Borneo again

332 Pages·2008·17.86 MB·English

List of Maps
Map 1: Location of Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia within

Southeast Asia (after Taylor 1974) 10
Map 2: The main ethnic groupings of Sarawak and adjacent territories,

highlighting the lban areas (after King 1993: 39) 11
Map 3: Location within Sarawak of all three field sites:

Kuching, the Saribas and the Skrang 12
Map 4: Sarawak's Sri Aman Division, showing location of first

(Saribas) and second (Skrang) field sites 13
Ust of Tables
8th
2.1. Number of manuscripts by language sent in for the BLB

annual competition, 1965 67
9h
2.2. Number of manuscripts by language sent in for the BLB

annual corn petition, 1966 68
2.3. A breakdown of 7 issues of Nendak magazine (from 1968 to

1975) by general and specific subject-matter 71
11th
2.4. Number of manuscripts by language sent in for the BLB

annual competition, 1968 73
2.5. 17 BLB Iban authors by year of first publication, place of origin,

secondary school education, training, etc. 78

2.6. Circulation of major Sarawak newspapers 97

2.7. Subject-matter of Iban pop songs produced in the I 990s 99

3.1. Most valued bilk-family possessions among Saribas Iban 118
3.2. The socially-regulated paths of acquisition and disposal of television

sets among Saribas lban 123

4.1. Favourite hobbies of Form I and Form 2 lban pupils in the Saribas 157

4.2. Main rituals and festivals at Saribas Iban longhouses 166

5.1. Most popular television genres among Saribas Iban adult viewers 226

6.1. No. of teachers and pupils at Kandis primary school, 1963-1997 241
6.2. The provenance of Christian rites at Kandis longhouse: a breakdown

of the service register 266
6
Appendices
Appendix 1: Household questionnaire 295
Appendix 2: New Iban titles printed by the Borneo Literature Bureau from
1960to 1976 299
Abbreviations
BLB Borneo Literature Bureau
CATS Communicating Aspiration Throughout Sarawak (commercial radio
station)
DPB Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Language Planning and Development
Agency)
ICT Information and communication technology
JKR Jabatan Kerja Raya (formerly Public Works Department)
PAS 1. Public-address system. 2. Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (Party Islam
SeMalaysia)
PBB Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu
PBS Parti Bersatu Sabah
PBDS Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak
PESAKA Parti Pesaka Anak Sarawak
RASCOM Rajang Security Command
RM Malaysian ringgit (see note below)
RMS Radio Malaysia Sarawak
RIM Radio Televisylen Malaysia
SED Sarawak Education Department
SNAP Sarawak National Party
STC Sarawak Transport Company
TBC Tiew Brothers Company (pop music, esp. lban)
UMNO United Malays National Organisation (West Malaysia)
Note on currency
The Malaysian ringgit (RM) was pegged at RM3: US$1 before the 1970s. Since the
adoption of flexible exchange rates in the early 1 970s, it fluctuated within the range
of RM 2.4-2.7 to the US dollar (Gomez and Jomo 1997: xiv) until the sharp
devaluation of September 1997. At the time of writing (9 December 1999) the rate
was RM 3.8 to the US dollar and RM 6.17 to sterling.
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Acknowledgements
This most solitary of tabours, the Ph.D. thesis, is paradoxically a profoundly
collective undertaking. I am deeply grateful to Dr Simon Strickland and Professor
Christopher Tilley, my supervisors in the Anthropology Department, University
College London (UCL), for their unfailing support and faith in this project, and for
pulling me out of a number of blind alleys.
In Sarawak I was officially attached to Majlis Adat Istiadat and the Sarawak Museum.
I am very thankful to both institutions for their help. I was also kindly assisted by staff
from the State Planning Unit, Tun Jugah Foundation, Bahagian Teknologi
Pendidikan, the lban Section of RIM in Kuching and Sri Aman, and CATS Radio. I
take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to the State Government of Sarawak
for allowing me to undertake research in the state and facilitating my work there.
There are so many people in Sarawak who helped me along the way that I can only
name but a few here in alphabetical order (with apologies for the odd missing
surname). My warmest thanks to lndai Amoi, Edward J. anak Alban, TR Baling and
family, Nicholas Bawin Anggat, Alfred Buma, Chai Soong Yee and family, TR Jabu
anak Chaong, Dr Sandy Craig and Kirsten A Edey, Dr Ipol Datan, Mary Sian anak
Dugat and family, Alfred Dass, TK Dayan F. Dunggie, D.O. Gani, TA Garan, Henry
Gerijih, Stevenson anak lngkon, Dr Jayum anak Jawan, TA Layang anak Jelian,
Datuk Amar (Dr) Linggi Jugah, TR Randi anak Julak and family, Dr Peter Kedit,
Roland D. Klabu, Thomas T. Lakà, Empani Lang, Nichol R. Lang, Jayl Langgub, Dr
James Masing, Luta anak Nalang, Janet R. Noel, Mr Pulin, Penghulu Thomas
Dundang anak Ringgie, Robert Menua Saleh, Laja Sanggin, Datuk Chris Sim and
family, Dr Otto Steinmayer, Jimbun Tawai, Edward Untie, and Datin Tra Zehnder.
8
In particular, I am extremely grateful to all the residents of the Ionghouses I am
calling 'Semak', in the Saribas, and 'Kandis', in the Skrang, for inviting me to live
among them and for their generosity during my stay. Aku tu, Bujang Rengayong,
deka med tab! enggau besal terima kasih ngagal kita semua. Arap ka kita semua
gera! nyama lantang senang baka ka selama.
I have benefited greatly from the comments and encouragement of Dr Chris Pinney,
Dr Daniel Miller and my fellow doctoral candidates at UCL. A number of fellow
students, namely Adam Drazin, Alex Pillen, Mike Polterack, Sarah Posey, Andrew
Skuse and Elena Yalouri, provided much-needed support at critical stages in the
study. I also learnt a great deal from the comments and suggestions by students
and scholars at other institutions, especially Professor Shamsul A. Baharuddin,
Veronique Beguet, Dr Clare Boulanger, Ian Dent, Alex Drace-Francis, Jens Franz,
Dr Eric Hirsch, Dr Mark Hobart, Professor Ron Inden, Professor Victor T. King,
Mercedes Lopez, Jeff Roberts, Dr Clifford Sather, Kenn Nakata-Steffensen and Dr
Vinson Sutlive, Jr.
Research for this thesis was generously supported by the Anthropology Department
at UCL, the Graduate School at UCL the Central Research Fund of London
University, and the Evans Fund of the Anthropology Department, Cambridge
University. I would like to thank all these institutions for their financial support which
made this research project viable.
Finally, I have to thank my scattered friends and family, especially the more
cyberphobic among them, for keeping in touch all along this Eurasian marathon. My
wife, Kyoko, deserves my sincerest gratitude for her patience and encouragement in
London, Ibaraki, Sarawak and Bucharest
Hamburg, 20 September 1999
9
Image removed due to third party copyright

Map 1: Location of Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia within Southeast Asia. From Taylor (1994).
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Map 4: Sarawak's Sri Aman Division, showing location
of first (Saribas) and second (Skrang) field sites
Main road
- Divisional boundary
- International boundary
13
Chapter 1
Introduction: notes towards an integrated
anthropology of the media
This PhD thesis is an anthropological investigation into the social and historical
significance of modern media among the Iban of Sarawak, in Malaysian Borneo. By
'modern media' I mean those information and communication technologies (or ICTs)
that rely on a modern industrial economy for their production and distribution. In the
case of late twentieth-century Iban society, these ICTs include radio, television,
videos, audiocassettes, the print media, time devices (e.g. wristwatches), telephones
and public-address systems.
This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section provides a background
to the Iban of Sarawak and to anthropological studies of this society. I argue that the
twin problems of social time and social space, central to the study of social change
and the media, have not been adequately problematised in this field of research.
The second section is a review of the key works in US mass communications
research and British media studies, including a subsection on media research in
Malaysia. This section also delineates some of the contemporary trends in the
fledgling, yet diverse, area of 'media anthropology' in order to situate this study in
relation to them. Finally, I describe the field sites and methods on which this study is
based.
1. Background to the Iban
The Iban, formerly known as 'Sea Dyaks', are
a vigorous, outwardly expansive people of West-Central Borneo who number some 400 000 in the
East Malaysian state of Sarawak. Despite increasing urban migration, the great majority live in
longhouse settlements along the main rivers and smaller streams of the interior and subcoastal
districts. Here most subsist by shifting hill-rice agriculture, supplemented by the cultivation of perennial
cash crops, most notably rubber (Sather 1994: 66).
14
The Iban originate from Sumatra or the Malayan Peninsula. Recorded genealogies
indicate that they have lived in Sarawak for up to 15 generations (Jensen 1974: 18).
At some stage before the 13th century arrival of Islam in Southeast Asia they must
have migrated to Borneo, tracing descent today to the Kapuas region in West
Kalimantan, Indonesia (King 1993:49). Until the end of the 14th century Borneo was
under the Hindu-Javanese Empire of Majahapit. In 1478 much of the region came
under the nominal rule of the Islamic Sultanate of Brunei. In 1841 the English
adventurer James Brooke became the first Rajah and Governor of Sarawak. His
successor, Charles Brooke, expanded the territory twentifold via cession, annexation
and purchase until his death in 1917. The Brooke state
does not fit squarely into the normal typology of colonial regimes. Most important in this respect is the
fact that Sarawak was not a part of any great imperial whole.. .lt was an autonomous state, with the
Brooke Rajahs being almost absolute rulers who ran the state on a largely personal basis.. .Sarawak
remained practically closed to capitalistic development throughout the period of the Brooke regime
[1841-1941], to such a degree that it gained a rather sarcastic reputation of being an 'anthropological
zoo' (Uchibori 1988: 252).
As a result of the policies of the Brooke state, in some areas much of the Iban way of
life was preserved until the Japanese occupation in the early 1940s, including
occasional headhunting expeditions against old enemies. Partly as a way of eluding
European control, Iban communities continued to migrate throughout the Brooke
9th
era. Thus the Rejang valley was colonised in the mid-i century, the Baleh some
decades later. Late pioneers had renewed conflicts with other ethnic groups such as
the Seru and Bukitan in the Saribas, or the Kayan and Kenyah in the Upper Rejang.
9th
In the 1 century some tban groups moved into the deltaic plains to cultivate wet
rice, rubber, pepper and to earn wages n the towns of Sarawak. The great Brooke
expedition of 1863, with 12,000 men, most of them Iban, was launched to 'pacify' the
Kayan in the Upper Rejang. From there the Iban moved to the Baram River. Today,
lban communities can also be found across the border in Sabah (East Malaysia)
and Brunei.
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