KUCHING, Sept 12: Bung Bratak has been gazetted and officially declared a historical site.
The Bung Bratak Heritage Association (BBHA) was pleased that the Sarawak government, through the Sarawak Museum, made a declaration and gazetted it as a historical site.
“This brings pride and honour to a Bidayuh historical and cultural centre,” said BBHA chairman Dato Peter Minos in a press statement today.
He said Bung Bratak is an ancient site of great significance to the Bidayuh community, especially to the Jagoi-Bratak sub-tribe scattered in 35 villages in the Lundu and Bau districts.
His research on Bung Bratak since 1990 indicated that over 750 years ago, a group from Sungkong (of Kalimantan Barat) had trekked to Bung Bratak, possibly to get away from a disease, in search of padi planting fields, or to avoid some serious village conflicts.
They settled at Bung Bratak because there was a spring and a waterfall, and Bung Bratak’s altitude was not too high, thus allowing padi planting at the foothills.
For centuries Bung Bratak people lived in peace and tranquillity until 1837 when a hostile outside group attacked their settlement and razed it to the ground. The hostile group killed all the elders and kidnapped the young.
One Panglima Kulow and a few survived the terrible attack as they were at their farms downhill during the attack.
Panglima Kulow, in 1841 begged help from the first British Rajah of Sarawak, Sir James Brooke, who extended help. With his boat and cannons, Brooke brought back the Bung Bratak children, who were taken captive three years earlier in 1837.
In 1842, Bung Bratak rose again, only to face the setback of mass downhill migration in 1890, when the Bidayuh community started to move to lowland places in the Lundu and Bau districts.
The last village that made such a move was the present day Kampung Tembawang Sauh and Kampung Jugan, the village of Sarawak Diving Queen Pandelela Rinong.
Minos said 35 Bidayuh villages in Bau and Lundu districts originated from Bung Bratak. Apart from these villages, five more are found at Jagoi Babang area now in Kalimantan Barat, near Kampung Sirikin. The villagers of Kampung Bowang of Penrissen in the Kuching district also originated from Bung Bratak.
“I came from Kampung Stenggang. My ancestors were also from Bung Bratak and settled there in 1895.
“My history of Bung Bratak came about from the elders, from the 19th century British writers, from old Sarawak Museum books and my two-week visit and historical research in Sungkong in 1990,” said Minos, who is also Kota Samarahan Municipal Council (MPKS) chairman.
He said Bung Bratak is now a very popular eco-tourism and heritage site, apart from being a guardian of the forests and greens around it as well as a historical monument which reminds the young Bidayuh of their earlier settlers. — DayakDaily
