A Malay woman, of respectable position and exceedingly respectable age, was introduced to me some time ago as a strong latah subject.
I talked to her for at least ten minutes, without perceiving anything abnormal in her conduct or conversation. Suddenly her introducer threw off his coat. To my horror, my venerable guest sprang to her feet and tore off her kabayah. My entreaties came too late to prevent her continuing the same course with the rest of her garments, and in thirty seconds from her seizure the paroxysm seemed to be over.
What struck me most in this unsavoury performance was the woman's wild rage against the instigator of this outrage. She kept on calling him an abandonned pig, and imploring me to kill him, all the time that she was reducing herself to a state of nudity.
One more instance;
I have met a man several times lately who is a very strong latah subject. He is cook on board a local steamer, and is naturally (alas, for human nature!) the butt of all the crew, who daily and almost hourly exercise their clumsy wit—the wit of sailors plus orientals—at his expense.
All this skylarking, however, had a tragical ending the other day, which illustrates the point of which I am speaking.
This cook was dandling his child forward one day; one of the crew came and stood before him with a billet of wood in his arms, which he began nursing in the same way as the latah was nursing his baby. Presently he began tossing the billet up to the awning, and the cook tossed his child up also, time for time. At last, the sailor opened his hands wide apart and let the wood fall upon the deck, and the cook immediately spread out his hands away from the descending child, who never moved again after striking the boards.
A parallel case will at once suggest itself to all old residents in Singapore, where a Malay latah ayah, who saw her master tear up a letter and throw it out of the window, promptly threw a basket of clean clothes which she was carrying out of the opposite window, with the simple apology that she could not help doing so.
