“ONE that would have the fruit must climb the tree,” wrote Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) of Aldwincle, Northamptonshire, England, one of the wittiest and most prolific authors of the 17th century.
Taken literally, this is so true of rural life, especially in remote farming and hunter-gatherer communities such as those in Sarawak until as recently as the early 1970s, and might still be the case now for folks along the border with Kalimantan, Indonesia.
In these communities, the ability to climb was an essential survival skill. For example, they needed to climb to build a hut or a house, and when they wanted to eat the fruits of a tree, they must climb the tree.
So crucial was tree climbing to their well-being that it was not uncommon for women of marriageable age to think twice about marrying a man who couldn’t climb to feed or save himself and his family.
I have even heard a girl declare that she would not marry her suitor just because he was incapable of climbing trees. Now that I know better, I guess the poor man was suffering from acrophobia, a mental health condition in which the individual experiences an intense fear of heights. Whatever we may say or think about judging a man’s character in such a manner, we must see it in the context of the time when life was physically tough and only the tough got going.
When I was a child, I spent a lot of free time climbing trees. Surely children didn’t need to climb to survive? That’s true, but by climbing they learn various mental and physical skills that can be applied to different situations and various purposes.
My parents neither explicitly prohibited nor permitted their growing-up children (including girls) from climbing trees. They knew that climbing was risky, but they had learned from their forebears and peers, and their own experience, that life was not without risks. Thus, the children were usually allowed within reason to engage in some forms of risky play such as tree climbing.
Throughout the six years (1960 to 1965) that I was in primary school in my village, I saw no real necessity for climbing trees. By the time I was in Primary 5, I had figured that the skills would not be useful in my future life.
This was mainly due to my parents who, in various subtle ways, reminded me from time to time that I was not meant to live in the village like them, but to venture out, get a job and settle down in a town somewhere, and in that way served as an example for my younger siblings.
However, when did necessity or lack of it ever stop people from doing something they liked? Yes, climbing was not necessary for me, but I did it, anyway.
Why? It isn’t very easy to explain. Anything to do with the heart is always complicated. Perhaps it was for the sheer enjoyment of the climb and the new perspective the experience gave me.
Every time I climbed a tree, something inexplicable happened to my heart and mind and I forgot about the world below. From my perch, I looked out over and into the woods and experienced the ecstasy of solitude at the top of the world.
One of the first safety rules that my father taught me about climbing trees was: It’s harder to go down than up. So, every time I climbed, I always estimated how hard it would be to get down. It was a way of avoiding getting stuck up a tree, which would be scary and could be a blow to one’s ego.
In the 1960s, there were several highly climbable trees on a hill on the other side of a mountain stream behind our house. I never learned their proper names though I spent a lot of time climbing a few of them, especially those that had lots of branches.
In my final year (1965) in primary school, when I was 12 years old, I decided to build a little platform in the tallest tree on the summit of the hill.
When one of my cousins, Ratum, heard about it, he tried to discourage me, saying it would be too much work.
“You want to have fun, but too much work is no fun,” he said.
He was right. It would require a lot of climbing to get the building materials up the tree. That, however, did not dampen my spirit because I thought it was doable.
What I did not tell Ratum was, I wanted to be on the platform one fine morning to get an unobstructed view of the sunrise — glorious, golden, sparkling sunlight — flowing out across the forest canopy as far as the eyes could see.
Our village was surrounded by tall trees in a lush tropical jungle, so it was impossible to see a true sunrise. By the time we saw the sun each morning, it was already way above the horizon.
In my imagination, the platform would enable me to see the real sunrise. The more I thought about it the more I became obsessed with the idea.
I have stood on higher elevations before, on our nearby mountain during the fruit season while collecting ripe durians that fell in the night, and I have seen the sunrise from there, but it was obscured by big tall trees and the thick forest canopy. In other words, it was disappointing.
Fortunately for me, the task of climbing the giant tree was made possible by a smaller tree that was leaning against it. The principal fork of one of the big sturdy branches of the smaller tree was pressed against the trunk of its big brother.
From the ground up to the fork (which, by today’s reckoning, was just shy of the height of a three-storey building), the giant had no branches and the base of the trunk was bigger than a Volkswagen Beetle. The smaller tree was, therefore, the only way to reach its lowest branch.
A week went by before Ratum came to check on what I was trying to do. To his credit, he finally came around to my idea and helped as much as he could. It was his idea to tie bamboo poles between the lower and higher branches to serve as footholds and handholds. He explained that while we were good climbers, the poles would help make every climb much safer and faster.
To implement his idea, we had to obtain lots and lots of thin rattan and other suitable vines for tying and made many trips up and down to get the bamboo poles up the tree.
As the weeks went by, we got better and better at what we were doing, especially in solving problems. For example, we built rest stops at suitable heights where we stopped to catch our breath, and to park the bamboo poles and other materials temporarily before moving them upwards.
Without going too much into detail, lest I bore the reader to death, suffice it to say that when we finally completed the platform one late afternoon, we felt a great sense of relief and satisfaction. It was one of the most satisfying moments in my young life. Despite being tired, we tarried just long enough to watch the sunset above the treetops for the first time.
The following weekend, I carried up sago fronds and bamboo strips to fashion a crude thatched roof to protect the bamboo floor from the weather. I made it just high enough to sit under. It rained one day while I was there; it did not leak. That made me happy. And amazingly, it was also strong enough to withstand the wind.
Eventually, I ended up having two platforms. The second one was on a much higher branch and was more of a perch than a proper platform. I needed it to get the much-desired all-around unobstructed view. However, it tended to sway in the wind, making it off-limits during strong winds. As long as the wind was still, it was the best place to enjoy the view.
One fine Saturday morning, I woke up as planned to the second thunderous chorus of cockcrows. Our roosters had the habit of crowing three times after midnight — at 3 am, 5 am and 6 am. There was no way to tell the time of day or night as we had no clock, so I chose the second round of cockcrows.
On the pretext of checking a fish trap in a stream on the far side of the hill to prevent my mother from asking awkward questions, I made my way up to the platform. Even without full daylight, the climb went smoothly .
Just as I imagined, the sun banished the dawn long before its rays appeared on the horizon. As the blazing orb slowly cleared the mountaintops in the distance, it cast its light in all directions, painting the sky in all the colours of the rainbow. Some of the rays seemed to pierce the sky as if they were forcing the darkness to give way to the light.
The breathtaking sight aroused in me a surge of indescribable feelings so strong that I felt pinpricks in my heart. One moment I felt like crying, and then I felt like laughing. I wished Ratum was there, but he was not well.
Somewhere in the village below Bobby Vinton was on the radio singing:
‘Roses are red, my love
Violets are blue
Sugar is sweet, my love
But not as sweet as you.’
I thought it was silly to tell people that roses are red because they are always of that colour. I didn’t know then that roses have other colours.
It also didn’t feel right to compare people to sugar. I licked my sweaty arm; it tasted salty. So, all in all, I thought the song made no sense.
By the time the song ended, the sunrise was over. To make amends to my mother, I did check on my fish trap which required a ten-minute walk. In it were a catfish, a crab and a few prawns. We had a nice lunch that day.
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the New Sarawak Tribune.
