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.
Even for clearing the jungle foreign labor must be employed. Perak is a
healthy and splendid State, and while the low grounds are suited for
sugar, tapioca, and tobacco, the slopes of the hills will produce
coffee, cinchona, vanilla, tea, cloves, and nutmegs. It is a land of
promise, but at present of promise only! I understand that to start a
plantation a capital of from 2,500 pounds to 3,500 pounds would be
required. Jungle is cleared at the rate of 25s. per acre. The wages of
Javanese coolies are 1s. a day, and a hut which will hold fifty of them
can be put up for 5 pounds. Land can be had for three years free of
charge.
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