THE harvest was over. It was the end of this year’s growing cycle and the beginning of the next. The precious rice grains were stored and it was time to give thanks in Iban longhouse communities.
Gawai Dayak, Gawia in Bidayuh and Ledoh in Kayan, was traditionally celebrated when the padi harvest of each longhouse was completed, not on June 1, which was first declared a public holiday in 1965.
In the longhouses and villages of rural Sarawak, Gawai is a celebration of a successful harvest of life-giving rice – the cycle of growth is complete and the farmers are looking onto the next.
The fields traditionally along steep hillside or mountain slopes are prepared, planted, weeded and then harvested. The vegetation on the selected areas is felled and then dried in the hot tropical sun. The next step is to burn the dried vegetation, releasing the valued nutrients for the rice, which will be planted next. The entire cycle from planting to harvest takes about six months. Harvested fields are then left to fallow and the community obtains vegetables, root crops and fruit from these areas.
Without rice, which in some languages such as Lun Bawang is synonymous with food, meals are not complete. But rice and the knowledge of how to grow this life sustaining grass is shrouded in the mystery of an unwritten past. In Sarawak and Sabah, tradition has it that the knowledge is a gift from the gods, who taught humans how to grow this staple. It is a valued gift that is not wasted.
Rice as well as the other foods we eat are valued gifts, but from whom or what? Without land, air and water, rice and other crops would not thrive or even grow. These are also gifts, but we likely take them for granted. We may even take the food we eat for granted and when the cupboards are bare or the fridge is empty, we restock at supermarkets and wet markets. Do we remember or know where food comes from? Without the sun, the Earth would be black and frozen.
Plants, which use sunlight, carbon dioxide from the air and water, are the original food-making machines and are the bases for the complicated food webs that connect the countless ecological niches on Earth. Plants, in order to thrive, like us, require additional nutrients including nitrogen, phosphorus and a number of other minerals. The burning of the dried vegetation in the paddy fields release the nutrients needed by the rice seedlings and the other vegetable crops to thrive. However, if there is a drought, the fledglings will not thrive and they may even die.
Pond or wet rice cultivation in the Ba Kelalan and Long Semado highlands that line the Trusan River and its tributaries in northern Sarawak depend heavily on the pure water from the surrounding mountains. The river valleys are edged with terraced paddy fields that step towards the fast flowing rivers. Despite, generally, nutritionally poor soils, the farmers produce enough of the high-value organic Bario rice for their families and for sale.
Continue reading (Incl. Pic) at: Gawai Dayak: Remembering Mother Nature
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