Joseph the Hornbill

The rhinoceros hornbill Anggang had called a meeting of many of dissatisfied people in the bird world.

The meeting had a revolutionary character, its purpose was no less then the deposition of the king of all birds. Until the moment that the hornbill took the lead of the opposition, Kang-kok was king been in the Malay lands, and throughout the centuries there had been peace and prosperity prevailed. The Raja was small and modest, but he was just and wise; so wise that he knew how to predict whether harvest year would bring an abundance of grains and fruits. Now people know that the rice harvest will be successful if the friendly bird is eloquent and for weeks on end edge of the forest recalls its name. It is a annoying rhyme in the long run, because the bird in tune and time is rock solid, but the sound is sweet and intimate, and the main thing is that his female on her nest seems to appreciate it very much and that the monotonous song will not bore her: kang-kang-kang-kòk... kang-kang-kang-kòk.

It was especially the large birds that revolted. They thought it was ridiculous to be made such an insignificant bird governed.

“Look at my body,” the rhinoceros hornbill Anggang had said, “Listen to my mighty sound, and consider the crown upon my head head!” and the meeting had decided to depose Kang-kok and to recognize the giant as chief.

But soon there was repentance. The new king rejected all the forest fruits to the members of his race, and these gluttons left nothing over for the little ones.

And another meeting was called, and it was decided to honor Kang-kok to restore. But he had sent his entire family away from the ungrateful country, to Java, and he himself could not forget what was done to him had done. Yet in the end he yielded to the pressure of the those who repent, they were allowed to take one kangkok egg from Java.

Good advice was expensive, who would do that? Finally a little little bird from the rimba, that his friend the hover butterfly would ready to play, which glides so long on its great wings of cream with black dots, without doing a single stroke, he could get over the egg to take.

The good butterfly acquitted itself well of the difficult task; the booby hatched the egg with such devotion that this red cuckoo was left with a bald belly, to this day; and the black forktail, which dares to chase even the largest birds of prey in flight bombarded, kept watch. And when the king's child was grown up and Raja was elevated, the entire Kang-kok family returned to the Malay lands.

The giant with the crowned head and the greedy mouth will not much to have been concerned about, that he lost the king's title. He swallows no less fruit for it, and its mighty sound still dominates the whole forest.

Listen! Above the wide ravine comes an echo from the white clouds, two Black dots are visible. "A-ngok" sounds nasally heavy. the silent rimba, where all that lives seems to listen. And now the giant couple approaches, a wonderful sound comes roaring, the heavy, rhythmic sound of the wingbeat. "Shoo, shoo," blows and whistles the air between the feather shafts and along the wing bones with their thin-walled cells and an astonishing air supply. If the two wing pairs have the same tempo, the powerful sound is definitely threatening, but it is always the case that one has to look out for it Listen, only the cicada continues its eternal whining. It is clear now to see the mighty head on the outstretched neck, also the black body; the tail is white, but in the middle it runs over all the feathers a broad, black band; those tail feathers of the angang used to be the heroic sign for the Dayaks; only those who had a head hastened, they might adorn the scabbard of their sword with it.

Is the anggang—that is how the Malay ear understands the call that begins with “a-ngok” is shown—so a dominant man, he is not the biggest rhinoceros hornbill in India. But the very largest, which from beak tip to tail end measures one and a half meters, is so shy and comes out so much less so common that only a few Europeans know of its existence. The natives call it the ivory bird because of its massive head-crown, from which the Dayaks in Borneo in particular carve beautiful decorations. The The Dutch have named him “laughing bird”; this name seems entirely to be wrongly given if one only hears the beginning of the concert, which he gives in the highest trees of the rimba, and that he, seized with fear, often breaks down; the coward, who by must suffer fear that he, in a previous incarnation as a human being, mother-in-law has murdered. He is very secretive and spies anxiously round; the tail, ending in two feathers, which are almost ninety centimeters long, hangs vertically. Is everything still? moves nothing down there? around? no danger anywhere??... "Ooooh!" echoes now above the silent forest, but then he spies around for a long time again or his call has not awakened any danger. Finally, the second call, after a slightly shorter pause the next, and the safer he gradually feels, the shorter the pauses become, mathematically pure, and finally, if one wonders what this is all about, when it goes, the giant bird ends in a mocking laugh, no more "oo" but clearly "a"...hahahaha! The Malay legend doesn't go that far, but it is as if he fears that he will meet the ghost of his mother-in-law calls; if he doesn't discover them, everything goes well, then he laughs at her and for his own fear.

Smaller than the Anggang are the black-billed hornbills, and the white-beaked birds, which come in large groups and chatter endlessly come to the kampungs when there are ripe ficus fruits to feast on. But they are playful rascals compared to the worthy gang, who by his character and his pride even makes the laughing stock in the shadow casts. And man knows him so much better, because the anggang, young caught, quickly adapts to the new situation; within a few weeks he can be freed from the traditional rope on one of the legs and enjoys its existence in complete freedom, as housemate of man; however, he must be clipped a little become, because otherwise he would venture on long flights and by his tameness would make him an easy prey for others than his master.

We have had various anggangs in the Indies over the years had, none as long as the last in line, our good Joseph.

Joseph was born in a tree hollow. The Malay who brought him to me, had seen in the forest, not far from his ladang house, that a he walled up a hole in a tree with clay and he had understood that he was busy keeping his mate for four weeks or more busy forest world to separate. Only a small gap remains in the masonry spared, allowing the hardworking man to feed his wife. He does this out of jealousy, they say, and he must be so jealous that he turns indignantly away from further feeding when he discovers, that another anggang male is staying at the nest and going inside peeks. The poor, innocent mother and her offspring then die starvation, as she is completely dependent on the food pellets made from insects, tree fruits and parts of creeping things, which her husband hands her in his pointed beak.

Joseph's mother had apparently given no cause for jealousy; when the great moment of deliverance had arrived it will parents have removed the masonry with combined efforts, and on One day the Malay saw on the branches of the tree a long, motionless sitting still stiff mother and her offspring, strange, monstrous creatures. The man had no other anggang's noticed and when some time later, informed by a foolish violence that made a gangway low to the ground, between the When he found a young bush, he understood it was a member of the family he knew to have captured. He and his children fed the animal with bananas (bananas) and boiled rice, as the average inhabitant is used to to feed all the captive birds; they are then very surprised if some bird of prey refuses to eat and just sits down "stubbornly" to die in the small cage; this time it went well, by chance one cannot force better food into the big mouth of the small one. And when a decent price could be asked for him, he was sold to us.

We already knew that an anggang cannot be caressed; stroking it the head or over the back is a delight for parrots and lories, but Apart from these "head scratchers" birds are not particularly keen on it. But if you take a boy who has already adapted somewhat when near to the human being, he speaks affectionately, then he reacts he in a soft, suppressed monotone, which we heard as “jóos”. That is why we call the anggangs Joseph, and this Joseph responded always, when one brought a sweet inflection to his name sound.

Joseph had been in a small, dirty cubicle, his toilet was bad well-groomed, the long eyelashes around the intelligent eyes with their human eyelids were covered with red lice, and it did it hurt him terribly when he was gently released from it; he has I haven't been able to completely forgive myself for that in years.

Joseph was actually deformed, especially in the early years of his life, when he was not yet fully grown, a process about which the anggang at least three years. Especially the nest hairs on the heavy neck were so poorly groomed, and then that crazy head! Only later, when the red crown swelled and the feathers were smooth, Joos saw presentable, but still it remained a wonderful whole, especially as he hopped around on the coarse, grabby feet; they were completely not created for it, yet he did it with apparent pleasure, even though had to be stopped frequently on a long journey. Besides, There were other reasons for this too: nothing could fly above him or move, until swallows high in the clouds, or Joseph turned his head 90 degrees and looked at the object in thoughtful philosophizing with the above accustomed eye, and he cared nothing if people laughed about it.

Joseph was busy all day long, either in motion or as a wise philosopher; he rarely slept during the day when there were people around with whom he sought contact in his own way. His daily life was the garden boy, who took care of plants and animals, the grass on the lawns kept the grass short and weeded the paths. Joseph was especially good at this last task full of genuine interest, and for hours he sat at the "kebon" and watched, scanning the sky with one eye and saying every now and then then very softly: jóos. But his interest was especially focused on the very nice white pebbles on the gravel paths, he picked them out, felt she grabbed them, threw them a few inches into the air and caught them again. Joseph was a great catcher, he never missed. When this was noticed, of course we did all kinds of fishing experiments with him, and we never seeing that he missed the smallest grain of rice!

The kebon did not have its company, that depended on the events of the day. When our children during the World War II came from Holland, an important part of his affection on them. And when the girls in the back porch were doing handicrafts, he could spend a whole morning next to her on the latticework around the gallery, dreamily philosophizing or trying hard to spin a captured colorful woolen thread and to catch it again, in which case he naturally does so with great had to face difficulties.

In this quiet existence suddenly a very important event occurred open up a new field of interest and work. The children had somewhere two very young monkeys were rescued from the hands of teasing boys, and the garden boy had a young piglet, which in some incomprehensible way had escaped from a Chinese pigsty somewhere and ended up in an almost dry The well had landed, fished out of the mud. Now it couldn't be helped, or a large aviary had to be built in which to house this menagerie could come into its own. Soon the monkeys avoided monkey bars and swings, installed in the aviary, and one of them took a daily ride on the back of the vehemently protesting piglet. A new world for Joseph, and a bustle and action as he were completely foreign to him. For months he was interested spectator, from outside the mesh, and closer and closer he ventured to the grasping hands of the monkeys, which with sudden attacks tried to catch Joseph's tail when he tried to do so gave a chance. But a punishing blow with the axe, as we call Joseph's called beak, made them shrink back, only to immediately take the good chance again to spy on. Sometimes they kept Joseph busy with a teasing hand, with a straight face, carefully putting a hind leg through the coarse to slide the meshes of the netting straight out and thus create the attractive tail to approach. But it always remained a gentle game and They never actually did each other any harm. Such was a great friendship arise, and when they have their afternoon meal of rice and bananas or other fruits, there was a pleasant bustle at the aviary, the monkeys and the piglet inside, Joseph as an interested audience outside the aviary.

One day we saw something very strange happen.

Joseph had apparently swallowed a sufficient portion of banana and was left with a piece of banana in his beak. Suddenly he made a decision, jumped right up against the mesh and stabbed one of the monkeys with the piece of banana which was immediately and gladly accepted; the cheek pouches were actually already full, no need to worry, pushing with the back of the hand Still made room. That had to be a coincidence! We knew how “human” Joseph was, but this seemed so incredible to us, that here It must have been pure coincidence. But no, from that day on Joseph regularly serves the gentlemen. Especially Klappie, the little one the clapper monkey with his mischievous pig tail, was privileged and the little rascal soon regarded this with a certain air of quasi-indifference as a right due to him. When he saw that when the moment came, he huddled in a corner of the aviary, on the ground, hands on lap, head turned away indifferently. And good Joseph hopped up and presented him with the tasty morsel, that with one hand, as if it were actually too much for him, was mercifully given accepted. Whenever we had guests, the show was given, many have convinced themselves of this remarkable event.

Then came the big move to Palembang, our children had left us abandoned again, and so we said goodbye to the monkeys and the piglet, who had now become a fat little pig; they went into the hands of another animal lover; by giving them the freedom give, as we had done with our forest birds, we would degenerate little guys have been driven to their death. But Joseph traveled of course with us. The residents' house in Palembang has the rear a large yard, completely surrounded by outbuildings and heavy fences enclosed and planted with various shady fruit trees, a dorado for Joseph. He must have missed his monkeys very much; well We had a boy dog, but he was far too busy with trotting around rather than being a quiet friend to Joseph. But the clever one knew what to do, he waited until the dog was sleeping somewhere, approached him and tried to find some delicacy among the to wring closed lips! but the dismay was always big, the animal could not grasp that Joseph's sharp axe as a sign of friendship and caring love pricked him in the gums, and every time he flew up with a nasty scream and fled the still just escaped mortal danger. Poor Joseph looked very unhappy, and he turned one eye toward the clouds to make heaven a witness taking his noble intentions.

Then one morning a man came from the Upper Moesi with a young deer. buy a buck, but there was still no trace of the first antler knobs. Hans now became Joseph's comrade, a wild deer from the rough bushes and a bird from the tall trees sworn comrades!

Still, it took months for the two to get used to each other immediate proximity, but then the moment came for Joseph too there, to show his affection. Hans was also there in the not at all pleased, for him it was easy to take the bait to escape, he raised his head in the air, his ears back, but again and again the good bird did his best, and judging by what If what happened later happened, his attempts may not always have been rejected.

One fine morning we were called by our cook, we had to come and see immediately, now something happened that the which brought the servants into great astonishment!

The cook had a batch of potatoes early in the morning, which started to run out, to air placed on the large water reservoir of concrete, which has been applied to the backyard of the house. Hans Rook, that there was something there to his liking, but even if he went on tiptoe standing and tensed his neck like a violin string, the searching mumbler lips did not yet reach the edge of the box. Now Joseph saw his chance, he flew to the reservoir, picked out the best potatoes and handed them out his friend!

This is for us animal lovers who have had all kinds of animals and tried to get to know all their peculiarities by studying them carefully to be them, a moment that is still recalled every now and then the most remarkable thing we have learned from our "irrational" friends polite. And only now, that I record the story of good Joseph, I understood him. It cannot be otherwise, that Joseph felt within himself the urge to do what his father and grandfathers had done, back when they give their walled-in wife the carefully saved morsels through the clay window; Joseph's father's heart spoke! And although this sounds bad, if one makes a comparison between the nature and the body size of a deer and a bird and the deer as the mother with the babies thinks, Joseph felt like the father and he fulfilled to the great law which had imposed upon him the duty of feeding.

Of course, Jozef moved with us to Médan, with Hans. But he soon became the boss of the deer park, and Jozef has never had a special everyday friend among the animals again. Besides, he had little time for it now, because he had taken over the supervision of all animals on the property of the governor's residence in Médan, which deserves to be called a park and where a family of animal lovers enjoy themselves to their heart's content can devote to hobbies.

His everyday human friend was still the faithful garden boy of Bengkoelen and more and more Joseph joined him and watched, that he did not harm any of his fellow animals. And there were some like that. Work started early with the chickens, which the garden boy took care of took the utmost care; he, Lakasah, was very proud of the Plymouth Rocks, who received the first care; then came the small flock of Rhode Islands, but he looked down on them since a feather picker came under them was, which his boss just wouldn't clean up. Joseph didn't like chickens much interesting; or he just acted that way because chicks were very interest, so much so that he was once surprised, just as he was about to to give that retarded little thing a decent grave. That chick remained always behind, as mother hen crowed with her brood; Joseph saw his chance, his subconscious spoke of delicious mice and crawling animals, which form an important part of the anggang menu in the wilderness, the mother hen had disappeared behind a bush, he didn't have to not to fear that she would come at him like a frigate with full sail storms... and the never-missing axe did its job well.

Joseph often stayed at the large cage of the beo, the talking bird a time behind Lakasah's daily round. He, Joseph, who only made his soft sound heard now and then, must have had respect for the béo, the most perfect talking bird in the world world; could not this call and speak and whistle like men; and then his masterful coughing and coughing!... there was that nasty one again gasping Chinese coolie, who had thrown stones months ago lugged? Why did that heavy garage door suddenly creak? open, while it was closed? Yes, yes, I will! said the boy with a wooden face; sharp beady eyes peered out from his yellow beak to the silent Joseph with his giant head.

Then he went on again, after Lakasah. Another screamer now received his visit; he was a flame-red lout from Ternate, who a grateful Malay boy, who had become a civil servant there, had given me sent; therefore the loerie was gratefully accepted, but he put every now and then the whole area turned upside down; he could be angelically sweet to flatter and flatter; when calling the names of the servants his sound is more of a deafening roar of laughter, but when he puts it on his hips and spoke Ternate, at least unintelligibly, then there came into his speeches such a fervor that it caused ranting and cursing seemed so bad that it once made a fusilier blush.

Now it was Dora's turn, the baby orangutan, who at this time of the day she savored her bottle of milk; but Dora was no Joseph's close friend, she was too cunning for him. She was too much for people a soft, breathing child and her beautiful brown eyes looked sweet; but oh woe! if any beast she dared to touch came within her reach; then the muscular arm shot out unexpectedly, and Joseph had experienced, that that arm was much, much longer than one would expect.

In the same way Joseph performed his daily duties with many other animals. tour, and then he reported to the housewife, as if he came report. We became more and more attached to the good, sociable animal, which was almost no longer an animal; there was also such a human expression came into the eyes with their beautiful, long eyelashes; dear, good Joos.

One afternoon in the summer of 1923, Joseph was resting on a low branch, looking at the setting sun. He had me with his soft shouted greetings as I passed him, towards the tennis court. Immediately it must have happened then, because I hadn't reached the field yet, when Lakasah came running after me, deathly pale and with trembling lips, to tell me that Joseph lay dead in the grass, under the branch, where he had given his last greeting to his boss. A heart failure must have taken him from us.

That evening, laughter had died down in the governor's house at Médan.