Heritage Snippets from Sarawak
By Louise M Macul
After you climb the stairs inside the Sarawak Museum, you can go into two galleries, right or left. Do you remember? Once in the galleries, do you remember looking up and seeing large colourful murals high above the exhibitions? Would you believe the reason the iconic murals in the Sarawak Museum are there is because of World War II?
If we write a biography of the Museum’s murals, it will begin on 1 October 1945, and includes Major Tom Harrisson on a wartime mission. The story of the murals has a dramatic start:
As he shot out of the plane’s hatch into the enormous sea of green below, he gave the brigadier ‘a snappy salute’ while slipping on his parachute pack, feet dangling. After a windy 10,000-foot drop, he smash-landed on the forest canopy about 4,000 feet up a steep hillside. He dangled upside down in the hot sun for hours until a small man wearing a loincloth and hornbill-feathered cap came to rescue him. The man brought 20 friends, all laughing at the orang putih’s predicament.
This was Tom Harrisson’s grand entrance to the Bahau-Apau Kayan area of Kalimantan Utara. He landed near Long Toea. It was another two-week trek to his destination, Long Nawang.
Harrisson and his operatives came to assist the Kenyah in defending Long Nawang as part of the Special ‘Z’ Force operations during WWII. Allied intelligence reported that the Japanese planned a full-scale attack from the east. The men spent some time preparing the Kenyah. In the end, the Japanese never came. Maybe they got word their fellow troops were already captured on the Sarawak side of the border with Indonesia and that the war was coming to an end. The time spent at Long Nawang made an impact on Harrisson.
Before arriving in Apau Kayan, Harrisson had heard about Long Nawang from when he was on the 1932 Oxford Expedition to Mount Dulit. He had heard that it was an enormous settlement of Kenyah where thousands of people lived in many longhouses. He had heard of their exceptional artistic skills. Everything he had heard was true, and he was impressed.
After his rescue from the tree, Harrisson was taken to visit the paramount chief, who lived in a massive longhouse with a fifty-foot high wall. The whole of the wall was painted with a “tree of life” crowned with a rhinoceros hornbill. Harrisson thought the painting was magnificent and never forgot it. When his mission was completed, and the war ended, he was assigned as “officer administering the interior” with the British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit until late 1946. When the post of Curator of the Sarawak Museum and Government Ethnologist became available in 1947 he grabbed the opportunity to remain in Sarawak; he stayed for 20 years.
Harrisson never forgot the painting at Long Nawang or the rich culture of the Kenyah. In 1959, fourteen years after he first saw the painting, he found the artists from Long Nawang and wrote:
… the great ‘Tree of Life’ painted on the wall of the magnificent house used for communal meetings and rites. That house has since decayed and never been rebuilt, but I succeeded in getting the original artists to come to Kuching later and reproduce the same superb design for living inside the Sarawak Museum though there is no room here to do it full scale.
Who were the original artists? A tiny hand-painted sign at the base of each mural says “mural by Long Nawang Kenyahs (1960)”. In fact, they were Lepo’ Tau, a subgroup of the Kenyah. The Lepo’ Tau are well-known for their refined artistic skills in crafts, dance and music. They trace their roots to the Apau Kayan.
Today, there are two communities in Sarawak in the Baram: Long Moh and Long Mekaba. In 1959, about 60 Lepo’ Tau Kenyah from Long Nawang came into Sarawak looking for work. The large group split into smaller groups finding work in Kapit and Belaga. However, one small group, lead by headman Pabit Enjok, went to Kuching upon the invitation of Tom Harrisson. These men were the artists of the murals: Aban Pangin, Tama Saging, Lipa Bilong, Baya Laing, and Gun Along.
In 2020, elders from Long Nawang confirmed the names. They also shared details, in their native language, about the paintings. The men recalled that the artists felt it was an honour to be invited to come to Kuching to paint and share their rich culture through programmes on Radio Sarawak hosted by Harrisson at Segu Bungalow. The artists’ first-hand descriptions and explanations of their customs and traditions were valuable to the Museum. When the murals were completed in 1960 the men returned home. It was a long journey/pakalut. Remember, it was 1960, before the Pan Borneo Highway and the many logging roads that thread a route from Kuching to the border. It took weeks to make the journey by river and on foot.
What are the mural designs? The “Tree of Life” is the name Harrisson gave two of the paintings, but in fact, they are called Kayu Pengudip. Deep in the archives of Cornell University (USA) is a slip of notepaper in Harrisson’s handwriting. It gives an explanation of the tree as told by the head artist Aban Pangin: the tree trunk/pokok represents the root/asal of the Long Nawang chief Pak Tuloi. The branches and leaves represent the Lepo’ Tau villages, longhouses and people.
Another mural is that of a typical motif of a human-like figure called Kalong Kelunan.
According to the Lepo’ Tau elders, this painting was also in Long Nawang on the front door of the Apau Kayan headman. Like the Kayu Pengudip, this motif is only used by the people of the highest rank, paren, in Kenyah society. The motif indicates the status of the person who owns it. The human-like figure or kelunan is not a specific person. Can you see the two dogs, utu asau, on either side of the kelunan? They guard not only the human-like figure but the whole community. The tigers and the hornbill represent great strength and authority. The small yellow figure at the top could represent the descendants of the headman, or it might be a protective spirit Bali Utong. The central figure is wearing a large bead, another sign of authority and is sitting on a ladung tanyit, a special seat for leaders. All of this indicates that the owner of this painting is a person of the highest authority.
The fourth painting, Kalong Pakalut, is a mystery.
Although it is traditional in its overall design, the motif is not standard. It could be showing the story of how the men came to Kuching by river, or it could depict a Kenyah epic. What do you think? What story do you see in this painting?
Looking carefully at each mural, you will notice several funny things that do not seem to come from life in remote Long Nawang. For example, the Kalong Kelunan is wearing a wristwatch. The lady above the boat has a beaded handbag. There are pipe-smoking men in the trees. Were these items every day in 1959 Long Nawang? Maybe, but they could also show us what the artists saw when they came to Kuching. Perhaps the artists were making the modern things they encountered part of their traditional world by painting them in the murals. If you take some time to slowly look at the paintings, you will see the artists also had a sense of humour.
The four murals in the Sarawak Museum may never have been painted if it was not for a World War that took a British soldier into the heart of Borneo. There he was impressed by a monumental mural and the people who made it. Impressed so much that he found a way, fourteen years later, to have the same painted in the Museum for everyone to admire and remember. The murals are a fine example of the heritage and tradition of the Lepo’ Tau Kenyah people.
At the same time, they are footprints of the history of Sarawak and its Museum. In 2021 the Sarawak Museum was restored. Hopefully, when you can see them again, you will see the murals a little bit differently, and feel a connection to their Kenyah asal, and you will remember their part in Sarawak’s WWII and colonial history. Fear not! The murals you all remember are still there waiting for you. Maybe the next time you see them you will say “Luar biasa!”
Louise M Macul is a founding member of FoSM (2012), a museum guide (docent), and has worked in exhibition curation and design. As a life-long learner, Louise is completing her doctorate with the University of Leicester (UK) School of Museum Studies. Her research centres around the authenticity and value of the Berawan, Kayan, and Lepo’ Tau Kenyah paintings in the Sarawak Museum collection commissioned by Tom Harrisson (1947-1966).
“Heritage Snippets from Sarawak” is a fortnightly column.
