set that should the tiger
return to finish the meal, which he had begun by tearing a couple of
hurried mouthfuls from the rump of his kill, he must infallibly be
wounded or slain by the bolts and slugs with which the gun was charged.
Next night a loud report, breaking in clanging echoes through the
stillness, an hour or two before the dawn was due, apprised Penghûlu Mat
Saleh that some animal had fouled the trigger-lines. In all probability
it was the tiger, and if he was wounded he would not be a pleasant
creature to meet on a dark night. Accordingly Penghûlu Mat Saleh lay
still until morning.
In a Malay village all are astir very shortly after daybreak. As soon as
it is light enough to see to walk the doors of the houses open one by
one, and the people of the village come forth singly huddled to the chin
in their _sârongs_ or bed coverlets. Each man makes his way down to the
river to perform his morning ablutions, or stands on the bank of the
stream, staring sleepily at nothing in particular, a black figure
silhouetted against the broad ruddiness of a Malayan dawn. Presently the
women of the village come out of the houses, in little knots of three or
four, with the children pattering at their heels. They carry clusters of
gourds in either hand, for it is their duty to fill them from the
running stream with the water which will be needed during the day. It is
not until the sun begins to rise, when morning ablutions have been
carefully performed, and the first sleepiness of the waking hour has
departed from heavy eyes, that the people of the village begin to set
about the avocations of the day.
Penghûlu Mat Saleh arose that morning and performed his usual daily
routine before he collected a party of Malays to aid him in his search
for the wounded tiger. He had no difficulty in finding men who were
willing to share the excitement of the adventure, and presently he set
off with a ragged following of near a dozen at his heels, the party
having two guns and many spears and _kris_. They reached the spot where
the spring-gun had been set, and they found that beyond a doubt the
tiger had returned to his kill. The tracks left by the great pads were
fresh, and the tearing up of the earth on one side of the dead buffalo,
in a spot where the grass was thickly flecked with blood, showed that
the shot had taken effect.
Penghûlu Mat Saleh and his people then set down steadily to follow the
trail of the wounded tiger. This was an easy matter, for the beast had
gone heavily on three legs, the off-hind leg dragging uselessly. In
places, too, a clot of blood showed red among the dew-drenched leaves
and grasses. None the less the Penghûlu and his party followed slowly
and with caution. They knew that a wounded tiger is never in a mood in
which a child may play with him, and also that, even when he has only
three legs with which to spring upon his enemies, he can on occasion
arrange for a large escort of human beings to accompany him into the
land of shadows.
The trail led through the brushwood, in which the dead buffalo lay, and
thence into a belt of jungle which edged the river bank a few hundred
yards above Penghûlu Mat Saleh's village, and extended up-stream to
Kuâla Chin Lâma, a distance of half a dozen miles. The tiger turned
up-stream when this jungle was reached, and half a mile higher up he
came out upon a slender wood-path.
When Penghûlu Mat Saleh had followed thus far, he halted and looked at
his people.
'Know ye whither this track leads, my brothers?' he asked in a whisper.
The men nodded, but said never a word. A glance at them would have shown
you that they were anxious and uneasy.
'What say ye?' continued the Penghûlu. 'Do we still follow this trail?'
'It is as thou wilt, O Penghûlu,' said the oldest man of the party,
answering for his fellows, 'we follow thee whithersoever thou goest.'
'It is well!' said the Penghûlu. 'Come let us go.' No more was said,
when this whispered colloquy was ended, and the party set down to the
trail again silently and with redoubled caution.
The narrow track, which the wounded tiger had followed, led on towards
the river bank, and presently the high wattled bamboo fence of a
native compound became visible through the trees. Penghûlu Mat Saleh
pointed at it. 'Behold!' was all he said. Then the party moved on
again, still following the tracks of the tiger, and the flecks of red
blood on the grass. These led them to the gate of the compound, and
through it to the _’lâman_ or open space before the house. Here they
were lost at a spot where the rank spear-blades of the _lâlang_ grass
had been beaten down by the falling of some heavy body. A veritable
pool of blood marked the place. To it the trail of the limping tiger
led. Away from it there was no tracks, save those of the human beings
who come and go through the rank growths which cloak the earth in a
Malay compound. 'Behold!' said Penghûlu Mat Saleh once more. 'Come,
let us ascend into the house.' And so saying he led the way up the
stair-ladder of the dwelling where Haji Äli lived with his two sons
Äbas and Äbdulrahman, and whence a month or two before Patimah had
fled during the night-time with a deadly fear in her eyes, and the
tale of a strange experience faltering on her lips.
Penghûlu Mat Saleh and his people found Äbas sitting cross-legged in the
outer apartment preparing a quid of betel-nut with elaborate care. The
visitors squatted on the mats, and the usual customary salutations over,
Penghûlu Mat Saleh said:
'I have come in order that I may see thy father. Is he within the
house?'
'He is,' said Äbas laconically.
'Then make known to him that I would have speech with him.'
'My father is sick,' said Äbas in a surly tone, and at the word a tremor
of excitement ran through Penghûlu Mat Saleh's followers.
'What is that patch of blood in the _lâlang_ before the house?' asked
the Penghûlu conversationally, after a short pause.
'We slew a goat yesternight,' replied Äbas.
'Hast thou the skin, O Äbas?' asked the Penghûlu, 'for I am renewing the
faces of my drums, and would fain purchase it.'
'The skin was mangy, and we cast it into the river,' said Äbas.
'What ails thy father, Äbas?' asked the Penghûlu returning to the
charge.
'He is sick,' said suddenly a voice from the curtained doorway, which
led to the inner apartment. It was the elder son Äbdulrahman who spoke.
He held a sword in his hand, and his face wore an ugly look as his words
came harshly and gratingly with the foreign accent of the Korinchi
people. He went on, still standing, near the doorway, 'He is sick, O
Penghûlu, and the noise of your words disturbs him. He would slumber and
be still. Descend out of the house, he cannot see thee, Penghûlu. Listen
to these my words!'
Äbdulrahman's manner, and the words he spoke, were at once so rough and
defiant that the Penghûlu saw that he must choose between a scuffle,
which would mean bloodshed, and a hasty retreat. He was a mild old man,
and he drew a monthly salary from the Pêrak Government. Moreover, he
knew that the white men, who guided the destinies of Pêrak, were averse
to bloodshed and homicide, even if the person slain was a wizard, or the
son of a wizard. Therefore he decided upon retreat.
As they clambered down the steps of the door-ladder, Mat Tahir, one of
the Penghûlu's men, plucked him by the sleeve, and pointed to a spot
beneath the house. Just below the place, in the inner apartment, where
Haji Äli might be supposed to lie stretched upon the mat of sickness,
the ground was stained a dim red for a space of several inches in
circumference. Malay floors are made of laths of wood or of bamboo laid
parallel to one another, with spaces between each one of them. This is
convenient, as the whole of the ground beneath the house can thus be
used as a slop-pail, waste-basket, and rubbish heap. The red stain
lying where it did had the look of blood, blood moreover from some one
within the house, whose wound had very recently been washed and dressed.
It might also have been the red juice of the betel-nut, but its stains
are but rarely seen in such large patches. Whatever it may have been the
Penghûlu and his people had no opportunity of examining it more closely,
for Äbdulrahman and Äbas followed them out of the compound, and barred
the door against them.
Then the Penghûlu set off to tell his tale to the District Officer, the
white man under whose charge the Slim Valley had been placed. He went
with many misgivings, for Europeans are sceptical concerning such tales,
and when he returned, more or less dissatisfied, some five days later,
he found that Haji Äli and his sons had disappeared. They had fled down
river on a dark night, without a soul being made aware of their intended
departure. They had neither stayed to reap their crops, which now stood
ripening in the fields; to sell their house and compound, which had been
bought with good money,--'dollars of the whitest,' as the Malay phrase
has it,--nor yet to collect their debts. This is a fact; and to one who
knows the passion for wealth and for property, which is to be found in
the breast of every Sumatran Malay, it is perhaps the strangest
circumstance of all the weird events, which go to make up the drama of
the Were-Tiger of Slim.