The Penan

The Penan

The nomadic hunter-gatherer Penan are one of the last such groups in South East Asia. Out of the 10,000 Penan living in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, Borneo, only 200 nomadic people are left.

Small groups of nomads move through a land of dense forest, narrow steep-sided valleys and fast flowing streams in the north-east of the state. Penan material culture is changing (western clothing is dominant, everyone has plastic tarpaulins), but the nomads still rely on the forest to provide most of what they need, from blowpipes to flour.

The Penan are a gentle and softly spoken people with a highly egalitarian society and little gender division. There’s headman, and respect is given to elders but there is no real hierarchy, just a strong communal bond, which manifests itself in a meticulous process of sharing. Nomadic Penan move in groups of up to 40 people, but groups form and split regularly as sago palm four and game is sought from different areas in their territory (roughly 100 sq miles on average).

Penan Culture

Groups of nomadic Penan move through distinct clan territories, some groups are just a family of five or six, others have up to 30 people.

Every month or so the Penan leave their old selap (huts) and exhausted sago supplies and move to another patch of forest, where a fresh camp is established. Possessions are few and everything is carried in simple, strong backpacks made from rattan (which is taken from palm leaves). Even small children have packs to carry. Selap are made from thich poles tied together with rattan strips. Typically the floors are four feet off the ground. Above a hearth of mud are tow wooden racks for strong cooking equipment and drying fire wood. Each family usually has one hut for living and smaller one for sleeping. The roofs are no longer made from giant palm leaves, which are now apparently scarce, but tarpaulins.

Logging

Sarawak was blessed with a high density of large, valuable Dipterocarp trees, which were the first ones to be extracted. Now a huge proportion of Sarawak’s primary forest has been logged at least once, and over time smaller and smaller trees have been taken in different logging passes. One reason for this is to produce plywood and other processed timber. The Sarawak government places a strong emphasis on processing timber to maximize local profits. Since industrial logging began in the late 1970s technology has evolved to allow smaller logs to be processed, which is deemed essential to keep up with the demand from Japan, India and the Far East-only a small percentage of Sarawak timber makes tis way to Europe and the USA.

(bbc.co.uk/tribe)