Below is a selection from Steve Van Beek's story Sin the Buffalo Man.
Sin the Buffalo Man is a chapter from his book Slithering South.
His books can be found at
http://www.stevevanbeek.com/books.php.
In the dusk light, the half-naked man stood in silhouette, blocking the trail through the thick vegetation. The moment I said a tentative “Sawasdee, Khrap?” (Hello), he pulled a longknife and set his feet in a defensive stance.
It was a logical reaction for an old man deep in the jungle where few strangers strayed, but it caught me by surprise. In the pale evening light, the longknife, freed from its bamboo sheath, glowed with deadly intent. Its owner eyed me suspiciously and barked “What do you want?” I quickly explained that a soldier upstream had told me I might find a night's accommodation in the buffalo herder's hut.
“Why'd he tell you that?” he muttered in an agitated voice. “He had no right saying that. Go away. Get out of here.”
The sight of the knife should have compelled me to “get” but there was nowhere to go. Although I towered over him, I was certain that a lifetime of hacking through everything imaginable had made him faster than me. To calm him, I explained quietly that I was on my way down the Ping river and had gotten soaked trying to wrestle my way over a three-meter-high weir. I had paddled this far in search of shelter; the herder's hut was the only thing I'd found.
His fierceness wavered a moment.
“Paddled? Paddled what?” he demanded.
“A boat. Paddled a boat,” I said, repeating the words “pai rua” (paddled).
“Nobody paddles a boat in this jungle,” he said, scoffingly. “Where is this boat?”
“Down at the riverbank,” I said, pointing down the thickly treed slope.
He peered for a long moment the direction my finger pointed but could see nothing. His attitude had changed, however. The knife was still up but now he was shifting from leg to leg, his curiosity piqued.
“Let's go see,” he said, finally. “You first.” He sheathed his knife and I breathed a little easier.
We stood on the riverbank as he ran a gnarled hand over the teak hull. Nodding approvingly, he said “Nice boat. Don't see any this far north.” Straightening up, he said, “Stuck, huh? I don't have much out here. This is the jungle. You'll have to sleep in a lean-to. I only have curry and rice, but you can have some of it.” Home free.
On the way back up the hill, he said. “You startled me. Nobody comes out here except to make trouble. I have nine water buffalo and they are worth a lot of money.” He said it, not in apology for his actions, but as a statement of fact about a hard life.
For most of the year, Sin Phoma, a Shan tribesman, lived with his wife and three grown sons in Muang Ngai two valleys away. While the garlic ripened, he spent three months in a clearing in the jungle fattening his buffalo on grass made lush by monsoon rains His eldest son often stayed with him hut had gone out hunting the day before and was not expected back until the next morning.
Like many hill men, Sin Phoma was short and sinewy, browned by years in the sun and used to taking care of himself. In a small patch he had hacked out among the tall trees, he had erected bamboo walls on posts 1.5 meters off the ground and capped it with a thatch roof. He climbed a notched log to its door. It was obvious from his exertions in climbing it that he was no longer young.
“63,” he said with a smile when I asked him. “Old already. That's why I have to be careful of strangers. There are black-hearted people in these hills,” he said, sweeping his arm across the silhouettes of the ridges. “They wouldn't hesitate to kill me to steal my water buffalo.”
Water buffalo were rapidly disappearing in the Central Plains, replaced by small tractors that didn't get sick, ate readily-available reliable fuel, and could power irrigation pumps and small farm trucks. Here in the North, buffalo were still valuable as draft, milk, and meat animals.
Across the yard from his house was a thatched hut raised a half meter off the ground and just wide enough to sleep two people in cramped comfort. Like a manger, it was filled with straw which softened the hard wooden floor and covered the cracks between the planks. It would not keep out the cold but would shelter a sleeper from the dew. Sin indicated that I would spend the night here.
On the hard dirt yard separating it from the main house a small fire was burning. Sin dumped more logs on it and I began unpacking my gear, hanging the sleeping bag to dry by the fire. It would stink of wood smoke but I didn't care; dry beat smelly. Sin fingered its material and asked what I used it for. He was intrigued by my reply. “That would be useful in the hills,” he said. “Wouldn't have to worry about the blanket slipping off in the middle of the night and exposing you,” he said. Sin adjudged everything in terms of how it would serve in the jungle; he'd obviously spent many years there.
“When we came up here years ago, it was all jungle,” he explained. “It was a long time before we had cleared sufficient land to grow enough food for a family. In the meantime, we foraged for everything. In the old days, it was easy; the forests were full of game. Today...” He looked wistfully into the blackness, “...you can still find the fruits we ate when we didn't have anything else, but the animals...I guess most of them have been shot.”
The fire was warm and I huddled close to it to dry myself. Sin squatted nearby for a long time. Then, unhinging his legs and sighing, he got up. “I guess we should have some dinner. I don't have much... Can you eat Thai food?” “Yes.” “Phet? (Spicy)”. “Can.”
Hidden by the bamboo lattice that enclosed his porch, I could here Sin clanking pans, lighting a cooking fire in a firepit. “Sticky rice?” he shouted. “Can,” I answered. “Good. Good.”
I knew it would be a meager meal but I didn't care. It had been a tough day and I was very hungry. While he was making dinner, I recorded the day's events in my journal. Eventually, Sin invited me inside to eat. The dingy interior was lit only by the glowing embers of the cooking fire and a wick stuck in a half tin can of kerosene, the typical sooty, smoky lamp that lights rural houses. In the darkness, two ragged cats prowled, the lamp occasionally illuminating a broken tail or a glinting eye. We sat on the floor to dine.
As I suspected, dinner was an unidentifiable mass of vegetables and something which crunched and from which I had to extract bones. Perhaps the dim lamp had its benefits after all. Uncertain of what to do with the bones, I set them on the floor. Sin, put down his spoon, picked up the bones and, without looking, threw them in the general vicinity of cats who immediately pounced on them, each growling at the other to keep clear. Some of the leftover sticky rice was also dumped on the floor for the cats to eat. The rest was left in the pan which was set beside the fire.
After dinner, we returned to squat by the outside fire. Sin threw a large “mai daeng” log on the fire, angling it so it would reflect its heat into my lean-to. The cats, which had been wandering around the fire, jumping nervously each time the burning log popped, curled up on my now-dry sleeping bag and seemed determined to spend the night there.
Over the next hour, in a leisurely manner Sin questioned me about my journey and my time in Thailand. Listening intently but seldom looking directly at me, he paused after each question to absorb my answers, like his buffalo ruminating before digesting a fact. At one point, he asked me what I was doing on the river. It was a question that would be asked a hundred times. Whatever answer I gave, it sounded ludicrous. I was exploring the river, I was studying the river, I was trying to understand the people who lived along it...
“Ah,” he interrupted. “Samruat.”
I'd never heard the word before but henceforth, it would answer all questions, stifle all further interrogations. My dictionary defined “Samruat” as “survey”. It was a vague word but a useful one that had the ring of officialdom to it. It stood by itself without further need for explanation, suggesting that I worked for the government. I would later realize that “samruat” carried within it a power that imbued its user with special properties. All I would have to say when asked my mission was “Samruat” and smile knowingly. I could almost see in the listener's eyes a physical backing off, the suggestion they were standing in the presence of someone performing official duties and with the authority of a far-off government, someone who should not be meddled with. I used it sparingly but with certain effect when required.
Sin said nothing for a while. A few hardy crickets provided music in the crisp air. Then, as if to himself, he said: “Farang (foreign) women,” directing his comment at the fire. What? “Farang women. They're so big.” I'd heard this before; Thai men intimidated by the height and bulk of foreign women. As in much of Asia, there was a fascination with the blondness and the — as perceived from movies — seeming sexual promiscuity of foreign women; their willingness to jump into bed in a flash. Thai males were intrigued but were hesitant about what to do with all that mass of flesh. Sin must have shared that same awe and that same uncertainty.
“Thai women.” Ah, here we go, I thought. Thai women were best, didn't I agree? “Thai women,” he repeated. “Too small, too thin,” he snorted dismissively. “Farang women. That's the size women should be,” he said chuckling to himself. Here was a man who knew no bounds, for whom size was a challenge, not a defeat. I had to smile at the intensity and certainty with which he said it. Not obscenely, not lecherously. Just plain fact.
Narrative and photograph by Steve Van Beek.
Steve Van Beek is an accomplished writer and photographer of numerous.
His website www.stevevanbeek.com includes some of his writings and photography.
(Taken during one of the ceremonies.)
