The Muslim Penans of Sungai Menjelin

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The bridegroom.

 

A VISIT to the Rural Transformation Centre in Bekenu, a small fishing town near Miri, can lead to many interesting discoveries if you keep an eye and an ear out.

One of the interesting things you will find is a group of people who are fair-skinned and physically small.

You’d soon discover the twinkle in their eyes and their very gentle manners when you drop by to buy vegetables from them. They are friendly and patient in explaining the types of greens they are selling.

This is the kind of vendors I like to meet.

While you listen as they introduce their products, their kampung mates will talk softly to each other and you can see they are speaking in a different tongue. In fact, at the tamu, you can hear more than five different languages spoken besides Bahasa Malaysia or Iban.

The vendors will introduce you enthusiastically to their language – Bakong. They’re happy you notice them speaking in their mother tongue.

They will also tell you that they were the first people to populate the Sibuti area after migrating from the Baram, and that they are Muslim Penans who live near Kampung Menjelin by the banks of Sungai Menjelin.

Former village chief Dihi Mee told thesundaypost when their ancestors moved to Sibuti, the place was uninhabited.

However, he pointed out there were artefacts from gravesites and other historical evidence, which showed the presence of Muslim Penan settlers in Sibuti.

“All these have been recorded,” said Dihi who worked with the Sibuti District Council until he retired.

Dihi (left) and Aman at the latter’s house.

Kampung Menjelin

Although the Penans are nomadic in the cultural landscape of Sarawak, many started to become sedentary about 100 years ago due to progress, migration, religious conversion, and politics.

According to Dihi, his ancestors moved from Sungai Bok along the Bakong and Baram Rivers in the interior to the coastal region, south of Miri.

The present village chief, Aman, 70, shared a similar historical viewpoint.

The septuagenarian was a daily-paid JKR driver, who was only placed on a pensionable scale in the last five years of his service.

He described the day he obtained a lorry driver licence as very special.

He remembered his ancestors travelling on bamboo rafts along the rivers – Sungai Bok and the Tinjar — of the Baram.

Before 1938 or even after the First World War, his ancestors started to cultivate the flatter coastal land and barter-trade.

At first, they were believers of Buand Ngan like all the other nomadic tribes of the Baram. Some have converted to Christianity like the Kenyahs and Kayans. But those who migrated to the coast, came into contact with Arab traders, embraced Islam, and became known as Muslim Penans.

Both Dihi and Aman said people often got their community mixed up with the Kedayan and Malay groups because they share the same religion.

A gendang band is a must at a kampung wedding.

Their numbers could be around 2,000 or more and they spread out from Batang Baram to Sungai Niah and the Kemena in Bintulu. Some records show Muslim Penans are also found in Suai, Sebubon, and Sibuti.

Thirty families have settled in Sungai Menjelin for more than 60 years.

Dihi said there is evidence to support their migration history, citing the example of a 1938 tomstone belonging to a Penan Muslim.

The people of Kampung Menjelin can trace their Islamisation up to seven generations.

According to historian Rodney Needham, who studied the Penans in the 1950s, many from the nomadic tribe embraced Islam in the 1940s and 50s. They settled mostly in Suai, Kampung Tanjung Belipa and Kampung Iran.

In Bintulu, there is a big group in Kampung Penan Muslim Batu 10 along the Kemena River. Needham refers to them as Eastern Penans.

Till now, there has been a lot of dispute about the classifications of Penans and their dialectic differences but for this article, I’m confining it to the Bakong-speaking Muslim Penans of Kampung Menjelin.

There are probably a few other Penan dialects yet to be documented.

Dihi said in the past, their ancestral burial ground near Sungai Uban, south of Miri, had been desecrated by grave robbers who took away many exquisite jars and urns.

Although coastal erosion has worn away much of the burial ground, it’s still a significant testimony to the migration pattern of the Sibuti Muslim Penans.

This man came from Beluru to attend his niece’s wedding.

“When our ancestors first set foot in Sibuti, there was no one there. So they set up homes in Kampung Terahad, Bungai and Bekenu. Hence, many places here are named in Bakong, which we can easily identify.

“Although fluent in Kedayan and Malay, we in Menjelin, like many in Beluru, continue to use our dialect to communicate with our Penan relatives in Sungai Bok, Beluru and the Baram,” Dihi added.

Ancestry and kampung heads

Aman said their people were originally involved in tribal warfare and many died.

In fact, no two groups of Penans could meet without a fight or a war breaking out and that was one of the reasons why the Penans migrated to the coast, he added.

“They used bamboo rafts to get around if they had no time to build boats from dugout trees. They were always on the move in search of food and needed a vast area to hunt wild boar and collect sago.

“Perhaps, that was why they were fierce fighters before they embraced Islam. Some families still have the spears, poisonous darts, blowpipes, and even sharp parangs of their ancestors.”

Sungai Menjelin is a Bakong word that means “whitened by rubber latex” while Sungai Uban is named by the ancestors of the Penans who swam in the river and had their hair ‘whitened’ by the river sand.

Ubien (Uban) is the Bakong word for white with sand or whitened by sand.

Another Bakong word, Tetai, means bridge.

We were recently invited to a Muslim wedding in Kampung Menjelin between Dihi’s niece and a Malay man from Miri.

The music and songs of the gendang group in attendance were a mixture of Bakong and Malay languages.

Many relatives came from Beluru. They enjoyed the get-together and spoke in their ancient Bakong tongue. Some Chinese friends, who have lived in Beluru for more than 20 years, were also invited.

“It’s common now for our young people to intermarry but they will continue to speak Bakong,” Dihi said.

 

Education and progress

An adult school was set up by the government in the 1950s but the only teacher later resigned.

The students already had three years of primary school, including Aman and Dihi, when the teacher left, and had to continue their education in Bekenu town.

“We were a little older than the others in our class but we were determined to study. We walked to school, slightly more than one hour each way. Not many of us completed our primary education. No girls enrolled because it wasn’t our way of life at the time,” Aman explained.

Former assemblyman Datuk Aidan Wing provided a good road for the kampung, making life easier and better. People of other races also came to buy and open up more mixed zone land.

Relatives on their way to the wedding.

The Chinese settlers got on well with the other communities and adopted Bakong.

The hall and mosque are testimonies of progress, social interaction, and mutual respect, enabling small groups in the kampung to come together to learn cooking and leadership skills.

While most of the Muslim Penans are farmers, some have ventured into the bird’s nest business. They own birdhouses and have started using machinery to harvest the nests. Several have also gone into oil palm cultivation.

The Penans live side by side with the Kayans, Kenyahs, and Chinese, who cultivate crops like ginger, lemon, new types of durian, and terung assam (sour eggplant), among others. Some of the farmers supply the tamu in Miri and Bekenu with their kampung chicken.

 

Cemetery on hilltop

Over the past 30 or more years, the villagers have buried their dead on top of the hill next to the kampung. Before, the burial grounds were situated along the banks of Sungai Uban. The tide has washed away a lot of the graves, especially the grave markers.

Dihi said the village now has about 100 years of history — from the time of village chief Berandah to his son, Toba, and then Anum.

“When Anum’s son Dian embraced Islam, we settled down permanently. Dian’s son, Tahar, became KK and his son, Sahal, was next.

After Sahal came Haji Amit bin Sidin.”

This Foochow guest at the wedding speaks fluent Bakong after living in Beluru for more than 20 years.

For nine long years after Amit’s headship, there was no village chief in Menjelin. The job eventually fell to Dihi. Although as a civil servant, he could not be officially appointed, he led the kampung well during his tenure.

Aman took over when Dihi retired from JKR and has remained in the post till now.

“A good road, a good hall, and lots of new farms coming up augur well for our kampung. We have the land to develop and an unpolluted river to fish in. We’ve good people, who like Dihi, are ever ready to serve. This is a far cry from our ancestors’ original land,” Aman said.

Kampung Menjelin has come a long way to what it is today — a progressive abode of peace and prosperity that continues to guard its heritage especially its language.

Editor’s note: The word ‘passing’ in paragraph 56 was replaced with ‘headship’ as Amit is still alive. The error is regretted.