Last Story of Raja(Be) Siong (The Fanged King)

We are now reaching the final chapter of the story of Raja(Be) Siong or the Fanged King,  in the last 2 previous posts we  talked about the ground survey and the villagers’ interview respectively and now we still talking with the same group of people.

Our ground survey team at the expected Raja(be) Siong Wall palace

Maming, a son of Minoh, began the story when we ask the name of king who owned  and ruled  this  palace on the Patani river bank “ old people say that the name of the kings is Raja(Be) Siong (the fanged king)” he stop a bit before proceed “ Raja(Be) Siong is  very fierce and cruel king, I think every one in Patani know about this story, may be they know better than me”  he means  the people who are  now at the age of 85 years  or older, he believes that people at this age were used to  sit and listen to the local story from the story tellers who wandering here and there  to entertain the people in the wedding feeds  or wedding parties and other ceremony events,  people in the villages enjoyed the story from dust to dawn and some time resumed in the next day  night to complete the story, the popular stories telling by them at the time were Raja(be)Siong, the Prince of Jering, the Patani war with Siam, Ramayana(the Hindu Epic) and Raja Patani become a Muslim etc.

Our ground  survey team walk along the wall

Minoh starting story “One in a time, there’s Fairies king in the hinter of Negeri Raman(the province of Patani kingdom) who had a beautiful princess name Chahaya, this princess was born in a cave but the astrologer foretold that this princess was full of evil and will bring the catastrophic to the land and said that never kept this baby ashore drawn her in  water, let water taken her away from this land”.  “The baby was very beautiful and lovely”  added Maming

“There fore” Minoh continue “ The purification ceremony was held in the land and the princess was thrown in to the river to drawn, however instead of drawn she came to the surface of the water and floating down the river by resting on the mass of big foam. She was taken a way by the current down the stream and reached the point where she was rescued by Raja(be) Siong, the fanged king.” The Palace of Raja (be) Siong is right there on the  Patani river bank , it means that the Negeri Raman must be some where up stream further south, which not to day Raman, is it  possible to be some where in the deep mountainous  jungle across,  now Malaysia border, say one of our expedition team.

Minoh continue “ Raja (be) Siong was called because of his fond of eating human heart caused his teeth developed in to tusk or fang like that of cannibal, one day as usual his slave are cleaning the goat flesh by the river for the king lunch, suddenly the goat’s heart, the king favorite food was drawn into the river. The young slave feared that the king will punish him by death sentence he therefore, killed the boy who was passing by and taken the heart of the victim in place of goat heart. The king was eating the boy’s  heart, rejoiced and say that this is the best I had ever eat, it’s sweeter. At first the young slave say nothing to the king, later precautious about his safety he told the king that it was the heart of a boy, so the king ordered to kill the boy daily for his food. Wherefore his fang grew longer like that of the cannibal. Any way now Raja (be)Siong after rescued the Chahaya princess brought her up in his palace with care and love. One day on his hunting ground he heard the voice of crying child and went to see at the spot he saw the male baby within  the hollow stem of the big bamboo which causes  by the wind, the king adopted this baby and brought up the two children together. One day when both of them playing together, accidentally  the boy and girl pulled the tusk or fang out of the king mouth, and when they grew up, the king give them married to each other, this is all of Raja(be) Siong story”

We thanks them all after given the best story of Raja(be)Siong and promise to come back again some day for more discovery before leaving that  place on Patani river bank.

The wall  now in rubber plantation