Patrick Comerford
One day at the end of last week, I spent a full morning at the Sarawak Cultural Village, an award-winning Living Museum at the foot of Mount Santubong and close to the Damai Beach Resort and hotels.
Father Jeffry Renos Nawie of Saint Augustine’s Church, Mambong, in the Diocese of Kuching, brought me on the 45-minute drive from Kuching to Sarawak Cultural Village, said to be the finest living museum in South-East Asia. Its features include seven traditional houses across a 17.5-acre site to the north of Kuching, tucked in at the foothills of Mount Santubong at Damai Beach.
Sarawak is the largest state in Malaysia, with a population of 2.8 million and has more than two dozen different ethnic groups. Apart from the Chinese (23 per cent), and the Malays (23 per cent), the biggest ethnic groups are within the indigenous communities: the Iban were once known as the ‘Sea Dayak’ (30 per cent), and the Bidayuh were once known as the ‘Land Dayak’ (8 per cent). The other indigenous groups include the Orang Ulu (6 per cent), Melanau (5 per cent), Murut, Kenyah, Kayan, Kedayan, Kelabit, Berawan, Penan and Bisayah.
Sarawak Cultural Village celebrates this rich cultural diversity and the lifestyles of many of these ethnic groups, and has been acclaimed by many as one of the best heritage experiences in Malaysia.
Sarawak Cultural Village was established in 1991 and has become an unique award-winning living museum, featuring replicas of local houses and buildings, as well as offering a comprehensive narration of various cultures and rituals of the tribes and people of Sarawak, with insights into their lifestyle and history.
The village highlights seven of the major ethnic groups: Iban, Bidayuh, Orang Ulu, Chinese, Malay, Melanau and Penan. Visitors are encouraged to become immersed in a hands-on experience of what once was daily life for these people in their houses, including the Bidayuh longhouse, the Iban longhouse, the Penan hut, the Orang Ulu longhouse, the Melanau Rumah Tinggi, the Malay house and the Chinese farmhouse.
There are opportunities to taste traditional food, join in dances, listen to musical instruments, and see different weapons from the past, as well as chances to take part in crafting and agricultural activities, such as bead-making and paddy-pounding.
All the buildings are staffed with members of the relevant ethnic groups in traditional costume and engaging in traditional activities, and storytellers describe and interpret their people’s traditions and way of life.
Father Jeffry and I began our tour of the village at the Chinese farmhouse. Unlike other houses in the village, the Chinese farmhouse is built at ground level with doorposts protected by the application of strips of red paper, inscribed with protection verses. The clay floor is made of trodden earth, the walls of whitewashed sawn timber, and the roof is thatched with leaf attap.
The house has two main parts, the main room and the bedroom, with the household shrine a focal point in the main room. Outside is a pepper garden.
The wooden Malay House is a gracious structure, adapted to Sarawak’s tropical climate. It is built on stilts and is reached by a staircase. The front room is an area for the men, used for official occasions and entertaining guests.
The windows are down to floor level to allow in the breeze. Much skill is used in decorating the stair and window railings, fascia boards under the eaves and the ventilation grills above and beside the doors.
The Melanau build massive houses 40 ft above the ground. Traditionally, they lived near the sea and need to protected themselves from pirates. We climbed the first staircase of the Melanau Tall House to the first floor, with its displays of tools and utensils. A second staircase leads up to the bedroom.
Next was the Orang Ulu Longhouse, built many feet above the ground, with lush tropical greenery below. It is filled with musical instruments, including the stringed Sape and Jatung Utang instruments. Here too, Orang Ulu women demonstrate their intricate beadwork.
The Bidayuh house known as the Barok is a round head-house with bamboo and carvings. The Barok is the assembly place for the Bidayuh warriors and is filled with gongs, war drums, weapons and wooden masks, and is connected by bamboo walkways with the Bidayuh longhouses. Bidayuh daily life included sugar cane crushing, paddy pounding and winnowing rice.
As in so many places in the village, a notched log serves as stairs leading up to the Iban Longhouse.
The Iban were once known as the ‘Sea Dayaks’ and now account for about a third of the people in Sarawak, the biggest native group in the region. An open veranda faces the Iban traditional longhouse built of axe-hewn timber, secured with creeper fibre and roofed with leaf thatch.
Visitors to the Iban Longhouse are entertained with drums and gongs, Pua weaving, and Kuih Jala and Kuih Chap making. Hanging skulls hint at tales from by-gone days.
The Penans are shy nomadic people who live in the dense jungle of Central Borneo, among some of the state’s most precious timber resources. Because of their roaming lifestyle, their shelters are quickly built to last for few weeks or months.
They are the last of the hunters and gatherers, and their huts or shelters are built quickly to last for a few weeks or months at most. They are built near wild sago trees, the staple food of the Penan people, and once the supply has been used up the family moves on.
The Penans specialise in making and using blowpipes. You can watch them making blowpipes at the Penan Hut and even try using one. The Penan advice is, ‘Do not blow from your mouth. Blow from your chest and your stomach.’
The other sites in the village include the Chinese Pavilion near the grand entrance, a bamboo bridge once used by villagers to cross rivers, a souvenir shop and a restaurant.
Our morning visit to the village ended in the theatre at the multi-cultural performance by award-winning dancers and musicians in colourful costumes.
Their elegant dance routines range from young Orang Ulu women following the pattern of the hornbills to a rugged Iban warrior performing the ngajat, shield in hand, dancing with the rhythm of deep gongs and rainforest musical instruments. The 45-minute multicultural performances take place twice a day, at 11:30 am and 4 pm, and are a fitting climax to a visit to the village.
Traditional dancing at Sarawak Cultural Village (Patrick Comerford, 2024)
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