What’s in a Name: The Forgotten Story of Siteng and Taytow
Two names. Siteng and Taytow. Whispered in old songs, half-remembered in ancestral tales, these names once held entire worlds. Their story—neither linear nor widely known—runs like a hidden current beneath the rivers and memoryscapes of Borneo.
Long Journeys: The Austronesian Roots of the Punan
The Punan, or Punan Ba, trace their origins to the great Austronesian migrations that swept across Southeast Asia thousands of years ago. These seafaring ancestors likely made landfall on the northern coast of Borneo, somewhere southwest of present-day Brunei. Oral traditions preserved by neighbouring Kenyah communities recall a similar journey—from Indochina through the Baram River in northern Sarawak, and onward to the highland plateaus of Usun Apau and Apo Kayan in present-day Indonesia.
This was not a single, unified migration, but a series of waves across centuries. As groups splintered and settled, the Punan began to fan westward—moving from Baram toward Niah, Suai, Bintulu, Tatau, and Mukah. These names are not random markers on a map; they are living landscapes embedded in Punan memory, repeated in myths, songs, and epics.
Stories Etched in Rivers and Forests
Take Niah, for instance. It is more than a geographic location—it is the backdrop of one of the Punan’s most enduring folktales: the story of Nia, a woman so beautiful she became legend. In contrast stands Keluro, the grotesque incarnation of Nia’s spirit, haunting the same valley. The Suai River too plays a central role—not only in these stories but in cultural memory. The river known today as Keliring or Klirieng is said to be the source of the first tree used by Belawan Mikuong and Aveang Buan to craft the Punan’s sacred burial pole—the klirieng, a towering monument to the dead and the remembered.
But memory is not static. Around 1881, a catastrophic event shattered the Punan’s presence in the Suai-Niah valley: the massacre of Lovuk Demong, a community led by Demong, son of the noble Orang Kaya Gong. The attackers—believed to be Iban warriors from the Kanowit River—ended Demong’s life and displaced his people. Though fragments of that community remain in the Suai and Niah areas, they were often mistaken for Penan, who migrated there later from Usun Apau. This confusion speaks volumes about the fragility of identity in the wake of historical violence and displacement.
Siteng: A Forgotten Name in the Balingian Fog
Now we turn eastward, to the lesser-known story of Siteng, a name buried deep within Balingian’s layered past. The Iban scholar Benedict Sandin documented tales of the Siteng people, though his account was understandably shaped by the perspectives of Iban settlers who arrived in the region in the early 20th century. By then, the Siteng’s distinct Punan roots had already begun to blur.
Yet, their presence was not erased.
Sandin recorded echoes of Punan heritage in Pelugau. And in Balingian, older residents still recalled their pre-colonial leader: Orang Kaya Teruna, a man connected to the aristocratic Pangeran lineage of Brunei. This link is not incidental. Teruna was a descendant of Orang Kaya Sungan, a prominent Punan chief who once held sway along the Tatau River during the era of Bruneian suzerainty. His legacy remains vivid in oral histories, not just among Punan elders of Tatau and Pandan, but even among Melanau families who had intermarried with the Siteng.
One such link survives through Bitok, a well-known Punan figure in the Tatau District, whose maternal grandmother was a Siteng woman who settled in Balingian. Today, Bitok’s descendants number in the hundreds—living testaments to the interwoven genealogies of these riverine communities.
Traces in Names, Bones, and Poles
Other threads reveal themselves in kinship ties that stretch across rivers and generations. For instance, Jama (or Jammah), a relative of Mail or Main of the Kakus River, was closely tied to the aristocratic figure Pangeran Mustapha. Today, their descendants are scattered across Punan Mina, Rumah Arjey, Punan Sama, Punan Ba, and even among the Berawan of Tutoh. These names, obscure to outsiders, are vital coordinates in an invisible map of familial memory.
And customs? The Siteng built klirieng, kelidieng, jerunei, kludan, and salong—towering wooden poles and burial structures that echo both Punan and Melanau traditions. Their rituals—menoleang (secondary burial), pesetuo (ritual separation), and pedanan (mourning rites)—mirror those of the Punan. These are not superficial resemblances. They speak of shared ancestry, of cultural continuity fractured by migration, colonisation, and conversion.
The Encroaching Tide of Forgetting
By the late 19th century, colonial records had begun to take note. In 1873, Mukah Resident Rodway observed that the Siteng—recently relocated from their namesake village to Balingian—remained only nominally Muslim. Over time, however, the Melanau from Telian, empowered by trade and intermarriage, came to dominate Balingian. By the 20th century, nearly all of Balingian’s inhabitants had embraced Islam, and with that shift came a slow cultural erasure of the Siteng identity.
To this day, the name Siteng is barely known outside the families who still whisper it. The rest of the world, if it notices at all, sees only a Muslim Melanau village. But look deeper, and you’ll find echoes—names that linger in family trees, burial poles that pierce the canopy, stories carried in river songs.
Why These Names Matter
Names like Siteng and Taytow are not mere labels. They are coordinates in cultural geography, mnemonic keys that unlock ancestral knowledge. When names vanish, entire histories disappear with them. The story of the Siteng is not a footnote—it is a window into how memory, violence, kinship, and colonialism reshape identity over time.
Reclaiming these names, retelling these stories, is not nostalgia. It is resistance. It is survival.
Because what’s in a name? Everything, if you know how to listen.
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