ADAT IBAN 2010

The Adat: Origin of Adat Iban

“Enti bejalai betungkat ka adat, enti tindok bepanggal ka pengingat”

In the beginning of Iban genealogical times, in the times of Bejie, we lived in the world whose state was in chaos
and characterized by supernatural calamity and disaster like floods, storm, diseases and petrification (kudi). Fish and
turtles came out of the water, their “natural element” and attack our ancestors living on land. Then, out of these
chaos eventually, comes an order and created a more habitable universe regulated by the rules of adat.

For the Iban, it is the adat, above all, that embodies universal order. In its most general sense, the term adat refers to
the normative rules and understandings that regulate human affairs and govern relations between humankind and the
unseen supernatural and everyday visible worlds.

Adat also supplies the moral order that makes Iban people living as a human society possible. Indeed, for every
longhouse is perceived of as an adat community. Here the personal independencies so highly valued by the Iban are
tempered by mutual economic and ritual interdependencies, expressed chiefly in obligations of kinship and
community. For example, the shared responsibilities of defending our territory (mantau menoa), bedurok during
farming season, samakai gawai etc. These interdependencies are further buttressed by complex code of adat – a
notion, which subsumes behavioral norms, rules, procedures and injunctions, and the legal mechanism, modes of
redress, and sanctions by which these are preserved and enforced. These are evident in various rites and rituals
performed in Iban way of life from cradle to grave, in procedures in settling disputes, rules in governing one’s
conduct under various social or moral settings, appraisal system to accord level of respect for individual
achievement on various aspect of life (e.g. war leader, manok sabong, tuai adat, lemambang, manang, etc).

The chief social function of adat is to assure harmonious relations between longhouse members. But more generally,
adherence to adat is thought to sustain a moral order that makes human society possible, while at the same time, it
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preserves its members in a state of ritual well-being in relation to the gods, spirits and powers of nature. Thus the
correctness of adat, when properly followed, is demonstrated by the continued well-being of all those who adhere to
its rules. Expressed outwardly, these well being takes the form of social harmony and can be seen in the health,
fertility and material prosperity of longhouse members and in the condition of their crops and in the plants, animals
and natural features of their domain. Any serious breach of adat is said to threaten this well-being and so jeopardize
not only the moral order, but also relations with the natural and unseen worlds as well. Thus, serious breaches of
adat lay the community open to spiritual attack, social discord, crop failure, succumb to floods and natural
calamities. The myth that follows tells essentially the story of adat’s creation.

The Adat Creation – Adat Berumah

In the mythic past, in the times of Bejie, the Iban people lived in caves and they live by hunting, fishing and
gathering fruits. While living in caves they started to develop tools for their daily use and learn to utilise certain
plant or animal skin for clothing to protect them from cold or tropical heat. Better equipped, they began to wander
further from their cave and started to meet other people who settled at the edge of the forest and coastal areas.

It was at this time that Bejie and his followers met coastal traders who wanted to change their nomadic way of lives
to a more settled communal lifestyle and also to introduce islamic teachings to them. This prompted Bejie to build
ladders up a tall enchepong tree in order to meet the mohamedian god whose domain is in the sky as told by a
muslim cleric. While Bejie was busy building ladders on the tallest enchepong tree to visit god, he asked his brother
named Bada to lead his people.

Bada led his people to hunt, fish or gather fruits as usual getting further and further away from their cave. One day,
while they were returning from a long hunting trip, they were caught in a heavy rain and thunderstorm. While the
women rushed towards the cave in the heavy rain, the men who were left behind began to build temporary shelter
called dunju made of leaves to protect themselves from the heavy rain and cold. When they arrived in their cave
later, the womenfolks were surprised to see that they were home dry despite the heavy rain. From then onward, the
Iban started to build temporary shelter to protect themselves from bad weather whenever they wander further from
their domain. 

Soon, from temporary shelter, they learn to appreciate the comfort of living in a temporary hut called langkau and
started to leave their cave. From langkau, their ideas expanded and started to build a temporary communal
longhouse called dampa. This enable them to live and work together. The first dampa was built small and it was
soon congested. They had to expand it bigger and longer to accomdate everyone and also to accomodate daily
domestic activities like cooking, indoor work space, sleeping, food and material storage. This gave way to the
building of the first longhouse.

When Bada and his men built the first longhouse, they were faced with a mysterious problem. Everytime they
planted the poles on the ground, it fell off again the next day. This happens every time when they wanted to continue
their construction work the next day. While they were puzzled by what is happening, a stranger appeared at the edge
of the forest.

The stranger asked Bada what they were doing. Bada explained to the stranger the mysterious happening they
encountered when constructing their longhouse. The stranger asked if they observed certain rules or adat when
constructing a house. Bada told the stranger that they do not have any established rules and procedures for building a
longhouse. The stranger then replied that it’s no wonder they encounter problems and difficulties in their
construction work, as they do not have any established rules and procedures.

The stranger then taught Bada the proper rules of constructing a longhouse. He started by explaining that the land is
owned by Petara Semarugah (God who created the land). Offerings and permission must therefore be sought from
him before anyone can use the land for any purpose. This is done by following the procedures:

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1. Every head of a family who wants to build an apartment in a longhouse must take part in the ngerembang
ceremony (to locate the suitable site and location of the longhouse).
2. The longhouse chief, whose pole will be constructed first, must look for 5 right hand call nendak omen bird
plants (tambak burong Nendak Kanan) and 3 left hand call of nendak omen bird plants to be placed on the
hole of the first pole.
3. Offerings (piring) must be made before planting the first pole.
4. A pig or chicken must be sacrificed on the first hole and the first pole.
5. Rock crystal (batu kuai) and a piece of iron must be placed inside the first hole.
6. After the first pole is in placed, a mumban plant must be planted on the first hole next to the pole.

The offering (piring) and pig blood or chicken blood are the payment (tasih tanah) made to Petara Semarugah which
is followed by prayers (sampi). The reason for placing the rock crystal, iron piece and mumban plant is to signify
that the longhouse built will be strong and will not be washed away by flood of other natural disaster.

After finished teaching Bada and his men the rules to be followed, the stranger informed that his name is Puntang
Raga and is actually sent by Petara Semarugah himself to teach them the proper rules and procedures to be
followed. He then disappeared from their sight. After this, the Ibans grew in numbers and lives a more settled life.
Cultures, arts and way of life developed rapidly in the next generations to come.

Of all the early ancestors, perhaps the most familiar is Bejie. They were still living a primitive
way of life and they live mostly by hunting, fishing and gathering. They do not have a developed
social system and their social structure was very simple and basic concerning mainly on food,
clothing and shelter. Art, cultures and language were not yet developed as they live in seclusion
away from the more advanced community found in Java and Sumatra. It was during his time that
their community started to meet the coastal traders. The coastal traders brought salt, tobacco,
clothing, domestic utensils like jars and tools to them. Barter trading became the main form of
economic activity. From this early contact with the coastal traders the Ibans began to develop
their economic and social skill, language and culture. They learn to trade and understand the
economic values of their jungle produce based on demand from the traders. They began adopt a
social structure of selecting their chief and his council of elders for major decisions in leading
their community. They adopted much vocabulary from the traders to develop their language and
to communicate. Soon the oratory culture develops for religious, social and economic function.

The coastal traders also brought along their religion with them and perform their missionary
activities on the interior tribes. The first religion to spread to the Iban people was Hinduism
during the time of Raja Durong and was adopted in the various religious practices of the Ibans. It
was also believed that Raja Durong could have brought Hinduism to Borneo and to escape the
fast spreading Muslim empire in Java and Sumatra. Then came the Muslim mission who wanted
to introduce Islamic teaching and change the Iban nomadic way of life to a more settled and
structured communal lifestyle. This early encounter with a Muslim mahaguru became the turning
point of the Iban religious belief.

Bejie, being the leader of his tribe, he was pressured by the mahaguru to embrace Islam and thus
expand the Muslim empire into Borneo after their success in Java and Sumatra. This naturally
clashes with their animistic belief they adopted from their ancestors or Hindu religious practices
as brought by the remnants of Hindu empire earlier. Thus before he and his people could adopt
Islam as their new religion, Bejie wish to make a visit to their god to confirm the existence of
their Muslim god who lives in the sky as told by the mahaguru.
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Bejie called for a big meeting with his people and all animals in the forest to inform them of his
plans to construct a ladder up the enchepong tree in order to meet Muslim god personally.
Unfortunately, he forgot to invite the termites and honey bear to this meeting. They felt insulted
for not being invited and planned to take revenge on Bejie. Before he started to build the
stairway, he instructed his brother named Bada to lead his followers. As soon as the construction
work started, the termites started to build tunnel unknowingly by Bejie and his men and other
animals inside the roots and trunk of the enchepong tree. Just as his ladder reached the sky, the
honey bear then started to dig out the root and trunk of the enchepong tree from the outside. The
soft wooded enchepong tree collapsed. Bejie and his ladder fell to earth. The hero was killed and
pieces of his ironwood ladder fell into various rivers and streams of central Borneo. Any pieces
of ironwood found crossing streambeds are called “tangga Bejie” and should not be used to
construct any part of the longhouse, as it is considered a taboo and would bring bad luck to the
house owner as what happens to Bejie. 

Bejie bore a son named Nisi. He was a father of two sons, Telichu and Telichai and a daughter
named Ragam. According to the oral narratives, Telichu turned into a cannibalistic demon
huntsman during a hunting trip with his brother Telichai and became a founding ancestor of an
antu race known as antu gerasi or demon huntsman. They are the most feared and dreaded of all
the Iban supernatural beings. They are thought to roam the forest at dusk, during thunderstorms
or at night, hunting soul of unfortunate human who appears before them in the invisible plane of
the soul, which usually appears as wild pigs to them. These antu gerasi live apart from
humankind, as forest ogres, and are said to hunt with spears, assisted by a small but fierce dog
called Pasun. Most of them are living a solitary wandering life while others are said to live in an
unseen longhouse on a fichus tree (kayu kara). That explains why Iban would not want to live
near a fichus tree, as it is a domain for the antu gerasi.

Before Telichu separated from his brother Telichai, he taught his brother what measures must be
taken by human kind to defend themselves from spirit malevolence in future. He also taught his
nephew, Manang Jarai to burn the lukai tree bark during the night of thunderstorms or full moon
to ward off the demon huntsman. Manang Jarai lived to be the first Iban shaman. His name is
still invoked by present day manang when they performed curing rituals (pelian). Telichu also
tells his brother, after they divide their hunting dog, that in becoming a spirit he and his
descendants will henceforth be invisible, but that Telichai and his generations after him will only
be able to hear their voices and they will continue to meet each other in dreams. 

From Telichu time onward, the antu gerasi have lived by feeding upon the souls of human
beings. However, individual spirits occasionally befriend a man or woman and sometimes enter
the visible world in a human form to take a mortal husband or wife. In myth such marriages
frequently resulted in acts of law giving as remembered in the myth of Rukok and Remi, and
Gupi and Belang Pinggang. 

As Telichu is said to have founded the line of demon huntsman or antu gerasi, his brother
Telichai became a common ancestor of the living Iban people, including the Orang Panggau as
per Saribas tusut below:

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Telichai x Endu Dara Sia (Bunsu Kamba who owns a rusa jar in the shape and size of senggang
fruit) = Si Gundi (father of Keling orang Panggau), Retak Dai (father of Sarapoh), Lalak Pala
(father of Bujang Sakunding Mupong), Brenai Sugi, Kurong Mayang, Bui Nasi, Belangkat
(father of Remias – wife of Pateh Ambau). 

After the Iban ancestors learned to live together in a larger community in a longhouse, they
shared a common world with the gods, goddesses, the heroes and heroines of Orang Panggau-
Gellong. By some accounts, some of our ancestors migrated from Sumatra, Java or even from
more distant land. These people includes Raja Durong’s family, Jelenggai and later followed by
Pateh Ambau and Merom Panggai. 

Following their arrival in Borneo, they settled with the descendant of Bejie which includes the
Orang Panggau-Gellong who were the original Iban community of Borneo. They settled along
the upper reaches of the Kapuas River in what is now Kalimantan Barat. Their original
settlement in the Kapuas is said to have been in a place called Semitau Tuai. From there they
made a series of migration until a place called Tampun Juak. Here they overcome a series of
supernatural calamities such as the appearance of excrement from nowhere causing epidemic and
death to the people. There were stories of attack by turtle and fish (ikan kenyulong) that came out
of water, their natural element, and attack the settlers along the riverbanks. 

To escape these disasters, Keling and Tutong, leaders of the Panggau-Gelong heroes, led a
migration to Nanga Skapat, on the Skapat River, a true left tributary of the Kapuas River. It was
here, according to mythic tradition, that a quarrel occurred between two of the heroes, Laja and
Sempurai, that brought about the final separation of these heroes, Si Gundi of the orang Panggau
and orang Gellong from the ancestors of the present day Iban people, who were also his younger
brothers, Retak Daai, Lalak Pala, Bernai Sugi, Kurong Mayang, Bui Nasi and Belangkat. Before
their departure, Keling taught our ancestors how to play the percussion gendang rayah on gongs
so that, even after their separation, humankind might continue to summon these heroes to the
world in order to celebrate the great cycles of Gawai festivals. In the course of these rituals, the
Orang Panggau act as the ritual hosts and attendants, sending out invitations and receiving the
gods and ancestral spirits on behalf of their human hosts. 

Sempurai is known for his enormous strength, violent, quick temper (mangah and jegak-jegak)
and for his periodic fits of rage. It was because of this that he quarreled with his cousin, Laja,
both of them were principal companion of Keling. As a consequence of their continuous fighting,
Keling decided to depart from this human world and also separated from Tutong and his Gellong
followers. He brought along the Panggau River and put in its place a present day Batang
Ketungau. Tutong for his part similarly replaced the Gellong River with the Kapuas, but in the
process, he inadvertently left behind Bukit Gellong, a steep hill in the upper Ketungau River.
Today, this hill remains, a physical monument to the heroes’ former presence in the visible
world. Also like other prominent hills, it remains a place of possible encounter to which living
iban journey in hope of meeting the Orang Panggau and for gaining their personal guardianship. 

Following their departure from the visible world, the followers of Keling founded a new
settlement at a site called Panggau Libau, menoa Luchak Lunyau Kena Biau Jila Isang or the
land muddied by those forever waving the palm leaves of victory. It was told that a visitor,
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entering from either end of the longhouse, must pass 170 apartment doors before he reaches that
of Keling’s bilik at its centre. Those under Tutong, settled at Nanga Gellong, at a longhouse
called Gellong Batu Benang or Gellong of the spindle whorls, situated at the confluence of the
Panggau and Gellong Rivers. 

Gellong is the natal home of the great heroine weavers, including Keling’s wife, Kumang. From
these settlements, the Orang Panggau continued to involve themselves in the affairs of the Iban
people. Keling and Laja are the best known of the Panggau-Gellong heroes. Laja is the principal
companion of Keling. His chief task is to smoke the trophy heads (nyampu antu pala), which
they bring back from the battlefield. 

The other principal warriors under Keling’s command are Sempurai and Pungga. Sempurai is
said to be of demon ancestry, a descendant of Telichu, hence his violent temper and
unpredictable nature. By some account, Simpurai is a son of the arch demon Beduru or Nising
(arch enemy of the God of War, Sengalang Burong). He was captured by Keling’s father as a
child and raised as an adopted member of the heroes’ family. Saribas Iban also knows Sempurai
as Bungai Nuing. Tutong, the Gellong leader, is the principal blacksmith of the heroes, the
forager of iron spears and swords. 

Keling is portrayed in the epic sagas as handsome and brave, yet wayward. Upon reaching
manhood, he develops a tendency of a wandering life. Again and again, he disappears for
months, even years at a time. He possesses miraculous powers of metamorphosis and in his
wandering, assumes many different forms. He is married to Kumang, the most beautiful and
accomplished of the Gellong heroines. The two are much given to amorous adventures, becomes
the husband or lover of many other women, although he usually returns to Kumang in the end.
Kumang, for her part, takes similar liberties.  

After the separation of Orang Panggau from mankind, the ancestors of the Iban multiply,
establishing themselves in new longhouses under a number of successive leaders. In the
generations that follow, both mythic narratives and genealogies tell of frequent meetings
between the ancestors and the spirits. The Remun Dayak story tells of their ancestor meeting
with the spirit tiger. In this story, a tiger carries off a young girl. Her father journeys to the
longhouse of the spirit tiger in the invisible realm of the souls and spirits and there he took
revenge on the killer tiger that have violated proper relations between spirit and mankind,
leaving themselves open to human retaliation. 

Another similar myth is a story of a man named Jimbun and the spirit crocodile. In this myth,
Jimbun’s daughter was captured and killed by a crocodile. Jimbun went to the underwater realm
of the crocodile and took revenge for the death of his daughter. There is also a myth of spirits
Puntang Raga who enter human world and taught Sarapoh the rules of funerals and observing the
mourning periods. The spirit Puntang Raga also appear five generations later and taught Betie
Berauh Ngumbang to modify Sengalang Burong’s punishment for incestuous relationship.In
other myth, the spirits enters the human world in order to marry mortals by whom they bear
ancestral offspring, for example, Jelenggai and Bunsu Bintang Banyak who taught the Iban to
follow the movement of Pleiades constellation for guidance for farming on earth, Numpi and
Bunsu Patin produce a descendant of Skrang and Saribas people, Salamuda and Bunsu Babi or
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Dayang Manis Muka who taught the Iban how to predict individual destiny by observing patterns
on pig liver, Remi the originator of sabak and a demon named Damu or Rukok who taught the
Iban how to conduct raids on enemy territory and establish the first marriage law, Gupi and
demon named Gerasi Belang Pinggang made first modification to the marriage laws.

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