Penan
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The Penan are an egalitarian and historically hunter-gatherer society on the island of Borneo (mainly the Malaysian part). Though most live in villages today, some continue living nomadically. Their present population is 10,000 to 12,000. Alongside Dayak and other native communities, the Penan have fought to defend Borneo’s rainforests from the logging, palm oil, and hydroelectric industries.[1]
Penan society is “egalitarian and nonhierarchical.” The Penan customary law, ‘’Adat’’, says the rainforest was given to them by the Creator, whom they call ‘’Balei Nge Butun’’ and that this land must be preserved for the sake of all past, present and future generations. The greatest transgression for the Penan is ‘’see hun’’, meaning a failure to share. An important Penan values is ‘’molong’’, meaning to share wisely or to take only what’s necessary.[2]
‘’Adat’’ says, moreover, that “plants and animals and the ecosystem as a whole have rights and therefore are not to be wantonly destroyed for the short-term gain of a few individuals, or even an entire generation.” And the “forest belongs to all members of the tribe under a system of usu- fruct — everyone can take what he or she needs, so there is no need to take more.” Moreover, [3]
The Penan gather ferns, fruits, and a starch called ‘’sago’’ which comes from small palm trees. They also fish and hunt pigs and deer. More recently, the Penan have farmed rice and other crops.[4]
Photographer Sofia Yu corroborates that the Penan “live in a non-hierarchical society” and adds they “have a great sense of humor and were always warm and had great intentions towards me. Women were free to choose the men that they liked, often heckling the lazier ones, but always in a light-hearted way. They have no sense of age and they don’t seem to care what they look like.” Yu observes, “For the Penan who still live in the forest, the land is most important thing in their lives and an extension of themselves.”[5]
- ↑ Survival International, “Logging and oil palm destroying tribe’s forest home,” https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/penan.
- ↑ Wade Davis, “The Penan: Community In The Rainforest,” Context Institute (1991): 48. Retrieved from Context Institute, https://www.context.org/iclib/ic29/davis/.
- ↑ Christopher Manes, ‘’Green Rage’: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization’’ (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1990), 144, 239.
- ↑ Survival, “Logging”.
- ↑ Kevin Tucker, “The Forest is Our Livelihood: Sofia Yu on the Fate of the Penan,” ‘’Black and Green Review’’ no. 2 (Fall 2015): 99-100, https://archive.org/details/bagr-2/page/101/mode/2up?view=theater.
