By Marlynda Meraw
MIRI, Feb 24: Visitors arriving in Miri may notice a recurring word appearing across signboards and directions throughout the city. Permaisuri, meaning queen, names both Jalan Permaisuri and a local shopping mall, hinting at a royal connection that many pass by without knowing its story.
According to honorary wildlife ranger with Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) Musa Musbah, the name traces back to a legend long told among communities living along the Miri River, where history and folklore often coincide.
There was once, according to local legend, a queen who was beheaded along the banks of the Miri River, her head placed on a stake and left as a trophy.
The Miriek community, an indigenous group native to Miri who lived along the river, one day witnessed the sighting of a headless woman rowing a raft. The figure appeared as villagers washed clothes by the riverbanks, moving silently across the water before disappearing from sight.
Alarm spread quickly through the settlement, and many believed the figure to be the spirit of the murdered queen.
“When the villagers went to check her grave, they discovered that the queen’s head had reattached to her body,” Musa told the D’Drift team, later explaining the events that led to her death before the sightings.
According to the tale, a king and his queen were travelling by ship when a violent storm struck and threatened to sink the vessel. As waves battered the ship, the king found himself holding both his mother and his wife while the vessel broke apart beneath them. Forced to choose, he saved his mother and released the queen, believing she would perish in the sea.
“What he didn’t know was that the Permaisuri could swim,” said Musa.
She survived and was eventually washed ashore, where she was discovered by the Miriek people who had gone to the shore in search of fish. At the time, Musa said, the Miriek practised pagan beliefs, and the queen later shared Islamic teachings with them during her stay.
Years later, news reached the king that his wife was still alive. Overjoyed, he searched for her and asked her to return home, but the queen refused, unable to forgive what she saw as betrayal during the storm.
The Permaisuri’s story, unfortunately, ended in violence when a group of villagers revolted against her presence and murdered her. Her gravesite in Kampung Pujut along the Miri River has since been gazetted by the Sarawak government as a heritage site.
What gave Miri its name
Musa, who described himself as always eager to share Miri’s past with visitors, explained that the city’s name itself reflects its earliest inhabitants.
The name is widely believed to originate from the word Miriek, referring to an indigenous ethnic group that once settled along the riverbanks.
Early foreign traders and explorers struggled to pronounce “Mi-ri-ek”, and over time the pronunciation softened into Miri, which eventually became the official name.
“Now only a few thousand Miriek people remain in Sarawak. Even my wife is a Miriek,” said Musa.
It was well-documented history that Sarawak once encompassed only Kuching before the first White Rajah: James Brooke was gradually ceded larger and larger tracts of land by the Sultanate of Brunei—all of which were rewards for his role in resolving conflicts and suppressing piracy, which eventually expanded Sarawak into the territory it became.
One naturally wonders why the Sultan was so willing to part with such vast swathes of land. Musa had an answer for that too.
“This was because the then-Sultan didn’t know how to read maps,” he said with a smile. The lands given to Brooke appeared insignificant to the Sultan in scale, so much so that he had no idea how much he was giving away.
There was a pause in the conversation, and then laughter. The thought of an empire built, in part, on cartographic misunderstanding was oddly human.
An Atlantis beneath Kuala Baram
Miri’s oral traditions also include stories that blend moral lessons with imagination, such as a legend centred on the waters of Kuala Baram.
D’Drift was told the tale of two brothers: one known for his kindness and the other for his cruelty. While fishing one day, the good brother accidentally dropped his spear into the river and dived in to retrieve it.
Beneath the water, he discovered a hidden community one could only describe as resembling Atlantis.
“The inhabitants asked whose spear it was, and frightened by the unfamiliar surroundings, the good brother claimed he did not know,” Musa told the team.
Having spent time with the underwater community, the good brother explained that he wished to take the spear away because it was a weapon. As a reward, he was bestowed with gold, which he brought back to the surface world.
Learning of the gold, the cruel brother attempted to repeat the encounter. He too threw his spear into the water and dived in, and surely enough, came across the same underwater community.
“Unlike his good brother who feared the claim, the cruel brother proudly declared ownership of the spear. It was a mistake that led to his eventual death,” said Musa.
Akin to many traditional tales, the story of the Atlantis beneath Kuala Baram survives as a reminder that humility invites reward while pride can lead to destruction.
A shared dream that built a temple
Former Pujut assemblyman Dato Andy Chia Chu Fatt offered another thread in Miri’s rich tale: the story of the Lian Hua San San Ching Temple, built in Krokop over a decade ago.
According to him, the temple’s two major sponsors came from different places: one a businessman based in Bintulu, the other originally from Sarawak but long since expanded into Kota Kinabalu.
“It was said that the two of them had the same dream of building a temple in Miri and somehow, people linked them together. So they did a major fundraiser to build that temple in Krokop,” Chia told the D’Drift team.
Faith, it seemed, sometimes made its own introductions.
Chia also spoke of the Miri Tua Pek Kong Temple along Jalan Bendahara and Jalan Marina. Standing as one of the oldest temples in the city, it was originally positioned beside the Miri River, deliberately so, allowing fishermen to offer their prayers as they set out to sea.
The riverbank had since shifted and the temple no longer stood at the water’s edge as it once did.
“During the Second World War, Miri was occupied by the Japanese. When liberation came, the bombings destroyed much of the town. The Tua Pek Kong Temple, however, was left untouched,” said Chia.
Whether this was the hand of the divine or the precision of the bombers, it had always felt, to those communities, like something more than mere coincidence.
The streets that changed their name
Miri began as a fishing village. Then, in 1910, oil was struck at what is now known as Canada Hill—so named, according to Chia, because the engineers who first worked the site came from Canada.
The discovery changed everything, drawing workers, infrastructure, and ambition to what had been a quiet stretch of riverbank.
The town grew, and with it, the names changed. Kingsway became Jalan Raja. Brighton Road, once a fashionable colonial address, was renamed Jalan Temenggong Oyong Lawai Jau. Jalan Jansen became Jalan Haji Lampam.
Jalan Brooke, notably, was retained; an anomaly among the renamings, as though the town had decided that some histories were worth keeping in plain sight. It was a fitting thought to carry as the afternoon drew on and our time in Miri began to close.
We arrived in Miri on a wet morning; heavy rain having turned us away from a planned walk along Tusan Beach in Sibuti. It would have been easy to give up on the day. Instead, we pushed on, and found ourselves rewarded not with scenery but with something more lasting: stories.
Tales of a headless queen rowing her raft, of a city named after an indigenous group whose name the foreigners could not quite pronounce, of a Sultan who gave away an empire because he could not read a map.
Miri had been visited many times before. But it revealed itself slowly to those willing to ask the right people the right questions.
There was always more here than what first met the eye, and we left, as ever, knowing a little more than when we arrived. — DayakDaily
