POTONG KEPALA

“Jangan keluar rumah, jangan keluar main-main – ada orang potong kepala”
(Don’t go our of the house, don’t go out and play. There’s someone head hunting to cut off your head.”)

“Why?” I ask my grandmother.

“Because one company is building the Penang Bridge. So they need a lot of childrens’ head ”

“For what?” I asked again.

“The head is used to make sure the bridge won’t collapsed. The head will be crushed to fill in the piling of the steel base of the bridge.”

My brother and I then stayed home for the rest of the day.

When we have to go to school, we felt quite safe as it was early in the morning. But immediately after school we would run home very quickly to escape from the head hunter.

The explanation that I can give now was that in the yesteryears, there was not much cattle feed in the market and the grass cutting machine was not available to cut the grasses. The grass had to be cut manually by using the sickle “sabit”.

The grass cutter normally would be cowherd owners and they cut the grass for the herd of cattle they own. But every time the children see them they will run and scream “potong kepala” (Head-hunters).

That was one of the ways my grandparents and many other parents in our village used to controlled children from wandering around in the village. No lepak activities.

CIKGUTANYA: If I used the same tactic on my children, my engineer son will give me a long lecture on how a bridge is built.