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2/1/1989 - A Voice Crys Out by Judith H. Mayer

INSTITUTE OF CURRENTWORLD AFFAIRS JHM A VOICE CRIES OUT Kuching Sarawak East Ma1aysia February Peter Bird Martin Executive Director Institute Current World Affairs West Wheeloct Street Hanover NH 03755 USA Dear Peter Friends Ii Ii voice cries pulls until Likewhite early lifting herds vanished Catching darting stunned tapang trees felled stunned tapang trees felled A floating The toughest through moving workman wearing urine yellow This topmost branch He until darkness The leader police points target slowly falls A1 herds Down clouded pours strai9ht rainwater rimming leaves First paddle vehicle starts trying laughing voice Wi round hours WFist Lovely featheFs bounce dancing close stays blade within sheath Talking telephone telephoning place Fiver A sweet feeling guard words against crocodiles listening police JlJdith Mayer Ian IInst Fellow S UIC environmet otection andsustainable develIopment S outheast Asia JHM Who rushes wearing badge flashing direction It races along daybreak flying apart Translation composed Lungen Sugen Penan Urun woman Carol Rubenstein This sadness describes disappearance devastation forest logging disintegration community materially spiritually connected abundance forest This connection sustained Penan Sarawak centuries The narrates excitement experiences travel telephone calls calls overheard suspiciously police mounting discontent upriver peoples confronted threat logging their traditional lands I ihood Carol Rubenstein translated writes something It signals communit One alone enough flesh feast fairly large group This immediate sharing unites group binds communion forest animal whose force flesh ingested Together perform integral agricultuFal magic Thi living tradition reflecting urgent concerns throuoh poetry The Penan songs codelike version their everyday speech mixed words languages neighboring groups Kayan Kenyah Iban Nalay Using words several amiliar languages vming rhythmic possibilities borrowed words emphasis Ironically Penan literature flourishing under stress while their based gatherin jungle produce hunting fishing peril But other Dayak peoples literature recited memory special languages fading The songsand chants embodying Iban Bidayuh Kenyah Kayan other peoples forgotten depict linked beliefs sustain change beyond recognition along To published Carol Rubenstein Like Early Mist Five Sons Penan Urun Sarawak Museum Journal later Also Carol Rubenstein The Ni htbird Sins Chants Sons Sarawak Dayaks G ordon Brash Publishers Singapore Also Like Early Mist Carol Rubenstein American showed recent translations Penan songs She originally Borneo searching connect natural world The close peaceful relationship Borneo indigenous populations their environment seemed offer alternative violence Vietnam machine grinding apart itself people spreading chaos disintegrating communities through Southeast Asia Since Carol recorded transcribed translated documented hundreds songs chants epics Dayaks Sarawak She figures years taken Dayak poetry whether upcountry Sarawak considering distance The experience being Vietnam arena American squeamish about happening Profoundly explained Kuching civilized world Carol shaken spill boarded while Singapore coast Borneo But jumped waiting cheap flight Asia Sabah seeking quiet healing restoration company giant turtles orangutans Sepilok nature reserve In Sabah reflecting meaning civilization reading about independent spirit Dayaks Sarawak drawn about people literature Sarawak visit At SaFawak Museum Kuching earned there enormous variety Dayak songs people inclination record collect knowledge translate those already recorded would justice their sense their poetry Some people become ionnaires write disserations marathons children After hearing dedication chant Bidayuh Dayak headhouse community sacred meeting place Carol called understand songs peoples Borneo She amazed their complex poetry images lived animals forest plants crops Dayak singers intimately But deeper meanings dying singers None being collected explains Carol It disappearing Nobody about So I feltan enormous sense urgency She materials abundant All This urgency tropical ecologists Putting aside elaborate theories scholarly arQuments about nature evolution rushing simply todescribe tropical forests water enumerate species trace intrica their interdependence before extinction overcomes Collecting songs poems simple matter Most singers happened miles interior rivers rapids through forests never tramped New York Let alone learning Borneo cultures languages forest scratch mosquito mosquito Everyone Carol guide teacher She rapidly responsibility songs singers bardic tradition They terribly moved I cared Carol reflects today Their people picking I stood grandchild relationship But complicated simply deciding Systematically collecting Dayak songs required mounting expeditions And expeditions required assistants interpretations translations several languages elaborate transportation remote mountains provisions trips institutional support The Sarawak Huseum sponsored Carol received Ford Foundation grant bills years Despite determination carry project often questioned In introduction The Honey Tree Song volume translations published America Carol wondered authority I American happened preliterate society collect translate material removed cultural experience As urban intellectual I likely along jungle Many times going especially rough I asked myself nearest coconut I doing there But treks upriver journeys crucial understanding subtle signal poets indicate passing changes season environment human spirit Images saturated emotional content drawn forest rhythms village journeys It important familiar enough physical environment which songs composed realize Carol explains I Dayak I would exactly Also heroine adventurer Utah Ping renowned songs upper Baram River Carol enjoyed visiting needed peoples songs Carol approached rather anthro pologist scholar other discipline would Though developed rigorous methods checking cross checking meanings contexts words languages defined imary finding material recorded transcribed museum staff But began published became target anthropologists linguists others doubted anyonecould rately translate Dayak literature without thorough understanding language But Carol depended singers themselves explain nuances songs discussions often passed words images through several languages catch their truest sense The words passed languages Dayak oquia1 speech English Malay finally polished English Luckily imaes concrete But their underlyin emotional color beyond words alone explanation translated between languages cultures JHM Sharing motivation mobile community foreigners ourselves Borneo Carol admits doing project simply adventure being Of group people I never known These people close nature people It people whose essential religious experience world dogma which moving contemporary world For reason destruction environment heartbreaking frightening Carol feels collecting translating Dayak literature preparing concentrating writing She finds spent translating another culture allowed mature egocentrism pettiness Western world She treasures experience humanism inherent seeing common feelings break barriers between cultures people But believes returning culture sharing learned truly carrying singers doing Much Dayak shaman travels spiritual underworld retrieve Carol feels followed inner confronted named fears returned definition herself Paradoxically years journeying Dayak consciousness coming terms roots woman Jew New Yorker artist Touching nature cultural background Nature itself greatly valued But socially conscious touch nature makes whole world lives provides alternative alienation pervasive Western creative Bridging cultures through language allowed fulfillment umanist Jewish tradition scholarship The Dayak poems nature transformed poetry making nature acceptable accessible The meticulous detail collecting translating scholarly activities making spiritual search rugged adventure kosher Learning singers integrative experience seeing balance several personalities their benefit their communities One moment selling pumpkins The swinging swing trance going underworld But still person Carol certainly aspirations shaman creative process embody instructive contemporary artists entailing challenge Fney return healing Looking Carol recognizes bemusement least tinge missionary colonialist importance aspects involvement Dayak world I lucky grown New York City where people crowded streets subways world every Face every group Even I someof foreign western white reach privilege It would avoid attitude entirely But Carol thinks nixed related being arcls In means seeking intense privacy expecting ignored It often happens YOU simply considered anything really society It Also Dayaks still speak imagery I abstract terms We could communicate pretty through naturally poetic image These Dayak scholars singers themselves refer authoritative version their culture Carol admits I swell balloon easily pric_ked balloon somebody reminds error She recalls returning Bario Kelabit village mountains border Kalimantan check happened epics singers encountered years before One singers recorded could remember before He started laughed couldn But someone there follow transcribed monograph So singer laughed pointed Sarawak Museum exclaiming So there He pleased Most CaFoI S writing Dayak literature included exhaustive explanations collecting translating manual aspiring collectors trans lators She hopes Dayak scholars carry recording transcribing translating literature their cultures In ideal world might editor collectors tried support Dayak For several years literature research center Sarawak couldbe forum repository collections Borneo indigenous cultural But atmosphere Sarawak changed recently Politics favored efforts promote Dayak literary voice Carol hopes future Sarawakians create institution document profoundly beautiful endangered traditions While material culture could forgotten recovered OF recreated someday If songs heart forever cultural heartbeat Sarawak people indigenous people threatened forests sustained their Received Hanover Carol Rubenstein Poems Indigenous Peoples Sarawak Some Sons Chants Special Monograph No Vol No A2 Parts Sarawak Museum Sarawak Malaysia English translations songs published Carol Rubenstein The Honev Tree Song Poems Chants Sarawak Dayaks Ohio University Press Athens JHM Cavol Rubenstein