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Who has guessed that Bintulu will change from a small fisherman village to a prosperous town. It is so unbelievable and unexpected that no one will have such thought a decade before. But this is the fact. Bintulu has become the most important industrial centre in Malaysia right now. Origin of Bintulu actually can be extracted from different kinds of legend that happen in Bintulu. Most people related the name “Bintulu” to the event that happen during the Brooke’s ruling period. They focus on how high the status of Iban society is, whereby social status and one’s strength can be determined through the amount of the human heads that they can hunt. As a result of this kind of belief, it was a must for them to hunt as many human heads as possible to show their strength. Therefore, many heads had been thrown at Kuala Sungai Kemena that was near to the old General Hospital of Bintulu. Consequently, many skulls of humans at that time had to be collected. This activity was known as “Metuk Ulau” in local native language. But when it was pronounced by the Englishmen at that time, they pronounced it differently as “Men Tuq Lu”. After that, this place was known as "Bintulu". Another story existed was the weird physical appearance of the local natives at that time. According to this legend, the residents of Bintulu had weird physical appearance. They had long size heads. In Melanau Language, it was known as “Bat Ulau” which was finally adapted to be "Bintulu". Despite its legends, Bintulu has changed quite a lot. From the historical aspect, several of important events occurred in Bintulu have been recorded to enrich it. In year 1861, Brunei Sultan had given the area along the coastal area to Tanjung Kidurong to Sir James Brooke. After the incident, an event, first conference State Legislative Council of Sarawak was held in Bintulu. Besides that, state of Sarawak can’t escape from attacked by pirates. Those pirates almost conquered the entire of the state. But they failed and were killed by the local nation when they try to attack Bintulu in year 1869. While in year 1961, festival for celebrating One Hundred Year of Bintulu was held and with joy. Mean while, storage of large amount of gas (GAS ASLI) near the coastal area at Tanjung Kidurong was found and investigation was carrying out in year 1975 and noticed that the coastal area was suitable to build the first port in the state of Sarawak. Bintulu Development Authority (BDA) was formed on 8 July 1978 by the government of Sarawak with the purpose to prepare all kinds of infrastructure for the activities of the port. Starting from the year 1979, we can see that Bintulu is progressing rapidly in the industrial field. In addition, the “Project Bandar Baru Kidurong” (New City of Kidurong Project) gets started in this year. Many housing projects have been developed by both government and private sectors that have begun to discover the “gold mine” in this “belacan” city. The population seems to be increasing drastically and abruptly in Bintulu as well. For this reason, Bintulu had been declared as Bintulu Division by Chief Minister Sarawak, Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud in August, 1986. |
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