From Man to Tiger

When in the blazing afternoon in the villages the dogs no longer bark and the people are too lazy to talk, when the trees are incomprehensible standing motionless in the oppressive silence, like only the red harrier sliding around in circles against the stark blue and his awful scream makes sound, then the heat waves vibrate above the deathly silent alang-alang fields where no living thing moves anymore.

But sometimes one sees in that steaming, silently waiting, tall grass one a few sharpened blades in a strange vibration; like a sword blade, which is drilled back and forth quickly, purely vertically.

Shakily set... says the sober Westerner; in the forest you see in apparently complete calm one often sees a single large leaf swaying aimlessly back and forth, with inexplicable force, and for a long time one after the other.

But the descendants of Bittertong in South Sumatra, those who keep the old traditions of the tribe, know better what that sprite makes them tremble, and they remember the great ancestor and his supernatural power.

Seroenting was his name; Padang Langgar in Pasemah Lébar, in the uplands of Palèmbang, was his village. He had neither father nor mother, and everyone knew that he was sakti, gifted with supernatural power.

He was married to Poetri Bidadari, a sister of Arija Tebing, also a powerful man in Pasemah.

The brothers-in-law had carved out their ladangs in the jungle, next to each other, only a felled tree trunk formed the border. But on the side of the rice field of the arija the bark of that tree trunk turned gold, while On Seroenting's side only mushrooms and toadstools grew. And all he sometimes turned the trunk at night, it was always gold for the brother-in-law, the mushrooms for him.

This was too much for the strong man and he scraped the gold from the other side towards him. But now harsh words fell, and the end was a life-and-death struggle between the brothers-in-law and their followers.

Since they were "sakti" for a while, no decision was made. It was However, it has come to the attention of the Arija that when he is in battle, brother-in-law shouted something challenging, his voice coming from a different direction each time direction answered. Tebing thought it advisable to give up the fight to suspend until he discovered his brother-in-law's secret, and he managed to persuade his sister to tell that secret to her husband. to extract.

One hot day, when Seroenting came home from a bath in the river, she suggested that he clean his long hair. The soft his wife's hands made his mind drowsy... and when she did that noticed, she wove her net to catch the no longer vigilant man.

The next day she was able to tell her brother that Seroenting had the power had to hide his soul in an alang-alang leaf. “Just look round,” he had said, “if there is one boom drilling, that's where I have it my soul hidden; no one knows that, and therefore one cannot kill. If only people knew that they could still hurt me by to spear a leaf with a handle of the bamban!”

Immediately Arija Tebing reopened hostilities; soon he had the opportunity to use a drilling alang-alang blade with a Donax handle impaled... the combatants suddenly saw Seroenting fall forward, with a bad wound on the leg, and from the broken leaf a leak drop of blood.

Seroenting had lost the battle. And from the drop of blood came the first Crippled Tiger born; his descendants live on the slopes of the volcano Dempo, and they are for others than Seroenting's descendants of the most feared animals in Sumatra's jungles.

Seroenting was so impressed by the betrayal that he decided to seek death at sea. He baked a large clay martavaan, sat down there and went down the river. But a bandjir chased the tempajan through the surf and set Seroenting on An island. There lived an old man who came from Modjopahit. Seroenting told him everything and asked him for help to be able to to avenge.

“Open your mouth... this is my helper,” said the old man and spit into his open mouth.

And when Seroenting said in surprise that this help would be of little use, the old man closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the old disappeared, and he saw that he was back in his own home, his wife had died of remorse.

People flocked to see this miracle. Now it was time party was celebrated, and Seroenting quickly had his sister rice washing at the river. But when she stayed away a little too long and he jokingly said: “she will be turned to stone!”... behold, there they found the Padang Pandjamoeran returned the girl as a stone statue.

Seroenting Sakti and those present now suddenly understood that he was the had been given the terrible power to turn people to stone curse, that his tongue (lidah) was sharp and bitter (pahit); Pahit Lidah (Bittertongue) now became his title.

Arija Tebing fled with all his followers to the west, to the wild forests of the Barisan Range. Near the Broken Mountain (Boekit Patah), between Pasemah Lébar and the marga Kelam, caught Bittertongue his brother-in-law and his family, but they hid well, so that Bittertongue couldn't find them. Then he cried out: "Then get away for good and turns to stone, or all kinds of diseases!”

“Good,” replied Arija Tebing, “we will be the perpetrators of diseases remain here on the Broken Mountain, and if your children and grandchildren pass here, we kill them”...

Small green birds (boeroeng idjong), which are found nowhere else prevent, still guard the mountain pass, and woe! to the descendant of Seroenting, who dares to brave their sharp beaks, the silent the jungle won't let him go again.

Poetri Bidadari had given Seroenting a son, Semidang Sakti named, and he became the progenitor of the great tribe Semidang, which is located west of the Broken Mountain on the west coast of South Sumatra, established and developed.

One of the centers of that tribe is the land around the wild Padang Goetji River, which provides its granite boulders as toys for the eternal surf, that rolls them rounder and smaller, and finally they are miles piles up far along the coast.

Centuries ago, a group of people walked along the upper reaches of the Padang Goetji River through the river never before trodden by human foot jungles, the undisturbed domain of elephant, rhinoceros and tapir.

Sangga Roedjoengan, a grandson of Bittertong, searched with his people to good, flat ground along the river, where one could build ladangs can be built. The wide elephant trails made searching easy, the first huts were set up on the water's edge, and already soon others from the country of origin also came to join the pioneer after.

They called the place where they rescued their rice fields from the heavy cut down forests, every year new ladangs were constructed, and people lived happily at the edge of the forest. Pigs soon started to eat them, though. to tease, and the monkeys learned that there was something to be had here; they also got the colonists regularly visited by herds of elephants, which only were chased away with the greatest difficulty after they had destroyed entire fields of rice grazed and trampled. But still the paddy yield was more than enough, and the dreaded smallpox, the disease that so many tribes ravaged before the Dutch fought it, did not seem to be going here come to this blessed place.

In the first years, the abandoned fields soon became new again forest grew up; but when the livestock increased, the cows the forest little opportunity to recover, and where the where the rice had stood, the ineradicable alang-alang sprang up. She was food for the cattle, and she became too old and too hard, so that the cattle no longer liked the sharp grass mixed as it in addition, with dead, decayed leaves, in the dry season the set on fire. Almost all the outflows and all deciduous wood storage were lost in the crackling flames, including all the nests of wild birds chickens, quails and larks; but on the black ground came After just a few days, the sharp, bright green blades of the ineradicable, and it was a feast for the cattle. Also deer and roe deer now came, in timid ear-play, from the edge of the forest, licked the salty ashes from the ground and grazed the blades... to often find prey of the lurking man who chased them wildly towards the in long row of tough rattan bows arranged in a row.

And so it went year after year. But not all the old alang-alang became fire to prey. Large quantities were nevertheless captured by the colonists cut, to be tied into bunches and used as roofing material houses.

On a blazing hot day Sangga Roedjoengan stood alang-alang cut at the furthest edge of the forest. It was already long past the hour that his woman had to bring him nasi (boiled rice) as usual, why Was she gone so long today? She couldn't possibly forget it. have... and how unbearably the sun sunk into his brains, he could hardly stand it; just now, that he also had such a incomprehensible thirst; surely his wife had a bamboo tube carrying water...

Mists came before his eyes, where was his wife, it was to go crazy!

At home the youngest child cried so piteously that for the first time sent the eldest girl to her father. She was so good, and in the middle of the hottest day she wouldn't have any angry pigs or meet other animals. The child put the basket of nasi on his head and went on her way, and when the bagul became heavy and the neck tired, she brought the hands on the temples, elbows spread out wide, that gave the head support.

In the deathly silent alang-alang, in the trembling heat waves, the father of thirst and hunger, and wild thoughts turned him into another creature. Look! what was that coming down the path?... that high forehead, that horns on the temples, wasn't that a deer? Meat to eat, blood to drink! He crawled down into the tall grass, and in one bound he seized the creature and devoured it raw to satisfy the internal fire to satisfy...

But when he felt long hairs in his mouth, he came to his senses and wondered what had happened to him. He rushed home, and when he heard that his child had been sent with the food, he ran he returned to the alang-alang and saw there, besides the remains of a body, a pair of bracelets, which he recognised all too well.

Sangga Roedjoengan understood and felt that he had changed; a wild lust drew him into the deep, cool forest, away from this light, away of the people. But he still had the strength to go to his wife and tell her that he had made a terrible mistake committed...

“Don't stop me, I'm not human anymore like I used to be, I have to away, into the forest. You will never see me as a human being again, but I am not lost to you: if you or the children, and all our descendants, have soesah, then look me up on "di Padang Soedoet", on the edge of the jungle. Then make a sanggal, an offering of four raw chicken eggs and “padi dirandang”, [5] and place the eggs between lamang [6]. But, woman, tell the children that neither she nor any of our tribe will never again be allowed to wear a bakul on their head, and never may walk with my hands on my temples. I feel that I am The Old One, Setuwo [7] will become, and as I now wear a white loincloth, "I will be recognizable by a white ribbon"... and with that he was disappeared.

It is only ten years ago that the people of Briang lacked were given land and had to move away from the old country. Amaloedin, the lame, was the last, who the tiger-turned-ancestor with a sanggal was called upon at the edge of the forest when there was trouble in the tribe; he has been dead for six years now, and no one knows exactly how Amaloedin kept in touch with the ancestor.

But who of the tribe does not remember how the great royal tiger with the white belly often showed itself at parties, and how he quietly stretched out by one of the bonfires and experienced the joy of his many descendants! How many remember, that they threw at the animal as a little boy, and how deadly they were terrified when he attacked them, although he did not harm them evil. And those who, against the customary prohibition, brought bananas to a party, had to undergo punishment, that the tiger threatened them hand grabbed, but without biting through.

Although the bond is now broken, the last ones who lived in Briang, would not have the courage to carry a basket on their heads, and for the entire tribe of Semidang is still under the sacred ban of walking to put their hands to their temples because this is terrible brought disaster upon Bittertongue's grandson.