The Malays are inveterate gamblers, and, perhaps for want of some nobler object on which to expend their mental energies, carry the mania of betting at cock-fights to a ruinous excess. Passionately addicted to this favourite amusement, they will lose all their property on a favourite bird, and having lost that, stake their families, and after the loss of wife and children, their own personal liberty, being prepared to serve as slaves in case of losing. Whole poems are devoted to enthusiastic descriptions of cock-fighting, which is regulated by universally acknowledged laws as minute as those of the Hoyleian Code.
The birds are not trimmed as in England, but fight in full feather, armed with straight or curved artificial spurs, sharp as razors and about two and a half inches long. Large gashes are inflicted by these murderous instruments, and it rarely happens that both cocks survive the battle. One spur only is used, and is generally fastened near the natural spur on the inside of the left leg. Cocks of the same colour are seldom matched. The weight is adjusted by the setters-to, passing them to and from each other’s hands as they sit facing each other in the cock-pit. Should there be any difference, it is brought down to an equality by the spur being fixed so many scales higher on the leg of the heavier cock, or as deemed fair by both parties. In adjusting these preliminaries the professional skill of the setters-to is called into action, and much time is taken up in grave deliberation, which often terminates in wrangling. The birds, after various methods of irritating them have been practised, are then set to. During the continuance of the battle the excitement and interest taken by the gambling spectators in the barbarous exhibition is vividly depicted in their animated looks and gestures.
The Malays who are not slaves go always armed; they would think themselves disgraced if they went abroad without their crees or poniards, which, to render them more formidable, are often steeped in poison. These weapons, which thus afford them the ready means for avenging an affront, are probably the chief cause which renders their outward deportment to each other remarkably punctilious and courteous, but they sometimes become highly dangerous in the hands of a people whose nervous temperament is liable to sudden explosions of frantic rage. Like the old Berserks of the heroic ages of Scandinavia, a Malay is capable of so far working himself into fury, of so far yielding to some spontaneous impulse, or of so far exciting himself by stimulants, as to become totally regardless of what danger he exposes himself to. In this state, which is called ‘running a-muck,’ he rushes forth as an infuriated animal and attacks all who fall in his way, until he is either struck down like a wild beast, or having expended his morbid rage he falls down exhausted.
The Malays are bad agriculturists and artisans but excellent sportsmen. From the small birds which they entangle in their snares to the large animals of the forest, which they shoot or entrap in pit-falls, or destroy by spring-guns, nothing worth catching escapes their attention. Such is their delight in fishing, that even women and children may be seen in numbers during the rains angling in the swampy rice grounds. Spearing excursions against the swordfish are undertaken during the dark of the moon by the light of torches. A good eye, a steady hand are necessary, and a perfect knowledge of the places where the fish are to be found. Each canoe carries a steersman, a man with a long pole to propel the vessel, and a spearsman, who, armed with a long slender javelin having a head composed of the sharpened spikes of the Nibong palm, and holding in his left hand a large blazing torch, takes his station at the stern of the canoe. They thus glide slowly and noiselessly over the still surface of the clear water, till the rays of the flambeau either attract the prey to the surface or discover it lying seemingly asleep at a little depth below. The sudden splash of the swiftly descending spear is heard, and the fish is the next moment seen glittering in the air, either transfixed by the spikes or caught in the interstices as the weapon is withdrawn.
As a natural consequence of their extreme ignorance, the Malays, even the best educated, are inordinately superstitious, and people the invisible world with a host of malignant spirits. The Pamburk roams the forest, like the wild huntsman of the Haruz, with demon dogs, and the storm fiend Hantu Ribut howls in the blast and revels in the whirlwind. Tigers are considered in many instances to be the receptacles of the souls of departed human beings, and they believe that some men have the faculty of transforming themselves at pleasure into tigers, and that others enjoy the privilege of invulnerability. They rely firmly on the efficacy of charms, spells, amulets, talismans, lucky and unlucky moments, magic, and judicial astrology. To pull down or repair a seriously damaged house is considered unlucky, so that whenever a Malay has occasion to build a new house he leaves the old one standing.
While the coasts of Borneo and Sumatra are occupied by the more civilised Mahometan Malays, the interior of these vast islands is inhabited by nations, probably of the same race, who, secluded from the rest of the world, exhibit in their customs a strange and almost incredible mixture of good and evil, of humane tendencies and diabolical barbarism.
Thus the Battas, who next to the Malays are the most numerous people of Sumatra, have the same polite and ceremonious manner, they possess an ancient code of law, they write books, and are fond of music, they build commodious houses, which they ornament with tasteful carvings, they wear handsome tissues and know the art of smelting and amalgamating metals; they are extremely good-natured, and yet they not only eat human flesh, but eat it under circumstances of unexampled atrocity.
According to their own traditions, their ancestors knew nothing of this horrid practice, which was first instigated by the demon of war about the year 1630, and from being originally an act of vengeance or fury, became at length one of their institutions in times of peace, and is now legally sanctioned as a punishment for certain heavy crimes. In some cases the delinquent is first killed and then eaten, in others he is eaten alive, an aggravated punishment which, however, is only reserved for traitors, spies, and enemies seized arms in hand. Before the day appointed for execution, messengers are sent to all friends and allies, and preparations made as for a great festival. The victim, tied to a stake, awaits his horrible fate, while the air resounds with music and the clamour of hundreds of spectators. The rajah of the village steps forward, draws his knife, addresses the assembly, relates the crimes which justify the sentence, and says that now the moment is come for punishing the doomed wretch, whom he describes as a hellish scoundrel, as a Satan in a human form. At these words the actors in the shocking drama about to be performed feel, as they say, an invincible longing to swallow a piece of the villain’s flesh, as they then feel sure that he can do them no further harm, and impatiently brandish their knives.
The rajah or the injured person, such is his privilege, now cuts off the first piece of flesh, which he generally selects from the inner side of the forearm (this being esteemed the most delicate morsel), or from the cheek when sufficiently fat, holds it up triumphantly, and tastes some of the flowing blood, his eyes at the same time sparkling with delight. He then hurries to one of the fires that have been kindled close by to broil his piece of meat before swallowing it, while the whole troop falls upon the miserable wretch, who, hacked to pieces, and bleeding from a hundred wounds, in a few moments expires. The avidity with which they devour his quivering flesh, untouched by his shrieks and supplications, is the more to be wondered at as in other cases they show themselves susceptible of a tender pity for the sufferings of others. As if scenes like these were not sufficiently horrible, it has even been affirmed that the Battas eat their aged parents alive, but we hardly need the authority of Dr. Junghuhn, who, during a residence of two years among the Battas, only heard of three cases of public cannibalism, that this report has no foundation in truth. So much, however, is certain, that this singular people have a great liking for human flesh, and in all cases where a simple execution takes place seize the opportunity of quietly carrying home some favourite joint.
The Battas have no priests, no temples, no idols.[23] They believe in a number of evil spirits, or Begus, who have their seat in the various diseases of the human body, and in a few good spirits, or Sumongot, the immortal souls of great forefathers, who reside on the high mountain tops. The souls only of such persons as die of a violent death ascend into the invisible land of immortality, and this may be some consolation to the poor wretches whom they horribly cut up at their cannibal feasts, while all persons dying of illness are considered as having fallen into the power of the Begus, and as totally annihilated. They have no idea of a Supreme Being, and their only religious ceremony, if such it may be called, is that on festival occasions they scatter rice to the four quarters of the wind, in order to propitiate the Begus.