Previously, he pushed farther upriver, setting up new outposts at Long Lama and Long Loyang, where the work was simpler but the journey was anything but. They spent their days chugging along dangerous rivers in small boats, soaked by rain or baked by the sun, cut off from easy news and ruled by the rise and fall of the water. Even a smart new speedboat, donated after one traveller missed an important meeting, turned out to be far too costly to run, so the priests carried on the old way, quietly wishing that somewhere along the river there really was such a thing as a money tree.
Sarawak throughout the year offered various festivals celebrated by the different races. The Chinese had their Lunar New Year; the Malays commemorated the end of the fasting month and the natives celebrated the harvest festival. It has been said that only a persecuted race knows how to celebrate. The Chinese were lavish in their expenditure; they and their ancestors suffered terribly in old China at the hands of the landlords and bandits, often the same people. They had thus plenty to celebrate. We crossed the river to visit the Foochow who lived in houses on stilts and walkways where the whole area was just swamp. Mostly poor Christians, they did not have all that much to offer. I decided to refrain from any alcohol so as to spare them expense. The result was that I was full of lemonade, orangeade, Coca-Cola and at the end of that I had to recross the river which began to be choppy.
I took the opportunity to visit an Iban longhouse where they were going to celebrate with the old rites. Nowadays, most Ibans are of some Christian denomination and would merely acquiesce for the sake of harmony. An old man performed the rites; he waved a hen at the four corners of the house, bidding the evil spirits to depart and the good ones to remain. He slaughtered the bird and sprinkled its blood on the four walls. Then he took a cloak and in the manner of a bullfighter shooed the spirits away. That done, the party continued to the sound of Elvis Presley’ imitators and Bill Hailey’s lively music; so much for the good old days.
In a chat with the old man afterwards I discovered that he was a fighter with Tom Harrison’s men against the Japanese. Tom as a Cambridge student had come to Sarawak before the war as a member of a team studying the fauna and flora. On the strength of his familiarity with the country he was asked to go back in wartime and raise a force to fight behind the lines. It is a great myth that the Japanese were great jungle warriors as was described in the headlong campaign in the Malaya of 1941. In fact they were as frightened, inexperienced and raw as their counterparts. Tom led his men right through the Baram as far as Brunei. When the Australians landed in May 1945, the Japanese were more than ready to surrender.
The old man showed me his campaign medal but he attached greater respect to a lovely navy blue blazer, with the letters KBRC on the breast pocket. I recognised it immediately as the property of the Kuala Belait Recreation Club. This was the club in Kuala Belait built by Shell for its workers; here on a Sunday in the old days they would play cricket and over their stengahs do research on such burning topics as, “What am I doing here in this hole?” Conditions were primitive. In the post-war years a Shell family would experience the luxury of the P & O liner, as I did. Then they would do the next part of the trip on a tiny steamship as far as Labuan. Thereafter horrors of horrors! they would be shipped from there across the stormy South China Sea on a landing craft, surplus army equipment. They would arrive at their destination, battered, bruised, sea-sick and no doubt homesick. A timber bungalow would be allocated where the light and water would be spasmodic, where a nest of snakes would be at home in the toilet, where the odd alligator would flounder around in the monsoon drain and where mosquitoes enjoyed this new diet of a family from Europe.
The old club was eventually demolished and a much more splendid one replaced it, described by Prince Philip as the best club in the whole of south east Asia. I left the old warrior to his memories and returned through the jungle to be present at the various functions which the school was putting on for the occasion.
Marudi became a household word in the 60s and 70s in connection with its Regatta. Perhaps it had some connection with the old days when the Brookes sought to raise the minds of the tribes to the ways of peace by organising games. Each longhouse had to contribute a team of oarsmen for racing. These were mighty trials of strength; the canoes were heavy and the length of the race could be as much as a mile. Some of the young Chinese businessmen raced their speedboats- to add to the noise. The river at Marudi is very broad and offers a great arena for river sports. The Regatta always had some VIP, like the King of Malaysia, as the chief patron. In the evening there were cultural shows put on by the different houses.
Baram is the centre of Sarawak culture, more so than any other part of the country because of its remoteness and comparative detachment from modern ways. There were also exhibitions of batik painting, a form of art which had recently come from Indonesia. Many of the schools taught this and offered it as a subject in the Senior Cambridge. Batik was so common that one became almost immune to the wonder it inspired in a person viewing it for the first time The Regatta was financed mainly by the local businessmen. But after a few years, with the improvement in transport, people could come up from Miri by speedboat or chartered flight and return the same day. There was to be no financial bonanza. The Regatta declined and lost its glamour.
The Malays and the natives have a child-like trust in the ability of the Chinese to pour out an endless supply of money for these things. In Brunei, the lavish celebrations that are associated with the Sultan’s Birthday were financed mainly by the Chinese shopkeepers. The District Officer operated what was in effect an enforcement racket; the businessmen knew that if they were to waver or appear to be less than enthusiastic in contributing to this, they would find themselves harassed by the various municipal departments. So they paid up quietly. They were expected to erect huge decorated arches, sponsor floats for the processions and subsidise the extravagant prizes for all the various competitions.
With independence it was quite remarkable that the scale of these celebrations dwindled. There was no way that the District Officer could blackmail a Malay businessman, who would know, as they say today, “where all the bones are”. Perhaps too the dashing glamorous Sultan begins to take thought to himself as he passes through the State on his birthday and sees huge figures announcing his advancing age to the world. He is at an age now when people become coy about birthdays.
