“One night, when the Moon has waxed nearly to the full, Pĕkan resounds with a babel of discordant noise. The large brass gongs, in which the devils of the Chinese are supposed to take delight, clang and clash and bray through the still night air; the Malay drums throb and beat and thud; all manner of shrill yells fill the sky, and the roar of a thousand native voices rises heavenwards, or rolls across the white waters of the river, which are flecked with deep shadows and reflections. The jungles on the far bank take up the sound and send it pealing back in recurring ringing echoes till the whole world seems to shout in chorus. The Moon which bathes the earth in splendour, the Moon which is so dear to each one of us, is in dire peril this night, for that fierce monster, the Gĕrhâna,[19] whom we hate and loathe, is striving to swallow her. You can mark his black bulk creeping over her, dimming her face, consuming her utterly, while she suffers in the agony of silence. How often in the past has she served us with the light; how often has she made night more beautiful than day for our tired, sun-dazed eyes to look upon; and shall she now perish without one effort on our part to save her by scaring the Monster from his prey? No! A thousand times no! So we shout, and clang the gongs, and beat the drums, till all the animal world joins in the tumult, and even inanimate nature lends its voice to swell the uproar with a thousand resonant echoes. At last the hated Monster reluctantly retreats. Our war-cry has reached his ears, and he slinks sullenly away, and the pure, sad, kindly Moon looks down in love and gratitude upon us, her children, to whose aid she owes her deliverance.”[20]
The “spots on the moon”[21] are supposed to represent an inverted banyan tree (Bĕringin songsang), underneath which an aged hunchback is seated plaiting strands of tree bark (pintal tali kulit t’rap) to make a fishing-line, wherewith he intends to angle for everything upon the earth as soon as his task is completed. It has never been completed yet, however, for a rat always gnaws the line through in time to save mankind from disaster, despite the vigilance of the old man’s cat, which is always lying in wait for the offender.[22] It is perhaps scarcely necessary to add that when the line reaches the earth the end of the world will come.
“Bujang (‘single,’ ‘solitary,’ and hence in a secondary sense ‘unmarried’) is a Sanskrit word bhujangga, ‘a dragon.’ ‘Bujang Malaka,’ a mountain in Pêrak, is said by the Malays of that State to have been so called because it stands alone, and could be seen from the sea by traders who plied in old days between the Pêrak river and the once flourishing port of Malacca. But it is just as likely to have been named from some forgotten legend in which a dragon played a part. Dragons and mountains are generally connected in Malay ideas. The caves in the limestone hill Gunong Pondok, in Pêrak, are said to be haunted by a genius loci in the form of a snake who is popularly called Si Bujang. This seems to prove beyond doubt the identity of bujang with bhujangga.[23] The snake-spirit of Gunong Pondok is sometimes as small as a viper, and sometimes as large as a python, but he may always be identified by his spotted neck, which resembles that of a wood-pigeon (tekukur). Landslips on the mountains, which are tolerably frequent during very heavy rains, and which, being produced by the same cause, are often simultaneous with the flooding of rivers and the destruction of property, are attributed by the natives to the sudden breaking forth of dragons (naga), which have been performing religious penance (ber-tapa)[24] in the mountains, and which are making their way to the sea.”[25]
So, too, many waterfalls and rocks of unusual shape are thought to owe their remarkable character to the agency of demons. This, however, is a subject which will be treated more fully later on.
“Palangi, the usual Malay word for the rainbow, means ‘striped.’ The name varies, however, in different localities. In Pêrak it is called palangi minum[26] (from a belief that it is the path by which spirits descend to the earth to drink), while in Penang it is known as ular danu (‘the snake danu’). In Pêrak, a rainbow which stretches in an arch across the sky is called bantal (‘the pillow ’), for some reason that I have been unable to ascertain.[27] When only a small portion of a rainbow is visible, which seems to touch the earth, it is called tunggul (‘the flag’),[28] and if this is seen at some particular point of the compass—the west, I think—it betokens, the Pêrak Malays say, the approaching death of a Raja. Another popular belief is that the ends of the rainbow rest upon the earth, and that if one could dig at the exact spot covered by one end of it, an untold treasure would be found there. Unfortunately, no one can ever arrive at the place.”[29]
“Sunset is the hour when evil spirits of all kinds have most power.[30] In Pêrak, children are often called indoors at this time to save them from unseen dangers. Sometimes, with the same object, a woman belonging to the house where there are young children, will chew kuniet tĕrus (an evil-smelling root), supposed to be much disliked by demons of all kinds, and spit it out at seven different points as she walks round the house.
“The yellow glow which spreads over the western sky, when it is lighted up with the last rays of the dying sun, is called mambang kuning (‘the yellow deity’), a term indicative of the superstitious dread associated with this particular period.”[31]
[1] Newbold, British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca, vol. ii. pp. 360, 361. [↑]
[2] Vide Vishnu Purana, vol. ii. p. 109; trans. by Wilson. [↑]