Walter William Skeat

“ 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. ”

“ But Dharmadatta said to her: "Happen what may, I cannot live without you." When the merchant's daughter heard this, she was afraid that he would use force to her, so she said to him: "Let my marriage first be celebrated here; let my father reap the long-desired fruit of bestowing a daughter in marriage; then will I certainly visit you, for your love has gained my heart." When he heard this, he said: "I love not a woman that has been embraced by another man."... She replied: "Then I will visit you as soon as I am married, and afterwards I will go to my husband." ”

“ The following is an excellent description of a lunar eclipse from the Malay point of view:—
“One night, when the Moon has waxed nearly to the full, Pĕkan resounds with a babel of discordant noise. The large brass gongs, in which the devils of the Chinese are supposed to take delight, clang and clash and bray through the still night air; the Malay drums throb and beat and thud; all manner of shrill yells fill the sky, and the roar of a thousand native voices rises heavenwards, or rolls across the white waters of the river, which are flecked with deep shadows and reflections. ”

“ In reading "Boece," we have often as it were to pause and look on while Chaucer has a desperate wrestle with a tough sentence; but though now he may appear to be down, with a victorious knee upon him, next moment he is on his feet again, disclaiming defeat in a gloss which makes us doubt whether his adversary had so much the best of it after all. But such strenuous endeavour, even when it is crowned with success, is strange in a writer one of whose chief charms is the delightful ease, the complete absence of effort, with which he says his best things. ”

“ We dwell in caves; we dislike mirth. We admire the sun, stars, and sea, feed on the scent of flowers, and love the woods. But ye are evil; ye sacrifice your children and make war. Your gods likewise are evil; Jupiter was lecherous; ye have as many false gods as the body of man has members. Each one presides over some member; thus Mercury is the god of the tongue, Bacchus of the throat, and so the rest. Your idols lead you into sins, for which ye shall suffer hereafter endless torment. Ye are like Cerberus or Hydra, and are born to sorrow. Third letter; from Alexander (pp. 31–36) . ”

“ 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. ”

“ The House of Fame stood high upon a lofty rock, which I climbed laboriously. The rock was formed of ice. On the southern side it was covered with names, many of the letters of which were melted away. On the northern side, it was likewise covered with names, which remained unmelted and legible. On the top of the mountain I found a beautiful House, which I cannot describe though I remember it. It was all of beryl, and full of windows. In niches round about were harpers and minstrels, such as Orpheus, Arion, Chiron, and Glasgerion. Far from these, by themselves, was a vast crowd of musicians. ”

“ The spectacle usually provided is strangely wanting in attraction: a couple of women shuffling their feet and swaying their hands in gestures that are practically devoid of grace or even variety—that is the Malay dance—and it is accompanied by the beating of native drums, the striking together of two short sticks held in either hand, and the occasional boom of a metal gong. ”

“ Ye are as beasts, but we as men. We intersperse hard work with well-earned pleasure. Ye lose many joys, and dishonour the Creator. Your deeds are but folly. Fourth letter; from Dindimus. We are but pilgrims upon earth. Your boastful deeds only make you proud. The gold which you prize cannot satisfy thirst, and we are wiser in treading it under foot. Ye know not how much ye err, and it is a kindness to tell you. The man who lives as if there were no death deserves to be struck down, as was Salmoneus. Fifth letter; from Alexander. Ye are so set in an island that no strangers can come to you ”

“ Sound is merely broken air, and if you would know how all sounds come to Fame's House, observe how, when a stone is thrown into water, the rings made by the ripples extend from the spot where it fell till they reach the shore. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After Alexander had slain Porus, king of India, he came to the country of the Oxydracae, the people of which go naked, and are called Gymnosophists. Their king sends a letter to Alexander, representing that he has nothing to gain by subduing them. Alexander offers them peace, and promises to grant them a boon; upon which they ask him, by way of taunt, to give them everlasting life. He replies that he cannot do that, but must fulfill his destiny. Next he sees the wonderful trees which only grew during sunlight, and at sundown disappear. These trees were guarded by birds that spat deadly fire. ”

“ He created the Earth of the width of a tray and the Heavens of the width of an umbrella, which are the universe of the Magician. Now from before the beginning of time existed that Magician—that is, God—and He made Himself manifest with the brightness of the moon and the sun, which is the token of the True Magician. ”

“ Be not startled nor deranged, and be not offended, for Thou art wont to wander in the veins of the ground, and to take Thy rest in the portals of the Earth.186 I come not hither to vie with Thee in wisdom, for I only place my trust in Thee, and would surrender myself wholly into thy hands; and I beg Thee to retire but three paces from the four corners of our shed, and that Thou shalt refrain from wandering hither and thither, for under Thy care I place the male and female actors, and all the buffoons, both young and old, together with all the musicians and the bridegrooms. ”

“ If you ever happen to see a very big crocodile at the mouth of the Selangor river, floating listlessly about, be careful not to molest it: it is but the buaya kramat, which shape the spirit of Raja ʿAbdullah sometimes assumes. When walking along the pantai (shore) , if you chance to meet a very large tiger let him pass unharmed. It is only Raja ʿAbdullah’s ghost, and in proof thereof you will see it leaves no footmarks on the sand. And when you go to see the new lighthouse at Tanjong Kramat, you may perhaps come face to face with a very old man, who sadly shakes his head and disappears. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is all very well for the Kĕdah ladies to sacrifice their shadows to obtain possession of a pĕlsit, leaders of society must be in the fashion at any cost; but there are plenty of people living in Perak who have seen more than one ancient Malay dame taken out into the river and, despite her protestations, her tears, and entreaties, have watched her, with hands and feet tied, put into the water and slowly pushed down out of sight by means of a long pole with a fork at one end which fitted on her neck. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To the Malay who has arrived at the idea of a generally animated Nature, but has not yet learned to draw scientific distinctions, there appears nothing remarkable or unnatural in the idea of vegetation-souls, or even in that of mineral-souls—rather would he consider us Europeans illogical and inconsistent were he told that we allowed the possession of souls to one half of the creation and denied it to the other. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Because if he failed to do so, Sĕlĕma would die. Why would she die? God alone knows, but such is the teaching of the men of old, the wise ones of ancient days. But Umat’s chief privation is that he is forbidden to sit in the doorway of his house. To understand what this means to a Malay, you must realise that the seat in the doorway, at the head of the stair-ladder that reaches to the ground, is to him much what the fireside is to the English peasant. It is here that he sits and looks out patiently at life, as the European gazes into the heart of the fire. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The “Monkey Dance” is achieved by causing the “Monkey spirit” to enter into a girl of some ten years of age. She is first rocked to and fro in a Malay infant’s swinging-cot (buayan) , and fed with areca-nut and salt (pinang garam) . When she is sufficiently dizzy or “dazed” (mabok) , an invocation addressed to the “Monkey spirit” is chanted (to tambourine accompaniments) , and at its close the child commences to perform a dance, in the course of which she is said sometimes to achieve some extraordinary climbing feats which she could never have achieved unless “possessed.” ”

“ The following remarkable specimen of the charms belonging to the first of these classes was given me by ’Che ʿAbas of Klanang in Selangor, a Kelantan Malay:—
“If the corpse in the grave should speak,
And address people on earth,
May I be destroyed by any beast that has life,
But if the corpse in the grave do not speak,
And address people on earth,
May I not be destroyed by any beast that has life, or by any foe or peril, or by any son of the human race. ”

“ But quite apart from such external marks of dignity, the Pawang is a person of very real significance. In all agricultural operations, such as sowing, reaping, irrigation works, and the clearing of jungle for planting, in fishing at sea, in prospecting for minerals, and in cases of sickness, his assistance is invoked. He is entitled by custom to certain small fees; thus, after a good harvest he is allowed, in some villages, five gantangs of padi, one gantang of rice (bĕras) , and two chupaks of ĕmping (a preparation of rice and cocoa-nut made into a sort of sweetmeat) from each householder. ”

“ Yet each department of nature, however small, has its own particular godling or spirit who requires propitiation, and influences for good or evil every human action. Only the moral element is wanting to the divine hegemony—the “cockeyed,” limping substitute which does duty for it reflecting only too truthfully the character of the people with whom it passes as divine. ”