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A Rungus Party
A Personal Account of another Rungus Party
by Herman (2002)
Kada’ arau monduli
Kadi-oi umandak
Haro po singgorungon
Singgorung di umandak… *
The sound of the gongs came erratically through the jungle. Not the
melodious play I expected anyway. When I finally arrived and entered
the house, utter devastation met my eye: bodies everywhere,
sprawling on the passage, lying on the communal platform, in the
doorways. Some were moving and groaning, others drooling, and others
again were lifeless, limbs detached. In the middle of it all some
children, looking at me with big eyes, absent minded. No, I am not
describing some sort of war calamity, or the outbreak of some
disease. I am talking of a Rungus party – a wedding to be precise –
that had been going on for the past three days, and by the looks of
it this was an utterly successful party: people were drinking and
over-eating as if there was no to-morrow!
I went along the passage to the other side of the house, from where
I could see in the dim light that gongs were suspended from the
rafters. There was no more sound. Some gong players were propped up
against the wall, head on shoulder, the mallet dropped to the floor.
Another player snored heavily under an ancient gong, only inches
from his face. It occurred to me that if the gong should drop they
guy would have his teeth remade.
Someone stirred. Opened an eye. Recognised me. He staggered to his
feet, gave me a bright, warm smile and shook my hand vigorously.
“Finally you are here,” he uttered, “you are late!” It was the chief
of the village, and now he grabbed his headgear, an elaborately
embroidered turban, took me by the hand and pulled me into one of
the open doors from where noise came. The party was not completely
over, I realised. Like a cold fire, if you stir the ashes you might
find some embers. So it is with a Rungus party: anytime ready to be
rekindled, and to burst into full flame. There was big clamour when
I stepped into the room, dragged by the tipsy chief. Heavily he sat
down, and begged me to do the same, and then his head sagged between
his knees. Everybody cheered now at me and a youth in shorts came up
to me and asked in perfect English: “Do you want a drink?” I was truly
taken aback, not so much by the question, but by his English and the
tone of his voice. He said it so casually, yet so politely and
obligingly at the same time I could have been at the Hilton. Not
expecting any other answer than ‘yes’ the young man took me by
surprise for a second time when he hold a plastic tube – almost a
hose – under my nose and begged me to drink. He had put his thumb on
the tip of the tube to prevent the drink inside from spilling, and
my eyes followed the hose ten feet to the other end where an elderly
man clutched the plastic tube, and with a big grin he told me in
Rungus: “asso galas”, no more glasses...
This rather original way of serving a drink would probably have
outraged the clientele at Hilton, but here it seemed perfectly
normal, and I took the offer. When the old man atthe other end of
the hose released his hold the drink – it was maize beer, I tasted
it immediately – rapidly guzzled down my throat. Great cheers
followed from the small congregation, and the head of the village
looked up, shifted his position to lean on a post, and fell back
into his alcohol-induced sleep.
I was again begged to sit down, and watched as the young man
proceeded to refill the tube and look for another victim. I took my
seat amongst a drooling elder who was most eager to shake my hand
and talk nonsense to me, and a sarong-wearing lady rather
exhilarated by the day’s proceedings, especially the drinks. I was
hardly seated when the young man brandished the end of the tube
again in front of me: “You were late, you must drink two!” A
practical Rungus joke, and everybody cheerily agreed, so I had no
chance but take another hose-full of maize beer. Stuck at one end of
a full hose you have not much choice but down the liquid fast, but
after this one I begged for mercy. I knew that there would be none,
but I saw a chance to fill my stomach with some rice. I was starved,
and I could feel that the two drinks started their effects, with all
intent and purpose. Hopefully having not eaten is as bad as not
wanting to drink (or being late to a party, for that matter), and
within no time I was served a huge portion of scented, home-grown
rice, and a dish of pork stewed for the past three days in its own
fat.
I was happy to find some nice chunks of tender meat amongst the
lumps of pure lard, as I just love pork prepared that way. It is
quite a sin, I was once told (cholesterol wise...), and so much the
better it tastes. But someone had to fish out the biggest piece of
fat and place it on top of my rice: “This is the best, eat!” I had
no other choice but swallow the chewy hunk with a lot of rice, and
then shovel in some more meat to get rid of the lardy taste. I know
they love the fat, and it is a perfect antidote during such sessions
of competitive drinking, but I literally cannot stomach it.
Hopefully for me about everything goes down, and I can, after so
many parties, quite control my reflexes. And also hopefully it was
again my turn on the hose and I could wash down the fat.
In due time I had finished my rice, and politely refused a second
helping, much to the dismay of my host. However, the pork remained
placed in our round, and everybody helped him or herself to a chewy
bit of lard. When drinking, especially during rather prolonged
drinking sessions, people here do serve some foods, more often than
not salty, fatty preserves and soups to prevent the alcohol from
taking over too fast.
I now rather regretted having placed myself where I was, for the old
man insisted on talking to me in a very loud voice because I made
the mistake of telling him that I could not really understand him. I
did not mean acoustically, but language wise: the good man kept
falling back into Rungus, and I could not follow his entire
discourse. But then it was mostly nonsensical gibberish anyway. I
also knew it would be a matter of time until he’d slide into an
alcohol coma, and my foresight was soon confirmed. Suddenly he
stopped in mid-speech, drooled, dropped over, and lay across my
knees. Everybody cheered, and two ladies volunteered to remove the
reeking body from mine. They sledged the comatose man some way from
us, put a cushion under his head and came back to our round of one
less. That meant more drinks for us, which observation I remarked
loudly, much to the amusement of the crowd. By now I found myself
between two ladies, both wearing sarong and ancient beads, and both
trying to teach me a song in Rungus. I tried to write the song down,
just four lines, but the heat and alcohol in the small room had a
curious effect on us all. Somehow I never got the song right, and
nobody was able to sing one line at a time. When they started, they
had to finish, or start over again. With the hose in between, the
task of writing down the song became impossible, but I remember that
the short lyrics translated into the very essence of Rungus
hospitality: don’t go home in a hurry, we have still a lot of
drinks…
Then I suddenly realised that the hose was absent. I looked in the
direction of the jar, from where the hose was filled, and saw the
old man squeezing maize mash. I took this as an excuse and
extricated myself from the grip of the round to join the old man. “I
am just making some space,” the good man explained, and then ushered
me to come with him to get some more beer. Outside the longhouse
there was a neat little hut on six-feet stilts, the rice granary. A
thin, notched pole lead to an opening in the wall, through which we
gained access to the interior. Several huge and ancient jars, a bark
rice container, two bicycles and a row of plastic buckets with lid
constituted the furniture. From two of the plastic buckets my friend
drew fresh maize beer and poured it into a diesel jerry can. I
helped carry the can and back in the longhouse we poured the fresh
beer into the jar, inserted again the rattan sieve and looked for
the men on the other end of the hose, but he was by now busy eating.
The older man looked at me and said: “Well, then, we have to do it
ourselves, you don’t mind?” Of course I did not mind, so with his
help I suckled at one end of the hose to fill it. “Who first,” I
asked? “You, of course,” was the simple answer. Great, right from
the source, I thought and obliged, filled the tube again and found
that it was his turn, to which he agreed. Then I filled it again and
we went to look for ‘victims’, going several times up and down the
longhouse until the jar was nearly empty. My head was spinning
because ever so often we decided that it was our turn to drink.
Our action had quite a few members of the longhouse woken, and soon
the gongs were sound again, which woke some more. We clambered again
into the rice granary for more beer, and when we came back the first
man on the hose took over from me so that I could dance. To much
applause from the reappearing crowd I was stuffed into the elaborate
dancing gear of the Rungus men: a long skirt, a home-woven and
intricately designed but ever so hot overcoat, several layers of
sashes and beads, a broad belt to hold everything together and
topped by a rather massive turban. I know, I do look impressive in
this outfit, and I have a photograph of it but I would never dare to
show it to anybody… Two old ladies, by their accessories I recognised them
as shaman priestesses, joined me in the dance, but all our movements
were a bit out of tune, most probably thanks to the alcohol. While
dancing, the hose came around, I knew it but I hoped it wouldn’t,
all the same. And how could I refuse a drink when even the
priestesses showed such steadfast drinking capabilities?
After a few rounds I gave my costume up. The call of nature was
getting urgent and on ever weaker legs I stumbled down the stairs to
relieve myself, closely followed by a fellow drinker who made sure
that I would not escape but duly come back for another hose or two…
It was an amazing afternoon that continued into the evening, and
with a light mind – I knew that I would not have to go to the office
the next day – I kept up with the professional attitude of the
Rungus master drinkers until there were no more drinks, and
virtually no more people who could have drunk any drinks left
anyway.
The tropical night is warm and soothing, and one never has to worry
where to sleep as long as there is a roof over one’s head. When the
drinks as well as our physical resources were utterly exhausted I
just lay down where I was sitting and quickly drifted away into a
profound and dream-less sleep. I woke up the next morning to the
clamour of the chicken, the pigs, and the dogs below the house, and
inspected my body for mosquito bites, but there were none:
mosquitoes spare the drunk! Hopefully for me, I had only been
drinking one day of this three-day wedding, and my head was quite
clear, and after a bath in the nearby river I felt quite invigorated
– almost ready for the next drink…
* Rungus drinking song (free translation): don’t go home
hurriedly / says the maiden / there is still some more wine / the
wine the maiden made…
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