As promised, I’m back with ulu tales especially those pertaining to my familiar territory, the upper Melupa river basin.
Being brought up by farming and rubber tapping parents, I was out of parental cobweb at an early age of eight and since then, had been roaming freely in the width and depth of the jungles, trying to be in oneness with nature, on land or by the river and its many streams. Snakes, centipedes, millipedes, scorpions, red ants, hornets and bees were regular dangers but one has to learn early to be unperturbed by them. I was stung by hornets and bees on a number of occasions, once by scorpion and too many times by red ants.
Once while on an excursion to look for streams with big pools that offered promises of golden rod fishing bonuses, I hurriedly looked for a tree trunk that could offer some kind of shelter as a clap of thunder heralded an imminent downpour. But then true to what was then said about the unreliable weather, it stopped and the sun showed its prominence with ray of unparalleled majesty.
This was when I was attracted by a special sound of a frog in distress only to be confronted by a metre-long king cobra whose head was raised by a foot in ready-to-strike position. But luck was on my side as the distressed frog was dangling on the cobra’s mouth that impeded it to strike on me. It was an encounter that remains fresh in my memory.
I hastened my steps and moved away from the cobra spot in Olympic record time, trying another not-so-familiar spot by the side of a relatively big stream pool along the Sungai Pentik farther up. If in a video clip the viewer would be able to see that my mouth was opened wide, like a newborn chick demanding to be fed as the pool definitely was something that I had been looking for, as it housed different fish species such as my favourite carps Tebalang, Enseluai, Bangah and a few others upon first impression. From that moment, I knew no further excursion was necessary. In the imagined video clip, the viewer would see the flicker of a smile crossing my face.
“This is it,” I said to myself in my mind, full of anxiety and anticipation.
Using the popular green grasshoppers as bait, I began my fishing quest and within ten seconds got hold of a large Tebalang, the hungriest fish any stream could offer. By the end of the first hour – I started my luck on the spot around mid morning – my humble fishing basket out of bemban was half full and therefore was considered a bountiful catch. But I adhered to my self-made rule never to overstay your welcome and as such made a move further up to another pool just about 80 metres away. The second spot and a few more spots helped to fill up my basket to more than three quarters full and I hurried home to my grandma at our Bukit Tinggi residence for lunch, but not before stopping to get leaves and bamboo for her to prepare the catch in backwoods cooking. As it was on a Saturday, Apai, Indai and Jon were in the rubber garden. I could imagine Apai cursing the sudden but transitory mid morning drizzles earlier.
There were much more fun in the company of my peers in Nanga Assam, our boarding primary school, especially on weekends when the boarders were not permitted to go home. This situation was called ‘non-weekend leave’ which was a welcomed change from my solitary jungle escapade. Our favourite game was called ‘teruan’ or ‘hide and seek’. In fact at our own individual longhouse, this had been done at an earlier age but was confined to the longhouse only, where every apartment was easily accessible – one of the rules stated only the rooms or bilik of the game participants were allowed, including the loft. This was a game of wit and creativity, as the more creative participants would choose unlikely places or spots to hide and thereby rendering them difficult if not impossible to find within a stipulated duration. My group’s hiding and finding percentage always placed us above the rest. For example, in the loft, each child would roll himself or herself respectively inside the rolling mate and stayed immobile for the stipulated 30 minutes. My female cousin almost fainted once while joining my group in this adventure.
Back to the boarding school’s edition of the game, we normally divided ourselves into two groups of five or six each. They were too happy to let me helm our group in the ‘teruan’ game. Positioned at the edge of the jungle, a cemetery on the hill and bordering a vast rubber garden for a bigger part of the compound, students were spoilt for choice. There were too many good spots to hide. But before each game started participants were instructed to confine themselves to a certain portion of the neighbouring areas.
“Don’t go into the cemetery for your game,” our school captain barked. So it was an out-of-bound area for us. By the way it was a big relief for most of us smaller boys – no girl was allowed to join. There were times when some boys reportedly stepped on human faeces while looking for a hiding place. We had a good laugh about it but those who purposely laid the ‘trap’ certainly laughed louder.
The game went on for quite some time but was paused when a group of the boys were not found and missed an afternoon lesson – there were lessons after lunch that would stop at 4pm on some of the school days. Our headmaster instructed the bigger boys to look for the five of them, calling and hitting empty tins. They were found sleeping among the thick undergrowth but were let off with a warning by our discipline master. But the incident almost put a total stop to the game.
Days later we started another pastime which we called ‘nyabung daun’ (an equivalent of cockfighting but using leaves) and bets of rubber bands were allowed to add fun and suspense. Kids nowadays may not know how to go about this game. Actually this game is conducted by putting on a sharp spur out of the strong ‘’resam’ fibre on the stalk of a chosen leaf. Two persons are supposed to use one hand each to hold his leaf with the spur and let your respective leaf’s spur to hit that of your opponent’s. There are specifications and rules to be adhered to avoid your spur from hitting your opponent’s hand or fingers. This also was short lived as those losing badly in the betting with rubber bands – costing 10 sen for 25 new ones – became disillusioned and claimed the bigger boys cheated them. For readers’ information, no less than a dozen of Primary 5 and 6 boys at Nanga Assam then were in their late teens.
That put the end to the ‘sabung daun’ game. Within those two years, namely 1966 and 1967, few other follies came to a pause or complete stop but nothing erased my memory of the king cobra encounter.
But the creative ulu kids came out with new ones every now and then. There were more to come in later months before our Common Entrance examination of 1967. OMG that was half a century ago!
