The nomads of Gunung Mulu

Natural History, April, 1998 by Eric Hansen

Catching a glimpse of the Penan elders, with their feathered headdresses, distended pierced earlobes, tattoos, loincloths, and blow guns, one imagines them to be members of a mysterious lost tribe clinging to an ancient way of life. Some people believe that the Penan (or Punan, as they are variously called) are the aboriginal inhabitants of Borneo. But a more plausible theory of their origins was first put forth by British anthropologist Tom Harrisson, curator of the Sarawak Museum from 1947 to 1966. Harrisson proposed that the Penan are principally descendants of overwhelmed villagers who reverted to nomadism during the nineteenth century, when the Kayan and Iban tribes carried out their great headhunting expeditions. In a 1986 study, anthropologist Carl Hoffman concluded that the groups called Penan were linguistically diverse, but that their languages appeared to be related to those of sedentary peoples. He reported that in two dialects spoken in East Kalimantan (in Indonesian Borneo), "punan has the meaning 'to gather,"to collect,' or 'to assemble' things or goods." This habit of purposeful wandering to collect jungle products is what distinguishes the Penan from the settled tribes of Sarawak.

Whatever their origins, the Penan cannot hold on to an isolated existence. For those living along the Tutoh and Melinau Rivers, fateful change began to arrive at least three decades ago. Protestant and Catholic missionaries began converting the nomadic and semi-settled Penan in the 1950s, displacing their original animist religion and its elaborate system of taboos and bird omens. The 1977-78 Royal Geographical Society/Sarawak Government Expedition and Survey (carried out soon after the establishment of Gunung Mulu National Park) helped introduce many Penan to the concept of day labor and a cash economy. Logging companies began large-scale operations near the park in the early 1980s. They were followed in 1990 by international adventure-travel companies, which hire the Penan for low-paying jobs. The Royal Mulu Resort, a beautifully designed and situated luxury hotel, was opened just outside the park in 1993. United States and Australian environmental groups have made brief visits to the Penan communities and spoken of "cultural genocide," but they have not succeeded in mitigating these developments.

In 1982, when I first encountered the nomadic Penan, I hired them to lead me on a five-month, 1,800-mile jungle odyssey across the island of Borneo. What had lured me was the chance to experience a vanishing way of life. And indeed, today, very few full-time nomadic Penan are left - between 300 and 400 in all of Sarawak, by government estimates. The rest are either settled or semi-settled in upriver villages, where they are learning to farm hill rice, bananas, and tapioca. Many of the Penan go to church on Sundays, some of their children attend government schools, and most wear Western-style clothing. Nevertheless, on a recent visit to Penan communities near Gunung Mulu National Park to research the use of medicinal plants, I realized that these people still view themselves as forest nomads.

In the villages of Batu Bungan and Long Iman, I met with Katong, Tingang, Bati, and Bati's wife, Paya, all friends I knew from my many previous visits. Together we traveled for a day up the Tutoh River before tying the dugout to a tree with a length of rattan. Shouldering our packs, we hiked into a towering wall of primary rainforest. Although my four companions had. been settled for nearly twenty years, upon entering the rainforest they quickly and effortlessly fell into their hunting and gathering mode.

Katong picked jackfruit, marked a tree that held a beehive full of honey, and stopped to replant a durian seedling in a sunny spot. Paya collected rattan to make a backpack and a lump of tree resin to use as a light at night. Tingang, knowing what I like, cut a vine that contained drinking water that tasted of sassafras. He showed me a leaf used as sandpaper and another one, combining the properties of stinging nettles and poison oak, that he called "the fire leaf." It seems that a nineteenth-century European explorer once used the fire leaf as toilet paper; the Penan are still talking about the spectacular results of that experiment.

Bati and Tingang collected sections of giant bamboo for cooking rice and carrying water, while Paya gathered bundles of edible fiddlehead ferns. She also began selecting medicinal plants, which she identified by their Penan names. There was a a root used as an anti-inebriant and for curing hangovers, a slender root that serves as an antidote for scorpion and snake bites, a fleshy stem that is chewed as a cure for headache and upset stomach, and an aromatic leaf applied to sore joints. Paya also gathered a leaf that produces fragrant, soapy bubbles when crushed and rubbed between the hands with water. Katong uprooted a fine example of tongkat ali (Eurycoma longifolia), the fabled aphrodisiac of Borneo. The group managed to collect all these things by the side of the trail.