Farewell Draco!

Farewell, Draco (January 2006 - 12 November 2018.) 

Our eldest doggo (beloved of Shona Yean,) passed away this afternoon. It was not unexpected. He lost the ability to walk a few months after his brother, Choji, passed away in December, 2017. Draco was born with severe hip dysplasia and somehow, forced himself to walk, to keep up with Choji, until he was twelve years old. He showed incredible endurance for a dog, being able to walk for so long, when less handicapped Golden Retrievers would have given up. 

Draco and Choji, were both born in Malaysia. They followed us to two countries in succession - Havana, Cuba and Zagreb, Croatia. Life was tough in Cuba for Choji, the weather was hot and humid and good dog food was scarce. But Draco had a fairly productive life as a guard dog at the Havana Residence in Siboney. I think he enjoyed his role there. However, they both enjoyed Zagreb and getting to experience snow for the first time in their lives! There was an apple tree in the backyard, and Draco loved munching apples in the autumn.

We have been caring for Draco for the past nine months. But he was diagnosed with cancer, six months ago and had a stroke last Wednesday. The end was inevitable. Still, I felt 'empty' entering our home without being greeted by a dog. 

Nevertheless, he was a gorgeous dog. When a puppy, he had the usual golden colour. This colour deepened and in his youth, Draco had flaming red-gold fur. The colour mellowed to a warm gold as he matured but he never faded into grey. He was the most stubborn, intelligent, irrepressible and high-spirited dog, we've ever known.

Vale old friend. You are no longer in pain. Seek your brother, Choji, on the other side of the rainbow bridge. May you two have great adventures together chasing squirrels and guinea pigs!

CATS IN FOLKLORE

Cats play a significant role in folklore from around the world and so, I've decided to assemble some of the stories here:

1. Il Gato Mammone: The Italian Tale of the Cat King

Source: https://folklorethursday.com/

Once upon a time, there was a woman. She had two daughters, one incredibly ugly and the other one astonishingly beautiful. In a rather surprising twist, the woman loved her ugly daughter more than anything, including the beautiful one, whose beauty drew their jealousy and ire. One day, filled to the brim with envy, they decide to send her to ask the fairies for a sieve, the fair folk being known for their trickery and curses.

On her way to the castle of the fairies she meets an old man whose adherence to folk tale rules would make Vladimir Propp proud.  He tells her exactly how to behave, with a strict and perhaps nonsensical etiquette, that if followed would help her find the object she sought after.

Most important of all, she must help the cats in the castle do their housework. The Gatto Mammone, who lives in the castle, is thankful and gives her what she asked for, along with a warning: on her way back home, she must not turn at the call of the donkey, but only when she hears a rooster. As she does so, a beautiful star is magically embedded in her forehead.

You can easily imagine the rest of the story: her sister goes through the same ordeal, but her pride gets the best of her and she’s shunned away by the cats. On her way back, she turns at the bray of the ass, and a donkey’s tail is magically embedded in her forehead.

2. Bayun Cat

Cat Baiyun/Bayun Cat. Illustration by K. Kuznetsov from the collection “Russian folk tales” 

Bayun Cat is a fascinating character of Russian fairy tales. It is a huge man-eater with a magical voice. When he spins his magical tales, travelers are lulled into complacency or even sleep by his  hypnotic voice. Those of them who do not have enough strength to resist his magic or who are not prepared to battle with him, will be ruthlessly killed by the cat-sorcerer. But those who can capture a Bayun cat will find salvation from all diseases and illnesses - the tales of Bayun are healing.

Word Bayun means "talker narrator talker" from the verb bayat  - "tell talk" (cf. also verbs. Cradle , lull in "put to sleep" value) ^[1] [2] . In fairy tales it is said that Bayun sits on a high, usually iron pillar. The cat lives in distant lands in the thirtieth kingdom ^[3] or in a lifeless dead forest, where there are no birds or animals ^[4] . In one of the fairy tales about Vasilis the Beautiful, the Bayun cat lives with Baba Yaga .

There are a large number of such fairy tales, where the main character is given the task of catching a Bayun Cat; as a rule, such tasks were given in order to destroy a good young man. Meeting with this fabulous monster means inevitable death. To capture the magic cat, Ivan Tsarevich puts on an iron cap and iron mittens. Winning and catching the animal, Ivan Tsarevich delivers him to the palace to his father. There, the defeated cat begins to serve the king - telling fairy tales to heal the king with lulling words ^[5] .

3. Cats of Witchcraft
In ancient Scotland, it was believed that witches could shapeshift into #cats. However they had to be careful, as once they had shifted for the ninth time they could not shift back.

In ancient times on the festival of Samhain/Halloween, dishes of milk were left outside houses for a witch who could change into cat form; she’d bless each house in return. But if you didn’t leave an offering of milk, you’d be cursed and your cows’ milk would dry up.

In Wales, the cat was thought to be a capital weather glass. If she stood or lay with her face towards the fire, it was a sign of frost or snow; if she became frisky, bad weather was near. If the cat washed her face and ears, then rain was sure to come."

Casa del Rio in Malacca

Casa del Rio 

Saturday, 13 Oct 2018. On a day trip to Malacca,  we had lunch at the Casa del Rio, a vintage boutique hotel in Malacca, located by the Malacca River.

This is the only place in Malaysia which reminds me of the grand old mansions in Havana, Cuba. The food was mediocre, though. It's only worth going for the tiffin lunch on weekdays.

Book Launch in Malacca

Book Launch of Stories of One Malaccan Family.

On Saturday, 13 October 2018, we attended a book launch at the Baba and Nyonya Heritage Museum in Malacca.  The museum is located at Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Loke (Heeren Street), a part of the historic inner city which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. An immersive experience in the Peranakan culture- a hybrid of Chinese and Malay. Enjoyed the beautiful museum, the performance and the food. Met Lee Su Kim, the author of the Nyonya Trilogy; and Bert Tan, the founder of the Malaysian Heritage & History Club. And the book, Stories of One Malaccan Family, by Melissa Chan and Preethi Nair is a treasure!

Melissa Chan is the author of the book.
The Chans are Peranakan - a hybrid culture combining Chinese and Malay elements and this is reflected in their beautiful traditional costumes. The top, known as a kebaya is hand-embroidered traditionally (but machine embroidered now), while the sarong is made from batik.

Entitled, Stories of One Malaccan Family, it is about the Chan family and their remarkable ancestral home. Being an outstanding example of the Straits Settlement Shophouse architecture located in a historic part of the city, the clan decided to turn it into a museum.

Preethi Nair is the illustrator

Yean and Henry Chan at the book launch

The Chan family's ancestral home is now the
Baba and Nyonya Heritage Museum

Guests were served an array of
Nyonya delicacies at the launch.
The pastries are pineapple tarts, a Nyonya invention?

The lavishly illustrated book, Stories of One Malaccan Family is by Melissa Chan with her father, Henry Chan, and illustrated by Preethi Nair. It took Melissa and Preethi five years to complete this gorgeous book, which was written in honour of the Chan family, and their remarkable home. The collection of stories about the Chan family covers four generations - before the Second World War, during the war and after. While the First World War had little impact on this part of the world, the Second World War had a huge impact. The country, then Malaya, and almost the whole of Southeast Asia was occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army. The Chinese who have settled in this part of the world were especially adversely affected.

The book, entitled Stories of One Malaccan Family
is a collectible Malaysiana

Malay Magic And Divination

Malay Magic and Divination

The long awaited talk on Malay Magic and Divination by Dr Farouk Yahya from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), of the University of London and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University finally took place this afternoon (16 July 2017) at the Ilham Gallery, Kuala Lumpur. The hall was packed, and I recognised several friends from the writing community: Sharifah A. Osman, Ninot Aziz, RJ Es RJ Ibrahim, SquareMean Burhan, Lokman Hakim, Heidi Shamsudin and Amir Mohammad (publisher and film producer.)

Dr Farouk's talk was based on his research for his PhD. He studied over one hundred illustrated manuscripts from this region (all written by men for sure because most women were probably illiterate at that time.) Many of these manuscripts are found in the SOAS Library, the Ashmolean Museum and also thankfully, the National Library of Malaysia. 

He explained the differences between manuscripts - which were text written on loose leaf paper, and a codex, when they are bound in book form. There are also folding books and scrolls. Malay manuscripts were usually written in Arabic and most originated in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Many of them were about magic. Farouk Yahya defined magic as an act that seeks to alter the course of events - usually by calling on supernatural forces. Magic usually involved incantations and spells. He mentioned the Hikayat Hang Tuah, found in Malacca in 1882 but thought to be composed in Johor between 1680 - 1710. According to Farouk Yahya, although the story did not contain any love spells, it  mentioned a spell used by Hang Tuah to make Tun Teja hate him!

He showed us a Divination Diagramme called a Rajamuka Diagramme, by Haji San Lundang which originated from Singapore in 1907. It explains divination through breathing - the right nostrils or the left nostrils. I failed to grasp this completely. 

There were also methods to bind and harm people by using effigies. E.g. one could draw an image on the ground and squat on the shoulders and defecate and urinate into what is the mouth! This should be done seven days in a row. Or one could draw an effigy and use the heel of the shoe to twist into the heart; this needs to be done three days in a row.   

I can't help feeling a tad disappointed though. Oddly enough because it was too 'high brow' - a study of hand written and illustrated manuscripts based on Indian and Arab knowledge available at that time.  No doubt the educated intelligentsia of that time regarded folk magic/knowledge as too low brow to be included in the manuscripts. Therefore, No rituals, no jampi (spells and incantations), no love potions (although there was a mention of a hate potion) and no descriptions of djins/demons. Most disappointing of all (Sharifah and I agreed on this), no mention of Nenek Kebayan, the healers and shamans/witches of the Malay world.

However we did learn a rather unpleasant curse and the ancient Indian and Malay divination method of choosing an auspicious house based on measurements of the width of the house and the land area, the right colours for the house (?) and the best time to see the king etc He also explained the significance of house number - 1 = Standard/naga, 2 = smoke/cloud/cat, 3 = tiger/lion, 4 = dog, 5 = bull/serpent/naga, 6 = rat/donkey, 7 = elephant/eagle and 8 = hare/crow. Basically, odd numbers are more auspicious than even numbers.

And there were some interesting information about Nagas. Dr Farouk showed a slide of a stone with inscriptions on it dating from the Sri Vijayan period with seven nagas surrounding it. The Naga stone originated from the 7th Century in Palembang, Sumatra. The inscriptions were written in an Indic language.

There was also the concept of the Rotating Naga. The naga guarding the land is thought to rotate every three months - North, East, South and West.