SYMPTOM A TO LOGY 



1985 



pot over which he was watching. A boy who chanced to be alone in the 

 cook-room with Sat made an instantaneous grab at the fallen rice-pot, and 

 in an instant Sat's hand was in the fire, grasping the burning hot metal. He • 

 withdrew his flayed fingers quickly, as the pain brought to him consciousness 

 of what he had done, and he carried them at once to his head — -that queer, 

 groping, scratching motion which is an invariable accompaniment of latah — 

 and the boy at his side needed no man to tell him that Sat was a victim to that 

 extraordinary affliction. 



' With the wanton cruelty and mischief of his age, the boy once more made 

 a feint at the smoking rice-pot, and again Sat's fingers glued themselves for 

 a moment to the scalding metal, and returned aimlessly to his head. 



' I do not know how many times this was repeated, but Sat's fingers were 

 in a terribly lacerated condition when at last someone chanced to enter the 

 cook-room, and interfered to prevent the continuation of Sat's torture. 



' After that, though I did all I could to protect him from molestation, Sat 

 was never, I fancy, left in peace for long by the other men of my household. 

 Gradually, in the course of a couple of months or so, this man, who for nearly 

 a year had shown no signs of being the victim of any nervous disorder, was 

 reduced to a really pitiable condition. The occasional latah seizures, which 

 were at first induced by the persecutions of his fellows, ceased to be abnormal 

 phases, and became the chronic condition of his mind. If one spoke to him, 

 with no matter how much gentleness, he would repeat the words addressed to 

 him over and over again, aimlessly, unintelligently, without, apparently, 

 comprehending their meaning, and that wandering, groping hand of his would 

 steal to his head, and scratch helplessly at his close-cropped hair. 



' " Sat, listen, Sat !" I would say to him as quietly and as reassuringly as 

 I knew how. " Listen ! no man is worrying thee. Try to listen to what I 

 say to thee." Sat would make answer, and then, very low, in a whisper under 

 his breath: " Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen what I say to thee." 



' I instituted a fine for anyone who was found annoying Sat, but it was 

 impossible to get a conviction, for the unfortunate victim could never say 

 who the man was who had teased him into a more than usually severe paroxysm 

 of latah. 



' It was about this time that a number of other people in my household began 

 to develop signs of the affliction. I must not be understood as suggesting that 

 they became infected with latah, for, on inquiring, I found that they had one 

 and all been subject to occasional seizures when anything chanced to startle 

 them badly long before the^^ joined my people; but the presence of so complete 

 a slave to the affliction as poor Sat seemed to cause them, to lose the control 

 which they had hitherto contrived to exercise over themselves. One of the 

 older men among my people — Pa'Chim, we called him — a Malay by birth, 

 and of some standing with his fellows, came to me and begged that I would 

 see that no one did anything to give him a sudden start, since, he said, only a 

 very little was needed to make him latah also. Yet this man, neither then nor 

 later, showed any signs of the affliction. He probably exercised a consider- 

 able amount of self-control, but I always knew that in a moment I could have 

 broken through his guard, and have startled him into as complete a seizure 

 of latah as those of which Sat was the victim. 



' One day a curious thing happened, which I will relate as it occurred, 

 though I only witnessed the end of the incident. 



' A Trengganu Malay, who had a cousin among my people, came in to visit 

 his relative, and chanced to find no one but Sat in the house. The latter 

 invited the Trengganu man to partake of sirih, and they squatted down on 

 the pentas, or raised eating-platform, in the centre of the house, with the 

 sirih-box between them. The villainous small boy who had first discovered 

 Sat's weakness was playing about in the room, and in some unholy way he 

 had learned that the Trengganu visitor was also a latah subject. He seized 

 a long rattan, which, I think, was kept in the room by one of the older men 

 for his occasional correction, and smote the sirih-box as it lay between the 

 two betel-chewers, making the wooden covering resound with the smart blow. 

 The sudden and unexpected noise at once deprived both men of all power of 



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