R.

Jones
Harimau

In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 126 (1970), no: 2, Leiden, 260-262

This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl

260 KORTE MEDEDELINGEN

Penurat, known to us only from a copy made in Batavia, 1825, by a

copyist who sometimes worked for Roorda van Eysinga (Robson p. 104,
n. 3). My conclusion is that we can be sure that Alie Musthathier
rhymed the Sjacir Radin Menteri from a Palembang prose version by
Achmed ben Abdullah, and that it is possible that this prose version
was the Hikaj at Andakin Penurat. .''.'... P. VCX»RHOEVE

-. • ••:.". .. • H A R I M A U ; ; • • , .

R. Ji Wilkinson iri his Malay-English Dictionary defines harimaü

"Tiger; pard. Gen. for the ïarger felidae; fig., for the stfohg and
ferocious .. -." In modern Malay (and Bahasa Iridonesia) harimau occürs
consistently as the equivalent of "tiger", while singa is the equivalent
for "lion". In indigenóus Malay hikayat-literatufe the word singa is
less common than harimau; that (to onè scribe at least) singa referred
to ah unfamiliar beast is clear frpin the story in the Sejarah Melayu
of the fouhding of Singapore, wheré the odd animal was only recognised
by reference to ancieht descriptions;x this is natural enough in a región'
where the lión is riot indigenóus.
Under the influence of modern usage there is a strong tendency to
translate the word harimau by "tiger", even where the occufrehce is
in the ölder texts. The inappropriateness of this was brought home
to the writer during the translation into English of anecdótes about
Ibrahïm ibn Adham: according tö the legend Ibrahïm was hiiraculously
obeyed when he addresséd a wild beast which was blocking the road.
In twö Malay versións of this story (önëfrom the 17th century and one
from the 19th) 2 the wild beast is said to be a harimau ;k so happened
that in each case the original Arabic versións, from which the respective
Malay translations were made, cóuld be identified,3 and in both the
corresponding word was asdd, "lioii". Similar examples can be found
in other texts. In a 16th century Malay translation of the Arabic Burda
of al-Büsïri thé word harimau occurs three times;4 on the first oc-
casion it translates usd (plural of asad); on the second occasion, it
translates laith, also "lion"; while on the third occasion the Malay
ariak-nja [= anak harimau] translates thé Arabic ashbal, "lion clubs".
1
Sejarah Melayu, eda. Winstedt, 1938, p. 61; edn. Situmorang & Teeuw, 19S8,
p. 40. Harimau is not ;mentioned in the Sejarah Melayu, and singa occurs only
on this; occasion." . ....': . ,
2
(i) In al-Rknïri's BustSn as-salstin, Raffles MS no. 8 at the Royal Asiatic
Society, London, p, 272; also in van. der Tuuk, Maleisch Leesboek, 1903, p. 50.
(ii) In al-Fatanï, Kitib IJadïkat al-Azhar wq^l-Rayahïn, Penang 1958, p. 60.
s
(i) Al-Yaficï (died AD 1367), Rdvód al-Rayahïn (Cairo 1286 AH), p. . 157.'
(ü) Al-Yafid, Kitab Jalïl Mukhtasqr... (Cairo .1864AD), pp. 30-31:
4
G; W. J. Drewes; ed. & transU Een 16de Eéüwse Maleise Vertaling van de
Bürda "van al-Büfiri,1955, pp. 68/ 69, 78.
 KORTE MEDEDELINGEN 261

In the:light of what has been seen.it wül come.as no surprise that in

the epithet Harimau Allah, sometimes given to the Prophet Muham-
mad's son-in-law °Alï, the word harimau renders the Arabic- Asad.5
Similarly in a text from Sungai Ujong, recorded in a manuscript dating
from circa 1900 AD, the word asad occurring in an Arabic Tradition
is rendered in Malay by harimau.8
It can be assumed that if the translation had been made not from
Malay but directly from Arabic, the appropriate English equivalent in
each case would have been "lion";T whereas in fact in every instance
harimau has been translated by "tiger" (or of course "tijger" where
the translation is into Dutch).
What has been said does not exclude the possibilty (however remote)
that the range of meaning of the Arabic words for "lion" could be
extended to embrace "tiger".8 It is therefore of interest to find con-
firmation of what has been postulated from an Italian source: in Antonio
Pigafetta's word-list of 1521 AD there is an item "94. al leonne
(Lion) : hurimau".*
It is naturally not to be inferred from this that harimau could not
in the old texts connote "tiger" — it was the normal Malay name for
that animal, native to the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java and Bali.
Early attestation of this can be found in a Chinese-Malay vocabulary
from Malacca (possibly 15th century AD), where the Chinese word
for "tiger" is rendered with harimau, and the Chinese for "lion" (more
probably "lion-cub") is rendered singa.10 Lion and tiger alike share
a reputation for strength and courage; and the truth seems to be that
in Malay eyes the lion, which they did not know at first hand, and the
tiger, which they did know, sometimes merged into the ome concept
denoted by hariinau.11 Wilkinson in his invaluable dictionary does not

5
Cf. H. C. Klinkert, Nieuw Maleisch-Ned. Woordenboek, 1916, under harimau;
also C. Skinner, ed. Sja^ir Perang Mengkasar, 1963, pp. 26, 70, 71, 223.
8
JMBRAS XXVII, Part 3, 1954, pp. 56, 23.
7
E. G., J. W. Redhouse's translation of the "Burda" in W. A. Clouston, Arabian
Poetry for English Readers, 1881, p. 338.
8
The possibility is suggested, for example, by L. W. C. van den Berg (Le
liadhramout..., Batavia 1886, p. 82 note 2), who surmises that a referenoe
to asad in the Hadhramaut must signify "le tigre royal".
9
See A. Bausani's edition in East and West, XI 1960, p. 235.
10
Edwards & Blagden in BSOS VI, 1930-32, p. 729.
11
Cf. C. Hooykaas, Literatuur in Maleis en Indonesisch, 1952, opp. p. 272, who
observes in connection with the figure of a tiger reproduced in JSBRAS
[No. 75] 1917 from the [former] Kelantan flag: "De vraag komt bij ons op,
of misschien in het bewustzijn van Malaya leeuw en tijger versmolten zijn..."
In this connection it would be of interest to know the derivation of the tiger
figure on the Kelantan flag, which was introduced only after British protection
early in this century. From the drawing it is not even beyond doubt that it ir
a tiger and not a lion. It evidently has no mane but not all lions do have manes,
and it does have a tuft on the end of its tail — characteristic of lions but not
of tigers.
262 KORTE MEDEDELINGEN

in fact exclude this interpretation of the word, if "the larger felidae"

include lions.
What does emerge from this is that the translator of older Malay
texts, up to the 19th century say, should feel himself free, if the context
seems to require it, to translate harimau as "lion".
School of OrientaJ and African Studies, RUSSELL JONES
University of London