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Festival

Come discover a rich cultural heritage unlike any other in this festive paradise, SARAWAK! :)

There are always different festivals or events going on among the Orang Iban, Orang Ulu, Chinese Sarawak, Orang Melanau, Orang Bidayuh et cetera.

Kindly scroll down for more info.

✖Orang Ulu✖

A vast majority of the Orang Ulu tribe are Christians but old traditional religions are still practiced in some areas. 

Some of the festival highlights celebrated by the Orang Ulu people include the Belaga Regatta. The Orang Ulu also celebrates Gawai Dayak.  

One notable festival, though not traditional, is the Rainforest Music Festival, where many of the indigenous tribes of Sarawak as well as those from around the world, come together to share their music in a spectacular three-day performance. 

Gawai Dayak is a festival celebrated in Sarawak on 1 June every year. It is both a religious and social occasion. The mode of celebration varies from place to place. Preparation starts early. 

Tuak (rice wine) is brewed (at least one month before the celebration) and traditional delicacies likepenganan (cakes from rice flour, sugar and coconut milk) are prepared. As the big day approaches, everyone will be busy with general cleaning and preparing food and cakes. 

On Gawai Eve, glutinous rice is steamed in bamboo (ngelulun pulut). In the longhouse, new mats will be laid out on the ruai (an open gallery which runs through the entire length of the longhouse). The walls of most bilik (rooms) and the ruai are decorated with Pua Kumbu (traditional blankets). A visit to clean the graveyard is also conducted and offerings offered to the dead. After the visit it is important to bathe before entering the longhouse to ward off bad luck.

✖Orang Iban✖

There are some festivals for Iban such as bird festival Gawai Burong, spirit festival Gawai Antu and rice harvesting festival Gawai Dayak. Rice harvesting festival Gawai Dayak is their main festival and they will celebrate every year on the 1^st of June.  

Traditionally, it is held at longhouses to thank deities such as Keiling, Laja and Bungsi Nuing for the year’s harvest and they wish to ask for better harvests and prosperity in the years to come. The festival starts with ngalu pengabang, a welcome ceremony for guests. The ladies will greet those guests with glasses of tuak on one side of the staircase. Man bless those guests by holding a manuk permiau(cockerel) and waving it over their heads on the other side of staircase.  

The Iban traditional dance, ngajat, is performed accompanied by the taboh and gendang, the Ibans' traditional music.  The ceremony continued with the piring alu where a plate of rice with eggs and popcorn was placed on a ceremonial bamboo pole as an offering to the deities.  Following of that, a group of men will beat on long drum, begendang to welcome the deities to the celebration and marked the start of the ceremony. 

Poems will be reciting as the ceremony began and more offering will be offer to the deities.  They praise deities and warriors by those poems and asking them to render wealth, better harvest and protection for the longhouse inhabitants. Then, taku song was sung to praise them. 

After that, the buah inyak representing human skulls was placed on plates and offered to the warriors by a group of ladies in traditional costume as a thanksgiving to the men for their achievements as warriors.  To show they were successful warriors, they had to cut open the coconuts with a parang without breaking the plates and drink the coconut water in one gulp. 

✖Orang Bidayuh✖

All bidayuh festivals are related to their main economic activity, padi planting. Rice is something given by God (Almighty) not only a sustenance of life. They got four related festival of padi planting. The first one is Gawea Oran which celebrate before padi planting season begin for planters select sites for their farm. 

A small patch of land is clean and certain birds and certain twining plants are observed and examined for omen. If the omen is good then gawea oran is held but a new site is selected if the omen is bad. It is held by the roadside leading to the farm and altar is built and offerings are placed on it. 

The purpose of the offerings is to seek permission from the spirits living in the area to be farmed to make use of the land. The second festival is Gawea Nuruk .  before planting, the padi seeds are bless and 'Ieng podi' are called upon to enter the seeds. The land is bless for fertility and to get rid of diseases.  They also ask for assistance blessing from Ieng Topa (God) and past ancestors to ensure good growth and hence bountiful harvest.  

The following festival is Gawea Tubi Bauh.  It held to ask permission from 'Ieng Topa' (God) to harvest the padi. They believed the people will fall sick after eating the newly harvested rice if this gawea is not held. This being so, the gawea is held just when the padi grain turn golden. The obtained rice is cook and during the ceremony the rice is divided among all members of the family and is eaten.  Harvesting proper will takes place after this gawea.   

The fourth festival is Gawea Sowah . It is held after harvesting is over and padi safely stored. This is the mark of the end of the old life cycle of the padi planting season and marks the beginning of the new cultivation season. It is thanksgiving for a fine rice harvest, safety of the villagers, bountiful fruit seasons, and availability of fish in the rivers and animals in the forest and good health of the villagers.

✖Orang Melanau✖

The colourful Kaul festival is undoubtedly the best event to showcase the richness of Melanau culture and heritage. The festival is a ritual of purification and thanksgiving as well as one of the propitiation for good fortune. The Melanaus express their gratitude to the spirits for keeping them safe throughout the monsoon season. They are also expressing their desire for an abundance of fishes caught on their fishing journeys. It is celebrated at the end of the northeast monsoon, and it marks the beginning of the Melanau New Year. This festival is one of the main attractions of the state and has been in Sarawak tourism calendar for many years. 

The Melanau community leaders will line up with their serahang to welcome Taib. The main highlight of the event is “tibau”, a traditional giant swing 20 feet high. Those young people would daringly dive down to catch a swinging rope.  Men and women compete to see how many can swing together at the end of a long rope. Traditional alu-alu dance will be performed by those dancers at the event.  Various associations of the other Sarawakian communities also took part in the festival. The active participation of the other communities shows that the spirit of living together peacefully and harmoniously, tolerance and understanding of each other’s cultures, traditions and religious beliefs was a unique characteristic of Sarawakian spirit.

✖Chinese Sarawak✖

The Ghost Festival is celebrated during the seventh month of the Chinese Lunar calendar. It also falls at the same time as a full moon, the new season, the fall harvest, the peak of Buddhist monastic asceticism, the rebirth of ancestors, and the assembly of the local community. During this month, the gates of hell are opened up and ghosts are free to roam the earth where they seek food and entertainment. T

hese ghosts are believed to be ancestors of those who have forgotten to pay tribute to them after they had died, or those who have suffered deaths and were never given a proper ritual for a send-off. They have long needle-thin necks because they have not been fed by their family, or it is a sign of punishment so they are unable to swallow. Family members offer prayers to their deceased relatives, offer food and drink and burn joss paper. Such paper items are only valid in the underworld, which is why they burn it as an offering to the ghosts that have come from the gates of hell. The afterlife is very similar in some aspects to the material world, and the paper effigies of material goods would provide comfort to in the afterlife. 

People would also burn other things such as paper houses, cars, servants and televisions to please the ghosts. Families also pay tribute to other unknown wandering ghosts so that these homeless souls do not intrude on their lives and bring misfortune and bad luck. A large feast is held for the ghosts on the fourteenth day of the seventh month, where everyone brings samplings of food and places them on the offering table to please the ghosts and ward off bad luck.

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Traditional houses

In Sarawak, the dominant tribal groups are the Dayak.  There are the Iban (Sea Dayak), and the Bidayuh (Land Dayak).Tribal people live in longhouses and there are over 4,500 longhouses in Sarawak.   

There are different type of buildings that represent every major ethnic group in Sarawak: -

IBAN LONGHOUSE

Iban mostly thrive along the coastal areas with some have made settlement inland and further up-rivers. At present day, there are quite a number of the ethnic tribe members are living in urban areas such as Kuching, Miri and Bintulu.

The longhouse is often considered as a village by itself, with a leader called Tuai Rumah, often elected by the majority of the tribe members. That fact itself is small paradox to the common practice of certain countries or kingdoms which the leadership thrones are passed from one of similar descendant to another. In an Iban longhouse, the leader is elected based on merits, hence the progenies of the previous chief will not necessarily be taking up the vacant position.

On close inspection, the Iban Housebears close resemblance to the Bidayuh House.

The Iban longhouse sits on stilts and normally accommodates the entire village. Unlike the land dayaks, the Ibans or Sea Dayaks position their villages on the banks of accessible waterways. The Ibans are great adventurers and take long sojourns across lands but prefer using the waterways to move about. 

The longhouse is built of local timbers tied together with naturally-harvested fibre woods. 

Since the real Iban longhouses are often erected near the major rivers of Sarawak, the design emulates a raised floor concept to ensure the occasional surge of river flow will not enter the longhouse.

interior of Iban longhouse

BIDAYUH LONGHOUSE

A hornbill crest tops a Bidayuh headhouse, a symbol of good fortune.

The Bidayuh , which accounts for 8.4% of Sarawak's population, live in the catchment of Sarawak and Sadong rivers. The Bidayuh is the tribe known to Europeans as "Land Dayaks", because of their habitation deep in the limestone mountains, near the water catchment areas of West Sarawak. Like many other tribes in Borneo, the Bidayuh live in long houses, which are really a primitive condominium. The Bidayuh belongs to five main language groups, namely the Puruh, Jagoi, Siburan, Bukar, Sadong, and Selakau Lara. The majority of Bidayuh are today Christians.

The Bidayuh headhouse.

 At the main entrance, one will enter a pavilion-like circular structure made of mostly bamboos. This structure, connected to the longhouse by a wooden plank, is known as Baruk which functions as the congregation place for the Bidayuh warriors.

Gongs hung in the headhouse.

The Baruk's interior is filled withweapons, gongs, wooden masks and other personal effects. There is a raised platform right in the middle of theBaruk.

 Another feature that worth a mention inside the longhouse is a demonstration of artistic bamboo carving.

A Bidayuh bamboo bridge.

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Santubong Areas

Gunung Santubong

Mount Santubong (Gunung Santubong) is a mountain in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. It is located about 35 km north of the state capital Kuching

LEGEND

A legend often associated with the mountain is of two beautiful princesses of heaven, Santubong and Sejinjang. Santubong was an expert weaver while Sejinjang was an excellent rice tresher. When war broke out between two villages, Kampung Pasir Puteh and Kampung Pasir Kuning, the King of Heaven sent the princesses to keep peace in both villages. The villagers saw both beautiful princesses and stopped the war. After the war, both princesses taught the villagers their expertise and both villages began to trade and became prosperous. Many princes heard of them and came from the whole island to marry them, but all was denied by them. One day, a handsome prince came, and the princesses had a quarrel and exchanged blows because both of them fell in love with the prince. Sejinjang swung her tresher which hit Santubong's cheek. Santubong threw her weaver at Sejinjang, hitting her in the head. Putting an end to the quarrel, the King of Heaven cursed both of them into mountains. Santubong turned into Mount Santubong while Sejinjang was turned into Mount Sejinjang. It is said that both mountains resembles women lying on their back and a crack on Mount Santubong was the scar on Princess Santubong's cheek.

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National Park in Sarawak

Gunung Mulu National Park (Mount Mulu)

 

Gunung Mulu National Park near Miri, Sarawak Malaysian Borneo, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that encompasses caves and karst formation in a mountainous equatorial rainforest setting. The park is famous for its caves and the expeditions that have been mounted to explore them and their surrounding rainforest, most notably the Royal Geographical Society Expedition of 1977–1978, which saw over 100 scientists in the field for 15 months. This initiated a series of over 20 expeditions now drawn together as the Mulu Caves Project.

Gunung Mulu National Park is famous for its limestone karst formations. Features include enormous caves, vast cave networks, rock pinnacles, cliffs and gorges. Mount Mulu is a sandstone mountain rising to 2,376 m (7,795 ft).

Gunung Mulu National Park has the largest known natural chamber or room – Sarawak Chamber, found in Gua Nasib Bagus. It is 2,300 feet (700 m) long, 1,300 feet (396 m) wide and at least 230 feet (70 m) high. It has been said that the chamber is so big that it could accommodate about 40 Boeing 747s, without overlapping their wings. The nearby Deer Cave is one of the largest single cave passages in the world.

FAUNA

Eight species of hornbill have been spotted in Mulu including the Rhinoceros Hornbill Buceros rhinoceros which features on Sarawak state emblem, the White-crowned Hornbill Berenicornis/Aceros comatus and the Helmeted Hornbill Buceros vigil with its large solid casque (bill).

Twenty seven species of bat have been recorded in Mulu. Deer Cave in the southern limestone hills of the park is home to an enormous colony of Wrinkle-lipped bats (Tadarida plicata). The bats exit the cave almost every evening in search of food in a spectacular exodus. A huge mound of guano in the cave is evidence of the size of the bat colony that roosts in the cave's high ceilings.

Mulu's mammals also include the Bearded pig Sus barbatus, the moonrat Echinosorex gymnurus, shrews, the Bornean Tarsier Tarsius bancanus, the long-tailed Macaque Macaca fascicularis, gibbons, squirrels, and three types of deer including the small barking deer and mouse deer. The small Malaysian sun bear Helarctos malayanus, which is the only bear known in South-East Asia, has also been identified in Gunung Mulu National Park.

FLORA

Gunung Mulu National Park contains a large number of plant species, including flowering plants, trees, and fungi. Geology, soil types and topography have given rise to a rich tapestry of plant zones and types. On Gunung Mulu itself these include lowland mixed dipterocarp forest, lower montane forest, mossy or upper montane forest and summit zone vegetation on the highest peaks. On the limestones there is lowland limestone forest as well as lower and upper montane limestone forest. Other plant communities dominate the alluvial plains, including kerangas (tropical heath forest) and peatswamp forest.

ACCESS

Mulu National Park is a very remote access area. There are flights between Mulu Airport and Miri (daily), Kuching (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays) and Kota Kinabalu (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays) on MASwings. Alternatively, it is possible to travel by river from Miri, which is about 100 km away, using a riverboat, then a chartered long boat, which in total takes around 12 hours. Before the opening of the airport and the opening of a helipad in 1991, this was the only way to reach the national park.

Excursions to Mulu continues to retain the sense of adventure associated with its original exploration through the provision of adventure caving and other adventure activities. The primary focus, however, has shifted to the promotion of an awareness of the significance of the park and its environment through the provision of ecotourism activities that foster understanding and appreciation of the parks values. Accommodation is available onsite at Gunung Mulu National Park headquarters, as well as at the Royal Mulu Resort and across the Melinau River at Benarat Inn also known as Benarat Lodge. Homestays offered by locals, and other typically cheaper lodging are available across the river.

Bako National Park

This is one of the smallest national parks in Sarawak but one of the most interesting, containing a wide variety of vegetation and terrains which can be accessed by a well-maintained network of nature trails. It is only 37 km from Kuching. There are some fine beaches here too - Telok Sibur, Telok Pandan Besar and Telok Pandan Kecil among them. Bako Sea Stack is a much photographed unusual rock formation jutting out of the sea.

Bako is probably the best place in Sarawak for wildlife experiences. The park has been a protected area since 1957, so the animals are less wary of humans. Visitors, especially those who stay overnight, will have countless opportunities to observe and photograph various types of wildlife.

The best times for seeing wildlife at Bako are just after dawn and just before dusk, when the animals are at their most active. You are more likely to see animals on the trails if you go in small groups, walk slowly, keep as quiet as possible, and listen out for sounds and movements in the forest. For example, you are likely to hear a strange grunting sound or the crash of leaves long before you actually see a proboscis monkey.

Telok Assam, the area around the HQ, is a great place for seeing wildlife. Long-tailed macaques, silvered langurs or leaf-monkeys, common water monitors, plantain squirrels, wild boar and mouse deer are all found here. Watch out for the macaques as they are possibly the most fearless monkeys on earth. They will raid dustbins and kitchens in the resthouses, or scamper into the canteen to steal food or an unguarded bag. Keep all doors locked and never encourage them by offering food. In contrast to the unruly macaques, the silvered leaf-monkey or silvered langur is a docile and attractive creature. Adults have silver-grey fur and a spiky crest of head hair, whilst the infants are covered in bright orange fur.

Bako is also home to approximately 275 rare proboscis monkeys, found only in Borneo. The male is an odd-looking creature, with a huge pendulous nose and a large pot-belly, weighing in excess of 20 kg. Both male and female are covered in reddish-brown fur with grey limbs and a white tail. They are mostly arboreal (tree-dwelling), moving about the forest or mangroves in small groups and feeding on young leaves, shoots, sour fruits and seeds. Although it requires some patience, an encounter with a group of proboscis is likely to be the highlight of your trip to Bako. The best times are early in the morning or in the hours before dusk. Telok Delima and Telok Paku are the best trails for viewing the proboscis. The mangroves at Telok Assam are also a good place for viewing proboscis monkeys.

Otters are delightful creatures to watch, and two species are found at Bako - the oriental small-clawed otter and the hairy-nosed otter. They spend most of their time in the water, feeding on fish, frogs and other small animals. Oriental small-clawed otters are occasionally seen at Sungai Assam, swimming in the river or running across the mud searching for food. Hairy-nosed otters are sometimes seen early in the morning around the mangroves at Telok Assam.

The Bornean bearded pig, Bako’s largest mammal, is distinguished from other wild pigs by prominent bristles either side of its snout. Bearded pigs are often found around the park HQ scavenging for food or wallowing in mud.

The largest of Bako’s many lizard species is the common water monitor, olive green in colour and reaching a length of 2 metres. Young monitors are green with yellow spots and therefore easier to see. They are strong swimmers and can stay submerged for a considerable length of time. Monitors are scavengers, feeding on carrion and occasional live prey. They are often found near the accommodation area or near the boat jetty, scavenging for scraps of food. You may also see their tracks at the park’s beaches.

The small, brownish grey skink or sun lizard is often seen basking on rocks at the beach or scurrying away from the paths. The attractive green crested lizard, common throughout the park, is usually bright green but is capable of changing colour if alarmed. Flying lizards are occasionally seen launching themselves from tree trunks and gliding through the air.

Bako is home to a number of snakes, most of which are harmless. They are well camouflaged, and usually slide off into the undergrowth at the first sign of danger. The grass green whip snake is easily recognised by its bright colour, pencil-thin body and long snout. The paradise tree snake’s black upper body is marked with green spots whilst its underside is yellowy-green with red spots. The only poisonous snake that is occasionally seen is the Wagler’s pit viper that, like all pit vipers, has a broad, flat, triangular head.

Bako is a fascinating place for bird watching, as over 150 species have been recorded here. Although many of these can be seen around the accommodation area, you need to hit the trails to appreciate the full variety of Bako’s bird life. The mangroves at Telok Assam are an excellent place to start. Serious bird watchers should take a good pair of binoculars and the Pocket Guide to the Birds of Borneo, which is widely available in Kuching.

Rock pools and mangroves are good places to search for small animals such as mudskippers and crabs, especially sky-blue fiddler crabs and shell-dwelling hermit crabs. Bako also has its fair share of insects. Watch out for them on the forest floor and hear them everywhere.

Bako’s nocturnal creatures include the flying lemur, pangolin, mouse deer, various bats, tarsier, slow loris and palm civet. If you take a night walk through the forest near the Park HQ you may catch sight of some these creatures, as well as spiders that shine when a flashlight is played on them, glow worms and fireflies, You will certainly hear crickets, cicadas, frogs, and maybe owls. The beach by the park HQ is also a great place for a night walk. If the tide is out you may see crabs, prawns, anemones, starfish, annelid worms and young shrimp in the small pools.

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