The Peaceful People: The Penan and their Fight for the Forest

By Paul Malone

The Peaceful People is the story of the Penan, the jungle nomads of Sarawak, Malaysia, on Borneo island who for decades have fought for possession and preservation of their traditional forest lands. Drawing on extensive first-hand interviews, as well as the diaries and journals of explorers, botanists and colonial administrators, and the observations of missionaries, Paul Malone provides the most comprehensive account of the dynamics of Penan society to date. Written in a compelling and accessible style, the narrative tells the shocking history of the Penan, exposing massacres and murders, while recounting the nomads’ uniquely shy and peaceful way of life. In particular, the analysis focuses on the Penan’s consistently non-violent modern-day protests against rampant logging which attracted world attention from the 1980s till today.
The Peaceful People is essential reading for those interested in the history and culture of Borneo, environmental politics, the politics of logging and development, and the lives communities.of indigenous peoples and The author Paul Malone is an Australian journalist with thirty years’ experience, having worked for The Sydney Morning Herald , The Age , The Australian Financial Review and The Canberra Times . He currently writes a weekly column for The Canberra Times . He first visited Borneo in 1974, and started work on this book in 2007 when he wrote a series of articles on the Penan’s logging road blockades which continue to this day.This is the ebook edition of a print book that continues to find new readers interested in Borneo and indigenous people's struggles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gerakbudaya London Ltd
• Release date: May 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781925280234

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The Peaceful People

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The Peaceful People

The Penan and their Fight for the Forest

Paul Malone

sird

Strategic Information and Research Development Centre

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Copyright © 2014 Paul Malone

First published in 2014 by:

Strategic Information and Research Development Centre

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Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia / Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

The Peaceful People: The Penan and their Fight for the Forest / Paul Malone.

ISBN: 9781925280234 (eBook)

1. Penan (Orang Borneo)–Sarawak.

2. Penan (Orang Borneo)–Sarawak–Social conditions.

3. Penan (Orang Borneo)–Sarawak–Social life and customs.

I. Title.

305.89923059522

Copy-editing by Gareth Richards

Cover design and layout by Janice Cheong

Contents

List of Maps and Photographs

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

Glossary of Non-English Terms

Preface

Bibliography

Index

Maps and Photographs

Maps

1.1 Penan locations in Sarawak

6.1 Penan territories affected by the Samling Sela’an Linau forest concession and native customary rights claims

11.1 Bakun and Murum rivers region and Asap/Koyan resettlement area

13.1 Forest cover and condition in Malaysian Borneo and Brunei, 2009 ff.

15.1 Penan Peace Park

Photographs

1 Ugos bin Sugon, headman of Kampung Ugos, on his morning

walk, 2012

2 Nuramyza in Kampung Iran, 2012

3 This disturbing image of twelve Penan heads taken by Iban could well be from one of the massacres outlined in chapter one (Photograph by Charles Hose, first published in 1912, courtesy of The Wellcome Trust, London)

4 Peacemaking between the Baram and Batang Kayan tribes at Claudetown (Marudi), 1899

5 Penan band, Long Bedian, 1950s (Photograph by Phyllis Webster)

6 Men, women and boys carrying heavy loads at Long Akah in 1962, bearing out Tom Harrisson’s observation in 1932 that Penan were powerful people and carried the heaviest loads (Photograph

by Phyllis Webster)

7 Dario and his wife Lahai in their hut constructed from saplings tied together for a framework, with a sapling floor and leaf roof, 1960 (Photograph by Phyllis Webster)

8 Phyllis Webster and Luket, the sick boy she rescued, in the late 1950s

9 Din Angun, Long Latei with Bruno Manser’s book opened at a drawing of himself, 2012

10 Bruno Manser, 1986 (Photograph courtesy of Julien Coquentin)

11 Batu Kelolong in the Baram headwaters, 2007

12 Lyn Wee, Sigan Tok and Paul Malone, Long Lesuan, 2012

13 Rendy Ziki of Long Lesuan looks down on the Magoh River from the path where Bruno Manser took the plunge, 2012

14 Kelesau Naan, 2007

15 Sitting Bull (Tĥat ĥáŋka Íyotake), 1885

16 Kelesau Naan, 2007

17 Sitting Bull (Tĥat ĥáŋka Íyotake), 1883

18 Kelesau Naan high in tree a few months before his disappearance, 2007

19 Kelesau Naan fixes a spearhead to his blowpipe, 2007

20 Kelesau Naan and his wife, Uding Lidem, 2007

21 The first headman of Long Kerong, Laweng Nyakan, standing at

the rear with pigs’ tusks in his ears. The boy, second from left in

the front row is his son, Tirong Laweng, the current headman

and Kelesau Naan’s successor, probably November 1965

(Photograph by Phyllis Webster)

22 Dividing a wild boar, 1979 (Photograph by Phyllis Webster)

23 Penan women and children in Lio Matu, 1950s (Photograph by Phyllis Webster)

24 Jeliwan Bala (now deceased) in Lio Matu. She was the sister of

Apek Bala, the current penghulu of Long Beruang; her children

now live in Long Lamai, 1950s (Photograph by Phyllis Webster)

25 Phyllis Webster, May 2010

26 Cleared areas of land and the network of roads, July 2012

27 Sapu Adan returns from the forest, passing the solar panels in

Long Lamai, May 2014

28 Cutting planks for housing near Long Lamai, July 2012

29 Solar panels in Long Beruang, July 2012

30 Bakun dam, 2010

31 Forest cleared for oil palm in the resettlement Asap/Koyan

region, 2010

32 Reconstructing a logging road that has collapsed in a ravine, 2007

33 Kayan jelatong or floating homes, on the Bakun dam, 2012

34 Butchering wild boar, Long Bedian, June 2012

35 Penan house in Long Lesuan, July 2012

36 Young boy returning with fish catch, Long Lesuan, July 2012

37 Renai Paren in her home, Long Lesuan, July 2012

38 Penan arriving in Long Bedian on the back of a Shin Yang truck, 2012

39 The doctored National Geographic photograph posted online by

The Sarawak Monitor, showing Lyn Wee (left) and Buduk Kusin

of Long Lesuan

40 Lyn Wee (left) and Buduk Kusin displaying the doctored photograph, 2012

41 Log staging post on the Rejang riverbank, June 2012

42 Logging barges on the Rejang, June 2012

43 A logjam on the Rejang, 2010

44 Tourists on the roof of a fast ferry, 2012

45 Dani girl with missing fingers, removed by a stone adze, Baliem Valley, West Papua (Irian Jaya), 1974

Abbreviations and Acronyms

BRIMAS: Borneo Resources Institute

GPS: global positioning system

LTL: Limbang Trading (Limbang)

MTCC: Malaysian Timber Certification Council

NCR: native customary rights

NGO: non-governmental organisation

PAS: Parti Islam Se-Malaysia

SALCO: Sarawak Aluminium Company

SCORE: Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy

SCRIPS: Society for Rights of Indigenous People of Sarawak

SEIA: social and environmental impact assessment

SIB: Sidang Injil Borneo (Borneo Evangelical Church)

UN: United Nations

UNIMAS: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

Glossary of Non-English Terms

Preface

i13

I first heard of the Penan while travelling on the Baram River in Borneo in 1974. At the village of Long San, some days’ journey upriver, a Kenyah girl, Rose Kallang, agreed to guide my companion and me to a village where she said we could meet the nomads. Our arrival was awkward. The people seemed wary. Their shelters had no walls and it felt like we were prying. We had no language in common and could only stare at each other. We left after a brief glimpse, noting the pig carcass hanging over the fire, and watching two men operating an ingenious bamboo bellows device, to fire up a forge, to beat out a knife. Rose apologised for the state of the housing, explaining that the Penan were only just taking to settlement.

I thought little of the event until 2006 when visiting Sabah and Sarawak with my daughter, who was keen to see the wildlife. In Miri, the nearest town to the mouth of the Baram, I asked a travel agent about going up the river. ‘Why would you want to go there?’ she replied in astonishment. ‘There’s nothing to see’.

I was surprised – nothing to see? Thirty years earlier it was a tourist paradise – a huge river winding its way slowly past longhouses, some with ancient cannons strapped to their supports and human heads stored in the rafters; then on, up through rapids, requiring the boatmen to gun their Mercury motors, while passengers poled and pulled the boat upriver. Exotic long-eared people, Iban, Kenyah and Kayan, welcomed visitors, keen to show them their gardens, fruit trees and rice paddies, or take them along the river or into the forest to see beautiful butterflies, colourful birds – velvet blue kingfishers, or perhaps Argus pheasants, hornbills, parrots or bee-eaters. Away from the riverbank and its crocodiles, giant trees, 50 metres or more in height and hanging with vines, covered the mountainsides. At night a cacophony of sounds – animals, insects, birds and frogs – confirmed the presence of strange, unseen creatures.

But persuaded by the travel agent, my daughter decided we were better off going elsewhere. I vowed to return to see what had happened. The following year, after a little research, I booked a guide to take me up the headhunters’ track from Limbang to the Gunung Mulu National Park. But I had ulterior motives. I had heard of the Penan’s long-running campaign to preserve the forests and, in addition to completing the trek, I wanted to hear what they had to say. Assured by the ease of the three-day walk, I sought out contacts for the next stage of the journey. My Chinese guide, Clive Lim, was fearful of my plan. He warned of the dangers inland and said there was no way he would go there. At the time most outside knowledge of the region was gleaned from American adventure movies and sensationalist articles and books. These frightened people with tales of the wild men of Borneo, the headhunters who hid in the dark reaches of the jungle, ready to strike the unwary with a poisoned dart. I was not clear about the nature of Clive’s problem, since he freely dealt with Iban people, descendants of one of the most feared headhunting tribes. But a meeting with my Penan contact at the Gunung Mulu National Park soon clarified the issues. Inland, government officials and timber company representatives did not welcome Westerners, especially journalists, who tended to write critical articles about rainforest destruction and native rights. On top of that, people had been known to disappear.

Unfortunately, the easiest way to get to a Penan settlement was by using the logging roads staffed by men hostile to reporters. Through a friend in Miri, my Penan contact, Michael, arranged my passage to the remote interior settlement of Long Kerong. I booked a four-wheel-drive vehicle with a Kenyah driver – who knew nothing of my plans – and set off, accompanied by a Penan guide. If asked directly, I would say I was a journalist, but otherwise I intended to look and act like any other backpacking tourist. The road trip was relatively uneventful. Sitting in the back seat, I doubt if any of the timber company checkpoint guards even noticed me as they lifted the barriers and waved us through. An overnight stay on the riverbank, a standard boat ride upriver with a Penan boatman and a short cross-country walk, and I was at Long Kerong, home of Kelesau Naan, a leading land rights activist and the village headman. For a worthwhile story, all I needed were a few good interviews and photographs, some observations of Penan lifestyle and living conditions, and a safe journey back. So it was that in March 2007 The Canberra Times published ‘Last Stand in Sarawak’, featuring Kelesau Naan and his resolute campaign to stop the logging.

That might have been the end of it. But seven months later I got the message – Kelesau Naan was missing. His skeleton was found two months later and many Penan believed he had been murdered. I couldn’t leave it there. I was well aware that other land rights campaigners had disappeared, fuelling speculation of foul play. Back to Borneo I went, to find out what had happened. And the more I discovered, the more intrigued I became with these unique, stubborn people – the Penan.

I have previously travelled to remote regions – visiting, for example, the Dani in the Baliem Valley of western New Guinea and walking through the hill tribes regions of northern Thailand and Laos – but nothing struck me as quite so remarkable as the Penan protests. For more than 30 years – at first with world attention upon them, but later virtually ignored by the mainstream media – they had maintained peaceful anti-logging protests. Not only that, everyone I met and everything I read noted these peoples’ non-violent nature. That set me on a course of research and interviews, trawling the Sarawak Gazettes of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ploughing through explorers’ diaries and the previously untouched records of the Borneo Evangelical Mission. Everywhere I found the same story. Even in the face of extreme provocation, even when easy opportunities arose to exact revenge, the Penan maintained the peace. The Penan were different: different to their neighbours, notorious headhunters and warriors, and different to the rest of us, living in societies with long, violent histories.

But can any of their unique characteristics survive in a world that is changing around them? Or will they be left landless, their forests destroyed and their children uneducated fringe dwellers? There is hope. Primal rainforests still survive on Penan land in the upper Baram and the Penan stand in defence of these forests. But they face immense pressures and they will not be able to endure as a unique people without considerable outside recognition and support.

*

A number of key people who assisted me in writing this book have asked to remain anonymous, concerned that there might be adverse repercussions from any mention of their names. I thank them nevertheless. I greatly appreciate the courage of Penan and non-Penan residents of Sarawak who were openly willing to help me. In Kuching Wee Aik Pang provided great assistance, initially sending me electronic copies of old Sarawak Gazettes and later court decisions. He also read and commented on an early draft of my manuscript. See Chee How of the law firm Baru Bian Advocates and Solicitors assisted with insights into the legal framework, helping to develop my understanding of the Sarawak situation. Lim Huan Khuan (Hon) and Nick Kelesau in Miri not only related their stories but also helped arrange visits to inland Penan communities. At Long Lamai I was welcomed by the headman Wilson Bian and also greatly assisted by Garen Jengen, who acted as the translator for interviews. Ezra Uda also kept me well informed about community developments. At Long Beruang Tebare Apek and his father, Apek Bala, and mother, Ulan Keso, provided insights into their village history and decision making; at Long Lesuan the headman Ziki Wee, his wife Renai Paren and their son Rendy Ziki welcomed me, with Rendy willingly translating and acting as my guide.

I also sought the views of timber companies but most were unwilling to speak to me on the record. However, in 2008 Samling executives agreed to be interviewed and arranged a three-day tour of their operations in the upper Baram. The company’s public relations firm also dealt with some of my enquiries. Other timber companies, such as Shin Yang, refused to comment. Numerous requests to government representatives, by phone, in emails and in person, were ignored. I personally approached state government officials in Kuching and hand-delivered questions to them. I received only one reply with information – an email on the estimated number of Penan. I received police background briefings on their enquiries into the death of Kelesau Naan and a few short on-the-record responses to telephone enquiries.

I would also like to thank Erwin Zbinden, head of the documentation centre at the Bruno Manser Fonds, Basel, Switzerland for giving me permission to use photographs and maps. I am also grateful to Miriam Ward of The Wellcome Trust, London, Britain for permission to reproduce two historic photographs taken by Charles Hose.

In Australia, Phyllis Webster was an inspiration and a wonderful source of Penan contacts. The mere mention of her name opened many Penan doors with old folk fondly recalling her work. With great humility she told me of her time with nomadic Penan, always downplaying the difficulties. Ros Devenish, senior librarian at the Melbourne School of Theology, went out of her way to retrieve old Borneo Evangelical Mission files and help me search them. Dr Chris Eipper and Jenny Denton read over a draft of my manuscript, both making many useful comments.

I would also like to acknowledge the professionalism of the publishing team, and especially Chong Ton Sin for his support. Gareth Richards undertook the copy-editing and oversaw the production process to completion, ably assisted by Jaime Hang who produced the maps used in the book, while Janice Cheong did a fine job with the layout and book cover design.

Finally, I would like to thank Dorothy Johnston who encouraged and supported me in this project.

Paul Malone

Ocean Grove, Victoria, July 2014

map1

Introduction

In mid-1855 Alfred Russel Wallace described the coastal jungle of Borneo as ‘exceedingly gloomy and monotonous’. Wallace, the co-developer with Charles Darwin of the theory of evolution by natural selection, said dense forest covered a perfect swamp from which a few small hills rose abruptly. But he also noted bunches of magnificent scarlet epiphytes, spikes of orchids and numerous oak trees. Hornbill were abundant and immense flights of fruit-eating bats frequently passed overhead, their flocks extending as far as the eye could see and numbering at least 30,000.¹ As a collector of mammals, butterflies, beetles and plants Wallace pioneered the research which today has concluded that Borneo may have the greatest plant diversity of any region on earth.²

Wallace also observed the people and their customs. ‘The old men [Iban Dyaks] here relate with pride how many heads they have taken in their youth, and though they all acknowledge the goodness of the present Rajah’s government, yet they think that if they could still take a few heads they would have better harvests’. Nevertheless he added that the more he saw of uncivilised people, the better he thought of human nature on the whole, and ‘the essential differences between so-called civilized and savage man seem to disappear’.

Today we no longer talk of ‘savage man’ but the differing values, customs and institutions of diverse societies still fascinate. This book looks at the history, struggles and challenges of the Penan, people who until recent times lived as nomads in the dense jungle of Borneo.

To understand the Penan world it is essential to know a little of the region. Borneo straddles the equator and is politically divided between three countries – Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia. As late as the mid-twentieth century almost the whole of the island of 287,000 square miles (743,326 square kilometres) was covered with tropical jungle, most of it virgin forest. Today less than one-fifth of Sarawak – the main focus of this book – has primal forest and only 3 per cent is in protected areas.³ The Penan mostly roamed Sarawak’s forests but also could be found across the borders in what is today Indonesian Kalimantan. A small number lived in Brunei.

Sarawak’s current population of 2.4 million consists of 29 per cent Iban, 24 per cent Chinese, 23 per cent Malay, 8 per cent Bidayuh and 6 per cent Melanau. Most of these people live near the coast or on the lower reaches of the rivers. The upriver people, known generically as orang ulu, include the Kenyah, Kayan, Kelabit, Punan and Penan, who make up only 5 per cent of the population. All the tribes, except the Penan, traditionally lived in solid longhouse settlements on the banks of the major rivers, cultivating rice, fishing, and growing fruit and vegetables. Each settlement had hundreds of residents. The Punan, with whom the Penan are frequently confused, live in such settlements, are culturally distinct and speak a different language to the Penan. Traditionally the Penan were nomads moving from one sago palm grove to another, harvesting mature trunks, but leaving the palms to resprout so that they could return to the same grove perhaps 20 years later. Typically they lived in small camps of 15 to 75 people.⁴

In 1841 the Sultan of Brunei granted the Englishman James Brooke the right to rule Sarawak as a reward for helping fight insurgents. The dynasty Brooke founded came to be known as the White Rajahs and ruled the region until 1941, just before the Japanese invasion of Borneo during the Second World War. A major achievement of the rajahs was the pacification of the fierce tribal people, including Iban, Kenyah and Kayan warriors. In the early days the only route into the interior was up the major rivers – the Rejang (Rajang), Baram and Limbang and their tributaries – which flow to the west coast from the central and northwestern highlands. Today a network of logging roads straddles the region. The rajahs’ early administrators were jacks of all trades, not only imposing taxes and acting as judge and jury in disputes, but also collecting specimens of rare plants and animals and observing the behaviour of the people. Two of the first to operate in the headwaters regions, Hugh Brooke Low and Charles Hose, observed that the Penan were the only permanent inhabitants of the remote mountainous jungles. Tom Harrisson, leader of the guerrillas who operated behind Japanese lines during the war, similarly noted that in the inland tropical jungle ‘the only regular inhabitants are small parties of nomadic Punans [now correctly termed Penan] who live entirely by the blow-pipe ... and jungle plants’.⁵ Despite such observations, the Penan have yet to gain state recognition of their land rights.

The Peaceful People draws on extensive interviews and the diaries, journals and notes of explorers, botanists and colonial administrators and the observations of missionaries, journalists, ethnographers and anthropologists, to tell the Penan story. It records outsiders’ amazement that the Penan, with their unsurpassed stealth and jungle skills and most deadly blowpipe poison, did not choose to ambush and kill adversaries, not even in revenge for the treacherous murder of their people.

The book is organised in two parts. Part I – The Way They Were – draws on early colonial records to describe the Penan traditional way of life, before turning to their 40-year campaign to preserve their forest lands. The Penan were never headhunters, but were surrounded by other more numerous, fierce tribal people, who were. Despite their gentle disposition, it is the Penan who have most stubbornly resisted loggers and dam builders in the uneven contest to preserve the forests. In the late twentieth century this battle attracted world attention but today, while the struggle continues, media interest is focused elsewhere. Part I reveals the heavy price the Penan have paid for their campaign and raises questions about the mysterious disappearance and death of key leaders of the struggle.

The book sets the scene by recounting the nineteenth-century pacification of the warlike tribes of Sarawak. It tells the disturbing history of the Penan, exposing the massacres and murders, and recounting the nomads’ long-time resistance to proposals for settlement. Although they had little by way of material goods, the authorities found it extremely difficult to convince them of the benefits of a sedentary way of life. They preferred the peace of the jungle, the hunting, gathering and sharing of everything. The extremes to which they would share left a lasting impression on many observers. One noted that if just one fish was caught, it was cooked, mashed and divided fairly. Equally their lack of domestic violence and their refusal to kill any animal they had domesticated was noted with amazement. Animals that were normally eaten, such as a pig, would not be butchered if they were adopted. ‘It’s part of our family’, Penan would say when asked why they would not sell it or eat it themselves. And when forced into settlements the nomads applied this rule to chicken that scratched around their houses, eating neither the birds nor their eggs.

Part II – Nomads No More – examines how these traditional practices have changed in recent years. Facing powerful timber companies