Ancient burial poles with ornate carvings are an important part of the mythology and heritage of Sarawak’s Orang Ulu. Yet, conservation of these grave treasures seems to have come to a standstill.

Ancient burial poles with ornate carvings are an important part of the mythology and heritage of Sarawak’s Orang Ulu. Yet, conservation of these grave treasures seems to have come to a standstill.

IT seems an eternity paddling a boat upstream in still, sullen midday heat at the Upper Belaga river, Sarawak. Eventually, we dock and trek through the jungle. Sting-less “sweat bees” land on our bodies to pick up bits of salt – a sign of dense forests.

And then it looms before us, two three-storey high wooden burial towers, rotted in parts, but with most of its ornate carvings visible; holding the remains of a great chieftain at its apex.

“His name is Jalong Ingan. He’s royalty. Buried more than 150 years ago,” says our boatman (who shall remain unidentified to protect the site) from a nearby village. “Slaves would have been buried and crushed alive at the foot of the poles to be servants in the afterlife.”

These were once the “twin towers” of the local Kenyah people more than a century ago, superstructures testifying to the powers of the deceased man – but nowadays serenaded only by a shrill jungle insect orchestra.

“When my father took me fishing here long ago, we could hear the sape (a stringed instrument) playing in the forest. But it wasn’t being played by humans....” adds the boatman. “A gong used to be hung up there. Decades ago, we heard that a grave robber tried to steal it. A cobra killed him. I wouldn’t come here alone. But with three of you, I dare to.”

As we traipse through the site, we discover at least five other burial towers, huge single logs with flattened tops, some with their hardwood coffins still astride them.

“The chieftain would have been buried with all his head hunting gear,” says Raymond Abin, the director of Borneo Resources Institute, who has brought me here. “The graveyard would once have been a clearing.”

And the burial towers (or burial poles as they are also called) would have stood proudly, visible to all passing boats then. Now, totally enveloped in jungle, nobody but a few locals know of their existence.

Popular practice

Later, Jayl Langub, a research fellow at Unimas (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak) tells me that such burials were once practised by inland tribes such as the Kenyah, Kayan, Berawans, Punan Bah, Kajang and Kejaman (who are classified in Sarawak as the Orang Ulu) as well as the coastal Melanau people.

Joseph Ingai Gasing, the former Sarawak Museum conservation chief (from 1976 till 2000), explains that there are two kinds of burial structure. One is the kelirieng or burial pole, a huge (usually carved) hardwood tree trunk, sometimes with a huge two-metre wide stone slab right on top. And then, there is the salong, or burial hut, built on stilts.

He describes the ancient funeral process:

“First, there is a primary 'burial' in a coffin on a low platform. The flesh will rot away till only the bones remain. This may take up to three years. During that time, the elaborate keliriengs or salongs would be carved and painted.

“The secondary burial, replete with a grand feast, involved putting the bones into the burial jar. It’s relatively light and can be carried up a ladder. The real challenge is erecting the kelirieng which required lots of manpower using a primitive pulley system.”

All kinds of provisions had to be sent along with the dead for the next world. Food, clothes, ornaments, parangs, spears and occasionally, during World War Two, even shotguns.

While most burials used a single pole, some used two because, according to Joseph, “It was about displaying wealth and power. The people were also competing among themselves.”

The carvings on them included fearsome human or ghost-like figures.

“It was meant to scare away evil spirits ... and grave robbers,” says Joseph. “People were said to have bad dreams after seeing them. There were very high fines for disturbing graves. And only aristocrats could have designs such as hornbills, dragons and leopards on their graves.”

Unlike the Ibans, the Kenyahs and Kayans were traditionally divided into four social classes: the maren (aristocrats or chieftains), hipui (minor nobility), panyen (commoners) and depen (slaves).

As recently as 30 years ago, class taboos were still practised, says Tugang Lang, headman of the nearby longhouse at Mudung Abun.

“For instance, the maren would not eat with the slaves. And certain designs were reserved for the maren’s graves, like those resembling humans and animals. The commoners’ graves could only have designs like flowers.”

Why sky burials

Joseph says that even the longhouse elders are not sure why burials were done in keliriengs and salongs, except that it had become an established tradition.

He believes the custom may have originated from a desire to show off an aristocrat’s wealth, and what better way than to place precious porcelain jars with his bones high up on ornately carved poles.

There is supporting evidence of this from the Kelabits of the Bario highlands.

“Originally, they used to bury their dead in stone caves. This practice can still be seen in parts of Kalimantan. But after the Kelabits came into contact with Chinese porcelain jars, they buried bodies inside them and placed them high up on trees.”

The Kelabit, however, did not creare burial towers and Joseph reckons that's because they had no access to tough belian (ironwood) up in the highlands.

Spirit saturated world

Before most of the Orang Ulu converted to Christianity through the 20th century, their world – which spawned such mythical graves – was one steeped in spirits and taboos.

“If somebody died in the longhouse, the family could not go out to the farm, even if it was the harvesting period, for fear that the deceased’s spirits would disturb them,” says Clement Langet Sabang, who formerly served with the Sarawak Museum.

Similarly, if someone in the Kenyah longhouse went down to his boat at the river bank and heard a barking deer, it was regarded as a bad omen and he had to turn back.

Clement grew up in a Kenyah longhouse community along the Tinjar river (a tributary of the Baram river, inland from Miri) in the 1960s. Even though the people had been gradually converted to Christianity since the 1940s, the old taboos were still strong.

If a woman died during childbirth, the Kenyahs had their own version of the pontianak vampire called ulang ilu utu. Literally translated, it meant, “ghost of the testes”, a long-haired spectre which reputedly plucked away a man’s family jewels with her sabre-like fingernails – in revenge against the “source” of her death.

Clement explains that the Kenyah world of the dead is opposite to that of the living.

“When the dead person’s spirit says something good (in the underworld) about somebody living, then he becomes giddy or nauseous. So if anybody in the longhouse felt that way, we would try to find out which spirit it was.

“We would pull the hairs of elderly people and then mention the names of the deceased. If it was indeed that spirit, there would be a certain sound from the pulled hair. Then we would tell the spirit, 'Please, no need to say anything nice about us’ in the afterlife.”

Eric Kjellgren, in his article, Into the Art of Borneo, writes that to repel many malevolent spirits (of the forests and rivers), Kenyah-Kayan artists used images of fearsome, otherworldly creatures as supernatural guardians.

“Like the gargoyles on medieval cathedrals, dragon-like creatures stare out from the roof, walls, and doors of the longhouse. Clothing, ornaments, utilitarian objects, coffins and graves are also embellished with protective images.”

Abin adds that the Orang Ulu frequently migrated along the rivers in search of new farmland or when a place became “spiritually dirty”. The old graves would then be left in benign neglect until a whole forest grew up within and around it.

“Kenyah graves were made to be forgotten,” says Clement. “Traditionally, the longhouse graveyard was a bad place filled with ghosts and spirits and nobody wanted to go there.”

Christian cemetery carvings

How have things changed in modern times?

For one, Clement says that during All Souls Day nowadays, the Orang Ulu visit graveyards to clear the grass.

At Sungai Asap, near Belaga, where thousands of Orang Ulu upstream from the massive Bakun dam have been resettled in the past seven years, there are new cemeteries where many intimidating motifs co-exist peacefully with Christian R.I.P. crosses.

Explains Clement: “No doubt, the traditional motifs were meant to scare away bad spirits. Although most Orang Ulu have become Christians, we can still respect the carvings as an art form but not to the extent where we have to believe in the spiritual side.”

He also feels that old taboos should not be allowed to impede progress.

“Imagine, if a barking deer got lost near the longhouse for one week, you could not go to your farm for the whole period.”

Before, the chieftains would have been buried with their head-hunting parangs. But the graves of today’s Orang Ulu at Sungai Asap are adorned with their favourite T-shirts, guitars and artist’s easels. One chap, who was apparently a keen hunter, had rice wine and an animal skull left on top of his concrete grave.

According to Abin, one of the grandest burial huts at Sungai Asap belonged to a VIP’s close relative and rumour had it that RM50,000 in cash and jewellery were buried with the body. It was reportedly robbed one week later.

“But it was probably more like RM500,” quips Abin.

Tugang Lang, the Mudung Abun headman, remembers that his grandmother’s burial tower at the old upriver settlement of Long Geng (before they migrated downstream) eventually rotted away and collapsed.

“I don’t like to see that. So for our graves nowadays, we will follow the Chinese style and use bricks and concrete,” he says.

The old rules also restricted carvings of hornbills and dragons for graves of aristocrats. That too is changing.

Says Clement, “The new aristocrats are those who have money. They can pay carvers to do any fancy designs they want. Old folks who would have said they had no right (to such carvings) are no longer around to criticise. For the younger generation, it’s just an art form.”

Still, not all the old cemetery taboos should be taken lightly.

Ganet Usat, from Lebu Kulit longhouse, Sungai Asap, says:

“If anybody main-main cakap (simply talk) at the cemetery, then the spirits of ancestors may emerge. Similarly, when in the jungle, disrespectful talk may attract forest spirits. This happens even though we are now Christians.”

Sure enough, Abin recalls that some youngsters made fun of an old man who was being buried at Sungai Asap. After they went home, there was a huge flash flood. Its devastating aftermath can still be seen – right beside the cemetery.

Well, believe it, or not...

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