(MY) tiger attack

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'Ilmu saved me from tiger' - New Straits Times

28 Nov 2006

Sulaiman Jaafar and Sharifah Mahsinah

 

 

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KOTA BARU: Mek Jah Semail had previous encounters with the tiger that

attacked her at her smallholding on Sunday.

 

She chased it away by uttering phrases learnt when she was young and

acquiring her ilmu (arcane knowledge).

 

Speaking from her hospital bed at the Raja Perempuan Zainab II

Hospital, the 65-year-old woman said she had seen the tiger in past

trips to her plot but the animal always went away after she uttered

certain phrases.

 

 

 

" In my past encounters with the tiger it looked friendly and I did not

think it would attack me. When it jumped on me and clawed my head, I

thought I would die.

 

" Then I thought of my husband and family and fought to stay alive. I

grabbed a piece of wood and hit it on its head. It fled into the

bushes. "

 

The mother of eight said during her struggle with the animal, she was

knocked down three times but managed to get up.

 

" I kept telling myself to be strong, that I had to survive to support

my family, " said Mek Jah, who is supporting her husband Ismail Hamat,

82, who suffered a stroke four years ago.

 

Despite bleeding profusely from her head wounds, Mek Jah walked to

seek help from her friend who had followed her to tap rubber but was

at a different part of the five-hectare smallholding.

 

Mek Jah, who suffered serious head and neck injuries in the 10am

incident and received 20 stitches on her head, credited her survival

to the ilmu that she had learned.

 

Her husband Ismail, met at the family home in Kampung Sungai Long,

said he was shocked when his wife came home covered in blood.

 

He said there had been previous attacks in his rubber smallholding,

which the family had been managing since 1960.

 

Villager Riduan Bakhari, 29, who occasionally worked on the

smallholding, said he admired Mek Jah's courage.

 

" Recently we were in the smallholding and I heard a roar. She then

said, 'Go away, don't disturb us. We are just doing our work,' and

uttered some phrases and then I did not hear any more noise. "

 

Kelantan Wildlife and National Parks Department deputy director Wan

Azali Wan Ali said tiger tracks at the site indicated that there were

three animals roaming the area.

 

He said they could be from the same family and may have been after

wild boars when one attacked Mek Jah.

 

" The tiger that attacked the woman could be a two-year-old cub;

rangers found fresh boar droppings at the scene.

 

" The tiger could have come out of the Gunung Basol forest reserve

while pursuing the wild boars, " he said.

 

Wan Azali said villagers had spotted three animals previously in the area.

 

" The area is part of the family's hunting range and we believe that

they had gone hunting there, based on the tiger tracks found at the

site. "

 

The hilly rubber smallholding near Kampung Sungai Long where Mek Jah

was attacked was visited by 10 rangers, 20 Rela members and six police

officers. They laid traps for the animal.

 

Jeli Wildlife Department chief Mohd Hazlin Qozek Aladdin said a trap,

with a goat as bait, had been set about 500 metres from the spot where

Mek Jah was attacked.

 

Hazlin said rangers would also set traps in locations nearby to lure

the animal out.