Background | Borneo map | Baram district map

Background & Location

Berawan is one of the 27 enthnics in Sarawak (in Borneo Island), Malaysia.
Berawan population is approximately 2500 people (2003), divided by 5
main communities: Long Jegan, Long Teru and Long Takong on the
Tinjar river, and Long Terawan and Batu Belah on the Tutoh. Between
these five long houses there are differences of dialect and custom.

Why Berawan is classified as a kind of Kenyah in Sarawak
.
Between the Berawan Villages and dotted along the rivers toward the
interior are other folk who share with them the generic name orang ulu
‘orang means people and ulu means upriver- people of the upriver’.
The orang ulu have in common a way of life that includes residence
in substantial wooden longhouses and a reliance on slash and burn
agriculture of rice. Because of ancient cultural connections and borrowings,
they also share many basic items of religious. Their cultures interlock in
a pattern of ritual similarities. The most numerous neighbors of the Berawan
are the Kayan and Kenyah. The Kayan are culturally homogeneous,
and spread out over a large area. There were over thirteen thousand
Kayan in Sarawak, mostly in the Baram River watershed. The Kenyah
are even more and widely distributed, with areas of relatively dense Kayan population. But the Kenyah are not homogeneous. For this reason, the
Berawan are often classified as a kind of Kenyah as a matter of convenience
since even within Sarawak or Borneo the name Berawan is not widely
known. This despite the fact that there are important cultural differences between the Kenyah and Berawan, notably with regard with to death rituals.