Introduction (Hanna): Pa Pandir reveals
another of the Trickster’s faces, the sacred clown. Through counterexamples, a great deal is revealed about human pretensions.
Malaysia’s Daddy moron frequently confuses holy men and royalty with wicked and beasts thus deflating the categories
by which human beings imagine themselves to be above their animal natures and each other. He is like Loki, who detests the
Aesir for their pomp, pageantry, and brave talk when all of them have at times been adulterous, gluttonous, and cowardly in
response to their own baser instincts. Pa Pandir is appetite without mind and without malice, He doesn’t hate the high
and mighty; he only shows them what else they are. Like most animal tricksters, Pa Pandir is lazy, proud, greedy, gullible,
cowardly, and of course hungry and often the victim of his own mindlessness.
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READS “One day”
NARRATOR 1: One day, Pa Pandir went out
fishing. The wind was against him, so he had to row upstream. By the time he was tired and had to stop rowing, the wind changed
and blew favorably in his direction, but he was too angry with the wind to hoist his sail, so that he was carried downstream
again by the river, right beyond the pint where he had started. All the time he was muttering:
Pa Pandir: blow! Go on and blow! You rotten wind! I mush have a rest first.
NARRATOR 1: When he had finished resting,
the wind turned again, so he had to row all the way back.
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READS “One day again”
NARRATOR 2: One day, he decided to go and
challenge the king’s cock in a fight. However, he had no decent clothes to put on for he was only a poor man. So his
wife Ma Andeh made him a suit of clothes from newspapers. As soon as is cock started winning, he jumped up and danced. Alas!
His clothes burst and were blown away by the wind! There he stood, stark naked, and the spectators rolled about in laughter.
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READS “Mistake one”
NARRATOR 1: One day Pa Pandir was told
by his wife to go and buy a cow. He did not know what a cow was so he asked her to explain ‘cow’ Ma Andeh said:
Ma Andeh: It is that which crops the grass!
NARRATOR 1: Satisfied with this definition
of ‘cow’ Pa Pandir now set out to find a cow. Along the way he saw a man mowing with a babad, a knife on a long
stick.
Pa Pandir: Aha, that must be a cow.
NARRATOR 1: So, he brought the grass knife
and dragged it home after tying it to a long rope, for that, his wife had told him, was the best way to transport a cow. At
each step it cut his heels.
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READS “Mistake 2”
NARRATOR 2: One day Ma Andeh told him to
go and invite Haji Musa, the local priest, for a meal in his honor. Again, He asked her to describe what he was supposed to
bring home.
Ma Andeh: You will easily recognize him he has a white beard.
NARRATOR 2: So, Pa Pandir went out and
came back with a big old billy-goat whose white beard indeed looked venerable.
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READS “Mistake 3”
NARRATOR 1: the next day his wife asked
him to go and buy a bag of salt. While he was walking along the river with his bag, he felt the call of nature. Before squatting
in the shallow water, he thought of a place to hide away the salt. Of course! The best hiding place was under water! He was
much surprised later to find the bag empty as soon as all the water had run out.
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READS “The big mistake”
NARRATOR 2: finally, Ma Andeh sent Pa Pandir
out to invite Datuk Keramat inn Islam, the local saint.
Ma Andeh: But remember. Take the right path at the fork, the left leads to the gergasi!
NARRATOR 2: the gergasi were man eating
giants. Alas Pa Pandir forgot his wife’s directions and took the left road straight to the gergasi house. At the large
house he shouted:
Pa Pandir: Holy man! My wife and I invite you!
NARRATOR 2: The Gergasi was sleeping when
Pa Pandir came to call. Upset by this disturbance and intending to eat the shouting man. But Pa Pandir called to him:
Pa Pandir: my wife has cooked a cow! All for you! Come and eat it! We invite you!
Gergasi: If it is a lie I will eat you!
NARRATOR 2: Ma Andeh sees her husband and
the two giants walking up the road, about to faint Ma Andeh pulls it together and graciously invites the two giants into her
home. After dinner Ma Andeh sends Pa Pandir to feed the giants baby back at home, but making another mistake Pa Pandir ends
up killing the baby. Pa Pandir runs home and tells his wife. By the time the gergasi know what had happened Pa Pandir and
Ma Andeh were safely on the other side of the river. When the gergasi returned to the house to eat Pa Pandir and Ma Andeh,
they found they were on the other side of the river and:
Pa Pandir: Grandparents, do not fall into the water you may die, go to my house and get two jars.
NARRATOR 2: SO, the gergasi did as they
were told and brought the jars to the river got in and:
Pa Pandir: Now move back and forth to move the jars.
NARRATOR 2: The two jars fell over and
the gergasi were never heard form again. Pa Pandir became a hero in the village.
NARRATOR 1: One day Pa Pandir bought chaff,
which a farmer was winnowing out, and throwing away. When he arrived at the riverbank, he saw an army of ants, thousands of
them, crawling across a long twig afloat on the river.
Pa Pandir: If a thousand ants can walk on a twig, it will hold me as well.
NARRATOR 1: Pa Pandir stepped on it but
it did not hold him. He almost drowned and lost his bag of chaff. When he went home his wife Ma Andeh fired lots of cruel
words at him that the forest trembled.
Pa Pandir: What are you worried about? You said the chaff was worthless, so what does it matter if its lost?
Ma Andeh: I have myself to blame; I should have never sent him on an errand
NARRATOR 1:
Ma Andeh stopped giving him orders.
NARRATOR 2: So, Pa Pandir now had all this
time to himself, so he made himself an elaborate fish trap and caught many fishes, which he smoked over a fire. After eating
a large number of them he hung the rest up in a bad on the branch of a tree. Every day he came back to eat more fishes, and
to smoke the newly caught ones. He stayed away all day and went home late at night. Ma Andeh noticed he was growing fatter
though she would not feed him, she decided to follow him one day so she could confiscate his store of food. So the next morning
she asked him if there was any animal he was afraid of.
Pa Pandir: None at all, not even a tiger, nor snakes and crocodiles, only the gecko.
NARRATOR 2: Then when he had left the house,
she followed him at a distance until he stopped near his tree and started to climb it. Just as he untied his bag from the
branch, she imitated the call of the gecko from behind the shrubs
Ma Andeh: Toke! Toke!
NARRATOR 1: Pa Pandir fell out of the tree
with fright, jumped up and ran away. He ran all day and did not dare come back until night. Meanwhile Ma Andeh had picked
up the bag, which had fallen under the tree, and taken it home. She discovered it was full of fish and that night she gave
Pa Pandir two fish with boiled rice. When he asked for more she said that there were no more fishes, but that she would have
a piece of her joint.
Pa Pandir: I’ll have a piece of my joint
NARRATOR 1: He continued to carve a piece
of flesh from his thigh with the carving knife. He held it over the fire to roast it, and then ate it up. Soon he got wound
fever and Ma Andeh had to treat him with herbs and salves.
NARRATOR2: Pa Pandir had a plan to catch
birds. He found a Lumbu tree and boiled its sticky juice into glue. This he smeared on the branches of a tree and waited.
Soon some birds perched on the branches and were stuck. He tied the birds to strings and the strings to him he caught hundreds
of birds. In the end, every part of his body was covered with birds. With their wings free they started flapping and lifted
Pa Pandir off the ground. The journey through the air lasted until after nightfall when the birds began to tire. They
landed on the moonlit roof terrace of king Shah Malim’s Palace. Servants fled believing he was a ghost, devil or angel
or even God. He quickly cut the strings of the birds tied to his body then shouted in a deep voice
Pa Pandir: BEWARE!
PREPARE! The King of the Spirits is descending to earth!
NARRATOR 2:King Malim obeyed and prepared
for a giant feast for this King of the Sprits. He called upon his daughter and told that for a long time he had wanted her
to marry the King of the Sprits and know that he is here she will marry him and told her to go clean and get dressed for her
wedding. The ceremony proceeded as planned there was a feast and a wedding, However the princess fled that night claiming
that she did not want to be carried away by a spirit into the cold night air. In the morning the servants came and saw that
the sun was shining on Pa Pandir’s face, which proved he was human, he was chased out of the kingdom. When he returned
home he told Ma Andeh about his adventure while she laid herbs and salves on the cuts and bruises he had received.
NARRATOR 1: One day Pa Pandir told his
wife that he was going on a boat trip for 7 days and she needs to pack him food. He told his wife if she hears a gunshot its
him coming back. She went to the forest to collect some herbs and roots for her medical practice. In her absence, Pa Pandir
climbed onto the roof and lay down to eat the cakes and rice in comfort. When she came back from the forest she found
him gone and concluded that he had departed on his boat trip. Pa Pandir lay quietly on his roof right above her head for 6
days eating her cakes. The rats enjoyed the fatty smell so much that they ate his lips away. On the 7th day he
sneezed and Ma Andeh believed it was a gunshot so she left to go meet her husband at the riverside. Pa Pandir came down and
went to the river, when they met she asked him if he had not been on board ship? He claimed he had been on board the ship
but he could no longer pronounce sounds that required movement of the lips he then tried to explain how the rats had eaten
his lips while he slept.
NARRATOR 2:some days later they went out
to the forest together to cut wood, Pa Pandir was hungry and told his wife to fry some bananas they quarreled until she gave
him some raw bananas then went to go get some live coals from the fire. She then fried some bananas for him. Expecting these
also to be raw, Pa Pandir swallowed them whole and soon rolled with pain in his tummy and died. Ma Andeh buried him and died
soon after
NARRATOR 2: Thus ends the tale of Pa Pandir
who was always acted without thinking
