'Machan': A Mystery of Java

IT is commonly said that tigers no longer exist in Java. Nevertheless, it still happens sometimes that one runs across one of these ferocious animals in the very heart of the Preanger district, in its deep gorges and on its thickly bewooded hillsides, or on the steep slopes of its rocky ravines, where the grass grows scarce and high, swaying rhythmically at the slightest breeze.

When the nights are blackest, large panthers frequently prowl about the countryside in search of living food. From time to time the news is spread that a royal panther has just made a fresh victim in the neighborhood somewhere, causing havoc and spreading death in its path. Filled with terror at this, the native inhabitants then tremblingly hide themselves in the comparative safety of their villages, daring to venture forth from them only when strictly necessary.

A great number of rivers and kampongs, or native villages, in the Preanger are still designated by the name of this awe-inspiring lord of the jungle, Machan, which in the Javanese language means ‘tiger,’ and which, when preceded by the word Tji, always signifies‘running water.’ Machan! A terrifying name, which fills all hearts with fear and is mentioned only in a whisper, for every native knows that to speak of the tiger without adding the necessary terms of respect invariably brings down evil upon the culprit. ‘His lordship’ they call him, and not one of them ever makes a mistake about it. The royal Indian tiger docs not like to have its name taken in vain, and woe indeed unto those who are fools enough to make use of it too carelessly, without being careful to add to it the title of respect due to the supreme lord of the jungle!

I once had at my service a little Sundanese maidservant called Sekas. She was a pretty, frail child of eighteen, born on one of the vast and perilously steep slopes of Mount Pangerango, and whom no threats on earth could have forced to mention the feared beast’s name.

‘Little Sekas,’ I asked her one evening, ‘why art thou so afraid to speak of the tiger? Thou needest have no fear in answering our questions in this little house, which is always safely shut at night and is perched so high on the top of our hill, out of all danger. And besides, Sekas, dost thou not know that there no longer are any tigers in the environment of Sindanglaya?’

Sekas looked around her with a frightened gleam in her eyes.

‘Hush, noble lady — hush!’ she whispered. ‘I pray thee, in the name of the Merciful Allah, do not speak so loud! Do not offend his mighty lordship by thus referring to him so carelessly! Alas, woe unto thee, noble lady, if by chance he has heard thee, for the neighborhood of our village is not so deserted as thou seemest to think, and at times his lordship still prowls around our meadows and our rice fields in the moonlight. On dark nights he is often out looking for an easy and unsuspecting victim on the shores of our peaceful lake, with its shimmering waters; and he follows the trail of belated coolies whose torches have gone out, coming home in the heart of the night along the difficult slopes of Mount Gedeh, or hurrying through the deep precipices of the Poentjak pass.

‘Let me tell thee, noble lady, of what once befell Sekas, when she was but a small child and playing one day in front of her parents’ tiny hut, which seems to be suspended on the dangerous slopes of Mount Pangerango down yonder.

‘My father, the day’s work being done, sat smoking on a mat, while my mother, kneeling in a corner, was busy cooking the rice on a little stove in which the smouldering coals were smoking unpleasantly. In those days, noble lady, my father was mandoer in the large tea estate situated high up on the Goenoeng Mas, the high peak of which, encircled with woolly clouds, is easily discernible from thy windows. Through the bottom of its valley flows the small river called Tjimachan, which, as thou knowest, means “the river of the tiger.”’

Here Sekas lowered her voice and threw quick, furtive glances around the room. Then, lifting large, frightened eyes to us, she went on speaking.

‘At the very moment that, in obeyance to my mother’s orders, I was about to set out with my girl friends down the road leading to the valley, where every day I was in the habit of drawing the water we continually needed, the young white Master, owner of the tea estate, was seen suddenly walking up to our little house.

‘He was very kind and handsome, noble lady. His eyes were as blue as the skies during the east monsoon, and his curly hair was of the color of our golden rice when it is ripe and our coolies have tied it into shining bundles.

‘“Kromo,” he said to my father when he had come up to us, “I have been told that yesterday a tiger was seen roaming about in the neighborhood of the estate, and that he even carried off an old woman working in the rice fields.”

‘“Alas, it is true, Master! Old Naima could not be found again, and terror reigns among thy coolies, Master!” answered my father respectfully.

‘“Well then, my friend,” went on the white Master, “warn all the men that they are to hold themselves ready, for to-morrow at sunrise I intend to set out myself to hunt down that wild beast. It will be my first tiger, and I sincerely hope he will not escape us.”

‘With a frightened look my father had risen to his feet.

‘“Hush, Master!” he exclaimed in a low voice. “Kromo begs of thee, do not speak so lightly his lordship’s feared name! Thou wilt offend him. And should that be so, then woe unto thee, O Master!”

‘The young man burst out laughing.

‘“My poor Kromo,” he said gayly, “this is all nonsense!” Then, turning toward me, he called me to him, as he was wont to do often.

‘“Here, take this, little one,” he said to me with his charming smile, producing a large silver coin out of his pocket. “Here is something to buy thyself a pretty coral necklace until we make thee a new one with the claws of our tiger, or rather of ‘his lordship,’ as thy father so nicely puts it! Goodbye, little Sekas. To-morrow, when we have returned from our little expedition, thou shalt see for thyself how beautiful is a large, shot tiger. I will send for thee and all the other children of the village to come up and admire it.”

‘Having said this, and calling his faithful dog, the young white Master left us, whistling merrily as he walked off. At the same time my father bowed down his forehead into the dust, and, turning his eyes toward the Holy Mecca, called upon the name of Allah and prayed for his Almighty protection.

‘Alas, noble lady, it was to be the last time that Sekas’s eyes looked upon the youthful and handsome Master! For on the following day we learned that he had been carried off into the depths of a ravine by his angered lordship, whom his reckless words had offended!

‘That same evening, shortly after he had gone, my mother called me. “Take the water jug, my child,” she said, “and go down to the river to fetch the water that I need. My rice is burning, little one. Hurry!”

‘ I called Djahar and Yamina, my two little friends, and, lifting up the heavy earthenware pot to my shoulder, I secured it there in safety by means of my long slendang, which was of very fine batik work. The sun was already setting and, as its great ball of fire slowly dipped away out of sight behind the green rice fields in the distance, its dying rays played on and lit up the steep mountain sides, while the shadows rapidly began to lengthen in the valleys below. The air was cool and serene; in the trees the song had gradually died out of the throats of the countless birds and they were falling asleep with a soft fluttering of wings.

‘Laughing gayly and feeling happy and unafraid in our childish hearts, in spite of that day’s dangerous news, we were tripping along the steep and narrow path which, between wellnigh impenetrable bamboo bushes and tall grass, leads down to the waters of the little river flowing merrily at the bottom of the valley. Instead of hurrying, as my mother had told us to do, we idled, and ran after a few butterflies which from time to time still fluttered about in the thick vegetation around us.

‘Djahar, very proud of it indeed, was showing off a new necklace of gold beads that her father had just purchased for her. It shone on her comely neck; and on her brown skin, which was like satin in its softness, the beads glistened like a lot of fireflies in the shadows. At the very bottom of a ravine through which we were walking we found a fragrant bush laden with mulatti blossoms. The white flowers stretched out their starry petals and exhaled their exquisite, penetrating scent into the serene air of the falling night. We stopped and lingered for a moment in order to stick some of them into our raven-black hair, for we were already conscious of our appearance, as if we had been little women.

‘More than an hour had gone by since we had left my parents’ hut. The sun had vanished altogether by then, and only a few last pink and golden rays streaked across the horizon. The night was now falling very rapidly. For a few more moments the skies again assumed faint crimson tints, and it seemed as if the waters in the quiet rice fields reflected a great fire in the heavens. Then they disappeared also, and black shadows enshrouded the deserted countryside in their inky darkness.

‘Then suddenly Djahar stood still — petrified. In the thicket before us a pair of eyes shone and gleamed like two burning coals!

‘“Machan!” she breathed. “Allah the Merciful! Machan!”

‘At the same moment a deep and hoarse growl arose from the thickness of the bushes and the peaceful atmosphere seemed to tremble. The two coals still glistened fiercely at us in the sombre shadows. Then suddenly, mad with terror and no longer knowing what I was doing, I picked up a large stone, then another, and another, and with all my feeble strength I started throwing them at the clusters of bamboo in front of me. Djahar and Yamina followed my example.

‘The glowing coals went out as if by magic. A sound like a deep snort disturbed the warm air, and at the same time a dark and silent shadow passed swiftly over our heads and vanished into the darkness. His lordship, O noble lady, satisfied no doubt by the result of a recent hunt, had not even deigned to look upon us!

‘The next morning at dawn, however, as the rising sun was piercing through the mists encircling the lofty summit of the volcano down yonder, the coolies of the tea estate, who had gathered and were on their way to answer their young white Master’s bidding, found hanging on some bushes at the side of the road a few pieces of what had formerly been a garment, pitifully torn and besmirched with blood, and several curls of hair, the color of ripe rice when it has been tied into bundles.’

Greatly impressed by the young Javanese girl’s tale, we remained silent for a long time.

‘But, little Sekas,’ said my friend finally, ‘thou surely dost not believe, I hope, that the tiger spared thee and thy little friends because of the way in which thou expressed thyself when speaking of him? Nor that he avenged himself upon the young white Master, as thou hast called him, because on the eve of his horrible death he had omitted to call him “his lordship”?’

Putting a slim finger against her lips, which had been made scarlet with the juice of the betel nut, the young Sundanese threw a frightened look around the room.

‘Hush, O noble lady! Sekas begs of thee, do not speak thus! Who may tell that his lordship is not listening to us to-night from the heart of some thicket or in the depths of the precipice near by, where he may be watching and waiting for his next victim! Hush! Sekas assures thee it is dangerous to speak so lightly of him!’

We both started to laugh. The young girl seemed terrified.

‘Come now, little Sekas, it’s all right!’ I said softly when I saw her fright. ‘It is getting late. Go and prepare our rooms, for we wish to retire rather early to-night.’

Without saying another word Sekas left us, no doubt very happy to escape any further questioning. Dainty and sweet, she seemed to float out of the room, with that charming and unaffected grace of movement natural to only the daughters of Java’s burning soil. A few moments afterward she came back to say that everything was ready for the night, and thereupon she went off herself to her tiny room at the end of our little verandah, swinging a torch in her hands which flickered dimly, and casting frightened eyes around her at the shadows following her along the wall.

I had been in bed for more than an hour, reading with the help of the feeble light from a small oil lamp with a pink shade, for when one is high up in the Javanese mountains one has to be content with what one can get. Suddenly a faint and almost indistinguishable noise outside the house attracted my attention. It was weird and — silent. It might have been made by a very large dog, a huge dog roaming softly around our little house on velvety paws.

My two little dogs, which usually, at the slightest stir outside, would start to bark loud enough to wake up the whole household, crept tremblingly and very quietly into a corner near my bed and hid themselves without a sound in their basket.

The animal outside, whatever it was, continued its silent round, coming and going on the grass of the lawn with soft movements which indicated an extraordinary suppleness and agility. I could hear it walking over the thin basketwork mats lying out on the ground, mats which in the daytime were used to protect some freshly planted flower beds from the broiling heat of the sun. Its breathing, short and powerful, which from time to time floated up into the deadly stillness of the night and reached my ears, sounded rather like the purring of a monstrous cat. Then all of a sudden my heart stopped beating, as realization came to me!

Machan! The tiger! It was his lordship himself, as Sekas would say! It could not be anything else! His lordship, vexed by our careless words of to-night, and come from far away to punish the culprits!

For more than two hours the wild beast prowled about in the neighborhood of the house in the profound stillness of the night. The dogs trembled in their hiding place, while I crept closer under the sheets, wide awake and with my ears alert to the faintest sound. Then suddenly the almost uncanny patter of those soft paws stopped altogether and complete silence reigned about the place again, not even disturbed by the fluttering of wings of a night bird flying about in the shadows.

All night long until morning I left my little pink lamp burning, spreading its reassuring glow around the room. I could see that my friend had done likewise and lay in her bed hardly daring to breathe. With the arrival of dawn, even before six o’clock, she came into my room and I saw that she looked very pale.

‘Did you hear — ’ she said to me, ‘in the night? That strange and silent beast — what could it have been?’

We were still staring at each other, not daring to put into words what was in our minds, when Sekas came bursting into the room, trembling violently and looking frightened out of her wits.

‘O noble ladies,’ she cried, ‘did Sekas not warn thee of what would happen? His lordship came here in the night! His fresh tracks are yet on all thy flower beds, and he has carried off all the chickens of the kebon [gardener]. All night long Sekas has lain shuddering inside her little room, while she heard him prowl around the house! Ali will show thee the marks of his paws in the grass, noble ladies. But hurry, for the rain which washes away everything will not be long in coming down!’

And indeed, in the very middle of one of the largest flower beds two huge paws, with powerful claws, had left their clear imprints in the soft, damp earth. Also, a little farther along, on one of the sides of our small house and under my very window, two more brown paw marks were clearly outlined on the whiteness of the wall. Smelling my dogs, the ferocious beast had no doubt stood up on its hind legs to look for an opening.

That same evening my servants, with a great deal of ceremony, laid an offering, meant to appease the anger of his lordship, under some sacred cambodjia trees at the end of the garden, in the shade of which, overlooking the great ravine which slopes down almost vertically along the sides of Mount Gedeh, lies concealed the grave of an old and respected hadji. This quaint offering consisted of boiled rice wrapped up in fresh green banana leaves, a single egg, two or three large fruits, several bananas, and — one cigarette! The whole proceeding was terminated by a host of weird incantations, followed by the most mysterious and incomprehensible gesticulations.

On the following morning, at the first rays of the sun, it was seen that all of it had gone.

‘His lordship is satisfied,’ our little Sekas came and told us with a brilliant smile. ‘He has deigned to accept our offering, O noble ladies! His mighty wrath has been appeased, and he will not come back if we do not repeat the offense. May the Almighty and AllMerciful Allah be praised for it!’

And unto this very day, verily, his lordship has not returned.