Malay sketches

Perak is one of the largest and most populous of the States of the Malay Peninsula, it is the one where probably the rulers can claim the clearest genealogy and the longest recorded descent, and it is unquestionably here that all ancient rites and customs have been most carefully preserved.

Whilst it was to Perak that the first British Resident was appointed, and this State is now the most wealthy, advanced, and prosperous of all those under British influence, the Malays still maintain their traditions and observe their honoured customs as though railways and steamers, education and sanitation had no more part in their lives than when Albuquerque was striving to effect a landing on the shores of Malacca.

For ages it has been a practice of the Sultans of Perak to reserve certain waters for their own fishing, and certain jungle tracts (usually surrounding a hot spring of mineral water) for their own hunting. There they would resort, annually or oftener, and with their relatives, chiefs, and followers take their kingly pleasure, as it was duly chronicled had been the custom of their ancestors.

In the lull after the first heavy rains, that is about the month of December, when the river has been swollen to flood-height for a couple of months, the tuntong or river-turtles ascend the Perak River in considerable numbers and lay their eggs on certain convenient sand stretches in the neighbourhood of Bota, about 100 miles from the river’s mouth.

The most frequented of these laying grounds is a place called Pâsir Tĕlor (egg-sand), just below Bota, and it is here that the ladies of the Court annually assemble to dig up the eggs, which the Malay considers one of the greatest delicacies known to him.

The river-turtle is a great deal smaller than the sea-turtle, but it lays a larger egg, and one much more valued by Malays.

As soon as the river rises watchers are stationed on the sands, and the turtles are said to lay three times. The nests are dug between two and three feet under the sand, and contain from about fifteen to thirty-five eggs each. During the laying season boats are not allowed to stop at the sands for fear they should disturb the turtles.

When the first set of eggs has been laid and the turtles have returned to the river, the watchers open the nests and send the eggs up to the Sultan. The second set of nests is opened by the royal party, and the third is left to hatch, an operation that takes six months. There is no sitting, the young turtles simply emerge from the sand, walk down into the river and swim away.

It is said that if the first and second nests are left untouched, the turtles themselves open them and scatter and destroy the eggs; but that, after the third “lay,” they take their departure, having accomplished their task.

Directly the watchers report that the turtles have made the second nests, the Sultan and his family, with the neighbouring chiefs and their families, take boat and paddle down the stream to Pâsir Tĕlor.

Fifteen or twenty large house-boats and several bamboo rafts containing about one hundred and fifty people make an imposing procession. The rafts are simply floating houses, with mat walls and a high thatched roof, and are manned by crews of from four to sixteen polers; but the boats are graceful and picturesque barges, of which the foundation is a long dug-out of hard wood drawing very little water, the freeboard is raised by the breadth of one or two planks, and over the stern half of the boat is built a palm-thatched covering on a slight wooden frame, while curtains secure privacy. Inside this house, the roof of which rises in a sharp curve towards the stern, sit and lie on mats and cushions the owner and his family or friends. The crew occupy the forward half of the boat, where they sit to paddle down stream or stand to pole up. The steersman has a high seat in the stern, from whence he is able to see clear of the cabin-roof.

The covered portion of the barge which carries the Sultan’s principal wife is decorated with six scarlet-bordered white umbrellas. Two officers stand all day long, just outside the state-room, holding open black umbrellas with silver fringes, and two others are in the bows with long bamboo poles held close together and erect. The royal bugler sits on the extreme end of the prow, and from time to time blows a call on the antique silver trumpet of the regalia. Flags are flown, other boats carry gongs and drums, and altogether the pleasure-fleet makes a brave show and a considerable noise, attracting the attention of all the dwellers on the riverine.

The journey from the Sultan’s palace at Kuala Kangsar occupies two days, and on the morning of the third all the ladies of the party, with all their attendants and children (a good many still in arms), disembark for the ceremony of digging out the turtle-eggs.

The ladies are in their smartest garments and wear their costliest jewels. It is a blaze of brilliant-coloured silks, of painted sârongs, cloth-of-gold scarves, and embroidered gauze veils; of bright sunshades, gold bracelets, necklaces, and bangles; of curious jewelled brooches, massive hairpins, and rings flashing with the light of diamonds and rubies.

The men appear in jackets, trousers, and sârongs of hardly less striking hues; but the horror of Western dyes and Western schemes of colour has not yet demoralised the Malay’s innate sense of beauty and fitness, and nothing offends the eye as all this wealth of bravery moves slowly across the strand.

A scorching sun shines down on the gaily-clad figures with their background of dark jungle, on the yellow sands and sparkling river, with its burden of picturesque boats, and gives light and shadow to a charming picture.

The watchers have marked with twigs the various nests, and each lady of rank, with her little crowd of attendants, makes for one of these, and with her hands begins to dig up the sand in search of the eggs. But the nest is deep down, and the sides of the hole have a way of falling in on the digger, so a man or boy is desired to remove the overburden and make things easy for the lady. The overlying sand is quickly scooped out until one or two of the white eggs are disclosed, and then the lady, sitting on the edge and stooping far down, can just manage to reach the nest, and the eggs are carefully handed up.

Besides the pleasure of actually removing the eggs with one’s own hand, of displaying to admiring eyes a vision of taper fingers and rounded wrist, of showing how little it matters that the costliest garments should trail in the sand, there is the rivalry of whose nest yields the largest number of eggs. Anything over twenty-five is considered a satisfactory find.

By the time all the nests have been rifled, the sands are growing so hot under the rays of the fiery sun that bare feet can hardly endure what is little short of torture. There is an almost hurried return to the boats, the finery is exchanged for simpler garments, and all the men and many of the ladies take to the river, and there disport themselves in a manner that is refreshing to sun-scorched bodies and the eyes of the Western spectator who is fortunate enough to see how it is possible to be unconventionally natural and yet perfectly modest.

It is only on such occasions as this that a strange man can see these ladies unveiled and even so he is not expected to look at them or go very near them; but their bathing-costume differs hardly at all from that which they commonly wear, and they thoroughly enjoy this opportunity of revelling in the clear waters of the sand-bedded stream.

Then every one scrambles back into the boats, which are pushed off into deep water, the rowers seize their paddles and with beat of gong and the musical notes of the silver serûnai, with jest and laughter, pennons waving, and bright eyes sparkling behind the rainbow-coloured blinds, the picturesque flotilla glides on its course down the long sunny reach, in and out amongst the islets, round a heavily-wooded, deeply-shadowed headland, past the riverside hamlets and the orchards, the stately palms, the clusters of bamboo that overhang the water like great plumes of pale green feathers, and so ever onward through sunlight and shadow till another bourne is reached.

The graceful turn of the leading barge towards a sand-spit flanked by a long inviting backwater, the roll of a drum and every prow is headed for the shallows of the bank that divides the âyer mâti, the “dead water,” from the living hurrying stream.

The boats arrange themselves in divisions, the crews land, make fires, and boil the rice for their mid-day meal, while the cooking and breakfasting of the members of the “court” is done on board the various barges.

In this feudal and conservative country when the people eat they mâkan, but the Raja does not mâkan, with him it is santap. When “the masses” bathe they mandi, but the same operation in the case of a Raja is called sêram; a chief or a beggar may sleep and that is tîdor, but when the Raja sleeps he is said to bĕr-âdu. This does not mean that a wide gulf divides Malay classes, there is rather that communion as of the members of an old Scotch clan, but respect and courtesy are characteristic of the race, a prized legacy which it is not yet considered a sign of either independence or good manners to despise. People of the same class, rajas and chiefs, children and parents, brothers and sisters, speak to each other with studied deference and never forget the little distinctions that mark fine shades of rank or age. Boys and girls are as careful in the observance of these courtesies as are their elders.

Education and contact with Europeans will alter all this, and in the next century there will be more equality and probably less politeness and fraternity. But then also there will be no royal preserves, no class privileges, and no State junketings where noble and peasant meet in generous rivalry of skill with a single desire to snatch from the toil, the disappointments, and the sorrows of life one week of pleasure wherein individual joy may grow greater in the knowledge that it is shared by many.

Future possibilities do not disturb our friends, whose guiding principle is rather “insufficient for the day is the pleasure thereof.” They have attacks of hatred and gloom, and then they kill, if the desire is strong enough, but these fits are rare, and when not actively engaged in amusing themselves they are lotus-eating, sometimes figuratively, sometimes in reality.

This is a time for action, and, the mid-day meal disposed of, all the men of the party get ready their casting-nets and don the garments that will least hamper the free use of their limbs and will not be injured by a thorough wetting.

The backwater has a narrow and shallow entrance on the river, and this entrance is staked across to guard it from what in the West would be called poachers. Through the stakes a way has now been made wide enough to admit of the passage of boats. The Sultan’s barge and a few other house-boats have passed the barrier, and these are accompanied by a fleet of fifty uncovered dug-outs, each with a light grating of split-bamboos over half its length, and each carrying two or three paddlers, one of whom steers and one man standing on the extreme end of the bow ready to cast the net.

These nets are of local make, the mesh is small, the thread of twisted strands of finest cotton, and the length varies according to the ability of the owner to cast it. A very short net is five or six cubits in length from centre to edge, a long one is twelve or thirteen cubits, and to cast that with accuracy so that it reaches the water perfectly extended requires a very skilful hand. The bottom or edge of the net is weighted with small leaden rings that sink it rapidly through the water, while a fine cord from the centre is attached to the right wrist of the thrower. The net is usually dyed a dark brown with a solution made from the bark of the mangrove.

The backwater where this annual netting is done is a long narrow strip of fairly deep water widening slightly in the centre and contracting at the ends. On one side it is bordered by a low grass-grown shore and on the other by a jungle-covered bank from which the overhanging branches cast dark shadows on the glassy surface, stirred here and there into tiny wavelets by every passing zephyr.

By 3 P.M. all is ready; some of the oldest and most skilful netters stand in the bows of the royal barges, a dozen young rajas are in dug-outs and the others are occupied by their owners, men from the neighbouring villages who have come to join in the sport.

The Sultan gives the signal, and the boats move off slowly and at once form themselves into a crescent, with the royal barges in the centre. The horns of the crescent draw towards each other, the boats make a simultaneous in-turn, the circle is completed, and at the moment when it becomes sufficiently circumscribed every net is cast, covering the whole surface of the water within the ring of boats. Directly the nets have been cast they sink, the paddlers back-water, and each net is slowly drawn to the surface and the fish taken are disengaged from the fine meshes and thrown into the boat under the bamboo grating.

Almost every net contains fish, and the numbers vary from two or three to fifty or sixty bright silvery fishes weighing from half a pound to a pound each.

The operation is then repeated, and the fleet of boats works its way slowly from end to end of the backwater, a distance of about a mile.

Sometimes every net makes a good haul, sometimes only one or two do very well, and all the rest indifferently. It is no easy matter with such an insecure foothold to cast a long and heavy net, but, well done, the act of casting is graceful and attractive. First the slack of the cord is taken up in loops in the right hand and after it the net, until the leaden rings clear the boat and reach to about the thrower’s knee. Then with his left hand he takes up part of the skirt of the net and hangs it over his right arm and shoulder. This done he seizes the balance of the skirt in his left hand, swings his body backwards and then forwards with a strong propelling movement of arm, shoulder, and back that sends the net straight out over the water to fall perfectly extended, like a huge brown cobweb, the outer edges sinking instantly under the weight of the leaden rings and drawing together by reason of the resistance of the inner surface of the net.

The game looks easy enough, but try it and you will probably find yourself in the water at the first cast with the net tied up into an inextricable knot.

Watch the experienced hand. The boats are now at a bend in the middle of the backwater, the circle is formed, the in-turn is given to the bows, the ring narrows, and at this moment the scene is picturesque to a degree and strangely weird.

Atmospheric changes come quickly here; the sky has become suddenly overcast, a heavy rain-cloud is being rapidly driven before a rising wind, and the water is now dark and gloomy. This cordon of low black boats, so close to each other that they almost touch, on every bow a half-bent, quaintly-clad form with the net hanging in graceful folds from arm and shoulder, while fifty dark earnest faces gaze eagerly on the narrowing space. In that instant it flashes across the spectator’s mind that some mystic rite of fell intent is to be performed within that magic zone. Then heigh! Abracadabra! The word is given to cast, and from fifty boats the nets fly out with a swirl and settle on the water with a gentle hiss. But the skilful thrower waits for a second or two, knowing that the fish, frightened by this rain of lead, will dash for the only spot where there seems to be a gap. Then deftly he casts a net with a diameter of forty feet, and the moment he strains the cord he realises that he has made an extraordinary capture. He pulls the net up a little way, and then, plunging his arms into the water, grasps the meshes on either side and calls for help to raise the struggling mass of fish. All eyes are fixed on the lucky Raja, and as the take is lifted into the boat there are shouts of delight and congratulation and clapping of hands from the ladies, who are keenly interested. By this single cast the thrower has secured one hundred and twenty-one fish, and his contribution for the afternoon is over seven hundred “tails.”

Just as the furthest end of the backwater is reached the rain, which has been long threatening, comes down in torrents, and there is a race for shelter and dry clothes. The dug-outs with three or four paddlers easily beat the barges with a dozen, but long before the river is reached the netters are as wet as the fish, and have a swim in the warm water of the river before changing into dry clothes.

Then there is a lull in the storm, and the more enthusiastic return to the netting and, unmindful of hunger, darkness, and rain, still cast the nets till 10 P.M., when they return thoroughly tired out, but happy in the knowledge that the bag numbers over ten thousand fish.

Amongst these late comers and most ardent sportsmen are several ladies who, not satisfied with the ease and dignity of a royal barge, have braved the elements and gone fasting to share the excitement of the netting in the discomfort of the dug-outs.

That is how the Sultan of Perak’s annual fishing party takes its pleasure, and about the very same time His Highness of Păhang will be leading a similar expedition in the quiet waters of an old channel of the Păhang River.

There, however, the method is rather different—the water is poisoned with the juice of the tuba root, and the stupefied fish are speared and netted as they float and swim aimlessly about. The fun is much the same, perhaps, but the pursuit is less sporting than by the means employed in Perak. It is not however, perfectly easy to spear even drugged fish without both skill and practice.

In Păhang, also, the pageant is conducted with much state and ancientry, and, as the nature of the pastime requires only a moderate effort, the ladies of the Harîm smile on the proceedings and, armed with silken nets on hafts of gold, themselves essay to scoop up the scaly quarry. Amongst the ladies of the Court are some the exceeding fairness of whose skin, the perfect oval of their faces, and the glances of their liquid eyes so embarrass the men of the party that many a spear flies wide of its mark.

There are some things still hidden from the ken of Cook and the race of Globe trotters, and I do not fear to reveal the secrets of this remote corner of the earth, for, if any be thereby induced to visit the Peninsula in search of such displays as I have tried to describe, he will meet with disappointment.

You cannot, in the language of Western culture, put a penny in the slot and set in motion the wheels of this barbarous Eastern figure.