The
Longhouse
Children
Eileen Biju & William Corr
Illustrations by Asam Ak Jaya (Samjay)
The Longhouse Children
Eileen Biju & William Corr
Illustrations by Asam Ak Jaya (Samjay)
Introduction and Notes to the Teacher
This modest work is a school comprehension and grammar text written for use in Sarawak
rather than in Semenanjung. Only extensive travel in the Rejang basin, and various other parts
of Sarawak, made writing it possible. Anyone can write about Batang Ai or the Bakun Dam site
without having visited either but seeing both places for oneself makes clarity and accuracy
much more certain. More importantly, simply asking endless questions of many people
permitted understanding far more than reading alone would have done. It is to be hoped that a
harmony of understanding between the observer and the observed has been achieved. This is not
easily achieved, for Sarawak is a place in which myth and hard fact are inseparable.
Every text, even the very simplest, has a moral of some kind and the moral of this text is that
Sarawak is changing steadily for the better; health care and education are more accessible than
ever before. Compared with much of the world, Sarawak is a model of racial and ethno-cultural
harmony with some barely-concealed favouritism but very little visible extremism or
fanaticism.
The standard of living of ordinary people in provincial Sarawak is higher than it has ever been.
Logging roads have altered an Arcadian landscape for the worse, aesthetically speaking, but
have transformed the lives of tens of thousands of people for the better in most ways. In the
Sarawakian interior today, horrifically high infantile maternal and infantile mortality rates are
things of the past, even among those few bands of Penan who are still nomadic. As a result of
improved medical services, there are more Iban, Penan, Punan, Kayan, Kenyah and Kelabit than
ever before. Head-lice, nits, sores, ringworm, intestinal parasites and skin infections like
scabies, although still regrettable and conspicuous facts of life in upriver Sarawak, are in steady
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retreat. Malaria has almost disappeared and very few children, or adults, die of dysentery,
diarrhea or tuberculosis now. Every longhouse and rural school has illustrated warnings about
the Aedes mosquito, the carrier of dengue fever, prominently displayed.
Sarawak is part of the modern world and being transformed rapidly. The logging industry, like
all primary industries, has a high accident rate and many accidents are fatal. Logging is a fact of
life and has transformed the standard of living in most Sarawak longhouses. The greatest real
change is within the people of Sarawak themselves. Within living memory some ethno-cultural
groups had no literate members at all; now even the smallest communities are becoming
educated rapidly. It would be impossible in 2004 to find a longhouse which had no books,
magazines or newspapers, while a generation ago it would have been surprising to find any
books or magazines in all but a very few longhouses. In his superlative 1955 text ‘The Iban of
Borneo’ Derek Freeman reported that in 1951 illiteracy was universal along the Balleh. There is
no part of Sarawak of which the same could be written today. Noel Changai Bucking, a State
Planning Unit official, stated that illiteracy among Iban adults in 2003 was a mere forty-six
percent, a dramatic change. Among the Kelabit of the Bario highlands, a still more startling
transformation has been accomplished, primarily by the Kelabit people themselves.
Access to education, rising expectations and a variety of opportunities has led to a rural-urban
migration, a process that has been called ‘the emptying-out of the longhouses.’ One unfortunate
consequence has been the emergence of a phenomenon almost unknown in the past, the plight
of elderly longhouse inhabitants living with little or no support and assistance from the younger
members of their extended families.
Outsiders can sometimes perceive the realities of a place more clearly than those who grew up
there. Yet, to paraphrase John Locke, all who write are liable to error and most of us, whether
by passion or interest, are tempted to it. If there are errors of fact in this text, they are few and
bitterly regretted. Whether any will read the text for pleasure is open to doubt. As Samuel
Johnson rightly observed, people in general do not willingly read, if they can have anything else
to amuse them.
Foreigners writing about Sarawak often exhibit an inexplicable romantic nostalgia for an
imagined and never-existent Arcadian past. Within living memory over forty percent of children
born in Iban longhouses perished in infancy, dying from measles, polio, whooping cough,
diphtheria, malaria, diarrhea and malnutrition. For the Penan, who were then still mainly
nomadic hunter-gatherers, the estimated figure was sixty percent or even higher. Infantile
romanticism and a yearning for an Arcadian ‘Golden Age’ are luxuries that cannot be afforded
in a developing nation in the real world. In his Inaugural Address in 1829, Andrew Jackson, the
seventh President of the United States of America, asked:
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‘What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few
thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns and prosperous
farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute?’
President Jackson was born in Waxhaw, South Carolina, in 1767 and was what was then
known, slightingly, as a ‘backwoodsman’. His rhetorical question, while perhaps simplistic and,
in the censorial argot of today, ‘racist’, was typical of most Americans of his time. His were not
sentiments with which Henry David Thoreau or the late Bruno Manser would have been in
agreement, however.
It will be noted that Andrew Jackson paid little heed, if any, to the property rights of the ‘few
thousand savages’ to whom he referred so contemptuously. The defining document of the
American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence of 1776, referred unambiguous to ‘the
merciless Indian Savages.’ It is a matter of historical record that far more Native Americans
fought on the British side than those who took up arms for the Continental Congress.
In Brooke-era Sarawak, which might best be described in retrospect as a paternalistic yet
enlightened autocracy, perceptions were sharply different; the Brooke Rajahs, for all their many
shortcomings, were exquisitely sensitive about native property rights. In the will which Charles
Brooke, the second Rajah of Sarawak, signed in December 1913 he enjoined his sons, Vyner
and Bertram, to be especially solicitous of the welfare of the native peoples of Sarawak during
‘these times when eager speculators are always seeking for some new place to exploit in a
money-making sense [,] when the white man comes to the fore and the dark coloured is
thrust to the wall and when capital rules and justice ceases, whereas the main
consideration should be an honest and upright protection afforded to all races alike and
particularly to the weaker ones.’
Two years later, addressing the Council Negri for what proved to be the last time, the Rajah
sounded a clear warning about the future of Sarawak:
“I think after so long a period you will allow me to open my mouth and give my opinion
truthfully. There may be others who may appear after my time with soft and smiling
countenances to deprive you of what I solemnly and truly consider to be your right and
that is the land.
It is your inheritance on which your flesh and blood exists, the source of your selfexistence which, if once lost, no amount of money could ever recover. After my life, the
future will remain with you, to be independent and free citizens, or be a humbled and
inferior class without pride in yourselves or in your race.
4
You must choose between the two, the owner or master on one side or the dependent and
coolie on the other. It is for you to see that, whoever rules this land, that the land is not
granted away to strangers. This is the danger after I have passed away. I am now old and
cannot live many more years, if any. I have had a long life, but my cord must have nearly
reached its end. I now bid you goodbye.”
Such drastically contrasting views say all that need be said concerning attitudes towards native
property rights.
In Peninsular Malaysia the issue of ethno-cultural identity is often a delicate one but Peninsular
Malaysia does not concern us here, thankfully. In Sarawak the facts about ethnicity and identity
are hardly a secret or even much of a source of friction. The Iban of Sarawak are relatively
recent arrivals from western Borneo. On arrival, they displaced and partly absorbed other
groups, the Bisaya, Kedayan, Melanau, Tagal, Lun Bawang, Kelabit, Berawan, Kajang,
Bukitan, Ukit, Sihan, Penan and Bidayuh, all of whom had been in what is now Sarawak
somewhat longer. The Iban expansion mirrored the earlier expansion of the Kayan and Kenyah.
The Malays had settled on the west Borneo coast from around the sixth century. Eventually a
Malay aristocracy came into existence on the fertile coast, deriving wealth and, hence, power
from indirect trade with China. Chinese merchants had been trading on the Borneo coast for
many centuries already, their presence in Borneo predating the arrival of the Malays. The period
of substantial Chinese settlement began around the same time as the major Iban migrations.
The majority community in the Rejang basin, as in Sarawak as a whole, is Iban. Many
professionals and most traders are Chinese, while many teachers, police officers and public
servants are Malay. In microcosm, the Rejang basin reflects the distribution of the three major
ethno-cultural groups within Sarawak. The two largest Orang Ulu ethno-cultural groups in the
Rejang basin are Kayan and Kenyah. They, with others such as the Kelabit, are in this book.
Cockfighting, clandestine or otherwise, is a fact of life in the Rejang basin, as it is throughout
Southeast Asia. So is the hunting of, and trade in, wild game; the markets frequently have wild
pig meat on offer and sometimes frogs, venison [deer meat] and labi-labi, a soft-shelled
freshwater terrapin, despite the best efforts of the Security and Asset Protection Unit of the
Sarawak Forestry Corporation. On rarer occasions, macaques, spotted doves and segments of
python and monitor lizard are on sale. On one, and only one, occasion one of the co-authors of
this book was offered a young crocodile, very much alive and well, in Kapit market.
Fewer and fewer longhouses have clusters of trophy heads or smoked trophy heads on display
now. When longhouses convert to Christianity, the trophy heads are quietly buried in a religious
service. Most such trophy heads on display are very old. While some longhouses have Japanese,
5
and other, trophy heads dating from 1945, the newest trophy heads in longhouses were
supposedly taken during the period of ‘Konfrontasi’ with Ahmad Soekarno’s Indonesia forty
years ago. Rumour has it that a few trophy heads were taken as late as the early 1970s, during
the days of the abortive Communist insurgency in Sarawak, but it is uncertain whether any of
these were then preserved and displayed. One version of events is that those who took these
trophy heads were briskly ordered to discard them.
Albert and Maria are fictional characters, of course, as are all but two of the contemporary
characters in this text. They have been included, unavoidably, in passing references. Francis
Domingo de Rozario of Kapit Fort, who was locally known as Mingo or Minggu, and such
other historical figures such as Temenggong Koh, Tun Jugah and Thomas and Jennie Harris of
Nanga Mujong really existed.
This work is not a collection of sermons or political tracts. Logging and the ongoing Bakun
Dam project are the inescapable facts of life currently transforming Sarawak. So is the emptying
out of the longhouses as rural-urban migration continues. One hopes that this modest text will
encourage pupils, and their teachers, to understand and think about issues around them.
Of the ongoing changes in Sarawak society, one might aptly quote Thomas Jefferson: “We
might as well require a man to wear the coat which fitted him when a boy, as a civilized
society to remain ever under the regimen of its barbarous ancestors.”
6
Six verb tenses are used in this book:
1 Present simple
“I am a pupil in this school.” “I’m a …” “He isn’t …” “They aren’t …”
2 Present continuous “She is writing to her sister.” “She’s writing …”
“ She isn’t going to Singapore.” “You aren’t listening.”
3 Past simple
“They went to Sibu last week.” “They didn’t go …”
4 Past continuous
“They were travelling by boat.” “I wasn’t working here last year.”
5 Future simple [with will / shall / going to]
“We will have a new house.” “We’ll have …” “They won’t want to come.”
“I shan’t buy a motorcycle”
“He is going to be a teacher” “He isn’t going to …”
6 Future continuous
“You will be studying nursing in Kuching.” “You’ll be …”
“We won’t be living here next year.”
[On occasion, the third form of the verb is used where it is unavoidable:
“Your new longhouse will be built of bricks and concrete...”
Words used reluctantly in this text:
[Malaysian English possesses its own dynamic and some words used in Sarawak are quite
startling to outsiders. However, they are in this text because they are commonly used in
Sarawak.]
Barracks [used for single teacher housing]
Dialect [used for different spoken forms of Chinese]
Friend [anyone with one whom one naturally associates or works, whether or not real
friendship exists; “He’s my friend but we’re always fighting.]
Inmate [used for someone in hospital]
Jungle [used for forest or rainforest]
Native [used for Sarawak Bumiputeras, used for Iban, Malays, Melanau, Bidayuh and Orang
Ulu, excluding Sarawak-born Malaysian Chinese, Indians and Eurasians]
Outstation [used for an inhabited place far from a major town]
Pagan [used for animists / followers of the old adat.
Quarters [used for government-provided housing]
Rations [used for food supplies for schools]
7
Verbs used in this text:
accept accomplish advise adopt admire affect afford allow ambush amputate
apply are [to be] arrive argue arrest arm ask assassinate attach attend attract attack avoid apply
afford attack adopt agree
back breed bicker baptise barbeque base become begin believe behave beat bear bet benefit
bike bite borrow bomb break bring break [break into] build burn butcher buy
capture compare collide crash change carry cramp call can capsize carry catch carve capture
change check chop charter cheat chase clean clear clear away close claim collect come cover
cook compel complain combine come [come out] complete coexist command compare
complicate collaborate cost consider count continue confiscate contribute conscript convert
conquer crawl cross crowd crush cry cut curl
[cut down] check construct count cover
conserve claim
damage
dam dance dare decide destroy deliver defy develop defeat declare deport deal
defeat diagnose dare divide display defend die disappear dismantle dive distil dislike
disappoint divide dig disturb discover do double dress drive drop drown dry drink drift
drill dump dynamite dye
eat educate electrocute elongate employ enjoy encourage enslave enlarge end embarrass
endanger escape establish estimate explain examine exhaust extract expect extort exclaim
examine export enrage
face fall fall in love fertilise
fell feel feed finish fish
fit
fine floored follow fly flow floor follow force forgive
fry feel flee form fasten
fight find fix film
focus ford form forget
gather gamble get [get back] [get out] [get to] [get sick] grasp give
[give birth] gnaw
govern go [going to]
govern grab greet grow [grow up] graze groan
guess gut guide guard
hand hang happen harvest have [have to] hate handle
hear help hide
hit hold
hope hunt hurt hug heat
hatch harden
ignore illustrate imagine improve impale impose intend inflict indicate integrate
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injure introduce invite invent inherit inflict interfere insist invoke install interrupt indicate
include interview irrigate
is [to be]
join jump joke
keep kill know
land last laugh lay last launch learn leave lead lift like live listen lie
log lose love lock [look forward] look lead
make marry mark maintain
match manage meet mention
mix migrate mind mine mix move moor match miss mill
mend measure
mean
name navigate need notice neglect
obey offer open operate order overturn overload overhang own oppose own ooze
pay park parachute paddle
patch peel perfect photograph
pin pick pilot plant point permite participate prefer press park protect point produce present
pronounce protect
practice
provide
promise
promote progress pray
preserve pull push punish [put on]
qualify quarrel
raise raid rain read rebuild receive recover reply resent rest return revise record rebel
resist refuse rest recover resent rob return require
realise
reach repair report rely
remember resettle
rebel require
release
retire recognise recondition retreat
rear retrain
relax register
respect
represent reunite
revise rise ring
ride risk run
rule
run away ride
represent [over-represent]
say safeguard save scream
scare see sell
seize settle serve set send sew
shout show strap stun stay shake shift shoot shop silt sit sing sigh sink sign
skin slide sleep
slow down smell smuggle snap
sound speak spear spin sprain
spend specialise stand start stab stay steal steer struggle stop stalk stimulate sting study stun
stitch sulk support succeed
suffer
surrender submit
surface
surprise
survey
supplicate supply swallow swim spoil seem shock spit show stop share sulk
surround smoke sweat sustain station
take tag
tattoo tan
taste
take over
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take photographs take in
talk teach tell tend test think thank tend tan tie throw thrill toast transport travel topple try
trade track translate train
trap triple trust turn [turn into]
uncover
understand uphold
use unite
visit volunteer
wash wait walk waste watch
want wake [wake up]
wave wear weave win widen wind want work worry
write
yield
10
wonder
worship
The Longhouse Children
BOOK ONE
1.
The First Day at a new school
2.
The Boat Accident
3.
The Longhouse Fire
4.
“We’re Iban and proud of it!”
5.
The Border Smugglers
6.
Leaving the forest
7.
Going Hunting
8.
The Flying Doctor
9.
Going Fishing
10. The Cool Highlands
BOOK TWO
11. Sports Day at Sungai Asap
12. The Hotel on the Lake
13. A Day at Nanga Mujong
14. The Hill Rice
15. The Turtle Islands
16. An Old Woman remembers
17. The Great Dam at Bakun
18. The Pelagus Rapids
19. Belaga
20. The Weaver
BOOK THREE
21. Catching a crocodile
22. Foreign visitors
23. The Ancient Briton
24. “We’re Malaysians working together”
25. Coolies and Towkays
26. The New Mosque
27. India Street
28. Joining the Police
29. The New Longhouse
30. Talking about the future
11
The people in this book
Albert Tong is both Chinese and Iban
Jeremy Tong is his father and his mother, Shaleen Tong, is Iban
Silat and Bejau are his uncle and his maternal aunt
Maria Tong is his cousin; she is also both Chinese and Iban
Maria’s father, George Tong, is the brother of Jeremy Tong.
Doreena Tong, an Iban, is Maria’s mother
Mr. Teo is a retired businessman who knows a lot about the history of Sarawak
Maria’s uncle and aunt are Serit and Gading
Edward and Rosa are cousins of Albert and Maria who live in Sri Aman
James, Joe, Edwin, Rosita and Lily are in the same class as Maria and Albert
Baun is the sister of Moyong, a boy; the two Penan are also in the same class as Maria and
Albert
Miss Ting is the children’s class teacher
Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim is the G.B. of their school. Mrs. Ibrahim is his wife
Layo was an Iban who was injured in a logging accident
Mr. Wong is the logging camp manager
Dr. Vijandran works in Kapit hospital
Hitomi Nakano studies weaving in Rumah Garie, a longhouse at Nanga Kain on the
Balleh
Archie is a visitor from England; Veronica is from Canada
Major James was in Sarawak during the period of Konfrontasi with Indonesia
Bulang works at Batang Ai as a tour guide and does other jobs, too
Garai is a teacher in Lubok Antu
Paulus Jau is a security guard at the Bakun Dam site
Michael Rengkang and Anthony Ingai are government employees who capture or kill
rogue crocodiles
Tingum Ajang is a university teacher and knows a lot about Iban history
Thomas Anak Nyalu is a teacher in the school Albert and Maria attend
Polly Chen from Penang, Saifuddin from Port Klang, Biswas from Port Dickson, Mary
D’Cruz from Melaka and Mohammed Arif from Kuala Lumpur are students visiting the
school Maria and Albert attend
12
1. The first day at a new school
Albert and Maria were sitting next to the river and talking. It was their first day at a new
primary school on a tributary of the Rejang. The Rejang is in Sarawak. It is the longest river in
Malaysia but not the longest river in Borneo. The Kapuas, the Mahakam and the Kajan rivers in
Indonesian Kalimantan are all longer than the Rejang.
The two children watched more and more schoolchildren arriving by longboats and they waved
to the men in a longboat. The longboat was delivering the rations to ulu schools on the river.
One of the men in the rations boat was Albert’s uncle, Silat.
Soon a bell rang and it was time for the first class. The class teacher was a young woman from
Sibu, Miss Ting. Their teacher pinned up a big map of the Rejang basin. The map showed
rivers, longhouses, schools, clinics and towns like Song, Kapit and Belaga.
“The Rejang is the biggest river in Malaysia, children. Can anyone tell me how long it is?”
“The Rejang is five hundred and sixty kilometers long. It’s the main highway for all the people
in Song, Kapit and Belaga,” said a boy.
“Very good, Joe,” said the teacher. “Which is the longest river in Borneo?”
“The Kapuas is more than twice as long as the Rejang. It is navigable for nine hundred
kilometres. The Kapuas is the longest river in Indonesia,” a girl said loudly.
“Very good, Rosita,” said the teacher with a big smile. “Look at the map, children, and tell me
how many different groups of people live in the Rejang basin.”
“There are Iban and Kayan and Kenyah people living here,” said Albert quickly.
“Can you think of any more, Maria?” asked Miss Ting.
“Yes. There are Malays and Chinese, Kejaman, Sekapan, Lahanan and Tanjong.”
“Yes, Maria. Francis Domingo de Rozario married a Tanjong woman. The local people called
him Minggo. Minggo was the Resident at Kapit between 1880 and 1911, during the Brooke
period.”
The teacher turned to a small boy who was sitting at the back of the class.
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“Can you think of any more, James?”
“Yes, Miss Ting. There are Punan and Penan. There are also Sihan and Bukitan and Ukit and
Lisum people living near here. There are some Rajang people, too,” James said.
“Who are the Kajang, Maria?” asked Miss Ting.
“The Tanjong, Lahanan, Buketan, Ukit, Sekapan and Penan are all called Kajang. The Rajang
people in the Kanowit area are called the Tanjong, too. There aren’t very many Ukit people here
but there are more over the border in Kalimantan.”
“Very good, Maria. A lot of Sarawak people have relatives living over the border in
Kalimantan. There are over six hundred thousand Iban in Kalimantan, I think. There are many
different people living here in Sarawak. Most people living on the lower Rejang are Iban or
Chinese but there are lots of other people, too. Closer to Belaga there are Kayan and Kenyah
people, and other Orang Ulu people too, but very few Iban. You two children are new here. Are
you both Iban?”
“We’re Iban and Chinese,” said Maria with a smile. “Both our fathers are Chinese and our
mothers are Iban. Our fathers are brothers, so we’re cousins. My father is George Tong and
Albert’s father is Jeremy Tong.”
Then Maria explained that her parents and Albert’s parents were working in Kuching for the
next six or twelve months.
“They will be working there for the next nine or twelve months,” Albert said.
“We’re staying with our uncles and aunts in the longhouse near the school, Miss Ting,” Maria
said. “They’re Iban, so we have to speak Iban in the longhouse, not Chinese. ”
“My uncle’s called Serit and my aunt’s called Gading,” Maria said.
“Yes, I think I met them once or twice,” said Miss Ting.
14
“My uncle’s called Silat and my aunt’s called Bejau. They speak Iban in the longhouse but they
want us to learn other languages, too,” said Albert.
“We want you to speak Iban, Bahasa Melayu and English here in this school. Try to speak each
language correctly. If you keep code-switching, people will say you’re speaking Bahasa Rojak.”
Maria laughed because she knew a lot of people who enjoyed code-switching when they were
talking.
“Schools like this one have textbooks in the Iban language now, so you can learn to read and
write Iban very well. I hope you’ll both be happy here,” said Miss Ting with a smile.
Then Miss Ting pointed at the blue lines on the map.
“These are all the rivers in the Rejang basin. There’s the Katibas and the Rejang, of course.
Here’s the Balleh, the Sut, the Mujong, the Gaat and the Oyan. Can you children name any
more?”
“Yes. There’s the Balui, the Tiau, the Melinau and the Merirai,” a slim girl said.
“Very good, Lily,” said Miss Ting. “This is a land of many rivers and many different kinds of
people. There are Ukit, Iban, Kayan, Kenyah, Rejang, Lahanan, Punan, Penan and other people,
too. SMK Belaga is the only big secondary school a long way up the Rejang. There are about
eighteen ethno-cultural groups in SMK Belaga. It’s probably the biggest mix in Malaysia.”
“How many Iban are there, Miss Ting,” asked Lily.
“There were six hundred and seventeen thousand Iban in Sarawak at the last census, Lily,” said
Miss Ting after thinking for a moment. “The Iban are the largest ethno-cultural group in
Sarawak. There are Iban in Kalimantan and Brunei, too. There are over thirty thousand Iban
living and working in Johore. There are some small communities of Iban in Sabah, too.”
“There are thousands of Iban living and working in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, too,”
said Maria.
There were some other classes that day. There were classes in Bahasa Melayu, Iban and English
as well as Malaysian geography and other subjects. All the children worked hard because they
wanted to learn and they liked their teachers.
15
The Guru Besar was a plump man called Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim. He was always cheerful and
smiling and all the children liked him.
“I like this school,” Albert said at the end of the day. “I think we’ll be happy here.”
“So do I, Albert,” Maria agreed. “There are more than a hundred children in this school so I’m
sure we’ll soon have lots of friends.”
Behind the school there was a logging road. It took ten minutes to get to the children’s
longhouse from the school in a Toyota Land Cruiser. Ten children travelled to the school every
day in a Land Cruiser pickup.
After school was over, Albert and Maria ran to the Land Cruiser and waited for the driver to
come out of the school canteen.
A small boy was standing near the pickup, waiting for the driver. When he saw the driver, the
boy pointed at the front of the pickup and shouted loudly.
“Be careful, there’s a snake in the pickup! I saw a snake! It’s in the engine! I saw it going in
there!”
The driver of the Land Cruiser looked at the boy and then he opened the bonnet carefully. He
saw a snake curled up around the engine and jumped back.
Albert and Maria ran over to the Land Cruiser to look at the snake.
“It’s not a small snake. It’s a python!” shouted Maria. “I think it’s about two metres long.”
The snake dropped to the ground and disappeared into the bushes very quickly.
“That snake was very lucky,” said Albert.
“Yes, the snake was very lucky, Albert,” Maria said. “Some people like to eat pythons.
Sometimes you can see people selling python meat in the markets in Song and Kapit.”
“The Security and Asset Protection Unit of the Sarawak Forestry Corporation is trying to stop
people selling wild meat illegally,” Albert replied.
“But they can’t be everywhere all the time,” Maria answered.
16
“That snake was very, very lucky to get away so quickly,” Albert laughed.
17
2. The boat accident
One day the two children and their uncles and aunts were in a longboat travelling up another
small tributary of the Rejang. They were going to visit some distant cousins in a longhouse
about six kilometers from the longhouse where Albert and Maria lived.
“Travelling up these little rivers in a longboat is very enjoyable, Maria,” Albert said.
“Yes, it’s a lot of fun,” Maria replied. She pointed at a bird diving from a branch. “Look! A
kingfisher!”
The bird dived into the water and flew up to the same tree a moment later. A small fish was
struggling in its beak.
“These small rivers are clean and clear because there’s no logging upstream. The logging makes
the big rivers muddy,” said Serit.
Gading pointed to a large area of primary forest next to the river.
“That’s an Iban cemetery,” he said. “You’ll often see Iban cemeteries in areas of primary
forest.”
The river was shallow and Serit steered carefully between the big rocks. This is a skilled task
and it is quite difficult. Silat helped him by getting out of the boat and pushing it through the
shallows.
On a gravel bank of the river there were some people cooking glutinous rice inside bamboo
stems. A cloud of steam hung above them. There were some offering poles in front of them.
“Look at those people. They’re very busy,” said Maria’s aunt. She waved to the people who
were cooking and they waved to her. “I think they’re cooking for a party.”
“Their teresang poles are made of bamboo,” said Albert.
“Yes, here people use bamboo in a lot of different ways. Sometimes you’ll see the verandah of
a longhouse made out of bamboo,” said Gading.
“Downriver from Song you’ll sometimes see people distilling chap langkau on a gravel bank
beside a small river,” said Serit.
18
“Most adults in the longhouses enjoy drinking tuak. They make tuak in the longhouses but they
sometimes make chap langkau on the gravel banks beside the rivers,” said Silat. “They drink
chap langkau on special occasions.”
“I think they make offerings when they’re distilling chap langkau,” said Maria. “Do Iban
people make offerings at other times, too?”
“The Iban make offerings on many occasions. We make offerings when we plant rice,” Gading
said. It’s part of Iban adat. You’ll learn all about Iban adat eventually.”
A little later the boat hit a branch under the water and overturned very suddenly. The river water
was not deep but it was flowing over the stones quickly. Everyone struggled in the cold water
for a few moments. Albert reached out and grabbed Maria’s shirt collar. He pulled her to the
bank and looked back at the four adults.
“Don’t worry, Maria. Everyone is all right,” said Albert.
The boat was undamaged and the bags were not very wet.
“We’re lucky, Albert. Everyone’s safe. It was a boat accident but not a serious or dangerous
accident,” said Maria.
The spark plugs in the Yamaha outboard engine were very wet. Silat needed to clean and dry
them carefully.
“You should go up to the longhouse and put on some dry clothes,” said Albert’s uncle. “I will
come up to the longhouse as soon as I can start the engine.”
A passing boat took the children up the small river to a long wooden longhouse standing on tall
stilts. Their cousins gave them hot tea and some dry clothes.
They all sat on the long verandah in the front of the apartment doors.
“This is a beautiful verandah”, said Albert.
“Yes, it is.” One boy answered. “This ruai is floored with belian wood and it’s quite famous.
People come from Kuching and Singapore to photograph it.”
19
“This is a lovely old longhouse. You have lots of interesting things here, like old Chinese jars,
gongs and brass boxes. You even have some brass cannon,” Maria said.
Their cousins laughed.
“Yes, we do. The old people say the brass cannon came from Brunei long ago. This longhouse
even has a few smoked trophy heads still hanging from the rafters because some of the old
people in this longhouse still follow the old adat. Most of us in this longhouse are Christians
now. There are both Methodists and Catholics here.”
“Yes, I can see that,” said Albert. He was looking at the apartment doors with crosses and
pictures of the Virgin Mary on them. “Yours isn’t the only Iban Christian longhouse with
smoked trophy heads. Rumah Kemarau at Ulu Yong near Kapit is mainly Methodist but it still
has a few trophy heads.”
“When longhouses become Christian the trophy heads disappear,” said Gading. “Only the old
adat people want trophy heads in their longhouses.”
“Foreign tourists enjoy photographing old trophy heads,” said Bejau. “They think of Sarawak as
the Land of Headhunters and they like seeing trophy heads hanging in longhouses. I’m happy
there are no trophy heads in our longhouse.”
“The Chief Minister doesn’t like seeing or hearing about trophy heads, but the tourist
guidebooks all mention them,” Gading said with a laugh.
The Guru Besar of their school was visiting some friends in the wooden longhouse. The
children ran to him and told him about the boat accident.
Mr. Ibrahim shook his head.
“Children traveling in longboats should always wear life jackets,” Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim
said. “All schoolchildren must wear lifejackets when they travel in school longboats.”
20
3. The longhouse fire
It was long after midnight and the children were fast asleep in their cousins’ long wooden
longhouse.
Suddenly Albert woke up because he heard shouting and screaming. He could smell smoke so
he jumped out of bed very quickly.
“Quickly! Get up and get out! The longhouse is burning!” someone shouted.
The children dressed very quickly and ran to their uncles and aunts.
“You must run outside now and stay outside. We’ll stay here to make sure the very small
children and the old people leave the longhouse safely,” Maria’s aunt said.
All the children stood in front of the long house and watched as it burned. All the adults were
busy helping the small children and the old people. Nobody was left behind in the burning
longhouse.
The longhouse burned very quickly. Some of the women and children were crying while they
watched it burn.
“They’re crying because all their treasures are burning, Maria,” Gading said. “All their best
weavings and ceremonial clothes and their wedding photographs, too. The fire is destroying
their gongs, beads, jars and plates and cups, their trophy heads and brass cannon. Everybody is
very sad because their home is burning.”
Albert and Maria walked away from the unhappy people watching the longhouse burning and
met Mr. Ibrahim near the river.
“The longhouse burned very fast, didn’t it?” asked Albert.
“Yes, it did. It burned fast because it was made of wood and also because the fire extinguishers
were old and out of order,” said Mr. Ibrahim.
“What started the fire?” asked Maria.
“A fire can start in a hundred ways, Maria,” answered Mr. Ibrahim. “Sometimes oil lamps,
mosquito coils or candles start a fire. Sometimes electric short-circuiting due to poor wiring
21
starts a fire. Sometimes a fire starts because a rat was gnawing at the wire. Sometimes
unattended cooking starts a fire.”
“The new longhouses are safer, aren’t they?” Albert asked Mr. Ibrahim.
“Yes, Albert. The new longhouses are much safer because they are made of bricks and concrete.
I love wooden houses but they can be very dangerous because they burn so easily. Kampung
houses burn as easily as longhouses. I remember a kampung fire which destroyed twenty
houses. I also remember a row of eight kongsi houses burned at Tawau. In Tawau there were
ninety people suddenly homeless. School dormitories can burn, too. A school dormitory burned
not long ago here in Sarawak and five children died in the fire. Everyone was very sad about
those children and now all schools are especially careful.”
People from the nearest longhouses were very kind and helpful. They invited the people from
the burned longhouse to come and stay with them.
Later that week the homeless people received rations, clothing and cooking utensils from the
Welfare Department. Their Member of Parliament and their Sarawak State Assemblyman came
to visit the homeless people in a longboat. Some television cameramen from the television
station came with video cameras. Two newspaper reporters from Kapit came with them. There
was a big meeting and the M.P. and the Assemblyman spoke to everyone who from the burned
longhouse in front of the video cameras. Both of them presented the homeless people with some
money for their immediate needs.
“The Welfare Department will soon give each family two thousand five hundred ringgits to help
you rebuild your homes. You will soon have a new longhouse,” the M.P. said. “You must make
a report about your lost birth certificates and identity cards as well as your shotguns.”
Then the Assemblyman spoke. Everyone knew him and he was very popular.
“Your new longhouse will be built of bricks and concrete and it won’t be a fire hazard like your
old one was.”
“When will we have it?” asked the tuai rumah, the head of the burned longhouse.
“You will have it as soon as we can build it,” said the Member of Parliament with a smile. “I
hope work can begin next week.”
22
4. “We’re Iban and proud of it!”
There was a birthday party in the longhouse one weekend. There were people from many other
longhouses there and some visitors from Sibu and Kuching, too. The adults invited Albert and
Maria to sit down and join the party. They ate cakes and drank sweet drinks and they listened to
the adults talking.
One of the guests at the party was a man Maria knew by sight. He was often on television. His
name was Tingum Ajang. He was a university lecturer and an Iban. A group of men and women
were sitting close to him and encouraging him to drink tuak and talk. Albert and Maria
introduced themselves boldly and sat down to listen.
“We Iban have plenty of vitality and good brains but we rely on the government too much,”
Tingum said. “We have a very active music Iban industry, with enterprising Iban entrepreneurs
and a lively karaoke culture, but we need to be sharper and more energetic. Iban children need
to study harder and parents need to encourage them more. There are too few Iban students in
colleges and universities, even now. Our children’s examination results are a long way behind
the Chinese kids’ results. The Kelabit of the Bario highlands are now very well educated and
prosperous and they started from a very low base in the 1940s. We Iban should make the effort
to become well educated and prosperous, too. For example, we Iban need to start using our
Native Customary Right land productively and become prosperous that way.”
“Do you mean we need to plant more cash crops, Tingum?” a listener asked. “What do you
think we should plant?”
“There are some Iban planting pepper, rubber and cocoa but there are many other ways to use
land profitably. For example, every express boat and cargo boat coming up the Rejang brings
eggs from battery farms close to Sibu. Every longhouse on these rivers ought to be selfsufficient in meat, fish, poultry and eggs. Rearing pigs, tilapia, chickens, ducks, guinea fowl and
turkeys isn’t hard; we have the experts from the Agriculture Department to advise us, too.
Every longhouse can grow padi rice, corn and tapioca as poultry feed. Every little village in
Vietnam and Cambodia is self-sufficient in pigs, eggs and poultry meat. I want to see more Iban
working in the civil service and in business for themselves. There are still very few Iban
building contractors, for example. There are plenty of Iban building workers but very few
contractors.”
“There are some Iban who are successful in business, Tingum,” a young man said. “I know
some Iban businessmen.”
23
“Yes, there are some Iban businesspeople but most are working on a very small scale. There’s a
man who has interests in hotels, property, supermarkets and the motor trade. Some Iban were
smart enough to get timber concessions twenty or thirty years ago but they were very few in
number. Other people went ahead of the Iban, because they thought harder and faster.”
“The Kelabit and Bidayuh started reading and writing before we did, Tingum,” a man said. “It
isn’t fair to compare the Iban with the Kelabit or the Bidayuh.”
“That’s partly true but partly untrue,” Tingum replied. “The Anglican Diocesan school in
Kuching began educating young Iban and other Sarawak children in 1848. Catholic priests and
nuns were teaching reading and writing and many useful skills at Kapit and Kanowit over a
hundred years ago, too.”
“Did the Iban in the Rejang basin want education, sir?” Maria asked. “I heard that some parents
hated their children going to school.”
“That’s right, Maria. Many of the local Iban spat betel-nut juice on the walls of Fort Sylvia in
Kapit to show how much they disliked their children going to the government school. That was
after the war with Japan, too. The upriver Iban were strongly resistant to education. Some still
are, even now.”
“Tell us about the Iban migrations, Tingum,” another man said. “You know a lot about Iban
history. When did the Iban settle in Sarawak?”
“Scholars believe the first Iban homeland was in the west of Borneo,” Tingum said. “Some
people think that the Iban came from the area near the coast at the mouth of the Kapuas. They
settled around the Kapuas lakes later. Much later they walked over the watershed into what is
now Sarawak. Eventually the Iban settled on almost all the major rivers. Benedict Sandin and
the other scholars who studied Iban traditions asked the old people to remember the stories their
grandparents told them. Then they compared the stories and tried to decide when the Iban
settled in various places in Sarawak.”
“When did the Iban come to Sarawak, sir?” Albert asked politely.
“We aren’t really sure but we think it was about fifteen, sixteen or seventeen generations ago.
The scholars of Iban traditions think that was three hundred and fifty years ago.”
24
“Some Iban people came to Sarawak much later, didn’t they?” asked Thomas Anak Nyalu.
Everyone in the longhouse knew Thomas well. He was a teacher in Albert and Maria’s school
and everyone knew that he read a lot about Borneo history.
“Yes, that’s true,” Tingum said. “For example, the late Temenggong Koh Anak Jubang was
born in about 1870 at Pulau Ensulit in the Upper Kapuas. His family resettled in Sarawak when
Koh was very young. Koh’s father was a rebel who fled from Sarawak in 1861 after Libau
Rentap’s defeat.”
“Who was Libau Rentap?” Maria asked. “I think I heard the name before but I don’t know
anything about him.”
“He was an Iban warrior who fought the first Rajah’s forces for nearly twenty years, from 1843
to 1861. He’s a sort of hero now but he was really just a bandit. He was a pirate who raided
coastal towns in Dutch Borneo before James Brooke arrived in Sarawak. Later he fought against
James Brooke for many years. Now some people think of him as a nationalist hero but that’s
ridiculous.”
“The English called the Iban ‘Sea Dayaks’ once, didn’t they?” Albert asked.
“Yes, they did. They called the Bidayuh Land Dayaks or the Hill Dayaks and the Iban were the
Sea Dayaks. It wasn’t until much later that Charles Hose, the Rajah’s political Resident in the
Baram, started to use the word Iban. He probably invented the term Kelabit, too. Some people
think it was a mistake for Pa’Lapid, a place in the highlands.”
“My grandfather told me that his grandfathers and grandmothers walked over the forested hills
from the headwaters of the Batang Ai to the headwaters of the Katibas,” an old man said. “If
one generation is about twenty-five years, that was over a hundred and fifty years ago.”
“How did Iban people leave Dutch Borneo and settle in Sarawak?” Albert asked. “Did they
have Dutch passports?”
“There were no passports here then,” Tingum replied. “People moved from Sarawak to Brunei
or from Dutch Borneo to Sarawak whenever they wanted.”
“No Iban could read and write then, could they, sir?” asked Maria. “Nobody wrote diaries or
journals about moving from Kalimantan into Sarawak, did they?”
“Scores of Iban could read and write at that time but I don’t think there are any family journals
or diaries about those travels, Maria,” Tingum said. “There were a few schools in Sarawak and
25
Dutch Borneo but only a few hundred Iban learned to read and write until after the war against
the Japanese. There were some schools in the Brooke Raj days but very few ulu children went
to them.”
“Is that why Iban enjoy telling stories about the past?” Albert asked. I know that Iban love
telling stories about their family history.”
“Yes, Albert,” Tingum replied. “Oral history is an important part of the Iban tradition. We’re
lucky that Benedict Sandin and other people recorded and saved so much of it. Old people who
remember the past are like libraries full of books. We lose some knowledge of the Iban past
whenever an old person dies.”
“I heard that the years of the Brooke Rajahs was a bad time for the Iban,” a young man said
quietly. “Is that true?”
“No, it isn’t true,” Tingum said. “Chaos and bloodshed is much worse than welcoming wise and
impartial foreigners to govern. The Malay aristocrats on the Sarawak River tried inviting the
Dutch to come and rule them before James Brooke arrived. The Brooke Rajahs tried to stop
tribal warfare and they eventually succeeded. Those were violent times and there were usually
Iban fighting other Iban as well as fighting other people. There was a peace conference in
Kanowit in 1863 to make peace between the Iban and the Kayan. There was another one in
Kapit in 1907 to make peace between the Iban of the lower Rejang and the Iban of the Batang
Lupar. The Residents and District Officers told Iban not to move into places on the Rejang and
the Balleh because other people were already living there. Some Iban resisted these orders and
there were always constant small wars.”
“Which people, sir?” Maria asked. “Do you mean the Kayan and Kenyah?”
“There were a lot of different people living on the Rejang before the Iban arrived,” Tingum
replied. “The Bukitan, Ukit, Rajang and Tanjong were already living here, for example,”
Tingum replied. “There were also many wars between the Iban and the Kayan. The Brooke
Rajahs wanted to force everyone to make peace. They succeeded eventually but it took along
time before real peace came to the Rejang. In 1924 there was a big peace-making ceremony at
Kapit. The Kenyah, the Kayan and the Kajang eventually became friends with the Iban. Of
course, becoming real friends took much longer.”
“Why did the Brooke government build a fort at Kapit?” asked Thomas. “I heard Domingo De
Rozario built it somewhere else first.”
26
“Yes, the Rajah sent Domingo De Rozario to the Rejang and he built the fort at Nanga Ngemah
in the 1860s, Thomas,” Tingum said. “Many people think the first Iban settlers in the Rejang
basin came down the Sungai Ngemah to the Rejang as well as down the Sungai Katibas. Then
Rozario dismantled the fort and rebuilt it at Nanga Balleh. That was in 1874. Finally, the Rajah
ordered Rozario to dismantle the fort again and build it where Kapit is now. There was no town
at Kapit then. Soon a few Chinese traders settled near the fort and then a small Malay village
grew up near Sungai Kapit. Eventually many Iban settled around Kapit and built new
longhouses.”
“Why did the Brooke Rajahs choose Kapit, sir?” Albert asked.
“The Brooke Rajahs wanted to stop the Iban settling on other people’s land,” Tingum replied.
“That wasn’t easy, because the Iban wanted to settle in the Balleh, the Sut, the Gaat and the
Mujong valleys. The fort at Kapit didn’t stop the Iban settling in the Balleh. Young Iban leaders
led settlers up the Katibas and the Sungai Bangkit to the headwaters of the Sungai Gaat and
then down the Gaat to the Balleh. Eventually a real peace came in 1924 and everyone was
happy after that.”
“What did people decide in 1924, sir?” Maria asked.
“They agreed that no Ibans would live above Kaki Mikai. That’s an area of rocks and rapids
above Nanga Metong on the Rejang. Nanga Metah is the furthest big Iban settlement upriver.
Even now, the children in SK Nanga Metah there are nearly all Iban and Bukitan. We live in
times of peace now and we’re all Malaysian citizens but even today there are very few Iban on
the upper Rejang or living in Belaga.”
“There never was an Iban state, was there?” Thomas Anak Nyalu asked.
“No, there was never an Iban state, Thomas. Before James Brooke dropped his anchor in the
Sarawak River, political power was in the hands of local Malay aristocrats who were unhappy
with Brunei rule. In fact, James Brooke became the first Rajah of Sarawak and his first allies
were the local Malay aristocracy. The Chinese miners in Bau had a sort of republic, with its
own magistrates and even its own gold coins. The Bau Chinese had treaty relations with the
Malay aristocracy but they foolishly rebelled against James Brooke. Everything was forgiven
afterwards, but for a few days the Bau Chinese came close to grabbing political power.”
“Did the Iban rebel against the Brooke rule, too?”
27
“Yes, they rebelled repeatedly. The Iban were either James Brooke’s allies or his enemies.
Sometimes an ally became an enemy and vice versa. Eventually all the Iban accepted Brooke
rule and lived in peace with their neighbours.”
“Were the Brooke Rajahs good rulers, sir? Did people here in Sarawak like them?” Maria
asked. “I wish I knew more about our history. They teach us very little at school”
“Many Iban hated the Brooke Rajahs because the Brookes tried to stop Iban tribes enslaving
and beheading their smaller neighbours. The Chinese eventually began to like the Brooke
Rajahs because the Rajahs encouraged business and Chinese immigration. The Malays disliked
the Brookes at first but supported them later because the Rajahs kept the Malays in power. The
Bidayuh and the orang ulu liked them because they stopped the Iban collecting trophy heads.”
“What about the Iban? Did all the Iban like the Brooke Rajahs?” Albert asked.
“The Iban couldn’t agree and fought amongst themselves, as usual,” Tingum said with a loud
laugh. “Eventually Temenggong Koh and Tun Jugah became paramount chiefs but even now
the Iban never agree among themselves.”
“What did the Iban do in the war against Japan?” Thomas asked. “Iban are fearless warriors.
Did we fight the Japanese?”
“Very few Iban knew much about the big world then. The Iban were like frogs under coconut
shells because they knew so little. Very few people here had radios. When the Japanese came
up the Rejang everyone lived in fear of them. The Iban leaders collaborated with the Japanese
because the Japanese were the new masters. The Iban in the Rejang basin began to fight the
Japanese in 1945 when the war was nearly over.”
“The Iban leaders like Temenggong Koh and Tun Jugah served the Japanese, didn’t they?”
Thomas asked.
“That’s not quite true, Thomas,” Tingum replied. “They held office during the Japanese
occupation and protected the Iban people. The Malay and Chinese leaders did the same and
Sarawak didn’t suffer very much during the war. The people of Sarawak were lucky to have
such wise leaders.”
“Then cession came after the war was over, didn’t it?” Thomas asked. “Why did the British
government in London want Sarawak to become a British colony?”
28
“It was simple well-meaning altruism, Thomas. The British weren’t exploiters. The government
in London wanted to rebuild Sarawak after the damage the war caused and it wanted to help
people here become well educated and prosperous. The British build roads like the road from
Kuching to Simanggang and encouraged rubber planting and cocoa planting. They even tried
dynamiting a safe passage through the Pelagus rapids but the effort wasn’t really successful.
Some journalists today like to use emotive language like the colonial yoke, but the British never
made any money out of Sarawak.”
“We were independent before we joined Malaysia, weren’t we?” Thomas asked.
“Sarawak became self-governing in June 1963 and joined Malaysia in September the same year.
Joining Malaysia was probably the best choice for us.”
“Were there other choices at the time?” an old man asked.
“Some people wanted an independent Sarawak but many other people thought that Indonesia
would swallow an independent Sarawak like a python swallowing a chicken. Tun Jugah said he
believed that Indonesia wanted to grab Sarawak. Some people here wanted a federation of
Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei with the Sultan of Brunei as Head of State. That was a very silly
idea because Brunei is very different from Sarawak and Sabah,” Tingum said. “The Konfrontasi
war was fought on the borders, so most people in Kuching didn’t know anything about the war.
The Communist rebellion later affected people here much more. It was never as big a threat as
the border war with Indonesia but it affected local people’s lives much more than the border
war did. The RASCOM patrol boats on the river stopped longboats and the police examined
people’s papers carefully.”
“There were some Iban helping the Indonesians and the Communists during those times,
weren’t there?” Thomas asked.
“A few were, but not very many,” Tingum replied. “Far more Iban supported the government
and they were quite right to support the government. Sarawak needs stability and prosperity, not
political excitement. We’re Iban and we ought to be proud of it. Above all, we need to work
together as a community and become better educated, more focused and more prosperous. Our
community has far too many school dropouts and aimless petty criminals in towns like Sibu.
The tomb raiders who rob Iban and Chinese graves are Iban; everyone knows it, too. It’s in the
nature of Iban people to be aggressive and quarrelsome; we’re too keen on bickering among
ourselves and too slow and lazy about working together. ”
29
5. The Border Smugglers
The two children were visiting Maria’s aunt’s relatives near Lubok Antu. The longhouse was
very close to the border with Kalimantan.
“Lubok Antu means ghost abyss,” said Maria. “I’m disappointed because there are no ghosts
here. I never saw one, anyway.”
One sunny morning the children borrowed bicycles and went for a ride.
“Be careful and don’t go too far. There are many jungle trails over the border. Be careful and
don’t attract any attention”
The children agreed and rode away carefully.
“What are the jungle trails?” Albert asked a little while later.
“We call them jalan jalan tikus. People use them for smuggling stolen cars and for taking
illegal logs over the border,” Maria’s aunt told Maria.
“A jalan tikus is a rat trail through the forest or through a palm oil plantation, Albert,” a young
man said with a smile.
“There’s some illegal logging in Sarawak, too,” said Maria.
“Yes, but not very much now. Here the smugglers bring illegally cut logs into Sarawak. They
also take stolen cars, motorcycles and trucks over the border to Kalimantan. The police in
Indonesia know about the border smuggling. They found smuggled cars in Singkawang and
Jagoi Babang in Kalimantan.”
“Is it difficult to cross the border into Kalimantan?”
30
“Not really. There are more than twenty jungle roads and plantation roads crossing the border
near here.”
“You mean crossing the border on the jalan jalan tikus?”
“Yes, there are rough tracks in the oil palm plantations and some old logging roads, too.”
The two children rode along the main road. Then they turned onto a minor road. Soon they were
riding on rough tracks and logging roads and listened to the birds singing. There were no other
people using the track. They stopped when they heard the engine of a heavy lorry coming along
the track. The children stopped on the track and thought hard.
“Maybe someone is smuggling timber or stolen cars. Let’s go behind a tree and watch,”
suggested Albert.
The children hid the two bicycles and watched quietly. A lorry carrying logs stopped on the
track. A man got out of the lorry. He looked at his watch and smoked a cigarette.
“I think he’s waiting for someone,” Maria whispered to Albert.
After a few minutes, two vehicles came along the track. One was a white Land Cruiser and the
other was a red Mitsubishi Pajero. The two vehicles looked very new and expensive. The
vehicles stopped next to the timber lorry. The drivers got out and spoke to the driver of the
timber truck. The three men stood and smoked cigarettes together for about five minutes. One
of the men gave a package to the lorry driver. Then the men shook hands.
“I think they’re smuggling logs and stolen cars over the border,” said Maria quietly.
“Yes, I think so, too. We must go and tell the police quickly.”
Albert and Maria wrote down the numbers on the number-plates of the two cars and the timber
truck. Then the two children rode towards the nearest police station as fast as they could.
Albert and Maria ran into the police station. They told the police about the smugglers.
The policeman sitting at the desk listened carefully. Two more policemen joined him. Later, a
senior police officer came into the room.
“Yes, you did the right thing. Your parents will be very proud of you for helping the police,”
said the senior policeman. Then he smiled at the children.
31
The senior policeman left the room to make a telephone call and the two children looked at each
other.
“The senior policeman thanked us,” said Maria with a smile. “This is like a story in the
Pendidikan Moral book at school,”
“We know about the gangster syndicates in the logging industry on the border. That’s why we
try to check all the cars on the roads near Lubok Antu and some other places. We have border
patrol posts at Lubok Antu and Biawak in Lundu.”
“What roads do the robbers and smugglers use?” Maria asked.
“Robbers and smugglers take stolen cars to Badau in Kalimantan and then to Pontianak. We
know about the gangster syndicates in Sarawak. We also know fourteen routes over the border
into Kalimantan. All those crossing places are near here,” said the policeman. “Some illegal
goods, like drugs and handguns, are smuggled into Sarawak by sea from Indonesia, Thailand
and the Philippines.”
“How do you know about these things?” Maria asked.
“Our senior officers told us. Later, we read about it in the ‘Star’ newspaper from Kuala
Lumpur. Robbers steal luxury four-wheel-drive vehicles like a Toyota Prado in Sarawak. Then
they take the vehicle over the border into Kalimantan. A week later the vehicles’ owners go to
Kalimantan and see their cars in car showrooms in Pontianak or another place,” another
policeman said.
“How do they steal cars?” Maria asked. “I thought it was very difficult to steal a car.”
“The criminal gangs have duplicate keys for Mercedes, Toyota, Honda and other cars. We’re
winning the war against crime but it won’t be over soon. The criminals sell the cars in Badau at
low prices. They’re so busy that it’s very profitable. They sell a Toyota Hilux for six thousand
ringgits and a Honda CRV for eight thousand ringgits. You’ll also see a lot of Malaysian-made
Modena motorcycles in Badau.”
“Is it profitable to steal motorcycles and sell them over the Indonesian border?” Albert asked.
“Yes, it certainly is. A new motorcycle costs over five thousand ringgits. The thief sells it to
another person for a few hundred ringgits. The second person sells it on the border at Biawak
for a thousand or more.”
32
“Are there many other places where it’s easy to cross into Kalimantan with a stolen car or a
motorcycle?” Maria asked.
“Yes, there are other crossing places near Bau, Lundu, Serian, here at Lubok Antu and at the
place called Batu Lintang near Sri Aman. There’s a route from Pakan near Sarikei to Nangau
Badau in Kalimantan,” a young policeman said. “The Agriculture Department watches for
smuggled chickens at Tebedu, Serikin and Biawak. Smuggling chickens is not a joke; bird
diseases are really dangerous to people’s health. There are only one hundred and twenty-five of
us; the smugglers outnumber us. It’s a difficult job, but we do the best we can.”
“We are very lucky to live in such a safe country. Every Malaysian needs to help the police,”
said Maria.
“Yes,” said Albert. “I’m very glad we helped.”
33
6. Leaving the forest
“There are some new children coming to the school this week,” said the Guru Besar. “I want
you to be very kind and helpful to them because it will be their first day at any school.”
“Who are they, Mr. Ibrahim?” one boy asked.
“They’re Penan children, Edwin,” Mr. Ibrahim explained. “Most Penan live in their own
communities with other Penan but their father has a job in the logging camp near here.”
“Do most of the Penan still live in the forests and hunt for food?” Lily asked Mr. Ibrahim.
“Some still do, but not very many, Lily. There are still some groups of nomadic Penan who get
their carbohydrate from wild sago and protein from game and fish. The forest still has plenty of
fruit and wild vegetables. A few hundred Penan still live in the forests. However, most Penan
live in longhouses now and their children go to school. There are over thirteen thousand Penan
in Sarawak and fewer than a thousand of them are still nomadic hunter-gatherers.”
“I thought all the Penan lived in the forest,” said James. “Do most Penan children go to school
now.”
“Yes, most Penan children go to school now, James. Some of the older ones go to technical
colleges, teaching colleges, nursing colleges and university.”
“Really? Do some of them go to universities now?” Maria asked. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yes, Maria. There are about ten Penan university graduates now, I think. Soon there’ll be
more, of course.”
“Is living in the forest very difficult, Mr. Ibrahim?” Lily asked.
“I never lived in the forest, Lily, but I know a few Penan and listened to their stories very
carefully. It’s a very hard life, especially for children and old people.”
“I wish I could go and live in the forest,” said Edwin.
“You might find it too uncomfortable, Edwin,” said Mr. Ibrahim. “I want to tell you all
something. Once everyone in the world lived like the nomadic Penan still do. A long time ago
34
nobody grew rice or kept chickens or ducks or pigs. The Iban, the Chinese and the Malays were
once nomadic hunter-gatherers, too.”
“Why did our ancestors change and become farmers?” James asked.
“That’s a good question, James. Please listen carefully and I’ll explain. Being a hunter-gatherer
tribe needs a lot of space for a very small number of people. In fact, it needs about two hundred
square miles for only fifty people. Think of a square fourteen miles by fourteen miles. Imagine
that just a few families live in it, travelling around in a group. They live by hunting and
harvesting wild plants.”
“Do nomadic hunter-gatherers know every hill and every stream by name, Mr. Ibrahim?” Edwin
asked.
“Yes. Nomadic hunter-gatherers know every part of their territory. They use the land very
carefully. Agriculture began when people began to realise that it was easier to grow food than to
go and search for it. In the British Isles people began rearing livestock and growing crops like
barley about six thousand years ago. People in Chungcheong in Korea began planting rice about
fourteen thousand years ago. Chinese people began planting rice over ten thousand years ago.”
“Growing padi rice on the hillsides doesn’t need as much land as being a hunter-gatherer, does
it?” asked Albert.
“No, Albert, it doesn’t. It needs much less. Swidden culture needs one square mile for every
hundred or two hundred people.”
“Swidden? Is that the same as slash-and-burn shifting cultivation?” Maria asked.
“Yes. Plenty of people all over the world are swiddeners, Maria,” Mr. Ibrahim replied. “Many
Iban are still swiddeners part of the time. Slash-and-burn cultivation is fine if there’s enough
land. The problem is that swiddenage requires a lot of land. The same land shouldn’t be used
twice because the land needs to rest and recover. Some people say that land needs fifteen or
even twenty years to rest and recover. It’s wasteful and the Sarawak government wants Dayaks
to use their Native Customary Right lands more productively and profitably.”
“What about irrigated rice?” asked Lily.” There’s some here in Sarawak and a lot in Java and
Bali and Vietnam.”
“Irrigated rice culture supports two thousand to five thousand people to a square mile but most
of the Rejang basin is too hilly for irrigated rice culture. There’s some wet rice culture at Nanga
35
Merit on the Rejang. The project started in 1971 and expanded in 1980. It’s a great success.
Over a hundred and seventy families from fourteen longhouses grow different kinds of rice
there.”
“What kinds of rice do they grow at Nanga Merit?” James asked Mr. Ibrahim.
“They grow a variety of rice. The last time I was there, they were growing bario, biris, rotan,
cherum and bintulu.
“Has logging affected the Penan, Mr. Ibrahim?” asked Albert.
“Yes, it has. The forests are thinner now. There are fewer deer and wild pigs living in the forest
today. Dipterocarp forest is crowded with different living things. There are strangling figs and
epiphytes and orchids growing on the trees. It isn’t easy for a city person to walk in dipterocarp
forest because of the leeches and biting ants. The giant forest trees have big and slippery roots.
You can sprain your ankle or even break a leg very easily.”
“What is dipterocarp forest?” asked Edwin.
“It means forest with trees that have winged fruits. There are over two thousand different kinds
of dipterocarp. Mixed dipterocarp forest has a high and dense leaf canopy, usually higher than
thirty metres above the ground. Sometimes the tops of the tallest trees reach sixty metres above
the ground.”
“What can the Penan catch to eat if it’s very difficult to hunt for wild pigs and deer in the forest
now?” Albert asked Mr. Ibrahim.
“Sometimes all they catch are frogs and a few tiny fish,” Mr. Ibrahim replied. “Living as a
nomadic hunter-gatherer in a shrinking forest with muddy rivers is a very hard life. That’s why
the government wants the Penan to settle down, like the Orang Ulu and the Iban did hundreds of
years ago.”
Later, the children asked Serit what he knew about the Penan.
“I think they are wonderful, very friendly and honest people,” said Serit. “Not everyone agrees
with me. Some people say the Penan are the despair of everyone who tries to help them.”
“How do you mean?” Maria asked Serit.
“The Penan find that settling down is very hard for them, Maria,” Serit replied.
36
“I think living in one place is easy,” Maria said. “I can keep all my things together easily.”
“I’ll tell you a true story. In some places, the government gave Penan groups cooking utensils,
clothes and houses. The government built schools for them and the children went to school
every day. One day there were no Penan children in the school.”
“Where did the children go?” Maria asked her uncle.
“They went into the forest with their parents because the forest fruit was ripe,” Serit answered.
“Everyone working in the school was very unhappy.”
“I am sure they were,” Maria said. “It was very thoughtless and inconsiderate behaviour.”
“Some Penan still think of the government as an indulgent parent who keeps giving gifts,” said
Serit.
“How do the nomadic Penan live in the forest?” Maria asked. “Do they build houses?”
“They build rough huts called lamin and live in these for a week or two. They hunt and fish in
the area near their huts. They eat sago starch. Then they move on,” Serit replied.
“It sounds a lovely way to live!” exclaimed Albert. Serit laughed loudly.
“You like eating sweet things and wearing clean clothes every day. You like watching
television and going to school. I can’t imagine you enjoying life in the forest for more than a
week, Albert,” Serit replied.
“So where are the nomadic Penan living now?” Maria asked. “Are there any near us?”
“There are none in the Rejang basin now. The nomadic Penan are in Upper Baram in the Miri
Division and in Upper Limbang in the Limbang Division. There aren’t many nomadic Penan
because malaria and diarrhea kills a lot of Penan children before their fifth birthday.”
A few days later, the Penan children came to school with their parents. The two Penan children
were the same age as Albert and Maria.
“You’re cousins and we are siblings,” said Moyong. “Baun is my sister.”
37
The Penan children sat next to Albert and Maria and listened carefully in every class. They tried
to write but their writing was slow and clumsy.
“We will help you to learn how to read and write,” Maria said. “Sit with us in our longhouse for
an hour every day after school and we will teach you.”
Maria and Albert met Moyong and Baun every day after school. Soon the two Penan children
were reading and writing much more skillfully and quickly.
“Was it very hard to change the way you live,” Maria asked Baun one day. “Do you miss living
in the forest?”
“It was very difficult at first but we had to change,” Baun replied. “Sarawak is changing and the
Penan must change, too.”
“Was it dangerous in the forest?” Albert asked. “Aren’t snakes and honey bears dangerous?”
“They’re only dangerous to people who are ignorant, foolish or very unlucky. The forest was
our school and our home. We usually travelled on settled routes within our own territory and we
knew all the streams and wild sago patches,” Baun said. “For us, the forest was like your
longhouse is to you,” Baun said.
“We tended the wild sago and we knew when to harvest it. From felling the sago palm to
collecting the sago takes two days of hard work. Did you know that, Albert?” Moyong asked.
“No, I didn’t,” Albert replied.
“Our old lives in the forest are over. The forest is smaller and the animals and fish are much
scarcer now. There are no wild pigs in oil palm plantations and no fish downriver from a
sawmill, are there?” Moyong asked.
“For us, the forest was a supermarket, a store and a clinic, too. Penan make beautiful mats and
baskets and trade them for things we need,” Baun said.
“Our uncle is a clever trader,” Moyong said. “He trades jungle products for useful things.”
“Where does he trade?” Maria asked. “He doesn’t trade in the jungle does he?”
38
“No, he trades at Long Kevok, Long Lang and Long Jenalong. He always trades with the same
Kenyah men. Penan call such a Kenyah or Kayan trader a tagung. He’s not just a business
partner; he’s a friend in the settled world.
“What sort of things does your uncle trade?” Albert asked.
“He trades fragrant gaharu resin [Aquilaria microphylla] and buntat stones for incense. Buntat
stones are bezoar stones from the gall bladders of monkeys and porcupines but they’re rare and
expensive. Maybe one animal in five hundred or a thousand has a bezoar stone. Penan collect
and trade the dried bladders of honey bears, too. In exchange the Penan receive metal, salt,
sugar and tobacco.”
“Do the Penan believe in magic?” asked Maria.
“Some of us still do. In the forest we believed in many kinds of magic. Some Penan men still
carry stones which they say can make them invisible. In the old days, groups of Penan used to
carry a wooden image of a crocodile around with them as a protective fetish. Even now, some
Penan wear bracelets but that’s no different from the way some Christians wear crosses.”
After Baun and Moyong went home, Maria and Albert began talking.
“Yesterday Baun told me that living in the forest was a very hard life. Half the children died
before they were five. Being a Penan was an exhausting and dangerous life. In the old days, a
Penan man needed to have a blowpipe, a cleaver and a cooking pot before he could marry. Did
you know that, Albert?” Maria asked.
“No, I didn’t, Maria,” Albert replied.
“I’ll talk quietly, Maria,” Mr. Ibrahim said to her that evening. “A lot of people think that many
of the Penan are childish and irresponsible. Integrating the Penan into mainstream society isn’t
easy and it was never very easy. The Belaga people say that the Penan complained bitterly
about the outboard engines the government gave them. I heard they wanted government
helicopters to deliver the outboard engines to them, too. I heard that in 1987 and I’m not sure
whether it’s true.”
“Are you sure about that?” Maria asked.
“Many people in Belaga said it was true and other people believed them. In other places, the
government gave clothes, cooking utensils and housing to Penan groups. The government told
39
them to send their children to school every day. Can you guess what happened when the fruit in
the forest ripened, Maria?”
“Did they quietly take their children out of school and disappear into the forest to harvest the
fruit?” Maria guessed.
“Exactly! Even now, Penan children still have the highest dropout and absenteeism rate in
Sarawak,” said Mr. Ibrahim. “You’ll sometimes see children with scabies infections on their
heads oozing with pus. Some Penan think still scabies, head lice and skin infections are normal
hardships of life. They’re unwilling to walk for a day or more to a logging camp or a clinic for
treatment. In the years between 1997 and 2003, forty-five Penan were diagnosed with leprosy.
That was nearly half the incidence of leprosy in Sarawak. ”
“Leprosy is a horrid disease!” said Maria. “There are Penan Service Centres now, aren’t there?”
“Yes, the first was Long Kevok Penan Service Centre in Upper Baram in 1991. At that time the
Penan there refused to work on a project intended for their own benefit unless they were paid.
Knowledge comes slowly to some people, Maria. Long Kevok now has a clinic, a school and an
agricultural centre. They have all improved Penan lives a lot. The flying doctor service visits the
Penan villages, too.”
“Lots of people want to help the Penan, don’t they?” Maria asked Mr. Ibrahim.
“Yes, they do. In some places a Kelabit family adopts a Penan child and watches over his or her
education. I know that happens in Long Lellang. There are more than a hundred and thirty
Penan children attending SK Long Lellang.”
“That’s wonderful!” Maria said. “ Everyone should help the Penan to live like other
Malaysians.”
40
7. Going Hunting
One fine evening, Serit and Silat told Albert they were going hunting.
“Do you want to come with us?” they asked Albert. “It’s a fine evening for hunting.”
“Yes, I do!” Albert replied. “I want to become a hunter.”
“I want to come, too,” Maria said. “I want to learn about hunting. I’ll become like Diana, the
Goddess of the Hunt in Ancient Greece”
“No. Maria. Longhouse girls don’t go hunting,” said Serit quietly but firmly. “Boys don’t learn
to weave and girls don’t learn to hunt.”
Maria thought about replying but she decided not to say anything more. She walked away
quietly and sat down to read a book.
“We’ll take some food with us,” said Silat. “I’ll bring some cold rice and salted meat.”
The sun was beginning to set as the three walked through the razor-edged lallang grass to the
edge of the forest. Silat had a shotgun over his shoulder.
“Where did you get the shotgun?” Albert asked Silat. “It’s a lovely gun but it looks old.”
“It was my grandfather’s gun. It’s very old now but it’s in good condition. I’m lucky to have it.
The Japanese told all the Iban to surrender their guns. That’s one reason why the Iban rebelled
against the Japanese in 1945.”
“Can anyone buy a shotgun for hunting?” Albert asked. “I want to have one when I’m older.”
“It’s not very easy now, Albert,” Silat replied. “You need to have an I.C. and go to see the
police. Almost everyone who has a gun now inherited it from his father or his uncle. Many of
the Kenyah and Penan people in ulu don’t have I.C. or any other cards or papers, so they can’t
own guns legally.”
41
“I heard that some people here make shotguns,” Albert said. “Someone told me that some
people make them out of bulldozer parts. A boy in school said they cost six hundred ringgits or
maybe eight hundred.”
“I know that some people make shotguns but it’s illegal, Albert. If the police catch somebody
with an illegal gun he’ll probably go to prison or have to pay a very big fine. The maximum
penalty is a ten thousand ringgit fine or two years in prison.”
“Do you have a lot of shotgun cartridges?” Albert asked Silat.
“Not many. In the old days we hunted only with blowpipes but now we use shotguns. These
days we have only ten cartridges a month,” Silat replied. “That’s all we’re allowed to buy.”
“Is that enough?” Albert asked. “Ten cartridges isn’t a lot.”
“Usually, yes. Some people who live near the border with Indonesia buy shotgun cartridges
from Indonesians. It’s illegal, so it’s usually a well-kept secret.”
“Do hunters in Sarawak kill a lot of animals?” Albert asked Serit.
“Yes, people in Sarawak shoot thousands of animals every year. I heard that every year in
Sarawak people kill a million bearded pigs, over twenty thousand big sambar deer and perhaps
thirty thousand muntjac and mouse deer,” Serit replied.
“You don’t have a shotgun. How will you hunt tonight?” Albert asked. “Will you use a
blowpipe?”
“No, I’m not using a gun or a blowpipe tonight. I’m setting traps next to game trails.”
“You know how to use a blowpipe, don’t you?” Albert asked. “I saw your blowpipe.”
“Yes, I do. My grandfather shot over fifty hornbills with a blowpipe, Albert,” Serit said. “He
told me the best way was to wait for the male hornbill to return to the nest to feed his mate and
their fledglings. We don’t do that now because it’s illegal and because hornbills are scarce.”
“Why did people hunt hornbills?” Albert asked. “They have ivory on their bills, don’t they?”
“Yes, some Iban and Orang Ulu people carved hornbill ivory very skillfully when my
grandfather was young. My grandfather also sold hornbill feathers for a very good price but
now the Iban and Kelabit use coloured turkey feathers,” Serit replied.
42
“Did you go hunting when you were young?” Albert asked Silat.
“Yes, I went with my father and grandfather,” Silat replied. “My happiest memories are of
hunting in the jungle at night.”
“What animals were you hunting?” Albert asked.
“Wild pigs and any kind of deer we saw” Silat said. “We set traps and we used blowpipes, too.”
“Is using a blowpipe easy?” Albert asked. “It looks easy.”
“Using it is easy. Using it really accurately needs a lot of practice. The Penan and the Orang
Ulu are probably the most skilful hunters with blowpipes,” Silat said. “You need to careful with
the poisoned darts, too.”
“How do people make the poison?” Albert asked. “Is there only one kind of poison?”
“No, there are two kinds of poison, Albert. People use tree sap to make both,” Silat replied.
“Glucoside shocks the heart and strychnine affects the nervous system. Only experts know how
to handle poisoned darts carefully.”
Albert stayed with Silat and helped him to set traps at the edge of the rice fields. They set up
eight traps to spear deer and wild pigs. Silat told Albert all about the different kinds of traps.
“There are wire snares to catch deer and sharpened poles to impale a jumping animal. There are
spear traps using a bent pole. Traps are easy to make and easy to repair. Even young children
and old men can set traps. Active young men hunt differently,” Silat said.
“How is Serit hunting tonight?” Albert asked. “He’s only using his shotgun, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he’s using a shotgun, Albert. He’ll probably lie in ambush and wait. There are two other
two ways of hunting with a gun. You can hunt with dogs or stalk the animal through the forest.
That’s the way people used to hunt rhinoceri. They used to track them for days and sometimes
weeks,” Silat said.
“Is that really true?” Albert asked. “Did people follow rhinoceri for weeks?”
“Yes, Tun Jugah killed three rhinoceri like that. That was many years ago. People thought that
the supply of game was limitless in those days. A Brooke officer in Belaga reported that he saw
43
over twenty rhinoceri traded through Belaga in one year. Chinese merchants bought the
rhinoceros horn and the other parts.”
Albert and Silat heard a shot and stood up.
“I think that was Serit’s gun. Let’s go and see,” Silat said. “I think he’s about a kilometre away
from here.”
Albert and Silat walked carefully towards the forest and shouted to Serit. Serit replied and
flashed his torch. Soon the three were standing together and looking at a dead wild pig at Serit’s
feet. Serit had shot it in the head at close range.
“That was a lucky shot,” Silat said.
“Yes, it walked straight up the game trail without thinking twice. Some hunting nights are
luckier than others,’ Serit answered.
“Is it going to be heavy?” Albert asked. “I’ll try to help you carry it.”
“It’s not a big pig but it’s heavier than you are, Albert. We’ll take it home with us now,” Serit
said. “Silat and I will carry it and Albert will carry the torch. You’ll lead us back to the
longhouse, won’t you Albert?”
The two men cut some lengths of strong bamboo and tied the pig’s legs to them. Albert walked
in front of them with the torch, feeling very proud. They reached the longhouse about twenty
minutes later.
“When will you check the traps?” he asked Silat. “Maybe there’s something in one of them
now.”
“I’ll come back just after dawn and see whether I caught anything,” Silat replied.
Maria was still awake when the three reached the longhouse with the pig’s carcass. She helped
the men to gut and skin it and she fried the liver and kidneys. The four of them ate together
happily.
“Butchering a wild pig is a messy job but I’m learning another useful skill,” Maria said.
44
8. The flying doctor
Close to the longhouse there was a logging camp. Most of the men working there were Iban but
there were also a few Chinese working there.
Albert and Maria went to the logging camp one day with their uncles. Serit wanted to get a job
in the logging camp.
“I can drive a forklift truck and a bulldozer,” Maria’s uncle told Mr. Wong. Mr. Wong was the
camp manager.
“Where did you learn those skills?” Mr. Wong asked Serit.
“I worked in a plywood factory in Sibu five years ago and then in a logging camp in Sabah and
later in another logging camp in Papua New Guinea. I worked with other Iban men in all those
jobs,” Serit replied.
Mr. Wong looked at Serit and smiled.
“When can you start working here?” he asked.
Then a pickup truck drove up very fast and stopped next to Mr. Wong. The driver jumped out
and began shouting. He was very excited.
“There was an accident about two kilometers from here. One man is dead and another is badly
injured,” the man shouted.
Mr. Wong jumped into the pickup with the driver and they went to the camp office. There was a
radiocall phone there. Mr. Wong used the radiocall phone to call the hospital in Kapit. Luckily,
there was a flying doctor helicopter sitting outside the hospital and very soon the helicopter was
flying from Kapit to the logging camp.
Maria’s uncle got into the pickup and went to the scene of the accident. A crane had toppled
over and hit two men. One man was dead and the other man was unconscious. There was a lot
of blood everywhere. Serit helped three men to carry the injured man. They put him in the back
of the pickup truck very carefully.
45
Thirty minutes later the helicopter arrived at the logging camp and four men lifted the
unconscious man into it. The helicopter rose into the air and flew down the river to Kapit.
“Logging camps are often dangerous places to work,” Maria’s uncle told the children.
“Why is logging work dangerous?” Maria asked.
“Sometimes the men try to work too fast or heavy rain makes the logging roads dangerous,
Maria. Accidents often happen when men try to work too fast and when the roads are muddy
and slippery. Falling trees sometimes crush people and vehicles.”
Maria nodded to show that she understood.
“Sometimes after a few days of heavy rain the soil on a hillside slides down onto the road below
the hill. I knew two men who died when hundreds of tons of soil slid down and covered their
bulldozer. That happened five years ago on a logging road near Belaga,” Serit said.
“Only logging company workers and other authorised people have the right to use logging
roads,” Mr. Wong said. “Driving on logging roads isn’t especially dangerous but some people
drive too fast, as if they were on a public highway. That’s usually when accidents happen. I
remember a very bad accident on a logging road close to Sungai Sut. Twenty-three people were
travelling in a four-wheel-drive vehicle which overturned; five of hem were injured and a threeyear-old girl died in the crash.”
Mr. Wong and one of the workers from the logging camp went to Kapit by speedboat later that
day. The doctor met them at the reception desk and spoke to them quietly.
“Layo will need to stay in hospital for a few weeks, I think,” said the doctor. The doctor was a
Malaysian Indian from Kuching and everyone in Kapit knew him.
“His right leg was totally crushed and we amputated it,” said Dr. Vijandran. “The other leg is
broken in many places but I think we can save it.”
The next week, Serit began working at the logging camp. He enjoyed his work very much and
he was always very careful when he was driving forklift trucks and bulldozers.
“You’re always careful, aren’t you?” Maria asked her uncle.
46
“Yes, I’m always very careful, Maria. It’s true that logging’s sometimes dangerous but before
the logging industry started here we didn’t have outboard motors or electric generators in our
longhouses,” Serit replied
“We didn’t have karaoke sets, chainsaws, Astro television, radio call phones, clinics, the flying
doctor service, piped water or bank accounts,” said Gading.
“It’s true that logging makes the rivers muddy and it can be dangerous but before logging
started we didn’t have any of these enjoyable things,” Serit said.
“The logging contractors build community halls and Methodist churches for the longhouses,
too,” said Gading.
Two weeks later Maria and Albert were shopping in Kapit with their uncles and aunts and they
met Dr. Vijandran in the market. He was buying vegetables.
“Layo is out of danger but he will need to go to Sibu and learn to walk again on an artificial
leg,” the doctor said.
“It’s very fortunate that we have the flying doctor service now,” said Silat.
“Yes, it is. Malaysia is now a modern country. Before the flying doctor service, doctors and
nurses and dressers had to travel by boat or on foot. I met a retired Supervisor of Travelling
Dispensaries a few years ago. He travelled by boat or on foot all over Sarawak, from Limbang
to Lundu and up to the Kelabit Highlands. His boat capsized in rapids ten or twenty times, he
told me. Once he was lost in the jungle for three days with three other people. The party of four
people and the party of four people fished in streams and looked for jungle vegetables,” the
doctor said.
“Were they really lost in the jungle for three days? Were they scared?” Silat asked.
“Yes, I think they were quite scared but they were lucky. A group of Penan who were hunting
in the forest found them and led them back to the track again. Life was also very hard in the
outstation dispensaries and clinics then. In those days, the maternity ward in Belaga was on the
ground floor of the old fort, so that’s where a lot of women gave birth. When you go up to
Belaga, the older people can tell you about it,” Dr. Vijandran replied.
“There weren’t any doctors in the ulu then, were there?” Maria asked.
47
“No, there were no doctors in Belaga in those days. The first doctors in Kapit arrived in the
1950s. In outstations the medical personnel were government dressers, not fully qualified
doctors. They were often the smartest people and best-educated people in their communities.
There were almost no possibilities of going on to third-level education in those days, so clever
young men became government dressers, police officers or Shell employees. Sometimes the
people elected government dressers to represent them because they admired and trusted those
men.”
“More babies died when they were young in those days, didn’t they?” Silat asked. “I heard that
from several old women.”
“Yes, many young babies died. It seldom happens now, of course. About half the children died
before they were five years old. Life is much safer now for adults as well as children. Very few
people die of malaria, tuberculosis, or gastro-enteritis now. Almost nobody has intestinal worms
these days,” the doctor said.
“Everything is much better now, isn’t it?”
“Yes, many things are much better now. Our rural clinics at Nanga Engkuah and Nanga Ibau
are excellent but we still need more surgeons and dentists in the hospitals on the Baram and the
Rejang,” Dr. Vijandran replied.
48
9. Going Fishing
“I want to go fishing,” Albert said to his uncle one day. “Everyone here knows how to fish and I
want to learn, too.”
“There are lots of different ways to fish, Albert,” Silat said. “The easiest way is fishing with a
worm on a hook.”
“I already know how to do that. That’s the easiest way to fish,” Albert said. “What other ways
of fishing are there?”
“Some people here fish with nets and fish-traps,” Silat replied. “They go out in boats and check
their traps and nets early in the morning. The floats joined to the nets stretch across the river.
People in longboats see the floats and steer their boats carefully.”
Maria joined the conversation.
“I want to learn how to fish, too,” she said. “Girls can fish just as well as boys. Show us how to
throw a weighted net, please.”
Silat showed the two children how to throw a weighted net in shallow water. Albert and Maria
spent three hours practicing and caught eight small fish.
“Fishing nets tear easily, don’t they? Who mends the nets?” Maria asked Albert’s aunt later that
day.
“Usually men mend nets, not women. Women who live alone mend their own nets. Mending
nets isn’t easy,” Bejau said. “It takes a long time and it’s not an easy skill to learn.”
“I want to learn how to make and mend fishing nets,” Maria said. “Learning a new skill is
always useful.”
Albert went fishing with Silat later that day. Albert and his uncle caught eight fish and then they
went back to the longhouse. Maria was waiting for them.
49
“I learned how to mend fishing nets,” she said proudly. “It isn’t really difficult. I’ll learn how to
make nets later.”
A man came up the river in a longboat. He had a soft soft-shelled terrapin in a bucket. He
looked very happy.
“Sometimes people catch labi-labi on their fishhooks,” Silat said and the children laughed.
“You must never put your fingers near a labi-labi’s mouth. Diketup labi labi,” said Maria. “That
means someone grasps like a terrapin’s mouth does.”
“We’ll all go fishing tomorrow, Maria. It’s all right for girls to go fishing. Fishing isn’t like
hunting.”
“That’s good. I want to learn how to fish. I know how to mend nets and soon I’ll learn another
skill,” Maria answered.
“Good. I want you to see something interesting,” Silat said. “We’ll go tomorrow.”
The next day, the children walked uphill with Silat to an old logging camp. There was a river
close to the logging camp. Some men with a small generator were already there.
Silat put his finger to his lips and led the children into the shadows.
“Sit down quietly and watch how they fish. You’ll see something interesting,” Albert’s uncle
said. “Don’t talk.”
The children sat down with Silat in the shade of a mango tree and watched carefully.
“They’re working as a team, aren’t they?” Albert said quietly. “They’re very efficient, too.”
One man had a generator strapped to his back and a second man held the electric cable high
above his head. The third man was stunning fish between two oblongs of wire mesh attached to
bamboo poles. The stunned fish drifted downstream; there were seven young men putting the
stunned fish into the baskets on their backs. An hour later the ten men stopped fishing and
divided the fish equally. Each man had ten or eleven fish.
“That looks a very difficult way to fish,” Maria said to Silat quietly.
50
“It’s difficult skill to learn but it’s a good way of catching lots of fish in a short time,” Silat
replied.
“Is it a dangerous way to catch fish?” Albert asked Silat later. They were fishing with hooks.
There were maggots on the hooks and Silat and the children had already caught ten fish.
“Yes, fishing with an electric generator is very dangerous. If the two oblongs of mesh touch, the
man holding them may get a big electric shock. He’ll probably die if he gets a really big shock.”
“Why did you ask us to be quiet?” Albert asked. “You put your finger to your lips, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t want the men to hear us or see us, Albert,” Silat replied. “What they were doing is
illegal. So is using a generator in a boat to electrocute fish. That kills all the fish fry near the
electrodes.”
“Do you mean that using electrodes kills all the young fish?” asked Maria.
“It doesn’t kill all the fish fry in the river but it kills plenty of them, Maria,” Silat replied. “We
need to be more careful of our resources. Using electric power to stun fish is wasteful and
destructive. Our grandfathers used the sap from derris roots to stun fish and that was illegal,
too.”
“What are derris roots?” asked Maria. “How do people use them in fishing?”
“The local name is tubai and the scientific name is Derris alleptica, Maria,” Silat said. “We
used derris sap to catch large numbers of fish before any festival in the longhouses. People
collected the roots and then they cut them up and pounded them. The sap from the roots drifted
downstream and stunned the fish. Young men put the big ones into baskets and the women and
children put nets across the river to catch the small ones.”
“Do people still use derris root to catch fish?” Albert asked Silat.
“Maybe a few people in the ulu still use it. It’s illegal, just like using electricity to stun fish or
using explosives is illegal.”
“Why is it illegal to fish with the sap from derris root?” Maria asked. “Does derris root sap kill
fish fry, too?”
“Yes, it’s just as harmful and wasteful as using electricity or explosives. Lots of the tiny fish are
killed so the next year there are fewer big fish in the rivers.”
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“The government is releasing fish fry in some rivers, I think,” Maria said. “A woman in the
longhouse told me her son saw some men releasing fish fry in a small river near Kapit.”
“Yes, that’s in Sungai Yong. The government wants to encourage tourism in rural Sarawak and
sport fishing is a good idea. People from towns will stay in longhouses and spend their vacation
time fishing. Then the longhouse people will have an extra source of income. I think it’s a very
good idea.”
52
10. The Cool Highlands
One day Albert received a letter from his father in Kuching. When he finished reading the letter
he was very happy and he read it again.
Dear Albert,
I need to visit some people in Bario next week. Do you want to meet me in Sibu and come
to the highlands with me? Bring your cousin Maria if she wants to come with us. Her
parents want her to see the highlands, too.
Your loving father,
Jeremy Tong
Albert replied to his father at once. He wrote that he and Maria were looking forward to the visit
to Bario very much. The next week Albert and Maria traveled down the Rejang to Sibu on a fast
express boat. They met Albert’s father at the wharf in Sibu and then they took a taxi to the new
airport outside the town.
“Sibu has a splendid new airport.” Jeremy Tong told his son. “I was here in 1994 and saw the
first flight. It’s much bigger than the old wartime airport next to the football stadium.”
“Yes, it’s terrific. It’s a very long way from town, though.”
Jeremy Tong laughed when he heard this.
“It seems a long way from Sibu now. Soon there will be small towns and a lot of houses and
supermarkets between Sibu and the airport. Airports stimulate trade and growth, Albert.”
“There are M.A.S. flights to lots of places in Sarawak and Sabah, aren’t there?” Maria asked.
“Yes. There are flights going up to Bario and Long Lellang and Ba Kelalan in the highlands,”
Jeremy Tong replied with a smile. “There are flights to the National Park at Mulu, too.”
The three flew to Miri and they changed planes to fly to Bario.
53
They waited for the ground staff to tell them to get on the plane to Bario. The cousins looked at
the little twin-engined plane with excitement. The plane stood close to the airport buildings.
The flight from Miri to Bario was over the forest. They looked down and saw longboats and
cargo boats on the rivers, longhouses, logging camps and jungle.
“The plane’s shadow looks very small on the forest canopy,” Albert said.
“Yes, the forest looks enormous and endless from a plane. One of the colonial-era Britons
called Sarawak a ‘green desert’, but there isn’t really much tropical rain forest in the world,
Albert,” Jeremy Tong said. “The earth’s surface is seventy percent water and thirty percent
land. Seven percent of the land area is tropical rain forest, so less than two per cent of the
earth’s surface is tropical rain forest,” said Jeremy Tong.
“Will all the Sarawak forest be cut down?” asked Albert.
“No, Albert,” Jeremy Tong replied. “There’s still plenty of forest left and there’s a lot of new
planting now. Some of the planting is new forest and there are a lot of oil palm plantations. We
are more careful now than we were twenty or thirty years ago.”
“This is a lovely little plane,” Maria said. “It’s more like a bus than a big plane.”
“This plane’s a De Havilland Twin Otter. They’re very useful because they can fly into and out
of small airports,” Albert’s father replied. “You can talk to the pilot when we get to Bario.
‘Kapit has an airport but there’s no air service to Kapit now,” Maria said. “Why is there no air
service to Kapit?”
“People in Kapit found it more convenient to use the express boats from the wharf at Sibu,
Maria,” Albert’s father said. “Belaga still has an air service to Bintulu and there are flights on
Wednesdays and Saturdays.”
When the plane landed on the airstrip at Bario, Jeremy Tong introduced the children to the pilot
and they greeted him politely.
“The air’s cool here. I think these highlands are the highest places in Sarawak that people live,”
said Maria.
54
“Yes, our highlands have cold rain and sometimes we even have hail but that’s very rare,” the
pilot replied. “I’m a Kelabit from here. I grew up in a longhouse close to the airport.”
“What’s hail?” asked Albert because he didn’t know the word.
“Hail is tiny pieces of ice falling out of the sky. It’s like rain but it’s frozen,” the pilot replied.
“Does it rain a lot here?” Maria asked.
“Yes, and sometimes the water covers the airstrip, too. People have to walk to Ba Kelalan when
the airstrip here is under water. It takes about one day, sometimes two, to walk to Ba Kelalan.
Now there’s a logging road joining Lawas to Ba Kelalan, of course.”
“People walk a lot here, don’t they?” Albert asked.
“Yes, they do. It takes three days to walk to Long Lellang and then another four days to walk to
Marudi on the Baram. If you go the other way, it takes ten days to walk to Lawas near the coast.
There are footpaths but no roads.”
“Bario is famous for rice, isn’t it?” asked Maria.
“Yes, Bario rice is very sweet and very nice to eat. It has a pleasant smell, too. You can see
Bario rice on sale in Kapit, Sibu and Kuching. Transporting it by air is expensive so that’s why
Bario rice costs more than ordinary rice.”
“Are there other crops here?” asked Albert.
“Many different kinds of fruit and vegetables grow here much better than anywhere else in
Sarawak. We can grow lettuce, cabbage, kale, parsnips, beetroots, carrots, peas, potatoes,
raspberries, radishes and pumpkins. Perhaps someone will grow tulips as a commercial crop in
the future. At Ba’Kelalan there are apple orchards. Ba’Kelalan is a place where Lun Bawang
people live,” the pilot said. “I heard that some Iban people plan to grow broccoli and
cauliflowers in the Hose Mountains soon.”
“There are lots of buffaloes here, too, I think. We saw a few from the plane,” Maria said.
“Yes, the Kelabit, the Lun Bawang and some of the Kenyah people raise hundreds of buffaloes
and now the Penan are learning how to raise buffalo, too,” Jeremy Tong said.
55
“That’s what most people imagine when they think about Bario,” said the pilot. “They think
Kelabit spend all their time tending cattle on a cool plateau. There are also apple orchards at
Ba’kelalan, but the cost of taking the apples to the markets in Miri and Brunei is high. The
people in Long Semado grow excellent cabbages and sell them in Miri, Lawas and Limbang.”
“Do you have any crop pests here?” Jeremy Tong asked the pilot.
“We have birds and rats, of course. There are still some golden apple snails in the rice fields.
We need to hunt them down and kill them. Some people crush them and throw them to their
ducks and chickens to eat.”
“How did the golden apple snails get to Bario?” asked Maria.
“Some people brought them here. In some countries like the Philippines people consider them a
delicacy. Soon a few snails escaped and became pests. Now there are snails in some of the rice
fields at Bekenu near the road between Bintulu and Miri, too,” the pilot said. “It sounds like a
joke but it’s serious. The penalties for keeping golden apple snails is two years’ jail or a ten
thousand ringgit fine.”
Soon Jeremy Tong found the people he wanted to see and left the children to look around.
“The people here in the highlands are Christian, aren’t they?” Albert asked the pilot.
“Yes, almost everyone here belongs to Sidang Injil Borneo. The first evangelists who came here
were from Sumatra in the old Dutch East Indies. Sumatra is part of Indonesia now, like
Kalimantan. Australians from the Borneo Evangelical Mission came here after 1945. They
learned how to speak the Kelabit language and translated prayers and hymns into our language.”
“Are there still foreign evangelists here now?” asked Maria.
“Not now; they are all dead or retired. Kelabit men leaned from the missionaries and soon
became S.I.B. pastors. Those days weren’t always easy because the old adat in the longhouses
changed completely very quickly. The S.I.B. stopped Christian converts dancing, keeping
trophy-heads and smoking. S.I.B. members don’t drink borak or make it. Very few Kelabit
drink any alcohol now,” the pilot replied.
“Is borak the same as tuak?” asked Albert.
“Yes, it is,” the pilot said. “A lot of people were drunkards when my father was a boy.”
56
“What other changes were there when the Kelabit became Christian?” asked Maria.
“Paul Kohuan opened the first school in the highlands at Pa’Main in June 1946. The people at
Long Lellang built another school in 1952. Soon everyone began to realise that these highlands
were part of a much bigger world. Now over three hundred Kelabit people are university
graduates.”
“Is there still a school at Pa’Main?” Maria asked.
“The school moved to Bario in 1963, during Konfrontasi,” the pilot said. “It was too near the
border with Indonesia.”
Jeremy Tong came up and introduced the children to some other residents of the highlands.
“Would you like to send an e-mail to your parents in Kuching, Maria?” a young woman asked.
“Can you send an e-mail from here? Really?” asked Maria. She was surprised.
“Yes, of course you can. We have e-Bario here now. Everyone here thinks e-Bario is a
wonderful idea. We have a computer lab and a community telecentre. Unimas helped us to
begin it,” the woman said. “The pilot research project began in 1999.”
“What’s Unimas?” asked Albert.
“It’s the Universiti Malaysia in Sarawak. Unimas and the Bario community made it possible by
working together. The teachers at SMK Bario did a lot of the work and taught people how to
use the Internet. The e-Bario project won the Anugerah Perdana Teknologi Makluma, the Prime
Minister’s Award for Information Technology, in December 2003. We won international
awards, too.”
“I don’t know what the Prime Minister’s award means,” Maria said.
“When people do something special they win a Premier Award, Maria. An award recognises
that they achieved something special,” said Jeremy Tong. “There’s a telecentre with education
links and e-government services and links for e-commerce, as well as health telemedicine and
personal communications. Everyone here can use e-mail now, even the old people.”
“We try to know as much as we can about the world, Maria,” the young woman said. “During
the war against Japan we changed our ideas completely. After 1945 we became a progressive
and adaptable community.”
57
Jeremy Tong’s hostess in Bario was called Grace and the two children greeted her politely.
“My husband will come from Miri next week. He’s working there now. A lot of Kelabit work
in Miri. Many Kelabit people work in the oil industry. The oil industry likes to employ Kelabit
people. They say Kelabit are well-educated and very hardworking,” Grace told the children.
“Yes, the Kelabit are very well-educated people. We were lucky because we had schools here
over fifty years ago. There were very few schools in Sarawak then,” Elizabeth said. Elizabeth
was Grace’s sister.
“You Kelabit are very accomplished people, aren’t you?” Jeremy Tong asked.
“Perhaps we are, but everyone in Sarawak can learn everything, just like the Kelabit. The Lun
Bawang are our neighbours and they’re very similar to the Kelabit,” Elizabeth said. “The Lun
Bawang used to be called Muruts, but they prefer people to call them Lun Bawang now.”
“We still keep some of our Kelabit traditions,” Grace said. On festival days some of the older
women wear caps made of beads. Some of their beads are very old and valuable. People could
exchange one kind of bead, the lukut sekala, for a slave.”
“How old are the oldest?” Maria asked.
“Some of the very valuable beads are hundreds of years old,” Grace relied. “Perhaps a few of
them are even older. Researchers say that some rare beads are from Egypt and Persia and some
of them are Viking beads from Denmark. Kayan and Lun Bawang people like old beads and
ceremonial dress, too.
“Old beads are popular among the Kelabit, Kenyah, Kayan, Lun Bawang, Melanau and Bidayuh
people,” Elizabeth said. “Even a few Chinese have collections of valuable old beads. The Iban
prefer silver and the Malays prefer gold and precious stones,” Elizabeth said.
The next morning Jeremy Tong went for a walk with the two children.
“The Kelabit have small plots of irrigated rice surrounded by primary forest,” he told them.
“They’re very careful about how they use the forest here. It takes over fifty years for a big tree
to grow again after someone cuts one down. Some trees here are over a hundred years old.”
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11. Sports Day at Sungai Asap
Albert and Maria travelled to Sungai Asap with Silat and Bejau. Silat wanted to see a man who
was selling a reconditioned outboard engine.
“Sungai Asap is a resettlement area,” Silat told the two cousins. “The people living here were
living up above the new dam at Bakun. They moved here about five years ago. It was hard for
some of the older ones at first but now most of them are happy living here.”
He pointed at the new longhouses and the children walked over the road and looked more
closely.
“The new longhouses are close to the school and the clinic, aren’t they?” Albert asked Silat.
“Yes they are, Albert,” Silat replied. “Life is much easier for people here now. Some of them
didn’t like moving at first but now most of them are happy. Their children are healthier and
better educated. They have more chances here. We will soon have a new sport complex, too.”
Silat walked off to find the man who had the reconditioned outboard engine. Albert and Maria
stayed with Bejau. By chance it was the school sports day at Sungai Asap and the children went
with Bejau to watch the sports.
There were teachers and pupils from all the schools in the Belaga Division. Some of the pupils
and parents were wearing ceremonial Orang Ulu clothes, mainly the Kenyah and Kayan. There
were children from the primary schools at Abun Matu, Airport, Nanga Telawan, Punan Bah,
Long Segaham, Batu Keling, Long Gang, Uma Sambop, Long Urun, Long Busang and Lusong
Laku. There were some adolescents from SMK Belaga helping the teachers with organising the
sports.
“There are eleven primary schools and one secondary school here in the Belaga Division,” a
teacher told Albert and Maria.
“Belaga Division is very big, isn’t it?” Maria asked him.
“Yes, it’s bigger than some European countries,” the teacher replied.
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“Is it really bigger than some European countries?” asked Albert.
“Yes, it is. Belaga Division is bigger than Luxembourg and about five other European countries
added together. Tell all your friends that and they won’t believe you. Then tell them to check
reference books in a library or the Internet. It’s true!”
“Is it difficult to travel here?” Maria asked. “You have rivers and a few roads. You have a lot of
logging trails, too.”
“Travel is still slow and difficult but it’s getting better every year. Some schools are a long way
away from Belaga. SK Lusong Laku is the furthest school and it’s very difficult to get to. You
have to get police and logging company permission to use the road if you want to go there. If
you’re someone really important you go by helicopter, of course,” the teacher replied.
“Why do people need permission to use the logging road?” Maria asked the teacher.
“Because the logging companies want to make sure that nobody is going to steal things from
them,” the teacher said.
“What do people steal from the logging companies?” Albert asked. “What things are the
logging camps that are worth stealing?”
“Thieves steal anything they can, Albert. The really expensive things that robbers steal are
bulldozer fuel pumps and starter engines. The main hydraulic pump in a new excavator costs
twenty thousand ringgits to replace. The robbers wait until holiday times, like the Iban Gawai,
Christmas and Chinese New Year because there are very few people in the logging camps at
holiday times.”
“Are there any other schools a long way away?” Maria asked. “SK Lusong Laku sounds very
hard to reach.”
“Yes. Some schools are very isolated and hard to reach, Maria. From SK Long Busang it’s
much easier to travel to Kapit than to travel to Belaga,” the teacher replied. “To go to SK Long
Busang, you travel up the Balleh to the lower landing at Putai by express boat from the wharf at
Kapit, then you take the logging road over the watershed by Land Cruiser to a small place on
the Balui. From there you go upriver to the school. The longboat journey takes about twenty
minutes. You can go all the way from the school to Putai by Land Cruiser but it’s a longer road.
It goes past an enormous plywood factory with two thousand Indonesians working there.”
60
“Can’t you go right up the Balui by boat to Long Busang from Belaga?” said Albert. “I
remember one of the old people in the longhouse telling us about it.”
The teacher laughed and shook his head.
“Not any more,” he said. “In the past, you could but now you can’t. A few years ago, a Korean
company was logging an area downriver from SK Long Busang. They decided to build a bridge
over the Balui. They dumped hundreds of tons of rocks into the river to enable them to build the
bridge. Then they decided they didn’t need a bridge after all. So that stretch of the river’s too
turbulent and dangerous to use now. The river was difficult to navigate even before the Koreans
came. Boats taking rations up to the school often capsized and the school lost the rations. That
was in the past, not now. Now everything’s much easier.”
“How do people travel here? Do they go by longboat and express boat like we do?” Maria asked
the teacher.
“There are express boats between Belaga and Kapit, Maria,” the teacher replied. “Now there’s a
road from Belaga to Sungai Asap and Bintulu,” the teacher replied. “ The schools called SK
Batu Keling, SK Long Urun, SK Uma Sambop and SK Long Gang get their rations from
Bintulu. It’s easier to send rations from Bintulu than from Belaga.”
“How long are the roads here? Is it far from here to the sea?”
“It’s eighty-six kilometres from Belaga to Sungai Asap. People can drive along the road in dry
weather in an ordinary car but in bad weather you need a four-wheel-drive vehicle. The Bintulu
to Bakun road is one hundred and twenty kilometres long. From Bintulu to Sungai Asap is one
hundred and ninety kilometres,” the teacher said. “The roads are often in bad condition because
many logging trucks are overloaded and very heavy. The weight breaks the road surface and the
roads become potholed.”
“I saw some logging trucks an hour ago,” Albert said. “How much timber can they carry?”
“They’re supposed to carry a maximum of fifty cubic metres. The drivers often carry more than
that. One heavy truck inflicts as much damage on a road as five thousand passenger cars.”
A young woman walked over and joined the conversation.
“That’s true,” she said. “The road between Belaga and Sungai Asap is often in very bad
condition after heavy rain. Only four-wheel-drive vehicles can use it safely. It’s an old logging
61
road, not really a government road at all. The thirteen kilometres between Belaga and the road
linking Bakun and Bintulu is the worst part.
“Where do the men living here work?” Maria asked. “Do they all work in Bintulu?”
“Some do,” the teacher replied. “A lot of men from Sungai Asap work at Bakun now. They go
on training courses that last for three months then they go to work at Bakun. There are lots of
different training courses; bricklaying, plastering, plumbing, crane operation and welding. The
women usually stay here and look after their families and their poultry. A lot of them are very
skillful cultivators now.”
“What do they grow here?” Albert asked. “I saw some fruit trees very close to the new
longhouses.”
“Yes, there are a lot of young fruit trees here but fruit trees aren’t productive immediately, like a
vegetable garden is. Some people here are planting ginger. People from the Federal Agriculture
Marketing Authority taught them how to plant and tend ginger. The fruit trees we planted when
we came here are beginning to bear fruit now. Look at the fruit gardens here when you have
time. There are durian and rambutan, of course. Some people are planting jackfruit, banana,
mango, papaya, guava as well as vegetables.”
“Who are the people living here?” Maria asked. “I know that there are Chinese people living in
Belaga, of course. Who else lives here?”
“Belaga and Sungai Asap are probably the most diverse places in Malaysia,” the young woman
replied. “Belaga has some Chinese people, mainly Hokkien. In the area around the town there
are mainly Kayan people. At Sungai Asap there are Kayan, Kenyah, Ukit, Lahanan and Penan
living together now. All the young ones learn B.M. and English at school, so we can all talk
together easily. SMK Belaga has eighteen ethno-cultural groups, probably the highest in the
whole of Malaysia.”
“The air here is so clean and pure,” Maria said. “It’s a very nice place to live.”
“Yes, it is. This area is higher above sea level than the longhouse where you live on the Rejang.
This area’s changing very quickly, too,” the young woman replied. “There are a lot of new oil
palm plantations. Perhaps in the future we’ll have cattle grazing under oil palms, just like in
Sabah.”
“Is that a good idea?” asked Albert. “Are the cattle happy grazing under the oil palms?”
62
“Yes, they are. They don’t know they’ll be steaks and hamburgers some day. The cattle eat the
grass and the weeds under the trees. That cuts weeding costs by thirty percent. Some people let
their poultry run about between the trees. Free-range poultry take longer to put on weight than
caged poultry but the feed costs are low, because the birds find a lot of their own food.”
“Free-range birds taste much better than supermarket chickens,” Albert replied. “Our longhouse
has a lot of ducks and kampong chickens.”
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12. The Hotel on the Lake
“I know an Iban man with a very interesting and enjoyable job,” Silat told Albert one day. “He
works at the Batang Ai Longhouse Hilton Resort near Lubok Antu. It’s a beautiful hotel next to
a big reservoir.”
“What’s his job?” asked Albert.
“He’s a tour guide and a conservation officer, too. Every day he leads the hotel guests along
paths through the forest. He built the bridges and a ropeway up to the platform in the trees,”
Silat replied.
“Is the ropeway dangerous?” Albert asked.
“No, not really. The ropes are very strong, but he needs to repair it constantly. Do you want to
come with me to see the lake at Batang Ai? Maria and her uncle can come, too.”
“Yes, I want to see Batang Ai because I heard a bit about it before. When will we go there?”
“Next week,” Silat replied.
The next week Albert and Maria travelled to Batang Ai with Silat and Serit. They travelled
down the Rejang to Sibu and then they went to Lubok Antu by bus. From Lubok Antu they
went to Batang Ai by van.
“The water in the river below the dam is very clean and clear, isn’t it?” Maria said.
“There’s no silt in the water because there’s no logging here,” Serit replied.
“This lake is amazing,” Albert said. “It’s much bigger than I imagined.”
“It’s the biggest lake in Sarawak,” Serit replied. “It’s a man-made reservoir, not a natural lake.
The biggest natural lake in Sarawak is Loagan Bunut. Loagan Bunut is a seasonal lake, so
sometimes it’s big and sometimes it’s very small.”
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They travelled by boat across the lake in the late afternoon and went to the staff quarters of the
hotel with Bulang. Bulang was Silat’s friend. In the evening they went over to the hotel. There
were about fifty people staying in the hotel. Some of the guests were Malaysians and some were
foreigners.
Bulang showed a short film about orang utans and then he showed slides of other animals in
Borneo. There were slides of the sun bear, the clouded leopard, the rhinoceros and some flying
squirrels.
“Are there still rhinoceri living in Sarawak?” a German woman asked.
Bulang thought hard before he replied.
“The last time anyone saw a rhinoceros in Sarawak was about fifteen years ago. That was up
near Bario, so it may have come over the border from Kalimantan. In the old days, people
thought wildlife was very plentiful. They continued to kill rare species and now there are no
rhinoceri and very few clouded leopards in Sarawak.”
Early the next morning, Albert and Maria went for a walk with Bulang and some hotel guests.
“The Batang Ai hydro-electric dam is outside the Batang Ai National Park and so is the
Longhouse Resort,” Bulang explained. “The Batang Ai National Park was the first in Malaysia
to have local communities involved in its management. The local communities provide river
transport for visitors and help the Sarawak Forest Department protect the park.”
Bulang pointed to various birds and trees. He showed them pitcher plants and pointed to a
hornbill flying overhead. Everyone walked for about five minutes and then Bulang stopped next
to a small river and pointed to a tree.
“This is an ensurai tree,” he said. “They grow close to the river and their nuts fall into the river.
The fish that eat the nuts grow very fat and tasty. This is secondary forest, like most of the
forest you can see easily in Sarawak. The forest up the river is a species-rich forest and there are
Orang utans there as well as hornbills.
“How will we travel in the National Park?” asked an Australian.
“There are longboat tours every day,” said Bulang. “The longboats go up and down fast-flowing
clear rivers through dipterocarp forest. There are plenty of ensurai trees overhanging the water.”
“Where are the people who left when the reservoir was built?” asked a Japanese woman.
65
“They received new homes in the valley below the dam,” Bulang replied.
“Were they all happy to receive new homes?” the Japanese woman asked.
“Yes, some of them were,” Bulang said. “Others were very unhappy because they missed their
old homes. Two thousand eight hundred people from sixteen longhouses moved to new houses.
Some of the people who live next to the lake raise tilapia fish now.”
“Who buys the tilapia fish?” Maria asked. “I’m not sure if I ever tasted tilapia.”
“The local Area Farmers’ Association sell the tilapia eco-fish to Sugar Bun Corporation. The
local people here and in Enkilili produce over five metric tonnes of fish a month. They hope to
produce ten metric tonnes a month soon. There are plenty of fish in the rivers here, too. There
are plenty of tengadak and freshwater catfish. There’s also a fish here called Ikan Semah which
hotels in Kuching sometimes buy for over a hundred ringgits a kilo.”
Later that day, Bulang explained that a company called Borneo Tours organises some trips to
the National Park for guests staying at the Longhouse Resort. Bulang introduced the children to
a teacher from Lubok Antu called Garai.
“The hotel guests visit Delok longhouse at the confluence of the Delok and Batang Ai rivers.
They enjoy visiting an Iban longhouse and some of them also go to a primary school next to a
river. It’s called SK Nanga Delok,” Garai said
“Do the people at the school enjoy or dislike seeing so many visitors?” Albert asked Garai.
“I think they enjoy having people from many countries come to visit them,” Garai said. “Guests
at the Longhouse Resort are from many countries and talking to them is good for the children at
SK Nanga Delok.”
“Why?” asked Maria.
“Because the visitors from other countries tell the children a little about the wider world,” Garai
replied. “The school gets power from the National Park so it can use its computers all day long.
A lot of ulu schools have diesel generators, so they can’t use their computers very much. Diesel
fuel is quite expensive. Schools have to count every litre carefully.”
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13. A Day at Nanga Mujong
Maria and Albert received an invitation to visit some friends at Nanga Mujong on the Balleh.
Nanga Mujong is at the confluence of the Mujong and the Balleh and it’s quite a famous place
among the Iban people. Soon they were talking to Thomas, a teacher and a friend of Albert’s
uncle.
“You’re interested in history, aren’t you, Albert?” Thomas asked. “This is an area with an
interesting history. There isn’t anything left to see but I’ll tell you about it.”
“I know the Brooke Rajah once told the Iban not to migrate to the Balleh,” Albert replied.
“There was some fighting here between the Rajahs’ forces and the local Iban once, wasn’t
there?”
“Yes, there was,” Thomas said. “Nobody’s really sure who were the first people to live beside
the Balleh and the Mujong and smaller rivers like the Sut, Kain, Gaat and Merirai but
researchers from the Sarawak Museum found spearheads, pottery and earrings near Sungai
Putai on the Upper Balleh, so we know that there were people living here long before the Iban
arrived. In the Brooke Rajahs’ time, the people living here were the Punan, Ukit and Bukitan.”
“When did the Iban begin to settle here along the Balleh?” Maria asked. “It was over a hundred
years ago, wasn’t it?”
“Rozario finished building Kapit fort in 1880 but we know that some Iban settled on the Balleh
and some smaller rivers before then,” Thomas replied. “The government forces tried again and
again to force them to leave the Balleh but they weren’t successful. The Iban settlers retreated to
the limestone hill at the headwaters of the Mujong called Bukit Batu. The government in
Kuching sent two expeditions against them, both in 1881.”
“Did the Iban settlers resist?” Albert asked.
“The two expeditions were unsuccessful but the settlers made peace with the second Rajah and
settled below Kapit. In 1887 the Rajah’s government allowed Iban communities to settle as far
up the Rejang as the Pelagus rapids.”
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“There are Iban communities all the way up the Balleh now, Thomas,” Maria said. “How did
they get there?’
Thomas laughed.
“Some Iban travelled up the Sungai Kapit and then overland to the headwaters of Sungai Sut.
That was in 1895. In 1904 Dr. Charles Hose and his force of Iban and Kayan compelled the
illegal settlers to move downstream but later the Rajah’s government allowed Iban families to
settle as far up the Balleh as Nanga Gaat. Of course, soon other Iban settlers began clearing
forest next to Sungai Gaat and the Mujong.”
“That was when the Iban were still headhunters, wasn’t it?” Albert asked Thomas. “I know that
the Brooke Rajahs tried to stop headhunting but they weren’t successful.”
“They tried very hard but they weren’t completely successful. The government in Kuching
wanted to stop headhunting but collecting heads was part of Iban culture in those days. I think
some longhouses along the Balleh still have some trophy heads. It’s a sensitive subject and a lot
of people don’t like talking about headhunting or slavery. Some Iban families owned slaves as
late as the 1920s.”
“Didn’t the Iban living along the Balleh also raid over the border into Dutch Borneo, too?”
asked Maria. “I think I heard that from someone.”
“Yes, the Balleh Iban men raided the Kenyah and Kayan communities over the border in what
is now Indonesian Kalimantan. The Dutch complained to Rajah Charles and the Rajah ordered
the Iban living along the Balleh and its tributaries to keep the peace.”
“Did they keep the peace?” Maria asked.
“No, of course they didn’t. Penghulu Merum defied the Rajah’s government and retreated to the
headwaters of the Mujong, to the summit of Bukit Salong. That was in 1914. The Rajah sent an
expedition against the Gaat Iban in February 1915 and an expedition armed with a cannon
against the Iban on Bukit Salong in May 1915. After that, most of the Iban submitted to the
Rajah’s government and moved down to the Rejang. Some of the Gaat Iban refused to submit
and they continued to attack other communities.”
“What happened to them?” asked Maria. “Did the Rajah send another expedition against them?”
“They were raiding the upstream Melanau-speaking people of the Rejang and the Rajah’s forces
ambushed them at Nanga Pila upriver from the Pelagus rapids and killed over two hundred of
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them. That was in 1916. Three years later, Bertram Brooke, the Tuan Muda, led one final
expedition against the Gaat Iban and the last of the Gaat rebels fled to Dutch Borneo.”
“Then there was the peace-making ceremony in Kapit, wasn’t there?” Maria asked.
“Yes. The peace-making ceremony was in 1924. Vyner Brooke, the third and last Rajah, came
to Kapit for the ceremony and so did Dutch officials from over the border. The Rejang Iban
promised to keep the peace and so did the Kayan, Kenyah and Kajang from both sides of the
border. Everyone agreed that Kaki Mikai would be the highest point of Iban settlement on the
Rejang. The Rajah promoted Penghulu Koh Anak Jubang to the rank of Temenggong in
appreciation of his role in making peace.
“Temenggong Koh became a Christian later, didn’t he?” Maria asked.
“Yes, he and Tun Jugah and thirty other Iban became Christians in 1949,” Thomas said. “Burr
Baughman baptised them on Christmas Eve in Kapit. He was an American missionary who
came to Sarawak from the Malay peninsula in 1945 and learned Iban very quickly. This is a
famous place for many Iban Methodists because the Methodists brought many gifts here.”
“What sort of gifts do you mean?” Maria asked Thomas.
“The Harrises and the other Methodist missionaries brought us education, medical services and
economic development. Soon the people here had improved health and more productive crops.
The missionaries improved people’s lives.”
“Just like the Anglicans did near Kuching and the Catholics did at Kanowit,” Maria said.
“Tell us about the Harrises,” Albert said. “Who were they?”
“Tom and Jennie Harris were black Americans from California,” Thomas replied. “They
established the agricultural station at Nanga Mujong in the early 1950s. They enlarged the
clearing at the confluence of the Mujong and the Balleh with Iban help and soon it became a
productive farm with cows, pigs, goats and chickens. Jennie Harris opened a school and taught
local women and their daughters all about health and hygiene. She taught the Iban women about
nutrition and the four food groups, for example. Eventually the settlement at Nanga Mujong
became a base from which extension workers taught people in many longhouses.”
“Did the Iban mind being taught by foreigners?” Albert asked. “I think some people would
resent being taught by foreigners now.”
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“This was fifty years ago and people thought differently then. Some of the former pupils of the
school are now very well educated. Some of them are prominent in political life. Many of the
older women remember Jennie Harris because she taught the Iban people in the longhouses
many new things. Some of her pupils became health care workers and nurses later. For
example, she taught all the women about clean umbilical cords, hygiene and baby care. In the
old days, Iban women put ash on their newly born babies’ umbilical cords. It was part of the
adat to link the baby to the longhouse. Very often the baby got tetanus and soon died from the
infection.”
“Was she able to stop that sort of thing?” Maria asked. “Did nobody resent her interfering with
Iban adat and beliefs?”
“I’m sure that some people were unhappy. Some shamans and old people resented Jennie Harris
because she knew far more than they did. Births in longhouses were dangerous then, Maria. In
some longhouses, over half the little ones died before they were five years old. Now we have
clinics and trained staff on all the rivers where there are people living in longhouse. There are
clinics on nearly all the rivers and nobody has intestinal worms now.”
“What happened to the school? There are no American missionaries here now, are there?”
“Not any more. Eventually the school became a government school and the government took
over the agricultural work, too. Kapit hospital started in the 1950s and now there are plenty of
Iban doctors and nurses.”
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14. The Hill Rice
One bright sunny day the children were walking up the hillsides with their uncles.
“Look at the hillsides. They are black because we burned the trees, bushes and grass and now
we’re planting rice in the ashes and burnt soil. There is very little flat land here, so we have to
plant on the hills. Next year we’ll burn another hill and plant in another place,” said Silat.
“It looks like a lot of hard work,” said Maria.
“It is. We call it shifting cultivation or swiddenage. If there’s plenty of land, there’s no problem.
The Iban used to clear away the primary forest and use the land for one year and then move on.
Now we use the secondary forest,” said Serit.
“Are there special seasons for work?” Maria asked. “Yes, there are,” Silat said. “We do the
clearing between May and June and the burning between July and August. We usually sow the
seed in September and everybody does weeding in October and November. In November and
December we build fences, if we need them. Between December and February we try to keep
birds and other pests away from the growing rice. Then we harvest the rice between February
and March.
“That’s a lot of work. Why can’t you use the land twice or more than twice?” Albert asked.
“You can use hill land more than twice but it isn’t a good idea,” said Silat.
“Why not?” Maria asked.
“If you use the land for two successive years, the land starts to become poor and weak, Maria.
It’s better have twelve or fifteen fallow years for each year of cultivation but that needs a lot of
land. If you use the land for two or three successive years, the lallang grass and ferns take over
the land.”
“How do ferns and lallang grass take over the land?” asked Albert.
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“The spores of ferns and the seeds of lallang grass are very light. The wind carries them easily.
You can see ruined land in the ulu Bahau in Kalimantan. That’s in the high savanna southeast of
the Kelabit highlands. You can also see ruined land in some of the places where the Bidayuh
live in southwest Sarawak. If you have plenty of land, it’s better to let the land lie fallow for
fifteen or even twenty years,” Silat replied.
“Is it impossible to use the land again if you grow crops on it two or three times?” asked Albert.
“We can use the land again but it’s very hard work. We can plant pepper vines, fruit trees or
rubber trees on it. Some people clear away the lallang grass and plant fruit trees or oil palm
trees there. After lallang grass and ferns grow in a place, the soil is poor. We need to use
fertilizer to make the land productive again.”
“You mean fertilizer in bags? That’s expensive, isn’t it?” Maria asked.
“Yes, it is, but there’s traditional fertiliser, too. We can make that ourselves. We mix wood ash,
burned soil, chopped weeds and rice husks with fresh soil. It doesn’t cost any money but
making it is hard work. The work takes a lot of time, too. We can make pesticides from soap,
tobacco and tubai, too. That also takes a lot of time,” said Serit.
“Can you use forest land for farming after the logging workers leave?” Albert asked.
“Yes. Some longhouse Iban clear and plant small fields of rice in the primary forest at the end
of logging roads. They use the land after the logging company workers leave.”
“You know a lot about farming. Did you work in a lot of different places?” asked Maria.
“I worked on a new plantation near Mukah. We were planting acacia trees and working with
men who were beekeepers. They were beginning a honey company,” Serit said.
“What sort of trees did you plant near Mukah?” Albert asked.
“We planted acacia mangium trees because they are the best for sustainable forestry
plantations. They provide honey, too. The beekeepers introduced bees called apis dorsata.
They are small and docile bees. Bees fertilise the trees and produce honey,” Serit replied.
“Why were you planting acacia trees?” Maria asked.
“Because acacia has a short tree harvesting cycle. It’s only about seven years. The acacia
mangium and acacia ariculiformis trees are from Papua New Guinea and northern Australia.
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After people harvest the trees, they burn the forest floor. This breaks the shells of seeds and
allows new trees to grow.”
“What trees do the Iban plant?” Albert asked.
“They plant fruit trees like durians, rambutans and mangoes. They grow best next to a river. I
once worked on a FELDA scheme and we planted hundreds of fruit trees next to the river
there,” Serit said.
“What’s a FELDA scheme?” Maria asked, because she did know the word.
“It means the Federal Land Development Authority. Most of the work was planting oil palms,
but the people wanted to have fruit trees, too.”
“Who lived on the FELDA scheme places?” Albert asked.
“People who came from other places settled in the FELDA schemes. Usually they came from
places with very bad land,” Serit replied. “I remember when most of the hillsides between
Kanowit and Nanga Balleh were covered in ferns and lallang grass. That was an example of
good land which became bad. Now there are pepper vines and cocoa trees growing on most of
the hills.”
“Were the FELDA schemes successful?” Albert asked.
“Some were a great success from the beginning, but others were less successful. In some places,
people stopped following the old adat and they stopped working together like Iban people
usually do,” Serit said.
“You mean gotong royong, don’t you?” Albert asked.
“Yes, I do. People stopped being friends and there was no more gotong royong,” Serit replied.
“Then the old women started sulking and the men began drinking too much.”
“Yes, I remember. That was a pity and I feel sorry for them,” Silat said.
“What else do people plant on hillsides?” Maria asked.
“Rubber and cocoa trees hold the soil well and prevent erosion. Many people grow pepper to
sell. It’s very hard work, because we have to clear the land very thoroughly and plant strong
hardwood stakes to support the pepper.”
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“Pepper is a vine, isn’t it?” asked Albert.
“Yes, that’s why we need to plant hardwood stakes. They’re expensive because the best ones
are stakes of belian wood.”
“What about rubber? Is rubber difficult to grow, too?” Maria asked.
“Not really, but pepper usually makes more money for the longhouse people. Now some Iban
people are growing oil palms on a small scale, too. They have a joint venture with a company
with a palm oil mill. There are no palm oil mills near here, so we don’t plant oil palms.”
Silat and Serit began working carefully with their parangs. They cut away the burned wood and
piled it into heaps. The children began to help them. It was hard work and soon both the
children were hot and sweaty.
“I’m glad I won’t have to do this kind of work in the future,” said Albert quietly.
“If you study hard at school, you won’t, Albert,” Maria replied. “Remember that people in the
ulu do a lot of other things, too. They fish in the streams and rivers. They also hunt wild animals
in the jungle and gather wild fruits and ferns. All the girls learn how to make baskets, mats, wall
matting and floor-coverings from rattan, bamboo and reeds. Some girls become expert
weavers.”
“I want an office job, Maria,” Albert said. “Rice farming is very hard work.”
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15. The Turtle Islands
One day Maria received a letter from her parents in Kuching. The letter invited Maria and
Albert to go to some islands and work as volunteers for two days. Maria read the letter carefully
twice and ran to find Albert.
“Do you want to come to the islands west of Kuching with me and my parents? We’ll be
volunteers doing something useful,” Maria said.
“What will we do on the islands?” Albert asked.
Maria told Albert about the islands and the turtles. The two children went to find Mr. Ibrahim
and they told him about the invitation.
“The islands are near Sematan. The turtles live on the islands, I think,” Albert said to Mr.
Ibrahim.
Mr. Ibrahim laughed.
“No, the turtles don’t live on the islands, Albert. They live in the sea. The female turtles come
up out of the sea and dig holes in the sand. Then they lay their eggs in the holes and cover them
over. The little turtles hatch later and go down to the sea.”
“Who will go to the islands with us?” Albert asked Maria.
“My parents and some people from the Malaysian Nature Society will go. We’ll do what the
park rangers tell us to do. It will be like a working holiday,” Maria replied.
The two children went down to Sibu on an express boat. Then they went to Kuching on a much
bigger express boat and met their parents at the wharf near the cement plant. Jeremy and
Shaleen Tong greeted their son Albert happily. Maria ran to hug her parents, George and
Doreena Tong. The children stayed in Kuching for two nights and then they went to Sematan by
car. Doreena, Maria’s mother, parked her Proton Wira in front of a restaurant near the beach
and waved to some people she knew.
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“Hello! Are you coming to the turtle islands with us?” a tall woman asked. She introduced the
children to the other volunteers. Then everyone walked across the road to a small boat and sat
down. Soon more people arrived and the boat was full.
“Is everyone here now?” a tall man shouted and looked at the list in his hand. He read every
name and all the volunteers answered him.
“You’ll enjoy visiting the islands but you’ll be working hard!” Doreena Tong said to the
children.
The volunteers travelled in the boat over the calm sea to Pulau Talang-Talang Kecil.
“Look! There’s a dolphin!” someone shouted. The children saw a dolphin about two hundred
metres from the boat. They also saw some fish swimming next to the boat in the clear blue
seawater.
Someone in the boat took photographs of the children.
“We’re the youngest volunteers, I think,” Maria said to her cousin.
“Yes, you are the youngest volunteers here today,” George Tong said.
The boat stopped in the bay in front of the ranger station. People began to get out with their
bags.
“Be careful,” Albert’s mother said. “Don’t fall over. Some of the rocks look slippery.”
The volunteers carried their bags and their cases of water up the beach to the small house. Then
they went to a meeting and listened carefully. A park ranger showed some slides about the
turtles. Then he spoke to everyone.
“You’re volunteers and you came here to work. The turtles need clean places to lay their eggs.
That’s everyone’s job this weekend.”
The park ranger gave the heavy jobs to the men volunteers and the careful jobs to the women
and younger volunteers. Maria listened carefully. Then she wrote in her diary and read aloud to
Albert.
“Our job is to clean up the old eggs that didn’t hatch. Later, we will watch the adults tagging the
female turtles when they’re returning to the sea.”
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“I didn’t understand what the park ranger meant about tagging, Maria,” Albert said.
“The turtles come up the beach to lay their eggs. A man measures every turtle and looks for an
old tag. Some turtles have tags but some don’t. There’s a number on each tag. He writes the
number down carefully. Then researchers know which turtles are still living and laying eggs.”
That afternoon the children were very busy. Adults dug up stale turtle eggs and the children put
these into plastic bags. They took the bags away carefully.
“We will burn all the stale eggs tomorrow,” a park ranger explained. The tall woman began
telling the children about the islands.
“These turtle islands were once very valuable. Some aristocratic Malay families owned them.
Men came here and took some of the eggs away every day or every two days. They sold the
eggs in Kuching, Brunei and Pontianak. People said the eggs were very delicious.”
“Nobody takes the eggs now, do they?” asked Albert.
“No, not now. The government protects all the turtles in Sarawak.”
“I saw some Muslim graves on the island,” said Maria.
“Yes. There was a village here many years ago. These islands are also very famous. James
Brooke stopped here in 1839. That was before he arrived in the Sarawak River, where Kuching
is today, and before he became the first Rajah.”
Albert looked at his watch. It was now late in the afternoon.
“When will we see the turtles?” Albert asked the park ranger.
“You will see the turtles in the late evening and during the night. Some of them come out of the
sea and lay their eggs in the early morning.”
“The early morning is the best time to see them,” the woman said. “Have a good sleep and get
up at six o’clock.”
That night the children slept upstairs in the ranger station. Their alarm clock rang at six o’clock
the next morning and they got up quickly. They drank some hot tea from a vacuum flask and
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ran to look for Maria’s parents on the beach. George Tong saw them coming and he put his
finger to his lips.
“Don’t talk,” he whispered. Then he pointed at a big female turtle. She was slowly digging a
hole.
“She will lay her eggs in that hole and then she will cover them with sand,” the park ranger
explained to the children.
The children watched the turtle dig a hole and make it bigger. She was throwing sand into the
air with her flippers. Soon the hole was so big that the turtle was inside the hole and still
digging. The park ranger pointed to two other female turtles ten or twenty metres away.
“Go closer and listen to them. Don’t speak,” he told the children. The children walked closer.
They tried to be very quiet.
The mother turtles were sighing and groaning as they dug pits high up the beach. They sighed
and groaned as they laid their eggs. The turtle eggs were like soft wet ping-pong balls. One
turtle laid only forty eggs; the other two turtles both laid more than a hundred eggs. The turtles
covered their eggs with sand. This took a long time and Albert looked at his watch. It was seven
o’clock.
“Watch them go back to the ocean, Albert,” the tall woman said. “I always think it’s an amazing
sight.”
The female turtles went down to the sea quite quickly. They slid into the sea and swam away.
Soon there were only two turtles left. They were laying their eggs high up on the beach, under
the trees.
The park staff and the volunteers were very busy. One person marked the pit where the eggs
were. Another measured the turtle and looked for a tag on its front right flipper. Then the park
ranger wrote all this down. If there was no tag, someone attached a new tag to the turtle’s front
right flipper.
“Watch how the park rangers and the volunteers collect the eggs,” George Tong said to his son.
The men uncovered the eggs and counted them. They took them carefully up the beach and put
them into marked holes in a protected enclosure.
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“We need to protect the eggs from monitor lizards,” the park ranger explained. “The lizards like
to eat the eggs, just like dogs and wild pigs.”
Later that day Maria’s mother called the children to come and look at the hatchling turtles.
There were three of them.
“They look like toys,” said Maria. She held one in her hands and it waved its tiny flippers.
“The eggs take between seven to twelve weeks to hatch,” the park ranger explained. “We’ll put
these little turtles into a plastic bath of seawater and protect them from the sun. We’ll put them
in the sea in the late evening. We know most of them die but a few will return to this beach
thirty or more years from now and lay their eggs.”
“How long do turtles live?” asked Albert.
“They sometimes live for more than a hundred years.” Said the park ranger. “Sarawak has
several nesting grounds. The turtles here are Green turtles. Olive Ridley turtles and Hawksbill
turtles lay their eggs on the mainland, not on islands.
“Where do the Olive Ridley and Hawksbill turtles lay their eggs?” asked Maria.
“They lay their eggs on the beaches of the Tanjung Datu and Similajau National Parks and a
few other places. We try to protect all the turtles now.”
The children stayed two nights on Pulau Talang-Talang Kecil. They were tired but happy when
they returned to Kuching.
Mr. Ibrahim was happy to see them at school later that week.
“I’m glad you saw such wonderful animals,” he said. “Turtles were here long before people and
we must all try to protect them.”
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16. An Old Woman remembers
Maria and Albert knew everyone in their longhouse. They also knew a lot of people in other
longhouses, too.
One day, Maria was sitting and talking to the oldest lady in the longhouse. Albert walked up
and joined them. Lulong was sewing while she spoke.
“Lulong has a very good memory, like an elephant. She’s telling me about everything she
remembers.”
Lulong laughed before she spoke to Albert.
“No, I can’t tell you children everything. We don’t have enough time. You spoke about
elephants, Maria. I remember when there were elephants working at Seputin on the Rejang near
Kapit. There were workers from Thailand working with the logging elephants, too.”
“Were there elephants working in logging camps on the Rejang?” Albert asked. “Real
elephants?”
“Yes, there were, Albert. I was telling Maria about the war and all the shortages of everything. I
was living in Sibu in 1941. We heard about Japanese bombs falling on Kuching. Then we left
Sibu and went up the river to one Iban longhouse and then to another one.”
“You said there were shortages. What shortages were there during the Japanese occupation?”
Maria asked.
“Soon after the Japanese came, there were shortages of milk powder, condensed milk, canned
food and cocoa. Some people who traded in these things secretly became rich very quickly.
They could use the Rajah Brooke money when the war was over. People who had lots of the
Japanese money weren’t so lucky.”
“Why were they unlucky?” Albert asked.
“After the war ended, the Japanese money was worthless, Albert,” Lulong replied. “People
threw it away.”
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“What did you do when you needed things like soap?” Maria asked.
“Utai lama-lama megang; we did everything the old way. We made soap using coconut oil. The
bars were nearly half a metre long. Some people made smaller pieces shaped like a tennis ball.
People rode bicycles with solid tyres and some people pressed copra pulp into cakes for animal
feed and traded it for other things. A lot of people invented new ways to do things during the
war.”
“What about cooking fuel and lighting for people’s houses?” Maria asked.
“Most people cooked outside because there was no gas or electricity. There was no paraffin so
we used oil from rubber seeds for lighting after dark. It was smoky but there wasn’t anything
better.” Lulong replied.
“How about clothes? Did you make your own clothes during the war?” Albert asked.
“Yes, we did. The Japanese brought sisal plants from the Philippines. We grew sisal and we
wove the fibres into cloth. There was a shortage of cloth, so most people wore clothes with
patches and mends.”
“How about food?” asked Maria. “Was there plenty of food in Sarawak during the war and the
Japanese occupation?”
“At first there was no big problem. Then the shortages began. We extracted salt and sugar from
nipah palms, especially from the very big ones you see in the river estuaries. We called it ‘atap
sugar’ but it wasn’t like the white sugar we use now. We ate sago starch and cooked with sago
flour. Everyone grew sweet potatoes and maize and tapioca. We ate a lot of tapioca. Not
everyone liked tapioca but we had no choice.”
“Did you eat any strange things?” asked Maria.
“Yes, we ate sago worms. They have a lot of protein, just like steak. We toasted the sago worms
over a fire or we fried them. We ate a lot of sago, of course. Sago saved our lives. We always
thought of it as famine food before the war.”
“What sort of things did people trade?” Albert asked.
“People traded almost anything in exchange for almost anything else. People traded salt and
sugar for rice, wild boar and deer meat. By 1943 and 1944 there was a serious shortage of food
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and many other things. Everyone with relatives in the ulu went to their relatives’ longhouses.
Some Iban started new longhouses, like those near SK Nanga Ibun on the Sungai Pila. Some
Kenyah people were living beside the river before the Iban arrived. Those Kenyah families left
the area and went up to live near Belaga. The old Kenyah people there remember it even now.”
“What about the people in towns? What did they eat?” asked Maria.
“Even town people grew long beans, cucumber, kai lan, brinjal, pumpkins, kang kong, lady’s
finger and bitter gourd. Most people living in towns kept poultry and ducks in their yards and
gardens. Even the schools grew sweet potatoes, tapioca and maize next to the school buildings.
I remember there were a lot of snails and rats in Sarawak during the Japanese occupation. There
were large African snails and pink round snails we called jipun-lo. There were rats everywhere,
eating everything we grew. Sweet potatoes were their favourite food. The Japanese told us to
trap and kill them all. Sparrows ate our crops so we used sticky glue from jelutong trees to trap
the sparrows. We barbecued the sparrows on skewers and ate them. The Japanese confiscated
all the shotguns, so the Iban dug deep pits to trap deer and wild pigs.”
“Did you eat a lot of river fish during the war?” asked Albert.
“Everybody learned how to catch fish during the war. We ate frogs and catfish or almost any
fish from the rivers, the lakes or the sea,” Lulong answered. “We needed to make things
ourselves. We needed cloth, of course. The old people in the ulu knew how to make cloth from
tree bark. They taught the younger ones how to do it. We burned tree bark at night because
there were no mosquito coils in the markets.”
“Were the bark-cloth clothes comfortable?” asked Maria.
“No, they weren’t comfortable. They were scratchy and prickly and nobody liked them, but they
were all some longhouse people had to wear.”
“How did people make bark cloth?” Maria asked.
“They peeled away the outer bark from a tree trunk. Then they took the big pieces of inner bark
off very carefully. After that they beat the sheets of inner bark with wooden mallets. After that,
they darned the bark cloth all over to hold it together. It took a lot of time, Maria,”
“How did people in Sarawak know the war was ending?” Albert asked.
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“We heard about some people seeing the Allied planes over Miri and Kuching. In 1945, people
came down from the Kelabit highlands and brought steel fishhooks and needles to trade. At
first, nobody knew where these came from.”
“Where did the steel fishhooks and needles come from?” Albert asked Lulong.
“Allied officers and sergeants parachuting from big Liberator aircraft brought the fishhooks and
needles with them to use for money,” Lulong said. “There were thousands and thousands of
steel fishhooks and needles in circulation in Bario and soon they were in use as trade goods.
Major Tom Harrisson gave some lucky people gold coins and the gold ended up in Kelabit
mouths. Soon after they arrived, the Australians and British came down from the highlands and
there were battles all along the Rejang.”
“You mean battles between the Allies and the Japanese?” Albert asked.
“Yes, the Australians bombed Sibu in March 1945 and again in June. The bombs killed a lot of
people,” said Lulong. The Allies were fighting the Japanese on the Baram and the Trusan, too.
Plenty of Kelabit, Kayan, Kenyah and Lun Bawang men joined the Allies. At first, there were
only the Kelabit people from the plain of Ba, the area around Bario in the highlands. Then the
Kayan chief Tama Uring Ajang, the Sekapan Penghulu Oyong Puso and the Iban Penghulu
Sundai joined the Allies. The Allies called the Borneo men irregulars.”
“Did the irregulars receive guns from the Allies, Lulong?” Albert asked.
“Yes, the Liberator aircraft dropped hundreds of guns by parachute. The Penan irregulars
ambushed the Japanese with poisoned darts from their blowpipes. The Penan were angry with
the Japanese because there was no iron and no tobacco during the war. Some Kelabit and
Kenyah and Kayan irregulars were with Major Bill Sochon. They walked from Bario over the
Tamabo Range to Long Lellang, then to the old Brooke fort at Long Akah, near Long San, and
then to Belaga. It took six weeks for them to walk from Bario to Belaga, I heard later. Now
there are longhouse homestay programmes at Long San; the Kenyah business community is
keen to develop Long San as a tourist place.”
“Did Major Sochon and his party really walk over the forested mountains from Bario to
Belaga?” Maria asked. “Did anyone walk that way ever again?”
“No, I can’t remember hearing about anyone else walking that way and fording all those rivers
afterwards.”
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“Were there any Japanese in Belaga then?” Albert asked. “Did Sochon’s party fight the
Japanese in Belaga?”
“Yes, there were usually nine Japanese in Belaga but they were not there when Major Sochon
arrived. The Japanese from Belaga were over the watershed in Long Nawang buying rice. The
local people ambushed them, killed them and took their trophy heads on their way back from
Long Nawang,” Lulong replied.
“What about the bigger places on the Rejang, Lulong?” Albert asked. “What happened in Kapit
and Song?”
“The Allies and irregulars ambushed the Japanese at Nanga Pila on the Rejang. I remember
seeing the Catalina flying boats from Labuan landing on the Rejang and I remember hearing all
the people cheering. Then the Allies and the irregulars took Kapit, Song and Kanowit.
Temenggong Koh and Jugah anak Bareng saved Kapit, Song and Kanowit from burning. The
upriver Iban irregulars wanted to loot and burn the bazaars and shophouses but Temenggong
Koh and Tun Jugah anak Bereng stopped them.”
“Did everyone hate the Japanese during the war?” asked Maria.
Lulong thought for a moment before she replied.
“No, not at first. There was almost no crime in those days, not like now. Many Malays and Iban
worked in responsible jobs during the Japanese occupation. Many Chinese people left the towns
and lived in smaller communities. I remember hundreds of young Iban joined the kyodo-hei.
The kyodo-hei was the local militia the Japanese organised here in Sarawak. After people saw
Allied planes over Miri and Kuching again, we knew Japan was losing the war. Almost all the
Iban changed sides early in 1945. Everyone knew the Allies were winning. There are still
Japanese soldiers’ trophy heads in Tedong longhouse at Merirai and at Penghulu longhouse
opposite Sungai Pila on the Rejang.”
“What about after the war? Was everyone happy?” Albert asked.
“Everyone was happy the fighting ended, of course. Then cession came soon after the war and a
lot of people were angry about it,” said Lulong.
“What was cession?” asked Maria.
“Charles Vyner Brooke was the third Rajah. He ceded Sarawak to the British in May 1946.
Sarawak became a Crown Colony soon afterwards. Some people were very angry about this
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because they wanted an independent Sarawak. They didn’t want Sarawak to become a British
colony.”
“What did the Iban think about cession?” Albert asked.
“They supported Rajah Vyner’s decision, Albert. The assassination in Sibu three years later
enraged the Rejang Iban.”
“What assassination?” Albert asked.
“A young Muslim stabbed the second Governor of Sarawak and the Governor died in Singapore
a few days later. The assassination happened in Sibu in December 1949. The Iban were very
angry about the Governor’s assassination and many Iban men went down the river to Sibu to
offer their services to the government.”
“What happened after that, Lulong?” asked Maria.
“Sarawak joined Malaysia in 1963. I remember it very well because I was there, in Kuching. Sir
Anthony Foster Waddell, the last colonial Governor of Sarawak, handed over power to Tan Sri
Stephen Kalong Ningkan at the stroke of midnight on 22 nd July 1963. Then there was another
war. Everyone began to use a new word, Konfrontasi. This time the Indonesians were the
enemy, not the Japanese,” Lulong answered.
“Why were the Indonesians the enemy, Lulong?” Albert asked.
“The President of Indonesia wanted Indonesia, Malaya and the Philippines to become one
country called Maphilindo,” Lulong answered. “Konfrontasi was a very bad time because some
people here wanted Sarawak to join Indonesia. It was like a war inside families as well as a war
against Indonesia. Eight Iban trackers worked for the British Army during Konfrontasi.”
“Will you tell us about Konfrontasi, Lulong?” Maria asked.
Lulong finished her sewing and stood up.
“No, not now. I need to kill and cook three chickens for supper.”
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17. The Great Dam at Bakun
“My second cousin works in the restaurant near the dam site in Bakun. I’m going to visit her,”
Serit said one day. “Maybe you and Albert would like to come with me.”
“Yes, I want to come with you. Is there really a nice restaurant at the dam site?” Maria asked in
surprise.
“Yes. There’s a hotel there, too. It’s called the Bakun Resort but it isn’t really a resort hotel. Not
yet, but it will be a real hotel in the future.”
“Do you want to come and see the dam site with us, Albert?” Maria asked her cousin. “It’s quite
amazing; I saw it on television and it’s very big.”
“I’ll telephone tomorrow and ask for permission to visit the dam site,” said Serit.
“Why do you need to ask for permission?” asked Albert.
“There’s a lot of big machinery on the dam site and the people working there need to be
careful,” Serit replied. “Construction sites are dangerous if people aren’t careful. I want you two
children to be very careful.”
The two children travelled to the dam site with Serit and Gading. They went by express boat up
the Rejang to Belaga and then they travelled to Bakun by a longboat from Belaga.
“You can also go to Bakun by bus from Sungai Asap or Bintulu,” said Gading. “The new roads
make travelling very easy and a lot cheaper. Going by longboat was always very expensive
because fuel is so costly.”
“There are a lot of logging trucks using the road between Bakun and Tubau, so it’s rather
dangerous,” Serit said. “There are also many lorries travelling between Bakun and Bintulu.”
At the gate the security guards gave Serit, Gading and the children identity badges to wear.
“Be careful and don’t go near any machinery,” a tall security guard told the children.
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The children stood near the security gate and looked at the dam site.
“It is so enormous that even the biggest machines look like crawling insects,” Albert said.
“Yes. I read that the lake will be much bigger than the lake at Batang Ai, Albert. It will be
bigger than all the Republic of Singapore,” Maria said. “I saw pictures of the coffer dam, too.
The workers here built the coffer dam first.”
“Are you sure, Maria?” Albert asked. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yes, it’s true. I was reading about it in a magazine and then I watched a programme on
television. There will be over twenty islands and some islands will be very big. There will also
be forest parks on the islands in the lake. It will be interesting to come here again sometime in
the future. Perhaps we’ll have a picnic on one of the islands in the lake,” Maria said.
“That will be nice. Perhaps there will be hotels and guest houses on the islands,” Albert replied.
“Local people will have jobs there, like the local people at working at the Batang Ai Resort
Hotel.”
Later, the children began talking to the tall man working on the security gate. His name was
Paulus Jau.
The tall man pointed up the valley.
“Look at that big yellow machine. It’s maybe five or six metres high, three times as high as a
man but it looks tiny from here.”
“How big will the dam be?” Albert asked.
“The dam will be two hundred and five metres high and seven hundred and forty metres long. It
will produce 2,400 megawatts of electricity. About half of the electricity will go to the new
aluminium smelter at Bintulu.” Paulus Jau replied.
“When will the workers finish the job?” asked Maria.
“We hope construction will finish in September 2007. Rain makes the work more difficult and
dangerous, so work has to slow down in wet weather,” Paulus Jau said.
“Who lived in these valleys before the work started?” Albert asked.
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“About ten thousand people lived in the valleys upriver from the dam site but most of them
aren’t living there now,” said the man.
“Where did they go?” Maria asked.
“The people living now at Sungai Asap came from here. They moved from the area upriver
from the dam in 1999. The government built new houses for them and told them to move.”
“Who are they?” asked Maria. “Are they Iban or Chinese?”
“They are Kenyah, Kayan, Lahanan, Ukit and Penan people. About ten thousand people moved
to Sungai Asap.”
“Were they all happy to move?” asked Albert.
“Some of them are very busy growing new crops like ginger now. People in Sungai Asap grew
three hundred kilograms of ginger in 2002,” Paulus Jau replied. “Most of the people at Sungai
Asap are very happy with their new homes. They like being near shops and schools and a good
clinic. The children are learning much more in school now and their UPSR and PMR results are
higher. A lot of young men from Sungai Asap are working here at Bakun now. The
Construction Industries Development Board trained them to do skilled jobs and now they’re
earning good wages. The C.I.B.D. wants to teach new skills to hundreds of young men.”
“What sort of jobs are they doing now?” asked Albert.
“Some of them drive backhoe loaders. My brother does that. Some of them operate hydraulic
excavators. Some work as carpenters and some have jobs as general labourers. The men trained
hard for three months and then they started working here.”
“Is everyone happy now?” Maria asked the tall man.
“Some of them are very happy and they enjoy life at Sungai Asap. Some of them were less
happy. A few families left Sungai Asap and they are living in Miri and Bintulu now. They’re
working for companies, not planting hill rice or hunting wild pigs or deer. Some people later
decided they didn’t like living at Sungai Asap and went upriver again,” Paulus Jau said.
“Who were they and where did they go?” Maria asked.
“About half of the Kenyah families from Long Gang decided to leave Sungai Asap and go
upriver again. James Lawai led them to Long Lawen. He’s dead now but he was their leader.
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They were the most energetic families from Long Gang and they’re very busy at Long Lawen
now,” Paulus Jau replied.
“How many people moved upriver to Long Lawen?” Albert asked.
“Seventy families. About three hundred and fifty people,” the man replied. “In April 2002 the
new community at Long Lawen finished building their own small hydroelectric plant with some
help from other people. It produces just under 10 kilowatts and it cost two hundred and forty
thousand ringgits to build.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Albert said. “Why did they want to build a hydroelectric plant?”
“They wanted electric lights and televisions, of course. They also have rice milling machines,
washing machines, freezers and a sawmill. A lot of reporters went there on opening day,”
Paulus Jau replied.
“Who helped them build the hydroelectric plant?” Maria asked.
“A man from Bandung in Indonesia was working at Long Lawen as the technical expert. He
trained the local people, too. The Long Lawen people also got help from Green Empowerment
in Oregon and the Borneo Project as well as local NGOs here in Malaysia,” the tall man replied.
The children thanked Paulus Jau politely and ran to join Serit and Gading in the restaurant. The
food was very good and plentiful. They ate a lot because they were hungry. The children told
Serit about their conversation with Paulus Jau.
“Do you know what happened in Belaga in May 2002?” Serit asked the children.
“No, we don’t. Please tell us,” the children replied.
“It rained very hard in May 2002 and a lot of the people in Belaga were worried,” Serit said.
“Why were they worried?” Maria asked.
“They thought the coffer dam at Bakun was going to break,” Gading said. “I heard that seven
hundred of people left their houses and went to higher ground. Ten thousand people live below
the dam site and many of them were worried about the coffer dam and the heavy rain.”
“Did the dam break?” Albert asked.
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“No, it didn’t. The people got wet in the rain and they went home after a few hours. I think they
probably felt a little silly later,” Gading replied.
“Did Paulus Jau tell you about the people who left Sungai Asap and went upriver to Long
Lawun?” asked Serit.
“Yes, he did,” Albert replied. “I wonder how many people will leave Sungai Asap and go to
live above the dam site.”
“The people from Bato Kalo, Long Bulan and Long Jawi may build new longhouses or new
villages upriver at places like Besua and Danum,” Serit said. “Wait and see.”
“What are the women in Sungai Asap doing now?” Maria asked Serit.
“Some of them are busily rearing chickens and fish. Some people are raising tilapia fish in
pools and tanks and many others are retraining for new jobs,” Serit said.
“Are they happy there?” Albert asked Serit.
“Most of them are. They’re much closer to big schools and clinics and shops but they have less
land now. Near their homes in the ulu there was plenty of land for every family. Ask any of the
older people at Sungai Asap. They’ll tell you that they had fruit trees, forest and as much hill
rice land as they wanted to use. In Sungai Asap, they learned to grow cash crops like vegetables
and ginger, not padi rice. The State Agricultural Department taught them a lot of new skills.”
“One door closes and another one opens, Albert,” said Gading. “Leaving the ulu isn’t easy but
plenty of young people are learning new skills and earning wages. I don’t think many of the
Sungai Asap people will decide to move upriver. The fruit trees they planted four years ago at
Sungai Asap are bearing fruit now. A lot of them are very happy with their new lives.”
“What’s an NGO and where is Oregon?” asked Albert asked Maria later.
“NGO means a Non-Governmental Organisation, Albert,” Maria said. “The State of Oregon is
in the Pacific northwest of the U.S.A.”
“What a clever girl you are,” replied Albert.
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18. The Pelagus Rapids
The children travelled with Maria’s aunt and uncle to a longhouse close to the Pelagus rapids on
the Rejang. They went up the Rejang in an express boat from the wharf at Kapit after shopping
for new clothes and new cooking pots in Kapit.
“There’s a legend about the Pelagus rapids,” Maria’s aunt said.
“A legend? Tell us about it,” the children said.
“There was a dragon called Nabau living here. Nabau means the same as dragon in the Iban
language. This dragon sometimes used his magical powers and changed himself to a man. A
longhouse woman fell in love with the dragon while he was in human shape and the two met
every evening close to the river. One evening the woman’s husband followed her from he
longhouse and watched her meet the dragon in human shape. He ran forward and speared the
man in both eyes and the man changed into a dragon again and jumped into the river and died.”
“What happened next?” Albert asked.
“The dragon died in the river. The local people cut the dragon into seven parts and the seven
parts of the dragon became rocks in the river. These are now the seven sections of the Pelagus
rapids.”
“Is it a true story?” Albert asked.
“It’s true if you believe it, Albert,” said Serit with a smile. “Now there’s a lovely resort hotel
between the second section of rapids and the third rapids. The fourth rapids are the most
dangerous.”
“Are the rapids very dangerous?” Maria asked Gading.
“Many people drowned here, Maria. There are longboats and maybe even express boats still
under the water here,” Maria’s aunt said quietly. “Somebody drowns here almost every year.
Nobody is sure how deep it is here but everyone knows that it’s very dangerous.”
“Is it more dangerous when the river’s high?” Maria asked.
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“The express boat captains insist the passengers get out and walk around the rapids when the
river’s low, Maria. From June to August the passengers have to walk for nearly an hour over
sharp rocks. Sometimes there are no express boats between Kapit and Belaga for a week or
more because the river’s too low for express boats. Some people charter speedboats to travel
between the two towns and others travel down to Bintulu or Sibu and travel a much longer way.
It takes between two and three hours by bus or Land Cruiser between Belaga and Bintulu.”
“Why do the express boat captains tell the passengers to get out and walk around the rapids
when the river’s low?” Albert asked.
“When the passengers get out the boat becomes lighter and it rides higher in the water. Many
years ago the colonial government dynamited some of the bigger rocks to widen the channel but
it’s still a dangerous place. It’s certainly no place for a beginner to learn how to pilot a boat.”
“Is it expensive to go between Kapit and Belaga by speedboat?” Maria asked her uncle.
“Yes, it is,” Serit replied. “I think it costs four hundred ringgits to charter a speedboat between
Kapit and Belaga.”
The boat stopped at a shop house next to the river at Nanga Pila and the boatman bought some
diesel fuel for his outboard motor.
“Nanga Pila is a famous place. In April 1916 a government force ambushed a large party of
rebel Iban from the Sungai Gaat. People say that the government force killed over two hundred
of the men from the Sungai Gaat.”
“Are there ghosts here?” Albert asked. Albert believed in ghosts and liked to read ghost stories.
“Maybe. Maybe there are many ghosts in this place. During the war against Japan, some Allied
troops and Iban ambushed the Japanese near Nanga Pila in 1945. They killed all the Japanese.”
“You said there’s hotel near the rapids. What’s it called?”
“It’s called the Pelagus Resort. It opened in 1994. Do you want to see it? I know someone who
works there.”
“Yes. We’d like to go and see the hotel.”
They travelled to the Pelagus Resort the next day by longboat.
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“This is a much better jetty than our longhouse has,” said Gading.
“Yes. Hotel jetties are always much better than longhouse jetties,” Serit said. “Hotels have more
money and hotel guests expect good wharves and jetties.”
Soon they were walking up to the hotel.
“These are really lovely buildings, too,” said Maria.
“Yes, the hotel buildings were built in the style of Iban longhouses. Most of the people working
here are Iban, like in the Longhouse Resort on the lake at Batang Ai. It’s a very relaxing place
to stay but it’s too expensive for most local people. Foreign people enjoy staying here. Guests
can take the nature walk through the forest or a longer path next to the river.”
The two children walked around and greeted everyone they met. One of the hotel staff showed
them round the hotel and the gardens.
“It’s a surprising place to find a fine hotel, beside a silty logging river,” laughed Maria.
“Well, it’s the only hotel between Kapit and Belaga, of course. It’s the only hotel in Kapit
District with a swimming pool and it’s the only hotel reached by helicopter or speedboat. There
are paths from the hotel to the longhouses at Pala Wong and Kaki Wong so guests can include a
longhouse visit in their vacations as well as walking in the forest.”
“How do people get to the hotel?”
“A few come straight from Sibu by helicopter but most come by speedboat from Kapit. There’s
a hotel speedboat service from Kapit. People who want to go to the hotel can telephone the
hotel from Sibu or Kapit. The resort hotel has a radiocall telephone. About two kilometers away
across the river there’s a school called SK Nanga Pelagus. The school uses the hotel’s telephone
in emergencies.”
“There are a lot of people working in this hotel, aren’t there?” Maria asked the man cleaning the
hotel swimming pool.
“Yes. This hotel has forty staff and we all do different jobs. Guests go on walks through the
jungle, sometimes with a guide and sometimes alone. Most of our guests speak English, so they
need an English-speaking guide to explain about the trees and everything else they see in the
forest.”
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“This is an interesting place to work, isn’t it?”
“I like it here and I enjoy my job, too. The town of Kapit was nearly built here. Did you know
that?”
“No, I didn’t. What was the story?”
“The Brooke government didn’t construct the fort at Kapit in the beginning; men came and built
it at Nanga Balleh, the place where the Balleh flows into the Rejang. Charles Brooke, the
Second Rajah, nearly drowned in the Rejang.”
“Did he nearly drown in the rapids?” asked Albert. “Where?”
“It was at Nanga Tulek on the way to Nanga Mujong. A strong current caught the second
Rajah’s steam launch, the Ghita, and forced it to the bank. Charles Brooke grabbed a tree
branch to push the launch away from the bank. Then the branch snapped and Rajah Charles fell
into the river. Someone rescued him in time but after the Rajah nearly drowned the superstitious
natives thought that the place had bad luck. Workers dismantled the fort in 1879 and took it
down the river. They rebuilt it where Kapit is today. The town came after the fort, the same as
at Belaga. You can see the fort in the same place today. It’s called Fort Sylvia now.”
“Was there a fort at Belaga, too?”
“Yes. It was called Fort Vyner. Iban workers came up the Rejang and built it for the Brookes in
1884.”
“I wonder if there’s a book with pictures of all the Brooke forts in Sarawak and what happened
in them,” Maria said.
“Why not ask at the Sarawak Museum when we next go to Kuching?” Albert said. “The staff at
the museum know everything about Sarawak history. Perhaps they’ll ask you to start writing a
book about the Brooke forts and the fortmen. It would be a very interesting book, I’m sure.”
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19. Belaga
Albert and Maria travelled to Belaga with a school party. It was their first time to go up the
Rejang from their longhouse and they were very excited. Soon the visitors were sitting and
talking with some local people.
“What was the big place we saw from the boat on the way here?” Albert asked. “I don’t think it
was a logging camp.”
“It’s a coalmine, Albert. The place is called Beradai Coal Mine Camp. Your cousins have some
pieces of amber from the coal mine.”
“What’s amber?”
“Amber is a yellow stone formed in forests millions of years ago. Resin from some trees
hardens and turns into amber. The amber at the Merit-Pila coalfield is twenty million years old.
Sometimes you’ll see a piece of amber with spiders or ants or mosquitoes inside.”
“Sometimes there are centipedes, wasps or beetles trapped in the amber,” said a young teacher.
“There’s a Punan man in a longhouse on the river who carves the amber into shapes like
dragons. You can see his work in the fort in Kapit.”
Mr. Ibrahim told the school party about Belaga.
“Belaga is a quiet little town at the confluence of the little Belaga river with the Balui. The
Balui changes its name to the Rejang at Belaga,” Mr. Ibrahim explained. “Here in Belaga
Division over a third of the people are Kayan. A quarter of the people are Kenyah. Then there
are all the Kajang together.”
“Who are the Kajang?” asked Lily.
“The Kajang are the upriver Melanau peoples. There are the Kayan, Kajaman, Lahanan, Punan,
Sekapan, Seping and Tanjong. There are Penan and Ukit, too. There are Sihan as well, but
fewer than a hundred of them. I think the Sihan is the smallest group.”
“Is Belaga an old town?” asked Albert. “Everything looks new here.”
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“It isn’t a ancient town like Melaka, Albert,” Mr. Ibrahim replied. “The Brookes built the fort at
Belaga in 1883, during the Rajah years. The Brooke fort in Belaga was where the Post Office
stands now. It was called Fort Vyner. Vyner was the name of the third and last Rajah.”
“We liked seeing the old Brooke fort every day. It was silly to dismantle it,” said a local man.
His name was Robert and he knew a lot about the area. “The same happened in Sibu, too. A lot
of important people in Sarawak used to feel embarrassed and touchy about the Brooke era; they
were happy to see the old Brooke forts disappear. Now they’re considered a sort of tourist
attraction, of course.”
“People dismantled the Brooke fort to build a post office in its place? Really?” exclaimed
Maria. “What a stupid thing to do!”
“Yes, it was. The ground floor of the fort was also the dispensary, clinic and maternity ward; a
lot of babies were born there,” Lucy said. “I miss the fort; people dismantled it in 1965.”
Lucy was Robert’s wife and a well-known local historian.
“All the local people remembered that their grandparents and great-grandparents in the local
longhouses contributed the belian wood to build the fort eighty years before and so the people
from all the longhouses came to Belaga to take the wood away.”
“Who thought it was a good idea to dismantle the fort?” asked Albert.
“Someone in authority thought it was a clever idea,” Robert answered. “We knew nothing in
those days. If someone in authority gave orders to us, we didn’t argue. We just obeyed,” Robert
said. “We wouldn’t do it now.”
“Do any Iban live here in Belaga?” Maria asked.
“Now there are a few but not many Iban live in Belaga. There are a few Iban teachers and
government employees here now but the furthest Iban settlement upriver is Nanga Metah. SK
Nanga Ibun has mainly Iban pupils. Did anyone ever tell you about the peace-making ceremony
at Kapit in 1924?”
“Yes, that was when the Iban and the Kayan and the Kenyah made peace. There are some
photographs of the ceremony in Fort Sylvia in Kapit. There were over four thousand people
there. I still don’t know much about the history of the Rejang. Which groups of people came to
Sarawak here first?”
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“The Kayan and Kenyah came from the other side of the watershed before the Iban but there
were some groups of other people living along the rivers here long before the Kayan and
Kenyah came. The Kayan arrived in what’s now Sarawak first, then the Kenyah. There are
more Kenyah over the hills in the Baram valleys and there are Kenyah communities in
Indonesian Kalimantan, too.”
A little later, Maria started to talk to Lucy, the Kayan woman with tattoos on her hands and
calves.
“Are Kayan and Kenyah people the same? You seem very similar to me.”
“We’re very similar in some ways but we talk differently. Usually, we can understand one
another without much difficulty. Our art and our customs are very similar.”
“Most of the older Iban men have tattoos but it’s surprising to see women with tattoos,” Maria
said to Lucy.
“Tattoos and the elongated ear lobes are getting rarer. Some of the older women from
aristocratic families have tattoos on their hands, forearms and lower legs. I was the last one in
my family to get tattoos. My daughters aren’t tattooed and they don’t want tattoos. It was a
visible sign of status in the old days and the old women are still very proud of their tattoos.”
“Someone told me that the Kayan, Kenyah and Kelabit had hereditary chiefs,” Maria said. “Are
some families still especially respected? Are they still the political leaders here in the Upper
Rejang?”
“Yes, usually the political leaders in the Orang Ulu communities here and in the Baram are
from aristocratic families, but not always. The Kenyah, Kayan and Kajang have penghulus and
they’re usually from especially respected families. It’s a changing world and now the aristocrats
have to work for a living, just like everyone else. Even in the past, the Orang Ulu aristocrats
were hard workers. The finest Kelabit craftsmen in the Bario highlands were always aristocrats.
They were the only ones with enough time to really perfect their skills.”
“The longhouse aristocracy ruled the people in the old days, didn’t they?” Maria asked.
“Yes. We led our people in times of war and governed them in times of peace.”
“This is an amazingly mixed area, isn’t it?” Albert asked. “How many different groups of
people live here?”
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“There are eighteen ethno-cultural groups in SMK Belaga. It’s probably the greatest diversity in
the country but there are very few Chinese students studying there,” Lucy said.
“I don’t really understand. Most of the businesses in Belaga are Chinese. Why are there so few
Chinese students in the secondary school in Belaga?” Maria asked.
“Most Chinese families here send their children to Sibu to get a good city education in a school
with really modern facilities. So in the secondary school here there are over fifty Malay
students, fewer than fifteen Chinese students and over a thousand Orang Ulu students. Most of
the Chinese here send their children to school in Sibu or Bintulu, just like a lot of the Chinese in
Pontianak in West Kalimantan send their children to schools in Kuching.”
“I think there’s a school called ‘Airport’ here?” asked Albert. “It’s such a strange name for a
school.”
“There’s a primary school called SK Airport across the Rejang from the airport here. The
workers completed airstrips at Belaga and Long Semado at the same time in 1963. Sarawak was
still under threat from Indonesia then, so we can thank Ahmed Soekarno for our air service
today.”
“Was it easy to build an airstrip here in Belaga?” Albert asked.
“No, it certainly wasn’t,” Lucy replied. “Building an airstrip here wasn’t easy. There’s a story
that the Public Works Department, what’s now Jabatan Kerja Raya, JKR, parachuted the parts
of a bulldozer from planes but some bulldozer parts were too heavy for the parachutes and sank
into the mud when they landed. The local people dug them out, of course, but the real work on
the airstrip was done using hoes, shovels, spades, axes and parangs. It was a lot of hard work.
That was the second airstrip, the one very close to town, not the one we use now. The surfaced
airstrip we use now was built on the Japanese wartime airstrip. The Japanese built the wartime
airstrip with conscripted local labour but I don’t think it was ever used.”
“This is an enormous area. How do you travel to Kuching or Bintulu?”
“There’s a rough road through a forestry plantation to the main road between Bakun and
Bintulu; it’s called Bukit Jayong road. We can also fly to Bintulu or we can go to Kapit and
then to Sibu on the express boats. There are boats from here to the Bakun dam site, so workers
from here can go there easily.”
“I think I saw a mosque from the boat,” Albert said. “It was a surprise to see it.”
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“One longhouse near SK Nanga Merit converted to Islam. They are called the Punan Islam now.
Some groups of people are very sensitive about what people call them. Many Kenyah people
prefer to be called Badang, for example. They prefer the name Badang, just like the Kenyah
people in Long Busang do.”
“Are there any really remote places here?” Maria asked. “I mean places which are difficult to
get to.”
“Yes, Lusong Laku is certainly remote. The remotest sizeable place is probably Punan Biow on
the Balui. There are seventy registered voters living there. When there’s an election a helicopter
goes to Punan Biow to collect the ballot papers. It’s upriver from Long Busang and the people
there are settled Penan. It’s also called Long Unai. A few years ago, a helicopter even went to a
place in the ulu called Long Luar to collect just one ballot paper from the only registered elector
living there.”
“Did the voter in Long Luar come and vote?” Maria asked. “I hope he did.”
“No, he was busy hunting or maybe he forgot about the election.”
Albert and Maria rejoined Mr. Ibrahim a little later. He was talking to a man from the Land and
Survey office.
“Everything’s changing quickly here but in some ways we’re still behind the times. We need a
really good all-weather road from Belaga to the Bakun Highway. The boundary between State
Reserved Land and Native Customary Right land is often unclear. There is sometimes
confusion, arguments and bad feeling when timber and plantation companies come in,” the man
was saying.
“You could survey all the boundaries using hand-held Global Positioning System sets,” Mr.
Ibrahim said. “They’re accurate to an error factor of about five metres now.”
“That sounds a very good idea but I’m not sure whether the authorities would accept a survey
completed with a Global Positioning System. We’re still very old-fashioned in some ways.”
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20. The Weaver of Sungai Kain
“You know that Iban weavings are famous in a lot of other countries, don’t you?” Bejau asked
Maria one day. “Museums in many different countries have collections of Iban weaving.”
“Yes, I heard that. Some Iban weavers are very famous in other countries, too,” Maria
answered. “A girl in this school here told me.”
“Listen, Maria. Next week I’m going with Gading to Rumah Garie on Sungai Kain to see an old
friend. Her neighbour is a famous weaver. Do you want to come with us to Sungai Kain? You’ll
learn a lot about Iban weaving.”
“Yes, I want to come. Tell me about the famous weaver now, please.”
“She’s very famous woman, Maria. A few years ago, she went to the United States of America
and she was on American television. Millions of Americans saw her on television.”
“Do people in America buy Iban weavings?” asked Maria.
“Yes, some of them do. Some Americans and Europeans collect Iban weavings and weavings
from other countries, too. A hundred or more years ago there was a tradition of European and
American visitors here giving presents of fishhooks, needles, thread, buttons and tobacco to
weavers in longhouses. The weavers would give weavings to their visitors as gifts.”
“Old Iban weavings are sometimes very valuable, aren’t they?” Maria asked.
“Yes, some of them are. Sometimes you can look at a really beautiful weaving and you know
immediately who made it. The really valuable possessions in Iban longhouses are old Chinese
jars, plates and saucers. A few longhouses still have weapons and human trophy heads but the
heirloom weavings are far more important to Iban women. Most longhouses have heirloom
weavings, collections of beads, headdresses and ceremonial clothes. Some people own brass
cannons and beautifully-crafted wooden boxes.”
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Albert walked up and joined the conversation.
“What cannons? Are there cannons in some longhouses?” asked Albert. “Are you sure? I never
saw any.”
“Usually the cannons in longhouses are brass cannons from Brunei but some longhouses near
the sea have cannons from European ships. Rumah Benuk in Penrissen has one. That’s a Dutch
cannon. Other longhouses have British guns taken from ships.”
“How did they get them?” asked Albert. “Did they buy them from the foreigners?”
Bejau laughed at Albert’s question. Albert was a clever boy but he was still very ignorant.
“No, Albert,” she replied. “Many Iban living near the sea were pirates in the years before peace.
There are many interesting stories about Sarawak. There’s a cannon at Betong with an
interesting history.”
“Please tell us about the cannon at Betong,” Albert said. “I want to know about it.”
“Captain Henry Kepell captured the cannon from Iban pirates in June 1845. Suzuki Shoichiro
sent it back to Padeh in 1943. In 1945 the British took the cannon back to Betong again. You
can see it in front of the fort at Betong now.”
“Who was Suzuki Shoichiro?” Maria asked. “Was he Japanese?”
“Yes, Maria. You’re right. Suzuki Shoichiro was a Japanese policeman. He was stationed at
Simanggang in the war years, Maria. He spoke Iban well and everyone liked him because he
was always kind and helpful to the Iban.”
“Shall I come to Sungai Kain with you?” Albert asked Bejau.
“No, Albert. Hunting is for men and weaving is for women. I know things are different in some
other countries but here in Sarawak the men and boys go hunting and the women and girls do
the weaving. You can spend the day fishing or learning to make a fish trap.”
Sungai Kain is a small river that joins the Balleh from the south. Maria went there with her aunt
on a warm sunny day. It was an easy journey. Maria travelled with Bejau and Gading by
longboat on the small river which flowed past their longhouse, then by express boat on the
Rejang and then by another longboat. The second small river was low and they needed to walk
for a few hundred metres.
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“We can walk from here in a few minutes,” said Bejau. “It isn’t a long walk to the longhouse
from this easy landing so very close to the longhouse. It’s a longer walk from the express boat
landing at Nanga Kain.”
In the longhouse Maria met a young Japanese woman studying weaving. Her name was Akano
Hitomi. She smiled and spoke to Maria quietly and softly in Bahasa Malaysia. Maria was very
surprised.
“How can you speak Bahasa Melayu?” Maria asked Akano Hitomi. “Where did you learn the
language?”
“I learned to speak Indonesian at Osaka International University in Japan. Indonesian and
Bahasa Malaysia are cognate languages. There are some differences between them but not very
many.”
“What are you doing in Sarawak?” Maria asked her. “Are you studying weaving? Are you
taking photographs?”
“I’m writing and illustrating a book about weavers in South East Asia. Most of the best weavers
are old now, so I need to photograph them quickly.”
“Do you mean you need to photograph them before they die?” Maria asked. “Some of the best
weavers are old now.”
“Yes, Maria. I have to photograph the old weavers as soon as I can,” Akano Hitomi replied.
“Every year there are fewer and fewer really excellent traditional weavers.”
“Have you been to many other countries?” Maria asked the Japanese woman. “I want to go to
other countries in the future.”
“Yes, Maria. I travelled in Indonesia, Burma, Laos and Thailand before I came to Sarawak
There are many traditional weavers in those countries, too.”
“What are those countries like?” Maria asked. “Are they like Malaysia? Are there any places
like Sarawak?”
“Sarawak is much safer than most countries in Southeast Asia. The people here are usually
much more friendly. I like Sarawak very much. Did you know that Japanese people came to
Sarawak many centuries ago?”
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“No, I didn’t,” Maria replied. “I didn’t learn much about Sarawak in school.”
“I’ll tell you a true story about Sarawak,” said Akano Hitomi. “Do you want to hear it?”
“Yes, I do,” Maria answered. “I like to listen to stories.”
“During the Pacific war some Japanese officers went to a longhouse at Bawan Assan, downriver
from Sibu. The longhouse people showed them some very old Japanese armour. They said that
a Japanese ship visited the area many hundreds of years before. The Iban people in Bawan
Assan also said that the Japanese from the ship took local wives. Maybe some of the people in
the area are partly Japanese.”
“That’s an interesting thought,” Maria replied with a laugh. “I didn’t think that any Iban people
were partly Japanese. Were Iban people living at Bawan Assan so long ago? I don’t think so.
Did you ever visit Bawan Assan and ask the people there about the story?”
“No, but I want to go there soon. The last time I met a lot of new people was when I went to
plant seedlings in Sabal Forest Reserve,” Akano Hitomi replied.
“That’s where the Yokohama-Sarawak Friendship Forest is, isn’t it?” Maria asked.
“Yes. I went there with some young volunteers from Yokohama in Japan. We planted over three
hundred Dyrobalanops beccarri, the tree Sarawak people call kapur bukit. We hope to plant
twenty-five hectares eventually.”
Soon Maria and Hitomi joined the women in the longhouse. Maria looked around. In the wide
gallery of the longhouse there were some back strap looms, a spinning wheel and a frame for
winding cotton thread. There were some very young boys present but there were no adult men
near. A longhouse woman stood up and spoke.
“Listen, please. We have some women from a Canadian television station coming here today.
They want to film the process of weaving. Please keep quiet and watch.”
The Canadian visitors arrived in a hired longboat thirty minutes later. Maria sat with Bejau and
Gading and the longhouse women. She kept quiet and watched. The Canadian women were
large, loud and clumsy but they were very competent and professional with the film cameras
and their other equipment.
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Everyone waited quietly and soon the Canadian team was ready to begin filming. Betsy-Lou
Goldman was the leader of the group of Canadian women and she spoke into the microphone.
She explained how the Iban weavers give a small offering to the gods before they begin work
and how important weaving is in Iban culture. Then she passed the microphone to a young
longhouse woman. The woman was wearing traditional Iban costume and looked very selfconfident.
“Monica Gani completed Form Six and she speaks English very well, Maria,” Bejau whispered
to her niece. “She was always a very good student at her secondary school. Her family wanted
her to go to university. She decided to marry young instead of going to college and now she has
two young children.”
Monica smiled into the camera and carefully explained that weaving was a central part of Iban
culture.
“Weaving is women’s business and we do everything ourselves,” Monica Gani said. “Weaving
the cloth is the last process. We grow and pick the cotton near our longhouses. We usually sow
it after we harvest the hill rice in March or April. It takes about a year to grow. We dry and beat
it at home. Then we roll it and spin it. We make the dyes ourselves and we also wind the cotton,
starch it and dry it. Then we wind it into balls. It sounds very simple but doing everything well
takes a lot of practice. We use rice gruel to starch the yarn. That makes the cotton easier to
handle during weaving.”
“How long does it take to learn all these skills?” Betsy-Lou Goldman asked Monica Gani.
“Some people become expert very quickly. Other women never become really expert,” Monica
replied. “An extra pair of hands is always welcome, so women who aren’t expert weavers can
help the expert weavers in many ways.”
“Do you use traditional dyes or commercial dyes?” the Canadian woman asked.
“We use both now. Dyeing thread really well is difficult. The best Iban weavings are still often
dyed with natural dyes. We make them from roots and leaves, like our grandmothers did.”
“Do you still invoke the spirits to help you and guide you when you’re dyeing and weaving?”
Betsy-Lou asked Monica.
Monica Gani laughed loudly before she replied.
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“I think that you know something about Iban culture and Iban weaving already. Sometimes a
woman will receive the design of a new pattern in a dream. We used to say that ancestral spirits
came to us in our dreams. Weaving was a very high prestige activity in our grandparents’ time.
They used to supplicate the spirits for their help. That was part of the old adat and our traditions
sometimes change slowly.”
“Do Iban weavers still invoke the spirits before they weave?” Betsy-Lou asked. She sounded a
little disappointed.
“I’m not going to tell you,” Monica replied with a quiet smile. “Iban weavers still keep some
secrets.”
Then Monica showed the camerawoman the cotton plants and cotton bolls. She explained how
weavers use cotton beaters and spinning wheels. She explained the different types of fabrics and
showed these to the Canadian women.
“Our finest work is world famous, as you know. We also make jackets for men and women. We
make women’s skirts and sashes. The most complicated designs are slow to weave. A really
complicated piece progresses only a few centimetres a day.”
Monica held up a long rectangle of woven cloth and stood so that the camera was focused on
the design.
“This is called Genali, the King of the Waters. Look at the design and tell me what you see.”
“The design has two rows of crocodiles facing each other. It’s amazing!” Betsy-Lou exclaimed.
“A piece of weaving like this progresses at just a few centimeters a day. Iban society is classless
but in the old days only the wives and daughters of successful farmers had enough time to
weave something complicated and big like this.”
“Are the skills being lost now?” Betsy-Lou asked Monica Gani.
“Fewer girls are learning weaving because there are more career opportunities for Iban women
now. These days, Iban women are teachers, policewomen, office workers and civil servants.
Iban society is changing, so some skills are being lost.”
That evening Maria sat talking to Bejau and Gading.
“I learned a lot about weaving today. Thank you for bringing me here with you.”
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21 Catching a crocodile
Maria and Albert were staying in their distant cousins’ longhouse near Sri Aman for a week.
Rosa and Edward were just a little older than Albert and Maria. It was a hot day and the four
children were walking beside the river with their cousins.
“That’s Fort Alice,” Rosa said. She pointed to a wooden fort on the hill above the river.
“How old is Fort Alice?” Maria asked her cousins.
“The Brooke Raj built Fort Alice in 1864, so it’s one of the oldest Brooke forts,” Edward said.
“I’m very hot and sweaty. I want to swim in the river,” Albert said. He began to take off his
shirt.
“No! Don’t swim here!” his cousins said quickly. “There are crocodiles in this river. Some of
them are dangerous, too. We’re not joking, Albert!”
“Are you joking or not?” Albert asked. “I thought crocodiles lived in zoos and crocodile farms.”
“There are some very big crocodiles in this river, Albert,” his cousins replied. “This river is the
Batang Lupar. There was a great battle at the mouth of this river in 1849. James Brooke and his
Iban allies defeated a strong pirate force here. Some people say the dead pirates turned into
crocodiles. Sometimes they get angry and decide to eat someone. A crocodile ate a woman near
here a few years ago.”
Maria and Albert laughed. They didn’t know whether to believe their cousins or not.
“Do you know the crocodile song?” Edward asked his cousins.
Neither Albert nor Maria knew the crocodile song so Edward and Rosa began to teach them the
words.
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♫“Never smile at a crocodile. Don’t tip your hat and stay to talk awhile. Don’t be taken in by
his friendly grin. He’s wondering how you would fit within his skin,”♫ Edward and Rosa sang.
“That’s a silly song. Are you both scared of crocodiles? My uncle and aunt said that crocodiles
aren’t often dangerous to people,” Maria said.
“Yes, usually crocodiles can usually coexist with people. There are plenty of stories about
different tribes having peace treaties with crocodiles,” Rosa replied.
“Is that true?” Albert asked. “I didn’t hear that before. I think you’re both joking with us.”
“Some people say it’s true,” Edward said. “Some of the Penan in the Ulu Baram say that some
Penan turned into crocodiles long ago. They ran into the river after a family squabble. That’s
why crocodiles never attack or eat the Penan. Some Penan groups used to carry a wooden
carving of a crocodile around from place to place.”
“The Bidayuh say that a man from Peninjau once had a game of wits with a crocodile and the
crocodile cheated the man. Whenever a crocodile sees a Bidayuh, the crocodile runs away and
hides,” Rosa said. ”That’s what a Bidayuh girl in our school told me.”
“A boy in our school says his cousin saw a crocodile near SK Nanga Encheremin on the Rejang
two years ago,” said Edward. “Lots of other people saw the crocodile too. Two teachers and
some of the cooks saw it.”
“Sometimes people see crocodiles in the wet rice fields near the big mosque at Kampung Baru
in Kapit,” said Rosa. “Nobody hurts them or kills them. Sometimes, people see crocodiles close
to Kuching and Sibu, too. I think we’re fortunate to be able to see wildlife so near our towns; in
Thailand the local people killed almost all the crocodiles long ago.”
“Why did they kill them?” Maria asked her.
“Thai people eat the crocodile meat and they also make things from the crocodile skins,” Rosa
replied. “The crocodile skins from the crocodile farms near Kuching and Miri go to Singapore.
People in Singapore use them to make boots and handbags.”
“Iban people don’t eat crocodile meat,” Rosa said. “Nor do the Kenyah, Kayan or the
Berewan.”
“We can introduce you to men who capture and kill crocodiles,” Edward said. “They don’t do it
for fun. They work for the Sarawak government. Capturing and killing crocodiles is their job.”
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Albert and Maria went with Edward and Rosa the next day and met Michael Rengkang and
Anthony Ingai. They were both young men and were willing to tell the children about their
work.
“Yes, sometimes we shoot crocodiles, Maria,” Michael Rengkang said. “We have to shoot a
few every year.”
“I thought that most crocodiles in Sarawak were small and harmless. Is that true?”
“Usually, yes. Very big reptiles are getting rare now in Sarawak. The Fire Brigade personnel at
Miri airport captured a metre-long false gharial in a drain on the airport perimeter not long ago.
They gave it to the Wildlife Department people so we hope it meets lots of other gharials and
has a long and happy life,” Michael said.
“We only shoot crocodiles if they’re dangerous,” said Anthony Ingai. “Some crocodiles are
very dangerous to people and we must find them and kill them. We always prefer to capture
them alive if we can. Then they can live long and happy lives with plenty of other crocodiles.”
“Do you enjoy shooting them?” Albert asked. “Is it fun?”
“It’s a challenge and it’s exciting but we don’t really enjoy killing crocodiles,” Michael replied.
“Crocodiles are endangered animals in Sarawak. Some local people use words of respect, like
laki or grandfather, to talk about a big crocodile. That’s one reason why capturing dangerous
crocodiles is always better than killing them.”
“People in Sarawak must learn to conserve wildlife,” Anthony said. “Some crocodiles are
dangerous but most crocodiles are not dangerous to people. Crocodiles usually eat fish and
birds.”
“What other animals in Sarawak are dangerous?” Maria asked Michael and Anthony.
“King cobras are very dangerous. I knew a logging worker who died after a cobra bit him on the
ankle,” Michael replied. “He was from my longhouse. He was cutting wood near a river and he
disturbed the cobra by accident.”
“There are some poisonous snakes in Sarawak but not very many, Maria,” Anthony said. “Cars
kill many more people in Sarawak than snakes do.”
“Are pythons dangerous?” Albert asked the two men.
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“A python on a plantation in peninsular Malaysia killed and swallowed a plantation worker but
usually pythons aren’t dangerous to humans,” Michael replied. “Pythons usually kill and eat
dogs, piglets and chickens.”
“Sometimes pythons attack humans but only rarely,” Anthony said. “About ten years ago a
farmer was paddling on the Sungai Sut near Kapit when a python struck him. The boat capsized
and the man struggled with the python in the waist-deep water. He said it was four or five times
as long as he was. He fought the python and killed it with his parang.”
“What other animals are dangerous?” Maria asked.
“Honey bears can be very dangerous because they’re very strong and aggressive,” Michael
replied. “Usually they’re shy and run away from humans.”
“Small animals are sometimes dangerous,” Anthony said. “Even a small cobra is much more
dangerous than a python. Scorpions and centipedes sometimes kill people.”
A few days later Edward and Rosa ran to find Albert and Maria. They had news to tell their
cousins and they were very excited.
“A crocodile attacked a fisherman near here yesterday,” Edward shouted. “Michael and
Anthony are going to find it and catch it.”
“What happened to the fisherman? Is he still alive?” asked Albert. “Did the crocodile eat him?”
“No, Albert. The crocodile didn’t eat him. He’s alive and in hospital. He lost some blood and he
needed over twenty stitches but the doctors and nurses say he will recover,” Rosa replied.
“Are they going to find the crocodile and kill it?” asked Maria. “How can they catch a
crocodile?”
“The villagers are all watching carefully. Michael and Anthony will try to catch the crocodile
and send it to a crocodile farm. They will only kill it if they can’t catch it,” Rosa said. “They
know how to catch crocodiles. Are you coming to watch?”
An hour later the four children were in a longboat on the Batang Lupar. There were a few other
boats on the river and a lot of people were standing on the banks. Some police sharpshooters
with rifles were sitting in a boat about a hundred metres away. Some men from the Field Force
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were in another boat and holding two-way radios. They had rifles and grenades, too. Michael
and Anthony were in a speedboat close to the bank nearly a kilometre away.
“Don’t go near the speedboat,” a policeman told the children. “You can watch Michael and
Anthony from a distance. Don’t go close to them. Keep quiet.”
Nothing happened for several hours.
“I’m getting bored,” Albert said. “Maybe nothing will happen. Perhaps the crocodile is a long
way away.”
Suddenly, a lot of excitement started.
“I heard a shot!” Rosa shouted. “It came from those buildings over there on the left.”
All the men with two-way radios listened to their radios carefully. After about an hour the
policemen told the children to take their longboat down the river.
“I want to see what happened!” Albert shouted. “We heard a shot. Did Michael and Anthony
kill the crocodile?”
“You can go and see now,” the policeman said. “They caught the crocodile alive. They didn’t
kill it.”
Twenty minutes later the four children were standing on the riverbank and looking at the
crocodile. There were some thick and strong ropes around the crocodile. Michael and Anthony
were standing beside it and smiling. Some reporters were taking photographs and talking to the
local people. The local people looked very pleased and happy.
“How did you catch the crocodile? We heard a shot more than an hour ago. What happened?”
Edward asked Michael and Anthony.
“A local bomoh told us where to find the crocodile,” Michael replied. “We fired a shot to tell
everyone we were successful.”
“Are you joking?” asked Maria. “Did a local bomoh really tell you where the crocodile was?
How did you catch it?”
“Catching the crocodile was easy, Maria,” Anthony said. “We tied five ducks together and put
them in the water near the boat. There was a rope between the ducks and the boat. The ducks
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began swimming around near the speedboat. We sat in the speedboat and waited. After a while
the crocodile came to eat the ducks. He opened his mouth to swallow the ducks and we jumped
up and caught him. It was very exciting. We put a thick rope around the crocodile’s neck and
caught him.”
“How did you tie him up?” asked Albert.
“Anthony jumped into the river and put the rope around the crocodile’s jaw and body. I held the
crocodile close to the speedboat,” Michael said proudly. “It’s not dangerous or even very
difficult. It just needs practice.”
“Where will the crocodile go now?” Rosa asked.
“He’ll go to a crocodile farm near Kuching and live happily with lots of other crocodiles. He’ll
be happy there and he won’t bite another fisherman.”
That evening the children were talking. Albert remembered what Michael said about the bomoh.
“Do you believe that a bomoh can see things other people cannot see?” he asked Edward and
Rosa. “Are you superstitious?”
Edward and Rosa laughed.
“Sometimes a bomo can see things which other people cannot see and sometimes he or she
can’t, Albert,” Rosa replied. “In Sarawak the real world and the spirit world are sometimes very
close.”
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22 The foreign visitors
One day Albert and Maria heard there were two foreign visitors staying with Mr. Mohamed
Ibrahim in his quarters near the school. Their names were Archie and Veronica. The children
went to Mr. Ibrahim’s quarters to meet the visitors.
Mr. Ibrahim introduced the visitors to Maria and Albert.
“Archie is from England and Veronica is from Canada,” Mr. Ibrahim told the children.
“We want to travel as much as we can. Archie wanted to come to Sarawak to photograph the
old longhouses with trophy heads,” Veronica told Mr. Ibrahim and the children. “For example,
there’s a longhouse near SK Ulu Yong with trophy heads hanging in the rafters. It’s next to a
beautifully clean river running over stones.”
“I think I know it. It stands on stilts and it’s made of wood,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “You should
visit Rumah Jandok, too. Rumah Jandok in Ulu Sungai Yong is a traditional longhouse built on
stilts near to flowing rivers with crystal-clear water. The local people will start fly-fishing for
visitors there soon, I think. They plan to release fish fry and plant trees to feed the fish. If you
have time, visit Rantau Kemiding, too. The longhouse there is a hundred years old.”
“The old way of life here is changing. We want to see it and photograph it before it disappears.
Malaysia is changing very fast,” said Veronica.
“Malaysia is an advanced developing country and everything is changing very quickly,” said
Archie.
“That’s true but in some ways Malaysia’s still poor.” Mr. Ibrahim replied.
“How do you mean?” Maria asked Mr. Ibrahim.
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“You’re still young, Maria. There are a lot of things you don’t know yet. The gross national
product in Malaysia is still quite low. It’s still less than four thousand U.S. dollars per person a
year,” Mr. Ibrahim said.
“That sounds a lot to me,” said Maria.
“It’s a lot compared to Indonesia or Cambodia but in Switzerland it’s ten times more, Maria.
The average for developed countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development is over twenty-four thousand dollars,” Archie said.
The children listened attentively.
“Sarawak is changing very fast. A government minister here said that sixty percent of the
Sarawak people will be living in towns and cities by the year 2020,” said Veronica. “If most of
the people live in towns and cities the rural areas won’t seem very important, just like in
Canada.”
“Urban people need parks and green places to visit,” said Archie. “Sarawak will probably be
like England or Sweden, with people from cities and towns spending their holiday time in the
countryside.”
“Recreational parks will provide plenty of employment and that’s good,” Mr. Ibrahim said.
“Rural people always claim that they’re neglected. Building anything in the ulu is expensive. It
costs about a million ringgits for each kilometre of rural roads, including building the bridges.
Pouring a square metre of concrete in an ulu school costs five or six times what the same square
metre would cost in Sibu.”
“Are teachers unwilling to teach in ulu schools?” Veronica asked Mr. Ibrahim.
“That was a problem once, but new teachers have no choice these days. They go where they are
told to go. Even now, some teachers try to avoid postings to ulu schools. They visit or telephone
their state assemblymen, state ministers or even the Chief Minister of Sarawak. Twenty or thirty
years ago there were lots of British VSO teachers in ulu schools because local teachers hated
living and working in the ulu. Do you want to visit a few ulu schools in Sarawak?”
“Yes, we do. We also want to visit the Kayan longhouses where the adat is Bungan,” Veronica
replied.
“What’s Bungan and what does VSO mean?” asked Albert.
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“Bungan is a religion which mixes traditional adat with some Christian features, Albert,” Mr.
Ibrahim explained. “VSO means Voluntary Service Overseas. Young people from Britain and
other countries volunteer to work in developing countries for a year or two years. There’s
another group that does useful things like building suspension bridges in ulu communities.
They’re called Raleigh International.”
“In England we heard about some communities in Sarawak using small-scale hydro-power. I
also read about it on the Borneo Project website on the Internet,” said Archie.
“Yes, Long Lawen is the best-known example, but there are some others,” said Mr. Ibrahim.
“It’s a very good idea because a small-scale hydro-electric generator supplies clean and
inexpensive electricity and it pays for itself in just over two years. A generator supplying
electricity to a longhouse with thirty doors uses a thousand gallons of diesel fuel a year. People
need to learn how to maintain the hydroelectric generator but that skill isn’t hard to learn.
SESCO will probably begin to install some hydroelectric power plants in rural Sarawak in the
future. Did you hear about that?”
“Yes, we did. We heard some other surprising things, too. For example, logging in Sarawak is
twenty times more dangerous than it is in Canada,” said Veronica.
“Canada has a mature logging industry. Sarawak doesn’t,” Mr. Ibrahim replied. “Many
Westerners have the wrong ideas about logging in Sarawak. They think that logging here is still
a very clumsy get-rich-quick industry. It was like that a few years ago, but not now. There are
still plenty of subcontractors who don’t care much about working safely, but they are fewer now
than they were ten years ago.”
“There is no Good Fairy waving a Magic Wand in the real world,” Veronica said. “We all know
that Western countries made a lot of terrible mistakes in the past. It’s a pity that some people in
Sarawak want to make all the same mistakes again. I feel Sarawak needs tourism which is good
for the environment. The Tourism Task Force says Sungai Tisa near Nanga Yong is an ideal
fishing spot with over seventy thousand fish fry released there in 2003. We’ll go there next
week to take photographs.”
“It’s very sad that some local people don’t respect their environment,” Archie said. “The people
living near the Lambir Hills National Park between Bintulu and Miri go hunting in the national
park. They also go into the park and cut timber. That’s illegal logging.”
“Local people see the forests and forest resources as limitless, Archie. An educated Westerner
like you looks at an area of tropical rain forest and sees a species-rich place full of very
interesting flora and fauna. That’s right, isn’t it?” Mr. Ibrahim asked.
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“Yes, it is,” Archie agreed.
“Here in Sarawak an uneducated local person looks at the same area of forest and sees a place
for hunting and a warehouse of timber and useful forest products. Do you understand what I
mean?” Mr. Ibrahim asked.
“Yes, I do,” Archie replied.
“Here a community in the ulu looks at an area of rainforest and thinks how much money it
might be worth,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “Electric generators cost money and usually money from
logging buys these generators. Jetties and community centres are expensive, too. Two or three
square kilometres of tropical rain forest would provide enough money for a new church, a
community centre, two new generators, a piped water scheme, a jetty and maybe even a solarpowered satellite telephone or a radiocall telephone. That’s how people still think here.”
“Irresponsible hunting is also a problem,” Veronica said. “There’s plenty of forest left. There’s
always boar meat in every market in the riverside towns, so I think there are plenty of wild pigs.
Other hunting probably is bad. The deer in Sarawak are fewer than they were twenty years ago.
For example, hunting of pangolins is illegal. You can see the picture of the pangolin on the
government notices that tell people it’s illegal to kill pangolins.”
“Some of the local people believe that a pangolin skin displayed in a house protects the house
from illness,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “The natives of Sarawak think they have a right to hunt
everything that runs, flies or swims. The last time anyone saw a rhinoceros in Sarawak was
fourteen or fifteen years ago. Eighty years ago, the products from more than twenty rhinoceri
were traded in Belaga in just one year.”
“Yes, most rural people in Europe thought the same way until very recently. Many rare animals
in Europe are still in danger from irresponsible hunting and habitat destruction,” Archie said.
“It’s interesting to hear your opinions about Sarawak and the environment here,” Mr. Ibrahim
said. “Often foreigners have a very romanticised view of life in tropical countries like Sarawak.
They don’t know how poor ulu people were until very recently. Only the richest people in
longhouses owned pressure lanterns and battery radios when I was young. Only rich people in
towns had electric lighting.”
“It sounds like Ireland in the 1930s,” said Archie. “My grandfather told me about the old times
there.”
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“Romantic nostalgia for an idealised past is infantile,” said Mr. Ibrahim. “Some foreigners
come here wanting to see unspoiled natives living simple lives in an unspoiled and uncut forest.
They don’t really want to see natives who own outboard engines, generator sets, video cassette
players, Astro TV or motorcycles.”
“The same tourists expect cold beer and hot showers in their hotels, don’t they?” Veronica said
with a smile.
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23 The Ancient Briton
“There’s an old Englishman visiting a longhouse three kilometers from here. He knows
Sarawak very well. Do you want to meet him?” Serit asked the children one day.
“Yes, but how can we talk to him?” Albert replied.
“He speaks Iban as well as English,” Serit said. “He was here many years ago during the border
war with Indonesia, Konfrontasi. He’ll tell you a lot about those times.”
The children heard that the Englishman was visiting Nanga Gaat and they travelled there by
longboat to meet him. Nanga Gaat is a place at the confluence of the Sungai Gaat and the
Balleh. Albert asked where the Englishman was and a woman pointed to a slim man with white
hair. He was talking to some Iban people in the Iban language. They were standing in front of
the memorial to Commonwealth personnel who lost their lives near Nanga Gaat during
Konfrontasi with Indonesia. There are eleven names on the memorial. You’ll see it if you go to
Nanga Gaat.
“The Englishman isn’t really old. He isn’t sixty yet!” said Maria.
The children introduced themselves politely to the people talking. Then they waited patiently
without interrupting the conversation.
“This is Major James,” one of the men told the children. “He was here when I was a young
man. I was a young Border Scout and carrying a gun. That was more than forty years ago.
Major James was a lieutenant then but he retired from the British Army as a major.”
“I was here during Konfrontasi. It was a small war between Malaysia and Indonesia,” Major
James said. “There was an Emergency in Peninsular Malaysia from 1948 to 1962 and then the
Sarawak Emergency was from 1962 to 1974. In Bahasa Melayu and Indonesian the war was
called Konfrontasi so everyone remembers that word. There were British Wessex helicopters
based here at Nanga Gaat. Tun Jugah told the pilots to use his compound here. Two helicopters
collided and crashed near here on April the twelfth 1965; several men died in the crash. You
can still see part of a helicopter engine block in the river very close to here when the water’s
low.”
“Who was flying the helicopters?” Maria asked. “Were they Malaysians?”
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“No, there were very few Malaysian helicopter pilots then. The pilots here were British; they
were Royal Navy personnel from 845 Royal Naval Squadron. Sibu was their main base. They
flew everywhere up and down the Rejang, the Balleh and the Balui. During Konfrontasi they
flew over five hundred people to clinics and hospitals.”
“What happened in Sarawak during Konfrontasi?” Albert asked the Englishman. “How did it
begin?”
“President Sukarno of Indonesia wanted Malaya and the Philippines to unite with Indonesia.
His idea was to start a big country called Maphilindo. He was against the formation of
Malaysia. I remember the first attack very well. Indonesians attacked the police post on the
border at Tebedu in April 1963. A month later there was another attack at Nanga San near
Lubok Antu,” Major James replied.
“Did anyone here in Sarawak help the Indonesians?” Maria asked. “I heard that some people
did.”
“Yes, some Communists here in Sarawak helped the Indonesians. During Konfrontasi we
needed to gather information about everyone and find out who were friends and who were
enemies. We fought on the border or close to it. Most people in big towns in Sarawak knew
nothing about the war on the border. People in the towns saw and heard the helicopters, but that
was all. I was working with Iban and Orang Ulu men between Kapit and Belaga.”
“Where was the fighting?” Albert asked. “Was there any fighting against the Indonesians here
at Nanga Gaat?”
“There were a number of incursions from Indonesian Kalimantan, but they weren’t here at
Nanga Gaat,” Major James replied. “In August 1963 fifty or sixty Indonesians crossed the
border and tried to capture Song on the Rejang.”
“We know Song. The express boats on the Rejang always stop at Song,” Maria said. “How did
the Indonesians try to capture Song?’
“They came over the watershed to Nanga Engkuah and Sungai Bangkit,” Major James said.
“Penghulu Manggai met the Indonesians and told them not to endanger the people in the
longhouses. Lieutenant Untong Soegandi commanded his men to move a few hundred metres
away from the nearest longhouse. A little later, Penghulu Manggai went down to Song in a
longboat and told the Commonwealth and Gurkha soldiers. The Commonwealth soldiers came
up the Katibas quickly. Some others came by helicopter and trapped the Indonesians between
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the Rejang and the watershed. The Commonwealth forces killed or captured almost all the
Indonesians.”
“Who are Gurkhas?” Albert asked Major James.
“They’re soldiers from Nepal. They served in the British army in Sarawak. There are some
serving in the army in the Sultanate of Brunei now,” Major James replied.
“There was fighting on the Balui, too,” one of the Iban men said. “The Indonesians captured
Long Jawi, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they did. That was in September 1963. It was a very ambitious attack, too,” the
Englishman replied. Two hundred armed men and three hundred porters crossed the watershed
from Kalimantan and travelled down the Balui in longboats to Long Jawi.”
“What happened then?” Albert asked.
“After the Long Jawi attack most Border Scouts went back to their home districts to listen
carefully. They gathered information and reported it quickly. Peninsular Malaysia began waking
up, too. Nobody in Semenanjung realised there was a war in Sarawak until the attack on Long
Jawi. Most people in Kuching knew nothing about the war. I travelled a lot at that time. I
remember meeting Tun Jugah many times, of course. Tun Jugah was very active in waking up
people in those days,” Major James replied.
“Tell us about Tun Jugah,” said Maria. “I heard his name but I don’t know much about him.”
“He was the Federal Minister for Sarawak Affairs. During Konfrontasi he travelled all over
Sarawak. He spoke to people in the Iban longhouses and to the Orang Ulu people, too. Tun
Jugah lived here at Nanga Gaat and some members of his family still own property here. His
home place was on the Merirai, not far from here.”
A man with tattoos from the logging camp walked up the hill and joined in the conversation.
“Tun Jugah told everyone that Malaysia was fighting two wars at the same time,” the tattooed
man said. “One war was against Indonesia. The other was against the Communists here in
Sarawak. The war against the Communists was smaller. It wasn’t very serious but it continued
longer. Major James remembers what happened in Indonesia in October 1965, I’m sure,” the
man said.
“What happened then?” Maria asked. “I don’t know.”
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“The Indonesian army grabbed power from Ahmad Soekarno and many Indonesians began
killing Chinese people and people they said were Communists,” Major James replied. “Some
people say that a hundred thousand people died in Indonesia and others say that maybe five
hundred thousand died. The local people in West Kalimantan killed hundreds of Chinese
people. Then the Indonesian army ordered all Chinese people living near the border with
Sarawak to leave their homes and move immediately to coastal towns. There wasn’t enough
food or medicine in the refugee camps there. Many people died from typhoid and cholera. I
think about four thousand Chinese people died.”
“There are plenty of Chinese people in business in Pontianak now,” Maria said. “Are they from
the same families?”
“Yes, many of them are and some of them are very prosperous now. Some of former
Communists visit their old friends in the Friendship Society in Sibu regularly. There’s a
Friendship Park at Soon Hup Garden in Sibu. The Friendship Society people made the garden
for people in Sibu to enjoy.”
“When did Konfrontasi end?” Maria asked Major James.
“The Confrontation ended on 11th August 1966. Tun Jugah represented Sarawak when the
Indonesians signed the Peace Treaty in Bangkok in Thailand. One hundred and fourteen
Malaysians, Commonwealth personnel and Gurkhas died during Konfrontasi. Nobody knows
exactly how many Indonesians died during Konfrontasi. Most people think that about six
hundred Indonesians died. I heard one longhouse still has four Indonesian trophy heads.”
“What happened after the border war finished?” Albert asked.
“Tun Jugah and some Kenyah and Kayan leaders travelled to Long Jawi with thirty longboats.
There was a big Peace-making ceremony there,” Major James replied. “It was very like the
1924 Peace-making ceremony in Kapit. People came over the watershed from Long Nawang in
Kalimantan and there were songs and dances. Everyone was very happy that Konfrontasi was
over.”
“Some Kenyah people asked Temenggong Koh and Tun Jugah for permission to come and live
in Sarawak,” the man from the logging camp said. “More than two thousand Kenyah people
crossed the border after Konfrontasi and came to live in Sarawak.”
“Where do those Kenyah people live now?” Albert asked.
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“Some of them settled at Long Busang on the Balui,” the man replied. “They cleared the jungle
and began farming. Some other Kenyah people settled at Long Singut on the Balleh. That was
in 1967. There are over six hundred people living at Long Singut now.”
“I know where Long Singut is,” said Albert. “It’s upriver from Nanga Antawau. The Kenyah
children from Long Singut go to SK Temenggong Koh on the Balleh. Most of them go to SMK
Baleh after primary school, too.”
“We’re lucky to live in peace with Indonesia,” said Maria. “We’re also very lucky that everyone
in Malaysia are friends now.”
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24 “We’re Malaysians working together”
One week there were some new faces in the school and the longhouse. Albert and Maria were
curious and asked Mr. Ibrahim who the visitors were.
“I’ll tell everyone who they are tomorrow morning,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “You’ll enjoy meeting
them, I’m sure.”
Mr. Ibrahim introduced the visitors to the class at nine o’clock the next morning.
“These seven young people are visiting students from Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Port Dickson,
Johore and Melaka in Semenanjung. This is their first time in Sarawak and they will stay here
on the Rejang for a few days before they go to Sabah.”
The visiting students were not very old. The youngest was nineteen and the oldest was twentyone. Mr. Ibrahim asked the youngest student to introduce herself and the other visitors.
“I’m Polly Chen. I’m nineteen and I’m from Penang. I’m studying chemistry and reading about
Sarawak history as a minor subject. I think Sarawak is a very interesting place. Sarawak is one
of the States of the Federation of Malaysia but it’s also semi-independent. It’s like an
independent State within Malaysia, like Sabah is. For example, people from Sarawak can go to
live and work in Semenanjung very easily but it isn’t so easy for someone from Semenanjung to
come to Sarawak and live and work.”
“I didn’t know that,” Albert said. “Why is it difficult for people from Semenanjung to come to
Sarawak to live?”
“Temenggong Jugah called a meeting of over fifty Iban leaders in Kapit in February 1962 and
they decided that they wanted Sarawak to join Malaysia,” Polly replied. “However, they wrote
down several conditions. You see, many people in Sarawak probably thought that civil servants
and professionals from Semenanjung wanted to come to Sarawak and grab all the best jobs,”
Polly replied. “Forty years ago there were very few educated people here in Sarawak.”
“That’s true,” said Mr. Ibrahim. “There weren’t any colleges or universities here forty years
ago. Now Sarawak people can obtain an excellent education here in Sarawak. Polly, tell the
children here what people in Semenanjung know about Sarawak.”
“They don’t know much about Sarawak,” Polly replied with a laugh. “Most people in
Semenanjung get their ideas about Sarawak from television and tourist brochures, not from
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serious books or magazines. People in Penang think that Sarawak is a land of dense forests
peopled by head-hunters living in longhouses.”
All the children laughed when they heard this.
“That’s so silly!” said Maria. “How can they be so ignorant and know so little about us? They
probably think we don’t know how to read and write, either!”
“That was very nearly true forty years ago, Maria,” said Saifuddin. He was a tall Malay student
from Port Klang. “There were very few literate people in Sarawak then. There weren’t really
enough educated people to govern an independent Sarawak. A few local people wanted
Sarawak to become an independent country, but the British thought a Malaysian Federation
would be stronger and more prosperous.”
“Tell the children about the British, Saifuddin,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “Most of them don’t know
the British were ever here.”
“The British wanted their former colonies and protectorates to form groupings. Most of those
ideas came to nothing. Only the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia formed federations which
are still alive and well.”
A very dark student wearing glasses spoke. His name was Biswas; his mother and father were
lawyers in Port Dickson. Biswas read a lot every day and had opinions about lots of things.
“I think television gives Semenanjung people wrong idea about Sarawak,” Biswas said. “I don’t
watch television much but the people I know get most of their ideas from television.”
“You’re right, Biswas. Most people in Semenanjung think we’re tribespeople in funny clothes
who live in the jungle and eat wild pigs and python meat every day,” Thomas Anak Nyalu
replied. “Whenever you see anything about Sarawak on television, you’ll usually see
programmes about jungles and tribespeople in native clothes. You never see Iban men piloting
planes, Kelabit women using computers or Kenyah people working in factories on television.”
“Don’t feel bad about this,” Mary D’Cruz said. She was a Eurasian girl from Melaka said
quietly. “There is similar ignorance in other countries, too. I lived with my parents in the U.S.A.
for some years. I know that most ordinary Americans have silly ideas about their fellow-citizens
in Hawaii and Alaska.”
“What kind of ideas?” asked James. “What do they think about the people who live in Hawaii
and Alaska?”
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“Oh, they think that people in Alaska eat raw fish and seal blubber. They think that people in
Hawaii wear grass skirts and spend all their time dancing and playing guitars. They know even
less about Guam and Puerto Rico. Those places are American territory, too, but most
Americans know nothing about them.”
“Don’t expect everybody to become knowledgeable quickly,” said Mohamed Arif. He was a
studious young man from Kuala Lumpur.
“Malaysia is a diverse country and forming a national identity takes time. Malaysia is forty
years old but it’s still a new country. We’re lucky that Malaysia is still one country and that we
all live in peace and harmony. Yugoslavia broke apart and so did the Soviet Union. Pakistan
broke into two and East Timor seceded from Indonesia.”
“How did Sarawak become part of Malaysia?” Lily asked. “Was it easy?”
“No, Lily. It wasn’t easy,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “The original idea was that Semenanjung and
Singapore would be in a Federation with Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah. This wasn’t what
happened.”
“Singapore and Brunei are not part of Malaysia now, are they?” Lily asked. “What went
wrong?”
“The Malays in Kuala Lumpur decided they didn’t want Singapore to stay in Malaysia.
Singapore left Malaysia abruptly and became an independent republic. Singapore is small and
it’s much richer and better-educated than Semenanjung. Also, Singapore is mostly Chinese and
Semenanjung is mostly Malay, so that was part of the problem.”
“What about Brunei?” Maria asked. “Brunei isn’t part of Malaysia either. It’s an independent
Sultanate, isn’t it?”
“The Sultan decided not to join Malaysia, Maria,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “Brunei is an absolute
monarchy, not a democracy like Malaysia. The Sultan and his family wanted to decide how to
spend Brunei’s oil and gas revenues. He didn’t want to share Brunei’s wealth with the poorer
parts of a Federation.”
“Brunei is very rich, isn’t it?” Albert asked. “I saw programmes on television about the Sultan’s
polo ponies and the enormous mosque at Bandar Seri Bagawan.”
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“Yes, Brunei has a lot of money from the oil and gas revenues, Albert,” Mr. Ibrahim replied.
Brunei is small and there are obvious advantages to having a small national territory. For
example, Brunei and Singapore don’t need to build thousands of kilometres of new roads or lots
of new hospitals.”
“I wish I knew more about our history,” Albert said. “You people know so much compared to
me.”
“You need to begin reading every day, Albert,” said Mohamad Arif. You need to use your brain
instead of wasting your time watching rubbish on television.”
“The history of Sarawak is very interesting,” said Polly Chen. “Sarawak was a part of the
Brunei Sultanate, then an independent country under the Brooke Rajahs. In 1888 Sarawak
became a British Protectorate. The Japanese occupation lasted for three years and eight months
and soon after the war ended Sarawak became a British Crown Colony. Eventually, Sarawak
became part of Malaysia with its own Chief Ministers.”
“Who were the Chief Ministers of Sarawak, Polly” Maria asked. “I know that Datuk Stephen
Kalong Ningkan was the first Chief Minister. That was in 1963. My grandfather knew him
well.”
“The second was Tawi Sli, in 1966. Then Ningkan held the post again briefly, then Tawi Sli
again. Abdul Rahman Ya’kub became Chief Minister after Tawi Sli, in 1970. You all know
who the present Chief Minister is, I’m sure.”
“Yes, we do!” the children replied. “We’ve all seen him on television and his picture’s in every
school.”
“We’re all Malaysians working together now,” said Mr. Ibrahim. “You never hear anyone
talking about an independent Sarawak. Indonesia is a friendly neighbour and the Indonesians
crossing the border are coming to work here, not to conquer us and make us join Indonesia.”
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25. Coolies and Towkays
Maria and Albert were with all four of their parents in a Chinese Restaurant overlooking the
Sarawak river in Kuching.
George Tong, Maria’s father, was very pleased to see his whole family reunited for a social
occasion and told a lot of jokes. Doreena Tong, Maria’s mother, was also happy that the whole
family was together in one place.
Jeremy and Shaleen Tong, Albert’s father and mother, took photographs of the family
gathering.
There were some other people there; most of them were Iban or Malaysian-Chinese. After
dinner an elderly man began telling the two children a little about the history of the Chinese in
Sarawak. He was a retired businessman called Mr. Teo and everyone said he knew a lot about
Sarawak and its history.
“We aren’t all rich towkays with logging interests, construction companies, big mansions and
property in Australia,” Mr. Teo said. “There are a lot of very poor Chinese in Sarawak. Look
around you here in Kuching or in Sibu or in Kapit. The wharf labourers and small market
traders are mostly Chinese, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are. When did the Chinese come to Sarawak, Mr. Teo?” Maria asked.
“We know the first Chinese traders came to Sarawak over a thousand years ago,” Mr. Teo
replied. “The traders from China traded ceramic jars and beads for rhinoceros horn and other
things like bezoar stones from the gall-bladders of porcupines and monkeys. Chinese Emperors
drank soup made from Sarawak swifts’ nests five hundred years ago. Even now, Sarawak
exports swifts’ nests worth a hundred million ringgits every year. I’m sure you know that there
are people in Sibu who are trying to attract swifts to their houses and other buildings they own
to collect the nests.”
“What valuable goods did the Chinese traders bring in exchange for the swifts’ nests and the
forest products?” Shaleen Tong asked.
“The local people received trade goods like big Chinese jars in return,” Mr. Teo replied. “Some
of the oldest Chinese jars here are very valuable now. You can see some of them in the Sarawak
Museum. It was a dangerous trade because pirates often attacked and robbed the traders.”
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“Were there really pirates in Sarawak then?” asked Albert. “I often wondered about pirates.”
“Yes, there were many pirates in Southeast Asia at that time. Pirates made trade very dangerous
and expensive. James Brooke defeated most of the pirates here and a lot of people were very
happy. Over fifty Chinese merchants thanked James Brooke after he defeated the pirates at
Betang Maru in 1849,” Mr. Teo replied.
“James Brooke was the first Rajah of Sarawak, wasn’t he?” asked Albert.
“Yes, he was. The Chinese were here in Borneo before him, of course, but the first Rajah
wanted a lot more Chinese to come to live in Sarawak. The revenue of Sarawak came from
Chinese businesses, agriculture and mining then. This was before anyone drilled for oil at Miri
and before the logging industry became big.”
“When did Chinese people start living in Borneo?” Maria asked Mr. Teo.
“Some historians say the Chinese were living and working in west Borneo in the 1740s, but
other people say the 1770s is more likely. They cleared the jungle and opened gold mines,” Mr.
Teo replied.
“Who were the first Chinese settlers in Borneo?” asked Albert.
“The first Chinese to settle in Borneo were Hakkas from Kwantung. The Foochows and
Hokkien people came later. For example, hundreds of Methodist Foochows settled in the lower
Rejang in 1901. An American Methodist missionary called the Reverend James Hoover began a
school for the Methodist Foochow children in Sibu soon afterwards.”
“What did the Chinese settlers plant?” asked Maria.
“They planted many different things. Pepper and gambier were more successful than tea, rice,
tobacco or sugar. Do you children know what gambier is?” Mr. Teo asked.
“It’s a bush and it’s used as a fertiliser. It’s also used for tanning hides and fabrics. Some people
use it as a food spice,” Maria replied.
“Were all the Chinese settlers workers and farmers at first?” Albert asked Mr. Teo.
“Yes, but right from the beginning, education was important to the Sarawak Chinese. We’re the
best-educated community in Sarawak today. The first government school in Sarawak was a
school in Bau. It opened in 1870, only thirteen years after the Chinese miners in Bau attacked
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Kuching in 1857. I’m not going to talk about the Bau rebellion. It was a very bad time and
many people died.”
“Did the Brooke Raj really build a Chinese school in Bau over a hundred and thirty years ago?”
Maria asked. “I thought all the Chinese were busy trading and planting rubber then.”
“Chinese were mining gold at Bau again soon after the Bau rebellion, Maria. Rubber came to
Sarawak in 1882. Rubber was very profitable for many years, too,” Mr. Teo replied.
“We’re living in a longhouse close to the Rejang now. When did the first Chinese settle there?”
Maria asked Mr. Teo.
“The Brooke Raj built Sibu fort in 1862. The Chinese arrived in Sibu just over a hundred years
ago, Maria. By 1902 a thousand farmers from Fujian in south China were living close to Sibu.
They grew rice, tapioca, vegetables and sugar cane. Rice wasn’t really very successful or
profitable but the other crops were. There were also people from Guangdong living and working
near Sibu. In 1904 the Guangdong Chinese started growing rubber. Some Henghua settlers
arrived later. There was a big fire in Sibu in 1928 and a lot of destruction during the war but
now Sibu is a thriving town with a shipbuilding industry and a new airport,” Mr. Teo replied.
“What about the towns further up the Rejang, Mr. Teo?” asked Jeremy Tong.
“There were Chinese traders travelling up the rivers before the towns came. Some Chinese
planted rubber trees and pepper vines beside the rivers, too. The Brooke Rajahs built forts
further up the Rejang and soon afterwards Chinese traders opened shops near them. The
Brookes built a second fort at Kanowit in 1851 and a fort at Nanga Balleh in 1874. That fort
was moved to Kapit three years later.”
“Was Kapit a big place a hundred years ago, Mr. Teo?” asked Maria.
“No, it was like a small village. In 1888 Kapit Bazaar had two hundred Chinese and a hundred
Malays. Iban people began living in town a lot later. The settlers built a Chinese temple there in
1881 and Chinese pupils began going to Hock Lam primary school in 1929. Nobody was very
rich then but those were very happy times.”
“Then the war came, didn’t it?” asked Maria.
“Yes, the Japanese came at the end of 1941 and times became very hard,” said Mr. Teo. “Many
Chinese left the towns and went to farms. Some of them went to live in longhouses.”
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“What happened after the Japanese war?” Albert asked.
“The economic boom of the 1950s made many Chinese families a lot richer. The British settled
many Chinese farming families on new rubber estates near Sri Aman and Julau in 1956 and the
years afterwards. It was a good time but very soon bad things started to happen.”
“What bad things?” Maria asked.
“Indonesia opposed the formation of Malaysia. Many people in Sarawak didn’t want to join
Malaysia. Two or possibly three thousand young Chinese crossed the border from Sarawak to
Kalimantan. They received training and guns from the Indonesians. People with guns attacked
Tebedu and killed policemen on the road between Kuching and Serian,” said Mr. Teo.
“Why did they do that?” asked Maria.
“Many Chinese in Sarawak had immature ideas until very recently. In 1945 the Chinese in
Kuching and Sibu displayed the Guomindang flag. They really believed that Chiang Kaishek’s
China was a major world power. Then a later generation of young Chinese admired Communist
China. That was in the 1960s and 1970s. We called it the ten-year turbulence but it lasted until
1990. It was also a civil war among the Chinese in Sarawak; families were bitterly divided.”
“Was the ten year turbulence like a war?” asked Albert. “Did people really fight one another?”
“Yes, it was only a small war but it was very horrible for many families. A lot of young Chinese
became Communists and left their families. Hundreds of them crossed the border and went to
Kalimantan for training. That was in May 1963. Many more went to Kalimantan later,” Mr. Teo
said.
“Did you know any of the Communists?” Albert asked.
“Oh, yes. I knew plenty of them. My sister was one of them. A lot of Chinese girls left their
families and went to Kalimantan for training. I’ll show you an old photograph,” Mr. Teo
replied.
Mr. Teo opened his wallet and took out a black and white photograph. Maria and Albert looked
at it carefully. It showed a young Chinese woman wearing a cap. She had a bag on her back and
she was standing next to a lorry.
“My sister returned to society early in 1974. That was soon after Bong Kee Chok signed the
Memorandum of Understanding with Chief Minister Abdul Rahman Ya’kub in Simanggang
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Government Rest House in October 1973. My sister is in business now and she never talks
about her time in Kalimantan or her time in the jungle. Her children attend universities in
Australia and New Zealand; I don’t think they know their mother was once a terrorist living in
jungle camps and carrying a gun.”
“Who was Bong Kee Chok, Mr. Teo?” Maria asked. “I never heard his name before.”
“He was the Commander of the North Kalimantan Peoples’ Army, the Pasukan Rakyat
Kalimantan Utara. His other name in those days was Huang Jizuo. Now he breeds pigs and
takes no part in politics.”
“When did the last Sarawak Communists return to society, Mr. Teo?” asked Jeremy Tong.
“The last fifty-two Communists returned to society in November 1990,” Mr. Teo said. “There’s
a photograph of them getting into a helicopter near the edge of the jungle. Looking back, the
ten-year turbulence seems like a nasty practical joke that went on too long. The struggle again
the Communists in peninsular Malaysia finally ended in 1989. Chin Peng, the Communist
leader, disbanded the Communist Party of Malaya in 1989; he now lives in Thailand.”
“It was horrible at the time, wasn’t it?” Albert asked.
“It was very horrible,” Mr. Teo replied. “It was a war of ambushes, assassinations and arrests.
The Communists killed thirty-eight people in what used to be the Third Division in 1971. I
remember the Communists killing a teacher and two policemen in Sibu that year. The
Communists assassinated government informers and other people they hated. There were
Communist spies in every school and Government office. At the end of July 1971 the
Communists were ready to grab Sibu and declare the town ‘liberated territory’.
“But that didn’t happen did it?” Albert asked.
“No, it didn’t happen. Luckily, the security forces discovered a large field hospital for wounded
guerrillas just over the river from Sibu and also some documents that indicated the Communists
were planning to grab Sibu. The government launched Operation Ngayau, meaning total war,
and imposed a curfew on Sibu, Binatang, Sarikei, Kanowit and Kapit.”
“Did the Communists need money to fight a war?” Maria asked.
“Of course they needed money. They were extorting money from timber companies and other
businesses. Everyone knew about it but nobody dared to say anything. In September 1973 the
police in Sibu arrested a lot of people very quickly. They called it Operation Judas.”
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“Why did the police arrest them?” Maria asked.
“The police knew they were helping the Communists with money and supplies, Maria,” said
Mr. Teo.
“It all ended more than ten years ago, didn’t it?” Maria asked.
“Yes, Maria. Eventually even the last Communists returned to society. In Sibu there’s a
Friendship Association of former communists. Most of them returned to free society thirty years
ago so most of them are over fifty years old now. Some of them are over sixty. There are a
thousand members of the Friendship Society. Some of them travel from West Kalimantan to
meet their old friends. They collected money and made a new Friendship Park at Soon Hup
Garden in Sibu.”
“I think some of the former Communists are prosperous businessmen now,” said Albert.
“Yes, some of them are but not all Chinese in Sarawak are prosperous,” Mr. Teo replied. “There
are many unsuccessful Chinese and a lot of struggling small businesses. In all the bigger places
in Sarawak there are Chinese criminal gangs, too. In Sibu there are periods of open warfare
between the rival gangs, often involving arson and shootings. Every big town in Sarawak has
Chinese gangsters; the newspapers usually call them triads but maybe that’s too melodramatic.
It’s also true that many Chinese ignore laws they find inconvenient, every year Chinese
businessmen sell illegal fireworks for the Chinese New Year.”
“There are serious Chinese criminals here in Sarawak; I remember when fifteen robbers in Sibu
arrived at a sawmill with five cars and a tugboat. They tied up the two workers who were
guarding the sawmill and escaped with over three hundred logs, diesel fuel, three-foot pumps
and some machinery. There are specialist criminals like the luxury car thieves and the gold
robbers in Miri,” said Jeremy Tong. “The Miri criminals’ specialty was armed robbery. They
even shot a security guard. Eventually the Miri police discovered their identity. They broke into
the gangsters’ hideout and shot the gang leader and his dog. That doesn’t happen often in
Sarawak. Chinese gangster activity here in Sarawak isn’t really much compared to
Semenanjung.”
“What do you mean?” Maria asked. “Are there many Chinese gangsters in Semenanjung?”
“In Semenanjung there are four big gangster chiefs, Sei Tai Thien Weng, the Four Heavenly
Kings. They’re the protectors of the North, South, East and West. It’s a feng shui idea, one of
our superstitions. Each king is at the apex of a pyramid which includes consultants, legal and
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financial advisors and enforcers. I heard that one of the kings is a datuk and a Justice of the
Peace, but that’s only a rumour.”
“The Chinese are very fond of gambling, aren’t they?” Albert asked.
“Yes, many of us Chinese will gamble on anything. This is partly because we’re very
superstitious,” Mr. Teo said. “We love gambling; people will 4D tickets which have the same
number as the number they think they can see on the side of a flowerhorn fish. We’re very
credulous. We believe very silly nonsense sometimes. Do you remember the story about how a
newly born baby surprised everyone in the maternity ward by speaking? The baby told
everyone to eat green pea soup before midnight that day to guard against SARS. A lot of
Chinese in Sarawak ran out to buy green peas.”
“Yes, I remember,” Jeremy Tong replied. “The price of green peas doubled, then tripled, in a
few hours. Do you also remember the Chinese man in his twenties who jumped off a six-storey
building in Kuching because he thought that a ghost was chasing him?”
Everyone laughed.
“The Chinese in Sarawak are certainly quite a mixture. Millionaire towkays, coolies, gangsters,
teachers and priests, too,” said Maria. “Even people who jump off buildings because they think
that ghosts are chasing them!”
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26.
The New Mosque
One day Albert, Maria and Lily were talking to Mr. Ibrahim and his wife. Lily was asking Mr.
Ibrahim and his wife about Muslim life.
“Muslims worship in mosques, don’t they?” Lily asked.
“Yes, but sometimes there are only a few Muslims in a small place like here. The larger
communities have mosques, not small places.”
“Where are the mosques on the Rejang?” Lily asked.
“The Divisional Mosque is at Kampung Bahru in Kapit. There are other mosques at Jalan
Bletih at Kampung Muhibbah in Kapit, one in Taman Pacific where many police officers live
and another one at the Fire Station. There are about a thousand local Muslims in Kapit and then
maybe two thousand more who are working there briefly. There will soon be a new one on the
Kapit ring road soon.”
“How about Belaga and Song? Do they have mosques, too?” asked Albert.
“Yes, they do. In Belaga there are maybe five hundred Muslims and in Song maybe five
hundred or eight hundred Muslims. There will soon be a mosque with an Imam at the Bakun
Dam, too.”
“What do Muslims believe?” asked Albert.
“There are five principles. We call them the Five Pillars of Islam,” Mrs. Ibrahim said. “The first
is the Declaration of Faith, the Shahada. In the Arabic language it is La Illaha Illah lah wa
asyhaduan na Mohammadar Rasullaulah. That means that a Muslim is saying there is no God
but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet.”
“Is Mohammed the same as Jesus?” asked Lily.
“No, Lily. Muslims believe Jesus was a Prophet, but Mohammed came later than Jesus. We
believe Mohammed was the last and most important of the prophets,” Mrs. Ibrahim replied.
“When do Muslims pray?” asked Albert.
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“Muslims should pray five times a day. There’s the dawn prayer, then one at noon. There one
before dusk, another one soon afterwards and a night prayer. Muslims face Makkah in Arabia to
pray,” Mrs. Ibrahim replied.
“I heard that Muslims pay a special tax. Is that true?” asked Maria.
“Yes. Zakat is an obligatory tax for Muslims. Sometimes it’s a tax on income and sometimes
it’s a tax on property. Turtles are protected in Sarawak but even now some nominal revenue
from the turtle islands goes to Muslim charities in Kuching.”
“There’s a month when Muslims don’t eat or drink during the daytime, isn’t there?” asked
Albert.
“Yes, Albert. The ninth month of the Muslim calendar is called Ramadan. It’s a holy month and
a time when Muslims fast during daylight hours. Adult Muslims don’t eat during the hours of
daylight unless they’re very young, ill, travelling or expecting a baby. Usually, they try to fast at
some time in the future.”
“I saw a television programme about Malaysian Muslims going to another country. They went
in a big group. What’s that called?” asked Lily.
“That’s the Hajj pilgrimage to Makkah in Arabia. Every Muslim who can afford the money
ought to go on the Hajj once in his or her lifetime. It isn’t cheap. There’s a quota system for
Muslims from Malaysia. We save our money for several years and pay into a special fund.”
“How expensive is it?” asked Maria.
“It’s between twelve and eighteen thousand ringgits. People pay into a fund and there’s a
waiting list to perform the Hajj to Makkah.”
“What are Muslim occupations here?” asked Maria. “I know that a lot of teachers and police
officers are Muslims.”
“Many Muslims living on the Rejang and its tributaries are in government service. There are
teachers, civil servants, police officers, firemen and some people in business.”
“My father said there’s a mosque next to a longhouse downriver from Belaga,” said Lily. “Who
are the people there?”
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“One longhouse between the Pelagus rapids and Belaga is Muslim. The people there were
called Punan Biau once but they’re called Punan Islam now. About half the Kenyah people in
Long Busang are Muslims, too.”
“You don’t eat pork, do you?” asked Maria. “Or ham or bacon?”
“No, we don’t. We don’t drink alcohol like tuak or beer,” Mr. Ibrahim replied. “Some Muslims
avoid smoking, too.”
“I want to know about everything in the world,” said Maria. “Thank you for telling me all this.”
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27. India Street
“Sarawak was once part of the Srivijaya and, later, the Majapahit empire in what is now
Indonesia,” Mr. Gupta told Albert and Maria. “Those empires were Hindu; the Srivijaya empire
was Sumatran and the Majapahit empire was Javanese. Hinduism came from India but those
two empires weren’t Indian. You know about the Limbang Ganesh, don’t you?”
“No, we don’t,” Maria replied. “Ganesh is a Hindu deity, isn’t he?”
“Yes. Ganesh is the elephant-headed god of prosperity and good fortune. In February 1921
someone found an old statue of Ganesh in Limbang. It’s in the Sarawak Museum now but
nobody can be really sure whether Javanese or Indians made it. Many years later, some other
people found a Tantric shrine with Hindu relics at Santubong,” Mr. Gupta told Albert and
Maria. “Nobody can be really sure but I think the first Indians probably came to Sarawak as
soldiers and jailers in the time of James Brooke.”
The sun was setting over the Sarawak River and the three were talking at a cafe on the riverside
walk not far from India Street in Kuching. Mr. Gupta was a businessman and a friend of
Maria’s parents.
“There are many different kinds of Indians here, aren’t there?” Maria asked. “Some wear
turbans and some don’t.”
“The Sikhs wear turbans,” Mr. Gupta said. “The Sikh homeland is the Punjab in the IndoGangetic plain. That’s a fertile area now divided between India and Pakistan. There are also
Tamils and Bengalis as well as people whose family homelands were Malayalam-speaking and
Telugu-speaking places in India.”
“When did James Brooke arrive in Sarawak?” Albert asked. “James was the first of the three
Brooke Rajahs, wasn’t he?”
“James Brooke first came to Sarawak in August 1839. He backed the local Malay aristocracy
when they rebelled against their overlords in Brunei. Eventually he became the first Rajah.
Charles was the second and Vyner was the third and last. It’s an interesting and romantic story
but it isn’t very fashionable to talk about the three Brooke Rajahs now.”
“Were there three Rajahs, Mr. Gupta?” Albert asked. “What were their names?”
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“Yes, James was the first. He was Rajah from 1841 to 1868. Charles was the Rajah between
1868 and 1917 and Vyner was the third and last. He was the Rajah between 1917 and 1946, but
the Japanese ruled Sarawak for three years and eight months between 1941 and 1945.”
“They don’t teach us about the Rajahs in school,” said Maria. “I wonder why not.”
Mr. Gupta laughed.
“Sarawak is part of independent Malaysia now, Maria,” he replied. “We have a newly-invented
history of heroic struggle against the Sultans of Brunei, the Brooke Rajahs and the British. The
Brooke Rajahs aren’t fashionable any more,” Mr. Gupta laughed.
“Who were the first Indians in Sarawak, Mr. Gupta?” Maria asked. “You said they were
soldiers and jailers, didn’t you?”
“Some of our forbears came here under a cloud,” Mr. Gupta replied. “They were mutineers,
usually minor participants on the losing side in the Indian Mutiny of the 1850s. The second
Rajah’s consort, Ranee Margaret, wrote about them very kindly. She said her Indian guards
made her feel very safe in the Astana. That was the Rajahs’ residence in Kuching in those days.
It’s next to the river.”
“Is there anything left from those days?” Maria asked. “Is there anything we can go and see?”
“Yes, there is. There’s a place I go sometimes. It’s the old Matang tea and coffee plantation.”
“Were people growing tea in Sarawak so long ago?” Albert asked. “That very surprising.”
“Work began there in 1860 and the owners opened the estate officially in 1867. It was a very
big enterprise, too. The estate had between six hundred and eight hundred workers. They lived
in huts in the ‘coolie lines’ on the estate.”
“That’s not a word anyone would say now, is it?” Maria asked. “It’s one of those strange words
people still use in Sarawak like the JKR ‘barracks’.”
“What were the ‘coolie lines’ like?” Albert asked. “Were they like the pupils’ dormitories in an
ulu school?”
“They were huts made of attap and wood. Using local materials is cheap but that sort of
building needs constant patching and mending, of course. The tea business was never a real
success. The government took it over in 1897 and the plantation closed in 1912.”
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“What did the workers do, Mr. Gupta?” Maria asked. “Did they go back to India?”
“Yes, some of them returned to India and the others found work with the Public Works
Department, what is JKR today, or they found work with the Sarawak Government, Maria,” Mr.
Gupta replied. “There was a Hindu shrine to Sri Maha Mariamman on the estate. Some Indians
took it to another temple on Rock Road in 1912 or a little later. The new Sri Maha Mariamman
Hindu Temple opened in 1991. The Indian Christians on the Matang plantation had a shrine to
St. Mary. The Indian Christians who stayed in Sarawak started attending Catholic churches in
Kuching and other towns.”
“Were there Indian Christians here? I didn’t know that,” Albert said. “I thought all Indians were
Hindus or Muslims.”
“Yes, Albert, there were numerous Indian Christians here, mainly Tamils. The Indians in
Sarawak are a real mixture; some are Hindus, some are Sikhs, others are Christians and some
are Muslims. You’ll see the same in other places with expatriate Indian populations, like
Guyana, Trinidad, Mauritius and Fiji.”
“Did the Indians ever marry local people?” Maria asked.
“It happens a lot now but it wasn’t common until recently. The Indians here were very clannish,
just like they were in India. It’s an Indian tradition.”
“Were there any Indian organisations here in Sarawak?” Maria asked. “Indians like clubs and
associations, I think.”
“Yes, but there were very few clubs at all then. Some people began the Sarawak Indian
Association in the late 1930s. Dr. K. V. Krishna was the President. The census of 1939 counted
just over two thousand three hundred of us in Sarawak.”
“What happened during the war with Japan?” Albert asked. “I heard it was a very difficult time
for Indians in Sarawak.”
“It was a terrible time for Indians in Sarawak in several different ways, Albert,” Mr. Gupta
replied. “In December 1940 a company of the Punjabi Regiment came from Singapore to
defend the oilfield at Miri and the old Kuching airfield at Bukit Stabar. People in Kuching
didn’t like the Punjabis very much and they weren’t very useful when the Japanese landed
because there were only a thousand of them. The Punjabis in Kuching retreated to Pontianak in
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Dutch Borneo and surrendered to the Japanese on 1 st April 1942. Most of the Punjabi prisonersof-war refused to collaborate and the Japanese killed many of them later in the war.”
“What about the Indian civilians in Sarawak?” Maria asked. “What happened to them during the
war with Japan?”
“Some local Indians started a branch of the Indian Independence League in the middle of
1942,” Mr. Gupta replied. “The members of the Indian Independence League collaborated with
the Japanese during the war because they wanted the Japanese to win. Over a hundred and
eighty local Indians volunteered to join the Indian National Army and help the Japanese. The
Indian National Army fought against the British in Burma and eastern India. They were secondrate troops and the Japanese never trusted them. They were never much use to the Japanese,
really.”
“What happened to the members of the Indian Independence League after the war, Mr. Gupta?”
Albert asked. “Did the local people forget everything quickly?”
“No, they didn’t,” Mr. Gupta replied. Angry local people beat many of the Indian collaborators
and police informers. The Allies later deported an Indian called Chakraverty because he was a
notorious collaborator. Some Indians went and stayed in Kuching prison because they needed
protection from the local people.”
“People did forgive and forget about the wartime collaboration eventually, didn’t they?” Maria
asked.
“Yes, eventually they forgave and forgot. Soon the Indians began to play an active part in postwar Sarawak. Dr. Sockalingam became the first speaker of the Council Negeri and we were all
very proud of him. Nobody remembers the Japanese war now.”
“There are a lot of Malaysian Indians in the medical profession, aren’t there?” Maria asked.
“Yes, there are. Everyone knows Indians who work in education, health, law and
administration. We were small traders and police officers during the Brooke period and in the
British colonial time. Now we’re working as restaurant owners and there are some prominent
Indian sportsmen and sportswomen here in Sarawak. There are Indians in the medical
profession and the legal profession here, not only in the police and the prison service. Local
Indians are also active in non-government organisation work and social service projects. We
have our own association, too, the Indian Association of Kuching.”
“Are the Sarawak Indians like the Semenanjung Indians?” Maria asked Mr. Gupta.
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“In some ways, yes,” Mr. Gupta said. “The big difference is that many of the Tamil Indians in
peninsular Malaysia are among the poorest Malaysians. Indians are over-represented in youth
custody and among the desperately poor. On the other hand, they’re also over-represented
among doctors, nurses and teachers. There are rural areas in Semenanjung with large numbers
of Indians and areas with none. Here in Sarawak most Indians live in Kuching and have access
to education. ”
“The Indians in Sarawak are one of those small communities with surprising influence,” Maria
said thoughtfully.
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28. Joining the Police
Albert was visiting his parents in Kuching and met a family friend.
“I’m a newspaper reporter now,” Lester told Albert. “Do you want to come with me today? I’m
going to cover two stories and write about them for my newspaper.”
“Yes, I want to come with you. Where are you going?” Albert asked.
“I want to talk to young men who are thinking about joining the police. Today is the day of the
walk-in interviews for people who want to join the police.”
Albert went to the police headquarters in Lester’s car. He listened as Lester asked questions.
“Why do you want to join the police?” Lester asked one muscular young man.
“I want to serve my country. I know the starting salary is modest but the police force offers a
good career,” the young man answered. Lester used a small tape-recorder to record questions
and answers.
“Using a tape recorder is easier and more accurate than using a notebook,” Lester told Albert.
He interviewed the muscular young man for about five minutes. Then he interviewed a senior
police officer.
“Recruits must qualify physically and mentally. We always have plenty of applicants but isn’t
easy to qualify,” the police officer told Lester.
“What are the minimum requirements?” Lester asked the policeman.
“Completion of at least Form Five, of course. Male applicants must be one hundred and sixtytwo centimetres tall and have a thirty-three inch chest. A doctor examines the applicant, and
then he’s interviewed. Then there’s a second screening. After that there’s a six-month training
course. Out of over a thousand applicants last year we found eighty were acceptable. That’s
only about six percent. Only about forty eventually decided to join the police and completed
their training. The training lasts six months and it’s quite demanding.”
“What do you say to applicants who aren’t successful?” Lester asked the senior police officer.
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“We usually tell them to take a lot of heavy exercise, eat plenty of good food and come to see us
again later. We tell them to run and lift weights to qualify. We interview candidates four times a
year.”
“Who are most of your applicants?” Lester asked the policeman.
“Most of the applicants are Malay. The police force needs more Iban and Chinese recruits. Most
of the really ambitious criminals in Sarawak are Chinese. We need recruits who can speak
Mandarin and various Chinese dialects. Organised crime is probably our most important
concern,” the policeman said.
“What sort of crimes do career criminals commit?” Lester asked the policeman.
“Their favourite crime is robbing goldsmiths’ shops in smash-and-grab raids. They usually have
parangs and shotguns because handguns are very expensive here. Smash-and-grab robbers work
very quickly. A successful robbery of a goldsmith’s shop or a bank robbery is every career
criminal’s real ambition.”
“Is arresting career criminals very dangerous?” Lester asked.
“Yes, it is. They’re armed and dangerous. When we went to one gangster’s hideout in Miri, we
shot him and his rottweiler. He was the leader of a gang of six criminals who robbed four
security guards of over two hundred thousand ringgits in cash. They also shot one guard. They
also took two hundred thousand ringgits from a money changer on a quiet side street in Kuching
and a hundred thousand ringgits in gold from a goldsmith.”
“You said the gang was armed. What kind of guns did they have?” asked Lester.
“We found a nine millimetre pistol and an M-16 assault rifle as well as radio equipment and
samurai swords. We also found some ski masks and stolen gold weighing over two kilograms.”
“I understand why you need Chinese recruits,” Lester said. “Who else do you need in the
police?”
“We need more young Kenyah and Kayan in the police force,” said the policeman.
“Do you have Kenyah and Kayan recruits applying to join the police?”
“We do. In fact, we need police officers from every ethno-cultural group in Sarawak, including
the Penan. Sometimes a person feels more comfortable telling something to a police officer that
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can speak his or her own language. Sometimes longhouse people want to serve pork and tuak to
police officers. Muslims mustn’t eat pork or drink tuak but Iban and Orang Ulu officers can. We
need officers who can talk to Kelabit people, Penan people and everyone else.”
“I heard that sometimes people from over the border have forged Malaysian identity cards,”
Albert said. “Is that true?”
“Yes, it is,” the police officer replied. “We once caught a man with a Malaysian identity card
who claimed he was from Enkilili in Sarawak but we knew that he wasn’t because of his accent.
We asked him to say sekarang and he pronounced it like an Indonesian does. Then we were
sure that he was an Indonesian, not a man from Sarawak.”
“What’s the most difficult part of your job as police officers?” Albert asked.
“Sometimes our work is easy and at other times it’s difficult. We have to deal with organised
crime in towns and cities. We also deal with illegal logging, illegal gambling, juvenile
delinquency and the trade in stolen cars. Then there are the along, the illegal moneylenders and
loan sharks. There are grave robbers, too. They are unscrupulous criminals who break into
graves in the hope of finding jewellery or other valuables.”
“You work with other State agencies, don’t you?” Lester asked the officer.
“Yes, we do. For example, we work with the Security and Asset Protection Unit of Sarawak
Forestry Corporation. In one year we found seven thousand illegally cut logs. We seized over
three thousand mangrove poles worth fourteen thousand ringgits in Sarikei. Once we raided a
sawmill in Batang Igan near Sibu and seized over five hundred illegal logs.”
“That’s a lot of logs!” said Lester. He was trying to think of five hundred logs in a big pile.
“Yes, it was over a hundred and fifty tons of logs. In the same raid we seized two forklifts, two
excavators, thirteen saws and two generators. It was a very big operation,” the police officer
replied.
“It was probably a very expensive loss for the man running the operation,” Lester said.
“Yes, it was a big loss for him and I’m sure he’s very unhappy. Now we can use Random
Amplified Polymorphic DNA sampling to match stolen logs to the exact tree stumps. The
material we confiscated from the illegal sawmill was estimated at over four hundred thousand
ringgits. We recently seized fifteen kilograms of valuable gaharu wood and some live animals,
too.”
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“What sort of animals are they?”
“Sometimes pythons, macaques, spotted doves, soft-shelled turtles and monitor lizards. Once
we found sixty-nine live crocodiles in an illegal crocodile farm near Bau.”
Albert was astonished to hear this and joined the conversation.
“Why was someone keeping crocodiles illegally?” he asked the policeman.
“The meat sells for twenty ringgits or more a kilogram and the skins are valuable, too. We don’t
often find people with live crocodiles. However, in one year we caught people with over five
hundred kilograms of wild pig meat. We also caught people with over a thousand turtle eggs for
sale.”
“That’s true,” another officer said. “Last year we caught people with porcupine meat, monitor
lizard meat, Arowana fish and primate meat.”
“Primate meat is monkey meat isn’t it?” Maria asked. “I can’t imagine eating monkey flesh.”
“That’s right, Maria. Monkeys and orang-utans are primates. Monkeys are protected species
here, like turtles, rhinoceri and pythons. We need to protect Sarawak’s wildlife for future
generations. People who kill totally protected animals can go to prison for two years.”
“It sounds an enjoyable and exciting job,” said Albert.
“Sometimes it is. We don’t enjoy everything we do. We have to stop illegal cock-fighting and
gambling, but we know some people in the ulu enjoy both” the policeman said. “The police
must uphold the law.”
“What happens to people if the police catch them cock-fighting?” Albert asked.
“We charge them and they go to court. It’s an offence under Section 3(1) Prevention of Cruelty
to Domestic Animals (Cockfighting) Regulation of 1962 and it’s punishable under Section 5(3).
Usually the magistrate fines them five hundred ringgits with the option of six weeks in jail. A
magistrate in Miri sent thirteen men to jail for two days and fined each of them two hundred
ringgits. Some of the men were still in their teens; the oldest was seventy-four.”
“The police permit cockfighting sometimes, don’t they?” Albert asked.
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Yes, it’s different during Dayak Gawai because cockfighting during Dayak Gawai is part of the
culture here. People in longhouses apply to the police for a license and get one there’s no
problem.”
“You need recruits,” Lester said. “What else you need most?”
“In Sarawak we need over four hundred extra officers. We also need modern equipment, like a
police launch for the station in Kapit. We need police patrol boats on rivers like the Rejang and
the Baram because sometimes we need to go to longhouses and logging camps quickly.”
The policeman looked at Albert carefully.
“You’re the boy who helped the police near Lubok Antu, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” Albert replied. “I enjoyed helping the police that day. It was very exciting.”
“Catching vehicle smugglers is a big part of our job now. In just one year we arrested eighty
people. Now we have officers checking the roads and tracks between Pakan and Nanga Badau
in Kalimantan. It takes only twenty minutes from Lubok Antu to Nanga Badau on oil palm
plantation roads. It isn’t easy to catch every smuggled car because there are over sixteen trails.”
“Who steals and smuggles the vehicles?” Lester asked the officer.
“There are syndicates in Bau, Lubok Antu and Kuching. They specialise in theft of four-wheeldrive vehicles and even motorcycles. We know they pay drivers about two thousand ringgits to
drive the stolen vehicles over the border. It sounds a lot but the driver has a chance of being
caught and maybe going to prison.”
“That’s too big a risk for anyone,” said Albert seriously. “It’s stupid to risk becoming a
criminal.”
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29 The New Longhouse
Albert and Maria were sitting in front of their longhouse and revising for a school test.
“Name the rivers of Sarawak, Albert,” Maria said. “There are twenty-one major river basins.
Can you tell me their names?”
“Of course I can. That’s easy, Maria,” Albert replied. “The Rejang and the Baram are the two
biggest rivers. The Limbang, Lawas and Trusan are in the east of the State, near Sabah. The
rivers between the mouth of the Rejang and Brunei are the Oya, the Mukah, the Balingian, the
Tatau, the Kemena, the Similajau, the Suai, the Niah and the Sibuti.”
Albert paused; he was thinking hard.
“There are another seven west of the Rejang, Albert,” Maria said. “Can you remember them?”
“Yes, I can. Saribas, Krian, Lupar, Samarahan, Sadong, Kayan and Sungai Sarawak.”
“Very good, Albert. Now you test me on the States of Malaysia.”
They were interrupted. Serit and Gading called Albert and Maria to come and sit down.
“Do you two remember the longhouse fire a year ago?” Gading asked.
“We’re going to visit the new longhouse. You’ll come with us, won’t you?”
The children were happy to hear this. A few days later they were in the same longboat and
going up the same small river with Serit, Gading, Silat and Bejau. Three hornbills flew
overhead. They rounded a bend and Silat and Serit steering the boat between the rocks
carefully.
“This is where the boat overturned!” shouted Albert. “I remember grabbing Maria’s collar here.
Do you remember, Maria?”
“I didn’t really need your help, Albert,” Maria replied. “I can swim better than you can.”
A few minutes later Silat and Serit moored the boat at a new landing stage. The new longhouse
was opposite the remains of the old one.
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“I’m surprised,” Albert said. “The new longhouse is on the opposite bank.”
“Yes, everyone decided that was the best idea,” said Gading. “People felt it was unlucky to
build again in the same place. The local people rebuilt Song on the opposite side of the Rejang
after the war with Japan.”
The four adults and two children stood on the new landing stage and looked up towards the new
longhouse. Soon they were inside and talking with their distant cousins.
“Your new longhouse looks beautiful!” said Maria. “It’s so clean and so light, too.”
“Yes, we’re very happy with our new longhouse. We’re very proud of it, too. It has tiled
kitchens and bathrooms with flush toilets. We also have SESCO electric power 24 hours a day,
too. The power station uses hundreds of litres of diesel fuel a month and bringing the diesel fuel
here is expensive. Now some people in the longhouse are talking about raising the money to
build a small hydro-electric power plant.”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” said Maria. “I saw a programme about small-scale hydro-electric
power on television.”
“Yes, some people say that a small hydro-electric power plant is a very good idea. Other people
say it’s too expensive. The same kind of small power station at Long Lawen cost nearly a
quarter of a million ringgits.”
Albert looked out of the window and pointed.
“You have a lot of chickens here,” he said. “I didn’t see so many in the old longhouse.”
“Yes, we’re raising chickens for their meat and eggs here. The eggs we eat here taste better than
the eggs coming from Sibu because they’re so fresh. We have fifty muscovy ducklings, too. A
few longhouse children are responsible for that project.”
“The chickens are in open yards not in cramped sheds,” said Maria. “Whose idea was that?”
“Some people thought we needed to try a few different systems. The free-range chickens take
longer to grow to maturity but their meat tastes better. The free-range chickens sell for higher
prices, too. Sometimes pythons and eagles come and try to steal them but that doesn’t happen
very often.”
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Albert and Maria went for a walk with their cousins. Their cousins were proud to point to
everything new and explain everything to Maria and Albert.
“We’re raising tilapia in new concrete tanks. Later, we’ll make some big ponds and raise tilapia
and ducks together.”
“Is that possible?” Maria asked. “Won’t the ducks eat the tilapia?”
“The tilapia are safe from the ducks if the ponds are more than two metres deep. The tilapia get
about twenty percent of their food from the duck excreta.”
“How do you know all this?” Albert asked. “Are you reading lots of books and pamphlets about
ducks and tilapia?”
“Yes, we’re reading, listening and learning all the time now. The fire changed our thinking in
many ways. Soon after the fire, people came here from the Agriculture Department. Everyone
listened to them carefully. We asked a lot of questions later and everyone learned a lot from
them.”
Maria looked round and suddenly noticed something.
“There are very few dogs here. Your old longhouse had dozens of filthy snapping dogs,” she
said.
Her cousins began to laugh loudly when they heard this.
“You’re right, Maria. There are no more filthy longhouse dogs here now. That wasn’t an easy
decision. People argued about it for days. Eventually the adults decided that there would be no
dogs in the longhouse.”
“But you’re keeping your other traditions, aren’t you?” Albert asked. “You’ll have Gawai
Dayak with cockfighting and tuak, won’t you?”
“Yes, we’re keeping our best traditions and discarding some other traditions. There are no
trophy heads in this longhouse. We’ll have Gawai Dayak with ceremonial cockfighting but
without betting. We needed to make new costumes because the old ones burned in the old
longhouse. We’ll have plenty of dancing. Our longhouse has over thirty fighting cocks.”
“Do you have cockfights here?” Albert asked. “I want to breed fighting cocks when I’m older.”
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“Of course we have cockfights at festival times. We’ll have big noisy festivals. There will be
plenty to eat and drink. Some of the younger men will hold cockfights. Our parents and our big
brothers and sisters will drink tuak and sing songs.”
“Will you have Iban karaoke songs, too?” Maria asked. “I love Iban karaoke.”
“That’s right. The amateur singers in this longhouse are practicing now. We’ll sing all those
heartbreaking romantic Iban songs that make us sentimentally sad. And we’ll have wonderful
festivals here, too. We’ll celebrate Christmas and Hari Raya and all the other Festivals.”
Bejau joined the conversation and pointed to a young woman who was stitching Iban
ceremonial clothes.
“That’s Anna, a distant cousin of yours. She’s studying hotel management in Kuching. Right
now she’s working in the Pelagus Resort for six weeks. She’s learning to speak English very
well. A lot of things changed in this longhouse after the fire.”
“The old longhouse burned and everyone’s thinking changed for the better after the fire, too.”
Maria said later.
“Yes, sometimes things happen for the better in strange ways.”
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30 Talking about the Future
“What do you want to do when you are older, Maria?” Albert asked his cousin one day. They
were sitting in front of their school with Jeremy Tong and Mr. Ibrahim.
“I’m still not sure. I want to be a nurse if I can’t be a doctor but I’d much rather be a doctor,”
Maria replied. “Doctors have higher status and higher salaries than nurses,” Maria replied. “I
hope I’m smart enough to become a doctor. What do you want to be, Albert?”
“I’m not sure,” Albert replied. “Sometimes I think I want to be a teacher. My friend wants to be
a teacher or a social worker.”
“What does a social worker do?” Maria asked her uncle.
“A social worker helps people who need help,” Jeremy Tong explained. “In Sarawak there are
over four thousand people receiving assistance from social welfare. Men from ulu communities
go on bejalai but sometimes they aren’t able to support their families for one reason or another.
Almost every longhouse has a few abandoned mothers. There are over three thousand single
mothers in Sarawak. Some of them are very poor and social workers try to help them. Social
workers try to help other people with low incomes, too. There are nearly eighty thousand
children in Sarawak schools who are from poor families; most of those children now receive
after-hours tuition in Bahasa Melayu, English and Mathematics and Science. Social workers
help elderly and sick people as well as disabled people and victims of disasters. Do you
remember the night of the longhouse fire?”
“Yes, I certainly do,” Maria replied. “I’ll never forget it.”
“That’s a good example, Maria. The social workers were on the scene to offer assistance very
soon after the fire, weren’t they?”
“They were,” Maria replied. “Better still, they gave a lot of very useful practical advice to the
fire victims. Would you like to have a job like that?”
“Perhaps, but there are many other jobs that people need to do. Not all of them are professional
jobs, either. Sarawak needs people who can repair outboard engines and chainsaws as well as
lawyers and civil servants.”
“That’s right,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “Academic qualifications are necessary for some jobs but not
for others. The ideal job combines both theory and practice. I was thinking about Long Lawen
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and the power plant there. Doing that kind of useful and skilled work would be interesting and
very helpful to ulu people. A lot of ulu communities need to build small dams and install small
hydroelectric power units. The problem is that the unit cost is still very high compared to a
diesel power equivalent.”
“That’s true, but a diesel generator needs diesel fuel every day,” Jeremy Tong replied. “A
hydropower generator needs supervision and maintenance but it doesn’t need fuel because it
uses water power. The real problem with small-scale hydropower is the unit cost. There are still
very few of small-scale hydropower generators, so the unit cost is high. It’s like anything new.
The first telephones, cars and televisions were very expensive; only very rich people could
afford them. If Malaysian companies start producing a large number of hydropower generators,
the unit cost will come down and then every ulu community can have cheap and clean power.”
“We’re lucky to live here in Sarawak, aren’t we?” Maria asked. “Sarawak is so green and clean
and still very unspoiled. We have a beautiful state capital with a unique Cat Museum and lovely
fresh seafood. There are colleges and universities in a lot of towns now, not just in Kuching.”
“Yes,” Jeremy Tong said. “I think everyone’s in Sarawak is better off than their parents were.”
“Living in a changing Sarawak isn’t always easy, is it?” Maria asked her listeners. “Some of
people who had to move to new homes at Batang Ai and Sungai Asap weren’t very happy at
first but their standard of living is higher now than it was.”
“Yes, and the Penan in ulu Baram are benefitting from eco-tourism,” Mr. Ibrahim replied.
“They are able to manage their own culture as custodians of the forest and help to preserve the
flora and fauna of the area.”
“Yes, that’s especially good because Sarawak has a unique heritage,” Jeremy Tong said. “Did
you know that Sarawak has over ten thousand species of insects, over a hundred and sixty
species of lizards and nearly a thousand kinds of orchids?”
“Yes, I did,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “Most of the insect species in Sarawak either stung me or drank
my blood at one time or another. Everyone hates biting and stinging insects, don’t they? Insects
and other living things are interesting, of course. Some of the rarities of Sarawak have very
small habitat. There’s one kind of lizard that only lives near cave mouths in Niah. It doesn’t live
anywhere else. Perhaps a career in bio-tourism would be a good idea. It is probably a very
interesting job.”
“Yes, a career in bio-tourism would certainly be interesting,” Maria said. “There are so many
things people need to do here in the future. For example, Sarawak has four million hectares of
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land suitable for agriculture, but fewer than half a million hectares are used at present. There’s
an excellent market here for fruit; idle land can grow oranges and pomelos and a lot of other
things, too.”
“Maybe I’ll think about a career in tourism,” Albert said. “Sarawak nearly a quarter of a million
foreign tourists annually. Maybe I’ll change my mind and try to become an engineer. Someone
on television said that Sarawak will need ten thousand engineers and technicians for pulp and
paper industries and the aluminum and biotechnology industries in the next ten to fifteen years.”
“You could both become researchers,” Jeremy Tong said. “There’s so much research waiting to
be done. There’s so much to do and so little time. I was listening to someone on television
talking about social and cultural anthropology and I thought it sounded very interesting. There
are some small Orang Ulu groups who haven’t told anyone about their cultural history or their
beliefs yet. I’m thinking about people like the Sihan; there are fewer than a hundred of them.
There are fewer than a thousand Lahanan and the same is true of the Ukit, Kejaman, Sekapan
and Bukitan.”
“What does a cultural anthropologist do?” Maria asked.
“He or she goes and stays with a community for months or maybe even years and writes down
their stories and myths while there are still people who remember them,” Jeremy Tong replied.
“It sounds interesting but is there a career in it?” Mr. Ibrahim asked. “Getting funding is always
a problem for a researcher. Some people at American and Australian universities know much
more about the Orang Ulu communities in Sarawak than most people here in Sarawak do.”
“I’d like to do research on how communities change,” Maria said thoughtfully. “For example, I
heard that within living memory many of the Lun Bawang were drunk four of five days every
week. They ruled their lives by the calls and the flight patterns of omen birds, dreams and
visions. I think that the Kelabit were much the same. Now the Lun Bawang and Kelabit are
among most advanced communities in Sarawak. Both communities include young men and
women who are teachers, lawyers, dentists, doctors and medical specialists as well as engineers,
architects and successful businesspeople.”
“I was talking to an environmental scientist recently,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “He told me that the
lake of Loagan Bunut is silting because of land clearance and logging. Twenty years ago it was
beautifully clear. We need to safeguard our natural heritage and also become more a more
prosperous society. It’s difficult to combine both but we have to do it.”
THE
END
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