Little Iban and The Mountain

I love to read, eversince I was small. The first reading material given by my dad was an English newspaper at the age of 4. I didn’t know what the words read meant, I just read. My favourite book was always the Peter and Jane series (don’t know where mum gave a box of them to).

Anyway, currently my interest of reading materials would be yours truly, on culture, particularly on Iban and also Sarawak generally. In June 2011, I was assigned by my department’s resource centre to do a book review of my choice. Within a split of a second...voila! Why not a book on Iban culture, since it is still Gawai season?

So on 30 June 2011, I wore my Red Kain Karap and my Lampit and I told my audience that today is the closing of Gawai Dayak celebration what we would call as “Ngiling Tikai”....and I began my review on “The Little Iban and the Mountain” by Linus Lunsong Janti who was the Commanding Officer of 22 Para Komando Rejimen (parachute regiment) based in Kuala Kubu Baru, Selangor.

As I was giving my presentation, I can see the look of surprised, excited, attentive and eager audience which made me confident while presenting. Soon after the presentation was the question and answer session, which ofcourse revolves around the book’s contents and also our Iban culture.

Listening to the panelist's review

I was lucky that day as my panelist were also very well versed with what Iban is, namely my Iban colleague and friend, Mr. Joshua Jalin and also another new guy in my department whom I forgot his name.  Questions were thrown to us and we managed to answer well, and to our surprise, they were NOT aware how our lifestyle was 30 years back. Among the points that we emphasised to them was that, even though the Iban community is modern, they still hold strong to their culture and belief except those that are against Christianity (though some of us still practice “miring”).

The organiser commended the idea of reviewing a book on culture and not the normal “motivation”, work related books like what they normally do. They love the idea of such presentation and my initiative to be different i.e. the genre of the book and of course my costume, the Kain Karap and lampit. The author actually gave an extra copy of the book for me to give to the resource centre, THANK YOU Mr. Linus for giving the book to this department..at least now they know we don't live on trees...

After the book review

I am proud to be able to enlighten my audience through “The Little Iban and the Mountain” at least now they know the difference between Iban and Kadazan and I don't care if we used to be half-naked, because that is what we used to be..

Now as modernity takes place we need to be reminded of our humble beginnings and try to emerge as par as other developed community without forgetting our roots. A good read I must say, get a copy if you are interested to know more how the “ oldschool” Iban used to live in a lighter perspective as there are many attractive illustrations and interesting photos e.g. the photo of “Rose Chan” and you can  learn some Iban words too.

I am so “Buta IT” that I do not know how to convert the powerpoint presentation into a document that can be attached to this post, so I took photos of my presentation instead. I hope all of you will find time to read this book as it will bring back the memories on how your parents and grandparents used to be...

My powerpoint presentation 10 slides altogether

The only way to make people know our community is through dissemination of knowledge, I would like to encourage our community NOT to be "kedekut ilmu", it will  get us nowhere...

If you find any other avenues to spread  information about your culture just do it..as I once said to a friend..If it takes me to pose with my ngepan Rawai Tinggi in the middle of Changkat Bukit Bintang to tell people how an Iban would look like, it would be my pleasure to do so...

Happy reading!