The "Orang Boenian"

The Orang Boenian are beings similar to humans, but they are visible only to him who is married to a Boenian girl. They are braver than humans, because lies are unknown to them. Still, it scares the young man who is somewhere on the low dam unexpectedly finds a delicacy in his sawah, on colorful leaves offered by a ghost girl, who has been watching him while he working in his rice field, and that comes to ask him this way to become a man.

The Boenians live and die like ordinary human children, they build also houses, and they keep chickens and cattle. The people of Tilatang at Fort de Kock knows very well that in the past there were numerous buffalo tracks from the cave in the Boekit Boenian, the Mountain of the Hidden, but one has never seen a carabao.

They occur in almost all regions of Sumatra, most of them in Minangkabau, the Padang highlands. They usually live in caves, or they build their homes invisible to humans somewhere in dense bamboo chairs, in the inaccessible tangle of branches and aerial roots of a gigantic ficus tree, and in the rimba, the deep jungle; sometimes on top of high mountains, where every sound is muffled is covered with heavy mosses, which cover trunks, branches and lianas with a cover with a thick layer.

In wild nights they come to the hulling mills of men to get their rice to stamp, or they are celebrating, and in the vague sounds of the storm the Malay ear clearly hears the singing boom of the large gong.

And one listens long, very long, in the caves of the limestone mountains of Kamang, where the ghostly restlessness of the bats and their croaking cries cannot break the grave silence, then one first hears the taps of eternally dripping water, but it turns into a soft, trembling tone of brass instruments, far in the deep dark... the “gamelan” of the Orang Boenian.

It had already begun to get dark the day before in the gray morning twilight drizzling, and still the trees at the edge of the forest were drizzling and in a misty haze hidden.

The datoek, head of the people in his kampung, had been living there for some time now Matoe, his eldest wife. They sat before one of the open windows of the house, and they talked about the paddy, which had just run out, and about a troop of brazen monkeys that had come out of the forest. Two of the they had caught animals when they were busy harvesting the young rice shoots to pull it out carefully to get the grain; it was impossible to keep the monkeys out of the ladang, yet they laughed at their human, pinching fingers, to show the deep seriousness of their work.

They looked out into the gray day.

He saw first the little black man, who suddenly appeared from the mist stepped, somewhere between the trees, and who now came walking into the yard and hung his black knapsack on a projecting beam of the rice barn. And when that man asked if the datoek was home and he invited to come upstairs, he came up the stairs, went on the way Matoe offered to sit down and silently drank the coffee which she offered to the men front.

The datuk was also silent, he felt strangely. What did he feel? right?... what was it again, what did he know about this black man?

And suddenly he had a dream. A woman had spoken to him and asked him if he would marry her daughter. He was very had been surprised and had asked for time to think about it; then she had told him, that he should just tell the decision to "the black tuankoe". He woke up in surprise, it was already getting dark, the moor [9] was whistling the people woke up with his jubilant song and the dream was soon Forgotten. But now everything came back with oppressive clarity...

“I have come to get the answer,” said only the old black man. The datoek could not think properly anymore, he was completely confused.

“Yes...” he heard himself say timidly, “I would like to go with you daughter to marry.”

And when the old man immediately went away and took his black knapsack over hit the shoulder, Matoe and her husband saw that he suddenly had disappeared.

“Hi!” shivered the datoek, “that must be a Boenian!” and Matoe cried.

In the middle of the night the datoek felt that someone was waking him up; he groped around, but felt nothing. He understood that the Hidden Ones were shouted and stood up.

He was in a house as beautiful as he had ever seen; it consisted of no less than thirteen rows, the spaces between the rows of poles on which the roof rests. The house was completely walled with planks and spotless white. There were many people, including the old man who had looked up, and now the feast of his marriage to Si was celebrated Boengo, the Flower, the beautiful daughter of the black tuankoe.

Early in the morning the datoek got up and went out to take a bath to take to the well and say morning prayers. But when he the first scoop of water poured over him... look! there he stood to bathe at his own well, next to his own rice hulling mill, and when he wanted to go back to the beautiful Boengo in the white house, he saw just the usual everyday surroundings. Now he stood before Matoe's house, inside everyone was still sleeping peacefully, the door was closed and he had to wake Matoe to get in. Even the door of the Matoe had found the bedroom still locked... and now they knew that the datoek had been carried away by ghost people.

In the evening of the next day the datuk went to the surau, the prayer house where he would say his evening prayers. He thought about the happened, was it real? He saw the beautiful young woman again for himself and longed intensely to be with her.

Suddenly the black tuankoe stood before him and he could no longer thinking. He wanted to try to remember what would happen to him, but before he knew it he was in the white house, and Boengo was there it.

Four times the old man brought him to his home, but then he said: "I can't always come and get you, you have to ask Boengo now, how to find your way to us.”

“If your heart is drawn strongly to me,” the Flower answered him, “if you really longs for me, then go to the Batoe Gadang, the great stone at the bridge of Loendang. Do you see a different image on that stone? lemon leaf lying there, then pick it up and rub it over your closed eyes, and you will see the way to our house. But never come with others people, and if there is no lemon leaf on the stone, then don't do anything difficulty in finding the way in the thorn bamboo near that stone. You Your clothes will be torn to shreds and you will become seriously ill.”

The iron track runs a few dozen meters from that stone Fort de Kock to Paja Koemboeh, and from the train the travelers see a large boulder in the streambed. Right next to it lies a small grove bamboo doeri, for humans and larger animals completely inaccessible, a wall, woven by sharp thorned, tough stems.

But every time the datuk rubbed the fragrant leaf over the closed eyes, There was a white path in that little wood, and it led to the house of the ghost people.

When the marriage of the datoek and the beautiful ghost woman with children was blessed, only then did Boengo want to tell him the traditions of her tribe stories, also, how the Hidden Ones come from earthly people.

At the time when Muhammad the Prophet was still on earth, there were two sisters; one was married to a rich man, the other had a poor marriage took place. The rich man once gave a big party and invited Muhammad, the Prophet. The poor man also wanted to show him courtesy and show respect, but how could they do it with their poverty!

“You know what,” said the poor man, “you go around the villages and ask what they say.” you can miss it, you can buy rice and spices there. I will enter the forest and shoot halal [10] game; then we can also have a feast and pray for blessings.”

They went. The woman was helped here and there and was able to make her purchases do. But he chased the whole forest without finding a single piece of game. see. He went home sadly, but near his house crept an animal through the bushes, and quickly he had it out of his sight with an arrow put down the blowgun. But how ashamed he was when he saw that it was a big cat, snow white, as all cats were at that time.

But... soedahlah, just a cat, nobody would notice it anyway, The party had to go on, the prophet had just given the invitation accepted. He quickly skinned the animal, cut off its head and legs, and brought it to his wife: and she made of the flesh and the spices all kinds of delicious dishes, for the feast of Mohammad the prophet.

The guests came, including the prophet, and they sat down. He was used to having his favorite cat with him at mealtimes, and when he not seeing him, he asked about it and then called the animal in a loud voice.

O! the righteous Allah, from all the dishes there sprang up multitudes cats, colored, striped, speckled... the poor man had the the prophet's favorite cat killed, and, revived in dozens, the animal jumped out of the dishes made from its flesh, appear, the white coat in colorful variation drawn by the traces and the colours of the different spices.

Terrified and ashamed, the poor couple fled to the dark woods, and they hid there from the wrath of the prophet, for the mockery of men. But hunger drove them into the forest out, and they went to the prophet, and humbled themselves before him, begged for mercy.

The prophet was not angry, for he had so many beautiful cats for who got a white one back. But the poor people remained the laughing stock of people feared, they could not bear this, and now they begged they asked Muhammad to hide them from the others. They were always good been and faithful, they had never done anything bad before this one had happened, which they had intended only to show respect to the prophet prove.

In great compassion the prophet prayed to God for the poor people to make them invisible to their fellow human beings, and thus the first Orang Boenian... for Allah's Almighty nothing is impossible!