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Japanese Occupation
by
Augusta Pinin Golingai
Wife of Wenceslaus Staal Maluda
The Japanese were taking over the roomier houses for their quarters. Our wooden house was one of the bigger ones because our father was a builder. It was big enough for two families. My cousin, John Taylor, lived there with us, together with his mother. Villagers helped my father build another house. The men did the heavy work and the women sewed the roombio palm fronds together for the thatch.
The day they finished, my mother took a few chickens to cook them for the villagers, to thank them for their help. She poured hot water over them. I helped to pull out the big feathers. And then I helped to pull out the little feathers. We carried them to the river to clean them.
At the river my mother suddenly bent over and clutched her side. She cried out in pain. We walked back to our house. She went to lay down immediately. I took over the cooking of the chicken broth for the villagers. My mother told me what to do from where she was lying down in great pain.
When the men and women who had helped my father entered and saw my mother rolling in agony, they left without eating.
For three days my mother laid there. Once the herbalist came. She placed a poultice on the side that was hurting.
On the fourth day, my mother could not stand the pain any longer. She asked my father to get the sinsang, the Chinese medicine man. My father walked to his house.
The sinsang arrived early in the morning. I looked at him with hope. He asked my mother to open her mouth. He shook his head. My hope vanished, I started to cry. I was not more than ten years old.
The sinsang left. My mother died. I stayed close to her until she was buried. I was not afraid. She was my mother.
People gathered at our house to mourn the death of my mother. Some came from other villages. One tall woman from a different village brought us matches and a small bowl of salt. I did not know her. And I did not know that when I grew up, I would live with her as her daughter-in-law.
Priam was the youngest of us all. He was 8 months old. Josue was the oldest, then me, Pinin, and then Susanna, and then Naomi, or Omih, Sylverius, and then the second youngest, Damascus. We all took care of our young brothers, Sylverius, Damascus and Priam.
We had been living in the new house for four months when Priam became very ill. He had a big boil in his bottom. Like my mother who never got up again after she laid down in pain, Priam did not recover. He joined our mother at one year of age.
Damascus was old enough to help take in our dried clothing when he also died.
We ate fruit in season. The Japanese ate them too. They particularly liked the Boondoo. One day I filled a sinaging (woven basket with straps carried on the back like a backpack) with Boondoo. I brought them to the Japanese living in our former place, the house my mother had died in. I wanted to exchange them for material to make new clothes. They took the Boondoo and gave me a yard of white cloth.
At this time village women wore black. (Perhaps because the fabric was thin and also because white clothes quickly became stained from working in the fields. Black would be almost stain-proof.) I soaked the yard of white cloth in the mud pool the water buffaloes made. Then I washed and dried it. Then I soaked it again – this time in rosok (leaves of a tree used as dye). This made the material black. It was ready to be sewn. I could now replace my old sarong with a new one.
When I think of how I placed the white cloth in the mud pool of the water buffalo, I laugh. How absurd! To make muddy material that is clean and white!
War’s end
News arrived that the Americans were bombing the Japanese. My father dug a pit. In the side of this pit he dug out a tunnel for us to hide in to escape the bombs.
Jesselton was heavily bombed by the Australians. The town was ten miles away from us.
Then we saw the planes of the Allies. The fleet of fighters roared over us. The sky. It was dark with Allied aircraft.
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