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§ 6. Fables relating to Animals.
Although animals occasionally play an important part in the Achehnese romances, none of the latter can properly be classed among fables of this order, for as a rule the beasts who take part in the action of the story are human beings or jéns (diwas etc.) who have adopted the shape of animals.
The two collections which we are now about to describe, comprise, as we shall see, genuine fables relating to animals borrowed both from indigenous folklore and from foreign (Indian) books of fables. Most Achehnese listeners are as convinced of the truth of these tales as they are of that of the romances. The sacred tradition that the prophet-king Sulòyman (Solomon) understood the language of animals is changed in the popular imagination into a belief that in Solomon's time beasts were gifted with speech and reason.
Thus stories in which genuine animals are made to think and speak are regarded as accounts of what actually took place in those times.
Plandōʾ kanchi[1] (LIII).
We know how popular stories about the crafty mouse-deer are among a great proportion of the Indonesians; yet it is only very occasionally that we find a collection of these tales forming part of their written literature[2]. But in Acheh such is the case; an unknown author has collected a number of them and formed them into a hikayat which he divides into 26 sections or bhaïh[3]. Copies of this are rare[4]; I was able to obtain possession of one only, and this lacks the last part of the 26th bhaïh.
Anxiety to offer more to his readers has perhaps induced the com-
- ↑ Kanché means in Achehnese not a variety of mouse-deer, as in other Malayan languages, but is an adjective meaning "crafty", "wicked", which is often applied to human beings. In Bimanese kanchi = "craft", "cunning". (See the dictionary of Dr. J. Jonker).
- ↑ See Dr. J. Brandes Dwerghert-verhalen in Vol. XXXVII of the Journal of the Batavian Association (Tijdschrift van het Bataviaasch Genootschap) pp. 27 et seq.
- ↑ Achehnese form of the Arabic baḥth ((
Arabic characters)) = "enquiry", "subject".
- ↑ Numbers of Achehnese came and begged me to let them transcribe my copy of the Hikayat Plandōʾ, but I was obliged to refuse, having bound myself by a promise to the original owner not to lend the book to any of his fellow-countrymen!
