Punan

[ poo-nahn ]

noun

, plural Pu·nans, (especially collectively) Pu·nan.

1. a member of a food-gathering people living in the forests of interior Borneo.

Example Sentences

Kharis, a young member of the Punan Batu, played a guitar made of terap wood at a rock shelter in Sadau, Borneo.Credit...

From New York Times

In 2019, Brendan Borrell and Joshua Irwandi traveled by boat and on foot to meet the Punan Batu living along the Sajau River near Tanjung Selor, Indonesia.

From New York Times

Unlike the Indigenous farmers, who lived in long houses, the Punan roamed the island’s northern rainforest in family groups, hunting bearded pigs, harvesting starchy plants and gathering forest products for trade.

From New York Times

In 2002, a census of the Punan in eastern Borneo focused only on the villages, because so few nomads were thought to exist.

From New York Times

Over decades, the Indonesian government stripped the Punan of their ancestral lands and encouraged them, sometimes forcibly, to settle in ready-built villages.

From New York Times