|
Article Excerpt
Introduction
A number of people live adjacent to the Pulong Tau National Park (PTNP): the Lun Bawang to the north, the Kelabit to the east and south, the Sa'ben to the southeast, and the Penan to the west and south. This paper is a general description of the seven groups of Penan, four settled and three semi-settled, found around the Park and looks at Penan historical links to the general Park area and their contemporary way of life. It takes account of their social structure, livelihood, daily activities, and dependence on the forest and its resources. It looks at migration history, contact with outsiders, and relationships with non-Penan neighbors. Penan interactions with, and perceptions of their surroundings as well as their views of the Park are also described. An earlier and slightly different version of this paper was prepared for the International Tropical Timber Organization in Kuching as a source of socio-economic data on the people living adjacent to the Park.
The four settled Penan groups are located at Long Sabai on the Tutoh River and at Long Lobang, Ba' Tik "A," and Ba' Tik "B," on the Nyela, a tributary of the Kubaan which, in turn, is a tributary of the Tutoh. The three semi-settled groups are located at Long Anying (1) on the Tutoh and at Long Tab and Ba' Ba' Medamut on the Kubaan. Information on the seven groups was obtained through interviews in the settlements I visited. I visited Long Sabai on March 28-31, 2007, Long Lobang, Ba' Tik "A,'" and Ba' Tik "B" on April 28-May 2, 2007, and the semi-settled group at Long Anying on July 3-6, 2007. I also visited the same semi-settled group twice in 2008, on April 15-17 and Junel4-17 at their new location of Long Taha, not far downriver from Long Anying. I was not able to visit Long Tah and Ba' Medamut, but information concerning these two communities was obtained through interviews with Penan at Long Lobang, Ba' Tik "A," and Ba' Tik "B."
Early Accounts
Banks (1937:435) mentioned that there used to be Penan on the eastward side of the Tama Abu Range, but that there are none living there today. Another early record that relates to the Penan around the Pulong Tau National Park is found in a short article by Tom Harrisson (1949) published in the Sarawak Museum Journal. In it, he described in some detail the "spiritual and social culture as well as material life" of groups of Penan he called "the Magoh Punans" (1949:134-146). They occupied, at that time, the area between the Kuba'an, an upriver tributary of the Tutoh; and the Malinau, a downriver tributary of the Tutoh (Harrisson 1949:135). Penan elders in the four settlements recognized the names Tama Laje and Agut mentioned in Harrisson's article. According to them, Tama Laje was a well-known Penan leader with the rank of Penghulu, residing on the Malinau River, and Agut was a leader of a nomadic band that foraged along the Tepen River. Agut was perhaps the father of Tabaran Agut, currently the headman of a band of nomadic Penan foraging on the Tepen River. The two named Penan leaders were part of a larger group of Penan roaming the Tutoh and Magoh, whose descendants include the semi-nomadic groups currently residing at Long Anying, Long Tah, and Ba' Medamut. The Penan of Long Sabai, Long Lobang, Ba' Tik "A" and "B" said that they might be the descendants of the groups described by Harrisson.
In 1990, I did a head count of the nomadic Penan in the Magoh area (Langub 1990). With the help of Tabaran Agut of Ba' Tepen and Ubong Magih (f), a former resident of the Kuba'an, who married Galang Ayu of Long Kidah in the Magoh, I recorded the names of members of two groups of Penan in the Kuba'an area. Some of these people still reside there and are listed in this report. For example, Melai Naa was mentioned in 1990 as the headman of the settled Penan of Ba' Tik. He is now the headman of Ba' Tik "A."
In 1992, Peter Brosius conducted three months of research among four groups of nomadic and semi-nomadic Penan east of the Pulong Tan National Park. His observations were first summarized in an interim report submitted to the State Planning Unit in December 1992 and were later published in various academic writings (Brosius 1992c, 1995, 1997, 2006, 2007). His main observation was that the Penan were extremely worried about being surrounded by logging activities which resulted in the destruction of wild sago (the staple food of the nomadic Penan), rattan (their main source of cash income), the disappearance of game (their main source of protein), and the pollution of rivers and streams. Brosius also observed the tendency of groups to fission into smaller groups due to the inability of the surrounding area to provide larger groups with enough food resources (Brosius 1992: 6-7).
In her thesis on hunting patterns and wildlife densities in the upper Baram, Cynthia Chin (2002) has provided some basic information on the community of Long Sabai, such as number of households, population, occupations, and daily activities.
Most of the information contained in this report was obtained from interviews with the headmen of the four settlements and from informal conversations with people, both men and women of different age groups during my visits.
Brief Ethnographic Background on the Penan in Sarawak
There are slightly more than 13,000 Penan in Sarawak. (2) Their population may be divided into Eastern and Western Penan (cf. Needham 1972). (3) The Eastern Penan comprise all of those groups living roughly to the east of the Baram River, that is, along the true right bank of the Baram and in the Limbang Division, while the Western Penan are located around the watershed of the Rejang and along the Silat River (a true left bank tributary of the Baram). There are also Western Penan settlements along the Tin jar River in the Baram District, along the Jelalong River and coastal areas of the Bintulu District, and in the Suai-Niah area of the Miri District. Historically and in terms of dialect, these latter groups are Western Penan.
Although the two groups recognize each other as one people, there are differences between them in terms of dialect, family and group size, and other sociocultural matters (Brosius 1988b:11):
First, the Eastern Penan live in small groups with a range of 20 to 40 members, while the Western Penan live in large groups of 60 to 200 members. Average household size for Eastern Penan is 4 persons while that of Western Penan is 7. Extended families rarely occur among the Eastern Penan, but are more frequent among the Western Penan. Second, the Eastern Penan tend to build their camps on ridge tops, generally at some distance from sources of water, while Western Penan build their camps adjacent to rivers and streams. The Eastern Penan camps are of short duration, occupied from I to 3 weeks, but the Western Penan have a two-tiered settlement system with large, central base camps inhabited for up to I year, and dispersed short-duration sago camps. Third, the Eastern Penan have smaller foraging areas with frequent overlap of areas used by different bands. The Western Penan have large foraging areas with little overlap of areas used by different groups. Fourth, the Eastern rely primarily on blowpipes to hunt a wide range of game species while the Western Penan use dogs and spears, with wild boars being the primary game? Blowpipe hunting is of secondary importance to the Western Penan. Fifth, institutions of leadership are less developed among the Eastern Penan while they are strong, with recognition of aristocratic status for some individuals, among the Western Penan. Sixth, the Eastern Penan have a shallow knowledge of genealogies, whereas the Western Penan have extensive genealogical knowledge, extending to more than seven generations.
The settled groups, by contrast, grow hill rice: they also plant fruit trees and other crops such as tapioca and sugar cane. in the Upper Baram area, a few settled Penan communities have even adopted the irrigated rice farming technology of their Kelabit neighbors, while in the coastal area of Bintulu and Suai-Niah some Penan communities, living in single Malay-style houses, cultivate cash crops such as rubber, pepper, and cocoa. In fact, the Penan of Jambatan Suai have participated in large-scale oil palm plantations. Among all settled Penan, rice has replaced the traditional sago as their staple food.
The Penan are well documented, their principal ethnographers thus far being Rodney Needham in the 1950s and Peter Brosius in the 1980s. Needham (1954a, 1954b; 1959, 1965, 1971, 1972) concentrated his research on Penan social organization and pioneered the study of death names. Brosius (1986, 1988a, 1988b; 1990, 1991, 1992a, 1992b, 1992c; 1993, 1995, 1997, 2006, 2007) has written extensively on historical and cultural topics, as well as on Penan ecological adaptations. He has also written extensively on the significance of death names. A Danish anthropologist, Johannes Nicolaisen (1976a, 1976b; 1978) carried out one year's research among the Penan of Belaga District and published three articles on them before his untimely death. His focus was on their ecological status as gatherers and hunters, their death names, and history.
Both during the colonial era and following the incorporation of Sarawak into the Malaysian Federation, various civil servants have written about the Penan. During the colonial period, these included Tom Harrisson (1949), who wrote rather generally about Penan living in Sarawak, Brunei, and Kalimantan; and Ian Urquhart (1951, 1957, 1959a, 1959b), who wrote on general aspects of Penan life and language. Among the more recent civil servants writing on the Penan are Peter Kedit (1978), who undertook a survey of Penan cultural ecology among the Penan around the Mulu National Park, and myself (Langub 1974, 1975, 1984, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1996a, 1996b, 2001, 2004). My own work has focused on general aspects of Penan life, as well as ecological adaptations and development.
There is also a serious literature on the Penan by amateur ethnographers. Notable among these is Guy Arnold, a member of the 1955 Oxford University Expedition to Borneo, who collected useful information on the Penan Geng, who at that time were still nomadic and lived in the Usun Apau Plateau area (Arnold 1958, 1959). Another publication worthy of note is that of Bruno Manser (1996), a Swiss artist and environmentalist, and an ardent campaigner for the indigenous rights of the Penan against intruding logging companies. Manser lived for six years during the mid- 1980s with groups of nomadic Penan in the Tutoh and Limbang watersheds. The books of two local journalists, James Ritchie (1994) and Khaider Ahmad (1994) also deal with the consequences of logging among the nomadic Penan of Tutoh and Limbang.
Social Organization
Two levels of social organization of the groups under discussion are examined: the household and the community.
The Family Unit. The household (lamin) is the basic unit of production, consumption, procreation, and education. It is a corporate group that owns, for instance, its own tabau andja'an, baskets and mats used in the production of sago flour; plots of land for the cultivation of rice (among semi-settled groups); and is responsible (together with other members of the community) for bringing up children. The average family size of the four settled groups is 3.94 members and of the three semi-settled groups, 3.93 members. The largest household size in both the settled and semi-settled groups is eight members. Eastern Penan couples tend to form separate households after the birth of their first child.
The Community. The village or settlement is the primary unit of social and political identity. Each village or settlement has its own headman. Basically, the duties of the headman include maintaining social relationships among village members, resolving conflicts, and acting as an intermediary between the local population and the outside world, especially the government. The village or settlement is essentially a kin-based group mainly made up of closely related individuals. The degree of relatedness is a function of group size and in smaller groups individuals are closely related. It is here that Eastern and Western Penan differ. Eastern Penan communities are smaller and less stable, with families and individuals moving from one group to another quite frequently. This is reflected in the Penan settlements around the Pulong Tau National Park. For instance, in my headcounts of the semi-nomadic Penan, a few individual names appear in more than one settlement.
There are two Penan regional chiefs in Baram District with the rank of Penghulu. One of them resides at Long Latei on the Apoh, the other at Long Beruang in the Upper Baram. The Penan around the Pulong Tau National Park are not sure which Penghulu has jurisdiction over them. Neither Penghulu has visited their settlements. According to the District Office population data, there are over 9,000 Penan in Baram District, spread over a wide area of the interior. The Penan told me that they deserve more than two Penghulu as the Kelabit, with a population of 5,000, have one Pemanca and three Penghulu.
Each community is proud of its existence and exerts its individuality. One of the more critical aspects of Penan community structure is the nature of relations among community members, between communities, as well as between them and their non- Penan neighbors, particularly timber companies. Few Penan have a positive opinion of timber companies. Despite this, some settlements have established workable relationships with the companies in order to obtain favors such as building materials, or even of getting the company to build them a longhouse. The nature of relationships between particular groups of Penan with timber companies also has implications for relationships between different Penan communities. There are cases of strained relationships between villages that have cordial relationships with timber companies and those that do not.
Perceptions of their surroundings and the National Park
The Penan look at their surroundings as the source of livelihood, a home, and a place within which they organize activities. One remark that constantly came...
|
