A walk on the wild side - a review of 'The White Amah'

I was blown away by this book. I honestly had not expected it to be quite as intricate as it is. It's quite a story that has an awesome view of southeast Asian indigenous people. There is a little mystery thrown in and a look at the rougher side of life. The introduction of a lot of characters can sometimes be overwhelming however not here. I loved how in the end everyone ties in together one way or another and how the story does a well rounded circle.
(Margaret- Goodreads)

Centuries way of life is on the way out

It is estimated that there are approximately 100 tribes still living as hunter gathers, mainly in Brazil, Peru, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

But these stone-age people are in grave danger of being forced off their land by multi-national timber logging companies that plunder and destroy the precious environmental habitat and centuries old way of life.

In The White Amah by Ann Massey an impoverished Dayak tribe has no chance against a Chinese timber baron. And neither, I fear, does the lost tribe recently discovered in the Amazonian jungles of Brazil.

Reader Review

Update from Cheryl posted on Goodreads

"Set in both familiar and exotic locals, the lives of three women and how they intertwine make up the plot line of this novel. The self-centered rock star, the rich man's concubine, and the young amah lead very different lives, until a vicious murder connects them. An intriguing and enjoyable read with a satisfying conclusion."

Tattoos: more than a fashion statement

Tatts are hot, the trendy 'in' accessory but you may be surprised to know that for the Dayaks, the Indigenous people of Borneo, a tattoo is much more than a fashion statement.

Badge of honour

In Miri, you could recognize headhunters, (warriors not human resource scouts), by their tattoos. Like notches etched into gunslingers' pistols, the fingers of headhunters are tattooed with mythical creatures known as tegulan. Each tattoo corresponds with the taking of a human head. As a westerner, it was hard for me to understand the attraction but I learnt that Dayaks believe the soul lives in the head and when beheaded, their victim's status, strength, skill and power is transferred to their slayer.

I saw a number of elderly tribesmen with tegulan on the streets of Miri but, it wasn't until I visited a jungle longhouse with ancient human heads tied up with rattan hanging in bunches from the rafters, that I saw tribal women with tattoos. Young women with the skill to produce cloth, mats and baskets are much sought after. The talented ones are tattooed. Easily identified they can pick and choose from their suitors.

Free pass to the afterlife

Traditionally, Dayaks believe that only the souls of men and women with hand tattoos - symbols of their success at headhunting and weaving are able to cross the River of the Dead where they are reunited with their ancestors. The unworthy, the ones without tattoos, are cast into the river by Maligang, the malevolent guardian of the bridge where they are devoured by Paton, a giant catfish. Head hunting was banned in the 19th century but it proved difficult to eradicate. One can't help but wonder if it doesn't continue deep in the forbidding rain forests because I have seen Dayak men with both hands covered with tegulan and, in their ears ornaments made from the beak of the helmetted- hornbill, carved to resemble the canine tooth of a tiger-cat. Indisputable proof, they have taken heads.

In Dayak culture evil spirits are attracted to immoral individuals and when self-centred Crystal gets a snake tattoo, the motif associated with evil, she gets more than she bargained for.

Ann Massey

http://www.annmasseyauthor.net/

Author of:

The White Amah, a mystery set against the backdrop of the timber logging industry in Malaysia. Sample or purchase: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1456578065

The Biocide Conspiracy, a Young Adult thriller that sweeps readers into the world of biowarfare. Sample or purchase; http://www.amazon.com/dp/1456503367

Conmen and cheats: men who prey on vulnerable women

A former ex-pat reflects on her life in Miri.

It was to be expected that we would socialize with Bryn (not his real name). When you're living in a foreign country you gravitate to your own countrymen and there weren’t a lot of Australian’s living in Miri. Like 90% of the men working in the oil town, Bryn worked for Shell but he was an entrepreneur from way back and it wasn’t long before he opened his own bar.

In the 90’s you couldn’t open a business in Miri without taking on a Bumiputra partner. Bumiputra is the Malaysian term for the indigenous people of Malaysia, the Dayaks. It means son of the land but it was a daughter of the land that Bryn took on as his Bumiputra partner.

Already a victim, Rosie had been deserted by her husband and she was struggling to bring up six children without any financial assistance from her ex or the government. In Dayak culture the family bond is strong and when Bryn offered Rosie a job, as his live-in amah, her sister offered to look after the children.

Although Bryn had a wife and family back in Australia, it wasn’t long before he and Rosie were in a relationship. Imagine how she felt when Bryn told her about his plans to open a bar and offered her a partnership. For a poor uneducated woman with no prospects but a life of drudgery, it must have been like winning first prize in a lottery.

Once a cheat always a cheat and it wasn’t long before Bryn was cheating on Rosie. When she went back to her longhouse for Gawai (the Dayak harvest festival), Bryn took off for the duty free island of Labuan with Flora, a pretty young barmaid. The last thing Rosie did, before she set off in happy ignorance for a re-union with her children was to take in the large box addressed to Bryn that she found on the veranda.
A week later when Bryn returned the whole house ponged, blood had seeped from the box, dripped from the table and pooled on the floor. Someone had sent Bryn the severed head of a pig minus one ear. When he was a teenager Bryn had come off a motorbike and he’d lost his outer ear. You didn’t need to be Einstein to figure out who the pig represented!

That evening my partner and I went to Bryn’s for a few drinks and he told us about finding the pig’s head and showed us the blood-stained note he’d discovered at the bottom of the box. It warned him that if he continued playing around with Muslim women there’d be another head in a box and it also would only have one ear.

Unlike the guy in 'The godfather' who woke up with a horse's head in bed beside him, Bryn seemed unfazed. Anyone, with any sense, would have got out of town. I mean this was the wild, wild East and I’d heard stories of ex-pats who had accidentally run down a child being hacked to death by the relatives.

I don’t know what else Bryn did to get on the wrong side of the locals but on two occasions gangsters broke into the premises and broke up the place. Maybe he had refused to pay protection money. Any way word got round. Work colleagues, frightened for their safety stopped patronizing the bar. Bills mounted up and Bryn did a runner leaving poor old Rosie with all the debts.

Last thing I heard Bryn had talked himself into a $300,000 job in Nigeria.

If you'd like to hear more about ex-pats and amahs you might enjoy my book: The White Amah. It's available on amazon and you can read an excerpt and reviews on my site: http://annmasseyauthor.net

Ann Massey

http://www.annmasseyauthor.net/

Author of:

The White Amah, a mystery set against the backdrop of the timber logging industry in Malaysia. Sample or purchase: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1456578065

The Biocide Conspiracy, a Young Adult thriller that sweeps readers into the world of biowarfare. Sample or purchase; http://www.amazon.com/dp/1456503367

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The strange and amazing people you meet on public transport.

Lots of children have never used public transport and a ride on a bus or a train for many preschoolers is exciting and more newsworthy than a flight on Virgin or QANTAS. It’s worth mentioning here that I was fourteen when I went up in a plane for the first time. We were about to emigrate to Australia and my father paid out a pound, in the old currency, for a five minute trip over Morecombe Bay.

I don’t know what type of plane but it looked like a Tiger Moth. It was certainly of that vintage. In 1959 air travel was beyond the means of working class families but entrepreneurs (possibly ex- wartime pilots that had survived the Battle of Britain), had snapped up RAF planes. The short trips they offered were a thrilling alternative to donkey rides on the sands at Blackpool, Southport and Morecombe.

The extravagant treat was unlooked for. Horse mad I would have preferred a ride on one of the donkeys. But I wasn’t consulted. Assisted migrants (ten pound poms), we were bound for a brave new and, what, I now think my father thought, was a backward world. I have never forgotten him telling us to make the most of the opportunity. We’d never get the chance to go up in a plane again. My father died three years before the birth of his great-granddaughter, Molly. He’d be amazed by the blasé attitude to air travel of a 4 year old frequent flyer.

But I digress - when I accompanied my partner, Cole to Miri, for the first time for years, I found myself without a car and with hours and hours of time on my hands. Before he went to work the first day, he warned me never, ever to go into Miri on my own. I think he felt confident that I had no alternative than to stay put because, like many non-users of public transport, it never entered his head that I would hop on a bus.

In the five years that I spent in Miri, I never saw another ex-pat on the bus with the result that I became somewhat of a local celebrity. I never had to stand, someone was always ready to give up their seat to me and strangers would regularly offer to pay my fare.

One incident that stands out in my memory was a conversation with a fellow passenger. The tribal Dayak told me about life in his longhouse, stories about a world that is disappearing as fast as the jungle that once covered the entire island of Borneo. Just before his stop, he asked me if I would like to see an image of his tribe’s old king and he took the medallion he was wearing from around his neck.

It was with great reverence, he handed me the ornament. Immediately, I recognized Edward V11’s head on the drilled half-crown, (two shillings and sixpence in the old currency). When I was a child it was still common to receive old coins, particularly pennies with the heads of former monarchs. Edward the V11 coins were rare but not as rare as his mother Queen Victoria. I was surprised I’d expected the King to be a Malaysian sultan or one of the White Rajahs, the Brookes, an English dynasty that founded and ruled the Kingdom of Sarawak from 1841 to 1946.

When I handed back the medallion, I told him that Edward had also been my king too and the former head-hunter swelled with pride to learn that the king of Sarawak had once ruled over England. How did I know my new friend had taken a head? Well he didn’t tell me, he didn’t need to. His fingers were covered with tattoos known as tegulan. Each tattoo corresponded with the taking of a human head.

Many of the customs I wrote about in The White Amah I heard from fellow commuters. You meet the most interesting people on public transport.

Ann Massey

http://www.annmasseyauthor.net/

Author of:

The White Amah, a mystery set against the backdrop of the timber logging industry in Malaysia. Sample or purchase: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1456578065

The Biocide Conspiracy, a Young Adult thriller that sweeps readers into the world of biowarfare. Sample or purchase; http://www.amazon.com/dp/1456503367