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.
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