The Story of a Malayan Girlhood
They called her Busuk, or “the youngest” at her birth. Her father, the old
punghulo, or chief, of the little kampong, or village, of Passir Panjang,
whispered the soft Allah Akbar, the prayer to Allah, in her small brown ear.
The subjects of the punghulo brought presents of sarongs run with gold thread,
and not larger than a handkerchief, for Busuk to wear about her waist. They also
brought gifts of rice in baskets of cunningly woven cocoanut fibre; of bananas, a
hundred on a bunch; of durians, that filled the bungalow with so strong an odor
that Busuk drew up her wrinkled, tiny face into a quaint frown; and of cocoanuts
in their great green, oval shucks.
Busuk’s old aunt, who lived far away up the river Maur, near the foot of Mount
Ophir, sent a yellow gold pin for the hair; her husband, the Hadji Mat, had
washed the gold from the bed of the stream that rushed by their bungalow.
Busuk’s brother, who was a sergeant in his Highness’s the Sultan’s artillery at
Johore, brought a tiny pair of sandals all worked in many-colored beads. Never
had such presents been seen at the birth of any other of Punghulo Sahak’s
children.
Two days later the Imam Paduka Tuan sent Busuk’s father a letter sewn up in a
yellow bag. It contained a blessing for Busuk. Busuk kept the letter all her life,
for it was a great thing for the high priest to do.
On the seventh day Busuk’s head was shaven and she was named Fatima; but
they called her Busuk in the kampong, and some even called her Inchi Busuk,
the princess.