The spirit in the jar – Carrying the torch of Kadazandusun rice wine
by Nova Renata Piusai · Borneo Post OnlineIN the 1990s, the rhythm of my childhood in Penampang was measured by the quiet, bubbling alchemy of the kitchen. Back then, career paths for women were narrow, but the spirit of enterprise was vast.
My grandmother and my mother — who had carried her own industrious traditions from Indonesia — found their independence and ‘side hustle’ in the craft of lihing, our local rice wine.
Our kitchen was a landscape of blue and faded red plastic water jars, the kind families kept for water shortage emergencies. But the ‘emergency’ inside these jars was one of creation. They were filled with steamed sticky rice, inoculated with sasad — a traditional, natural yeast starter.
For three weeks, these jars sat in the cool shadows, away from the tropical sun, waiting for the moment the solids would surrender their moisture and transform into the sweet, amber nectar of our heritage.
Making lihing was never just a culinary task; it was a ritual bound by pantang (taboos). My grandmother was the strict matriarch of this process. She ensured that no woman in the house was on her period during the brewing, fearing the wine would turn sour — a physical manifestation of a spiritual imbalance.
Perhaps the most haunting rule was the silence. While mixing the sasad into the cooled rice, we were forbidden from speaking. As children, we were told that voices would anger the Spirit of the Rice.
Looking back with a modern lens, I see the practical wisdom in the folklore — silence ensured a hygienic environment, free from the invisible droplets of conversation. Yet, there is something beautiful about the idea that the rice requires our quiet respect to give us its best.
A cultural reawakening
For decades, I was merely a consumer of this culture. I loved the warmth of lihing chicken on a monsoon night, but I never felt the weight of the ladle myself. It wasn’t until recently, watching the elders in my family grow older, that a sharp realisation hit me: The torch was flickering. If I don’t reconnect with my roots now, then when?
This led me to Lorena Binisol’s rice wine-making class. In a clean, air-conditioned room — a far cry from the humid, jar-filled kitchen of my youth — I finally put my hands to the rice. Lorena showed us the ‘liberal sprinkle’ method of applying sasad, though she noted with a smile that even a light dusting works if you’re afraid to get your hands dirty. But I wanted my hands dirty. I wanted to feel the texture of the heritage I was reclaiming.
The class ended with a feast that was a map of our land: linopot (leaf-wrapped wild rice), fried fish, and the sharp, garlic-like bite of stir-fried losun. But as I ate, the cultural reawakening deepened into a more difficult realisation.
I am embarrassed to admit that the fluent Kadazan I spoke as an adolescent has rusted. Since moving away from my kampung home, the lack of daily conversation has thinned my vocabulary. There is a gasp of terror in realising I belong to perhaps the last generation that grew up speaking Kadazan as a primary tongue.
To lose a language is to lose the specific humour, the unique worldview, and the direct line to the ancestors that no translation can ever fully replicate.
Carrying the torch
After the class, I found myself pleading with Lorena to host more sessions — not just for rice wine, but for everything Kadazandusun. We need to bridge the gap between the knowledge holders and the younger generations who are hungry for an identity that isn’t found on a screen.
Learning to brew lihing was a catalyst that made me realise how much of my identity I had left sitting on a shelf. The wine was just the beginning. I found myself looking at the familiar flavours of my youth — the pungent, earthy kick of tuhau, the tangy fermented bosou, the sour-savoury depth of pinasakan, and the unmistakable aroma of bambangan (wild mango) — and realising that purchasing them at the local tamu is not the same as knowing how to create them.
The tamu market remains a vibrant library of our heritage, but if we don’t learn the ‘grammar’ of these recipes, we become tourists in our own culture. We risk becoming a generation that can buy our identity, but cannot build it.
I went home that evening with a single bottle of rice wine. It sits in my fridge now, a small bridge between my grandmother’s past and my future. I’m saving it for a rainy night, but the fire it lit in me? That is staying lit for good. My bottle of lihing is more than a cooking ingredient. It is a promise. It is the first step in a long journey back to myself — back to the language, the flavours, and the spirit of Penampang.
Book a slot in Lorena Binisol’s lihing-making class by contacting 013-816 1707.