Nomadic Tribe in Transition

In the remote Bukit Kida watershed, two days trek east of the Mulu National Park, lives a cluster of about 300 forest nomads whose lives are being transformed by modernisation.

Known as the Penan, many of these people who have Mongolian type features, were once referred to by Europeans as wild hunter gatherers who could not differentiate between night and day or count beyond 10.

At the turn of the 20th century there were a handful of nomadic hunter-gatherers distributed in small pockets in Brunei, Kalimantan and Sarawak who eked a living through living off the jungle.

In the 1950s as the Sarawak interior began to open up under the British colonial government, the Penan from  Belaga district decided to settle permanently and were taught by the Kayan, Kenyah and Kajang communities how to grow padi. 

However, their cousins from the neighbouring Baram district who were “True Nomads” and hunter-gatherers, continued to live off the land—eating sago palm, their staple food, wild meat and jungle produce.

When Malaysia was formed in 1963, there was less than 3,000 Penan in Sarawak. But in the 1980s, the total Penan population of Baram, Belaga and Bintulu rose to 7,621.

By 2006 their population had doubled to 15,485 (Bibi Aminah Abdul Ghani, Terry Justin Dit and Mawi Taib in “People of the Forest” making them among the seven largest native communities in the State after the Iban, Bidayuh, Kayan, Kenyah, Lun Bawang and Kelabit.

Despite their large numbers, they continued to be poor and backward and a misunderstood community.

But change had caught up with the Penan with the establishment of more schools.

However, the handful of 300-odd Baram nomads namely from watersheds such as Ba Magoh, Long Melamun, Ba Lesuan, Batu Lulau, Ulu Tutoh, Long Kidah, Kubaan and Long Adang in Limbang, remained illiterates who lived a hand-to-mouth existence as they struggled to cope with the changing world.

But one Penan nomad Gerawat Megud from Ba Magoh decided to break from tradition of his 78-member group to settle near the Long Seridan government outpost.

To share with the process of this change, New Sarawak Tribune sent 67-year-old veteran journalist James Ritchie to visit Gerawat at his new settlement at the fringe of Long Seridan–a Kelabit settlement.

Part 1: 

Last of the Ba Magoh  Penan

It’s experience of a lifetime sharing the pain and difficulties of any tribal community trying to take on the challenges of modernisation.

So it was a great honour when invited to stay with a small nomadic Penan family in the remote jungles of Baram; to listen to their tale of woe and how they have been trying to keep abreast with the rest of the world.

I met my first nomadic Penan friend Gerawat Megud in September 1986 during the start of a series of anti-logging blockades in the Baram. Gerawat and his “tribe” were part of a syndicate, sworn to protect their forests and a Swiss environmentalist Bruno Manser who had been living with them since 1984.

In 1996 and 2009 I co-ordinated the production of two documentary films on the Ba Magoh Penan under their old chief Agan Polisi Jeluan and later his successor, Sayak Megud.

Last month I heard that Gerawat was in Marudi to visit his two school-going children and had asked for my help because he did not have enough money to return.

It was then that I made an appointment through Marudi Penan volunteer Catherine Lajo, to visit Gerawat whom I heard had settled in the fringes of Long Seridan, next to a Kelabit community of about 350 which was sympathetic to the Penan cause.

The Christian community had kindly invited Gerawat and his family to build his settlement and grow padi for their needs.

To share with Gerawat’s experience, I invited two old friends–Datuk L.C. Soon, a retired Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) Brigadier General who was Commander-in-chief of the RMAF in East Malaysia until the early 1990s and founder and owner of Borneo Exploration Chris Kon, to sample the life of the forest nomads.

On July 5, Chris and I flew into Miri from Kuching while Soon arrived from Kuala Lumpur at almost the same time. After a night stop, we took the early morning MASwings Twin Otter flight to our destination– Long Seridan.

General Soon, 76, was an old hand in Sarawak. During Confrontation days of the early 1960s, he landed his Twin Pioneer at all the major remote rural highland airstrips such as Bario, Long Bangga, Ba Kelalan and Long Semado except for Long Seridan.

The short Long Seridan airstrip had been built in the 1950s by the Borneo Evangelical Mission (BEM) for small aircraft to establish a church and start a school.

Long Seridan is an old Kelabit village with two longhouse communities of about 350 people which comprises the original village called “Seridan Asal” next to the airport and “Rumah Panjang” Buyo built on a hill behind. Both longhouses had a total of 50 families.

So on a misty Thursday morning, we flew over the Baram hinterland for this remote village which had just undergone two tragic fires–the razing of the village medical clinic and the nine-family Seridan Asal, the main longhouse where the headman Lagang Ipong, 70, lived.

As we flew into the hinterland from Miri, my friends sampled an aerial view of dramatic proportions; from the coast with its city of modern housing estates, old shop lots, bungalows, high-rise buildings and its two golf courses and then over sprawling oil palm estates.

After 35 minutes in the half empty 16-seater piloted by my new Iban friend Captain Michael Pawi and his co-pilot from Kelantan, we entered into the cloud-covered scenic hills–about 10 minutes from Long Seridan.

We had brought haversacks; I was equipped with only a mosquito net–given the fact that Malaria and Dengue was a common occurrence in new settlements–an old air force jacket, a raincoat and several rolls of toilet paper because to the nomadic Penan, the jungle is open toilet.

The Twin Otter roared at it touched down at the short airstrip. On hand to meet us was Gerawat and his second wife Rina, 44,–his first wife Busak and his year-old son had died in a timber vehicle accident in 1987–and almost immediately we started our trek.

My original plan was to stay with retired Kelabit headmaster Willie Wing whom I first interviewed in November 1986. Willie has spent his whole life championing the cause of educating the Penan after a new school was built at Long Seridan in 1981.

However, Gerawat and Rina insisted we follow him back and stay at a small village which he established in 2014, to be near his five children enrolled at the Long Seridan Primary school.

“Berapa lama sampai Kampung Kamu (how long will it take to get to your village),” I asked, and he replied affirmatively “20 minit” or typically “satu batang rokok” (one cigarette away). And with that we were on our way.

More than an hour later after passing through several rocky streams over a muddy and slippery pathway, no thanks to a heavy downpour the night before, we had arrived at the Penan camp at Ba Buang which had a main building and four single unit wooden huts. 

About 20 yards away, Gerawat had built a typical Penan hut for us if we wanted to stay there. But he suggested we moved into the main house to escape the wrath of the mosquito-infested jungle; over the past years the incidence of Malaria and dengue, has been high.

In the early 1980s when logging was encroaching into the Baram, Malaria was rife. In 1986, the Swiss environmentalist came down with the deadliest strain of Malaria called “Plasmodium Falciparum”, spread by a parasite carried by the Anopheles mosquito which caused brain damage.

After we settled in the main house and distributed the clothes, biscuits and other tit bits, it was time to look around. Like most Penan, Gerawat had his pet monkeys including a pig-tailed macaque known as “Medok” to amuse him.

A cockerel and several “Ayam Kampung” (home-raised chickens) roamed the garden, while a batch of them was cage–waiting to be delivered to a Chinese contractor. Village-raised chickens are a far better meat compared to urban mass-produced poultry which is often fattened by anti-biotics and other harmful additives.

It was strange that Gerawat was sending off his “pet” chickens to the cooking pot, because Penan treat their domesticated animals as if they are family!

After a short prayer–Kelabits and Penan are members of the Borneo Evangelical Mission (BEM)-it was time to chat. Squatting in the kitchen section of the house and in a serious demeanor Gerawat broke the news: “I’ve decided to settle in Long Seridan permanently.”

Gerawat’s original plan was to stay until his six children–Jamit, 22, Margaret, 21, Johani, 19, Jonathan, 15, Eliana, 13, and Ira, eight– had completed their studies then move back with his original group at Ba Magoh. However, along the way he had a change of heart.

Since establishing his “new settlement” and with the support of the Kelabits and several business people, things were looking up. If he rejoined the main nomadic group at Ba Magoh, could he re-adapt to Sarawak’s fast changing landscape?

Gerawat also had a plan; being a Penan pioneer of change, he wanted to persuade his older brother Sayak, new paramount chief of the Ba Magoh community and the rest of the 78 followers, to join him and start a new way of life.

Long Seridan was an attractive location for the Penan and other nomadic Penan groups had started to settle in the nearby forests. Four nomadic groups had established separate temporary settlements at Long Ludin, Long Lesuan, Long Meraan and Long Selulong, along the gravel road leading from Miri to Long Seridan.

“Most of our people moved to the Long Seridan vicinity to be nearer to the primary school where our children are being educated,” said Rina, 44, a nomadic Penan who never went to school.

At present 60 of the 80 Long Seridan primary school students are boarders at the school hostel and they enjoy a safe and healthy atmosphere under their diligent Kelabit headmaster Roland Sakai and nine teachers.

Instead of having to undergo a hand-to-mouth existence at their parents temporary homes on the fringes of Long Seridan, they now have three meals a day at the canteen, proper bathing, washing and toilet facilities, are involved in social and sport activities almost every evening.

They only return to the family settlement during festivals but on our trip Gerawat brought his youngest daughter Ira, a primary two student, back to Ba Buang because we had brought enough food to feed the family for a week.

Besides, Ira missed her older sisters Margaret and Johani who had dropped out of school after their primary six examinations.

Gerawat and Rina were hopeful that the sisters would encourage Ira to continue with her studies and emulate two other siblings, Jonathan and Eliana, both studying at the Marudi secondary school.

Jonathan and Eliana were able continue their studies at Marudi–a day’s journey away by a logging road– through the financial assistance of individuals from Brunei and Kuala Lumpur.

“Thanks to these kind hearted people, Jonathan and Eliana have some pocket money to spend on writing material and other essentials while living in Marudi which is now a growing town.

“Once a year I try to raise money to go to Marudi to keep them company and to encourage them to study hard and make something of themselves. The old folk like us never had a chance to go to school, so our hope is in the younger generation,” said Gerawat.

Sadly, despite the establishment of a Special Penan Unit in the Chief Minister’s office in Kuching 20 years ago, it is the concern and financial contributions of well-wishers that have helped some of the desperately poor Penan natives through difficult times.

(To be continued).