To be haunted is to glimpse a truth that might best be hidden.
—– James Herbert, English horror writer
Most pools or lubuk (sometimes spelled lubok) of rivers were named after certain regional terrains, items or happenings/incidents accordingly.
These pertain to river sections or stretches that are in close proximity to dwellings of the Iban community.
The most popular of these is Lubok Antu, which is also the name of a town and a district in the Sri Aman Division with about 42,000 inhabitants. With the name Antu (which means ‘ghost’ in Iban) does not mean it is a ghost town.
In fact it is a thriving centre near the state’s border with Indonesia’s West Kalimantan. I was in town at least three times between 1980 and 2000, the last being on a trip to the Hilton Batang Ai with my family.
Legends have that the pool was named Lubok Antu (literally Ghost Pool) nearby from which the town obtained its name in the past, namely during the warring days of old.
That was when so many dead bodies were seen floating and getting stuck to the banks of the pool and were left there to rot as nobody dared to do anything due to the unsafe circumstances at that time.
That was when the locals there named the pool as Lubok Antu, a name that remains until this day, I was made to understand.
In my own area Saratok, there are a good number of these pools whose names relate to their regional location as well as were given such names due to certain cases or incidents that happened there long time ago — those in discussion with me about some of these lubuk all could not recall clearly about when the naming was done.
For example, the well-known Lubuk Gagam (with no English exact equivalent) located in the upper part of the river slightly after the Krian Bridge, has always been paired with Lubuk Mamut some minutes by longboat farther up. There is no clear tale about why or how the two nearby pools obtained their names but the pairing has always been done based on their renowned crocodile population and sights.
So the local Iban saying goes: “Nyelam Lubuk Gagam, pansut Lubuk Mamut” (literally this means ‘diving at Gagam Pool and going up at Mamut Pool’). This pertains to the description about the people usually sighting the reptiles at the two pools, including one seen in a dream by an elder circa the early 70s.
In his dream, the man (my granduncle Jerampang Saat) was casting his net jala along the banks of Lubuk Gagam. That was when he saw a crocodile whose head was almost as big as the billiard table and whose back was almost as wide as a farm hovel with the kemunting plants (local black berries) growing there.
A man who had cut a few enemy heads during battles, Jerampang stopped his fishing act and kept his cool. It didn’t take long for the reptile to disappear, perhaps going upriver to its counterparts in Lubuk Mamut.
Before he could continue fishing, he was awakened by noises of quarrelling cats. Then he was staying at his farm below our Kedap longhouse. My maternal great-great grandfather Penghulu Bungin Anya’s lumbung grave (unburied coffin and rebuilt in 2003) is a Gagam landmark and is easily visible from the river.
Just below our farm house in upper Melupa, a Krian tributary, there is a pool named Lubuk Moonay. My favourite fishing ground and where I encountered perhaps the biggest fish (a white carp) ever seen in any part of the Melupa basin, Lubok Moonay was formally called Lubok Lalang.
It was renamed Lubok Moonay circa early 1930s. For the record Moonay was the name of a Chinese vendor who was shot dead just slightly above the said pool while paddling downriver from Munggu Embawang longhouse, my dad’s birthplace.
His partner Bak Ho managed to escape by swimming/walking downriver until he reached Kedap longhouse and alerted the men — my dad included — about the shooting. Many went up in their warring gear.
They found Moonay’s lifeless body getting stuck to the bank of Lubuk Lalang while his longboat with some merchandise still intact was also found nearby.
A police report was made by Bak Ho a day later and the cops came soon – the site was about six to seven hours by longboat manned by 25hp engine from town then known as Segatok.
An uncle of mine was arrested but was freed due to lack of evidence — after spending some weeks in the police cell.
Since then the pool has always been referred to as Lubuk Moonay.
Other well-known pools in Melupa also have their own stories to their names as well.
