There is a tale of a local boy who went away to better his and his family's lot in life. After many years, he achieved success and wealth, married a noblewoman and became the owner of a huge ship, forgetting his humble roots in the process.

One day, taking shelter from a storm, his ship happened to berth near his birthplace. His old poverty-stricken mother recognising him rowed out in a canoe calling out to her long-lost son.

In front of his beautiful, rich wife, he was too ashamed to acknowledge his mother and he threw her overboard. The mother then placed a curse on her ungrateful son, whereupon a storm appeared, capsizing the ship and turning it into a rock.

Sounds familiar? In Malaysia, this story is known as the tale of Si-Tanggang, in Indonesia as Malin Kundang and in Brunei as Nakhoda Manis.

Each country claims a natural proof of the legend. Malaysia has Batu Caves in Selangor, where the caverns of the caves are said to resemble the cabins of the ship. Indonesia has the pieces of the ship in rock form including one resembling a man prostrating for mercy along the beach in Air Manis, Sumbar about 20 km from Padang in Sumatra.

Brunei has the Jong Batu, a small island on the Brunei River which looks like the keel of a ship. So, who is right? Well, this article is not a scholarly attempt to find out whose story it is.

Brunei Jong Batu

But what is interesting is how these stories can be made to fit. The Brunei and Indonesian versions have natural rock formations which look fitting to the role of the doomed son. The Malaysian one is more interesting as the tale originated from the Orang Asli, namely the Temuans, who lived near Batu Caves. In print form, the first documented tale was in a text book in the early 1960s, and the story was that of an Orang Asli.

However, by the 1970s, the Tanggang legend became an all-Malay story and has remained so up until the modern day. Batu Caves was discovered by an Indian in the early 1800s and by the 1890s, Hindu devotees began making pilgrimages and slowly turning the caves into a huge shrine attracting some 1.5 million Hindus every year.

Similarly, the Indonesian rock formation is easily visited, and has become a shrine or an attraction of some form. However, Brunei's Jong Batu is fairly inaccessible. It is some distance away from the nearest residence and is thus rarely visited. The few visitors who do manage to get there note the striking similarity of the keel of a ship and that of the Jong Batu. What is interesting is how the same story, albeit with slight variations, has survived in various countries and through generations.

It begs the question whether we come from one origin and as our ancestors migrated, they carried with them the legend of the heartless son. And whenever they stopped and started a new community or settlement, did they try to find a geographical formation that best fits the description of the legend?

Not surprisingly, even in Tutong, a similar legend has been passed down through the generations. The only difference is that the name of the perpetrator is Si-Untak. The ship cursed by Si-Untak's mother sank in the Tutong River and up till now, the rock formation known as Batu Ajung Si-Untak that resembles the ship is still there near a place called Telting in Pekan Tutong.

Maybe it does matter to some, but in the end, what does it matter who owns the story; we do not even know our own origins.

In the mist of time, it is possible that all of us came from the same stock and therefore share the same stories passed down through legends. But what is more important is the lesson that the legend offers.

In our Asian society where filial piety in serving one's parents and elders is a deeply ingrained culture, the son's great sin of durhaka (disrespect) is considered totally unforgivable and unnatural. His punishment forever serves as a reminder, a warning and a lesson to all of us, and we should never disrespect our parents no matter what the situation, and that we should always remember the sacrifices that they made for us.

Rozan Yunos is the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Development. He has served the Brunei Civil Service since 1987 in many capacities including Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance and Managing Director, Tabung Amanah Pekerja. He has also served at Economic Planning and Development Department, Prime Minister's Office and Ministry of Communications. He writes about Brunei history in his spare time and his weekly Brunei Times articles have been compiled in two books - the Golden Warisan Volume 1 and Volume 2, both currently available at leading bookshops across Brunei.

24th March 2007

Footnote:

In April 2005, the website 'Brunei Resources' was born; designed during the Executive Development Program classes, a five month post graduate mid career program taught by Universiti Brunei Darussalam for Brunei Government senior officers. The website kept lecturers' presentations before other information was added.

By August 2005, it had its own domain name www.bruneiresources.com. By December, a blog was born on msn spaces, at first to update regular readers of the website what was new. The blog developed its own life and by March 2006, 'The Daily Brunei Resources' moved to blogspot.com on www.bruneiresources.blogspot.com.

The daily blog entries are mostly snippets about Brunei - its history, its culture and anything related to Brunei.

Sometime in December 2006, I was asked to write a special article about Bandar Seri Begawan for the March/ April 2007 edition of Muhibbah, the inflight magazine for Royal Brunei Airlines based on my previous entries on the blog.

In February 2007, The Brunei Times wanted to publish a weekly column on Brunei's history again partly based on the blogs' entries. The first article on 'bersunat' appeared on Saturday, 24th March 2007. Since then, an article has appeared on The Brunei Times every weekend.

This is the first compilation of all the articles written for 2007. Other volumes will follow suit. I hope you had enjoyed my writings and will continue to enjoy my writings in the future.

Note: I have been asked many times why I started the Golden Legacy column with an article about circumcision. The answer is that the then Features Editor at Brunei Times was a bit worried about having a historical column. She wanted something social as well as historical. Since my son had just undergone his circumcision, I thought, writing about circumcision would cover both the social as well as historical aspects.

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written by rr , October 26, 2009

so what exactly is the point of this story?

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written by xo , October 28, 2009

Point of story,"DID YOU EVEN ACTUALLY READ THE ARTICLE" Geeezzzzzz...

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