Introduction: The Highlands, Kelabit and Isolation

A survey conducted in 1998 revealed that 63.8 per cent of the total Kelabit population have migrated out of the highlands (Murang 1998). This is highly significant for the Kelabit people who forty years ago were considered remote and unreachable. Harrisson, one of the first white writers to arrive in the area described it as one of the “…few [places] where, in fact, you cannot be more away from what most people call ‘the world’. There are fewer places where you (or I) are likely to be able to feel more remote, more ‘cut off’ from the great outside…” (Harrisson 1959, p. 5). As a result, lowlanders like the people of Tinjar area have always considered the Kelabit to be living in “another world” fabled for its “big men, sexy women, cold nights, rich harvests, irrigation, inaccessibility, cattle and goats” (Harrisson 1959, p. 152). Not many understood their way of life and in fact, at the turn of the twentieth century, were deemed “lost”, “terrible, troublesome and apathetic drunkards”, and “on the way out” (Hudson 1999; Crain and Pearson-Rounds 1999).

Why is this so? The Kelabit Highland is a highland plateau with an average altitude of approximately 1,000 metres above sea level. It is located above the furthest reaches of the navigable rivers of Baram and Limbang in the north-east of Sarawak. It is surrounded by rugged mountains, high peaks and dense jungle. In order to reach the area, one had to wade through dense forest, climb high peaks, negotiate rugged mountains, go through deep valleys, manoeuvre the crossing and recrossing of ranges and streams. Therefore the Kelabit Highland is considered by those who are unfamiliar with the area to be unfriendly and dangerous.

This chapter gives an overview of Kelabit rural-urban migration in Sarawak and considers how Kelabit women experience migration and their responses to it. It examines issues confronting the women left behind and those who have left their homeland, through the art form of stories and songs. It uses lakuh — an oral tradition used by women in the highlands to narrate some of their experiences of urbanization and rural-urban migration.