第124章 LETTER XXII(3)

They have also many odd but harmless superstitions: For instance, that certain people have the power of making themselves invulnerable by the agency of spirits; that the regalia of the States are possessed of supernatural powers; that the wearing of a tiger claw prevents disease; that rude "Aeolian harps" hung up in trees will keep the forest goblins from being troublesome; that charms and amulets worn or placed about a house ward off many evils; that at dangerous rapids, such as those of Jerom Pangong on the Perak river, the spirits must be propitiated by offerings of betel-nut and bananas; that to insure good luck a betel- chewer must invariably spit to the left; that it is unlucky either to repair or pull down a house; that spirits can be propitiated and diseases can be kept away by hanging up palm leaves and cages in the neighborhood of kampongs, and many others. They also believe as firmly as the Chinese do in auspicious and inauspicious days, spells, magic, and a species of astrology. I hope that Mr. Maxwell will publish his investigations into these subjects.

"Running amuck" (amok) is supposed by some to be the result of "possession;" but now, at least, it is comparatively uncommon in these States. A Malay is on some points excessively sensitive regarding his honor, and to wipe out a stain upon it by assassinating the offender is considered as correct and in accordance with etiquette as dueling formerly was in our own country. In cases, however, in which the offender is of higher rank than the injured man, the latter in despair sometimes resorts to opium, and, rushing forth in a frenzy, slays all he can lay hands upon. This indiscriminate slaying is the amok proper.

In certain cases, such as those arising out of jealousy, the desire for vengeance gains absolute possession of a Malay. Mr. Newbold says that he has seen letters regarding insults in which the writers say, "I ardently long for his blood to clean my face," or "I ardently long for his blood to wash out the pollution of the hog's flesh with which he has smeared me!"

Considering how punctilious and courteous the Malays are, how rough many of the best of us are, how brutal in manner many of us are, and how inconsiderate our sailors are of the customs of foreign peoples, especially in regard to the seclusion of their women, it is wonderful that bloody revenge is not more common than it is.

"Amok" means a furious and reckless onset. When Mr. Birch was murdered, the cry "amok! amok!" was raised, and the passion of murder seized on all present. Only about a year ago one of the sons of the Rajah Muda Yusuf, a youth of twenty, was suddenly seized with this monomania, drew his kris, and rushing at people killed six, wounded two, and then escaped into the jungle. Major M'Nair says that a Malay, in speaking of amok, says: "My eyes got dark, and I ran on."

In Malacca Captain Shaw told me that "running amuck" was formerly very common, and that on an expedition he made, one of his own attendants was suddenly seized with the "amok" frenzy. He mentioned that he had known of as many as forty people being injured by a single "amok" runner. When the cry "amok! amok!" is raised, people fly to the right and left for shelter, for after the blinded madman's kris has once "drank blood," his fury becomes ungovernable, his sole desire is to kill; he strikes here and there; men fall along his course; he stabs fugitives in the back, his kris drips blood, he rushes on yet more wildly, blood and murder in his course; there are shrieks and groans, his bloodshot eyes start from their sockets, his frenzy gives him unnatural strength; then all of a sudden he drops, shot through the heart, or from sudden exhaustion, clutching his bloody kris even in the act of rendering up his life.

As his desire is to kill everybody, so, as he rushes on, everybody's desire is to kill him, and gashed from behind or wounded by shots, his course is often red with his own blood. Under English rule the great object of the police is to take the "amok" runner alive, and have him tried like an ordinary criminal for murder; and if he can be brought to bay, as he sometimes is, they succeed in pinning him to the wall by means of such a stout two-pronged fork as I saw kept for the purpose in Malacca. Usually, however the fate of the "amok" runner is a violent death, and men feel no more scruple about killing him in his frenzy than they would about killing a man-eating tiger. I hear that this form of frenzy affects the Malays of all the islands of the Archipelago.

Some people attribute it to the excessive use of opium by unprepared constitutions, and others to monomania arising from an unusual form of digestive disturbance; but from it being peculiar to Malays, I rather incline to Major M'Nair's view: "There can be no doubt that the amok had its origin in the deed of some desperate Malay, that tradition handed it down to his highly-sensitive successors, and the example was followed and continues to be followed as the right thing to do by those who are excited to frenzy by apprehension, or by some injury that they regard as deadly, and only to be washed out in blood."

I have been interrupted by a visit from two disconsolate-looking Ceylon planters, who have come "prospecting" for coffee. An enterprising son of an Edinburgh "Bailie" has been trying coffee-planting beyond the Perak, but he has got into difficulties with his laborers, and is "getting out of it." This difficulty about labor will possibly have to be solved by the introduction of coolies from India, for the Malays won't work except for themselves; and the Chinese not only prefer the excitement of mining, and the evening hubbub of the mining towns, but in lonely places they are not always very manageable by people unused to them.