By D’Drift Team
SIBU, Mar 28: Today’s D’Drift Team excursion to Kapit, through Song, and on to Kanowit was a fun and informative one as we learned some unusual stories about the names of the three small towns.
Jessie Mangka, another Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) officer, joined the D’Drift Team today, and he entertained us greatly on the way to Kapit with his hilarious stories about the three towns that the locals had shared with him.
For Kanowit, local folklore has it that when Sarawak’s first Rajah, James Brooke, passed by the town and the locals asked him to stop by, Brooke was overheard replying, ‘cannot wait’, which the locals misheard as ‘kenowit’. So over time, ‘cannot wait’ became Kanowit and the locals began to refer to the town by that name and it stuck.
As we arrived in Kanowit, the D’Drift Team indeed could not wait to explore the sleepy town located within Sibu Division.
Local folklore aside, history tells that the town was named after the Kanowit, a Melanau ethnic group known as Rajang by the Ibans.
Known as Kampung Bedil, the village where the Kanowit people live, is a short trip by boat up the Rajang River from Kanowit Town.
Kanowit’s mysterious mermaid statue
Like every town in Sarawak, Kanowit has adopted a symbolic icon. What puzzled us is why has “mermaid” been chosen to be the icon for the district?
During our short stay there, we did not manage to get any information on why it was erected, or why was a mythical aquatic creature such as a mermaid chosen as the centre of attraction in a town further inland than Sibu from the South China Sea.
Putting aside our curiosity, we noticed that the mermaid statue is definitely a tourist attraction of the sleepy town. Should that be the case, perhaps after all, it is a good idea to put up a mermaid statue in town centre?
Just like a ‘song’ created the town of Song
Song got its name because again, a local folklore would have it that Brooke overheard some locals ‘berpantun’ (reciting poetry) which sounded to him like singing, which led to Brooke exclaiming, ‘Ohhh… song.’
The villagers were overjoyed when Brooke said that and they decided to adopt it — “song” as the name of their town.
Brooke’s joke aside, we managed to gather that Song may have originally been named by the Kayan people as ‘Long’ which means ‘river stream’. After the Kayans were defeated by the Ibans, the latter decided to rename the place after an Iban warrior named Song who led them to victory against the Kayans.
Another version of the origin of the name Song came from the legend of the Melanau community.
There was once a Melanau widow named Song who came from Nangka village, Sibu. She drifted to the river mouth of the present day Song to do cultivation. Her relatives would frequently visit her. Many times when they asked her where she was heading, she would say ‘to Rumah Song’ (her own home). Thus the area has been called Song since then.
From ‘carpet’ to Kapit
And when we reached the territory of Kapit, our STB friend did not disappoint us but recounted another story about Kapit, making it clear that it was another story he heard from the locals.
Accordingly, when Brooke arrived in the riverine town and saw a red carpet welcoming him, he exclaimed, ‘Oh wow, carpet’, to which the locals responded, ‘Apooo.. Kapit nama beri Tuan Rajah ke menua kitai’ (Oh my God… Tuan Rajah named our District as Kapit).
How true is the tale, we had no idea. We can’t prove it nor can we disprove it and there was no one to check against it. But definitely, we like the story and that, was enough for us.
It took us about two hours to reach Kapit from Sibu. Kapit as usual, was crowded with cars as it was rush hour. We had to drive around town for some time looking for a parking place.
While doing so, we could not help but notice the roads in Kapit were much narrower compared to those in Kuching, which made driving and parking a lot harder as double parking was serious.
As visitors, we believe that it was high time for Kapit town to increase the number of its parking lots to accommodate the influx of vehicles from Sibu.
After managing to locate a parking spot, we walked around the town and stopped by to check out the Kapit Passengers Terminal where we noticed many express boats are no longer in operation.
What are still operational are the sampans (wooden longboats) that the villagers use to cross to the other side of the river where some longhouses are located.
D’Drift Team to visit Julau and Kabong
To ensure that we are able to keep our schedule to proceed to Julau and Kabong the next day in seek of Fort Brooke and Fort Charles, we decided not to spend the night in Kapit.
We bit Kapit or Carpet adieu and continued our journey back to Sibu. — DayakDaily
