From Headhunting to Rice Growing

This is the second part in my series on traveling to the Bornean jungle village of Long Pasia. Start from the beginning here.

My stomach growled as the warm aroma of prepared food wafted through the long house. Still, after my recent bout with cholera, I was gravely afraid to eat anything in the jungle village of Long Pasia. What would happen to me if I got sick again? Being six hours away from any medical attention was a terrifying thought. The food smelled and looked delicious though. Steaming bowls of fragrant rice nearly overflowed – kernels with a delicate purple hue around the stems. I would come to learn that this rice was grown just yards away from the table. A large plate of grilled boar meat sat in the middle of the table. These choice cuts of meat, singed bristles still attached to the outer crust, came from the vanquished boar of that week’s hunt. All of the village men attended the trek into the nearby jungles in search of boar. This party even included the young boy from the back of the truck who I saw on my way to the village. There were also several plates of vegetables that I did not recognize on the table– bright yellow and pink blossoms cooked with a pinch of salt. Looking back, I now regard this food as being the freshest and safest to eat on all my travels throughout Asia.

My initial caution gave way as soon as I tasted the delicious dishes, and I ate to my stomach’s content. As I had lost a lot of weight due to my recent stay in the hospital, my appetite was ravenous, and I duly indulged it throughout my stay in Long Pasia.

After dinner, my guide Balang properly introduced me to my hosts who I would be staying with throughout my week in the Bornean village. First was Boi, the family patriarch. He was a shorter man, but stocky and fleet. He wore a bright, beaming smile on his face, and spoke warm sentences in Bahasa to welcome me, brimming with emotion. Unfortunately, my Bahasa was still mediocre, so I only picked up a few words. Still, his warm welcome was clear. He also introduced me to his elderly mother and the rest of his family. He had a son (the boy from the truck ride and boar hunt) and two daughters. His youngest daughter, Awa, was three. She was an adorable little rascal who took a particular shine to me and often followed me around during my time in Long Pasia. My guide Balang also lived in Boi’s house, along with his pregnant wife Maria. He met her while living in Kuala Lumpur. She was from Russia and did not speak a word of Bahasa or the native Bornean language, making communication for her and the Long Pasians difficult. Balang went on to explain that he was not originally from the tribe. He is ethnically Chinese, but his fascination with the Bornean tribes led him to travel and live amongst them. He was formally adopted by the Long Pasians and is now regarded as one of their people.

The house itself was a large two-story wood structure with aluminum roofing and siding. To this day I can recall the deafening yet meditative sound of monsoon rain pounding against the house on frequent rainstorms.

A few walls separated several large rooms from each other. The largest room served as the living, dining, and bedroom, with the whole family sleeping together on the floor at night. Conveniently, the upstairs of the house had a guest bedroom for visitors to stay in, which I was to call my bedroom for the week.

Against the walls of the house hung many traditional artefacts and cultural wares. Snakeskin clothing, spears, helmets, and other traditional weaponry. The horn and shell of a rhinoceros beetle. The claw of a sun bear. Scales of a pangolin. These latter objects were found in the jungle by Boi and his family.

Balang and Boi shared with me fascinating pieces of Long Pasia’s history, including its warrior and headhunting culture from the past (up until the early 20th century). While the Long Pasia people are still brave and adept hunters, they are the most peaceful and gentle folk I have ever met. Today, they grow rice, fish, raise livestock, and hunt boar.

The next morning, I followed Boi, Balang, and his son to the nearby river to check on their fishing nets. The river is a communal resource, with a section of the water parceled out to Boi’s family for fishing rights. I came to learn this was a common social structure in Long Pasia and would reappear throughout my trip in various forms.

We rode along the river in a long, thin fishing boat with thick jungle trees surrounding us on both sides. For the first time upon arriving, I felt a powerful sense of awe and surrealness. I was in a very special place.

When we got back to shore, I helped them remove the wriggling fish from the nets and skewer them on long carrying sticks. By the end of it, my hands we covered in scales and fish blood.

We delivered the bounty of fish back to the house. At the entrance of the house was a large banana tree branch, freshly cut by Boi’s wife with dozens of green bananas waiting to ripen in the fresh mountain air. While Boi’s wife prepared our catch for dinner, I talked with Balang and his wife and played with Awa and her sister.

Awa had a doll in her hand, and when I looked closer, I nearly doubled over. Here in the remote jungles of Borneo, where even such household items as salt can require multiple day excursions over treacherous roads to procure, she was holding a Disney Frozen doll. For a moment, I contemplated in a sort of existential ague how such consumerist junk could dominate the world’s cultural space and pervade every nook and cranny of this earth, but this soon gave way to the smell of fresh fish frying in oil, signifying dinner was almost ready. The fish was spectacularly fresh, just like everything else on the table.

Knowing I could contribute to the food gathering process felt good. Beside the fish on the table was some leftover boar meat, this time fried instead of grilled. There were also steamed banana hearts, stewed ferns, and more fragrant rice. Before my time at Long Pasia was over, I would have a chance to participate in collecting every other item on the dinner table, including the boar.

I awoke the next morning to a large commotion in front of the family house. Boi was carrying a rattan basket with two straps against his back: a jungle backpack. Inside the basket was a wriggling, thrusting, squealing rice sack with a snout sticking out of it. He laughed at my visible confusion and put the basket down to open up the rice sack for a peak. Inside was a live young pig!

Balang explained to me that this pig had escaped his pen and was caught munching on garden plants. I accompanied Boi with the pig in the sack in the basket on his back to return it to its owners down the road. When we arrived and opened the sack to drop off the pig, he raced around wildly in his pen before eventually settling down from his adventure.

After a hearty breakfast of rice and fried noodles, I joined Boi on his way to the local rice paddy for a half-day of work. I was requested to wear the special rubber shoes and leach socks that I picked up in Sipitang before coming to Long Pasia. I was also given a large rice hat to help against the sun. We crossed a narrow bridge over the river, with huge leaves draped over the entrance and exit of the bridge.

At the rice paddy, Boi’s elderly mother was already sitting on a hand-woven blanket under a makeshift tent, beating rice stalks with a stick. Thousands of rice kernels lay in front of her, waiting to be collected. Boi handed me a scythe and waded into the calf-deep waters of the rice paddy.

The murky waters looked a bit ominous. Balang, who at this point had established himself as an omnipresent companion through the trip, reassured me. Leeches were uncommon in these rice fields, and the eels that lived in the waters were mostly harmless. I trudged into the warm water and followed Boi’s example. He showed me how to slice the mature rice stalks and collect them in a large bundle before bringing them back to his mother. As I worked, I gradually got the hang of the technique, collecting more and more rice stalks with each trip and slicing them more efficiently.

After a while, Boi called over to me from dry land. He had his mother show me how to beat the rice stalks with the whacking stick to remove their kernels. I took over for her for a while, admiring the mosaic of multi-colored rice kernels and empty seed shells on the floor. It reminded me of sand on the beach in its structure.

Before too long, my arm started to sore, and I remarked how impressive it was that Boi’s mother was able to work for hours beating the stalks. He lamented that his mother is often in great pain due to her years working on the land that and he gives her daily massages to ease the aches.

Around lunch time, the entire family arrived at the rice paddy, along with some other village members I did not recognize. I joined the little party to a clearing beside the rice paddy where a treehouse stood. We all climbed the ladder and found a little studio in the tree, complete with cooking pot, eating mats, and rice cooker. Someone had brought lunch; fish and rice wrapped in bamboo leaves.

 It was a welcome surprise. For dessert, Boi pulled out a little plastic bag of red speckled grubs. Dried kalaatang, a Bornean caterpillar snack. They had a mild flavor and went down easy with some inconspicuous gulps of water.

After lunch, I joined Boi’s wife in harvesting banana hearts and wild ferns. Like Boi, she also wielded a large machete and made short work of the banana tree.

She handed me the machete and instructed me to do the same. It was a satisfying feeling to slice through the stalk of a fallen tree and collect the dark purple bunch of banana hearts. On our way back – my jungle backpack full of local foodstuffs – I reflected on the harmony between the Long Pasia people and their environment. Their table was full of locally sourced and harvested foods, the freshest ingredients imaginable.

Having collected the key ingredients for all the dishes on the dinner table but one, the next day I would have the chance to pursue the final item: wild boar.