Tuesday, August 29, 2017

The Pet Of Mountain God (山神的宠物)

Basically speaking, everything ranging from stones to flora and fauna in the mountain can be considered as mountain god's pets including those mountain hikers lost forever in the mountain. The mysterious leklai is just one of those pets of mountain god in Indochina just to name one example.

People believe that whatever is taken from the mountain, the mountain will also take something from the person and this is a fair deal. Give and take is just part and parcel of the law of nature of our daily life.

So said, there are people who earn a living by hunting and harvesting jungle products and they do not believe in those superstitious matters.

Ben was a born hunter once lived in Tapah and he used to enter the jungle to hunt for wild boars. When old local folks saw Ben carrying his hunting rifle, they would say: "Oh Ben, have mercy! Your gun can kill animals but not the mountain god!"

But Ben was not superstitious, he normally shook his head and marched on without bothering those cynical remarks.

Ben liked to enter the forest at dusk to hunt for fruit bats as this is the time when those big bats came out to feed. I have tasted some of those juicy bat meat and could still remember them until today. Jogging my memory, roasted bat meat are best to be consumed with black beer.

When local economy started to boom in the 90's, exotic food became in demand and Ben turned himself into a professional hunter and spent most of his time in the jungle. 

A restaurant owner even claimed that Ben was not human as once Ben has entered the mountain, he would become an animal hence under the coverage of jungle foliage; Ben could hunt more preys than any ordinary human being.

One evening, Ben saw a wild boar consuming some oil palm seeds and without any hesitation, he fire a shot at the boar. The wild boar fell onto the ground but managed to raise up and escaped into a bush while snorting in pain.

Ben was in hot pursue and followed the wild boar into its nest and found that he has injured a sow. There were a few small small boar feeding on the sow's milk. The dying sow looked at Ben as if begging for his mercy. This is the moment Ben hated most as it is a taboo for hunters to kill any animals with puppies. 

Just as when Ben was in a state of hesitation, the sow died. Since the small piglets could not survive anyway; Ben decided to kill them all...

Now that Ben has broken hunter's three taboos: don't kill puppies and milking mother animal, and don't extinct the animal source. He returned to his house with a heavy heart.

That night, Ben told his wife about his experience earlier and added that he probably could not live long. 

A few days later, Ben was found dead during his sleep...

A few months later, rumors of Ben has transformed into a giant wild boar and returned to rule the jungle he used to hunt when he was alive. Some hunters even claimed to have seen this 150kg wild boar ran across their path.

People believed that Ben has become one of mountain god's pet. 

Maybe it is true that whatever taken from the mountain will return to the mountain...

1 comment:

  1. Was expecting a response to my approach for Asma Sirr. Since last three years I couldn't understand how to perform it. Care to provide more knowledge and details about its performance.

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