The Art of Djalong Liban: Immortalizing the Kenyah 'Mamat' Ritual

These 10 Kenyah paintings are currently exhibited in the Sarawak Museum. The paintings were kept by Professor Jerome Rousseau of McGill University in Canada for about 30 years before they were returned to the Sarawak Museum on 28 Sept 2006. The paintings, depicting scenes of the Kenyah mamat (thanksgiving) ceremony, were done in Kuching in the early 1960s by one Djalong Liban of Long Nawan, Apo Kayan Kalimantan. The paintings were kept by Rousseau for former Sarawak Museum curator, the late Tom Harrison. The mamat ceremony, an important Kenyah ritual, depicted in the paintings, is no longer practised or observed although it is one of the most impressive traditional arat forms in Sarawak. The art of the Orang Ulu is influencial in Sarawak. They can be seen on wall paintings and carvings on longhouse doors, sheaths of ceremonial swords (parang ilang) and other implements, shields and musical instruments, dresses and headgears, baby carriers and chairs, longboats, rice barns, face masks, objects and figures of deities and burial huts.