The Path to Pulau Buah

PULAU BUAH, the Isle of Fruits, is the Temuan paradise, the Garden of Eden we knew as Home before the... what? The Fall? The Great Flood? Even Seri Pagi wasn't too sure what terrible crime we had committed as a species to have warranted banishment from Pulau Buah. Surely the gods would not introduce sexual reproduction to the human race only to punish us for it? (No one seemed to have given this any thought. Indah merely told me the tale she probably heard when her first period arrived: the one about Tuhan finding menstrual stains on the Stairway to Heaven and deciding to seal it forever to humanity.)

“Sometimes we can still visit Pulau Buah,” Seri Pagi said, “but only in dreams, or if we're very ill and in a sort of coma. In the old days, we had dukun (shamans) who were powerful enough, and pure enough, to travel there without losing their physical connection to the Earth. Nowadays, we only tell stories about Pulau Buah.”

Mak Minah said her great-grandmother used to travel to Pulau Buah in her dreams. “She told us there was a great tree in a beautiful clearing by a crystalline stream. The tree was laden with ripe rambutans (a hairy-skinned, succulent, juicy fruit) - only these were no ordinary rambutans, they were enormous! And best of all, she could reach up and pluck a fruit from the lowest branch without any effort. The spirit of the tree told her not to throw away the peel after she had eaten the fruit. Instead, she had to carefully place the peel on the ground below the branch where the fruit had been growing. One fruit was enough to satisfy her, it was so large and so delicious. The next time she returned to the spot, the same fruit was back on the branch, ready to be plucked and eaten!”

Penengah admitted that he had tried to visit Pulau Buah in his youth, and failed. “Before you can proceed, you must go to the foot of Gunung Rajah and wait for an invitation. If the guardian favors you, you will somehow find yourself going up the mountain. I've heard the old folks telling of signs and special spirit guides that can show you the path to Pulau Buah, which is not in this world. I didn't even get beyond the foot of Gunung Rajah. If the guardian doesn't want you to enter the sacred realm, the mountain itself will move away, so that you find yourself somewhere else. Well, that's what happened. I was there with a few friends. We were certain it was Gunung Rajah. Then there was heavy rain and strong winds and strange sounds that really frightened us. Of course, it could have been a tiger or leopard, but even if it was, you can bet it was no ordinary tiger or leopard. When the weather cleared, we realised we were nowhere near Gunung Rajah. We turned around and somehow found our way back to the village. We were glad to be alive.”

Nadi Pak Empok may have been on that expedition. Or he may have made a separate attempt to scale Gunung Rajah. He spoke reverently about the very special atmosphere that pervades the Royal Mountain, even around its base. The beautiful birds and plants he saw along the way, the mysterious cries of unknown creatures. “We heard the musical voices of maidens calling to us. It was hard not to obey their call, it was so seductive. But one of the group suddenly told us to flee for our lives, and we did. I don't know what would have become of us if we had tried to find the source of those haunting cries.”

Soon after the Selangor Dam project was announced, I found Utat lying feverish on a mat in Indah’s house. “I dreamt about Pulau Buah,” he whispered. “I was there, at the peak of Gunung Rajah, and I saw Mamak and Inak Bongsu.” I was all ears. Anoora’s uncle Utat rarely discussed his dreams, being an exceptionally private and shy man, but he revealed that he had twice been summoned to the Sacred Mountain by the Temuan’s tutelary gods - a signal honor for any Temuan.

“How did they appear to you, what did they look like?” I prompted Utat.

“They were absolutely splendid, more beautiful and much, much grander than kings and queens. They looked human, but in a more luminous, far nobler form.” (Lothlorien and the High Elves immediately came to my mind.) 

“What did Mamak and Inak Bongsu have to say to you?”

Utat was silent for a moment. “They said they were very concerned about the destruction that is about to take place. The dam. It makes them angry and they want me to warn people that this desecration is loathsome to them. They have the capacity to destroy the dam, but they do not wish to harm anybody.”

“Well, are you going to tell the rest of the tribe?” 

Utat shrugged and was silent. “People won’t believe me,” he finally said. 

“WHEN SOMEONE DIES,” Penengah said, “their soul wanders around familiar places for a while before a longing to go home takes them towards Gunung Rajah. After a while, they will find themselves at a fork in the trail. One path leads to Pulau Buah; the other... well, the other leads nowhere.”

How does one identify the correct path?

Penengah seemed reluctant to reveal the signs that would indicate the correct path. Then a gleam appeared in his eye and he whispered: “We don't usually talk about this, but I think you will understand why. For years people have tried to sway us from our beliefs. They wanted us to convert to Islam or Christianity or whatever. But our ancestors warned us about this. They told us there is a black dog guarding the path to Pulau Buah. If the soul is destined for Pulau Buah, the dog wags its tail and shows the way. But if the dog growls, it means the soul has accumulated too much sin (dosa).     

What happens if someone takes the wrong path?  

“They find the path easy going at first, very well maintained and attractive to behold. But at the end of the trail, they find themselves on an illusory bridge that goes nowhere.”

Can you describe what happens to someone who tries to cross the bridge?

“Well, they drop into a pit when the bridge collapses. A pit full of rats and cockroaches, creatures of the dark that devour anything that falls in.” 

Sounds like hell to me. Is this the influence of Muslim and Christian eschatology on the Temuan belief system? Or is the Heaven-Earth-Hell configuration a common denominator of all human cosmogony?