Since I arrived here 12 years ago, I have heard of the stories about the Mouse Deer. I wanted to find examples, but the stories in English were all prohibitively expensive. Finally, a few months ago, a volume appeared in Ireland and was termed a “reading copy.” I jumped on it. When it arrived three months later, the gold lettering had faded, the book was well worn but still readable, but it stank of cigarette smoke. However, I was glad to add it to my library.
The Mouse Deer is a small creature who roams the jungles of Malaya and Borneo and from him has sprung many tales. I don’t know if the storyteller is part of the tale that is told with the story during nights in the villages of long ago or is part of another story. I asked several elderly people in the kampongs, and they didn’t know either. I began with the story and added the description of the “storyteller” in the second half of this essay. The storyteller brings such vividness and life to the old gentleman that I cannot believe it not to be true. Enjoy !
How Friend Peace saved Friend Buffalo’s Life
One hot evening before the rains began, Salam, the little Mouse Deer, set forth on his travels to search for the newly fallen Cats Eye fruit; but before he had gone long enough to boil two pots of rice, he came to the river into which, at that very moment, by the inscrutable decree of Allah, a giant tree had fallen, pinning down beneath it the tail of Tok Sarilang, the veteran Crocodile of the Damasana River. It was just then, too, that the old ungainly Plough Buffalo from the Rice Fields came down to the River Bank at sundown to drink his fill.
Friend Crocodile’s narrow snake-like eyes glittered redly between their slotted lids, and his long, lean thorny jaws opened with a yawn and met soundlessly-once ! Then softening his voice to a friendly burr, he cried out:” Ho there ! Friend Gorer ! Will you be so kind as to raise the fallen tree for me a handbreadth or so?”
In the irritatingly low, listless drawl of his kind Buffalo enquired: “How can I do that, Friend Tail Switcher? You know I have no arms to heave with!”
“What fools speech is this? Were those stately horns that branch back from the forehead only meant to make you look so beastly handsome?” The crocoidiles replp! for all the animals know that the buffalo is the ugliest of all the beasts under heaven, saving all his grace the Duke of Ugliness, whose name is Sang Badak, the Rhinoceros.
Goaded by this home thrust, the buffalo came near and pushed the lever tips of his great horns right under the logs -so ! and by the sheer force of his great neck muscles slowly heaved it up and again heaved it up until a last he freed the prisoner. Mercy of Allah ! The weight of that tree, and agony of the crushed tail! Yet for all that, in the very forest eye wink after finding himself free, the Crocodile shot his wicked looking head, forward and his jaws closed on Friend Buffalos leg with a loud snap.
Wah! How Friend Buffalo’s fury flared up ! “Woe is me”, he bellowed. “Toh Sarling, what an incredible villain you are ! For the good turn that I did you in setting your tail free, you reward me like this ! May you die an accursed death, you infidel !
At this moment, Salam the mouse deer, who had seen all that happened on the fallen tree, and cried Hello there Brother Buffalo ! Your wits are no better than the mud in which you wallow ! Why have you little sense in that great, coarse, unwieldy carcase of yours? Do you not know that all Men and Beasts on Earth are won’t to repay an act of kindness and courtesy and falsehood? Listen! I will ask that Sleeping Mat floating yonder down the stream and you shall hear the answer:
“Ho, Master Sleeping Mat ! You ragged, tatteremalion, half drowned half sodden wretch ! Please tell us what you know of the worlds wicked ways.” If anyone ever does a good turn to a fellow creature, how is he usually repaid? The mat, with the calmness of desperation replied: ” He will surely be ill rewarded in return for every good turn that he did; such is my own personal experience! When young, I myself was well woven, strong, clean and supple, and ever brought ease and comfort to the weary body of my master. Che Ali, even at the end of the longest day; but now that I am old and worn he has flung me forth to drift down the river and rot to pieces, for all he cares, in the Mangrove swamps at its mouth. Here the Mat, as if overcome by its feelings, suddenly rolled right over and sank out of sight in the eddies where the Mat sank last.
“Good Madam Dish-cover, please tell me what you find to be the way of the world ! Is it the fashion to repay one good turn with another, or with evil instead?”
“With evil,” answered the dish-cover in despondent tones. “I too, when young, was brilliant and attractive and my colours were those of the rainbow. I was the pride of Che Siti, my beautiful mistress, who was fond enough of me then to show me off to her friends and neighbours: but now that I am worn, torn and time stained she has cast me forth to drown!”
With this reply Madam Dish cover passed on bobbing slowly up and down, sinking gradually lower and lower in the water as she floated down stream on the way to the Sea.
“Do you see now see that what I told you was the truth Brother Buffalo?’ exclaimed Salam , The Mouse Deer. And if so, was there anything so very astonishingly perverse, after all, about this deed of Friend Crocodile’s? You must at least admit it was quite in the fashion !
What I really doubt most of all in whole story is your ascertain that you managed to lift the tree trunk by lifting it with your horns! How could you possibly do that even with your great strength. Come now, I want you to try and raise it once more, Big Brother; so that I can see how this miracle was done. And you, friend crocodile, let friend Buffalos leg go for just for a minute to use his full strength for the heave ! Is he not after all rather a tough morsal for you to even digest ? Why that leg must be as interesting a dry rhino hide and are there not other rhinos that are more edible than Friend Buffalo?
At this moment, incredible as it may seem, that fool of a crocoidile, reluctantly, it is true, let go of Friend Buffalos leg. And the moment he did so Salam cried out:
“Now push your horn underneath and raise the tree, Friend Gorer, Toh Sarling, put your tail back where it was before so I can see how everything happened. Betul Now a little higher please friend Buffalo ! higher, higher still ! Now hold it there carefully for a minute.
Meanwhile, the Crocodile had put his tail back (just for a moment, as he fondly imagined) underneath the tree, as the buffalo was heaving and straining at the log till his great cable like neck muscles stood out taut with the effort “( like wrestling dragons”) as the Malay story-teller says, Friend Peace sang out :
Now, drop it quick! quick! drop it friend Buffalo! As he said these words old Abdullah’s brown hands, raised high above his head, dropped down upon his knees with a resounding crash, which made both children jump to their feet in momentary alarm!
Well! Well ! For the first time in all his inactive life, Friend Buffalo was quick ! Down rattled the log like a thunderclap, and their lay Friend Crocodile writhing with pain, pinned fast by the timber as before. He bellowed aloud in his fury.
But Friend Buffalo lumbered ashore painfully and deliberately while Salam addressed the crocodile in that soft little cooing voice of his which is always more gentle and caressing when it betokens the greater and more immediate danger to his foes:
“Rightly served are you, indeed, for your unspeakable falseness and treachery, Oh Son of Predition! Now stay these till you reap the reward of your own ill deeds! Gasp and gape away with those ugly jaws of yours, and starve , till you croak, and are thrown on the scrap heap of Eternity.
Yet, even that desperate plight, Friend Crocodile kept up his spirits, and in reply called down upon his clever little for, the Mouse Deer, the most comprehensive curse he could think of:
“From henceforth I declare war between all Crocodiles and Mouse Deer-may my kinsman pursue and prey upon your tribe forever and a day-and may you wish, too, with your whole heart (and wish in vein you vill!) for the days to return when you could go down to the River for a drink and take one mouthful in safety.”
Salam’s reply, however, was also ready:
“This is as Allah wills, Friend Tooth Clencher ! but you will never get me to believe that, with the numberless streams and ponds and sheer water of all kinds in this country, I shall ever go short of a drink from fear of you or all your accursed breed. There is, too, an old saying of this country which you may do well to think over:
“Never hanker after anything that you have just given away.
Now here is the wonderful description of the story teller who relates the tale while his grandchildren are sitting on his lap.
The Malay Headman was very old and brown and wrinkled, with a kind of patient gentleness in his voice. Only the luminous eyes in the worn and watchful face told of the forces that still burned in the old man. In more than one piratical raid he had shown, even as a mere boy, his high physical courage: in later life, he had twice made the Haj, the pilgrimage of faith to Mecca; the suns of tropic noons and the harsh winds of the desert had carved his features to look of spiritual austerity: this man of the shallow seas and great rain drenched forests of Malaya who even in the presence of the Tuan Besar yet carried him himself proudly, still wore his headcloth peaked in front in the old Malay fashion once called “The Hawk that soars against the wind”. His big white moustache too looked like wings of the flying birds and his eyes still flashed when he spoke of olden times before the white men came; of days long past when his loyal feet had carried him so swiftly to his Chiefs side whenever there was a liveliness when there was trouble either by land or sea. Something about him, some strain of noble blood perhaps, made it impossible for anyone to forget that, though he was but a paid servant of the British government, he knew he was regarded by his own people as their true and lineal head. Sitting erect upon his European chair in a veranda corner, shaded from the fierce sun by day and cooled by the light airs from off the sea at sun fall, he still looked what he had actually been- a chieftain of the older, fast disappearing type invested with all the simple dignity, the grave, unwearying courtesy of his race.
“Mina, Chahia Mata (Light of my eyes) what game has thou been playing? he murmured, as his sweet little granddaughter danced happily towards him, and, twining her small fingers about his crooked old ones, gave him a joyous greeting. He tilted the tiny flower-like face upwards and smiled down into the child’s trusting eyes-Mina’s were a wonderfully deep brown and fathomless as a forest pool.
Deman, a study boy was meanwhile singing at the top of his voice:
“Unhook, unhook your cooking pot-
Cooking pot from Java
Here comes Uncle Catfish
Bringing home a crabbie!
A dish to put water in-
O Granny,O granny
Our house is tumbling down
Reh, Reh Rum
“Ahai !” laughed Haji Abdullah tenderly, with a sly twinkle towards Deman. And so, Little Folk , you have been playing at brushing past the Banyan tree; at Maim the Crockidile and so on, eh? Keep clear of the brute that lies in wait by the fallen log at our landing place, Deman, and when thou art big, thou shall be a mighty hunter and slay many tigers like Pawang Sidi ! Yah, Allah, perhaps thu shalt even avenge our village by out witting that old weed grown brute, Si Jambu Rakai, the King of the River- Reaches cunningest of all the Crocodile Folk, if he ever turns man eater again.
Deman ran at once to the speaker and, putting his hands on one of the old man’s knees, gazed up into the time-worn but kindly smiling face with the eyes that sparkled;. In contrast, tiny Mina, possessing herself to the other knee, climbed onto it, and nestled into the crook of a protecting arm.
“Tell us” the children implored, tell us, granddad, the story of Friend Peace of the Forest when he outwitted the whole clan of Crocodiles, hitting everyone on the head with a coconut shell in turn…crick…crick…crack !…crack…crack.
“Heh, heh, Abdullah chuckled. “Nay my little birds , that was too long a tale even after rice. Once, I your granddad, to save our good Chiefs life, also cracked a head -and not that of a kinsman of the Crocodile Folk either-but alas! that was many harvest moons ago, many tides ago and now I am but an unwanted kris-a dagger that has been long been laid aside and sheathed by the companies order; Your own special soother of, care, if you would like to call me. What matters now? My hot days are ended. There are boundary posts in the Jungle today and the free men are dying. It was written in the stars. Are we not all leaves of the forest borne on the winds of Allah? But stay Deman, but first get me my betel leaf pounder and I will tell you anew tale; How your favourite -Salam, the little mouse deer, Friend Peace of the Forest outwitted the Weed Grown One -The Great Iron Croccidle of the River Reaches, who had seized his own rescuer, the Plough Buffalo, by the leg with the Tearers of the Shroud by the act of blackest treachery. “
Then, when the pungent mouthful of betel leaf and areca had been chewed, the old man, with much quaint mimicry of the animal actors in the drama and with many modulations of his voice, began impressively:
From: A. Hillman (“Orang Bukit”) and Walter W. Skeat Salam The Mouse Deer London: Macmillan and Company, 1938