IN my language, there are two ways to say father and two ways to say uncle. Samak is what you call your father, and also your uncle, if he is younger than your parents. Sindu is what you call your mother, and your aunt, if she is the younger one. But if your uncle or aunt is older than your parents, you call them something else. You call them samba. One word, no distinction of gender. The elder simply becomes samba.
I did not think much of this until I noticed my father never called his own parents samak or sindu. He called them samba too. Both of them. When I asked him why, his answer was simple. He had lost older siblings at birth, he said. He did not elaborate.
But I already knew the deeper half, because my grandfather had told it to me himself. He lived in a small house facing the main longhouse across the tanju, the open verandah, which doubled as a kedai runcit, a small village shop. I would go there often when I was young, helping to arrange the goods while he rested. It was during those quiet hours, shelves half-stocked, afternoon light falling through the gaps in the wood, that he would talk. And one day, he told me the story.
He had been a shaman in his younger days. He travelled widely, going deeper into things most men would not dare approach. He knew how to reach what lived beyond the ordinary world.
One night, after a ritual, he dreamt of an entity. It came not with objects but with instructions. Use the dulang sireh already in your home, it said, the wide bronze ceremonial plate, scalloped at its rim, raised on a carved stem, the kind used to present betel and areca nut to honoured guests. Tie a red string from its base to a specific banana tree. Wrap it in yellow cloth, yellow being the colour of wealth and good fortune. Then wait, and see what the morning brings.
My grandfather prepared everything as asked. The next morning, when he lifted the yellow cloth, there were ten cents underneath. In those days in Sarawak, ten cents was not nothing. He was overjoyed.
A few nights later, he reached out to the entity again. What do you want in return? He knew enough to know that gifts never arrive without a cost. The entity only laughed. “Do not worry,” it said. “Simply enjoy what was given.”
My grandfather chose to believe it. He should not have.
A few months later, my grandmother gave birth. The child did not survive. They buried their grief and carried on. A year later, it happened again. Another child. Another loss.
That night, something cold and certain settled over my grandfather. He performed his ritual one final time, not to receive, but to confront.
“Was this your doing?”
The entity laughed.
The next morning, overcome by grief but unbroken, he burned the dulang sireh. He cut down the banana tree and burned that too. He vowed never again to trust what offers gifts without naming its price. And when Christianity arrived not long after, he walked into the church and did not look back.
After that, my grandmother was able to give birth safely. Six more children came, my father among them. But none were ever allowed to call their parents samak or sindu. Only the firstborn, who came before any of this, ever had that right. Everyone after called them samba: not father, not mother, but something deliberately unclear.
The reasoning is old and simple. If death, or whatever had taken those two children, came looking again, it would not recognise who the others were. A child who calls his father samba does not sound, to the wrong kind of listener, like that man’s child at all. The name becomes a disguise. A small mercy, fashioned from language.
My grandmother’s last child, born when she was already old, did not survive either. She named her Sirih, betel leaf, the very plant placed in a dulang sireh. A mother who carried all of that, and still gave her final lost child a name that pointed back to the beginning.
Across the Bidayuh Biannah, any family that has lost a child at birth carries this forward. Every surviving sibling grows up calling their parents samba. Names are not just names. They are protection. The difference between being seen and being passed over.
My grandfather is gone now. So is my grandmother. But my father still says samba when he speaks of them, even now that there is nothing left to fool.
Death came to our door. And we answered it with the wrong name. – DayakDaily
Born in Kuching, Twiene Selynda Simbas is a 42-year-old Network Operations Engineer who is also currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science. Her multifaceted lifestyle includes a love for gardening alongside vigorous outdoor activities like running and hiking.
Twiene is one of the Top 10 winners (Adult category) for DayakDaily’s 2026 Writing Competition with the theme “Sarawak Folklore”.
