THERE will be no Gawai celebration this year for residents of the 11-door Iban longhouse Mandau Lempaong, in the rural town of Betong, some 140km from Kuching.

Their preparations to usher in the biggest festival in the Dayak calendar – the festival to give thanks to a bountiful rice harvest – have instead turned into those to bury two residents who on Thursday evening died in a head-on collision on the Pan-Borneo Highway.

In the Iban custom, when a resident dies, the whole longhouse would have to observe a period of mourning together, and it is common for it to last at least a week.

Gawai Dayak falls on June 1, but in most longhouses, if not all, the merry-making has begun in earnest.

Sisters Pauline Jua, 34, and Elizabeth Jua, 33, were among three killed in the collision near the town of Engkilili, 43km from Betong. The other casualty was their 22-year-old cousin and driver of the ill-fated car, Carlos Nelson.

Pauline, the front seat passenger, died on the spot while Elizabeth, who was extricated from the car barely alive, died at the Engkilili health clinic.

Elizabeth’s 38-year-old husband, who was seriously injured in the crash, is reportedly fighting for his life in Sri Aman Hospital.

Three men in the other car were also critically injured.

Pauline, Carlos, Elizabeth and her husband reportedly started their drive from the town of Saratok, 64km from Betong, and were headed for Simanggang when their Perodua Viva collided head-on with a Proton Saga near the Maruk quarry on the Sri Aman-Engkilili stretch of the highway.

They were working in Saratok.

They were to pick up Pauline and Elizabeth’s mother and Pauline’s two children in Simanggang before heading back to Betong for Gawai.

The deaths were a devastating blow to the women’s mother, longhouse resident Linda Malong told The Malaysian Insight.

Their mother reportedly passed out when told about the tragedy.

“Those two were the only girls in the family of four siblings. Now all of them are gone,” Linda said.

The sisters, whom Linda described as “mischievously naughty”, will be buried today at the Betong Iban traditional cemetery. – May 28, 2023.