The most prolific species of crocodile is reputed to be the buaya lubok, or Bight crocodile (also called buaya rawang, or Marsh crocodile), which lays as many as fifty or sixty eggs in a single nest. Other varieties, I may add, are the buaya tĕmbaga (Copper crocodile), the buaya katak (Dwarf crocodile), which is, as its name implies, “short and stout,” and the buaya hitam or bĕsi (Black or Iron crocodile), which is reported to attain a larger size than any other variety. This latter kind is often moss-grown, and is hence called buaya bĕrlumut (Mossy crocodile). The largest specimen of this variety of which I have had any reliable account is one which measured “four fathoms, less one hasta” (about 23 feet), and which was caught in the time of Sultan Mahmat at Sungei Sembilang, near Kuala Selangor, by one Nakhoda Kutib.
The buaya jolong-jolong, which has attracted attention owing to its reputed identification with the gavial of Indian waters, and which is therefore no true crocodile, is pointedly described by Malays as separating itself from the other species.
Finally, there is the buaya gulong tĕnun (the “Crocodile that Rolls up the Weft”?), which is not, however, the name of a separate variety, but is the name applied to the Young Person or New Woman of the world of crocodile-folk—the aggressive female who “snaps” at everything and everybody for the mere glory of the snap!
“After hatching,” says Mr. Wray, “the mother watches, and ... eats up all those which run away from the water, but should any escape her and get away on to the land they will turn into tigers.” There is perhaps more point in the Selangor tradition, according to which the little runaways turn, not into tigers, but into “iguanas” (Monitor lizards).
As regards the want of a tongue, which is supposed to be common to all crocodiles, it is said they were so created by design, in order that they might not acquire too pronounced a “taste” for human flesh. Hence the proverb which declares that no carrion is too bad for them to welcome: “Buaya mana tahu mĕnolak bangkei?” (“When will crocodiles refuse corpses?”)[288]
After the outbreak of ferocity (ganas) among the crocodiles in the Klang River last year, some account of the way in which the crocodile is here said to capture and destroy his human victims may prove of interest.
Every crocodile has, according to the Selangor Malay, three sets of fangs, which are named as follows: (1) si hampa daya[289] (two above and two below), at the tip of the jaws; (2) ĕntah-ĕntah (two in the upper and two in the lower jaw), half-way up; (3) charik kapan (two in the upper and two in the lower jaw), near the socket of the jaws.
The first may be translated by “Exhaust your devices”; the second by “Yes or no”; and the third by “Tear the shroud,” the latter being a reference to the selvage which, among the Malays, is torn off the shroud and afterwards used for tying it up when the corpse has been wrapped in it.
If a man is caught by the “Exhausters of all Resources,” he has a fair chance of escape; if caught by the “Debateable” teeth his escape is decidedly problematical; but if caught by the “Tearers of the Shroud,” he is to all intents and purposes a dead man. Whenever it effects a capture the crocodile carries its victim at once below the surface, and either tries to smother him in the soft, thick mud of the mangrove swamp, or pushes him under a snag or projecting root, with the object of letting him drown, while it retires to watch him from a short distance. After what it considers a sufficient interval to effect its purpose, the crocodile seizes the body of the drowned man and rises to the surface, when it “calls upon the Sun, Moon, and Stars to bear witness” that it was not guilty of the homicide—
“Bukan aku mĕmbunoh angkau,