Friday January 5, 2007
Common words show Bidayuh-Melanau link
By JACK WONG
KUCHING: The many root words shared by the Bidayuhs and Melanaus have indicated a definite historical link between the two communities.
Dayak Cultural Foundation secretary-general Datuk Peter Minos said the Bidayuhs in Bau district and the Melanaus in Miri used similar words for many things.
Minos said although he had in the past 40 years tried to find out through historical books and from various people and sources how the Bidayuhs and Melanaus shared so many root words, he had not come to any conclusive findings about their links.
However, he suggested that the Bidayuhs and Melanaus might have been one group of people living together in ancient times but later parted ways for unknown reasons.
“Slowly and gradually over the years, they developed their own languages but some of the root words still persist and linger on,” he added in a paper “Common and complementary characteristics between the Melanau and Bidayuh cultures” presented at an inter-cultural forum in Wisma Sumber Alam here.
Representatives of the various ethic groups attended the event organised by the state Social Development and Urbanisation Ministry in collaboration with Melanau Association, Dayak Bidayuh National Association (DBNA) and Sarawak Development Institute.
There are some 180,000 Bidayuhs, mostly living in Bau, Lundu and Serian districts in southern Sarawak, among the state’s 2.2million people. The Melanau community is smaller than the Bidayuh.
Minos, a former DBNA president, said some elderly Bidayuhs had told him that when some raiders attacked Bidayuh villages for their padi and other things more than 200 years ago, they also kidnapped Bidayuh children.
Some of these children, according to these elders, managed to survive as the boats of these raiders capsized in rough seas. These children were rescued and adopted by the sympathetic Melanaus living in coastal villages.
“When they grew up, they got married to the Melanaus and thus were absorbed into the Melanau society. The origin of the Melanau-Bidayuh root words possibly originated from here,” he said, adding that there was, however, no evidence to back both theories.
Minos said that inter-marriage between the Bidayuhs and Melanaus was common as they could get along with each other easily.
He urged the historians, researchers and academicians from both communities to jointly study the linguistic and other cultural commonalities between them so as to help establish their historical links.
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