Malay sketches

Mention has been made of the Malay âmok, and, as what, with our happy faculty for mispronunciation and misspelling of the words of other languages, is called “running amuck,” is with many English people their only idea of the Malay, and that a very vague one, it may be of interest to briefly describe this form of homicidal mania.

Mĕng-âmok is to make a sudden, murderous attack, and though it is applied to the onslaught of a body of men in war time, or where plunder is the object and murder the means to arrive at it, the term is more commonly used to describe the action of an individual who, suddenly and without apparent cause, seizes a weapon and strikes out blindly, killing and wounding all who come in his way, regardless of age or sex, whether they be friends, strangers, or his own nearest relatives.

Just before sunset on the evening of the 11th February, 1891, a Malay named Imam Mamat (that is Mamat the priest) came quietly into the house of his brother-in-law at Pâsir Gâram on the Perak River, carrying a spear and a gôlok, i.e. a sharp, pointed cutting knife.

The Imam went up to his brother-in-law, took his hand and asked his pardon. He then approached his own wife and similarly asked her pardon, immediately stabbing her fatally in the abdomen with the gôlok. She fell, and her brother, rushing to assist her, received a mortal wound in the heart. The brother-in-law’s wife was in the house with four children, and they managed to get out before the Imam had time to do more than stab the last of them, a boy, in the back as he left the door. At this moment, a man, who had heard the screams of the women, attempted to enter the house, when the Imam rushed at him and inflicted a slight wound, the man falling to the ground and getting away.

Having secured two more spears which he found in the house, the murderer now gave chase to the woman and her three little children and made short work of them. A tiny girl of four years old and a boy of seven were killed, while the third child received two wounds in the back; a spear thrust disposed of the mother—all this within one hundred yards of the house.

The Imam now walked down the river bank, where he was met by a friend named Uda Majid, rash enough to think his unarmed influence would prevail over the other’s madness.

He greeted the Imam respectfully, and said, “You recognise me, don’t let there be any trouble.”

The Imam replied, “Yes, I know you, but my spear does not,” and immediately stabbed him twice.

Though terribly injured, Uda Majid wrested the spear from the Imam, who again stabbed him twice, this time in lung and windpipe, and he fell. Another man coming up ran unarmed to the assistance of Uda Majid, when the murderer turned on the new-comer and pursued him; but, seeing Uda Majid get up and attempt to stagger away, the Imam went back to him and, with two more stabs in the back, killed him. Out of the six wounds inflicted on this man three would have proved fatal.

The murderer now rushed along the river bank, and was twice seen to wade far out into the water and return. Then he was lost sight of.

By this time the news had spread up stream and down, and every one was aware that there was abroad an armed man who would neither give nor receive quarter.

For two days, a body of not less than two hundred armed men under the village chiefs made ceaseless but unavailing search for the murderer. At 6 P.M. on the second day, Imam Mamat suddenly appeared in front of the house of a man called Lasam, who had barely time to slam the door in his face and fasten it. The house at that moment contained four men, five women, and seven children, and the only weapon they possessed was one spear.

Lasam asked the Imam what he wanted, and he said he wished to be allowed to sleep in the house. He was told he could do so if he would throw away his arms, and to this the Imam replied by an attempt to spear Lasam through the window. The latter, however, seized the weapon, and with the help of his son, wrested it out of the Imam’s hands, Lasam receiving a stab in the face from the gôlok. During this struggle, the Imam had forced himself halfway through the window, and Lasam seizing his own spear, thrust it into the thigh of the murderer, who fell to the ground. In the fall, the shaft of the spear broke off, leaving the blade in the wound.

It was now pitch dark, and, as the people of the house did not know the extent of the Imam’s injury or what he was doing, a man went out by the back to spread the news and call the village headman. On his arrival the light of a torch showed the Imam lying on the ground with his weapons out of reach, and the headman promptly pounced upon him and secured him.

The Imam was duly handed over to the police and conveyed to Teluk Anson, but he died from loss of blood within twenty-four hours of receiving his wound.

Here is the official list of killed and wounded—

It is terrible to have to add that both the women were far advanced in pregnancy.

Imam Mamat was a man of over forty years of age, of good repute with his neighbours, and I never heard any cause suggested why this quiet, elderly man of devotional habits should suddenly, without apparent reason, develop the most inhuman instincts and brutally murder a number of men, women, and children, his nearest relatives and friends. It is, however, quite possible that the man was suffering under the burden of some real or fancied wrong which, after long brooding, darkened his eyes and possessed him with this insane desire to kill.

An autopsy was performed on the murderer’s body, and the published report of the surgeon says: “I hereby certify that I this day made a post-mortem examination of the body of Imam Mahomed, and find him to have died from hæmorrhage from a wound on the outer side of right thigh; the internal organs were healthy except that the membranes of the right side of brain were more adherent than usual.”