THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

Tiger Catcher and Crocodile Slayer 13
The third time a bridge was constructed, not far from the original site,
was by a well-to-do Chinese contractor and is still in use. The bridge near
the Matang Mosque was therefore built by the three major races in the
country, first the Malays, then the Indians, and finally, the Chinese.
There were many other supposed dangers lurking in corners if we
did not play nearer to home. Much of Matang was still covered by virgin
jungle. Once or twice, tigers were found making overnight visits to the
mosque.
Life was very interesting in many ways. It was a time when sweating
British magistrates were known to have been summoned out of their small,
but typically British courtrooms, to shoot tigers seen roaming in nearby
clearings. The magistrates thus moved from ‘hearings’ to ‘clearings’, so
to speak.
Many outlying villages were periodically terrorised by tigers, though
always when least expected. Not just livestock were lost, but also a fair
number of human lives, with grisly telltale signs of a tiger on the prowl.
Living on the fringes of verdant jungles, the Malays were quick to learn
about their greatly feared feline foe. There was this interesting piece of
advice circulating: “When a tiger’s roar sounds quite near, it is actually
far away. But when it sounds far away, watch out, it is not as far as you
would like it to be!”
There were then two famous brothers in Matang, known as the
‘Fearless Duo’, living in a thatch-roofed hut by the banks of the Larut
River. One brother was a skilful crocodile killer, while the other was an
adroit tiger hunter. Needless to say, both had guts and extraordinary
strength. The brothers hardly spoke, wore perpetually grim looks on their
faces and chewed either tobacco or betel nut. They went about barefooted,
garbed in checked Indian pulaikat sarong and a Malay style cotton
tunic, usually black in colour. They must have had Javanese origins as
they often wore Javanese batik cloth headgear. The tiger catcher also
sported a bushy handlebar moustache, that made him look nearly as
fearsome as the tigers he killed.
The British paid the duo a certain number of dollars for each tiger
or crocodile killed so that farmers and fishermen could go about their
business with less fear in their hearts and less quivering in their knees.
Except for a handful of educated, especially English-educated families,
Malays of that period were familiar only with these two traditional
occupations. I was lucky to have come from a more fortunate group of
chieftains, captains, community leaders, penghulus and merchants.
During his time, my father had worked for the British Government,
demarcating land.