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'Apai Janggut': The forest is the breath of life
âApai Janggutâ
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'Apai Janggut'. JP/Severianus Endi
This man of slim build was born Bandi and is more popularly known as Apai Janggut. In the language
of the ethnic Dayak Iban group living in the interior of West Kalimantan, apai means 'mister' and is used as a common form of address for men.
Janggut is the Indonesian word for beard. Bandi has a long gray beard almost touching his chest. Born in 1914, Apai is a house 'guard' or tuai rumah (chief) in charge of managing everything in the Dayak community's typical longhouse, where residents and relatives live.
The chief is also authorized to arrange land designation in the village where he lives. Those holding tuai rumah positions, which are handed down through generations, are also seen as a central figures concerned with local customs.
Apai Janggut continues to occupy a longhouse in the hamlet of Sungai Utik, Embaloh Hulu district, Kapuas Hulu regency, West Kalimantan. The hamlet is about 90 kilometers from the regency capital, Putussibau, and 800 kilometers from the provincial capital, Pontianak.
When The Jakarta Post met with Apai Janggut at a recent book launch in Pontianak recently, he still looked physically strong at his age and spoke in an optimistic tone.
'Young people should be reminded of the need to remain engaged in forest conservation. As a comparison, the forest is the breath of life and its soil is the human flesh,' Apai Janggut said.
The affirmation wasn't without reason. For years, the people of Sungai Utik have been watching over their 9,605-hectare communal forest in the hamlet so that it has never been touched by large-scale estate and mining industries.
All the trees and animals in it are guarded, despite several attempts to convert the forest into an industrial are. Even if hamlet residents need to utilize forest wood or hunt certain animals, they have to abide by customary rules.
For this reason, in 2008 then Forestry minister MS Kaban visited Sungai Utik. Representing the entire hamlet population, Apai Janggut received the Indonesian Ecolabel Certificate from Kaban for the community's successful forest conservation efforts.
'The wind is for breathing. If it's fresh, we'll live longer. If it's stale, we'll have a shorter life,' Apai Janggut revealed when describing his humble philosophy. Based on local custom, hamlet people are not allowed to hunt or fell trees for housing construction without consulting elders.
Even for farming, a zone has been designated outside the communal forest land and has to be maintained as common property.
For boars, residents are permitted to hunt together before customary rituals, and the animals hunted serve as dishes for the ceremonies.
'Many advanced countries have appealed for forest conservation. I wish everybody will join our forest protection drive. Unless all of us take good care of our soil and water, waste water will be absorbed underground and we will be drinking it,' Apai said.
Hamlet residents also count the trees in the communal forest, distinguishing their groups according to diameter measurements. Trees with small diameters are not to be disturbed so as to keep growing bigger.
In spite of its hamlet status, Sungai Utik is actually the center of Batu Lintang village. Its neighboring hamlet is Dulan, and they both are located in Embaloh Hulu district. In the custom structure, Sungai Utik belongs to the custom
zone of Iban Jalai Lintang, with seven hamlets each maintaining a longhouse.
Like the typical Dayak community settlements of the past, people in this zone also live in longhouses. In response to the demand of the times, some of the longhouses, locally called rumah panjai, have been modified by using concrete rather than entirely built from wood.
While longhouses formerly represented hamlet settlements where all people live, under current circumstances the longhouse of Sungai Utik is one of the few such traditional buildings still existing in West Kalimantan.
Measuring 180 meters with 28 rooms and about 200 people, it is still a wooden structure except one concrete room and some parabolic antennas.
'I'm still living in this longhouse and I happen to be entrusted with the duty of tuai rumah and custom leader. I think unless we're empowering ourselves in this hamlet, who can we expect to do it?' said Apai Janggut.
With around 400 people in Sungai Utik, half of them are dwelling in the longhouse. Outside this building, there are about 10 to 12 houses occupied by the rest. Sungai Utik so far has been beyond the reach of state electricity.
Local people use generators for illumination and other needs, like watching TV shows.
From the Kapuas Hulu regency capital, Putussibau, a 90-kilometer northern access road leads to Sungai Utik hamlet.
In the last three years, the road that at the same time reaches the Badau border linking the Aruk zone in Sarawak, East Malaysia, has been asphalted.
To reach Sungai Utik hamlet from the end of the northern access road, visitors still have to walk along a rough path of around 100 meters. Only after entering Sungai Utik will a paved hamlet road be found.
