Tugau the legendary Melanau

 

SIBU: Legend has it that when he coughed in his kingdom in the interior of Sungai Retus, it could be heard and felt 60km away in the coastal village of Igan. 

Such was the might of Tugau, the demigod king of the Melanaus, according to Sahari Ubu, the penghulu or village headman of the 1,200 strong Melanau community in Kampung Nangka, the only Melanau settlement in Sibu.  

This affable senior citizen is on a personal crusade to revive Tugau’s legend. 

Sahari pouring tuak into a cup to be offered to the spirits of Sungai Retus in Sibu. Sahari is on a personal crusade to revive the legendof Tugau, the demigod King of the Melanaus.

Sahari, 84, speaks eloquently in English as he had served for 22 years with the British army among others in England and Germany during his 12-year stint with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). 

Last year, he led a group of 120 men to recover a pillar made of belian wood, the remnant of Tugau’s longhouse buried for hundreds of years near the confluence of the Sungai Retus and the Sungai Igan (a tributary of the Rajang, the nation’s longest river). 

The site is about one hour journey by speedboat from here. 

“According to accounts handed down through generations, Tugau was a man of incredible strength and size. His longhouse pillars were so huge that even a full grown adult’s hands could not embrace it,” said Sahari. 

There is no historical record on when Tugau’s legacy began but Sahari believes it could be as early as the fifth century. 

Sahari and the men managed to make the pillar stand erect but he believes that it has shrunk in size due to its age. Today the pillar is obviously Sahari’s pride. 

 

He is contemplating further excavation to salvage more buried pillars and hopefully other artefacts as well.“But my big hope is for the government to do something like building a befitting memorial there to commemorate Tugau’s kingdom. This will help the present Melanau generation to appreciate their past and their traditions as well as to expose the legend of Tugau to the tourists,” he said. 

Just who is Tugau? Very little is known about him but according to Sahari, there are different accounts in different places on who he was. 

“Basically, if you were to consult Melanau elders staying in coastal areas, he was a great warrior who had even waged war against the Brunei Sultanate that was occupying Sarawak then. 

“For those staying inland, he was an accomplished leader,” said Sahari. 

If there was one characteristic of Tugau that brought him immense notoriety, it must be his authoritarian ways. His very words were the law and anyone defying it would be killed. 

Today, pieces of broken jars and other remnants are the only reminder of his kingdom. 

“The Sungai Retus was originally a canal which Tugau ordered his people to dig. That's why it runs straight for a kilometre or more from the river mouth,” explained Sahari. 

“Tugau today is still revered by Melanaus of the older generation in places like Igan, Dalat and Oya. 

“The Sungai Retus is in fact named after his wife. Out of reverence and respect, the old folks from these places still refer to it as Sungai Ayang or literally the river of a respected mother,” he said. 

He recently led a media group, courtesy of the Sibu branch of Sarawak Tourism Board, to the site. 

On reaching the site, he performed a ritual known as Menabur Be’rah Kuneng (saffron rice) to seek permission and blessing from the spirit said to be dwelling there. 

Sahari advised all present to be at their best behaviour as not to offend the spirit before sprinkling the saffron rice and the tuak (rice wine) amidst chanting prayers. 

Most local versions including Sahari’s are very consistent about Tugau’s origin from an egg found in the jungle by a Melanau couple. 

Author Stephen Morris in his book The Oya Melanau written for the Malaysian Historical Society (Sarawak Branch) and published in 1991 expounded that Tugau was the son of the Rajah Kiangan, ruler of the sky while his grandmother was the daughter of the Rajah Yang, ruler of the world below. 

He was fostered by a human couple who found and cared for the egg from which Tugau emerged along with a white fighting cock with one black feather at its tail and a cobra. 

As he grew up, Tugau and his fighting cock never lost a contest. It was during such frequent contest outings that he met his wife who was the daughter of another king, Rajah Kau of Sungai Kabeng. 

Rajah Kau demanded that Tugau provide a gold sword (weapon of rank), a gold bowl (sign of aristocratic wealth) and nine fish traps full of gold. 

They were to be delivered within seven days or he would be killed. 

It must have been a week-long agony for his mortal mother but Tugau carried on with life as usual and on the seventh day he sent his mother to deliver the dowry which he had obtained from the god. 

Tugau’s legend ended in a sad note. Morris who conducted research in the Medong area of Dalat managed to trace a 1950 account by a woman, Teiyah, the wife of the area headman then Sakul bin Tira. 

Based on this account, Tugau decided to build a new longhouse near the confluence of the Retus and Igan rivers and gathered his people to cut the immense Belian tree to be made into a pillar but it was so heavy that they could not raise it to stand erect. 

Tugau ordered a slave in his household, Tegiok, who had two daughters to fetch the daughters and put the elder one at the bottom of the hole dug to erect the pillar. 

Tegiok did so and Tugau then told his people to let the pillar slide into the hole and as the girl was crushed, the post quickly and easily rose as if it was alive. Everybody rejoiced including Tegiok. 

Another hole was dug and Tegiok’s second daughter was put in. She cried out to her father: Why are you so happy to see me killed by people who have no mercy? Aren’t you ashamed? 

Tegiok was silent and heartsick. The second daughter too was crushed when the pillar went up and greeted with shouts of joy. 

But Tegiok became incensed and grabbed Tugau’s sangkoh (spear) and killed him. When Tugau died his fighting cock and the snake both vanished. 

In revenge, Tugau’s son-in-law Besiong called upon all the snakes that came and ate Tegiok, his wife and his relatives. 

But Sahari’s version of the ending is that Besiong, in a moment of blind rage, killed his father-in-law using the latter’s very own sangkoh as it was the only the weapon that could harm him. 

Besiong resorted to the act as he could no longer tolerate Tugau’s despotic ways. 

According to noted British traveller and adventurer Sir St John Spencer in his book “Wild Tribes of North West Coast Of Borneo” dated 1863, the Melanau ritual to sacrifice a slave girl when erecting the main pillar of a long house probably originated from the Tugau legend. 

The Melanaus believe that the ritual breathes life into the main pillar of a new longhouse. 

However, Sarawak’s first white Rajah James Brooke banned the macabre ritual after his arrival in 1840. Yet the legacy of Tugau still lives on, thanks to people like Sahari. – Bernama