Mukah Kaul Festival

Mukah, Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo
April 25

Our reason for going to Mukah was to attend the Mukah Kaul Festival, a harvest festival celebrated by the Melanau people living along the coast of Sarawak. Once a year the tiny villages gather together to show their thanks for the successful crops and ssssssss. We didn’t really know what to expect, but we were chasing festivals to see how many we could catch.
The festival started with a grand parade of the different village groups and dance troupes passing in front of the visiting dignitaries and stopping to display their gifts, either words or dance or performance. It was difficult to understand since the ceremonial parts were done in the different local dialects, but it was extremely interesting all the while.

(Pictures will be added once I get a faster internet connection!)

After the opening ceremony, we wandered around the festival area, sort of a mix between a county fair and a flea market. The different villages each had a little booth with samples of their food and drink that they had spent days preparing. Part of the reason for the gathering was for the social opportunity of sharing food and catching up with their friends from neighboring villages that they only see once a year at the festival. Many of the booths also had musicians playing the instruments and singing the special songs from their region of Malaysia.

(Pictures will be added once I get a faster internet connection!)

One of the more interesting rituals that took place at the festival was called Tibau. This involves a large swinging rope and many eager young men trying to see how many they can get on the rope at one time. In the following pictures, watch the young kid in the black T-shirt.

(More pictures will be added once a get a faster internet connection so you can really see what is happening!)

Since I had lost my hat, I decided that I should buy one at the festival to wear while walking around in the hot sun. It just so happened that while I was buying my hat (and taking lots of pictures, like I normally do) a photographer from a local paper was walking by that booth. He stopped and came in and asked if he could take my picture. I wanted a picture of the hat-maker putting it on my head so we had a little photoshoot then and there. I asked the photographer if I could get a copy of the picture and I asked if it would appear in his newspaper. He said that it would, but it would probably be several days. However, the next day, I was surprisingly given a copy of the paper by our driver because our picture had already made it in the paper!!!! It was soooooo cool!!!!!