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TOUGH GUYS
I
HAD now been on the
island for quite four days, and with the exception of my visit to the
Sultan I had not strayed far from the city walls. I had been repeatedly
assured that not only was it not safe to stir beyond the city gates,
but that even in the streets of Jolo you might suddenly find yourself
faced with a fanatical Moro determined to carve you up with his 3-foot
bolo or kris ground to a razor-edge.
The
motives underlying such not infrequent happenings were either misguided
patriotism, religious fanaticism or simply a desire to be done with
life. The Moro, being a Mahometan of sorts, must on no account take
his own life without the direst consequences in the life hereafter. He
has therefore to resort to the killing of others in order to get killed
himself. I have never once heard in all my residence among Malayans of
a case of suicide as suicide is understood in the West.
The
Malayan in a religious frenzy or in great personal trouble seizes the
nearest weapon, runs out into the street and starts slashing to right
and left at everyone he meets. If unopposed, he usually makes for the
market-place in order to get as many heads as he can before he himself
is killed. He has not long to wait. For his fellows have speedily armed
themselves with stout hardwood cudgels from the stacks which are
conveniently distributed in every Malayan community against such an
emergency, and they just pulp him to death. Then they return stoically
to their work, and say pityingly, "He was only a poor amok."
In
Jolo the amoks are called Juramentados—a memory of Spanish days. The
very word used to send a shiver down my spine. The townsfolk, for some
reason or other—maybe because of their circumscribed existence—took a
macabre delight
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