Comic Tales of Api Salui by Benedict Sandin Sarawak Museum Journal July-December 1960
Tom’s Note: The below story has been passed from generation to generation among the Ibans. It tells a tale of a wise wife with her stupid husband. The Malays in the kampongs across the river also have similar accounts. They tell of a man named Pak Aloi, the not so bright husband, and the wife, Mak Aloi. From these stories, the word paloi, a mentally diminished individual, has entered the Sarawak Malay lexicon.
Apai Salui Catches a Pig
Once upon a time, she says: “there was a man named Apai Salui (Salui’s father) who was married with two sons. The name of his firstborn was Salui and, of the younger, Ensali. Apai Salui was a habitual cheat, and although his trickery was feeble, he would often seriously hurt himself.
One bright morning, Apai Salui led his sons out to set traps in the jungle. After all the traps had been set, they returned. They meant to look at them again the next day. Early next morning, Apai Salui took his sons, Salui and Ensali, to see if the traps had caught anything. As they came near one of the traps, Salui looked up and saw the body of a dead pig lying close to the trap. He called out and said, “father, there is a body of a dead pig killed by the trap”. He heard it was not a pig but a spathe of nibong palm. Hearing his father’s words, Ensali looked again towards the trap and saw that it was a dead pig. He assured his father that it could not be a nibong spathe.
At Ensali’s words, his father suddenly pretended to be seriously sick. He ordered his sons to take him home lest he die on the way. They took him home. On the way, he repeatedly cried with scary sounds to show he was really ill. When they reached home, they laid him down and covered him with a blanket made of tekalong bark. The two sons then massaged his head and limbs. Soon, Apai Salui said he wished to evacuate his bowels. He got up and set fire to the skirt of his loincloth (sirat), made of bark. Noticing the flames, Salui and Ensali tried to put them out at once. “Don’t bother”, said Apai Salui, the smoke will drive away mosquitoes as I relieve myself” Apai Salui went out of the house, but he did not go near the toilet place; instead, he went into the jungle where the dead pig was. He lit a fire from his burning loincloth to roast the pig on the spot. As fast as he could cook it, he ate as much of the meat as his stomach would hold.
Meanwhile, Salui and Ensali were waiting for him to return and getting worried. They were afraid that their father might have died. Finally’ heavy with this thought, they went to the toilet place to find him. Seeing he was not there, the two brothers ran home to tell their mother, Indai Salui. She was upset to hear this; she could not think what had happened, so she took her sons off with her to the spot to see what was going on.
When they came near the trap, they saw a cloud of smoke from the roasting meat. In her anger, Indai Salui thought it best to frighten Apai Salui. She remembered that Apai Salui had always been afraid of the voice of the cicada insect. So she told Salui and Ensali to hide quietly in the bush and shrieked the cicada call, again and again. When Apai Salui heard the cicada shrieking, ngit-ngit-ngitngit-ngit, he was overcome with fear.
The continuous cicada shrieking frightened him badly. He thought of running away. Apai Salui ate lump after lump of meat, though his fear of the cicada did not stop. “What will happen to me”? He thought to himself. Then Salui and Ensali moved nearer to their father to see what was happening. As they moved, they noticed that he angrily took the lumps of meat and threw them towards the cicada with the following words: “Cicada, this is enough for your share and do not beg for more.” Salui’s mother took no notice of what Apai Salih said. She shrieked again and again as she gradually approached Apai Salui was now very afraid of the noise and threw another lump of meat, asking the cicada to wolf it up. Indai Salui took no notice at all. She continued shrieking ngit-ngit-ngit-ngit-ngit. Still hearing the cicada’s noise, Apai threw all the meat and dashed hurriedly away for home. After Apai Salui had gone, Salui’s mother stopped shrieking. She and her sons started to gather all the remaining meat which Salui had thrown left and right, into the bushes. After they had gathered it all up, they returned home.
Satui quickly sliced the food. After the meat had been cooked, in came Apai Salui, still pretending to be sick. He laid himself down, entirely covered with the blanket of bark. As he lay, sounding gravely ill, he called for Salui and Ensali to come and dress him. They came accordingly, pretending to be unaware that he was not ill at all. After he had been thoroughly massaged by his sons, he fell into a deep sleep with such a lot of good meat in his bowels. While he was sleeping and snoring, his sons saw numerous pieces of meat sticking between his teeth. They reported to Stic Indai Salui and told her sons to pick out all the meat from Salui’s teeth. They picked it all out and handed it to mother. She cooked the meat in bamboo. Indai Salui put the meat her sons had picked from their father’s teeth in the evening at dinner into a separate bowl. Apai Salui enquired why?
“Naturally it is so”, replied mother, “because this is the meat which your sons picked from between your teeth”. “You are really a fool to have eaten the meat alone without sharing with us”, went on Indai Salui. “It serves you right to have been frightened by me the noise of a cicada this morning”, she continued. Ashamed, Apai Salui left his food half-eaten and went off to sleep again. He cursed his wife and children in anger for the way they had frightened him that morning. He was upset they should know he had been so afraid of the cicada noise.He tried to think what he could do next get revenge.
On the evening of the next day, while Salui’s mother was busy baking and mashing sago flour in the kitchen, Apai Salui thought it was just the time for him to take revenge on his wife for frightening him the previous day. He went quietly out of the house and hid on the ground below the kitchen. There he began to shriek, as cicadas do, to beg for sago cake. Indai Salui threw a lump of cake towards the noise of the house. Apai Salui was quick to pick it up and eat it. After he had eaten one lump, he begged for another, and so on and on. Finally, instead of throwing away the cake, Indai Salui threw away the red hot stone that supported the cooking pot. Apai Salui was delighted with the noise of the heavy lump falling. He picked it up quickly, and he was instantly badly burnt, unable to stop himself from crying loudly. ‘Who is crying there?” asked Indai Salui. “It is I”, replied Apai Salui gravely, “because I am burnt by the stone you threw down here”.
“What a fool you are, and what are you doing there?” asked Indai Salui. Apai Salui could not bring himself to answer his wife, for he was ashamed of his foolish deed. “You are a hopeless fool, and you will be a fool forever and ever”, said Indai Salui, Apai Salui was now really ill from the burns all over his chest and belly. He stayed in the house many days until he was fully recovered. But while in bed, he, again and again, planned what he should do next to bully or cheat someone.
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