Sunday, June 17, 2012

Teluwaih Jinih- The Melanau girls, the belles of borneo

10:25 AM

Melanau praises when seeing a beautiful lady goes:
Kejinih ji jawai a teluwaih yen, lah tipa musit matalau! 
What a beautiful lady. Just like ray of sunshine!
Such claim may have held some truth. Rajah James Brooke had a liking for melanau girls for their fair complexion and dark open eye of the italians. He said that they had 'agreeable countenances, with the dark, rolling, open eye of the italians, and nearly as fair as most of that race.

All photos by Chabien aka. McKibben Agin

Many europeans, who travelled to kingdom of sarawak would bring the story about fair and beautiful Melanau girls they met.

 Eda Green in her book in 1909 wrote "...the Milanaus, whose girls are as fair as any Europeans and the belles of Borneo."

Moreover the Melanaus have a strage practice to "create" their beauty. The melanau of sarawak wanted their children to grow up "moon- faced" i.e. having a round face. Hence the melanaus of mukah, oya and bintulu traditionally had the curious custom of flattening foreheads of their infants also known as "melipih beleang". This is considered to be a desired beauty feature. You can read about it here:Unique Beauty-The melanau's forehead flattening custom (Melipih Beleang)

Note: We found these beautiful photos by Chabien aka. McKibben Agin. The photos are fantastic and learn melanau would like to share this to all our readers. The rest can be found here Photos of Sep.

All photos by Chabien aka. McKibben Agin


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Learn Melanau by Nativeglot.com provides insider information about melanau unique cultures and language

2 comments:

  1. It's Best site For games Information and other agfun4 and play kids games play girls games

    ReplyDelete
  2. hi,can i use the photo for independence day background?

    ReplyDelete

 

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