amok

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘to run amok’, meaning to run about in an uncontrollable or violent way, much like my dog does when he’s got the zoomies, or got hold of one of my very expensive bras. But have you ever wondered why it’s called ‘amok’? Well, turns out it has pretty bloody origins (which are my favourite kind).

‘Amok’ comes from a Malay word, ‘mengamok’, which means to make a furious and desperate charge. Typically, the person affected by amok (usually a man #everydaysexism) attacked bystanders in a frenzy, killing everyone in sight until he collapsed or was killed himself. I told you it wasn’t very nice.

Amok attacks had around ten victims on average. And according to Malay mythology, these murderous rampages were caused by the ‘hantu belian’, an evil tiger spirit that would enter someone’s body and make them behave violently without knowing what they were doing.

We can thank Captain Cook for first recording instances of amok in Malay tribesmen in 1770 while he was sailing round the world, the big show-off. The word itself first appeared in English earlier than this though, in a translation of a 16th-century Portugese book called ‘The Book of Duarte Barbosa’ by, you’ve guessed it, Duarte Barbosa. Barbosa’s sister was married to Ferdinand Magellan, another big show-off who led the first expedition to sail all the way around the world (although he didn’t actually make it – and apparently his name wasn’t even Magellan). Barbosa accompanied him on this, and both were killed in the Phillipines after trying to convert the wrong guys to Christianity.

Captain Cook also met a sticky end, this time at the hands of a group of Hawaiians. He was clonked on the head with a club by a chief named Kalaimanokahoʻowaha (wow) and then stabbed by one of his servants. It’s a tough game, circumnavigation.

cacafuego

The Cacafuego getting its arse kicked by The Golden Hind.

You might know a cacafuego – it’s a swaggering braggart or boaster. Even if you’re not a linguist you’ve probably guessed that this is a Spanish word. And it literally means ‘fire shitter’, from the old Spanish verb cacar (now cagar), meaning ‘to void excrement’, and fuego, which means ‘fire’.

Cacafuego first appeared in English in the early 1600s, and that’s down to Sir Francis Drake, English explorer, sea captain, ahem, slave trader, naval officer, politician and circumnavigator of the globe (show-off). He was also a privateer, which is basically a government-sponsored pirate who went around attacking foreign vessels and stealing all their treasure. One of the ships he captured was a Spanish galleon called Cacafuego. Okay, the ship wasn’t actually called fire shitter (shame) – this was a nickname given to her by her crew due to her impressive cannon fire and other weaponry. Her real name was Nuestra Señora de la Concepción or Our Lady of the (Immaculate) Conception, which isn’t half as fun.

On 1 March 1579, while doing the aforementioned circumnavigation of the globe, Drake’s ship the Golden Hind caught up with Cacafuego near Ecuador. Having heard that she was packed to the rafters (not sure ships have rafters but never mind) with goodies, Drake decided to capture her. Rather than reduce the Hind’s sails in daylight (as this might look suspicious), Drake trailed some wine barrels behind to slow her down and wait for night to fall. In the early evening he came alongside and, because there weren’t many English ships in the Pacific at this time, the Cacafuego was taken completely by surprise and surrendered without much resistance. Drake sailed both ships to the South America coast and, after nicking all the treasure, treated the officers on board to a nice dinner, some presents (sadly Wikipedia doesn’t say what these were) and letters of safe conduct before offloading them. So that’s nice. And it wasn’t long before cacafuego became a byword for a swaggering person – probably due to the fact that Drake made such short work of taking control of such a supposedly impressive ship.