Tong Tana - Bruno Manser Fonds

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The great ripening of the fruits (Tá-un Buá) bm – Penan nomads live off hunting all year round – mainly wild boars – and off sago, a starchy flour from wild palms. Only a few trees blossom annually in the wild; the monkeys are usually faster than the people in plucking their fruit. In intervals of about 5–7 years, however, the whole jungle with all its noble fruit trees turns into a paradise! There is food in abundance for months, as the game also follows the blessing of fruit. 1998/99 was such a year of good fortune. As the hornbill bird (metui) heralds the arrival of the large troops of wild boars, the Penan know that an abundant fruit season is near by the sight of so-called “root flowers” at the foot of the Meranti tree. In such a year the Penan’s needs in vitamins and sweets are met beyond fulfillment. Over a hundred kinds of fruit, some of them very nourishing, ripen in alternating sequence. Among the first gifts are the Cu-ui balls [ill. 1], beckoning in the low-lying areas, looking somewhat like mirabelle plums from far. Those who dare to try the unripe fruit soon have their teeth full of yellow resin and the sensation of “long teeth” (kennilou), caused by the fruit’s acids, signal restraint. The end of the fruit blessing half a year later is marked by the date-like blue-black Keramen-Paiáh fruit in the mountains. They become nicely sweet after boiling water is poured over them. During the fruit season nobody wants to stay in the settlement. Four-year-old children even shoulder a rattan bag and join a little troop for a playful walk through the jungle. Whoever can climb does so. Even some pregnant Penean women can climb. For what is more wonderful than to sit up in a tree in the Their thin skin does not weigh much during transport and their ripe sweet juicy meat smells like the behinds of the Sogok ant (Bo sak Lotok Sogok). The bitter bark of the tree is used for treatment of malaria; the green seed is an ingredient for arrow poison. A whole row of coveted fruits of lianas, especially Pellutan species, hang like oranges in the branches. But their harvest is dangerous, even when the mother-tree is felled. The copiously flowing milky sap leaves black spots on the skin. The latex of the “Pellutan Unga” liana [ill. 3] is used as a soap: When applied to the skin it binds the other types of latex and can be rubbed off when dry. Watch out: the method does not work for hairy bodies! About 20 wild types of Rambuill. 1: Cu-ui fruit fork of a branch and fill your belly with sweet fruit and on top of that to enjoy the view in the soft breeze A few daredevils can always be found for dangerous trees who will get the fruit to fall by shaking branches with barbed sticks or just by chopping down branches high up in the tree’s crown. Unfortunately, abundant trees such as Cu-ui, or trees which can hardly be climbed like Beripun, or Peta are also felled in order to get at the fruit. One of the noblest of fruits is the Buá Jet (Langsat, ill. 2), which is also cultivated. ill. 2: Buá Jet with ant ill. 3: Pellutan Unga liana 6
tan beckon. Some glow like flaming red heads of hair in a green sea of leaves. “Thick is the skin of the Maha fruit, but sweet its flesh!” (Kapan ipa buá Maha, tapi mee luneng néh) says the song to honour a woman who is not the most beautiful at first sight but has inner qualities. In contrast to the cultivated Rambutan Kahwin, the flesh of the wild fruit [ill. 4] does not easily come off the almond-sized seed. Whoever does not want to swallow it chews the meat and the sweet juice off the seed with his front teeth. The ill. 4: Wild Rambutan fruit only shadow over this fruit paradise is the fact that an astounding number of young Penan already have damaged teeth from the fruits’ acids and urgently need treatment. The thick skin of a whole family of nut-sized to peach-sized fruits (Buá Ipa, ill. 5) opens under pressure into three segments. When fruit is plentiful only its flesh is collected in a bamboo container, the contents of which turn into a sweet alcoholic drink after 2–3 days (Borak Buá). Fermentation can be enhanced through the addition of a middle section of a Nakan fruit. Unfortunately, the production of this drink by the Penan, resembling fermenting grape juice, was forbidden by the Christian mission SIB. The largest and most nourishing fruits of the jungle are summarised by the Penan as Buá Jato (fallen fruit). The most well-known – or ill. 5: Buá Ipa fruit the most infamous – of them is the Durian, head-sized, 1–2 kg heavy and spiked. It mainly grows on large trees and exists in types with white, yellow and red flesh [ill. 6]. Overripe fruit smell like vomit. Neither hotels nor airlines permit them in the luggage. Whoever does not (yet) know it, finds it disgusting. Whoever dares to try it can become addicted after the third time. All indigenous people love it and there is hardly a child who will not lick the smeary flesh from its fingers. A tree can provide several ill. 6: Bela fruit hundred fruits and feed a family for 2 weeks. For easy transport only the inside of the spiky fruit is carried home in a leafy package. The flesh can be dried to a black-brown dough over a fire and be preserved (dusi). The eyeball-sized seeds used to be cooked, peeled and dried over the fire as provisions for later (gurem). The Nakan fruit (jackfruit, ill. 7) are as fine as the Durian. Looking like huge hanging breasts, they grow directly from the trunk which, according to the myth, was once a Penan woman. When a group returns to the settlement from an expedition, part of the harvest is shared with all the other families and the feast of fruits continues. Although the Penan nomads do not pursue agriculture, they become gardeners during the fruit season: as the seeds of eaten fruits are spit out or land in the bushes after passing through the digestive tract, a new fruit garden soon sprouts in and around the settlement! ill. 7: A Penan boy plucks Nakan fruit 7
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Tong Tana - Bruno Manser Fonds

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