Malaysian Studies Journal

Vol. 1

マレーシア研究	
  第１号	
  （2012 年）

【論	
  説】

Natural Disaster, Men and Animals among the Penan:
Beyond "Thunder Complex"
OKUNO Katsumi

要	
  旨
	
  本稿は、「雷複合」との関わりにおいて、サラワク州ブラガ川上流のプナンにとっての自然災害について考える。約 15,000 人のサラワク・プナンのうち、約 500 人の西プナンがブラガ川上流に住んでいる。彼らは 1980 年代の定住・半定住後にも、狩猟採集に拠りながら暮らしている。自然発生するものが、彼らにとっての自然である。	
 	  本稿では、第一に、プナンがどのように自然災害に向き合っているのかが記述される。プナンは天候激変を恐れる。それは彼らにとって最大の自然の脅威である。俄かに空がかき曇り強風が吹きやがて雷鳴が轟き激しい雨が降って、場合によっては洪水となる。天候の変化に気づくと、彼らは天に祈りを唱える。天候激変は、雷神の怒りであると考えられる。プナンにできることは、儀礼的に雷神の力を減じることである。	
 	
  第二に、そうした実践の背後にある思考様式が検討される。儀礼実践の背後には、動物に対する粗野な振る舞いが天候の激変を引き起こすとされる、東南アジア民族誌
学において「雷複合」として知られる考えがある。プナンは、雷雨、嵐、激しい雨、洪水および石化などの現象は、動物に対する人間の誤った振る舞いのせいであると考える。「雷複合」との関わりで、プナンは「動物と戯れてはならない」「狩猟後には動物は、すみやかに解体して料理して食べなければならない」などの動物に関わるルー
ルを発達させてきた。	
 	
  第三に、自然災害との関わりにおいて、プナンの習慣をどのように理解すればいいのかが検討される。それは、動物に対する人間の優位を回避するための努力であると解釈することができる。プナンのハンターは、動物狩猟する際つねに動物に対して優位に立つが、彼らは人間が動物より優位に立つことを無意識のうちに恐れている。自然に関するプナンの考えを否認するからである。プナンは、彼らにとっての最大の関心事である天候激変を介して、人間と動物の公平な関係性を維持しようと努める。	
 Ⅰ	  Introduction
The Penan of Sarawak, whose population is estimated to be 15,485 (SUHAKAM, 2007:
249; Jayl Langub, 2009: 2) , are generally divided into two groups: Eastern and Western Penan.

The Western Penan inhabit in the interior watersheds of the Belaga River, the Seping River,59

マレーシア研究	
  第１号（2012 年）

the Plieran River, the Linau River and the Balui River in the Kapit Division (Brosius, 2006) .
Some 500 Western Penan are living along the upper reaches of the Belaga River (Jayl Langub,
2000: 7) . This paper describes and analyzes natural disasters among the Penan of the Belaga

River.
It should be noted, in the first place, that the meaning of natural disaster among thePenan of the Belaga is largely different from that of our modern world. Natural disaster is anidea developed in the Western philosophical tradition, which sees nature as something in
opposition

toculturalconstruction,

therebyassomethingthat

shouldbeculturally/technologically controlled and managed; roots of such Western natural philosophy
can be traced in Plato and later to be completed by Hegel.
By contrast, to the Penan, nature is considered not as something that is
culturally/technologically controlled and managed, but as something spontaneously growing
and self-ruled (merip petiken) : such thoughts of the Penan may be linked to those thoughts
existed before Plato. Thus, nature is regarded by the Penan as an eternal provider of life
resources such as game animals or plants for human everyday needs. At the same time, natureis also seen as something that manifests rage in the forms of natural phenomenon such as
thunder, lightning or flooding. To them, nature seems to be intrinsically uncontrollable.
Based on the brief discussion of the difference in the thoughts of nature between
Western tradition and Penan society, this paper poses the following questions: How do the
Penan challenge such natural uncontrollability in the case of natural disaster?
conceptually behind the Penan challenge?

What lies

What can we see from the Penan cultural

institution – the Penan version of the "thunder complex" (see below) – in relation to natural
disaster?
In this paper, the so-called “thunder complex” is examined. “Central to the complex isthe notion that prohibited acts, more particularly those involving the improper treatment ofanimals, will result in a storm and hence be punished by flood or lightning strikes and, in somecases, by petrification” (Forth, 1989: 89) .

The “thunder complex” is an idea prevalent in

Borneo, Malay Peninsula and Eastern Indonesia, that means certain offences, notably
behaviors considered offensive to animals, will result in meteorological catastrophe (Blust,
1981: 294) . Ethnographic interest in the “thunder complex” stems from Rodney Needham’s

article (Needham, 1967) , which drew attention to the occurrence of almost the same forms of thecomplex among the Semang of Malaya and the Penan of Borneo 1.

This paper, therefore,

explores the relationship between men and animals beyond the complex.
1

Other ethnographic articles focusing on the complex are as follows: (Freeman 1968), (King 1975),(Endicott 1979), (Forth 1989).

60

Natural Disaster, Men and Animals among the Penan

I

presupposethatbehindtheirideologicalchallenge

regardingnaturalspontaneity/uncontrollability, there is a serious attempt to sustain an impartial relation between
men and animals in the Penan society. In this paper, a viewpoint regarding the ideology behind
the Penan attitude toward natural disaster will be presented in this paper.

Ⅱ	  Penan the HunterFirst of all, I briefly outline the hunting practices of the Penan to show their relation
with animals in general. The Penan of the Belaga started hill rice planting in the late 1960s, but
their knowledge of farming still remains relatively low: they have had years when the harvest
has been plentiful and also years when the harvest has been bad (Jayl Langub, 2000: 9). There
was no harvest between 2006 and 2007 and only a very small harvest in 2008. Therefore today,
they still rely heavily on hunting for their living.
The Penan of the Belaga go hunting either from their settlement or temporary hunting
huts in the forest. They eat almost all creatures both from the forest and the river such as wildboar, deer, monkeys, birds, fish and so forth.
Their relationship with animals is surprisingly simple. The Penan usually avoid
animals as much as they can, except during hunting or catching animals in their daily lives.
They have strong taboos concerning treatment of animals. Mistreatment of animals is related touncontrollable phenomena such as thunder, lightning, and flooding, which are believed to becaused by supernatural beings (baley) . I shall return to this topic in the following chapters.
The Penan of the Belaga today engage in two types of hunting: (1) hunting in thesurroundings of the rainforest between morning and sunset, (2) hunting in the oil palm
plantations at night. In addition, they sometimes trap small animals (maneu viu) by usingmaterials in the forest.
The

Penan

are

traditionallyhunters in the deep jungles of Borneo’s
rainforest. The Penan of the Belaga
gradually started to settle or semi-settle
in response to the instructions of theSarawak State Government sometime in
the 1960s. The surrounding rainforest
had gradually been cleared due to theencroachment of commercial logging
into their region in the mid 1980s. After
A Penan hunter in the forest
61マレーシア研究	
  第１号（2012 年）

the bulk of the trees in the forest were cut down, the oil palm scheme was introduced in 1997.
“Under the oil palm scheme, all forms of vegetation were cleared with the area terraced forplanting oil palm” (Jayl Langub, 2000: 33) . “The area was once used by the Penan for hunting
wild game and collecting sago and rattan. This further reduced the sources of food supply andcash income for the Penan” (Jayl Langub, 2000: 34) .
However, in the early 2000s some of the Penan fortunately found that wild boars andother small animals come to eat the fruit of the oil palms. In this way, hunting in oil palm
plantations at night has been recently added as one of the traditional hunting in the forest,
although they never distinguish one from the other. Hunting wild boars in oil palm plantations
is characterized by “waiting” for the wild boars that come to eat the oil palm fruit.
Penan hunters usually leave home (settlement or hunting hut) to hunt in silence. People
are expected not to ask where the hunters go or what they are trying to catch. Hunters thenreturn home silently if they successfully obtain game animals. After a while (usually before orafter cooking) , they describe the hunt. A typical description of hunting in the oil palm plantation

is as follows:

Pukun lema taop merem akeu tae jin jebatan ayu kereta tae ton simpan lamin buhei akeu
tuun sina akeu tae ke buhei mukat simpan dalem sawit tae avi tong uban tua saau mengisi
obat pisit akeu tae rau kediva tae tong sawit ra kaben rau sina akeu menimuk mabui merem
ja nalee merip ja pengah ineh mulie tong lamin.

At five o’clock in the evening, I took a logging company car from the bridge to thecrossroads under the upper house. I got out of the car there and climbed up the mountain in
the oil palm plantation. After a while I reached the spot where we were previously. I put abattery in my torchlight. I started to walk down the mountain and reached the left side of theoil palm plantation, where I shot two wild boars that I saw last night. I got one, but the otherescaped alive. Then, I returned to our hunting camp.

On the other hand, if they return home without game, they murmur “piah pesaba”
2(angry words for animals) , primarily to let the family members know of their hunting failure .
2

The Penan of the Belaga River utter “piah pesaba” only when they return from an unsuccessful hunting
trip, while according to Jayl Langub, “the texts of the utterance (of “piah pesaba”) convey the message tothe audience in the village whether or not they caught a pig, its size, fatness or whether they caught othertypes of game, or that the hunt was completely unsuccessful” (Jayl Langub, 2009: 9). Jayl Langub showsthat the root word “sabah” from “pesabah” is often used as an expression of sincerity of offer, drawing
on Peter Brosius’s PhD dissertation (Jayl Langub, 2009: 9, Brosius, 1992). However, I could not find (themeaning of) any word “saba” or “mesaba” during my fieldwork among the Penan of the Belaga. A

62Natural Disaster, Men and Animals among the Penan

Iteu ulie amie padie melakau
puun ateng menigen3
saok todok kat 4
selue pemine mena kaan 5
uyau, apah 6
panyek abai telisu bogeh7
keledet baya buin belengang dek ngelangi8
saok todok kaan
panyek abai telisu bogeh
keledet saok tedok kaan
baya buin belengang dek ngelangi

The above “piah pesaba” can be loosely translated in the following:“Here I walked back, my brothers, I could not catch any animals, I could not hunt any
animals. My father will die, my mother will die. Pig’s ugly nose, Malay who was once aboar, pig’s nose like a hammer’s head, big-eyed deer. Deer’s eyes which shine at night,
crocodile, pig, hornbill, fowl cackles. I could not catch any animals. Pig’s ugly nose, Malay
who was once a boar, pig’s nose like a hammer’s head, big-eyed deer. Deer’s eyes whichshine at night. I could not catch any animals. Crocodile, pig, hornbill, fowl cackles.”“Piah pesaba” can be uttered only when no game animals have been caught after

Japanese ethnomusicologist, Shimeda who visited the Penan of the Belaga River in the 1980s, translated“piah pesaba” into Japanese as murmuring words for animals (Shimeda, 1996).
3
The term “ateng” is an emphatic negative (Brosius, 1992: 919). The word “menigen” means “to hold”.
This line means “we did not get anything” (Jayl Langub, 2009: 9).
4
The words “saok” and “todok” mean “all”, while “kat” means “each and every” (Brosius, 1992: 920).	
  	
 This line means not a single animal (Jayl Langub, 2009: 9).	
  	
 5
The word “selue” means “all” and “pemine” means “the majority of” (Brosius, 1992: 920). The word
“mena” means “give” and “kaan” means “animal” 	
  	
  	
  	
 
6
These words are so called “death names” given to an individual upon the death of his/her father andhis/her mother. This line can be interpreted as “if I am not tell the truth Father will die, Mother will die”
(Jayl Langub, 2009: 10).
7
The word “panyek” means “the blunt nose of the pig, which Penan consider to be ugly”. “Abai” is a“term for Malay” who was thought to be transformed by pigs by Penan in story. “Telisu” is a “term forhammer, referring to the flat nose of the bearded pig”. The word “bogeh” means “Bugis” (Brosius, 1992:
922). Belaga Penan explained to me that “bogeh” means “big-eyed deer”.
8
The word “keledet” refers to “eyes which shine at night when a light is shone at them” (Brosius, 1992:
920). “baya”: “crocodile”, “buin”: ”pig”, “belengang”: ”rhinoceros hornbill”, “dek”: “fowl”,“ngelangi”: ”cackle”.

63マレーシア研究	
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hunting. It partly includes insults to animals: to play with their big nose, big eyes or noseshaped like a hammer’s head. In contrast, the Penan say that they should not utter words suchas “piah pesaba” on a daily basis, which are thought to attack or play with animals. I shallreturn to this topic in Chapter 4. After returning from hunting without game, Penan hunters
also explain their hunting failure as in the following example. This case is taken from hunting
in the rain forest.

Akeu kebai ayu atok tae tong long meru naat ia mabui tong penvangan menimuk mabui jinju teneng mabui tenimuk dee avi dipee alet tuai maau jin long meru iyeng matai.

I took a canoe downstream and then reached the mouth of the Meru River, when I saw awild boar on the bank. I shot it from afar. The wild boar bled and then escaped. I followed it
to the opposite bank of the Alet River. It was not shot dead.

In this chapter, I mainly described the hunting practices of the Penan today. Now I
proceed to the next chapter to outline how the Penan challenge natural disaster.

Ⅲ	  Penan ritually challenge the Thunder God’s anger
One night, it didn’t stop raining. I, sleeping soundly in a hunting hut built alongside
the small river, was suddenly woken up by someone’s voice saying, “Look out, flooding (jaaubea, jaga) .” I heard the huge sound of the stream alongside the hunting camp. I saw the stream

coming closer to the camp, and then I saw the stream one meter higher and twice its width.
At the same time, I heard two women praying toward the sky. One of them was walking backand forth, raising her hands and invocating the following:

Eh, maneu daau, maneu adee.
Pah avi lengedeu bateu hujan, pah avi lecak tanah, pah avi tevi tanah…
Ami mani amu mulie, ami mani jaji, ami mani tebang ngan kuuk...

Sounding, lightning…, Thunder has come to turn men into stone, flood the land, exterminate
the land…, I need you to go home, I need you to promise, I need to talk to you…

I wondered what might happen to me, if the stream were to get bigger. I thought there
was nowhere to escape as the camp site was flat. It seemed as though I would be washed away64

Natural Disaster, Men and Animals among the Penanby the strong stream. I was terrified about the flooding together with the other ten Penanpeople in the hunting hut. Finally, about an hour later, I was relieved, because it stopped
raining and then the stream returned to normal.
In this way, the Penan mostly fear natural disasters such as heavy rain and flooding.
They have never attempted to overcome nature with their own hands: they never endeavor tochange streams or disrupt water. It can be observed, therefore, that nature is conceptualized as
something spontaneously growing and intrinsically uncontrollable beyond human access. The
only thing the Penan try to do is to ritually reduce the natural power. If thunder and lightningappear in the sky, or when heavy rain continues, they invocate ritual phrases. The ritual iscalled "migah langit (pray for the sky) " as shown above. The following is another example ofmigah langit.

Pooi, kau, mematai menyiai mekih
Akeu menuneuk memerah, memigah
Baley Gau, Baley Liwen
Bisa kau makang kau Jutan Tedung bawai iteu
Stop you God, I kill, smoke and cut, I barn and hit with praying 9. Thunder God and Storm
God. You two far in the sky are strong and brave enough just like Jutan and Tedung10

Thunder, lightning, heavy rain, flooding or human petrification are believed to becaused by the Thunder God (baley Gau) and strong storms, the work of the Storm God (baley
Liwen) . Generally speaking, most of the natural disasters are attributed to the Thunder God.

Specifically, meteorological catastrophe is thought to be caused by the rage of Thunder God.
Such belief drives the Penan to alleviate the rage of Thunder God.
Another important ritual to reduce the Thunder God's power/anger in relation tonatural disaster is the piah tivai (tivai words) ritual. The Penan believe that red sunset is the
symbol of Thunder God’s rage. The sky will be covered by red sunset, and rain falls heavily
for a long period of time. For the Penan, red sunset is also regarded as a sign of an extended
period of rain and they invocate ritual phrases to prevent such phenomenon to occur.

The Penan believe that the ashes from burnt game animals hold mystical and magical910This “migah langit” was performed while the prayer was cooking the hunted animal.
Jutan and Tedung are dead men who were renowned for their bravery when alive.

65マレーシア研究	
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power11 . Ashes are thrown to the sky as they utter words like the following.

ia peseu telauu medok kevok
menye menuneuk, medok kevok
tae menavah menyelah
maneu e mebeng ngajeleng utih
ngejami putih
ngejami abun bale ineh
tae ju maneu, liwen uventae maneu, tee unyengelibet menyelah ia
A Penan in a boat with dark cloud in front
The heart of mouse deer, pig-tailed macaque, monitor lizard, I order to burn, pig-tailed
macaque, monitor lizard. Go and reduce the red colour, turn white, whiten the sky. Whiten
those red clouds. Go and make, storm and long rain is coming. Go and make, it will beraining long. Disappear the red sunset.

This way, the Penan generally perform rituals when they face or anticipate natural
disasters such as thunder and lightning, rain and storms, and flooding. It can be said that theirchallenge is part of the Penan version of the “thunder complex.” Significantly, they perform
rituals only in the case of such natural disasters. In the next chapter, I would like to briefly
examine what lies conceptually behind such Penan ritual performances.

Ⅳ	  Penan attribute natural disaster to their mistreatment of animals
As described above, the Penan are always greatly afraid of meteorological catastrophe.
They believe the uncontrollable power of nature to be the manifestation of Thunder God's rage.
Do they ignore it? No, they do not. They always challenge the meteorological change. The
only thing they can do, however, is to try ritually reducing the terrible power. In this regard, it
is interesting to note that natural disasters are thought to be ultimately caused by their own
erroneous action, in particular by their mistreatment of animals: the erroneous actions not
11

In this regard, Needham recorded that the Penan practiced the blood-offering to appease the Thunder
God’s anger (Needham, 1967: 140). He also reported, “If thunder continues and everybody then offers
blood or burns hair it will surely stop” (Needham, 1967: 140). I personally observed that some of thePenan of the Belaga burned hair to quell the Thunder God’s anger, but never saw them offering blood,with which Needham was mostly concerned.

66

Natural Disaster, Men and Animals among the Penannecessarily considered to be conducted by themselves but by someone somewhere who has
mistreated animals. This is outlined in the following.
Penan children tend to play with the body of hunted animals after the game is broughtback home. For instance, the children gather and point at the nose of the wild boar and laugh,because it looks just like hammer’s head. They may also fondle small animals with their hands.
When the children indulge themselves in such actions, the adults order them to stop playing
with the animals as the adults believe such treatment of animals can be regarded by theThunder God as the mistreatment of the animals, which may bring its rage. It is believed thatthe animal’s soul (berewen) travels to the Thunder God and then reports about the mistreatment.
In this way, the Penan always pay great attention to the treatment of (game) animals.
They call mistreatment “penyalah.” The children described above are regarded as committing“penyalah.”
Mistreatment applies not only to men, but also to animals: the Penan think thatanimals also mistreat men. For instance, it is regarded as mistreatment if a snake bites or a wildboar attacks men. It is not considered as a mistreatment for men to kill such animals because
attacking men is considered as a mistreatment. In contrast, men also mistreat animals. Human
mistreatment includes playing with or treating animals badly. In this sense, one can understandthat the relation between men and animals is regarded as impartial, which I shall return to in
Chapter 5.
One day I whispered, “O, it’s a fowl (o,dek) ,” after looking at an animal in a rattan bag(bukui) brought back from hunting. A Penan man in front of me, hearing my words, looked very

embarrassed. He immediately said, “No, it’s not a fowl, but a wild fowl that we caught in a trap
(amai iteu datah jin viu) .

From this experience, I came to realize that there is a taboo against referring to wild
fowl as fowl. According to the Penan, I was not paying respect to the animal. On the contrary,
it is not regarded as inappropriate to refer to fowl as wild fowl, because fowl, recently
introduced into Penan society from the outside world, are not classified as animals (kaan) .
Domesticated animals there cannot be given any classification. It is believed that human
mistreatment of animals is reported to the Thunder God by the animals’ spirit, who creates
heavy rain, flooding and so forth.
The other day, a wild fowl was brought back alive to our hunting hut from a trap andforced people in the camp to remain silent for some while until the leader of the camp killed it.
The leader explained to me that mistreatment is more dangerous when committed with living

67マレーシア研究	
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animals than dead ones 12 .
Additionally, the Penan usually say that people should butcher, cook and eat themeat as soon as possible after hunting the animal. This means that they are very much afraid of
mistreating the game animals in the cooking process.
Based on these brief outlines of the Penan version of the "thunder complex,” it is fairto say that the uncontrollable power of nature such as thunder, lightning, heavy rain andflooding is not partly but mostly attributed to the failure of human action. Mistreatment ofanimals by men at least ideologically plays a major role in constructing natural disaster/meteorological catastrophe.
One day in the dry season we went fishing in the river, and caught more fish than we
actually needed. All of sudden, we heard thunder and lightning. A Penan man said that we hadcaught too many fish. He thought that over-consumption of fish was the cause of the thunder.
We stopped fishing and then returned home soon. What needs to be examined in the next
chapter is what we can learn from such Penan version of the "thunder complex.”Ⅴ	  Penan prevent human dominance over animals
The most impressive feature of the Penan’s relationship with animals is that they do
not express their gratitude towards, or appease (the soul of) the animals which are used aslivestock of men 13 . In other words, they do not have any rites for (the soul of) the animals. The
Penan appear to do nothing with animals, as shown in the previous chapter.
They say, “don’t play with animals,” “don’t treat animals badly,” and “people should
butcher, cook and eat the meat as soon as possible after hunting animals.” Breaking these rules
or mistreatment of animals angers the Thunder God, causing the most feared natural disasterfor the Penan.
Why did they develop such a complicated cultural institution? That is the nextquestion. The answer is that, I suppose, the Penan have sustained or have tried to sustain an
impartial relationship between men and animals14 . Hunting practice basically consists of a

12

Needham reported that he was told not to cast a swollen leech into the fire by a Penan man, while
another man suggested that it did not really matter so much (Needham, 1969: 41). The Penan of theBelaga today suggest in general that killing swollen leeches does not matter at all, because the leech isborn from jungle leaves, which means that the leech is not included in the category of their creatures.
13
For example, through the “iyomante” ritual of the Ainu in Northern Japan, they celebrated returning abear's spirit to the spiritual world, with gifts and invitations to return again soon. In the ritual, they killed
the bear, which they captured as a cub, after raising it as an honored guest from the spiritual world. The
ritual is an expression of thanks to animals that were provided from the spiritual world (Watanabe, 1964).
14
The Penan have a rich store of folk tales (suket), which are about animals, human beings or abouthuman beings and animals sharing the same environment (Jayl Langub, 2001:1). One can see the68Natural Disaster, Men and Animals among the Penandiscriminating relationship between men and animals, as hunters one-sidedly hold the power tokill and consume the game animals.

Penan hunters, however, have been particularly careful

to avoid human dominance over animals.
dominance over animals.

They must be aware of the oddness of the human

For them, animals cannot be controlled or managed, because they

are part of uncontrollable nature.

An impartial relationship between men and animals has

been woven as the basic principle into the Penan society.
From time immemorial, in general, humans have survived by utilizing the surrounding
natural resources. Some men were eventually able to stably secure foodstuff after they
domesticated and slaughtered animals. Animal domestication was then brought into thecommodity economy. Animals started to be slaughtered, processed and brought home. In thisway, men gradually came to identify themselves as the “lords of nature” instead of being mere
members of nature, and then began treating animals as objects of sport, clothing,experimentation, entertainment and so forth. In the latter half of the 20th century, those who
felt deep sympathy for the animals that were cruelly treated by men started to argue for animal
rights by which animals can live based on their own nature (Steiner, 2005) .
On the other hand, the Penan may not treat animals badly or play with them. This
impartial relationship between men and animals in the Penan society can prevent“anthropocentrism” in the modern world 15 .
In sum, in our modern world, men came to hold the power of life and death overanimals. This means that we, in our modern world, no longer have an impartial relationshipwith animals. Such “anthropocentrism”
is spread all over the world today, and isgenerating various practical problems:
not only cruelty to animals, animal
experimentation, indiscriminate hunting
or fishing, but also food production
systems based on the mass slaughter ofanimals.
My supposition here is that thecultural institution described in thisPenan children playing with a hunted wildboar

mystical past in which the lives of men and animals are merged.
15
Anthropocentrism is a view that places the moral status of humans in a position superior to that ofanimals: Humans have used animals as instruments to serve their needs. These views have their roots in
Aristotle, and particularly in the thoughts of the Stoics, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas,
Descartes and Kant, and have long exercised their influence on thinking in the history of Western
philosophy (Steiner, 2005: 2).

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paper – the Penan version of the "thunder complex" -- can unconsciously lead to the preventionof falling into the trap of “anthropocentrism.” In other words, regarding natural disaster as a
byproduct of human misconduct, the Penan have developed certain rules concerning thetreatment of animals, which consequently have prevented human dominance over animals.
The idea of human dominance over animals completely contradicts the primordialconceptualization of nature in Penan society: nature is something spontaneously growing andself-ruled (merip petiken) . Thus, the Penan are seriously attempting to maintain an impartial
relationship between men and animals on a daily basis, as if from the very beginning. It seems
to me, they had already recognized that "anthropocentrism" is one of the most serious humanproblems.

Ⅴ	  Conclusion
This paper describes how the meaning of natural disaster among the Penan of theBelaga differs from that of the modern world. Nature is seen as something uncontrollable by
the Penan. Nature is spontaneously growing and self-ruled (merip petiken) .
First, how do the Penan challenge such natural spontaneity/uncontrollability inrelation to natural disaster?
The Penan are always very much afraid of meteorological catastrophes, which are theonly and the most feared natural disasters for them. Ordinarily in the afternoon, the sky turns
dark, and then sometimes strong storms, lightning strikes, squalls and flooding emerge. Afterthey face such meteorological change, some of them begin invocating migah langit phrases
with the hope of reducing the natural power. The uncontrollable power of nature is in mostcases represented as the Thunder God's rage. The only thing they can do is to ritually reduce
naturally uncontrollable power of the Thunder God.
Second, what lies behind the Penan ritual practices?
It can be acknowledged that the Penan have developed a particular mode of thought
behind those ritual performances based on the Penan version of the "thunder complex.”Natural disaster is not partly but mostly attributed to the failure of human action. Storms,
heavy rain, flood, lightning strikes and petrification are regarded as being caused by human
mistreatment of animals. In this regard, they have developed certain rules: “don’t play withanimals,” “one should butcher, cook and eat the meat quickly after hunting animals.”
Third, what can we see from the Penan cultural institution – the Penan version of the"thunder complex" -- in relation to natural disaster?
The Penan version of the "thunder complex" can be hypothetically understood as their70Natural Disaster, Men and Animals among the Penandaily efforts in preventing human dominance over animals. They seem to try to prevent human
dominance over animals, and to sustain an impartial relationship between men and animals.
Penan hunters empirically realize human dominance over animals every time they hunt or killgame animals. This, I believe, is a primordial experience of Penan hunters, who areparadoxically cautious of human dominance over animals. They are unconsciously afraid of
human dominance over animals, because it completely denies the conceptualization of nature
in Penan society.
In contrast, natural philosophy in the Western tradition started to establish itself fromthis very point and then evolved to generate a strong mode of thought with which men have thepower to overcome or preserve nature by making full use of scientific knowledge andtechnology. However, the Penan never undertook such process, but rather understoodinappropriate human action to be the ultimate cause of natural disaster, so as to sustain an
impartial relationship between men and animals.

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（奥野克巳：おくの・かつみ	  桜美林大学：J.F.Oberlin University）

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