Penan people
The Penan are a nomadic indigenous people living in Sarawak and Brunei, although there is only one small community in Brunei; among those in Brunei half have been converted to Islam, even if only superficially. Penan are one of the last such peoples remaining as hunters and gatherers. The Penan are noted for their practice of 'molong' which means never taking more than necessary. The originally animistic hunter gatherers Penan were Christianised by missionaries of the Borneo Evangelical Mission and were baptised and settled. They eat plants, which are also used as medicines, and animals and use the hides, skin, fur, and other parts for clothing and shelter.
Demographics
The Penan number around 16,000; of which only approximately 200 still live a nomadic lifestyle. Penan numbers have increased since they began to settle. The Penan can be described as two loosely related geographical groups known as either Eastern Penan or Western Penan; the Eastern Penan reside around the Miri, Baram, Limbang and Tutoh regions and the Western Penan in and around Belaga district.They can be considered as a native group or 'tribe' in their own right, with a language distinct from other neighbouring native groups such as the Kenyah, Kayan, Murut or Kelabit. However, in government censuses they are more broadly classified as Orang Ulu which translates as "Upriver People" and which contains distinct neighbouring groups such as those above. Even more broadly they are included in the term Dayak, which includes all of Sarawak's indigenous people.
Language
The Penan language belongs to the Kenyah subgroup within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family.Lifestyle
Penan communities were predominantly nomadic up until the 1950s. The period from 1950 to the present has seen consistent programmes by the state government and foreign Christian missionaries to settle Penan into longhouse-based villages similar to those of Sarawak's other indigenous groups.Some, typically the younger generations, now cultivate rice and garden vegetables but many rely on their diets of sago, jungle fruits and their prey which usually include wild boar, barking deer, mouse deer but also snakes, monkeys, birds, frogs, monitor lizards, snails and even insects such as locusts. Since they practice 'molong', they pose little strain on the forest: they rely on it and it supplies them with all they need. They are outstanding hunters and catch their prey using a 'kelepud' or blowpipe, made from the Belian Tree and carved out with unbelievable accuracy using a bone drill – the wood is not split, as it is elsewhere, so the bore has to be precise almost to the millimetre, even over a distance of 3 metres. The darts are made from the sago palm and tipped with poisonous latex of a tree found in the forest which can kill a human in a matter of minutes. Everything that is caught is shared as the Penan have a highly tolerant, generous and egalitarian society, so much so that it is said that the nomadic Penan have no word for 'thank you' because help is assumed and therefore doesn't require a 'thank you'. However, 'jian kenin' is typically used in settled communities, as a kind of equivalent to 'thank you'.
Very few Penan live in Brunei any more, and their way of life is changing due to pressures that encourage them to live in permanent settlements and adopt year-around farming.
Standard of living
According to the Sarawak Premier, Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg there were 266 Penans with formal education of which 3 have master's degrees, 142 have bachelor's degrees and 81 have high school diplomas, counted from 1998 to 2002. 2 Penans are finishing their doctoral degrees on 4 July 2023.Resistance to deforestation in Sarawak
"The army and the police came to our blockade and threatened us and told us to take down our barricade. We said 'we are defending our land. It is very easy for you as soldiers and policemen. You are being paid. You have money in your pockets. You can buy what you need; rice and sugar. You have money in the bank. But for us, this forest is our money, this is our bank. This is the only place where we can find food."The Penan came to national and international attention when they resisted logging operations in their home territories of the Baram, Limbang, Tutoh and Lawas regions of Sarawak. The Penan's struggle began in the 1960s when the Indonesian and Malaysian governments opened up large areas of Borneo's interior to commercial logging. In most cases, the largest and most lucrative logging concessions went to members of the island's political and business elites. With an increase in the global demand for timber at the time, these concessionaries began to procure all marketable trees from their holdings. Since both the settled, semi-nomadic and nomadic Penan communities were and are reliant on forest produce, they were hit hard by the large scale logging operations that encroached on their traditionally inhabited territories. The logging caused the pollution of their water catchment areas with sediment displacement, the loss of many sago palms that form the staple carbohydrate of Penan diet, scarcity of wild boar, deer and other game, scarcity of fruit trees and plants used for traditional forest medicine, destruction of their burial sites and loss of rattan and other rare plant and animal species. For the forest people of Borneo, like other native tribes, such plants and animals are also viewed as sacred, as the embodiment of powerful spirits and deities. Thus, the Penan made numerous verbal and written complaints to the logging companies and local government officials. They argued that the logging companies were located on land given to the Penan in an earlier treaty, recognised by the Sarawak state government, and were thus violating their native customary rights. It was also claimed that logging plans were never discussed with the Penan before felling began. However, these complaints fell on deaf ears. Beginning in the late 1980s and continuing today the Penan and other indigenous communities such as the Iban, Kelabit and Kayan have set up blockades in an attempt to halt logging operations on their land. These succeeded in many areas but the efforts were hard to sustain and ended in large-scale clashes between the indigenous communities and the state-backed logging companies, supported by the police and Malaysian army. In 1987, the state government passed the amendment S90B of the Forest Ordinance, which made the obstruction of traffic along any logging road in Sarawak a major offence. Under this law, The confrontations ended with several deaths, many injuries and large-scale arrests of indigenous people. Many of the detained reported being beaten and humiliated while in custody. An independent Sarawakian organisation IDEAL documented such claims in a 2001 fact-finding mission entitled "Not Development, but Theft".
However, confrontation with state authorities has not been the only source of conflict for the Penan or the Dayaks. In the late 1990s, in neighbouring Kalimantan, the Indonesian government set aside millions of acres of forest for conversion into commercial rubber and palm oil plantations. Much of these areas have been traditionally occupied by indigenous groups. Crucially, to provide labour for such developments, the Indonesian government subsidised the relocation of unemployed labourers from other parts of Indonesia to Kalimantan. As part of their contracted obligations, these settlers have participated in the clearing of forests. This has resulted in frequent and violent conflicts between the settlers and the Dayak population. Hundreds of people have been killed in these encounters and thousands more have been forced to live in refugee camps. Because the two warring factions have different racial and religious backgrounds, the international media has often reported this conflict as ethnic animosity. Rather, it is the pursuit of resource wealth by powerful governments and businesses, despite strong resistance by local residents, which has caused the fighting.
In the mid-1980s, when the plight of the Penan had been exposed on the world stage, the Sarawak State Government began making many promises to the Penan in an attempt to quell international protests and embarrassment. Global support for the Penan had included boycotts and blockades of ships carrying rainforest timber in countries such as Australia. Among these were the promise of infrastructure facilities and the Magoh Biosphere Reserve. Magoh Biosphere Reserve is an environmental ‘no intrusion’ zone introduced by Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud in 1990. However, in reality, this reserve has only ‘proposed boundaries’ within which logging companies continue to fell the forest.
The Penan explicitly outlined their wants and requirements to the Sarawak State Government of Abdul Taib Mahmud in the 2002 Long Sayan Declaration. The confrontation between the Penan and Sarawak State Government has continued to the present day. The blockade set up by the Penan community of Long Benali was forcefully dismantled on 4 April 2007 by the Sarawak Forestry Corporation, with support from a special police force unit and overlooked by Samling Corporation employees. Samling Corporation had been granted a logging concession by the Malaysian Timber Certificate Council that included land traditionally inhabited by the Penan of Long Benali and despite their continued petitions against the concession.
the Penan continue to fight development aggression in their ancestral domain.
Bruno Manser
was an environmental activist and champion of the Penan's plight during their struggle in the 1990s. Manser lived with the Penan for six years; in that time he learnt their language, survival skills and customs. Named lakei Penan by the Penan, he helped communicate the Penan's cause to the outside world, firstly writing letters to Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud and later leaving Sarawak to educate the outside world about the deforestation and related social problems in Sarawak. He later conducted public awareness stunts such as paragliding onto the lawn of Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud and attempting a hunger strike outside the offices of Japanese shipping companies in Tokyo.In 1990, in response to Manser's protests, Sarawak's Chief Minister declared Manser an ‘enemy of the State’ and dispatched a Malaysian army unit to find and capture him. In 1990, Manser returned to his home country of Switzerland and founded the Bruno Manser Fonds, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the plight of the Penan. In 2000, Manser went missing after returning to Sarawak with a Swedish film team and an associate from BMF to reunite with a Penan group. Manser's body and belongings have never been found despite intensive searches. Theories of assassination by the Sarawak government or logging companies have sprung up because of his status as an ‘enemy of the State’. Other rumours include those of suicide after years of unsuccessful campaigning or getting lost in the dense mossy forests around Bukit Batu Lawi in the Kelabit Highlands, close to the border with Kalimantan. However, Manser had lived for several years in the region with the nomadic Penan and was thus highly experienced.
Five years after his disappearance in the rainforest of Borneo, Manser was officially declared as lost by the Basel Civil Court in Switzerland. Personalities from politics, science and culture remembered the life of Manser in a commemoration ceremony held on 8 May 2010.