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Crocodiles are better off than tigers. The Sumatran city of Medan has the biggest crocodile farm in Indonesia. But demand for skins is high, and some rearing farms depend on eggs and young crocodiles seized from the wild.
Ancient beliefs held that the crocodile was the ruler of the underworld.
East Timor, a former Indonesian territory, holds the crocodile in high regard. A legend describes how a huge crocodile transformed itself into Timor island: A boy rescued a crocodile that was parched and stranded on land. The grateful reptile escorted the boy around the world for years until it was time for the crocodile to die. It arched its back, and the ridges and scales on its great body formed the hills and contours of the island that became a home for the boy and his descendants.
Jose Alexandre Gusmao, East Timor’s president and former guerrilla leader, wrote poetry in jungle hideouts and later in a Jakarta jail. One poem describes the legend of how the crocodile’s back formed the mountainous backbone of Timor. The ridge gave shelter to separatist rebels fighting the Indonesian military.
After independence from Indonesia, East Timor adopted two saltwater crocodiles as mascots for its new army. One of the beasts had belonged to Col. Tono Suratman, former commander of the Indonesian military in East Timor.
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Lidah buaya (crocodile’s tongue) is the Indonesian name of aloe vera, the plant that yields a gel used in shampoo and cosmetic skin creams, and as a treatment for minor wounds and burns. The leaf of aloe vera is green and its serrated edges are reminiscent of the contours of a crocodile’s body.
Buaya darat
Land crocodile = Playboy, womanizer.
One who treats women as expendable.
To older Indonesians, buaya darat is a thief, or scoundrel. Philandering was tricky in the old days, partly because young women rarely met men without chaperones. Families arranged marriages, and some betrothed couples set eyes on each other for the first time on their wedding day. Marriage among distant relatives was common.
Another term for womanizer is hidung belang (striped nose). A lover kisses her man on the nose, leaving a smear of incriminating lipstick.
An untrustworthy person is mulut buaya (crocodile mouth). He inflicts wounds with words, not teeth.
Krakatau/Krakatoa
There is often more than one theory about the origin of an Indonesian expression or place name. Oral tradition, a dearth of written records, the passage of centuries and a diverse mix of ethnic languages obscure the truth.
Mystery surrounds the spelling and etymology of the volcano Krakatoa, in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. In 1883, the volcano erupted, killing nearly 40,000 people, darkening the sky with ash and sending shock waves around the world. Many victims died in tsunamis generated by the explosion. In his book ‘’Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded,” author Simon Winchester discusses the name:
There is an early and linguistically alluring report by a French Jesuit priest, Guy Tachard, suggesting that it was an onomatopoeia. Tachard passed the island eighty years after the Dutch cartographers, and wrote in his log that “we made many Tacks to double the island of Cacatoua, so-called because of the white Parrots that are upon that Isle, and which incessantly repeat the name.” It sounds improbable, not least because of the difficulty that any mariner might experience trying to hear the call of land-based birds from high on the windy deck of a passing ship.
Others subsequently thought that Krakatoa, of the more common local form Krakatau, derives essentially from one of three words, karta-karkata, karkataka or rakata, which are the Sanskrit and, according to some, the Old Javan words meaning “lobster” or “crab.” Then there is a Malay word, kelekatu, which means “flying white ant.” Since crabs and parrots belong on the island—or since they did, at least, until that dire August morning in 1883—any one of the two last lexical explanations seems reasonably acceptable. White ants only occur in the eastern part of the archipelago, rendering this theory rather less credible; though perhaps rather more credible than the notion, briefly popular in Batavia, that an Indian ship’s captain had asked a local boatman what name was given to the pointed mountain he could see, prompting the local to reply Kaga tau, meaning “I don’t know.”
Ayam bertelur di atas padi
A hen that lays eggs in the rice field = Snug as a bug in a rug. Content with life.
Ensconced in a pile of rice husks, a hen has nourishment and a warm, secure place to lay eggs. The husks are called kulit gabah (rice skins).
In some shops and supermarkets in Indonesia, eggs are kept in wooden boxes filled with rice husks to keep them from breaking. The husks are a substitute for Styrofoam. Eggs are available in sealed plastic trays, but some Indonesians prefer to touch the eggs in the bed of rice husks, and pick them out one by one.
If someone is suffering in what appears to be an ideal environment, the following applies: “The chicken that lays eggs in the paddy starves to death, the duck that swims in water dies of thirst.”
Ayam tertelur di atas padi mati kelaparan, itik berenang di air mati kehausan.
Seperti ayam melihat musang
Like a chicken that sees a civet = Dumbstruck.
Like a deer frozen in a car’s headlights.
Civets eat fruit and seeds, but they’re also predators. Farmers fear the furry, mongoose-like creatures will raid chicken coops at night.
A rare coffee (kopi) was produced with the help of civets (musang), which gobbled coffee berries and excreted the partly digested beans. Farmers plucked the beans from civet feces and washed off the dung. Roasting yielded a gourmet brand known as kopi luwak. Luwak is the Javanese word for civet.
Some said the process became a marketing scam, and that kopi luwak was just an exotic brand name. It’s unclear how a civet’s digestive tract would enhance the coffee taste. Perhaps its stomach acids gave the bean an unusual flavor. Or maybe a civet picked the ripest berries.
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Civets were linked to the SARS virus that was first recognized in China and killed nearly 800 people worldwide in 2003. Scientists said a virus in civets resembled the virus that infected humans with SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. Civets and other wild animals are culinary delicacies in China, raising the possibility that the virus passed to humans through food.
Recent research suggested that a species of bat may have been the main source of the disease.
Musang berbulu ayam
A civet in chicken feathers.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing (serigala berbulu domba) is an equivalent expression from ancient Greek times. The wolf version is more popular than the civet one in Indonesia.
Farmers keep one or two chickens in the backyard at home, putting the docile birds within easy reach if it’s time to eat.
In villages, it’s cheap to buy a live chick and feed it scraps, eat its eggs and later slaughter the bird for meat. Only city dwellers buy a slaughtered, fully grown chicken for supper.
The civet has an image like that of the fox: slick, cunning and adept at slipping into a place where it’s unwanted. A chicken coop.
Seperti kerbau