Amok syndrome

[2][3] Amok syndrome presents as an episode of sudden mass assault against people or objects following a period of brooding, which has traditionally been regarded as occurring especially in Malay culture but is now increasingly viewed as psychopathological behavior.

[1] The term amok originated from the Malay word meng-âmuk, which when roughly defined means "to make a furious and desperate charge".

[10] Although commonly used in a colloquial and less violent sense, the phrase is particularly associated with a specific sociopathic culture-bound syndrome in the cultures of Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

An early Western account of the practice appears in the journals of British explorer Captain James Cook, who purportedly encountered amok firsthand in 1770 during a voyage around the world.

Cook writes of individuals behaving in a reckless, violent manner, without apparent cause and "indiscriminately killing and maiming villagers and animals in a frenzied attack.

[14] Running amok would thus be both a way of escaping the world, since perpetrators were normally killed or committed suicide, and re-establishing one's reputation as a man to be feared and respected.

[10] Early travelers in Asia sometimes describe a kind of military amok, in which soldiers apparently facing inevitable defeat suddenly burst into a frenzy of violence which so startled their enemies that it either delivered victory or at least ensured what the soldier in that culture considered an honourable death, for a similar case occurred at the Battle of Margarana on 1946 in Bali, where this refers to puputan, a Balinese term referring to a mass suicide ritual carried out during war rather than surrender to the enemy.

Many of these Javans live in this city with wives and children and property.This form of amok appears to resemble the Scandinavian Berserker, mal de pelea (Puerto Rico), and iich'aa (Navaho).

In 1634, the eldest son of the raja of Jodhpur ran amok at the court of Shah Jahan, failing in his attack on the emperor, but killing five of his officials.

During the 18th century, again, at Hyderabad (Sind), two envoys, sent by the Jodhpur chief in regard to a quarrel between the two states, stabbed the prince and twenty-six of his suite before they themselves fell.

[26] The Malaysian mythology surrounding hantu belian possessing humans and killing at random is a crucial plot point in The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo.

Indonesia's descent into chaos following the 1965 coup attempt is the background for the third part of Christopher Koch's novel The Year of Living Dangerously, entitled 'Patet Manjura: Amok.'