Traditionally, the Ibans of Sarawak were swidden cultivators whose economy, based on hill rice, depended upon the availability of large tracts of primary forest for maximum padi harvest, forest produce and game. The critical basic prerequisite for Iban society is to have sufficient land and virgin forests available. This is to ensure ample food supply, forest produce such as paku (ferns) and umbut (shoots), fish from streams or rivers, games (jelu), materials for constructing and maintaining the longhouse and resources for domestic use.
In the past, when pioneering families of Ibans opened a virgin forest in an area for farming, they would perform an important ritual known as ‘panggul menua’. It was only after the ceremony was performed that the first cutting of virgin forest for farming can commence. From then onward, the individual families can establish individual rights to the cleared area including forest adjacent to or around the cleared area as their ‘pulau’ area or ‘pala umai’ or ‘pala temuda’ or ‘pala kebun’.
‘Pemakai menua’ encompasses an area of land or territory held by a distinct longhouse or village community and includes farms, gardens, fruit groves, cemetery, rivers and virgin forest within a defined boundary (antara or garis menua). ‘Pemakai menua’ also includes ‘jeramie’, ‘temuda’ (cultivated land that has been left to fallow), ‘tembawai’ (old longhouse sites), and ‘pulai, pala, kebun, pala umai, and payong temuda’ (virgin forests that have been left uncultivated to provide the community with forest resources for domestic use such as timbers for building and maintaining the longhouse or for coffins for the dead).
Where several pioneering villages or longhouses occupied an area of land, boundaries (antara or garis menua or benoa) were agreed and drawn between the villages or longhouses. These boundaries followed streams, watersheds, ridges, hills, mountains and other permanent landmarks.
Only members of a village or longhouse can farm or use the land and collect forest produce or hunt and fish within the ‘antara/garis menua’ of the village or longhouse.
Traditionally, disputes between the longhouse of village communities over their land boundaries (antara or garis menua) are referred to and resolved by the Village Chiefs or elders. After the establishment of the Native Courts, such disputes are now referred to and resolved in the Native Courts such as in the case of TR Gawan v Penghulu Manggoi Supreme Court, Kuching Civil Appeal No. A/18/54 and Galau anak Kumbong & 3 Ors v Penghulu Imang & 30 Ors in Native Court of Appeal Sibu No.3/66.
The Brooke Administration in Sarawak also encouraged, recognised and accepted the ‘adat’ of the natives (including the Ibans) of having ‘antara/garis menua’ between the longhouses or villages. This can be seen in the Secretariat Circular No. 12 of 1939 issued in 1939. This ‘adat’ of having ‘antara/garis menua’ is till being practised, accepted and observed by the natives (including the Ibans all over Sarawak) until today.
In the Baram District which includes the Sungai or Batang Bakong where the Plaintiffs and their ancestors are from, the official records of the ‘antara or garis menua or benoa’ of the natives and Iban longhouses there are complied in the Register of Land Boundary kept at the District Office, Marudi, Baram. A copy of the same Register of Land Boundary is kept in the Sarawak Museum and in the office of the Majlis Adat Istiadat. I have personally made and kept a photocopy of the said Register.
The Iban ‘adat’ and the ‘adat’ of other natives of Sarawak do not require members of the longhouse or village to apply for permit to clear, farm, use or occupy land within the ‘antara/garis menua’ of the longhouse or village.
Central to this concept of territorial right (pemakai menua) is the Iban values of management, conservation and sustainable use of resources. This includes the customs of swidden farming practices, fallow system, cleansing of the environment (pelasi menua) and the creation of ‘pulau” or forest reserve(s) within the ‘antara/garis menua’ of the longhouse or village.
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