Even as Sarawak enjoys more than 50 years of modernisation and development, it’s always exciting and rewarding writing about the last generation of Borneo’s proud Penan nomads.
Thirty years ago I first made a pledge to a nomadic Penan youth named Gerawat Megud that I would tell the story of his people–people of the Ba Magoh watershed living in the Baram district.
I first met Gerawat, a nomadic Penan in 1986 at a time when his illiterate countrymen were considered “unteachable” by their more advanced native neighbours–the Orang Ulu.
Gerawat was then a 19-year-old follower of his uncle Agan Polisi Jeluan, older brother to his father Megud Jeluan, one of the most radicalised groups of nomads in the Tutoh-Magoh watershed.
Even as discriminated against as he was and opposed to some suggestions that the Penan are happy to be cut off from the rest of the world, deep in his heart Gerawat and his people had always wanted their families to enjoy the fruits of progress.
The Penan lived in peaceful bliss, until the loggers went deep into their homelands in the Baram.
It was through the influence and intervention of writers such as myself that romanticised their lifestyle and publicised their plight that the Penan became the cause celebre of Sarawak.
My personal interest in the community started when I went on a newspaper assignment to write about a tribe the world knew little about, led by a Gerawat’s uncle, the belligerent old chief Agan Pelisi Jeluan whose jungle home was being denuded by loggers in the Upper Seridan area of the Baram.
Ten years later in 1996 Radio Television Malaysia (RTM) producer Abang Sulaiman Abang Joh and I produced a documentary on the plight of Agan and his extended family near Long Seridan.
We learnt that there were at least 500 nomadic Penan from 11 nomadic groups who were left far behind when compared to their distant cousins comprising 6,000 semi-settled Penan in the Baram district.
At a meeting with Agan at Ba Lesuan, the last of the great nomadic chiefs, we were joined by nomads from other groups from Long Leng, Long Melamun and Ba Puak.
Agan, who was then in his late 60s said that as the loggers and their bulldozers had frightened away most the animals and destroyed their forests, his people had to walk for longer distances to search for food.
He did not want to move out of the Tutoh-Magoh-Seridan area even though it had been depleted of wild sago due to logging activities, because it was his ancestral home-or his “Tong Tana”.
Agan said: “We were told that if we moved to a settlement, we will lose all our land to the timber company.”
According to recorded Penan history, the post-Brooke Colonial government had first sent a message to the estimated 1,800 nomadic Penan to meet government officers at Long Terawan, near Mulu and not far from Long Seridan.
Among those who attended the meeting were Siden Jemilek and Balan Wee. Balan and Siden told me they met “at least 20 tuan” (whitemen) who gave them food, medicines and tobacco.
They also gave the nomads 10 shotguns and cartridges.
One of the first Europeans who tried to get the Ba Magoh nomads to settle down in 1948 was a personal friend British District Officer Captain Dudley Morgan.
Morgan, who was accompanied by three Sarawak officers, Datuk Zin Gallau, Wan Ali and Chan Choon Kheay, said that in those days, the Penan were very suspicious of all outsiders: “We waited for about half an hour and about 20 Punan (Penan) men appeared silently from the jungle, some armed with parangs and blowpipe spears (blowpipes)… we moved slowly towards them.
Datuk Gallau cautioned me not to make any sudden movement or noise. I walked up to them, sat down, offered some bread and then started up the gramophone,” he said.
He added: “I saw many Punans (Penan) were suffering from yaws, a horrendous disease which eats away flesh. In the case of several young persons, the flesh on their thigh or arm was so deeply eroded you could see the bone… We had a miracle drug administered… and they were cured within a few months. We also distributed anti-malaria drugs, atabrin and paludrine.”
By 19670 with visits by the Sarawak medical and health teams, their health had improved. An official memorandum from the Baram District Office to the Resident, dated July 7, 1960, stated:
“There is no doubt that the nomadic Penan are fitter and probably happier that those who have settled, but it is not an easy task to find food and other produce for sale in the jungle and settlement will have to come sooner or later.”
Despite the high rate of mortality through the introduction of “foreign diseases” such as Cholera and Smallpox and later “rat disease” (leptospirosis) that ravaged a great number of natives in
Sarawak, the Ba Magoh tribe survived as they began to seek treatment at rural clinics, such as Long Seridan.
When the Christian missionaries began to reach out to the Nomads, the practice of incest was slowly eradicated.
For example Agan’s daughter Mary Agan (from his second wife Supang Sega), was married to her nephew, Leo, the son of another of Agan’s daughters Ulang Agan (from his first wife Seling Usai).
In fact most of the 11 nomadic groups inter-married over the past three to four decades, leading to the question of whether in-breeding was the cause for learning disability among some Penan.
The mortality rate of infants who were previously born in the jungle–the Penan have a custom where new-born babies are delivered by the male members of the woman’s husband – also fell.
In the old days shy nomads prefered to stay in the jungle because they felt shunned by society.
Agan’s tribesmen complained they felt discriminated against by their own native countrymen particularly the settled “Orang Ulu” (up-river tribes).
In one of the cases, several Penan children from his group refused to attend school after being disciplined by two teachers – a Kayan and a Lun Bawang.
With unfriendly loggersbull-dozing their way into the Penan heartland, the nomads were not convinced that the government was serious about helpingto lift the community out of the poverty trap.
More so because nearly all the nomads did not have birth certificates or identity cards, and as such were not registered voters!
The Penan parents and children refused to put up with the ridicule because of their poor hygiene; many wore disheveled clothing, rarely bathed while most of the children had lice in their hair.
Because of their ignorance of the ways of the world, the nomads preferred to be left alone.
Typically, Agan said: “Our needs are not much. As for me and my wife, there is no need to seek medical treatment because if we die, then we die – we must all die one day or another.”
But some of Agan’s followers such as his distant cousin Amat Kusin,now in his early 70s, and nephew Gerawat Megud, 50, moved to be nearer to Long Seridan.
Amat Kusin sent two of his children to study at Long Seridan but Matius dropped out in Primary Two and Rikan in Primary Three.
In a major registration exercise in the 1990s, Amat Kusin and Garawet were fortunate to have obtained Birth Certificates and Identity Cards (ICs).
Three nomadic old-timers in their 70s – Sudu Kajan, Siden Jemilek and Balan Wee refused to settle in camp even though logging has also destroyed much of their “uvud” (wild sago) which is their staple diet.
“If there was a way to grow sago commercially or to provide the nomads with sago flour, this would have probably encouraged people to settle temporarily. Eventually our people know how to grow rice and then they will stay in one place,” added Amat.
At the turn of the 21st century, my far-sighted friend Gerawat,50, learnt how to grow padi from the Kelabit .
“The Kelabit were kind enough to allow my family to grow padi on their ancestral land and since then we have been consuming rice instead of sago flour,” said Gerawat, a father of six, all of who have birth certificates but no ICs.
The nomads who are staunch followers of the Borneo Evangelical Mission (BEM) believe that good religious values can help change their lives.
“We are Christians (from the charismatic Borneo Evangelical Mission or Sidang Injil Borneo) but only a few of us can read. And those who can read don’t have money to buy bibles (the red Penan bible Rengah Jian or Good News was translated into Penan in the 1960s) or guitars to play worship songs,” added Gerawat.
Most Penan who still live off the jungle have asked for shotguns so that they could hunt for food.
“We have to compete with the loggers who have guns and hunt for sport or trade and frighten away the animals. Our blowpipes are just no good in this day and age. If we are lucky, we find some source of meat once every few days, but only small game. It is not easy to bag a rusa (Sambar Deer) -if you can find any.”
Penan in the Long Seridan vicinity have appealed to the authorities to allocate them with State land to enable them to be legitimate land owners.
“If we had our own and not be servants to the other races, then many of us will have a sense of self-worth. At present we are like squatters who are totally dependent on the government because our “tong tana”has been logged out.”
Since the 1980s, the Penan have tried to apply for a communal forest, but their appeal has fallen upon deaf ears. In the early 1990s the government approved three areas comprising 478,417ha (or 1.182 million acres) of forests to be converted into “Penan Biosphere Reserves.”
Sadly, the biosphere reserves– Apoh-Tutoh (201,645ha), Ulu Limbang (223,645ha) and Melana protected forests (53,500ha) were subsequently destroyed by illegal logging prompting the previous Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem to stop issuing logging licences.
In 2015 Adenan initiated a crusade to fight illegal logging and corruption in the timber industry and led a team to London to explain the situation in Sarawak and seek the suggestions of some of the environmentalists that were opposed to logging.
Despite the destruction of the Tutoh-Magoh watershed, the Mulu National Park which is open for use to the nomads, is their only hope of hunting and foraging for food.
The transformation of the nomadic Penan to a settled people is still slow and for the last generation of nomads, and it could take another 20 years before they catch up with the others.
By then, the face of the Sarawak hinterland with its dams and high-tech industries would have changed and the story of the Penan nomads would be considered “just a myth”!!!
