Tondoyutung

Tondoyutung, a four-syllable word-name for a four-legged nocturnal and very shy tree animal, could be found in the forested areas of Kampung Tintap and forests beyond. It was a black furry rather than hairy animal and its bite could make one be sent hurridly to hospital. Figuritively speaking, anything or anyone shy enough to the point of covering the face could be referred to as a tondoyutung. Metaphorically speaking, too, anything flush black all over could be called tondoyutung as well. Incidentally, way back in the 70s, an uncle, the late Samuel Kinajil, was bitten by a tondoyutung when he volunteered to visit Tintapland to inspect some riping rambutans. Since a tondoyutung roamed its territory during the night, it slept during the day. He saw this sleeping tondoyutung on a branch of a small tree, a gosing tree. That old man, unwittingly, as in ‘silap haribulan’, tried to catch that ‘sure-know-how-to-fight-back’ smallish animal, using his bare hands. He was, so he himself told his own story, back-carried by a fellow kampung man to the main road and was hurridly sent to hospital. He had to spent a few days there.

Dogs were lovely animals. They were bigger, much bigger than a tondoyutung. At one time Tintapland was dogged or guarded by 13 lovely kampung k-nines, 13 – the highest number ever attempted, and because of their number, the likelihood of getting at least one general luck-bringer was great. But, because of their numbers, their toll on the barn was no joke. They had to have nearly 60kg of rice per week and unspecified wieght of freshwater farm fish to go with it. There was ample supply of fish for them but the rice had to come all the way from the towns. There seemed unlimited dog’s name to give each one, one, and no one had to share names. At that time, there were two lovely female k-nines living at Fortuna Garden, in Kota Kinabalu. One of them gave birth to an all black furly puppy. The first impression it portrayed was that it was special in its own ways. The puppy was brought to Tintapland to enjoy the country air and spacious roaming area when it got older. Mr. Ooi brought a small family tourists from Hongkong to visit the countryside. They ended up at Tintapland where they enjoyed picking rambutans. When the young Hongkong Chinese girls saw the black puppy, it became their main attraction during their whole about an hour stay. When they knew that the puppy had not been given a proper name yet, they proposed a name, sounding like, “Bo”, or was it “Bo” or “Bow”. The young girl’s tone, the one who proposed the name, was not crystal clear, very much inclined to the oriental tone. A few digital shots from a couple of 3Gs satellite phones were taken of that “Bo” from Ju’s palm and from their own grasps. As the puppy grew up it could not be easily called with the proposed name which had not been clearly heard. I wanted to call it, “Lucky”, but thought better of the name, “Tondoyutung”. So, Tondoyutung was then his name. His glamour or stage name, as if there was a stage, was Tung. When he was a bit slow in responding to a call, his long name, Yutung, would be used to call him. Sometimes when he was naughty and full of his own tricks, his full name, according to his imaginary National Registration Identity Card (NRIC), Tondoyutung, would be virbatimly ennunciated. When he was naughtily obedient he would be called by his endearing name, Yutie.

It had been said of animals that if one was destined lucky or would bring luck to the owner, it would be the number one envy of the other animals, the like of it. It therefore happened one evening when Galong, a female adult resident of Tintapland, attacked Yutung. It was an attack to devour. Yutung was saved by literally pulling its whole small head out from Galong’s mouth. The myth concerning lucky animals was feared fulfilling itself at that moment. Yutung cried aloud and he cried long. Inspections of his upper extremities revealed that there could be permanent damages. Minyak batu, the very much relied upon embrocation, both for man and animals, was sparingly applied onto the whole head and any thought-of hurting limbs. It helped soothe the pain. He was lulled to sleep that night. The next morning, Yutung still whined a bit and wanted to communicate something by using his paw to rub his left eye. It was understood, he had lost the vision of that eye. Despite of Tung’s puppyhood growing up hardships, it managed to grow up into a young handsome dog with a bionic eye. Tania discerned that while Yutung was nursing the hurt of his left eye, training it to see things sharper than sharp, bionic, he had developed some cybertronic functions of his other eye.

There was a time when young Jonathan and his younger brother, Jerald, came to visit Tintapland. They were with their father. It was during the long year-end school break. If the long school holidays did not happen in December in all the ASEAN Countries, certainly it was the practice in Malaysia and Singapore. So the JETT brothers came to visit Malaysia, in particular, Tintapland, their grandfather’s secluded outback, during their school holidays. Sometimes they did not stay too long at Tintapland for their Dodu would insist taking them back to Fortuna Garden for the night. To her, Tintapland is not meant for city boys to stay the night. During that particular visit, they were with their father and what their father said was final. They all stayed the night at Tintapland. That was a couple of years ago. The early evening weather during that particular JETT Brothers’ Tintapland visit was good and dry but the mosquitoes, as always, were plentiful. The dogs, all of them, were around the rugged ground of Sulap Tintap. Animals and people were around together. They were all compatable, the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds, except for the two-legged Tondu who would scold any four-legged which would come close to the JETT Brothers. The ground was dry but it must have been tai-manuk strewn. That fussy-always two-legged, you know who, ensured and forcefully enforced that the young brothers, both of them, put on slippers when they walk about the rugged ground. Any slippers around, big or small, comfortable or not, the Japanese rubber slippers or otherwise, were forced onto the young brothers to use. Young Jonathan was asked to use a pair of Japanese slippers which colour, size and comfortability were far from the young gentleman’s liking. Somehow, at one particular point in time during the slipper-use ensuring commands and during the mingling of animals and people together, young Jonathan thought that he was not given the proper acknowledgements which he thought he rightly deserved from all the others around. He expressed that dissatisfaction by flinging his slippers, the Japanese rubber slippers, landing them both at a spot not very far away from where the four-legged were lousing. He accompanied each fling of those must-be disgusting foot-wears with some audible signals as he went to sit at a yet rugged seating area under the Sulap Tintap, leaving his Japanese rubber slippers, both of them, not far from where the four-leggeds were. All these happenings were captured and recorded by Yutung’s cybertronic brain. Yutung must have thought what he would do next. But he took his time. As young Jonathan continued to audiblely express his disgust of those slippers, maybe the disgust was more on the persistent use-slippers enforcement commands coming from the Fussy-Always, Yutung smiled, walked to where the slippers were, picked one of Jonathan’s slippers up in its mouth and walked up to him, laying the slipper quite orderly at his feet. He quickly went back for the other slipper and carried it to him in the same way. Yutung could have said, but he did not for he could not, (remember, he was only a dog!), to young Jonathan, “Master Sir, I mean, Boss, that’s all right. No prob! Remember, things sometimes happen not quite the way we want them to... This one? small thing bah – perkara kecil. Come on. Here are your slippers. Just put them on – bukan lama. No fuss, bah! Ingkaa bo! – Like that, bah! Boss?” Young as he was, Jonathan must have approved and appreciated Yutung’s concern for he automatically tuned down his volume and slowly switched it off. Jonathan must have reacted and mused, “What! Clever Yutung? You’re only a dog, bah! I am a ….”, looking at his closed right-hand fist and thinking that he was bigger, much bigger than Yutung. “But, never mind. Good! Thank You, Tung,” Jon said in his mind. He could have really said those words but he did not for he thought Yutung could not understand anyway. Someone, an adult, caught Yutung’s acts on a still camera, got them printed, marvelled at Yutung’s feats, but lost the prints. Sayang!

The years had a toll on the k-nines. They got sick with skin deseases. Much money had been spent on all of them over the years. Packed shot were bought from the Donggongon farmasi or from the Vet’s at Lido. Recommended tablets, sprays and shampoos were administered. Dr. Piusai was consulted over the phone. Their skin deseases deteriorated. As an alternative resort, the employment of Plan B was put to application.

I therefore had to leave Tintapland early in the morning for some living necessities in town. A nieghbour, Michael, also called, Pilaku, had been left with words of instructions as to what to do. When I came back in the afternoon, Michael poured down his verbal reports.

Gakup, the male, was spared. He was at the other nieghbour’s house minding a bitch which was mengawan at that time. Gakup was then the lone guard on Tintapland for a bit of a time.

When Cool knew that Galong was not at Tintapland anymore, she came home. She moved to Michael’s house for about 5 years because of Gal. I did not want to intervene in dog’s tifs too much as I was of the opinion that even the dogs have their own dog’s rights. Cool was acting top-dog on Tintapland since her home-coming. Gakup, the male, due to age, couldn’t care less. He was taking a stride at a time. Ringkui, another otai guard of Tintapland, and Kugie, a kampung k-nines that came home to Tintapland soon after the 2004 general election, together, composed the foursome old-timers presently welcoming visitors to Tintapland. Sometimes they acted as personnels of JPJ (Jabatan Pengangkutan Jalanraya) when they would try to stop every passer-by vehicle.

As everyone took each day-change for granted, the number of k-nines on Tintapland fluctuated. Tintapland proprietor accepted the fact that the status quo of any situation could not last for long. It could be prolonged with Divine intervention, through prayer-appeals. Yutie was a good and fun friend while he was still around. It took me a long time to overcome each lost.

Another four-leggeds around Tintapland were Cool’s number one enemies. The topcat seemed Mayon although Mayon seemed not to bother about the existence of the others. There were 10 live-cats at 10.00a.m. on 9^th March, 2008, the day after the 12^th General Election. If a cat dropped to the ground anytime, be it day or night, that cat would be on a 9 to 8 life estimation, more dead than alive. They were all permitted to live on the ceiling of the car-shed and on the upstairs of Sulap Tintap. There was once an iconic Tintap Mayon, a flush white male cat almost known anywhere around Kampung Tintap, as far away as Kampung Manansawong. It was like a dog, wanting to follow its owner on a walk around the ground. When Tania was back home from her U in KL she borrowed Mayon to Seroja 3 for the duration of her home stay. Mayon seemed to know Fortuna for it went up the stairs ahead of her. It disappeared for a few hours only coming home torn and nearly tartered. That feeling of seeing a fine thing changed to something bad, seeing a beautiful cat hurting itself, hurt. But, when it disappeared the second time and it did not return anymore, that signalled a certainty that it must have met with its fate.

R, a female playful puppy, acted a ‘doctor’ for the present Mayon. Mayon was skin-deseased due to some excessive sharing of fishfeeds. R licked dry Mayon’s under-jaw skin disease and in no time the disease left Mayon. The saying, miaga tingau om tasu (like a dog and a cat) emphasising the noncompatiblity of a dog and a cat, in that case, was a myth. So effectively healing of wounds was a dog’s saliva that it had even been narrated in The Lazurus Story of the Old Testament bible story. Michael accidentally ran over R. Michael and friend were practical kampung economists. They must have said, “Orubat, daging tosonong!” (Don’t waste good meat!) and threw R into the stewing pot.

(I made a trip to the Taman Crocker Range, Keningau, alongside the Keningau-Kimanis Road, on 2^nd January, 2009. I went with Tania who was on her extended leave from her USM, Penang. She may have to catch up with her work and studies when she gets back. It was during this visit that I realised my mistake in assuming that a Tondoyutung was a furry black animal. Actually a Tondoyutung was a brownish hairy animal. I made the mistake when I was reffering to a Monggoluton (a squirel) to mean a Tondoyutung. Sorry, my mistake!)