Honey Hunts Among the Tualang Trees

[Pegasus]

I read an interesting Malaysian fable at this site:

Now, a single tulang tree may contain about 100 Apis dorsata nests — as Delphi’s Tityos/Typhon/Python, i.e. Kronos, has 100 heads. And each of these nests — with the profile of a half-Moon, and up to 1.5 meters across — may contain about 30,000 bees. From such tree some 450 kg (about 1000 pounds) of honey can be harvested. Do we have here the original golden bough? Moreover, do we have the original golden fleece?

As University of Arizona entomologist Stephen Buchmann describes in his wonderful Letters from the Hive, the traditional honey hunts are performed on the tualang trees during Moon-less nights in February and March. The bees cannot attack without ambient light. About 4 of the 7 or so honey hunters climb the tree using wood-and-vine ladders and carrying leathern buckets (or wicker baskets), bone — decidely not metal — knives made of the shoulder bone of a cow, and liana torches (made of tough liana vines pounded to soft, pliable fibers and bound into 2-meter long bundles about 8 cm thick and capable of burning for a whole night). The shoulder bone recalls the myth of Pelops, eventual conquerer of the Pelopenesse, i.e. of Apia. See below. But why the torches — remarkably akin to Roman fasces) — if the bees need ambient light to attack? Because the bees inveterately follow points of light. The hunters ascend to a branch above a nest. Meanwhile other members of the hunting party wait at the base of the tree and begin to chant:

“Hitam Manis Ooooi!”
(Sweet Dark One, Ooooi!)
“Turunlah dengan chahaya bintang”
(Come down with the falling stars)
“Turun dengan lemah lembutnya”
(Come down gracefully)

The Sweet Dark One, I suggest, is especially akin to Aphrodite (and likewise to Persephone, Pallas, Electra, Andromeda, Helen, etc) — whom the Greeks called Melaenis, “Black One,” Scotia, “Dark One,” Androphonos, “Man-slayer,” and Epitymbra, “(She) of the Tombs” — and more generally to the Triple Goddess, i.e. the Tree Goddess, the Green Woman, and likewise to Hermes (and Aquarius, etc) and the Triple Man, Tree Man, Green Man. The Greek word for honey is meli, as in melissai. So you see, the Greeks pointedly confused blackness and sweetness, too. The falling stars mentioned in the chant are the falling embers of the torch, for the hunter above the nest is now banging his torch on his branch, sending a rain of embers past the nest. Virtually all the bees follow this rain to the ground, where they find themselves disoriented. Unable to return through the darkness to their nest, the bees harmlessly spend the night resting on low vegetation. The hunter then descends to the — dung-like, you might say — comb, cuts it from its bough using the bone knife, and folds it into his leathern bucket (an aegis of sorts). These buckets are lowered to the ground, where they are emptied and pulled aloft again. The honey is squeezed out of the combs into large containers. The night’s hunt is finally punctuated with a ceremony whereby the leader carefully selects the initial honeycomb taken, utters some honors to the “unseen owner” of the forest, and tosses the honeycomb as deep as possible into the forest behind the tree.

This is where the fable actually begins:

Regarding the aforementioned chant and its connection to Aphrodite, we will do well to consider Professor Buchmann’s recounting of his colleague Professor Makhdzir Bin Mardan’s telling of the ancient Malaysian fable that explains the origins of tualang honey hunting:

Long ago a princess of the royal family had a Hindu handmaiden, a dusky beauty called Hitam Manis or “Sweet Dark One.” The handmaiden fell hopelessly in love with the sultan’s son, a handsome prince who requited her passion. But their love was doomed, for she was a commoner, and marriage of a commoner to a prince of the blood was strictly forbidden. When the sultan learned of the romance, he flew into a rage, and Hitam Manis, along with the other handmaidens, the Dayang, had to flee the palace for their very lives. As the terrifed young women escaped into the forest, they were pursued by the sultan’s guards, who hurled long metal spears at them. When one of the spears pierced the already broken heart of Hitam Manis, miraculously she did not die. Instead, she and the other handmaidens were transformed into a swarm of bees and disappeared into the night. Thus were born the giant honey bees of the Asian rainforests.

Years later, the still grieving prince — now engaged to a proper princess — noticed a large honeycomb high in the branches of a tualang tree in the forest. When he climbed the tree to investigate, he discovered a large carche of golden honey. He called down for his servants to send up a metal knife and bucket so he could harvest the treasure. The servants dutifully sent the knife and bucket up to the prince, but when they lowered the now heavy pail a few minutes later, to their shock and horror, they found the prince’s dismembered body inside.

From the treetops, a ghoulish voice cried out that he had committed a sacrilege by cutting the honeycomb with a sharp metal knife. Unwittingly, the prince had insulted poor Hitam Manis, reminding her of the cold metal spear that had pierced her heart and so changed her life.

But the Sweet Dark One took pity on the prince she had once loved, and released a golden shower that restored him to life and limb.

To this day, in deference to the dying anguish of the handmaiden known as Hitam Manis, honey hunters never use tools made of metal — only those of wood, cowhide, and bone.

http://www.gravity.org/mythology/myth_iframe_all.html

After the above fable, there are also references to Aphrodite regarding honey bees (contributed by Robert Graves).

Daedalus built a golden honeycomb shrine to Aphrodite — on coastal Mount Eryx in northwest Sicily. The ancient Maya, I should add, called the planet Venus (i.e. Aphrodite) Xuk Ek, the “Wasp Star.”

If you're at all interested in bees, here's a good site. It's in three parts, Beedazzled, Beewildered and Beegotten:

http://andrewgough.co.uk/bee1_1.html

More about bees and mythology:

http://www.mythinglinks.org/ct~insects_bees.html
http://tkline.pgcc.net/PITBR/Latin/A...rAphrodite.htm