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Heritage Snippets of Sarawak
This is the third of a four-part series titled ‘The Naga Moves: Dragon Tales from Borneo’. The first two parts can be read here and here.
By Monica Janowski
THE late Penghulu Kebing lived at Long Pillah in the Baram river. Though he came from a high-status maren family, it was not only because of this that he was made penghulu of the area. It was also because he won a race with a sangiang dragon, which became his sibila—his friend and protector. Through winning that race and taking the sangiang as his friend, Kebing proved that he had the right abilities to be penghulu.
The sangiang dragon is an extremely powerful, magical creature. It is said to derive from a poisonous snake that has transformed into a spirit—either a cobra or a red-headed krait. It likes to bask at the side of lakes high up in the mountains. It was in the mountains, by the side of a lake called Bawang Danum Liling on top of Liting mountain, that Kebing encountered the sangiang.
The tale goes that sometime in the 1920s or 1930s, Kebing and a friend went hunting with dogs and guns. When they arrived at the lake, they found a wide clear area free of vegetation, as though someone were living there. In fact, no humans were living there.
But a sangiang dragon did live there. It was basking in the sun by the lake when Kebing arrived. It turned and looked at him.
Kebing was not afraid. He thought to himself: ‘This is a good opportunity to make friends with this sangiang. I must prove myself to it.’
So Kebing spoke to the sangiang and asked for protection and blessings and all good things for himself and his people. Then he suggested that he and the sangiang run a race, to demonstrate how strong he, Kebing, was. And the sangiang agreed to race with him.
So Kebing and the sangiang dragon raced, up there by the lake in the mountains. The race lasted from the time that people dry the padi in the morning (8 am) until they have pounded, winnowed and sieved it (4 pm).
The sangiang has the ability to magically stretch its body. So, while Kebing ran alongside it, the sangiang raced by stretching its body out very quickly. Kebing’s friend put a knife at the tail end of the sangiang to mark where the race started.
Finally, at 4 pm, Kebing overtook the head of the sangiang. So the sangiang dragon had lost the race! After the race, the sangiang dragon disappeared.
And that’s how the sangiang became a sibila, a friend or protector, to Kebing. Because of this relationship, Kebing became a very powerful and important man. He did very well in growing rice, and he was able to look after many, many people.
Because of this, he was made penghulu by Raja Brooke. He was a very charismatic man and his leadership was very good. People would always follow anything that he said.
After the race, Kebing made a carving of the sangiang that he had met, on a very long wooden panel, which he put outside his apartment in the longhouse. This showed the sangiang in the place where he met it—in the open area around the lake with the trees surrounding it.
This panel was inhabited by the spirit of the sangiang, who was Kebing’s sibila, and Kebing made blood offerings to the spirit to ensure that his relationship with the sangiang dragon endured.
The panel was discarded after Kebing passed away in 1971 because it would have been dangerous for other people to keep it, as the spirit in it was very powerful and could be dangerous to others.
Kebing’s descendants live in Long Pillah and they told me the tale of his relationship with the sangiang dragon when I visited Long Pillah in 2018 with Dora Jok.
Dr Monica Janowski is a social anthropologist who has been doing research in Sarawak since 1986. She has published many articles and books, including Tuked Rini, Cosmic Traveller: Life and Legend in the Heart of Borneo (NIAS Press and Sarawak Museum, 2014). She began researching Borneo dragon stories and legends in 2017. She is currently Curator of the SE Asia Museum at the University of Hull.
This is the third of a four-part series titled ‘The Naga Moves: Dragon Tales from Borneo’. The first two parts can be read here and here.
“Heritage Snippets of Sarawak” is a fortnightly column.
— DayakDaily
