Sabah and Sarawak, Eastern Malaysia

We stopped twice in the Borneo part of Malaysia. What struck us is that it hasn't been that long since this part of the world was full of jungles and head hunters. The best part of the visit was a trip to the cultural village, Mari Mari. Though these are often touristy, this one gave you a great look at four tribes and their way of life. There may still be villages living like this in the mountains, but very few.

Tribes typically lived in long houses, like the one shown below:

This one is relatively small. They were often 100 meters long and home to 30 families. Inside there was a common area and one private room for each family, like the picture below:

Head hunting was outlawed by the British in the 1930s. Our guide told us, however, that his father talked about one occurrence in the 1950s. Heads, like the one below, were hung outdoors to scare off enemies. 

If a young man was ready for marriage, he had to have at least one head to his credit. No one would want him without one. Men often had bands tattooed on their fingers for each head. 

These people grew and hunted their own food. They were not cannibals. They used bamboo for cooking, putting a casserole-like mixture into the bamboo and cooking over an open fire. The results looked like this:

They did like their sweets. Using a coconut with holes poked into it, they created their own "fried dough", like the example shown here:

To sweeten things, they used honey. They used bamboo with some honey at the entrance to attract the bees. Once full, they would split the bamboo and dig the honey out with their hands. Their bees aren't like ours, however. The next picture shows a bee about ready to enter the hive:

It's hard to imagine this life, but our guide wishes they could go back to it. Great cultural lesson!