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 thick poles tied together with rattan strips. Typically the floors are four feet off the ground. Above a hearth of mud are two wooden racks for storing cooking equipment and drying fire wood. Each family usually has one hut for living and a smaller one for sleeping. The roofs are no longer made from giant palm leaves, which are now apparently scarce, but tarpaulins.

More nomadic Penan are now setting up semi-permanent settlements to which they return after visiting satellite sago harvesting camps for a few weeks at a time. Some communities are experimenting with farming, but this accelerates the move away from a nomadic life in the forest: the more farming you do, the less time is spent hunting and gathering and the more farming you need to do. Nomadic Penan are not natural farmers and failures can lead to increased hunger. Disease in settled communities can also leave the Penan vulnerable.


Material Culture
Only Penan elders dress in anything approaching traditional dress, with chawats (loin cloths), bands on their legs and wrists and large holes in their earlobes (but often nothing plugging them). Traditional tattoos are now uncommon, but crude DIY tattoos (almost like prison tattoos) are not. Few Penan now go barefoot, most wear cheap, plastic football boots with rounded studs, which are perceived to be the best thing in the jungle, but don't keep the leeches out.

Despite their western looks Penan bush craft is immediately apparent. The forest is utilised incredibly quickly to provide, cups, water containers, repairs to carriers, food and shelter when the need arises.


Hunting
The Bornean bearded pig bears the brunt of Penan hunting activity. In the past widespread fruiting of forest trees would lead to an explosion in the bearded pig population, but the loss of these trees and opening up of the forest to hunters from outside has led to a population decline. Barking deer is another popular game animal, as is the long-tailed and pig-tailed macaque, but the Penan will eat just about any animal including small birds and squirrels, which are thought of as delicacies.

Many Penan often use blowpipes to hunt, but killing a bearded pig with a blowpipe is very difficult and requires strong poison unless you want to track it for days before it falls (more difficult in secondary forest). Shotguns are obviously more efficient, but are far more expensive to own and permits are needed.

Penan hunt by tracking, but February through to April they sometimes use a hunting technique called mejong. A hunter hides in a tree close to a fruiting tropical oak and waits for the evening when he can prey upon feeding bearded pigs. The meat of the animals feeding on these nuts has great flavour, not unlike expensive Spanish and Italian hams.

The rhino is long gone from Sarawak, but the Penan are still wary of other wildlife. Borneo's clouded leopard (recently declared a 'new species') is shy and seldom seen, but to the Penan, the sun bear is the most dangerous animal thanks to its ability to roll into a ball and bounce down hills to chase after them.