Nang Chong Stories : Porcupine

My two uncles and their spouses were mainly rubber tappers after the Japanese Occupation.  Being villagers they raise their young children in Nang Chong and sent them to village school. Times were tough but they managed. But when the prices of the rubber went down  followed by the political upheaval in the 60's, they had to look for alternative work to make ends meet. They went to Sibu to be wharf labourers as both of them were not well educated.

My aunts remained in the village, and they continued to tap their rubber trees, plant a bit of rice on their empty swampy land. The children continued to attend the village school. It was really not too expensive to live in the village even though cash was quite limited. They grew their own vegetables, reared their own poultry, pigs and fish in the ponds.

Once in a while our uncles came home to tap some rubber to help out as the rubber trees were still healthy and giving a good amount of latex.

Once the two of them found a family of porcupine in the rubber garden when they were processing the latex in the rubber processing hut. In no time, they managed to kill two of the adults with their parangs.

The two porcupines were quite big and my two uncles managed to drain their blood into a clean basin. Soon they built a fire to burn the skin of the porcupine and they slowly cut the meat up so that they could share with the neighbours and relatives.

My grandmother would not have any of the meat, but my eldest uncle cooked quite a bit of the porcupine for every one to eat. Third uncle, who looked after my ngie ma or maternal grandmother,  therefore took his share and sold it to some people who were hanging out at the Cooperative store.

He brought back the money and shared the cash with my grandmother and kept his share for his own family. Grandma said that the cash was enough for the fares of the motor launch trips to Sibu. We were never told why Grandma did not want to eat porcupine.

Years later my two uncles learned that porcupine meat had health benefits. (those were the days before Google was able to give us any information.