Just so stories
dark forests for miles and miles, and flooded the Man’s house.
‘This is wrong. Launch your canoe and we will find out who is playing
with the Sea,’ said the Eldest Magician. They stepped into the canoe;
the little girl-daughter came with them; and the Man took his kris--a
curving, wavy dagger with a blade like a flame,--and they pushed out on
the Perak river. Then the sea began to run back and back, and the canoe
was sucked out of the mouth of the Perak river, past Selangor, past
Malacca, past Singapore, out and out to the Island of Bingtang, as
though it had been pulled by a string.
Then the Eldest Magician stood up and shouted, ‘Ho! beasts, birds, and
fishes, that I took between my hands at the Very Beginning and taught
the play that you should play, which one of you is playing with the
Sea?’
Then all the beasts, birds, and fishes said together, ‘Eldest Magician,
we play the plays that you taught us to play--we and our children’s
children. But not one of us plays with the Sea.’
Then the Moon rose big and full over the water, and the Eldest Magician
said to the hunchbacked old man who sits in the Moon spinning a
fishing-line with which he hopes one day to catch the world, ‘Ho! Fisher
of the Moon, are you playing with the Sea?’
‘No,’ said the Fisherman, ‘I am spinning a line with which I shall some
day catch the world; but I do not play with the Sea.’ And he went on
spinning his line.
Now there is also a Rat up in the Moon who always bites the old
Fisherman’s line as fast as it is made, and the Eldest Magician said to
him, ‘Ho! Rat of the Moon, are you playing with the Sea?’
And the Rat said, ‘I am too busy biting through the line that this
old Fisherman is spinning. I do not play with the Sea.’ And he went on
biting the line.
Then the little girl-daughter put up her little soft brown arms with the
beautiful white shell bracelets and said, ‘O Eldest Magician! when my
father here talked to you at the Very Beginning, and I leaned upon his
shoulder while the beasts were being taught their plays, one beast went
away naughtily into the Sea before you had taught him his play.
And the Eldest Magician said, ‘How wise are little children who see and
are silent! What was the beast like?’
And the little girl-daughter said, ‘He was round and he was flat; and
his eyes grew upon stalks; and he walked sideways like this; and he was
covered with strong armour upon his back.’
And the Eldest Magician said, ‘How wise are little children who speak
truth! Now I know where Pau Amma went. Give me the paddle!’
So he took the paddle; but there was no need to paddle, for the water
flowed steadily past all the islands till they came to the place called
Pusat Tasek--the Heart of the Sea--where the great hollow is that leads
down to the heart of the world, and in that hollow grows the Wonderful
Tree, Pauh Janggi, that bears the magic twin nuts. Then the Eldest
Magician slid his arm up to the shoulder through the deep warm water,
and under the roots of the Wonderful Tree he touched the broad back of
Pau Amma the Crab. And Pau Amma settled down at the touch, and all the
Sea rose up as water rises in a basin when you put your hand into it.
‘Ah!’ said the Eldest Magician. ‘Now I know who has been playing with
the Sea;’ and he called out, ‘What are you doing, Pau Amma?’
And Pau Amma, deep down below, answered, ‘Once a day and once a night I
go out to look for my food. Once a day and once a night I return. Leave
me alone.’
Then the Eldest Magician said, ‘Listen, Pau Amma. When you go out from
your cave the waters of the Sea pour down into Pusat Tasek, and all the
beaches of all the islands are left bare, and the little fish die, and
Raja Moyang Kaban, the King of the Elephants, his legs are made muddy.
When you come back and sit in Pusat Tasek, the waters of the Sea rise,
and half the little islands are drowned, and the Man’s house is flooded,
and Raja Abdullah, the King of the Crocodiles, his mouth is filled with
the salt water.
Then Pau Amma, deep down below, laughed and said, ‘I did not know I
was so important. Henceforward I will go out seven times a day, and the
waters shall never be still.’
And the Eldest Magician said, ‘I cannot make you play the play you were
meant to play, Pau Amma, because you escaped me at the Very Beginning;
but if you are not afraid, come up and we will talk about it.’
‘I am not afraid,’ said Pau Amma, and he rose to the top of the sea in
the moonlight. There was nobody in the world so big as Pau Amma--for he
was the King Crab of all Crabs. Not a common Crab, but a King Crab. One
side of his great shell touched the beach at Sarawak; the other
touched the beach at Pahang; and he was taller than the smoke of three
volcanoes! As he rose up through the branches of the Wonderful Tree he
tore off one of the great twin fruits--the magic double kernelled nuts
that make people young,--and the little girl-daughter saw it bobbing
alongside the canoe, and pulled it in and began to pick out the soft
eyes of it with her little golden scissors.
‘Now,’ said the Magician, ‘make a Magic, Pau Amma, to show that you are
really important.’
Pau Amma rolled his eyes and waved his legs, but he could only stir up
the Sea, because, though he was a King Crab, he was nothing more than a
Crab, and the Eldest Magician laughed.
‘You are not so important after all, Pau Amma,’ he said. ‘Now, let
me try,’ and he made a Magic with his left hand--with just the little
finger of his left hand--and--lo and behold, Best Beloved, Pau Amma’s
hard, blue-green-black shell fell off him as a husk falls off a
cocoa-nut, and Pau Amma was left all soft--soft as the little crabs that
you sometimes find on the beach, Best Beloved.
‘Indeed, you are very important,’ said the Eldest Magician. ‘Shall I ask
the Man here to cut you with kris? Shall I send for Raja Moyang Kaban,
the King of the Elephants, to pierce you with his tusks, or shall I call
Raja Abdullah, the King of the Crocodiles, to bite you?’
And Pau Amma said, ‘I am ashamed! Give me back my hard shell and let me
go back to Pusat Tasek, and I will only stir out once a day and once a
night to get my food.’
And the Eldest Magician said, ‘No, Pau Amma, I will not give you back
your shell, for you will grow bigger and prouder and stronger, and
perhaps you will forget your promise, and you will play with the Sea
once more.
Then Pau Amma said, ‘What shall I do? I am so big that I can only hide
in Pusat Tasek, and if I go anywhere else, all soft as I am now, the
sharks and the dogfish will eat me. And if I go to Pusat Tasek, all soft
as I am now, though I may be safe, I can never stir out to get my food,
and so I shall die.’ Then he waved his legs and lamented.
‘Listen, Pau Amma,’ said the Eldest Magician. ‘I cannot make you play
the play you were meant to play, because you escaped me at the Very
Beginning; but if you choose, I can make every stone and every hole and
every bunch of weed in all the seas a safe Pusat Tasek for you and your
children for always.’
Then Pau Amma said, ‘That is good, but I do not choose yet. Look! there
is that Man who talked to you at the Very Beginning. If he had not taken
up your attention I should not have grown tired of waiting and run away,
and all this would never have happened. What will he do for me?’
And the Man said, ‘If you choose, I will make a Magic, so that both
the deep water and the dry ground will be a home for you and your
children--so that you shall be able to hide both on the land and in the
sea.’
And Pau Amma said, ‘I do not choose yet. Look! there is that girl who
saw me running away at the Very Beginning. If she had spoken then, the
Eldest Magician would have called me back, and all this would never have
happened. What will she do for me?’
And the little girl-daughter said, ‘This is a good nut that I am eating.
If you choose, I will make a Magic and I will give you this pair of
scissors, very sharp and strong, so that you and your children can eat
cocoa-nuts like this all day long when you come up from the Sea to the
land; or you can dig a Pusat Tasek for yourself with the scissors that
belong to you when there is no stone or hole near by; and when the earth
is too hard, by the help of these same scissors you can run up a tree.’
And Pau Amma said, ‘I do not choose yet, for, all soft as I am, these
gifts would not help me. Give me back my shell, O Eldest Magician, and
then I will play your play.’
And the Eldest Magician said, ‘I will give it back, Pau Amma, for eleven
months of the year; but on the twelfth month of every year it shall grow
soft again, to remind you and all your children that I can make magics,
and to keep you humble, Pau Amma; for I see that if you can run both
under the water and on land, you will grow too bold; and if you can
climb trees and crack nuts and dig holes with your scissors, you will
grow too greedy, Pau Amma.’
Then Pau Amma thought a little and said, ‘I have made my choice. I will
take all the gifts.’
Then the Eldest Magician made a Magic with the right hand, with all five
fingers of his right hand, and lo and behold, Best Beloved, Pau Amma
grew smaller and smaller and smaller, till at last there was only a
little green crab swimming in the water alongside the canoe, crying in a
very small voice, ‘Give me the scissors!’
And the girl-daughter picked him up on the palm of her little brown
hand, and sat him in the bottom of the canoe and gave him her scissors,
and he waved them in his little arms, and opened them and shut them and
snapped them, and said, ‘I can eat nuts. I can crack shells. I can dig
holes. I can climb trees. I can breathe in the dry air, and I can find
a safe Pusat Tasek under every stone. I did not know I was so important.
Kun?’ (Is this right?)
‘Payah-kun,’ said the Eldest Magician, and he laughed and gave him his
blessing; and little Pau Amma scuttled over the side of the canoe into
the water; and he was so tiny that he could have hidden under the shadow
of a dry leaf on land or of a dead shell at the bottom of the sea.
‘Was that well done?’ said the Eldest Magician.
‘Yes,’ said the Man. ‘But now we must go back to Perak, and that is
a weary way to paddle. If we had waited till Pau Amma had gone out of
Pusat Tasek and come home, the water would have carried us there by
itself.’
‘You are lazy,’ said the Eldest Magician. ‘So your children shall be
lazy. They shall be the laziest people in the world. They shall be
called the Malazy--the lazy people;’ and he held up his finger to the
Moon and said, ‘O Fisherman, here is the Man too lazy to row home. Pull
his canoe home with your line, Fisherman.’
‘No,’ said the Man. ‘If I am to be lazy all my days, let the Sea work
for me twice a day for ever. That will save paddling.’
And the Eldest Magician laughed and said, ‘Payah kun’ (That is right).
And the Rat of the Moon stopped biting the line; and the Fisherman let
his line down till it touched the Sea, and he pulled the whole deep Sea
along, past the Island of Bintang, past Singapore, past Malacca, past
Selangor, till the canoe whirled into the mouth of the Perak River
again. Kun?’ said the Fisherman of the Moon.
‘Payah kun,’ said the Eldest Magician. ‘See now that you pull the Sea
twice a day and twice a night for ever, so that the Malazy fishermen may
be saved paddling. But be careful not to do it too hard, or I shall make
a magic on you as I did to Pau Amma.’
Then they all went up the Perak River and went to bed, Best Beloved.
Now listen and attend!
From that day to this the Moon has always pulled the sea up and down
and made what we call the tides. Sometimes the Fisher of the Sea pulls a
little too hard, and then we get spring tides; and sometimes he pulls