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Experiencing Jungle Culture

ALTHOUGH our indigenous hosts have experienced huge changes in recent generations to their environment, their religious beliefs and in the way they lived, they still retain many of the old ways steeped in their cultural heritage.

A large volleyball court occupied the space under the bridge before the main span across the river. It was the perfect location where the villagers met and played volleyball every afternoon. When there were visitors, they would join in. Otherwise the villagers would no doubt just play alone. The bridge above provided adequate shelter from all weather conditions.

We teamed off with the locals and had a go at playing volleyball. The locals were all very good at it. I’m sure they played every afternoon so they had a lot of experience behind them. In stark contrast us tourists were pretty hopeless at it. Thankfully the teams were mixed and after a while I realised they weren’t even keeping score. They were very accommodating anyway. I’m sure it was because they were used to having tourists who didn’t play very well all the time. Perhaps they wonder what we do with our spare time because we mentioned our villages back home don’t have volleyball courts under our bridges.

After the game we returned to the open community area where we washed up ready to start a cooking class. This was the first class I had been to since Hoi An in Vietnam. We were led to a long table and a few of the young ladies of the village showed us the instructions of what we were cooking for dinner. The menu was as follows:

1. Chicken and ridang paste.
2. Long beans with curry.
3. Cucumber with eggs.
4. Princess shower.
5. Sambal

Now I didn’t know what these were, but the cooks made them sound very nice. We all started off with having some vegetables to peel and cut. Once that was done, a few of us then went into the kitchen, and I operated the wok over the gas stove getting all these meat balls cooked. I quickly got the reputation for being a stirrer. Nadia and Tobias was in the kitchen with me. The others were all out by the table making meat balls for us to cook.

Now cooking tends to attract pets, and there were a couple of cats here, including one ginger cat with a very crooked tail. The end had been amputated off, and the rest of it was in serious bends from where the bones had broken from some serious altercation with a vehicle no doubt, or perhaps through a birth defect. The cat otherwise seemed perfectly healthy and happy.

The lighting in the open air community centre attracted millions of flying insects creating a very complex rotating mobile around each light, almost like a highly animated lampshade. There were also numerous geckos scampering around the walls.

Finally the meal was ready. We all arranged ourselves in the kitchen and a couple of the villagers took our cameras to get a group shot of us all wearing our aprons. Once the group photo was done, we went to the big table we had eaten lunch from and were served dinner. It had come out very nicely.

After dinner, we were led to the stage area which had been elaborately set up with several rows of chairs. The villagers produced numerous long costumes rather like dressing gowns (and some patterned like pyjamas as well). I’m sure it was a cultural thing, but we all looked like we were heading for bed way too overdressed for the tropical heat. I picked a navy blue one – probably the only descent colour in the entire set. Very amused by our interesting appearance, we then spent the next quarter of an hour taking pictures of each other.

Then the rest of the villagers arrived. We sat in the front row whilst everyone else not performing sat behind us. A group of musicians gathered to the right of the stage. One old lady wearing a white head scarf over her red clothing sat at the front playing a wide instrument containing drums hitting them with some soft drumsticks. Behind her were five other musicians wearing either navy blue or pastel yellow, each with a different percussive instrument.

They started playing a rather randomly syncopated rhythm. It was somewhat similar to the rhythms played by the Kadazan Dusun mountain people when they had played for us upon our arrival in their village nearly a week ago. This music had its own signature. The music of the mountain had been more metallic with a resonance suited to the vast walls of granite of Mount Kinabalu. The music of the local Murut Dusun was more of a woody sound conducive to the meandering river and tall forests. The lady at the front had command of the group, with a deep concentration in her wrinkled face, though not overly skilled. The others behind her were relatively untrained. Perhaps though I was being over critical – that coming from a pianist with nearly thirty years’ experience.

A young lady in a white silk robe came onto the stage and introduced the cultural show they were delivering she was helped by our extremely talkative droning guide for the past two days. They introduced a dance routine, where the villagers dressed in yellow or green robes and black trousers performed a dance to the syncopated drone of the musicians. The dancing was skilful and deliberate. The women all had dark silvery green eye shadow. The men were at the back. Some men and women were wearing fancy hats perhaps portraying royalty.

Once the dancing was complete, our guide wearing the dark green dressing gown came back on stage and gave a very long droned introduction to the next performance to be done by a deaf and dumb man. He came on the stage wearing a black martial arts costume and a silver headband to perform an amazing martial arts sequence, telling a story of the tribal ancestors who lived on the land here in generations past.

There were a number of musicians to the right, all playing various ethnic instruments. There was one large wooden keyboard played mainly by an old lady who seemed to have full control of the group. Otherwise there was a young man who played very well. The music was very percussive.

This was followed by another dance routine, where the old lady playing the front drum set was replaced with a younger rather hunched back man who played with a lot more gusto.

At the end of the cultural show we were brought up to dance with the locals. Then they gave us each a small present of a small basket woven from a local plant. Each basket had some sweet food in it.

Once we sat back down again, the entertained us with another dance for a few more minutes until it was time to finish up for the night and head back to our homestays for the night.

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