They flick bloated leeches off their ankles as they boil a thick paste of sago palm and tapioca starch. Later they will wrap themselves in faded batik sarongs and hum and rock one another to sleep. While most Penans who have moved into the settlements have been converted to Christianity, nomads are largely animists who believe nature has a soul and forest spirits must be protected and undisturbed. A hunter will often return with a baby bear or monkey which becomes part of the clan and will never be eaten. The Penans never walk directly toward another person and when they pass by, they bend slightly and bow.
Eye contact is rare.
They are a people unsuited to confrontation. But the ruin of their habitat has forced many of them into an existence of pleading and demanding and blockading, all contrary to their nature. One of the main problems, according to some environmentalists, is that the government and loggers are one and the same. Ruled for a century as a private fiefdom by the Brookes, an adventurous English family, Sarawak was ceded to Britain in 1946. In 1949, the British awarded a timber concession to James Wong Kim Min, who pioneered hill logging with bulldozers and made a fortune.