Rapuh 12/2020: Cewer

Aku dilahirkani di utara Pantai Timur. Di Terengganu. Di Besut. Di Kampung Air Tawar. Sebuah kampung nelayan semenjak dahulu kala.

Tempoh kecil dan remajaku sepenuhnya di situ. Perahu layar, pukat tangkul, udang ketak, mencandat sotong, musim tengkujuh, kelaut malam, bermain wau, memikul bakul peraih ikan, memanjat kelapa muda, mencari kayu api, makan kerak nnisan dan berbagai-bagai lagi. Amat sebati denganku.

Kawan-kawan sepermainanku seorang demi seorang berkurangan. Tanpa kutemui semula kami berpisahan – Jusoh, Lias, Ya’kub, Draman, dan … . Kekal tidak bertemu lagi.

“The beliefs and superstitions of the fisher folk would fill many volumes. They believe in all manner of devils and local sprites. They will not willingly mention the names of birds or beasts while at seas. Instead, they call them all chewch [cewer]—which, to them, signifies an animal, though to others it is meaningless. Each boat that puts to sea has been properly safeguarded with many incantations and other magic observances, in obedience to the rules which the superstitious people have followed for ages. … //

So live they, so die they, year in and year out. They toil and endure, with no hope or wish for change of scene. They delight in the simple pleasures of their poor homes, experiencing the keen enjoyment which comes from dancing waves, from action, and from danger.

It was not always so with them, for within the memory of old men upon the coast the fisher folk were once pirates. The last survivor of those who formed the old lawless bands was an intimate friend of my own. When I last saw him, a day or two before his death in 1891…. I remembered that I was aiding to lay in his quiet resting-place the last pirate on the east coast.”

Aku telah meninggalkan kampungku 51 tahun yang lalu. Dalam erti kata tidak lagi mengharungi penghidupan kenelayanan. Yang kini ada ialah kenangan. Akan kubawa bersama pergi selangkah ke selangkah.

(Bacalah “Among the Fisher Folk” dalam Nelson’s Malayan Readers Book VI, compiled by H.R. Cheeseman and Eric Gillet, pp. 120-135 yang dipetik daripada Sir Hugh Clifford: In Court and Kampong London: Grant Richards, 1897).

10Zulkifli Salleh, Rismayanti Idris and 8 others

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