7/4/11 SAGO- SECOND TO COCONUT IN TRADITIONAL USEFULNESS

(Probably, there is a strong corelation between the Bird of Paradise and natural sago habitat. Bird of Paradise is endemic to the Papua Island. The other possible association probably with the parrot species which are abundant in Papua, Molucas and Amazon)

In a book, titled, the Oral History of Papua New Guinea, there is a statement saying that, before the arrival of the German to the Golf and Sepik Provinces of Papua, the locals used to trade with the Borneon. The term Borneon is refelected as those who came from far, which would include the people of the Borneo Island (might be Sambas), Molucas and even the Javanese. The items popularly mentioned as among the trading products were Birds of Paradise, spices and sago.

(2) Sago is a palmae, ie belonging to the palm family just like coconut, oil palm, areca nut, red palm, yellow palm, 'nibong', 'bertam', nipah, and many others. The very interesting about sago is that, instead of the woody harden trunk like in all the other palms, the pith of the trunk is soft and act as the storage of starch. Botanically, I would say, sago is less efficient in its lignification process, thus leaving mostly the synthesis carbohydrate stocked as starch. It is a tropical plant. Strive well on wet ground but not soggy. Certain varieties or species, has the height to 20-30 meters ie 60-100 feet.

(3) Immediately after tasked to take up my present position, I realised that enhancing the Sarawak State Sago Industry is one of my main responsibilities. Thus, since there is no successful show piece that I could benchmark, I took my instinct, firstly to travel the whole breath of Malaysia, begining from Johor to Kelantan, and crossing Titiwangsa Range to Kedah and down to Malacca. I also took my time to drive from Kuching, passing through Brunei and reaching Sandakan via Mouth Kinabalu and even Crocker Range, to Keningau in Sabah.

(4) Later I took some friends to travel to West Kalimantan, then to Selat Panjang, Rhiau, Indonesia. I then both on personal and official capacity, travelled to almost the whole breath of Indonesia ie from Sumatra to Papua (previously called Iran Jaya). In Indonesia, the Molucas is claimed as the origin of sago.

(5) My visit to Papua New Guinea (PNG), took me to the Sepik Province, the Island of New Britain and Bourgainville. I took both land and air cruishing to scan the sago resources in these areas. I discovered there are various unique characters of sago palm both in the Molucas, Papua and New Guinea (I used this term to include both the Indonesian and PNG sides of the Island). There might be 35-45 species of sago available in those places that I visited. In Papua and New Guinea, there is an estimate of 35 species.

(6) I did also tarvelled to the Southern Philipines to see the presence of sago palm there. There are not much sago in the Southern Thailand. I don't quite notice any sago palm in Vietnam. Nonetheless, few years back I did watch the National Geography Series and it was potrayed that the local natives did harvest the rhinoceros beetle pupa from the death sago trunk. I believe, there must be lots of sago in the Amazon Forest.

(7) I wonder after covering the South East Asia region, the tropical region, I could configure that sago is a crop that could be closely associated with the Malays (in anthropological meaning), and these includes the Malaynesia of the Papua and New Guinea. In Papua or certain part of the Malucas, sago is called saksak. I believe, the name of a Melanau Kampung Sisok in Mukah must have it origin from saksak. In the southern Philipinese, the term attap, or roofing material either of sago or nipah leaves is widely used. The same term widely is used in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and even south of Thailand (Patani).

(8) The term sago, in fact is not quiet correct to be used as the nomenclature of the palm. In Papua and New Guinea it is called Saksak. In certain part of Philipinese it is called Lumbia. In most part of Indonesia, Malaysia, Southern Thailand, and Brunei, it is called Rumbia. In Sarawak, it is called Mulong. Sago came from the word sagu, ie a processed sago flour.

(9) The species or varieties grown in Malaysia and even Sumatra and Java, I would believe are introduced. I don't quiet see the significant morphological differences among them except thorny and non-thorny. My such notion is grounded based on the Oral Histrory of Papua New Guinea book that I have which was written in the 19th century. The Borneon, the Bugis, the Javanese must had taken those best varieties back home in those days. Nonetheless, I did came accross some literature stating that the Orang Asli of Peninsula Malaysia and the Penan of Sarawak did harvest sago as their source of food, but I believe these are of inferior quality and less productive varieties.

(10) Before I go into the various uniqueness of this plants and its sago products, based on my personal knowledge and readings, let me walk readers to some of the uses of sago tree:

(a) Due to it high pith content, sago trunk can't be used as timber. This is where, sago is less useful as compare to coconut, in Malay, a crop known for its thousands uses. Nonetheless, the sago bark, a lignified outer skin, range between 1-2 inches thick could be used as floor math. In most cases, the sago bark are dried as firewood.
In the future, I would see these bark could be used as road foundation material especially in the soggy peat soil areas.

(b) The sago leaves, be it in Papua, New Guinea, Molucas, and Malacca, are good roofing materials, as attap. In Sarawak, particularly in Mukah-Pusa region, the local don't use sago leave as roofing materials since they have better source, ie the nipah.

(c) In Papua and New Guinea, the dried sago fronds are used as building materials especially as wall and ceiling. Nicely cut and skillfully arrange, the fronds is a very excelent walling materials. I visited a Veteran Karaoke Club in Seram and a restaurant in Kendiri, I was amazed to see how dried sago fronds could be used as building finishing items. Surely the fronds are also good firewoods.

(d) The frond skin (or outer skin) are slice thinly and could be made into basket and mate.

(e) Dried sago fruits are used as handycraft items.

(f) Traditionally, sago pith is cut open and used to feed the chicken, ducks and pigs. Some had indicated, chips of sago pith is great to feed the dairy cattle. The animal, would not only produce good quality but much more milk as well.

(g) Left over sago stump, would slowly rot. This later becaming a good medium for the hatching of rhinoceros beetle eggs. The pupa feed on this rottening pith. Locally, the Melanau called this pupa as siet, and are very popular delicacy. Each piece could fetch a price up to 50 cents. When fried (deep fried), it look crunchy and said to taste like peanut. Some do take live siet. I still don't have the gut to take any. Probably, from such a creature, the Malay comes to a proverb: Ulat dalam batupun hidup, which mean, with hard work anybody could survive, doesn't matter what and where. But scientifically, I would think there is some nutritional significant of the association of the pupa and digestion of the sago pith. It should wonder the nutritional scientist to find this correlation especially when in Beaufort, Sabah the cattle breeders there are searching for sago pith as their source of feeds.

(11) After this I would want to deal on the traditional usage of the sago flour, which one of the very important is the sagu, where the Mat Salleh named the plant thereon.

Mukah, Sarawak
8 April, 2011