"I MUST MENG AMOK”.

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 July 1927, Page 9

"I MUST MENG AMOK”.

lad lalays become Dealers of Death, Seeking Death for Themselves, and Oblivion ...

A literally, means a desZjl perate and furious attack, ••either of an individual or a body of men, and it seems a queer dispensation of Providence that the generally light-hearted Malays should be so frequently smitten with that irresistible blood-lust which leads them to arise without warning, seize whatever weapon comes handy, mid ruthlessly slash or slay all in their path. Though not entirely unknown in other races, this’ sudden onset of uncontrollable homicidal mania is so much more common to the Malays that it may almost b e termed a racial trait. It seems almost certain—and the investigations of medical men in mod-

ern times bears out the contention that a large proportion of “amoks” are persons actually suffering from a violent, if temporary, form of insanity. The Malay, though a pleasurelover and a sportsman, seems to have a queer mentality, a strange inexplicable twist. Any real or fancied insult; any trouble, domestic or financial, apparently preys on his mind. He is apt to brood upon his wrongs and he becomes filled with a malignant gloom and despair, until he works himself up to a stage which has the “amok” as its finale. It must be remembered that until quite recent times the Malay habitually carried a perfect arsenal of weapons about with him, and was well used to killing, in self-defence or otherwise. Also, from time immemorial, to run amok has been the common and traditional manner for a Malay who is thoroughly “fed up” with everything to end his troubles. The Japanese commits “hara-kiri,” the Chtinese suicides on his enemy’s doorstep, the European ends his life in more or less ingenious ways, but Malay custom spells “amok,” and custom is very strong in the Orient. The Malays hav e never taken much notice of mentally afflicted persons, unless they were absolutely outrageous, when they were speedily abolished, and the result is that there must be many people at large who, if they were medically examined in the light of modern knowledge, would be put under restraint. Natives are usually rather reluctant to consult European doctors and if a man shows signs of derangement it is extremely unlikely that his relations will do anything that would lead to an inquiry by a white man. The disease, therefore, has time to develop, until, one day, a hair turns the scale and an armed madman, hungry for blood, andi entirely irresponsible, is turned loose on the community. It is practically’ certain that 60 per cent, of men who “meng amok” come from this class and are more or less mentally diseased. The man gets upset by something that seems serious to him; he broods over it and says to himself: "I must meng amok.” It is the only course that suggests itself, for he knows that when Malays are hard-hit this is what they do. It is the only dignified and honourable way out and he knows that if he is very

Copyright.—THE SUN Feature Service. i desperate indeed he will be spoken of with awe and respect when he is dead. I The thought of “amok” becomes une i idee fixe and the slightest incident is | then enough to set him off. Once ! started, he loses all control —“sees 1 red” in fact —and will attack anybody, i friends or foes, men and women, old or young, with an equal ferocity. He is a mad dog, a mere dealer of death, which he seeks, and, with it, oblivion. There is only one thing to do with a real amok, and that is to “out him”

* From ii no live draining of a Malay who Inis Perilled to "meng amok.’’ as quickly as possible, for amoks have been known to kill or wound upwards of a dozen persons before they could be disarmed, or otherwise rendered harmless. Once the fit has passed, an amok may become quite tame again and express regret, and even horror, at what he has done; “My eyes were darkened,” said one such. “The devil entered into me. I knew not what I was doing.” The amok has been known and his butcheries recorded for centuries. Not long ago I had the opportunity of examining a quaint broadsheet dated 1642, which related, with a wealth of lurid detail, how the crew of an English trading ship, the “Coster,” lying in the Roads of Bantam, were murdered by a Javan amok. It appears that “a proper young man, a Java,” paddled off to the Coster in a “prow,” with “Hews and goates to selle.” He sold six “Hews” (ewes?) for “halfe a Royall of 8, which is not much above two shillings,” and then sent a friend of his, away in hsi “prow” for more “Hews.” “Nighte being come and verie darke, for it was the wane of the Moone,” continues this queer chronicle, “this inhumaine dogge staid lurking under the half-decke, having two Crests, or waving daggers, verie dangerous, and a Buckler, of which he would have solde one and the Buckler with it. As he was discoursing, he took off one of the

Crest’s hefts and put clothe about the tongue of the Blade, and made it sure faste: on the other Crest h® rolled the handle with a fine linnen clothe to mak e . it alsoe sure from slipping in the hande.” The Master ot the Coster, Robert Start, with four of his officers, and three boys to wait on them, then had their supper, “at which they were all, verie merrie,” and the Java man “took notice of their carelessnesse of him to suffer him to sit on the quarter decke upon a cot close by them.” Supper finished, Start went to his cabin to rest, having first given the gunner, James Biggs. leave to go ashore. “The mate. Stephen Roberts, and the steward, William Parks, walked upon the quarter decke and the devilish Java, perceiving the Master to be absent, asked the Boyes where he was. who answered he was gone to sleepe. He then arose from the place where be sate and went about the table next the MizzenMaste with his target about his necke for defence against pikes and the like, and his two Crests in his liandes.”

“Upon a sudden he cries ’a Muck,’ which in that language is T run or hazard my death.’ The first he stab’d Roberts, secondely stab’d Rawlinson (Hugh Rawlinson was the “chirurgeon”) thirdly Perks, all three at an instante. After that he let drive at the Boyes, but they J eap’d down and raune into the forecastle where they found the Cooke to whom the Boyes related what had happened.”

The writer goes on to give intimate and bloody details, in the best style of yellow journalism, of the “Java’s” subsequent behaviour and concludes: “It is observable that all of these men. that were thus butchered, the Helhounde did never stab any man twice, so sure did he strike, nor did he pursue any man that kept clear of his stand under the quarter decke. So there died in all in the bloody action, Robert Start, Stephen Roberts, Hugh Rawlinson, William Perks, Walter Rogers, gunner’s mate, and Francis Drake, Trumpeter of the ‘Mary.’ And after the Muck, Java or Devill had ended the first part of the bloody tragedie, there was only left in the shippe, 3 Boyes, the Cooke and one John Taylor that was almost dead with a shotte he had foolishly made, so that seven men were unfortunately lost and from the like of this Related Disaster and suddaine mischiefes. Good Lord deliver us!”

In the above quaint but graphic account, the fact stands out clearly that a Malay was a handy man with a kris (or Crest!) and knew exactly where to stick his enemy so as to do the most damage with the least expenditure of time and effort. Six men killed in a trice, and one ass badly injured by “the shotte he had foolishly made!" Not a bad effort on the Java man’s part—but I am’still wondering who Francis Drake, the Trumpeter of the Mary, could have been! W. W. DUNSTERVILLB.