Trip to a Historical Traditional House in Sarawak Malaysia

It was a great sunny; I went a field trip with some of my course met on 1st May in 2018. We visited Malaysian traditional house “The Annah Rais Longhouse” which is situated Sarawak Malaysia. This field trip was conducted by Appreciation of Malaysian culture and ethics. This wonderful trip was arranged by our instructor Dr. Salmiah Abdul Hamid. We started our journey in the morning at that day by a bus which was provided from our institution. We reached our destination within one hour.

When we reached the place our local guide Mr. Josep was meet with us who is a member of that community. After that, he described and visited different places of the longhouse. Our guide Mr. Josep First introduce a traditional sugarcane machine which local name is ‘Tus’. This machine made by a natural element of the heavy big tree. Then he showed that how they used this machine to make sugar juice from sugarcane which was very interesting and difficult to conduct the instruction. After that, we enter the longhouse which is our important objective in this trip. We enter the house by a small stair which is made of wood. After that when I enter the house they give us rice wine which local name is ‘tuak’. Some of my course met had drank it some don’t test. After that our Mr. Josep explained well about the longhouse.

Annah Rais longhouse in Sarawak has a written history of 175 years old to date. The Annah Rais Longhouse is a traditional way for Malaysian people to live. It consists of many houses all joined together and sharing a bamboo walkway that connects most of the village. The whole village is raised on stilts, not because of flooding from the river that it is built alongside but to show the village above the vegetation as a peaceful village. This particular longhouse is one of the very few truly original ones built with all local materials.

Annah Rais is a Bidayuh village whose residents or most of them live in longhouses, a collaborative habitation that serves as a home for the entire community. In a longhouse, each family retains a high degree of economic autonomy but common areas are in constant use for cooking, traditional crafts, socializing and celebrations.

Although Bornean longhouses share certain features — all, for example, are built on stilts to insulate them from the damp tropical earth — each Dayak group has its own floor plan and decorative traditions. Among the Bidayuh, communal life is centered on a roofed, open-air veranda whose width and length can exceed that of two football fields. Running along one side of the away is a wall punctuated by doors to the apartments or bilik where individual families live. If you ask how big a longhouse is, chances are you’ll be told how many doors it has.Annah Rais, whose three longhouses have a total of 82 doors. The floors of Annah Rais’s public spaces are made of bouncy bamboo slats. Almost all house made by natural element as wood, bamboo etc.The population of Annah Rich is 1350 and all are relative each other. 95% of the population is Christian and 5% are other race. There has one primary school and the students are less than 50. Most young boys and girls are the study in boarding school. Beside the house, there was a beautiful river which called “Annah River”. The most earning source of the people is agriculture, fishing and making traditional handicrafts. When our guide showed different places and house I also meet with other local people at the place. They are so kind and friendly with us. In that time I also saw some of the people sitting together and discuss something. Mr. Josep told that they are discussing and planning about Gawai dinner. Is a traditional dinner of Dayak community which is celebrated at 21st May in every year. After that our next stop was the head house, a legacy of the Bidayuh’s days as fearsome headhunters. True to its name, the structure’s centerpiece was a cage containing about a dozen human skulls, blackened by smoke and suspended above an old brass cannon marked. Mr. Josep said that this all skulls was their enemies who broke their rules and betrayed with them. It’s the symbol of power that how much they were powerful.
We almost visited all places in that house and Mr. Josep already showed and explained everything about the house. It’s taken almost two hours to visit all area in the house. Some of my friends had become tired after visiting the house. So we took rest for sometime.

After that Mr. Josep arranged our lunch and provide it, we all sited in front his house and enjoyed our lunch. They cooked many different types of local food by their traditional way. They provided us rich, local fresh vegetable, fish, and most attractive bamboo chicken. Bamboo chicken is a traditional food of them. The test of food is like different. Sone is testy and some are not so much testy, although I tried to test all of the items slightly. The village is nearly entirely self-sufficient, they do get some things like sugar rather than producing it like they used to but they produce their own rice, they make rubber and sell it on, produce pepper, rice wine, grow their own fruit and vegetables.

When we visited the longhouse all of the people there were wearing normal clothes, jeans and a t-shirt or a long dress for women.It was good to see the traditional clothes when they arranged a cultural dance performance. At that time 2 old women (one is around 80 years old) prepared to wear with their traditional dress for the performed dance. After that, we all sited around on the floor as a circle and the performers perform their dance in the middle. There had also two older men were playing music and sing-song with the dance. At end of the dance they dance again and we also dance with them. It was so funny moment in that time. After finishing the dance some of ours went to visit Annah river site and some of stayed in the house to learn how to play “Pantuokng” which is a traditional music instrument of them. This musical instrument is very expensive which also made of bamboo. One of the gentlemen who is a music specialist in this community said that this music comes from 2000 years ago and this is a Borneo model which is pentatonic style music. He tried to teach us how to play that music by the instrument. After that, at afternoon we returned back from this place with a joyful face and filling.

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