Forest feast

AT Bario, the deer will not be pulling Santa’s sleigh but will be on the dinner table! According to Maran Radu of Pa’ Lungan, the locals will hunt barking deer and wild boar in the surrounding forests.

Sylvester Kalang will hunt for wild boar or barking deer for his Christmas dinner that may also include wild ginger flowers (below, left) and the ultimate delicacy, kelatang - cicada larvae (below, right).

It’s more difficult to get monkeys and pythons, adds Sylvester Kalang, who is going out hunting from Pa’ Ukat, “but monkeys are not tasty anyway!” The forest is like a huge vegetable warehouse. Some leaves, called tengayan and dure in Kelabit, are collected, as are fern and bamboo shoots.
At lunch, I initially thought they served mushroom stems only to be told I was eating rattan shoots! They tasted slightly bitter and smooth. Superb. Flowers? Stir-fried purple ginger flowers (called ubud sala) are fair enough since we eat bunga kantan in tomyam, too.
But how about thinly sliced stir-fried orchid stems? These, called ubud aram in Kelabit, are slightly bitter and supposedly good for blood pressure.
And for the ultimate delicacy, try kelatang – the larvae of a cicada – extracted from the barigulad tree and barbecued on a stick. It tastes like ginger flowers!
In short, there is a complete organic food larder from the forest. If logging comes to Bario, much of this will be lost and locals will have to fork out hard cash to buy meat and vegetables, which would probably be laden with growth hormones and pesticides.

As for Ba Kelalan, Martha Tagal says there’s always catfish, tilapia and biawan from the rice fields. And a village might slaughter a buffalo, cow or pig for Christmas. We tried the buffalo at her father’s Apple Lodge. It turned out to be on the tough side. The Lunbawang also cook banana stems with wild boar and the famous bitterr – rice broth with vegetables such as cucumber or pumpkin leaves. At times, minced meat is thrown in.
There’s also penupis, a steamed roll of pulut flour with salt or sugar, the Lunbawang version of lepat pisang minus the banana. And its deep-fried version is called benak. In Bario, they have beraubek – the Kelabit version of Cantonese ham chin peng.
Above all, there is the famous highland rice of Bario and Ba Kelalan. With its soft texture, fine grains, pleasant mild aroma and exquisite taste, it is regarded as one of the world’s finest.
The quintessential festival dish for both the Kelabit and Lunbawang is nubalaya, rice wrapped in paddle leaves (daun itip), so called because the leaves look like paddles.

The rice is laboriously planted and harvested using traditional methods –without pesticides and chemical fertilisers (which are expensive to fly in anyway). Bario rice is planted elsewhere, in the lowlands of Miri for example, but only in the highlands does one get the “real taste.” A crucial ingredient up here is the surrounding forests – which provides pollinating insects and pristine water (the same reason why Scotch whisky is so good – because it’s made with water from unpolluted Scottish streams).

About Lun Bawang

Lun Bawang is a tribe in Sarawak. They are a component of the group of indigenous people collectively known as Orang Ulu. They can be found in the Limbang Division of Sarawak, as well as in the Interior Division of Sabah, Temburong District of Brunei, and in East Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Althougyh they are known as Lun Bawang in Sarawak, in Sabah they are called Lun Dayeh. Among themselves, they go by the names Lun Lod, Lun Baa and Lun Tana Luun. The different names give a clue as to where they settle. The name Lun Bawang means "people of the interior", Lud Lod means "people of the estuary" and Lun Dayeh means "people of the upriver". When the British were governing Sarawak, the Lun Bawang were often listed as Murut by them, although the Lun Bawang insisted that they belong to a separate, distinct tribe from the Murut, which is another ethnic group in Sabah.

Food

The Lun Bawang were traditionally peasants who cultivated hill rice and wet paddy. Their staple is rice cooked in banana leaves called Nuba Laya. Meat and fish are pickled in brine and kept in hollowed bamboo for a month, to make Telu. Another way to prepare and preserve meat is by smoking.

Costume

As with other tribes in Sarawak, cattle and buffaloes are reared for their meat as well as for use as dowry. The men wear jackets made of tree bark called kuyu talun. Their loincloth is called abpar. They wear a machete, called pelepet, around their waist.

Festivals

The Lun Bawang celebrate a festival called Irau Aco Lun Bawang, literally "Lun Bawang Festival". It takes place on 1 June every year in Lawas. This is a harvest festival in which visitors can get a glimpse of the Lun Bawang culture. Among the events include the beauty pagent, Ruran Ulung and the bamboo orchestra, Ngiup Suling.

Religion

Until the 1920s, Lun Bawangs were mostly animists. Since then, many have converted to Christianity, predominantly Protestant through the work of the Borneo Evangelical Mission, as well as other Christian denominations such as the True Jesus Church, Seventh-Day Adventist Church and the Roman Catholic Church. It is said that some have also embraced Islam or Buddhism, but no figures are available.

Nginud Ui Nuli Some of the Lun Bawang Love Songs

LUN BAWANG SAD LOVE SONGS

LUN BAWANG WORSHIP SONGS..

Adeline A Adoreble Bedtime Smile

My Second Day At My Grandpa's House

Woke early today..around 6.30am earlier than all the creatures in the house. I tidied the dishes in the sink which was left over last night and dried those filthy laundry at the back off my grandparents house..15minutes later my grandmum woke up for her morning prayer, follwed by my two auntie, after all  the house was noisy by all the creatures. After that, we went to my grandpa's garden a few kilometers from home. This picture i  took at around 12.25pm. Try take a closer look at my one of my little rascal..My daughter Adeline posed with  big beautiful mushrooms blooming like a sunflower and.we so-called it "YEAR MUSHROOMS". These mushrooms are edible. I've never seen big year mushrooms before? At night, we had surprsing dishes that came from the kebun.. "THE BIG MUSHROOMS" .