The two classic English books that created the were-tiger / Harimau Jadian canon in Malaya are confused because both officers served in Perak / Pahang at the same time and both wrote about Korinchi people from Sumatra.
- Sir William George Maxwell's Book "In Malay Forests* (1907) - one of the classic British colonial books on Malaya.
- Sir Hugh Clifford : "The Further Side of Silence / The Were-Tiger" (1916)
SIR WILLIAM GEORGE MAXWELL : IN MALAY FOREST (1907)
The full books is described as:
"Covering such topics as catching crocodiles, tuba fishing, a deer drive, a rogue elephant and a were tiger, Sir George Maxwell's "In Malay Forests" is one of the finest book ever written about Malaysia, capturing a way of life that is gone forever."
It was first published by William Blackwood in Edinburgh/London in 1907 - 306 pages, later reprinted in Singapore. The structure is anecdotal - Maxwell, who was later Chief Secretary of the Federated Malay States and key to the 1909 Bangkok Treaty, wrote about deer-drive, crocodile catching with a famous local named Manap Rimau, fish-drive, tiger-drive, and a chapter on "a weretiger and crocodile shooting".
Maxwell treats it as ethnography - he records Malay forest spirits like Jin Tanah, Gergasi, Orang Bunyi, Hantu Pemburu, Hantu Hutan, and the belief that certain animals are kramat. The weretiger is presented as part of the adat (custom) and forest lore, with the detail cited in later works:
"A Were Tiger," in Sir George Maxwell : In Malay Forests Donald Moore, Eastern Universities Press, 1960 (First edition 1907).
What is the weretiger story?
In Malay it's harimau jadian / harimau jadi-jadian - not like the European werewolf.
European werewolf lore is a man who changes skin at full moon to go kill. In Malay lore it's almost opposite - the tiger is essentially a man who lives as a tiger in the forest.
Maxwell's account and the much more famous version by his contemporary Sir Hugh Clifford in "The Further Side of Silence / The Were-tiger" are often confused because they tell the same Korinchi legend.
Clifford's version - which you can read full text on Wikisource - is the one most people quote:
"In the more remote parts of the Malay Peninsula five and twenty years ago we lived in the Middle Ages... Magic and evil spirits, witchcraft and sorcery... are as much a matter of everyday life."
The key belief:
"Malays of Sâiyong, in the Pêrak Valley... know how Haji Abdullah, the native of the little state of Korinchi, in Sumatra was caught stark naked in a tiger-trap, and thereafter purchased his liberty at the price of the buffaloes he had slain while he marauded in the likeness of a beast."
"Malays... know of numerous instances of Korinchi men who have vomited feathers, after feasting upon fowls, when for the nonce they had assumed the likeness of tigers; and of other men of the same race who have left their garments and their trading-packs in thickets, whence presently a tiger has emerged."
The Slim River storygoes:
Haji Ali, a Korinchi trader from Sumatra, comes to the Slim valley [the valley that divides Pahang from Perak] with his two sons Abdulrahman and Abas. He settles, becomes wealthy, marries a local girl Patimah.
Three days after the wedding she flees back to her father's house at dawn, hair disordered, clothes drenched in dew, saying her husband is a weretiger.
Her story: Every evening after evening prayer Haji Ali leaves and returns before dawn. On the third night she waits up and sees on the top rung of the house ladder:
"there rested the head of a full-grown tiger... the bold, black stripes... the fierce green light in the beast's eyes."
Then transformation:
"as she looked, a gradual transformation took place in the creature... the tiger's features palpitated and were changed, until... she saw the face of her husband come up through that of the beast, just as that of a diver comes up from the depths."
She jumps past him into the jungle.
The villagers shun Haji Ali. Later, the headman Penghulu Mat Saleh's buffalo is killed by a tiger. He sets a spring-gun. The tiger returns, is shot, and leaves a trail of blood on three legs. The villagers follow the trail up-river through the forest.
That story is Clifford's, but Maxwell collected almost identical stories in Perak, Kedah and Pahang during his time as Assistant Resident - and he uses them to explain Malay forest beliefs like Jin Tanah, Hantu Pemburu, Hantu Hutan, and kramat animals.
Both books cite the same anthropological point that is also in Peter Boomgaard's "Frontiers of Fear":
"Boomgaard tells too of “weretigers” -- creatures that were seen as essentially human or essentially tiger, but could shape-shift from one into the other."
If you want to read it:
- Maxwell's original chapter - "In Malay Forests" (1907) - Chapter "A Were Tiger" - available as a 1960 Eastern Universities Press reprint. Used copies pop up on Riwayat for RM80.
- Clifford's version - "The Further Side of Silence: The Were-tiger" - free on Wikisource.
SIR HUGH CLIFFORD : "THE FURTHER SIDE OF SILENCE / THE WERE-TIGER"
Sir Hugh Clifford - "The Further Side of Silence / The Were-tiger" is the most famous weretiger story in English Malayan literature.
The book
- "The Further Side of Silence" was published in 1916. Clifford was then a senior British colonial officer - British Resident of Pahang, later Governor of North Borneo and Labuan, later British High Commissioner in Malaya.
- It's a collection of short stories, not a novel. Contents: "The Were-tiger", The Experiences of Raja Haji Hamid, Droit du Seigneur, In the Valley of the Telom, The Inner Apartment, The Ghoul," etc.
- "The Were-Tiger" is the opening story and the most anthologized. It was originally set in Slim, Pahang - the Slim Valley that divides Pahang from Perak.
The premise Clifford sets
"In the more remote parts of the Malay Peninsula five and twenty years ago we lived in the Middle Ages... Magic and evil spirits, witchcraft and sorcery... are as much a matter of everyday life."
He then introduces the colonial legal dilemma:
"The white man and the white man's justice are placed by this in a position at once anomalous and embarrassing... we hesitate to accept it... when it points... to the proved existence of, say, the Malayan loup garou."
And the specific Korinchi belief:
"The Malays of Sâiyong, in the Pêrak Valley... know how Haji Abdullah, the native of the little state of Korinchi, in Sumatra was caught stark naked in a tiger-trap... The Malays of other parts... know of numerous instances of Korinchi men who have vomited feathers, after feasting upon fowls, when for the nonce they had assumed the likeness of tigers.."
Korinchi = Kerinci, in Jambi, Sumatra. In Malay folklore, Kerinci people were 'harimau jadian' stock - could leave their clothes in thicket and emerge as tiger.
The plot - exactly what we drew
Act I - The marriage:
Into Slim Valley come Haji Ali, a Korinchi trader, and his sons Abdulrahman and Abas, with packs of *sarong* to hawk. They settle, build a fine house, become wealthy. Haji Ali wants a wife, and chooses Patimah, daughter of poor peasants.
Three days later at dawn she is found beating on her father's door, screaming, trembling, hair disordered, garments drenched with dew.
Her testimony:
"she had fled his roof forever, and her parents might "hang her on high, sell her in a far land, scorch her with the sun's rays, immerse her in water, burn her with fire," ere aught should induce her to return to one who hunted by night in the likeness of a were-tiger.."
Every evening after evening prayer Haji Ali leaves until before dawn. On third night she stays awake. She hears him on the ladder:
"On the topmost rung of the ladder... there rested the head of a full-grown tiger... the bold, black stripes... the fierce green light in the beast's eyes.."
Then transformation:
"as she looked, a gradual transformation took place... the tiger's features palpitated and were changed, until... she saw the face of her husband come up through that of the beast, just as that of a diver comes up from the depths through still waters.."
She leaps past him and runs through the jungle - something Malays do not love to do alone even by day.
Haji Ali makes no attempt to reclaim her - remarkable for a Sumatran Malay who is tenacious about property rights. Villagers shun him.
Act II - The spring-gun:
Penghulu Mat Saleh's buffalo is killed by a tiger. He sets a spring-gun over carcass. Next night it fires. At dawn he follows trail with a dozen men - fresh pads, blood flecks, off hind-leg dragging uselessly.
Trail goes through brush into jungle, then onto a foot-path, then to:
"the high wattled bamboo fence of a native compound... to the 'áman, or open space before the house. Here the spoor vanished at a spot where the rank spear-blades of the lâlang grass had been crushed.."
No tiger footprints away - only human footprints. They ascend into Haji Ali's house.
Son Abas says father is sick. Penghulu asks about blood patch in lalang grass - Abas says "we killed a goat." Asks for skin - "cast it into the river."
Elder son Abdulrahman appears with sword and kris, foreign accent of Korinchi, defiant: "My father is sick... Descend out of the house."
Retreating, one man sees beneath the house, under where Haji Ali lies, ground stained dull red for several inches - looks like blood from a wound washed and dressed inside house. The floor is bamboo laths - Malays use ground below as rubbish heap.
Abdulrahman and Abas bar the gate. Penghulu goes to report to white district officer in Tanjong Malim.
When he returns, Haji Ali and sons have vanished - fled down river on dark night, without reaping ripening crop, disposing of house, or collecting debts - "dollars of the whitest". The white officer first thinks villagers murdered them and invented story.
Epilogue:
"The white man would probably still be holding fast to this theory, were it not that Haji Ali and his sons happened to turn up in quite another part of the Peninsula a few months later. They had nothing out of the way about them... except that Haji Ali limped badly with his right leg.
Hj Zulheimy Maamor
5/9/2026: 4.36 a.m
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