A view of the Baruk at Kampung Gumbang that is being preserved as a tourist attraction in Bau district. — Borneo Post Online pic
KUCHING, March 7 — A 200-year-old Baruk (Bidayuh traditional roundhouse) at Kampung Gumbang is now being preserved as a tourist attraction in Bau district, said Serembu assemblyman Miro Simuh.
He said this Baruk, which existed for more than 200 years, was recently renovated and refurbished under Serembu’s Rural Transformation Programme (RTP).
“This Baruk is the place where the villagers keep the skulls, antlers and other mystical elements,” he said.
Calling it the “Heritage Baruk”, he said it will be part of the Gumbang Heritage Village Tourism Packages, which will be integrated with various products surrounding it, including the Border Walk to Malaysia-Indonesia Border.
He said other tourism products in Gumbang comprise the visit to the former Australian Army Camp which was a site during Malaysia-Indonesia Confrontation 1963, hiking to Mount Opui and the cultures and local delicacies show at the Bigumbang Cultural Centre.
A Baruk, or known as Pangah in other Bidayuh areas, is the main section of traditional Bidayuh villages.
In the olden days, it was the centre for various purposes including as a place of congregation for Bidayuh warriors and meeting room.
It also functioned as a venue for cultural ceremonies and a place to practice ‘Adat Oma’ (old religious ceremony).
The earliest written records of the Bidayuhs’ Baruk dates back to the 1840s with a British colonial administrator and naturalist Sir Hugh Low having written an early account of the Baruks in Sarawak, its Inhabitants and Productions (1848). — Borneo Post Online