Ini cerita benar berlaku pada tahun 1862 di Lembah Tembeling. Ramai orang tua-tua bercerita kisah seekor harimau jadian (weretiger) yang besar telah membunuh 31 mangsa dan pernah dalam satu malam yang ngeri membunuh 8 sekeluarga dalam sebuah rumah di Kg Ranggul, Tembeling.
Hugh Clifford Residen Inggeris di Pahang pernah menulis mengenai kisah harimau jadian ini. Satu kisah di Tembeling dan satu lagi di Slim River Perak. Masa itu orang Melayu percaya orang Kerinci dari Sumatera boleh menjadi harimau jadian.
Masa itu juga orang Tembeling tidak berani menyebut nama harimau bukan sahaja dalam hutan tapi di rumah juga bimbang angin akan membawa ke telinga harimau dan akan datang membaham mereka.
Orang Tembeling menyebut harimau itu dengan nama Si Pudong atau 'dia yang muka berbulu'!
Secara peribadi WZWH tidak percaya pada harimau jadian tapi percaya itu adalah harimau yang sebenar. Mungkin harimau ini sungguh luarbiasa saiz dan kekuatannya.
WZWH percaya ini adalah harimau yang sebenar membunuh 31 orang Tembeling itu.
Orang Tembeling dan Hugh Clifford percaya itu harimau jadian dari dunia magic dan mistik.
Mengikut ceritanya harimau jadian itu adalah seorang orang asli Semang @ Negrito di hutan Tembeling. Tinggal dikalangan orang Semang pada siang hari bila malam menjelma sebagai harimau jadian @ weretiger membunuh mangsa untuk menghisap darah, lebih banyak dari makan daging!
Harimau jadian ini ketika itu telah membunuh seorang budak perempuan dari keluarga Wan di Kg Labu. Itu menjadikan mangsa yang ke 23 dan berita cepat tersebar ke seluruh kampung-kampung.
Semua orang bila malam menjelma berasa takut dan duduk di rumah.
Cerita harimau jadian bunuh 8 mangsa dalam satu malam sungguh ngeri di Kg Ranggul Tembeling. Diberitakan pada petang hari keluarga 8 orang ini telah mengetahui kisah harimau jadian membunuh seorang budak perempuan bernama Wan Esah di Kg Labu.
Masing-masing merasa takut. Malam itu sebenarnya ada 9 orang berlindung ketakutan dalam sebuah rumah di Kg Ranggul sambil memegang lembing dan parang. Mereka ialah:
- Che Seman
- 2 anak lelaki Che Seman iaitu Awang dan Ngah
- Lang isteri Che Seman
- Minah anak perempuan kecil Che Seman
- Kassim
- Potek
- Abdollah
- Mat
Harimau itu datang pada malam hari mengaum dengan kuat dan menerkam ke tingkap rumah tapi gagal masuk terjatuh. Kali ke dua berjaya menghembur hingga ke bumbung dan berjaya menyelinap memasuki rumah lalu membunuh 8 orang kecuali Mat selamat kerana menyorok di satu bahagian rumah.
Mengikut Mat, harimau itu menghisap darah setiap mangsa yang dibunuh dan bermain dengan mangsa yang sudah mati seperti kucing bermain dengan tikus sambil mencakar dan menggigit tubuh mangsa.
Sungguh ngeri semua tubuh mangsa bagai dikerat-kerat tidak berupa orang dan yang paling sedih harimau itu sebelum membunuh sikecil Minah budak perempuan, harimau itu seolah-olah macam bermain-main dengan Minah seperti tikus. Minah beberapa kali merangkak hingga sangat keletihan akhirnya dengan ganas harimau itu mencakar dan mengigit tengkuk Minah hingga mati.
Menjelang subuh harimau itu terus terjun ke tanah berlari ke arah hutan menghilangkan diri dan paginya orang Kg Ranggol melihat 8 tubuh manusia yang hancur bergelimpangan sukar untuk dikenali.
Apa yang berlaku kesudahannya kepada harimau jadian itu tidak diketahui. Hugh Clifford tidak memberitahu apa jadi adakah harimau jadian itu berjaya dibunuh. Hugh Clifford cuma mengutuk harimau jadian yang asal dari manusia sanggup membunuh 31 orang kampung demi menghisap darah dengan kejam kerana ilmu hitam.
WZWH percaya harimau jadian itu akhirnya berjaya dibunuh tapi tidak mahu mendedahkan siapa kerana semua yang terlibat sudah mati.
Untuk pembaca blog WZWH menghayati kisah yang ditulis oleh Hugh Clifford,WZWH telah extract dibawah. Please enjoy the old Queen English of 19th century works....
A NIGHT OF TERROR by Hugh Clifford
The glaring eyes through the brushwood shine,
And the striped hide shows between
The trees and bushes, 'mid trailing vine
And masses of ever-green.
A snarling moan comes long and low.
We may neither flee nor fight.
For well our leaping pulses know
The Terror that stalks by Night.
If you put your finger on the map of the Malay
Peninsula an inch or two from its exact centre, you
will find a river in Pahang territory which has its rise
in the watershed that divides that State from Kelantan
and Trengganu. This river is called the Tembeling,
and it is chiefly remarkable for the number of its rapids
and the richness of its gutta-bearing forests. Its in-
habitants are a ruffianly lot of Malays, who are preyed
upon by a family of Wans^ a semi-royal set of nobles
who do their best to live up to their traditions. Below
the rapids the natives are chiefly noted for the quaint
pottery that they produce from the clay which abounds
there and the rude shapes and ruder tracery of their
vessels have probably suffered no change since the days
when Solomon's fleets sought gold and peafowl and
monkeys in the jungles of the Peninsula, as everybody
A NIGHT OF TERROR 197
knows. Above the rapids the Malays plant enough
gaynhir to supply the wants of the whole betel-chewing
population of Pahang, and, as the sale of this com-
modity wins them a few dollars annually, they are too
indolent to plant their own rice. This grain, which
is the staple of all Malays, without which they cannot
live, is therefore sold to them by down river natives,
at the exorbitant price of half a dollar the bushel.
A short distance up stream, and midway between
the mouth and the big rapids, there is a straggling
village, called Ranggul, the houses of which, made of
wattled bamboos and thatched with palm leaves, stand on
piles, amid the groves of cocoa-nut and areca-nut palms,
varied by clumps of smooth-leaved banana trees. The
houses are not very close together, but a man can call
from one to the other with ease j and thus the cocoa-
nuts thrive, which, as the Malays say, grow not with
pleasure beyond the sound of the human voice. The
people of the village are not more indolent than other
Malays. They plant a little rice, wh^n the season
comes, in the swamps behind the village. They work
a little jungle produce, when the pinch of poverty
drives them to it, but, like all Malays, they take life
sufficiently easily. If you chance to go into the village
of Ranggul, during any of the hot hours of the day,
you will find most of its occupants lying about in their
dark, cool houses, engaged upon such gentle mental
tasks as may be afforded by whittling a stick, or hack-
ing slowly at the already deeply scored threshold-block,
with their clumsy wood-knives. Sitting thus, they gossip
with a passing neighbour, who stops to chatter as he sits
propped upon the stair ladder, or they croak snatches
198 IN COURT AND KJMPONG
of song, with some old-world refrain to it, and, from
time to time, break off to cast a word over their
shoulders to the wife in the dim background near the
fireplace, or to the little virgin daughter, carefully-
secreted on the shelf overhead, in company with a
miscellaneous collection of dusty, grimy rubbish, the
disused lumber of years. Nature has been very lavish
to the Malay, and she has provided him with a soil
which returns a maximum of food for a minimum of
grudging labour. The cool, moist fruit groves call
aloud to all mankind to come and revel in their fragrant
shade during the parching hours of mid-day, and the
Malay has caught the spirit of his surroundings, and is
very much what Nature has seen fit to make him.
Some five-and-thirty years ago, when Che' wan
Ahmad, now better known as Sultan Ahmad Maatham
Shah, was collecting his forces in Dungun, preparatory
to making his last and successful descent into the
Tembeling valley, whence to overrun and conquer
Pahang, the night was closing in at Ranggul. A large
house stood, at that time, in a somewhat isolated
position, within a thickly-planted compound, at one
extremity of the village. In this house, on the night
of which I write, seven men and two women were at
work on the evening meal. The men sat in the
centre of the floor, on a white mat made from the
plaited leaves of the mengkuang palm, with a plate piled
with rice before each of them, and a brass tray, holding
various little china bowls of curry, placed where all
could reach it. They sat cross-legged, with bowed
backs, supporting themselves on their left arms, the
left hand lying flat on the mat, and being so turned
A NIGHT OF TERROR 199
that the outspread fingers pointed inwards. With the
fingers of their right hands they messed the rice,
mixing the curry well into it, and then swiftly carried
a large handful to their mouths, skilfully, without
dropping a grain. The women sat demurely, in a
half kneeling position, with their feet tucked away
under them, and ministered to the wants of the men.
They said never a word, save an occasional exclamation,
when they drove away a lean cat that crept too near to
the food, and the men also held their peace. There
was no sound to be heard, save the hum of the insects
out of doors, the deep note of the bull-frogs in the rice
swamps, and the unnecessarily loud noise of mastication
made by the men as they ate.
When the meal was over the women carried what
was left to a corner near the fireplace, and there fell
to on such of the viands as their lords had not con-
sumed. If you had looked carefully, however, you
would have seen that the cooking-pots, over which the
women ruled, still held a secret store for their own con-
sumption, and that the quality of the food in this cache
was by no means inferior to that which had been allotted
to the men. In a land where women wait upon them-
selves, and have none to attend to their wants, or
forestall their wishes, they very soon acquire an ex-
tremely good notion of how to look after themselves ;
and, since they have never known a state of society in
which women are treated as they are amongst ourselves,
they do not repine, and seem, for the most part, to be
sufficiently bright, light-hearted, and happy.
The men, meanwhile, had each rolled up a quid ot
betel-nut, taking the four ingredients carefully from
200 IN COURT AND KAMPONG
the little brass boxes in the wooden tray before them,
and having prepared cigarettes of Javenese tobacco,
with the dried shoots of the nipah palm for wrappers,
had at length broken the absorbed silence, which had
held them fast while the matter of the meal was
occupying their undivided attention.
The talk flitted lightly over many subjects ; for a
hearty meal, and the peace of soul which repletion
brings with it, are not conducive to concentration of
attention, nor yet to activity of mind. The Malay,
too, is always superficial, and talk among natives
generally plays round facts, rather than round ideas.
Che' Seman, the owner of the house, and his two
sons, Awang and Ngah, discussed the prospects of the
crop then growing in the fields behind the compound.
Their cousin Abdollah, who chanced to be passing the
night in the house, told of a fall which his wife's
aunt's brother had come by, when climbing a cocoa-
nut tree. Mat, his hiras (for they had married two
sisters, which established a definite form of relationship
between them, according to Malay ideas), added a few
more or less ugly details to Abdollah's description of
the corpse after the accident. And as this attracted
the attention of the two remaining men, Potek and
Kassim, who had been discussing the price of rice, and
the varying chances of getah hunting, the talk at this
point became general. Potek and Kassim had recently
returned from Dungun, where, as has been said, the
present Sultan of Pahang was, at that time, collecting
the force with which he afterwards successfully invaded
and conquered the State. They told of all they had
seen and heard, multiplying their figures with the
A NIGHT OF TERROR 201
daring recklessness that is born of unfettered imagina-
tions, and the lack of a rudimentary knowledge of
arithmetic. But even this absorbing topic could not
hold the attention of their hearers for long. Before
Potek and Kassim had well finished the enumeration
of the heavy artillery, of the thousands of the elephants,
and the tens of thousands of the followers, with which
they credited the adventurous, but slender bands of raga-
muffins, who followed Ahmad's fortunes, Che' Seman
broke into their talk with words on a subject which, at
that time, was ever uppermost in the minds of the
Tembeling people, and the conversation straight-
way drifted into the channel in which it had run,
with only casual interruptions, for many weeks
past.
' He of the Hairy Face ^ is with us once more,'
ejaculated Che' Seman ; and when this announcement
had caused a dead silence to fall upon his hearers, and
had even stilled the chatter of the women-folk near
the fireplace, he continued :
'At the hour when the cicada is heard (sunset),
I met Imam Sidik of Gemuroh, and bade him stay to
eat rice, but he would not, saying that He of the
Hairy Face had made his kill at Labu yesternight, and
it behoved all men to be within their houses before the
darkness fell. And so saying he paddled his dug-out
down stream with the short quick stroke used when
we race boats. Imam Sidik is a wise man, and his
words are true. He of the Hairy Face spares neither
^ Si Pudo77g = ont of the names used by jungle-bred Malays to describe
a tiger. They avoid using the beast's real name lest the sound of it
should reach his ears, and cause him to come to the speaker.
202 IN COURT JND KJMPONG
priest nor prince. The girl he killed at Labu was a
daughter of the Wans — her name Wan Esah.'
'That makes three-and-twenty whom He of the
Hairy Face hath slain in one year of maize' (three
months), said Awang in a low fear -stricken voice.
' He touches neither goats nor kine, and men say He
sucketh more blood than He eateth flesh.'
' That it is which proves Him to be the thing he
is,' said Ngah.
'Thy words are true,' said Che' Seman solemnly.
' He of the Hairy Face has his origin in a man. The
Semang — the negrits of the woods — drove him forth
from among them, and now he lives solitarily in the
jungles, and by night he takes upon himself the form
of Him of the Hairy Face, and feasts upon the flesh of
his own kind.'
' I have heard tell that it is only the men of
Korinchi who have this strange power,' interposed
Abdollah, in the tone of one who longs to be re-
assured.
' Men say that they also possess the power,' rejoined
Che' Seman, ' but certain it is that He of the Hairy
Face was born a Semang^ — a negrit of the woods, — and
when He goeth forth in human guise he is like all
other Semangs to look upon. I and many others have
seen him, roaming alone, naked, and muttering to
himself, when we have been in the forests seeking for
jungle produce. All men know that it is He who by
night harries us in our villages. If one ventures to go
forth from our houses in the time of darkness, to the
bathing raft at the river's edge, or to tend our sick, or
to visit a friend. Si Pudong is ever to be found
J NIGHT OF TERROR 203
watching, and thus the tale of his kills waxes longer
and longer.'
' But men are safe from him while they sit within
their houses ? ' asked Mat with evident anxiety.
' God alone knows,' answered Che' Seman piously,
' who can say where men are safe from Him of the
Hairy Face ? He cometh Hke a shadow, and slays like a
prince, and then like a shadow he is gone ! And the
tale of his kills waxes ever longer and yet more long.
May God send Him far from us ! Ya Allah ! It is
He ! Listen ! '
At the word, a dead silence, broken only by the
hard breathing of the men and women, fell upon all
within the house. Then very faintly, and far away
up stream, but not so faintly but that all could hear it,
and shudder at the sound, the long-drawn, howling,
snarling moan of a hungry tiger broke upon the still-
ness. The Malays call the roar of the tiger aum^ and
the word is vividly onomatopoetic, as those who
have heard the sound in the jungle during the silent
night watches can bear witness. All who have
Hstened to the tiger in his forest freedom know that
he has many voices wherewith to speak. He can give
a barking cry, which is not unlike that of a deer ; he
can grunt like a startled boar, and squeak like the
monkeys cowering at his approach in the branches
overhead ; he can shake the earth with a vibrating,
resonant purr, like the sound of faint thunder in the
foot-hills ; he can mew and snarl like an angry wild-
cat ; and he can roar hke a lusty hon cub. But it is
when he lifts up his voice in the long-drawn moan
that the jungle chiefly fears him. This cry means
204 IN COURT JND KJMPONG
that he is hungry, and, moreover, that he is so sure of
his kill that he cares not if all the world knows that
his belly is empty. It has something strangely
horrible in its tone, for it speaks of that cold-blooded,
dispassionate cruelty which is only to be found in
perfection in the feline race. These sleek, smooth-
skinned, soft-footed, lithe, almost serpentine animals,
torture with a grace of movement, and a gentleness in
strength which has something in it more violently
repugnant to our natures than any sensation with
which the thought of the blundering charge and
savage goring of the buffalo, or the clumsy kneading
with giant knee-caps, that the elephant metes out to
its victims, can ever inspire in us.
Again the long-drawn moaning cry broke upon the
stillness. The cattle in the byre heard it and were panic-
stricken. Half mad with fear, they charged the walls
of their pen, bearing all before them, and in a moment
could be heard in the distance plunging madly through
the brushwood, and splashing through the soft earth
of the padi fields. The dogs whimpered and scampered
off in every direction, while the fowls beneath the
house set up a drowsy and discordant screeching.
The folk within the house were too terror-stricken to
speak, for fear, which gives voices to the animal world,
renders voluble human beings dumb. And all this
time the cry broke forth again and again, ever louder
and louder, as He of the Hairy Face drew nearer and
yet more near.
At last the cruel whining howl sounded within the
very compound in which the house stood, and its
sudden proximity caused Mat to start so violently
A NIGHT OF TERROR 205
that he overturned the pitch torch at his elbow,
and extinguished the flickering light. The women
crowded up against the men, seeking comfort by-
physical contact with them, their teeth chattering like
castanets. The men gripped their spears, and squatted
tremblingly in the half light thrown by the dying
embers of the fire, and the flecks cast upon floor and
wall by the faint moonbeams struggling through the
interstices of the thatched roof.
' Fear nothing, Minah,' Che' Seman whispered, in
a hoarse, strange voice, to his little daughter, who
nestled miserably against his breast, ' in a space He will
be gone. Even He of the Hairy Face will do us no
harm while we sit within the house.'
Che' Seman spoke from the experience of many
generations of Malays, but he knew not the nature of
the strange beast with whom he had to deal. Once
more the moan-like howl broke out on the still night
air, but this time the note had changed, and gradually
it quickened to the ferocious snarling roar, the charge
song, as the tiger rushed forward and leaped against
the side of the house with a heavy jarring thud. A
shriek from all the seven throats went up on the
instant, and then came a scratching, tearing sound,
followed by a soft, dull flop, as the tiger, failing to
effect a landing on the low roof, fell back to earth.
The men started to their feet, clutching their weapons
convulsively, and, led by Che' Seman, they raised,
above the shrieks of the frightened women, a lament-
able attempt at a sora^^ the Malayan war-cry, which is
designed as much to put heart into those who utter it, as
to frighten the enemy in defiance of whom it is sounded.
2o6 IN COURT AND KAMPONG
Alat, the man who had upset the torch and plunged
the house in darkness, alone failed to add his voice to
the miserable cheer raised by his fellows. Wild with
fear of the beast without, he crept, unobserved by the
others, up into the para^ or shelf-like upper apartment,
on which Minah had been wont to sit, when strangers
were about, during the short davs of her virginity.
This place, as is usual in most Alalav houses, hardly
desen'ed to be dignified bv being termed a room. It
consisted of a platform suspended from the roof in one
corner of the house, and among the dustv lumber with
which it was covered Mat now cowered and sought to
hide himself.
A minute or two of sickening suspense followed
the timer's first unsuccessful charge. But presently the
howl broke forth again, quickened rapidly to the note
of the charge song, and once more the house trembled
under the weight of the great animal. This time the
leap of Him of the Hairy Face had been of truer aim,
and a crash overhead, a shower of leaflets of thatch,
and an ominous creaking of the woodwork told the
cowering people in the house that their enemy had
effected a landing on the roof.
The miserable thready cheer, which Che' Seman
exhorted his fellows to raise in answer to the charge
song of the tiger, died down in their throats. All
looked upwards in deadlv fascination as the thatch was
torn violently apart by the great claws of their
assailant. There were no firearms in the house, but
the men instinctively grasped their spears, and held
them readv to await the tiger's descent. Thus for a
moment, as the quiet moonlight poured in through
A NIGHT OF TERROR 207
the gap in the thatch, they stood gazing at the great
square face, marked with its black bars, at the flaming
eyes, and the long cruel teeth framed in the hole which
the claws of the beast had made. The timbers of
the roof bent and cracked anew under the unwonted
weight, and then, with the agility of a cat. He of the
Hairy Face leaped lightly down, and was in among
them before they knew. The striped hide was slightly
wounded by the spears, but the shock of the brute's leap
bore all who had resisted it to the floor. The tiger never
stayed to use its jaws. It sat up, much in the attitude
of a kitten which plays with something dangled before
its eyes, and the soft pit-pat of its paws, as it struck
out rapidly and with unerring aim, speedily disposed
of all its enemies. Che' Seman, with his two sons,
Awang and Ngah, were the first to fall. Then lang,
Che' Seman's wife, fell backwards against the wall,
with her skull crushed out of all resemblance to any
human member, by the awful strength of one of those
well-aimed buffets from the fearful claws. Kassim,
Potek, and Abdollah fell before the tiger in quick
succession, and Minah, the girl who had nestled against
her father for protection, lay now under his dead body,
sorely wounded, wild with terror, but still alive and
conscious. Mat, cowering on the shelf overhead,
breathless with fear, and gazing fascinated at the
carnage going on within a few feet of him, was the
only inmate of the house who remained uninjured.
He of the Hairy Face killed quickly and silently,
while there were yet some ahve to resist him. Then,
purring gently, he drank a deep draught of blood
from each of his slaughtered victims. At last he
2o8 IN COURT AND KJMPONG
reached Che' Seman, and Minah, seeing him approach,
made a feeble effort to evade him. Then began a
fearful scene, the tiger playing with, and torturing the
girl, just as we all have seen a cat do with a maimed
mouse. Again and again Minah crawled feebly away
from her tormentor, only to be drawn back again just
when escape seemed possible. Again and again she
lay still in the utter inertia of exhaustion, only to be
quickened into agonised movement once more by the
touch of the tiger's cruel claws. Yet so cunningly
did he play with her, that, as Mat described it, a time
as long as it would take to cook rice had elapsed,
before the girl was finally put out of her misery.
Even then He of the Hairy Face did not quit the
scene of slaughter. Mat, as he lay trembling in the
shelf overhead, watched the tiger, through the long
hours of that fearful night, play with the mangled
bodies of each of his victims in turn. He leaped from
one to the other, inflicting a fresh blow with teeth or
claws on their torn flesh, with all the airy, light-
hearted agility and sinuous grace of a kitten playing
with its shadow in the sun. Then when the dawn
was breaking, the tiger tore down the door, leaped
lightly to the ground, and betook himself to the
jungle.
When the sun was up, an armed party of neigh-
bours came to the house to see if ought could be done.
But they found the place a shambles, the bodies
hardly to be recognised, the floor-laths dripping blood,
and Mat lying face downward on the shelf, with his
reason tottering in the balance. The bodies, though
they had been horribly mutilated, had not been eaten,
A NIGHT OF TERROR 209
the tiger having contented himself with drinking the
blood of his victims, and playing his ghastly game
with them till the dawn broke.
This is, I believe, the only recorded instance in the
Peninsula of a tiger having dared to attack men
within their closed houses ; and the circumstances
are so remarkable in every way, that I, for one, cannot
find it in me to greatly blame the Malays for
attributing the fearlessness of mankind, and the lust
for blood displayed by Him of the Hairy Face, to the
fact that he owed his existence to magic agencies, and
was in reality no mere wild beast, but a member or
the race upon which he so cruelly preyed.
