Normadic way of life will be destroyed if...
The Penan are among the last of the nomadic hunter-gatherers living in the world's tropical rainforests today. Unlike the Amazon tribes-people, the Penan practice no agricutlure, raise no domestic animals for food and have no permanent settlements. Their principal food is the rich, pithy starch of the wild sago palm, supplemented by protein-rich-fish and wild game.
Penan social structure reflects their nomadic lifestyle with only a few families living together in elevated jungle huts called "sulaps". Every few weeks, when sago palm supplies run low or game becomes scarce, the Penan move on to a new location, allowing their sulap huts to return to the jungle from whence they came and the sago palm to re-grow on the same sites. For countless generations, the Penan have been practicing this peaceful lifestyle totally in harmony with their forest homeland.
"No forest dwellers on earth have lived in harmony with their environment longer than the Penan of Borneo. Their knowlede of this ecosystem, its foods, medicines and secrets goed beyond current scientific understanding."
As hunters and trackers, the Penan are unsurpassed in skills. They can travel swiftly and silently through the forest, leaving no mark of their passing by following th limbs of trees and logs elevated above the ground. Penan men and boys can kill hornbill, snake, squirrel and other forest canopy dwellers at great range with a single blast from their powerful lungs and the poisoned darts from their blowpipes.
The Penan blowpipe is a marvel of stone-age technology. Wood for blowpipes is carefully and respectfully cut from living trees so as not to offend the spirit of the true. When boring the wood, a slight curvature of the shaft is created to allow for the counter weight of a blade lashed to the muzzle end of the blowpipe. Securely lashed with rattan, a thorny jungle vine, the blade allows the blowpipe to double as a pear for hunting wild pig. Poison darts are fashioned from splinters of sago palm and are kept stored in a bamboo quiver. The poison is made from sap of the Ipoh tree and the blowpipe receives a fine finish with Emplas, a jungle leaf similar to sandpaper. Thus, a half dozen primary forest plants are used in the construction of this one important tool.
Unlike the former headhunting tribes of Borneo, the Penan have always been a shy and gentle people, preferring the peace and sanctuary of the forest and shunning conflict. Thousands of years of quiet forest life have engendered sterling human qualities. The few outsiders who have come into contact with the Penan have described the experience as "most pure and magical"; "profound".
Penan show their determination at a logging road blockade site.
A Penan headman shows children a book for the first time.
Penan kids on temporary sleeping platform.
Today, the Penan face among the worst human right's violations of any people. In the span of a single lifetime, everything they have ever known is being ripped apart; their ancient forest homeland, their source of foods, medicines, building materials, the burials of their ancestors and the temples of their gods. Their once crystalline waterways, rich in fish and wildlife, have become muddy sewers clogged with logging debris; unhealthy to drink or bathe in.
Ruthless logging companies backed by corrupt politicians are pushing the Penan off their customary lands in contravention of their established rights and forcing them to live in shanty-town relocation camps. Here, living together in large numbers for the first time, the Penan face communicable diseases for which they have no cures. Hunger and severe malnutrition now plague the Penan. With no easy access to forested lands and no knowledge or interest in agriculture, the once proud and self-reliant Penan are being reduced to a life of humiliation and poverty as the last of their homeland falls to the chainsaws.
"We are not opposed to all development," the Penan chiefs have told the Sarawak government, "but we want development based on our own needs."
It is a tribute to the human spirit that these people have not abandoned hope. In March, 1987, the Penan, along with thousands of indigenous peoples in Sarawak, formed human barricades across logging roads in a desperate bid to stop the destruction of their land by timber companies. For more than half a year, these non-violent blockades drastically slowed down logging. The police and army were moved in to dismantle the blockades in October. By the time new blockades were in place in 1988, new laws had been passed making it a criminal offense and many natives were arrested. The Penan testify to serious human rights violations while in jail. Blockades have resumed in 1989 but the Sarawak government has imposed a news blackout, and the logging has accelerated to 24 hours per day.
The demand of the natives to stop logging is by no means extreme. A lot of the logging is taking place on their customary lands which are protected by Sarawak state law. A new forest law however, makes it illegal to blockade on any logging-concession area, and it is under this law that charges are currently being laid against the Penan and other tribal groups. As the logging intensifies, those Penan who take a stand for survival face imprisonment, those who don't face genocide.
