KAJIAN
LITERATUR TENTANG ASAL USUL TASIK KUBANG AJI
Penelitian
mendapati terdapat sejumlah penulisan akademik yang menceritakan tentang asal
usul dan sejarah tentang Tasik Kubang Aji yang terdapat di daerah Perak Tengah
di Negeri Perak Darul Ridzwan. Antaranya menerusi cacatan sarjana Inggeris oleh
Maxwell, W. Notes and Queries 3. In W. Maxwell,
Notes and Queries of the Malaysian Branch Royal Asiatic Society (reprint 15).
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch Royal of the Royal Asiatic Society; 1997.
pp62-63.
Legend of Kubang Aji
Kubang Aji is a deep pool in the Perak River near Belanja; it is famous
for its fish. In the days when the sea covered a great portion of the tract
through which the Perak River now runs, there lived a Sakai named Si Aji who
adopted the manners and customs of the Malays. He went on a trading voyage on a
ship of his own, and when he returned he anchored off Sadang (now a village
many miles up the river, but then a sea-port). As he lay asleep in the cabin,
he was awakened by some of his men, who said that his father and mother
(Sakais) were asking to see Nahkoda Aji. The old people were already on board,
bringing with them various dishes of such food as aboriginal tribes delight in
– roast monkey and so on. The Nahkoda, seeing that he was put to shame before
his Malay seamen, denied his parents, and ordered them on shore saying “Do you
think that my mother is a Sakai?” As they went on shore, the woman called out
to him, “Yes, you are my son” and her husband cursed him, saying, “If you are
my son, may your ship be wrecked.” As this curse was pronounced, the woman
turned away, and there came a waterspout, and the ship foundered. Two trees (pokok pauh) used to be pointed out at Sadang, one
facing the place where the ship had been moored and the other turning away from
it, which were supposed to be the metamorphosed Sakais.
Footnote: This legend is also retold as the popular Malay folk tale called
‘Si-Tenggang’.
