PENAN CULTURE III

Spiritual Beliefs
The Penan have been converting to Christianity since the 1930s. The Penan were often told that Christianity was a religion of protection, and for them it is often the act of prayer that counts (which mirrors the invocation of spirits), not the belief itself. Belief in myths and spirits are still very strong in some places, although traditional creation myths and concepts of heaven and hell are seldom discussed.

Festivals are not part of traditional Penan culture, but blood pacts were once undertaken, usually as part of political agreements between Penan leaders and neighbouring tribes. Rituals varied, but in some cases leaders would shed blood onto tobacco and then smoke it together, thus consuming each other's blood and preventing future conflict. A breach of this pact was believed to cause the vomiting of blood and a violent death.

Similar rituals relate to banishing bad luck in hunting trips or to end a period of unsuccessful hunts. By smearing their blood onto a sago leaf, folding it and burying it some hunters believe they can change their fortune.


Trade and Forest Products
Three or four times a year during colonial times the British government arranged trading missions called tamu close to the forests of the Penan. These tamu were supervised by a colonial official who regulated trade and insured fair treatment for the Penan. For this reason the British are remembered fondly for protecting the forest.

At the tamu they offered forest products like damar (now used in eco-paints), rattan mats and baskets, rhino horn, gaharu wood (or eagle-wood), wild rubber, monkey gallstones (for Chinese medicine), bills of hornbills, skins, deer antlers and of course meat. These were traded for manufactured good like knives, cooking pots and shotguns – some Penan still own colonial era shotguns.

None of these forest products are now abundant, but many Penan will sell surplus meat to logging camps, make rattan items and collect gaharu wood when they find it. This dark, scented wood is found as a special growth in the trunk of the Aquilinia gaharu tree. The growth is triggered in response to injury, a fungal infection or possibly insect activity. Many unsuccessful efforts have been made to domesticate the process.

Gaharu is used as incense, for medicinal and religious purposes, and as a perfume in the Middle East, China, Taiwan and Japan. The Penan can get very good money for a kilo of high quality gaharu, but that can take years to accumulate.