In Borneo, the artwork of bubu (fish entice) making is greater than a necessary talent – it’s centuries of cultural heritage handed down by means of generations. From 2025, you may hear extra about it and get hands-on with a brand new bubu-making cultural expertise on the Sabah Journey.
Whenever you develop up with the Kinabatangan, the most important river within the Sabah, as your yard, you’ve gotten a narrative or two in your pocket. Nelson Deocampo has loads. The river stretches over 560 kilometres (348 miles) and is a lifeline for wildlife and communities. Its ever-changing rhythms and moods depart an indelible mark on those that name its banks residence.
Initially from Tawau, Nelson moved to the riverside village of Bilit, simply 2.5 hours from Sandakan, when he was 17. He began working in tourism together with his uncle. Collectively, they hosted travellers at a small, distant lodge within the jungle.
‘After I arrived, there was no street to Bilit, so we needed to stroll from the junction and carry our stuff. Me and my uncle hosted visitors at a small place within the jungle, nevertheless it was very primary. We had no electrical energy – we simply used a kerosine lamp,’ he says.
Today, Nelson is a wildlife warden and supervisor of Bilit Journey Lodge – a distinct lodge near the place he first began working together with his uncle.
Nelson has been a long-time buddy of Intrepid due to the corporate’s small group adventures to Bilit Journey Lodge through the years. He tells me he has been buddies with a pacesetter, Felix, since Felix’s very first Intrepid journey over ten years in the past.
Nelson’s tales date again over 30 years earlier than tourism in Sabah was as established as it’s as we speak. Again then, Nelson says travellers had been few and much between, and the river supplied a supply of earnings between visits.
‘When there’s no travellers, we go fishing. We do the casting web, we make the bubu traps after which we get the earnings, and that’s the way in which we get meals,’ he says. ‘We go to the jungle, discover the massive rattan, then discover the small rattan to make the fish entice,’ he explains. To make bubu traps, you could first discover the correct of rattan. Totally different measurement vines serve completely different functions for establishing the entice, relying on their energy and adaptability.
Nelson provides that it’s a neighborhood expertise and households dotted alongside the river every have their very own bubu and boat. ‘We simply see one another upstream, and we at all times say hello. Everyone knows one another, and I do know the waters just like the again of my palms.’
However how does a bubu truly work?
Every bubu entice, roughly 1.5 metres (5 ft) lengthy, is rigorously crafted and woven to lure and seize fish utilizing the river’s present. For those who’re an enormous bubu, the one Nelson describes because the ‘rocket-style’ one, the key is all about utilizing the present to get the fish.
Nelson holds the massive bubu with outstretched arms and strikes his complete physique backward and forward as he describes the present’s motion and explains how the present must circulation into the bubu’s mouth. To assist with this, a bamboo display screen is positioned subsequent to the entice and acts like a fin to information the fish proper into it. ‘As soon as they go in, they’ll’t come out. As a result of we’ve a particular door for them within the bubu after they go in, they’re in there for good,’ he says.
As for the key to creating the right bubu? Maintain it straight. Nelson laughs as he holds up a latest bubu he made – it appears to be like sturdy and straight to me, however he’s being self-deprecating about it. He says straightness is the key to appropriately utilizing the present and river circulation. Properly, that and expert palms to bend and manipulate the stiff rattan to create the best form.
A change in supplies over time
Nelson exhibits me the distinction in supplies between the traps – a towering picket construction for fish and a smaller, plastic one for prawns. The smaller prawn traps historically required the pores and skin of bushes to cowl the outer body however this has since been changed with a sturdy plastic netting, a change Nelson says was a shift in the neighborhood’s strategy to conserving and caring for the setting.
‘Whenever you take the tree down and take the pores and skin off, you kill the tree, so we don’t wish to do this anymore. However we love the bushes, and we modified to make use of a plastic web and a plastic pores and skin to place bait inside,’ he says. ‘It’s good for the bushes and us not making on a regular basis.’
As he factors up and down the riverbank, he explains how every household has an space for fishing. ‘Usually, every household has over ten fish traps, and we’ve our personal territory. That nook is mine, and one other one is my associates, and usually, we’re all fishing all night time.’
The necessity for bubus through the years
Sabah’s inhabitants is made up of 33 ethnic teams, and the Orang Sungai – which implies River Folks in Malay – is without doubt one of the ethnic teams that dwell on the Kinabatangan River. Right now, Nelson tells me that River Folks is a collective time period for these residing alongside the inside river valleys and is an identification to which Nelson is culturally related.
In years previous, life in Bilit revolved across the river. Utilizing hand-crafted bubu traps, fishermen like Nelson thrived off the river’s bounty, promoting their catch to consumers who navigated the virtually non-existent roads from Sandakan twice weekly to buy recent fish and prawns.
The folks of Bilit as we speak nonetheless embrace bubu-making to protect their cultural identification and historical past. As soon as the mainstay of their livelihoods earlier than tourism, these intricately woven traps are important instruments for fishing and prawn catching alongside the Kinabatangan.
As we cruise up and down the river, I can see tall sticks standing upright within the water alongside the financial institution – marking the situation of the traps with a recycled plastic bottle tied to the highest. Right now, it’s simply as a lot a approach to make sure traditions endure as it’s a approach of offering livelihood on the facet.
Weaving tales
Nelson was 19 when his relations taught him the best way to make his first bubu. He says he nonetheless can’t compete with the standard of their bubus as a result of theirs are greater, straighter and taller, however he’s proudly been a river fisherman for many of his life.
I ask Nelson about his earliest recollections of creating bubus in his teenagers, and he instantly factors to his foot to point out an enormous scar. ‘I nonetheless have this lower on my foot, see right here, from one in all my first bubus. A giant knife fell on my foot, and I believed it was going to be broken. However now, I’m very skilled in making bubus,’ he laughs.
Connection to tradition is every little thing to Nelson. In 2025, Intrepid travellers on the Sabah Journey can have the possibility to listen to extra of Nelson’s tales whereas studying about bubu making and the traditions behind it.
Nelson says, ‘I’m actually prepared for it. I’ll inform them: I really feel this, I’ve felt this tradition for years, and I’m a fisherman of the Kinabatangan River. I’ll educate my folks and kids, too, they’re all river fishermen like me, to allow them to do it.’
Uncover this new expertise on Intrepid’s Sabah Journey in 2025. Discover out what else is new for 2025 with The Items.
