Jalan Gajah Berang in culturally rich area of a unique minority community
- COMMUNITY
Friday, 12 Jul 2013
IT’S a constant of jumbo proportions. The origin of this particular Malacca street remains a curiosity to this day.
Translated from Malay to English, Jalan Gajah Berang means “Road of the Enraged Elephant”.
But was this a place where pachyderms used to wander? And was there ever an elephant which actually gave the locality its name?
The earliest recorded history of a maddened elephant in Malacca can be traced to the second attack by the Portuguese on Aug 10, 1511, two weeks before the historic city was eventually conquered.
During the first assault on July 25, Alfonso de Albuquerque had decided on dividing his soldiers into two groups, with the first led by him, to land in Upeh, near present-day Jalan Tranquerah.
He planned a pincer movement using the bridge linking the city and the suburbs, with the other group landing near Sultan Mahmud Shah’s palace and the mosque.
It was a limited success. The Portuguese managed to capture the bridge but were not strong enough to hold it for long.
The Sultan refused to surrender and ordered more fortifications. Canons were mounted at the north and south sides of the bridge.
Albuquerque meant to hold the bridge after the more-intense second attack, which was launched using an exceptionally tall Chinese junk as a kind of fortified siege ladder, floated towards the bridge. The landing was successful, but only after a night of fierce bombardment from the Portuguese armada.
The Sultan’s soldiers tried to retreat to the mosque but the Portuguese under commander Dom Joao de Lima, still pursued them.
But they soon came face to face with reinforcements. To their shock, the ruler and his son, Ahmad, led 20 war elephants in the counter charge.
According to Portuguese records, the unflinching de Lima stood his ground and managed to pierce the leading elephant in the eye with his spear.
One narrative states: “The maddened brute turned in the narrow road and fled, scattering the Malays, and infecting the other animals with its rage and terror.”
Did this crazed elephant run amok for almost two km to the present day area of Gajah Berang? Probably so, although the truth is, no one knows for sure.
In 1756, when Malacca was under Dutch rule, there were also records noting that a fierce elephant was in the neighbourhood at the junction of Tranquerah, which then marked the edge of the city.
Tranquerah was where defensive palisades were erected to deter intruders. The word Tranquera, by the way, means “gate” in Spanish.
But in more recent history — as in 1962 — there was actually a news report of an angry animal terrifying people in the area.
It was a raging bull buffalo which had broken loose from an enclosure at the Veterinary Department in Pengkalan Rama.
It was among several brought from Terengganu to be slaughtered, with the meat distributed to villagers during Hari Raya Haji.
According to a Straits Times news report written by correspondent A. Sripathy, the buffalo ran into the kitchen of a nearby house, smashed all the utensils before crossing the Malacca River in the evening and making its way to the Gajah Berang Secondary English School.
It ran into the hockey pitch, chasing players from the field and knocking down a gardener who managed to climb and tree and remain there for more than hour, fearing for his life. Veterinary officers only managed to lasso the buffalo the next morning while students waited outside the gate. The bovine was later taken away to the municipal abattoir and slaughtered as planned.
But to return to the name of the road, perhaps the name of the road is linked to one of Malaysia’s unique minority communities — the Malacca Chittys or the Indian version of the mixed Peranakan folk.
The Malacca Chittys can trace their ancestry to early Tamil traders who came to Malacca in the early 1400s from the Coromandel Coast, a broad coastal plain in eastern Tamil Nadu, India.
The area extends over 22,800 square km, from the Utkal Plains to the north, the Bay of Bengal to the east, the Kaveri delta to the south, and the Eastern Ghats to the west.
Corramandel is derived from the Tamil Chola Mandalam (“Land of the Chola,”) after an ancient dynasty which existed from the mid-9th century to 1279.
Their ancestors, who were among the pioneers of the spice trade, married local women — Malays, Chinese, Peranakan Chinese and even Batak. Their offspring adopted the local cultures, clothing and languages but adhered to the original religion of their fathers — Hinduism.
One theory is that Gajah Berang was originally called “Kanja Pidam”, a corruption of Kanjipuram, a city famous for its silk in Tamil Nadu, where some of the Chittys originated. But then again, the fact that Beram also means “elephant” in old Malay, adds to the onfusion.
In any case, the community of merchants played a huge role in the early development of Malacca and even after its fall to the Portuguese. (Naina Chatu or Naina Chitty was a Bendahara under early Portuguese rule and reputedly minted the city’s first coins.)
The Portuguese scribe Godinho de Eredia wrote that the Indian residential settlement in Upeh, known as Campon Chelim (Kampung Keling), stretched from the ‘Bazaar of the Joas (Javanese) on the beach of Tranquerah to the walls of the A Famosa fortress.
Upeh was then among the wealthiest neighbourhoods, where the Chinese, Indian and Javanese merchants lived in their own enclaves.
But the community’s clout appeared to have waned during the Dutch era when they moved out from the richer areas of town to various places including Gajah Berang, Tranquerah, Bachang and at Balai Panjang,
They eventually settled down in Kampung Tujuh in Gajah Berang to become farmers, growing mostly rice.
The devoutly Hindu community, however, built several historical temples, including the Poyatha Vinayagar Moorthi Temple — the oldest functioning Hindu temple in the country, in 1781.
The other notable temples are the Muthu Mariamman Temple, built in 1822, the Kailasanathar Temple or Sivan Kovil in 1887, the Kaliamman Kovil in 1804 and the Ang-alamman Parameswari Temple in 1888.
They also built several smaller shrines amidst the padi fields, including the Linggadariamman Kovil, Amman Kovil, Dharma Rajah Kovil, Kathaiamman Kovil and Iyenar Kovil.
The Chitty Museum at the en-trance of the Chitty Village in Gajah Berang is a good place to start learning more about this fascinating community.
The restored traditional Chitty house, showcases an average living room, a typical bridal room and kitchen with utensils and everyday household items. There are pictures, relics, and exhibits of how the community used to live and in some ways, still do today.
“Visitors would be able to get a glimpse of the marriage and religious practices of the community and see pictures of past leaders at the museum,” said K. Nadarajan Raja, secretary of the Cultural Society of Chitty Malacca, who is among current leaders striving to keep the culture and customs of the community alive.
Check the place out the next time you visit Malaysia’s historical city. There are still many stories to discover and among the most mysterious are hidden in the Enraged Elephant Road.
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