Sarawak''s Peoples
Nearly fifty percent of Sarawak's population is made up of various indigenous Dayak and Orang Ulu groups - including the Iban, Bidayuh, Kayan, Kenyah, Kelabit and Penan tribes, many of whom live in longhouses and maintain a rich cultural legacy. The Iban , a stocky, rugged people, make up nearly one-third of Sarawak's population. They originated in the Kapuas valley in Kalimantan, and migrated north in the sixteenth century. Nowadays, Iban longhouse communities are found in the Batang Ai river system in the southwest, and along the Rajang, Katibas and Baleh rivers. These communities are quite accessible, their inhabitants always hospitable and keen to show off their traditional dance, music, textile-weaving, blow-piping, fishing and game-playing. In their time, the Iban were infamous head-hunters, but, these days, this tradition has been replaced by that of berjelai, or "journey", whereby a young man leaves the community to prove himself in the outside world - returning to his longhouse with television sets, generators and outboard motors, rather than heads. The southernmost of Sarawak's indigenous groups are the Bidayuh , who traditionally lived away from the rivers, building their longhouses on the sides of hills. Culturally, they are similar to the Iban. Most of the other groups in Sarawak are classed as Orang Ulu (people of the interior). They inhabit the more remote inland areas, on the upper Rajang, Balui, Baram and Linau rivers. The most numerous, the Kayan and the Kenyah , are longhouse-dwellers, animists and shifting cultivators. They are also considered to be the most artistic of Sarawak's people, with many excellent painters and musicians among them. The Kelabit people live in longhouses on the highland plateau which separates north Sarawak from Kalimantan and are Christian. The semi-nomadic Penan live in the upper Rajang and Limbang areas and rely on hunting and gathering. They are lighter skinned, largely because they live within the shade of the forest, rather than on the rivers and in clearings. The state government's resettlement programme - a controversial policy not entirely unconnected with the logging industry - is now largely complete, and few Penan still live their traditional lifestyle.
Pengerangbj says "How to go to Pengerang kelong" languagesaja says "is teh spoken langague used
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