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INNERMOST
BORNEO
STUDIES IN DAYAK CULTURES
P
SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY PRESS
INNERMOST BORNEO
STUDIES IN DAYAK CULTURES
OTHER WORKS BY THE AUTHOR
Nomades et sédentarisation à Bornéo. Histoire économique et sociale, Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des
Hautes études en sciences sociales (“Etudes insulindiennes/Archipel”, 9), 293 p., 1989 (Jeanne-
Cuisinier Award).
Hornbill and Dragon (Naga dan burung enggang). Kalimantan, Sarawak, Sabah, Brunei, Jakarta:
Elf Aquitaine (English and Indonesian/Malay), 272 p., 176 color photo plates, 1989; 2nd Ed.:
Hornbill and Dragon. Arts and Culture of Borneo, Singapore: Sun Tree Publishing (English), 1992.
Nomads of the Borneo Rainforest. The Economics, Politics, and Ideology of Settling Down, Honolulu:
University of Hawai’i Press, translated from the French by Stephanie H. Morgan, preface by
Georges Condominas, 272 p., 1994.
Forest, Resources and People in Bulungan. Elements for a History of Settlement, Trade and Social
Dynamics in Borneo. 1880-2000, Bogor: Center for International Forestry Research, 2001, 183 p.
with Cristina EGENTHER (Eds): Kebudayaan dan Pelestarian Alam. Penelitian Interdisipliner di
Pedalaman Kalimantan, Jakarta: World Wide Fund for Nature/PHPA/The Ford Foundation,
573 p., 1999.
with Cristina EGENTHER (Eds): Culture and Conservation in Borneo. Interdisciplinary Studies in
Traditional Cultures in Kayan Mentarang National Park, Bogor: Center for International Forestry
Research, forthcoming.
with Pierre LE ROUX et al. (Eds): De Poids et de mesures en Asie du Sud-Est/Weights and Measures in
Southeast Asia, Marseilles: IRSEA & Paris: Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, forthcoming.
with Peter G. SERCOMBE (Eds): The Nomads of Borneo Today. Resilience and Change Among Forest
Hunter-Gatherers, forthcoming.
To the Aoheng people of Tïong Ohang and
Long Bagun, with gratitude.
Bernard SELLATO
INNERMOST BORNEO
STUDIES IN DAYAK CULTURES
Printed in France. All rights reserved for all countries (imprimé en France. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays)
No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from
the publishers (toute reproduction, intégrale ou partielle, de cet ouvrage, par quelque procédé que ce soit, est stricte-
ment interdite, sauf autorisation écrite des éditeurs)
Cover: Diri’ and Ajang at their rice field near Tïong Ohang (photograph by B. Sellato, 1980).
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Chapter I. From West to East:
The First Written Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Chapter II. The Upper Kapuas Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Chapter III. The Upper Mahakam Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Chapter IV. Forest Economics:
The Dayak and their Natural Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Chapter V. Social Organization in Borneo:
A General Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Chapter VI. The Special Sibling-in-Law:
Kinship in the Müller Mountains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Chapter VII. Reconstructing Borneo’s Culture History:
The Relevance of the Forest Nomads. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Chapter VIII. History and Myth among Borneo People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Chapter IX. How “Tribes” Come into Being:
Ethnogenesis of the Aoheng. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Chapter X. The Aoheng, the Gods, the Spirits, and Gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Chapter XI. An Aoheng Purification Ritual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Chapter XII. Aoheng Oral Literature:
A Typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Chapter XIII. Stone and the Aoheng:
Investigation in Traditional Taxonomies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
T
he author wishes to express his gratitude to and acknowledge the
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies and Dr. Paul H. Kratoska; the
Bulletin de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient and Professor Jean-
Pierre Drège; the Borneo Research Council and Professor Vinson H.
Sutlive, Jr., and the Borneo Research Bulletin and Professor Clifford Sather;
and CNRS Editions, Ms. Danielle Saffar, and Ms. Liliane Bruneau, for
permission to reproduce or translate articles previously published.
He also extends his heartfelt thanks to Dr. Pierre Le Roux, for his
enthusiastic support and technical expertise, and Ms. Sabine Partouche,
for her much appreciated technical assistance; to Mr. Peter Livermore of
SevenOrients, and Dr. Paul Kratoska and Mr. Peter Schoppert of
Singapore University Press for their kind interest in his work and their
editorial daring; and to Karin Johnson, for her careful proofreading and
her moral support.
B
orneo used to conjure up images of lush tropical forest and
bloodthirsty headhunters. During the last two decades, however,
the island’s claims to fame have been linked to pervasive environ-
mental concerns: Sarawak’s nomadic Penan groups set up road blockades
to try to prevent timber companies from occupying and damaging their
territories; and catastrophic forest fires, particularly in East Kalimantan,
destroyed millions of hectares. More recently, with the lush forest already
half gone and the ecological fad on the wane, the eruption of inter-ethnic
violence in West and Central Kalimantan has brought back images,
broadcast worldwide this time, of bloodthirsty headhunters.
This volume traverses almost thirty years of acquaintance with and
work on the great island of Borneo and its peoples. Curiously, this period
spans the last true bouts of tribal headhunting, then still a ritual
necessity, through to the recent massacres—“neo-headhunting”—that
were both statements of ethnic identity and claims for more political
power and the control of the region’s economic wealth.
The essays collected here focus on small tribal minorities living in the
most remote nook of the Borneo hinterland, the Müller mountain range.
Among these groups, the Aoheng, with whom I spent a number of years,
feature prominently.
When I first went to live with the Aoheng, I found everything
interesting. All aspects of their individual and collective life, day after day,
taught me something new. I learnt their ways, their behavior, their
language. As a full, ritually-sanctioned member of the community, I got
involved first in menial daily chores and agricultural tasks, then in ritual
activities, until—with age and fatherhood—I, the adopted son of a
prominent ritual leader, became, too, a respected village council elder.
While my commitment to the group grew apace with my knowledge
14 INNERMOST BORNEO
about it, I also came to realize that my fellow villagers, individually and
as a social group, were just regular people, in no way different from the
average French person or village community. With this book, I attempt
to provide the reader with a few keys to a better understanding of
traditional life in one of our planet’s last isolated spots. But, at the same
time, I wish to make the Aoheng and their neighbors appear less foreign,
less “exotic”, and more familiar, more “normal”, to a Western reader.
In the 1970s, life among the Aoheng was slow, peaceful, uneventful—
singom (“cool”), as they liked to say. Much has changed in thirty years.
With the birdnest business, Tïong Ohang has now become just as hectic
as Samarinda, the province’s capital. Thus, the following pages
sometimes have the flavor of times bygone, and the present tense might
read like the ethnographic present, as if it described the way things used
to be in a timeless past.
As everything was interesting, I investigated everything, using only the
means and methods I knew of, but with an open, curious, and inquisitive
mind and no theoretical constraints. I worked on language, ritual,
history, social organization, oral literature, and more. Later on, I focused
on the modalities of interaction between society and the environment,
and the customary institutions controlling the access to and management
of land and natural resources. Through time, I became increasingly
involved in investigations in ethnohistory and comparative linguistics, in
an attempt to reconstruct Borneo’s culture history.
In the long term, the outcome of this investigation, as it appears
through this book, may look like a mosaic of strokes of diverse hues.
Many various facets of the lives and cultures of the Aoheng and some of
their neighbors are examined, from their history, language, economic
system, and relation to their natural environment to their social organiza-
tion, beliefs, rituals, and world views.
Indeed, one may ask, what connections might there be between
kinship terminology and a cleansing ritual, or between minor commercial
forest products and the oral literature? The approach here is definitely
multi-disciplinary and, hopefully, the essays in this book succeed in
conveying my conviction that no single aspect of a social group’s life can
or should be studied independently from all other aspects, that ritual
cannot be understood without reference to history, or social organization
without reference to the economic system, or kinship without reference to
settlement patterns—and vice versa.
Moreover, now that economic development projects, whether
governmental or non-governmental, are becoming the major employers of
social scientists, it is important to stress that short, shallow social and
INTRODUCTION 15
I
n the 19th century a new phase in colonial history unfolded that was
rooted in developments dating to the mid-18th century when, by force
or intimidation, the British and the Dutch were gaining a foothold in
Borneo. A few adventurers—Alexander Hare in Banjarmasin (1812),
James Erskine Murray in Kutai (1844), James Brooke (1842) and Robert
Burns (1848) in Sarawak—tried to carve a kingdom for themselves, some
with more luck than others. Others, like Müller (1825) and Dalton
(1828), explored Borneo in their country’s name.
Whereas the Dutch had hitherto neglected Borneo for other, more
profitable islands, James Brooke’s success in Sarawak triggered a renewed
interest. In the south, during the 1840s, the Dutch forced trade contracts
on the coastal sultans, later making them recognize the Dutch
government’s tutelage. The first explorations in the interior were then
able to start in earnest: Schwaner on the Barito, van Lijnden, Veth, and
von Kessel on the Kapuas, Weddik on the Mahakam.
By the mid-19th century the Dutch controlled the coasts and the trade
at the mouths of all the larger rivers. Their military had to intervene against
rebellious sultans, for example in the Banjarmasin War (1859-1863) and
the subsequent Wangkang War (after 1870), and against bellicose upriver
tribes, like the Ot Danum and the Tebidah (in the 1890s).
Meanwhile, the Brookes’ raj was spreading at the sultan of Brunei’s
expense and conquering its own hinterland, fighting wars against the
powerful Kayan (Great Kayan Expedition of 1863) and various Iban
tribes (between 1868 and 1919). In Sabah, the British settled in Labuan
in 1846. In the 1860s, Spencer St. John explored the Limbang and
climbed Mt. Kinabalu, the highest peak between the Himalayas and New
20 INNERMOST BORNEO
went up the Mahakam with a dozen Javanese soldiers. Only one of these
soldiers made it alive to the west coast.
News of Müller’s death fed a controversy that lasted well into the
1850s (van Kessel, 1849-55; van Lijnden & Groll, 1851; Veth, 1854-56,
Hageman, 1855), to be episodically revived each time “new” information
was made available (Molengraaff, 1895b; Nieuwenhuis, 1898 and 1900,
Enthoven, 1903). As late as in the 1950s, visitors to the area continued
to inquire after its circumstances (Helbig, 1941; Ivanoff, 1955).
To this day these circumstances have not been quite clarified. Indeed,
the region remained terra incognita until 1894. It appears, however, that
Müller did cross the watershed into the Kapuas basin and was killed
around mid-November 1825. The murder occurred, it is said, on the
Bungan River, possibly at the Bakang rapids, where he would have had
to build boats to paddle down to the Kapuas. He would then have been
only a few days from safety. It seems likely that the murder was ordered
by the sultan of Kutai—the order being relayed from one tribe to the
next up the Mahakam—and finally carried out by members of some local
group, perhaps the Pnihing, as Nieuwenhuis himself believes. As it
occurred in the Kapuas drainage, the sultan could not of course bear the
blame for it.
In any case, when the Nieuwenhuis expedition first crossed the
watershed almost 70 years later—on the French national day of 1894—
this mountain range was given the name of Müller Mountains. Let us
now talk of Nieuwenhuis.
A. W. Nieuwenhuis
Anton Willem Nieuwenhuis was born on 22 May 1864 in Papendrecht,
The Netherlands. He studied medicine at the State University in Leiden
from 1883 to 1889. In 1890, he took his doctoral degree in medicine at
the Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Germany, with a
thesis entitled “Ueber (On) haematoma scroti”—undoubtedly a
fascinating medical question.
He joined the Armed Forces in 1890 and was, in 1892, stationed at
Sambas, West Borneo, as a medical officer in the service of the Dutch
East Indies Army. The Resident (an administrative officer under the
Ministry of the Interior) of West Borneo (the administrative region of
Westerafdeeling van Borneo), S. W. Tromp, took the initiative for
scientific exploration of Borneo. Tromp was an old Borneo hand, having
traveled in East Borneo earlier.
After lengthy considerations by its scientific commission (the Indisch
Comite, acting as an advisory body), the Maatschappij ter bevordering van
22 INNERMOST BORNEO
Kayan as the key to the upper Mahakam, since they were on friendly
terms with other Kayan groups there, he made them promise to take him
across the watershed. They acquiesced on the condition that he would not
take an armed escort.
The second expedition (1896-97)
In 1894, the Lombok war erupted and Nieuwenhuis was posted there as
an army doctor. He returned to Batavia in 1895 and sailed for Pontianak
in February 1896. A second expedition was organized, with the same
objectives. This second expedition (1896-97) had Nieuwenhuis as its
leader and the participation of F. von Berchtold, for the zoological
collections, and Jan Demmeni, the expedition photographer. Other
members were two Sundanese from Buitenzorg, Jaheri and Lahidin, in
charge of botanical specimens and collections, and Midan, Nieuwenhuis’
personal aid and cook. Nieuwenhuis stayed in Tanjung Karang again
from 7 April to 15 June to gain a better command of the Kayan language
and learn the Busang lingua franca of the upper Mahakam. Demmeni,
arriving in May, immediately started taking photographs (reproduced in
In Centraal Borneo).
The expedition started on 3 July 1896 from Putussibau with twelve
canoes and fifty Kayan boatmen. Following the southern footpath, it
went up the Bungan and the Bulit Rivers, stayed put for a while to
ascertain that no major problem was to be expected ahead, and then
went down the Penane and Kaso Rivers on the other side. The party
stayed first with the Pnihing—who really call themselves Aoheng—then
with the Kayan-Mahakam, and spent in all some eight months on the
upper Mahakam.
The Kayan from the Mendalam and their chief Akam Igau played a
very important role in the favorable course of events. It is clear that,
without Akam’s help, Nieuwenhuis would never have succeeded. On the
other side of the watershed, the part played by the Kayan chief of the
Mahakam, Kwing (or Koeng) Irang, should certainly not be under-
estimated either.
In fact Nieuwenhuis had just landed in the midst of a complex
political, as well as economic, situation in which the principal local actors
promptly realized how they could use him as a new political tool
available to them. The independent upper Mahakam tribes were caught
between the sultanate of Kutai and the Iban of Sarawak. The sultan of
Kutai was trying to bring them to acknowledge his authority and to force
them to trade with him; and the Iban, especially after their 1885 massive
attack on the Mahakam that destroyed all Aoheng villages and the large
24 INNERMOST BORNEO
Igau and 110 men, mainly Kayan and some Bukat, Beketan, and Punan.
On 15 September, this large party reached Pangkalan Howong (or
Huvung), the starting point of the northern footpath, from a branch of
the upper Bungan called the Mecai to the Huvung River of the
Mahakam. There they ran short of food: the famous “rice equation”
went wrong and they had to rely on sago. To make things worse,
Demmeni came down with malaria. After some quick topographic work
on the watershed, the party made for the first Aoheng settlement, which
it reached on 24 September 1898.
Nieuwenhuis and his group spent eight months in the upper
Mahakam area, studying the people, their customs and languages, the
animals and plants, and climbing peaks for survey. Among other things,
they produced a map of the region—still the best available in 1993—and
Barth composed a Busang-Dutch dictionary. Collections of material
culture were also gathered, now to be found at the Rijksmuseum voor
Volkenkunde in Leiden (it may be worth mentioning also Lumholtz’s
collections from the same region, now in Oslo).
What Nieuwenhuis did not know at the time was that the Aoheng
chief Belare’ had decided—and indeed, twice attempted—to kill him,
probably on the sultan of Kutai’s orders, as Lumholtz, visiting in 1916,
later reported. Fortunately Koeng Irang, eager to secure Dutch assistance
against Kutai and its allies, was able to prevent Belare’ from succeeding.
It was a close call, though, and Nieuwenhuis could have ended like
Georg Müller.
The expedition finally went down the Mahakam and reached
Samarinda on 9 June 1899. Barth and the escort, plus the two plant
collectors, were sent ahead to Java. The plant samples were shipped to
Buitenzorg and the animal collections to the Museum in Leiden.
Nieuwenhuis set off again very soon, on 17 June, for Koeng Irang’s
village of Long Blu’u, accompanied by Bier, Demmeni, Doris, Midan,
five young Malay soldiers, and four Malay aids. From there he organized
a survey trip to the sources of the Mahakam and to Lasan Tuyan (the
pass at the border with Sarawak), starting on 30 September. On the way
back, one of the boats capsized, fortunately with only material losses.
Nieuwenhuis’ trip to Apokayan, scheduled for 1900, proved a
difficult and lengthy endeavor. As the representative of the Dutch
colonial government, he paid a formal visit to the sultan of Kutai, who
objected to this second part of the expedition. From October 1899 till
April 1900, Nieuwenhuis waited for ongoing talks with Kutai to reach a
favorable conclusion, but the sultan meant to use every means to hinder
the extension of Dutch rule to central Borneo. Besides, since the peoples
26 INNERMOST BORNEO
of the upper Mahakam and the Kenyah were enemies, it proved difficult
to find guides to go up the Boh River and across to Apokayan. In May
1900, Nieuwenhuis positioned his party in an advanced camp at Long
Boh, where Bier and Demmeni later joined. After a dispute, Bier was
ordered back. Still, Nieuwenhuis had to wait another three months.
Finally, in June, a telegram arrived: The upper Mahakam region had
been formally placed under direct Dutch rule, and Barth was to be
installed at Long Iram as its controleur.
On 6 August the expedition finally set off from Long Boh with Koeng
Irang, only to face another rice shortage en route—leaving one to wonder
at Smythies’ praise of Nieuwenhuis as an “efficient and successful
traveler”, as a rice shortage is one sure and unforgiving way for an
expedition to head straight for disaster.
The expedition remained two months in the Apokayan region. Much
data was collected on the Kenyah people and their history. Often
harassed by Iban raids from Sarawak, the Kenyah were quite responsive
to Nieuwenhuis’s offer of Dutch protection but worried that they might
thus anger the Rajah Brooke, and they asked Nieuwenhuis to write to
him. The Rajah replied that, since Nieuwenhuis was already there,
Apokayan was no longer a concern of his.
The expedition, starting back down the Boh on 4 November 1900,
reached Long Iram on 3 December, and Batavia on 31 December 1900.
Nieuwenhuis was subsequently appointed the Government’s counsellor
for Borneo affairs.
A few years later (in 1903), another controleur, E. W. F. van
Walchren, went up the Berau River to Apokayan—where he stayed six
months—and he went again in 1906 to settle a internecine feud among
the Kenyah. In 1906, there were talks that Nieuwenhuis would return to
Apokayan, but instead Captain L.S. Fischer went (June to October
1907), probably to prepare for a Government military outpost to be
established in Long Nawang.
The Doctor’s later years
In the meantime, Nieuwenhuis, who had managed to keep remarkably
healthy throughout his travels, was in 1904 appointed professor of
geography and ethnology (Land- en Volkenkunde) of the Netherlands
Indies at the Royal University (Rijksuniversiteit) of Leiden, Faculty of
Letters and Philosophy (Letter en Wettenschappen).
His inaugural lecture, on 4 May 1904, was titled “Living conditions
of peoples on a high and on a low level of civilization”. He also became
an editor of the important scientific journal published in Leiden,
FROM WEST TO EAST 27
Nieuwenhuis’ ethnography
Through his writings, Nieuwenhuis strongly contributed to dispelling
the common notion that the Dayak were nothing but cruel headhunters,
repeatedly stressing that those “bloodthirsty, wild, headhunting Dayaks
are fundamentally the most gentle, peaceful and anxious inhabitants of
this earth”. However, it is clear that the “something worse than
paganism” from which he had set himself to free the tribes of Dutch
Borneo, as Smythies noted, was not so much slavery—although slaves
did exist and were occasionally sacrificed—than the chronic intertribal
headhunting forays. Nieuwenhuis, among the first ever, made the Dayak
popular amongst the international scientific community.
Nieuwenhuis proposed a classification of the ethnic groups of central
Borneo which, according to Smythies, can hardly be accepted now.
Smythies’ statement, however, certainly reflects a Sarawakian bias
common to several other—and more recent—attempts at classifying
Borneo’s ethnic groups. Recent research with a wider scope may well
show that Nieuwenhuis’ views on the question were not that remote from
reality. Ding Ngo, himself a Kayan and quite well versed in tradition,
challenged a number of Nieuwenhuis’ statements on Kayan social
organization, customs, religion, material culture, and history. Indeed,
Nieuwenhuis may, through sheer language limitations or otherwise, have
misunderstood (or been misled by) his informants; or, on the contrary,
he may have been able, during his 1894 and subsequent sojourns with
the Kayan, to obtain from these elderly informants some critical data that
might not have been passed down to Ding’s generation. This is, of
course, not for me to decide.
As far as the Aoheng are concerned, one should note that a number of
place and persons’ names are mistranscribed (with a clear tendency to
leave out glottal stops). Nieuwenhuis’ linguistic abilities, one might
surmise, were not as good as Barth’s—and Barth’s were not outstanding.
Nieuwenhuis could indeed speak some Busang—here the Uma’ Suling
dialect, the lingua franca of the upper Mahakam—which he used in
dealing with the Aoheng, therefore picking up (or making up) Kayanized
versions of Aoheng names. In addition, his Aoheng data displays a few
minor errors. For example, the Aoheng of the Kapuas really came from
the Mahakam, and not the other way around.
Nevertheless, Nieuwenhuis’ contribution can be deemed extraordinary.
His data is among the most valuable ever collected in the interior of
Borneo by an explorer, and remains a major and quite reliable source of
ethnographic and historical information on the ethnic groups of the
regions he visited. His theoretical approach, unfortunately, definitely
FROM WEST TO EAST 29
NOTE
*. The text above first appeared in Indonesian as an introduction (p. XIII-XXII) that I
wrote to Di Pedalaman Borneo. Perjalanan dari Pontianak ke Samarinda 1894, an
abridged translation of Anton W. Nieuwenhuis’ classic book in Dutch, in Centraal
Borneo (Leiden: Brill, 1900). The book, abridged by Jan Avé, translated from the Dutch
into Indonesian by T. Slamet and P. G. Katoppo, with a foreword by Koentjaraningrat,
was published in Jakarta in 1994 by Gramedia Pustaka Utama and The Borneo Research
Council (266 p., 62 photographs) on the occasion of the Third Biennial International
Conference of the Borneo Research Council in Pontianak, West Kalimantan. The
present English version appeared under the title ‘A. W. Nieuwenhuis across Borneo,
1894-1994’ in the Borneo Research Bulletin (25: 14-31, 1993).
I would like to extend here my sincere thanks to Mr. Jan Avé, Mr. Marek Avé and
Ms. Wanda Avé for the information they gathered for me on A. W. N.’s life and travels.
REFERENCES
On the expeditions
BY A.W. NIEUWENHUIS
1898 ‘La récente expédition scientifique dans l’île de Bornéo’, Tijdschrift v. Ind. Taal-,
Land- en Volkenkunde, Batav. Gen. (TBG), 40 (5-6): 508-541.
1900a In Centraal Borneo. Reis van Pontianak naar Samarinda, Leiden: Brill, 2 vol. (Vol. I:
VIII + 308 p.; Vol. II: VIII + 369 p. + XVI).
1900b ‘Tweede reis van Pontianak naar Samarinda in 1898 en 1899’, Tijdschrift v. h. Kon.
Ned. Aardrijkskundig Gen. (TNAG), 2de Ser., XVII: 177-204, 411-435.
1901a ‘Mededeelingen over eene commissie-reis naar Centraal-Borneo’, TNAG, 18: 383-
393.
1901b ‘Mededeelingen over het vervolg der commissie-reis naar Centraal-Borneo’, TNAG,
18: 1013-1073.
1901c ‘Algemeene beschouwingen en gevolgtrekkingen naar aanleiding van de commissie-
reis naar Centraal-Borneo van Mei 1898 tot December 1900’, TNAG, 18: 1074-
1121.
1904-
1907 Quer durch Borneo. Ergebnisse seiner Reisen in den Jahren 1894, 1896-97 und 1898-
1900, Leiden: Brill, 2 vol. (Vol. I: 1904, XV + 493 p. + 97 photo plates + 2 maps;
Vol. II: 1907, XIII + 559 p. + 73 photo plates + 18 color pl.).
MOLENGRAAFF, G. A. F.
1895a ‘De Nederlandsche expeditie naar Centraal-Borneo in 1894’, in: Handelingen van het
5de Nederlandsche Natuur- en Geneeskundig Congres, Amsterdam, April 1895,
Haarlem: Kleynenberg, p. 498-506.
1895b ‘Die niederländische Expedition nach Zentral Borneo in den Jahren 1893 und 1894’,
Petermann’s Mittheilungen, 41: 201-208.
1900 Borneo Expeditie: Geologische Verkenningstochten in Centraal Borneo (1893-1894),
Leiden: Brill; Amsterdam: Gerlings.
1902 Borneo Expedition: Geological Explorations in Central Borneo (1893-1894), Leiden:
Brill; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
BY OTHER WRITERS
ANONYMOUS
1896 ‘Expeditie door Centraal-Borneo’, TNAG, 13: 399-400.
1896-
1897 ‘Dr. Nieuwenhuis’ tocht dwars door Borneo’, TNAG, 13: 533-542; 14: 142-147,
618-628.
1897-
1902 ‘Dr. Nieuwenhuis’ reis door Borneo’, De Indische Mercuur, 20: 108, 210, 458, 493;
22: 66; 24: 10, 62-63; 25: 357.
HUBRECHT, A.A.W.
1894 ‘Eene nederlandsche expeditie naar Midden Borneo’, De Indisch Gids, 16: 441-442.
ARCHIVE DOCUMENTS
The Nieuwenhuis archive at Leiden University Library, The Netherlands: personal
notes, ethnographic notes, wordlists (about 1,700 Kayan words), notes on adat,
medical and meteorological observations, letters.
Ministry of Colonies archive, The Hague: five monthly reports (verbalen) by
Nieuwenhuis; also a number of reports by Controleur Barth on the Upper Mahakam.
NIEUWENHUIS’ other publications on Borneo
1902 ‘Een schets van de bevolking in Centraal-Borneo’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, Land-
en Volkenkunde, 17: 179-208.
1903a ‘Influence of changed conditions of life on the physical and psychical development of
Central Borneo’, Proceedings of the Koninklijk Akademie van Wetenschappen te
Amsterdam, Section of Science, 5: 525-540.
1903b Anthropometrische Untersuchungen bei den Dajak, Haarlem.
1906 ‘Die medicinischen Verhältnisse unter den Bahau- und Kenja-Dajaks auf Borneo’,
Janus, 11: 108-118, 145-163.
1907 ‘De woning der Dajaks’, Het Huis Oud en Nieuw, p. 357-392.
1925 ‘Kunst van Borneo in de verzameling W. O. J. Nieuwenkamp’, Nederlandsch-Indië
Oud en Nieuw, 10 (3): 67-92.
1928 ‘Ten years of hygiene and ethnology in primitive Borneo (1891-1901)’, p. 10-33, in
B. J. O. Schrieke (Ed.): The Effect of Western influence on native civilizations in the
Malay archipelago, Batavia: Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en
Wetenschappen.
32 INNERMOST BORNEO
1936-
1937 ‘Het dagelijksch bestaan van Dajakstammen in onafhankelijke streken’, Tropisch
Nederland, 9: 125-128, 143-144, 157-160, 168-173, 189-192, 205-208, 221-224,
237-240, 251-256.
NIEUWENHUIS’ general works on Indonesia
1911 Animisme, spiritisme en feticisme onder de volken van de Nederlandsch-Indischen
Archipel, Baarn: Hollandia, 44 p.
1917 Die Wurzeln der Animismus; Eine Studie über die Anfänge der naiven Religion, nach
den unter primitiven Malaien beobachteten Erscheinungen, Leiden: Brill, 87 p.
1952 ‘Der Fetischismus im Indischen Archipel und seine psychologische Bedeutung’,
Archiv für Religionwissenschaft, 23: 265-277.
Other relevant references
AVÉ, J.
1972a ‘Kalimantan Dayaks’, p. 185-187, in F. LeBar (Ed.): Ethnic Groups of Insular
Southeast Asia, New Haven: HRAF Press.
1972b ‘Ot Danum Dayaks’, p. 192-194, in F. LeBar (Ed.): Ethnic Groups of Insular
Southeast Asia, New Haven: HRAF Press.
AVÉ, J. & V. T. KING
1986 Borneo: The People of the Weeping Forest: Tradition and Change in Borneo, Leiden:
National Museum of Ethnology.
BARTH, J. P. J.
1910 Boesangsch-Nederlandsch Woordenboek, Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 343 p.
BERTLING, C. T.
1953 ‘In memoriam A. W. Nieuwenhuis’, TNAG, 70: 421-422.
BOUMAN, M. A.
1924 ‘Ethnografische aanteekeningen omtrent de Gouvernements-landen in de boven-
Kapoeas, Westerafdeeling van Borneo’, TBG, 64: 173-195.
1952 ‘Gegevens uit Smitau en Boven-Kapoeas’, Adatrechtsbundels, 44: 47-86.
DING NGO, A. J.
1977 Mengunjungi Mahakam, unpublished MS in Indonesian, 156 p.
n.d. Dr. A. W. Nieuwenhuis: buku Quer durch Borneo I dan II, MS in Indonesian, 76 p.
ENTHOVEN, J. J. K.
1903 Bijdragen tot de Geographie van Borneo’s Westerafdeeling, Leiden: Brill, 2 vols.
HAGEMAN, J.
1855 ‘Iets over den dood van George Müller’, TBG, III: 487-494.
HELBIG, K. M.
1941 ‘Georg Müller, ein deutscher Pionier im malaiischen Archipel’, Geographische
Zeitschrift, 47: 88-94.
HOSE, C.
1894-5 ‘The Natives of Borneo’, The Sarawak Gazette, 24: 172-173, 192-193, 214-215; 25:
18-19, 39-40.
FROM WEST TO EAST 33
TROMP, S. W.
1889 ‘Een reis naar de bovenlanden van Koetei’, TBG, XXXII: 273-304.
1890 ‘Mededeelingen uit Borneo’, TNAG, 7: 728-763.
VETH, P. J.
1854-
1856 Borneo’s Wester-Afdeeling: Geographisch, Statistisch, Historisch, voorafgegaan door eene
algemeene schets des ganschen eilands, Zaltbommel: Joh. Noman en Zoon, 2 vols.
WALCHREN, E. W. F. van
1907 ‘Een reis naar de bovenstreken van Boeloengan, Midden-Borneo’, TNAG, 24: 755-
844.
WEDDIK, A. L.
1849-
1850 ‘Beknopt overzigt van het Rijk van Koetai op Borneo’, Indisch Archief, I (1): 78-105;
(2): 123-160.
CHAPTER II
THE UPPER KAPUAS AREA *
T
his note is meant to provide basic information on the ethnic and
cultural situation, in its modern administrative framework, in the
region of the northeastern half of Kapuas Hulu Regency (see
Fig. 4) in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan (Avé et al., 1983).
Administrative framework
Five districts (kecamatan) are reviewed here (out of a total of sixteen in
the Regency (kabupaten) of Kapuas Hulu): Manday (04), Putussibau
(05), Embaloh Hilir (06), Batang Lupar (15), and Embaloh Hulu (16)
(see Fig. 5). The numbers refer to their official codes (BPS, 1994a & b).
Current district delineation generally derived from the Dutch
administrative divisions, which were drawn following the ethnic territorial
limits of the time—the Dutch brought the whole region under “direct
rule” between 1880 and 1900. An administrative regrouping in the 1980s
reduced by an average of 2.5 times the number of administrative villages
(desa baru), each including from one to five smaller settlements (formerly
desa, now called dusun). This regrouping was also generally made following
ethnic affiliation. No actual geographical relocating took place.
Ethnic groupings in Kapuas Hulu Regency display much variation in
their forms of social and territorial organization, which have a direct effect
on patterns of settlement, land use, and resource tenure, in relation with
their traditional legal systems. Two major groupings are to be considered:
the Dayak, answering to various ethnonyms and now predominantly
Christians (a Roman Catholic mission was first established in the region
in 1892); and the Melayu (or Malays), all Moslems and the largest part of
local Dayak stock. Besides, there are a few transmigrant communities,
both from within West Kalimantan and from outside (Java).
36
INNERMOST BORNEO
• The Banuaka’
This large grouping really refers to six related groups (Jacobus, 1992;
King, 1985), originating in the Embaloh River basin and now totalling
about 13,000 persons. The Taman are located in Putussibau District (desa
Sibau Hulu, Sibau Hilir, Harapan Mulia, Melapeh, Ingko’ Tambai,
Sayut, Suka Maju, and some in Kedamin Hulu; approx. pop. 2,800). The
Tamambaloh (or Mbaloh) live mainly along the upper Embaloh River in
Embaloh Hulu District (desa Pulau Manak, Banua Martinus, Banua
Ujung, Saujung Giling Manik, and Ulak Pauk; pop. 2,800). The Apalin
(or Palin) are located in Embaloh Hilir District (desa Nanga Nyabau and
Embaloh Hilir; pop. 2,000). The Labiyan live in Batang Lupar District
(desa Labian and some in desa Sepandan and Mensiau; pop. 1,300?). The
Kalis live along the lower Manday River in Manday District (desa Nanga
Tubu’, Nanga Danau, and Kensuray; pop. 2,400). The Panyung (or Alau)
are also in Manday District (desa Sebintang; pop. 1,400). The
Tamambaloh, Labiyan, Apalin, and Panyung speak very closely related
dialects, while Taman dialect is slightly more remote, and Kalis dialect is
even more distant. These tongues, particularly Mbaloh, have been shown
to be related to the Bugis language of South Sulawesi. The term Banuaka’
was coined recently to stress the common features of all these related
groups (see Jacobus, 1992). Banuaka’ society is stratified into samagat
(nobility), pabiring (middle class), banua (ordinary people), and formerly
included slaves (see King 1985). All these groups used to practice
secondary funerals (Jacobus, 1992). They are principally swidden rice
cultivators (see Dove, 1985).
• The Kayan
They are located exclusively on the lower Mendalam River, in desa
Padua Mendalam and Datah Dian (pop. 1,700). They came over from
Sarawak in the early 19th century as three sub-groups, the Uma’ Suling,
Uma’ Aging, and Uma’ Pagong (see Nieuwenhuis, 1994). Their society
was strictly stratified in aristocrats (hipuy), commoners (panyin), and
slaves (dipen; see Rousseau, 1990). They are essentially swidden rice
farmers (Mering, 1988, 1989, 1991), but are now also involved in rubber
tapping. In the 1920s, they started planting illipe nut trees.
• The Iban
The Iban are a major ethnic group in Sarawak, where they number
several hundred thousands (see Freeman, 1970). In the region under
review, they are found in Batang Lupar District (desa Sepandan,
Setulang, Sungai Abau, Mensiau, and Sungai Ajung; pop. 3,000) and in
Embaloh Hulu District (desa Toba, Banua Ujung, Langan Baru, and
40 INNERMOST BORNEO
Rantau Penapat; pop. 2,400), and some in Embau District (pop. 300).
They are a non-stratified but highly competitive society focused
principally on swidden rice farming, a highly ritualized activity (see
Freeman, 1955; Jensen, 1974).
• The Kantu’
This group has been classified with several other neighboring groups
under the term of Ibanic, since its language is related to Iban (see Dove,
1985). They are found in Manday District (desa Teluk Sindur, Bika, and
Jelemuk; pop. 3,600), in Embaloh Hilir District (pop. 4,800), and in
Putussibau District—where they migrated recently (desa Kedamin Hulu,
Pala Pulau, and Putussibau town; pop. 1,000). They are swidden farmers
and also cultivate some swamp rice (Dove, 1979).
• The Mandai
This group calls itself Orung Da’an and came from the Mahakam River
in East Kalimantan to the upper Manday River (Manday District) in the
late 18th century (Sellato, unpublished data). It inhabits desa Nanga
Lebangan and Nanga Raun (pop. 2,000). The Mandai are related to the
Ot Danum of the Melawi River to the south and practiced secondary
funerals. Their language is a dialect of Ot Danum and belongs to the
Barito Group of languages of Central Kalimantan.
• The Suruk
They live in desa Bahenap and Kensuray (pop. 900), Manday District.
They are closely related to the Mentebah of the Mentebah River, farther
west, and of the upper Melawi (Sintang Regency), and speak a Malayic
language (related to Melayu; see King, 1976). They are mainly swidden
cultivators.
• The Bukat
The Bukat until recently were nomadic hunters and gatherers (see
Sellato, 1993a, 1994a). They were travelling in small egalitarian bands
around their traditional territories of the upper Mendalam and Sibau
Rivers and along the right bank of the uppermost Kapuas River. Their
subsistence was based on wild sago and other vegetable forest edibles, and
on hunting. They started settling down in the 1930s under the Dutch
administration’s influence. the Bukat (approx. pop. 600) and now live in
desa Beringin Jaya and Datah Dian (Putussibau District). They have to
date remained very much involved in collecting forest products for trade.
• The Punan (Hovongan and Kereho)
The Hovongan are known as Punan Bungan, and the Kereho as Punan
Keriau (Nieuwenhuis, 1994; Sellato, 1994b). They lived, respectively, on
THE UPPER KAPUAS AREA 41
the upper Bungan River and Keriau River (Putusibau District), although
one Hovongan hamlet, Belatung, was on the upper Keriau. They have
recently begun moving to the main Kapuas River (1980). The Hovongan
(desa Bungan Jaya, pop. 650) had been for over a century relying on a
combination of swidden rice farming and wild sago, along with the
collecting of forest products for trade (rattan, illipe nut, etc.; Sellato,
unpublished field data), before a boom refocused their activity on gold
exploitation and the gathering of edible swiftlet nests (in the 1980s; see
Pax et al., 1994). The Kereho (desa Beringin Jaya, approx. 300) were
nomadic hunters and gatherers relying principally on wild sago and the
collecting of forest products for trade.
• The Aoheng and Semukung
The Aoheng and Semukung, two tiny groups in desa Cempaka Baru
(respectively in dusun Nanga Enap and Nanga Ira’, Putussibau District),
are now found mixed with Bukat, Punan, Mandai, and other groups
(total pop. 485).
The Aoheng came from the upper Mahakam, East Kalimantan, where
larger Aoheng-Semukung communities are found, and they form a
stratified society similar to that of the Kayan, with whom they have long
been associated (see Sellato, 1986, 1993b). The Semukung probably came
from Sarawak via the sources of the Kapuas and are not a stratified society
(Sellato, unpublished field data). The Aoheng and Semukung languages
are related to Hovongan and Kereho languages.
NOTE
*. The pages above are based on unpublished field notes (1995).
REFERENCES
AVÉ, J., V. KING & J. de WIT
1983 West Kalimantan. A Bibliography, Dordrecht: Foris, KITLV Bibliographical Series 13,
260 p.
BPS
1994a Peta Indeks Desa Tertinggal Propinsi-propinsi di pulau Kalimantan & Pulau Sulawesi
1994, Jakarta: Biro Pusat Statistik, Seri PT 03A, 73 maps.
1994b Daftar Nama dan Indeks Peta Desa Tertinggal..., Jakarta: Biro Pusat Statistik, Seri PT
03B, 178 p.
42 INNERMOST BORNEO
DOVE, Michael R.
1979 ‘The swamp rice swiddens of the Kantu’ of West Kalimantan, Indonesia’, paper, Fifth
International Symposium of Tropical Ecology, Kuala Lumpur, April 1979.
1985 Swidden Agriculture in Indonesia: The Subsistence Strategies of the Kalimantan Kantu’,
Berlin: Mouton, 515 p.
FREEMAN, J. Derek
1955 Iban Agriculture: A Report on the Shifting Cultivation of Hill Rice by the Iban of
Sarawak, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (‘Colonial Research Studies’, 18),
XII + 148 p.
ROUSSEAU, Jérôme
1990 Central Borneo. Ethnic Identity and Social Life in a Stratified Society, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 380 p.
SELLATO, Bernard
1986 Les Nomades forestiers de Bornéo et la sédentarisation, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Paris:
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 570 p.
1993a ‘Myth, history, and modern cultural identity among hunter-gatherers: a Borneo case’,
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 24 (1): 18-43.
1993b ‘Government intervention in interior peoples’ economic activities and its effects on
the local and national economy: Two cases from East Kalimantan’, paper, Seminar on
Indigenous Communities of Asia and the Pacific, Pekanbaru, September 1993.
1994a Nomads of the Borneo Rainforest. The Economics, Politics, and Ideology of Settling
Down, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 280 p.
1994b ‘Collective memory and nomadism: Ethnohistorical investigations in Borneo’,
Indonesia, 57: 155-174.
WADLEY, Reed L.
2000 ‘Warfare, pacification, and environment: population dynamics in the West Borneo
borderlands (1823-1934)’, Moussons, 1: 41-66.
44
INNERMOST BORNEO
T
he purpose of this chapter is to give some geographical and ethno-
logical information on a little-known part of Indonesian East
Kalimantan: the Upper Mahakam area. These data cover three
districts (kecamatan), Long Bagun, Long Pahangai, and Long Apari, in
the regency (kabupaten) of Kutai. This area is about 15,000 square
kilometers wide and its total population is about 8,300 persons. Access to
the upper river is difficult because of a series of deadly rapids and the
absence of any road or airstrip. On the other hand, there is very little
traffic across the mountains to Central and West Kalimantan and to
Sarawak. Hence, this area is economically undeveloped in comparison to
regions below the rapids.
A list of the villages and a list of the ethnic groups of the Upper
Mahakam are included below. The Müller mountain range between East
and West Kalimantan seems to have been home to various tribes, some still
living in the vicinity, and others that have long moved away. Among the
former are the Aoheng or Penihing, the Bukat, and the Punan Penyavung
(Bungan, Belatung, Kereho), all of whom were still sago-eating nomads
when the Kayan arrived to the upper Mahakam. Among the latter are the
Tunjung Linggang (now in Barong Tongkok District), and probably also
the Ot Danum, or a part of them, now in Central and West Kalimantan.
The Uma’ Suling, now in Long Pahangai District, and the Uma’ Wak,
now in Long Bagun District, while not originating from the Müller range,
spent much time there during their migrations. Then came the Kayan,
across from Apo Kayan; the Busang, down the Boh River; and the Bahau,
along more eastern tributaries of the Mahakam. On the upper Mahakam,
the majority is called Bahau-Busang, while the Kayan are not considered
Busang (and vice versa). Their language long ago became a lingua franca
46 INNERMOST BORNEO
from Long Iram to Long Apari. Since about thirty years ago, the Kenyah
have been coming over from Apo Kayan to Long Bagun District, while
newcomers from downriver regions are introducing Islam to the upper
reaches of the Mahakam.
The ethnic groups
The Bahau and Busang look upon themselves as two different groups.
The self-acknowledged principal difference is in language. The Busang (or
Bahau-jaan) say jaan, “no”, while the Bahau (or Bahau-bate) say bate. A
second difference refers to their locations. The Bahau area is Long Iram
District (Laham, Tering, Long Hubung). In the area considered in this
paper (Long Bagun and Long Pahangai districts), only Busang are found.
The Busang are divided into a score of small groups, some more or
less autonomous and under their own hipui (rajah), others under the
control of the Long Gelat. All consider themselves Busang and part of
the larger Bahau-Busang group, and reportedly share a common place of
origin, Apo Kayan. They differ in their individual histories and the
routes and times of arrival to the Mahakam. Most of them came along
the Boh River, some from Sarawak, and others still possibly from West
Kalimantan. Each group had a specific dialect, but today most dialects
are lost or incorporated into the Busang lingua franca, i.e., the dialect of
the Uma’ Suling, which seems to be considered as the original Busang
language—whereas the Uma’ Wak dialect seems closer to Balui Kayan
language. The Busang groups are the following:
* Uma’ Asa: a small group in Long Hurai.
* Uma’ Lekué: an independent group, formerly living at Liu Mulang,
now settled at Long Tuyo’ with the Long Gelat.
* Uma’ Mahak: they settled in Mamahak Hilir, where most still live;
seven families were displaced to Data Naha by a Long Gelat chief of Ujoh
Bilang.
* Uma’ Pala: they were settled on the upper Danum Usan River, when
they were attacked and defeated by the Long Gelat of Long Tuyo’.
* Uma’ Palo’: a small group in Ujoh Bilang.
* Uma’ Suling: the most important Busang group in Long Pahangai
District; it came from Sarawak and settled at Batu Macan on the Seratah
River, then moved to Long Isun; two groups split from there to settle at
Long Pahangai and Long Lirei (or Naha Aru’); later on, a group from
Long Lirei settled at Lirung Ubing.
* Uma’ Tepai: after their defeat to the Long Gelat, they lost their
autonomy and came under the authority of the Long Gelat chief of Long
Tuyo’.
THE UPPER MAHAKAM AREA 47
* Uma’ Tuan: their first settlement on the upper Mahakam was around
Long Lunuk, where about twenty families still live; there are fifteen
families in Data Naha and seven families in Ujoh Bilang, all offsplits from
Long Lunuk; four families recently left Long Lunuk for Long Hubung
Baru (Long Iram District), and some more for Mamahak Hilir.
* Uma’ Urut: six families in Long Lunuk, and three more recently
resettled at Long Hubung Baru.
* Uma’ Sam: an important group in the past, now only five families in
Long Lunuk.
* Uma’ Wak: they settled at Long Bagun Hulu, coming from the
Seratah River, where they had been living near or with the Uma’ Suling.
* Bang Kelau: they claim to have come from Sarawak; only five
families in Long Lunuk, and five more resettled at Long Hubung Baru.
The Busang Uma’ Luhat, formerly on the upper Mahakam (Palu’
River), have moved long ago to Long Kelian (Long Iram District).
The Long Gelat reportedly came from the Gelat River (upper Bahau,
Bulungan Regency) to settle at Long Gelat on the Ogah River (Boh
area). Then they moved down to the Mahakam, just above the rapids,
where they subjugated the Uma’ Tepai and Uma’ Pala. Their language is
closely related to other Modang dialects (Long Wai, etc.), but underwent
change through contact with the Busang. Every Long Gelat can speak
fluent Busang, but almost no Busang can speak Long Gelat. The Long
Gelat historical center on the Mahakam is the Long Tuyo’ and Long
Tepai area, but some groups split and settled at Long Lunuk (eight
families today) and Ujoh Bilang (eleven families). In Data Naha, there
are eight families from Ujoh Bilang, settled there by a former ruler of
Ujoh Bilang. Two more families have moved from Long Lunuk to Long
Hubung Baru recently.
The Kayan, or Kayan Mahakam, came from Apo Kayan earlier than
the Long Gelat and subjugated several local tribes in the upper reaches of
the Mahakam. Through assimilation of their many slaves, their language
changed. Both Busang and Kayan consider themselves different groups.
The Kayan have always been strongly united, forming one single large
village, now at Long Kuling (Long Paka’), until recently, when some
moved downriver to Long Melaham (population 350) and Laham (Long
Iram District, ten families), and a few families to Ujoh Bilang.
The Aoheng, called Penihing by the Busang, are comprised of five
sub-groups of different origins:
* the Long Apari, the only apparently autochthonous tribe, lived as
sago-eating nomads on the uppermost tributaries of the Mahakam up to
48 INNERMOST BORNEO
the middle of the 19th century. Twenty families moved from the large
village of Long Apari to Ujoh Bilang.
* the Long Kerio’ are considered an early offsplit from Long Apari.
* the Huvung originated pro parte from Apo Kayan and pro parte from
small nomadic tribes from the sources of the Kapuas, settling on the
Huvung River; they now live in Lirung Aham.
* the Tïong Bu’u seem to be a blend of small tribes from the sources
of the Mahakam, of Uma’ Suling, and of Punan Seratah (Punan Merah);
their village today is Akeng Noha.
* the Cihan seem to have in part come from Apo Kayan and across
Sarawak to the Upper Kapuas and to have intermarried with local
nomadic tribes; they migrated to the Cihan River, which they named
after their former center in Apo Kayan (the Cihan River, on the middle
Boh); their main village now is Tïong Ohang, from which a group
recently moved to Long Bagun Hilir, and ten families to Laham.
These five sub-groups consider themselves a single tribe, although
they have no common chief. Their language is the same (Aoheng), with
only slight differences in accent from one group to another. Aoheng is
close to Punan Penyavung but the Aoheng cannot understand Bukat
language at all.
The Seputan are part of the Penihing linguistic group today, although
they say that their original language was completely different. They also
say that they have always lived on the Kasau-Penane basin, and that they
derived from two earlier tribes, one of which probably similar to Negrito
groups. These nomads settled down and took up agriculture at the
beginning of the 20th century. Afterwards, the three sub-groups gathered
in Long Penane, to move in 1970 to Long Mutai, where they established
three villages. Some families from Long Mutai 1 moved to Batu Berang
near Long Kelian.
The Bukat of the Mahakam are part of the Bukat group of the Upper
Kapuas, and started to episodically follow the farming activities of the
Aoheng Huvung at the end of the 19th century. About fifty years ago,
they took up swidden agriculture with the help of the Aoheng Long
Apari. Their village is still in Noha Tivap.
A group of Ot Danum came to the upper Mahakam and settled at
Long Boh and Long Nyaan, near the rapids. They soon moved to Batu
Kelau, and a few families are in Long Bagun now. They seem to form a
small part of the original Ot Danum population of the upper Mahakam.
Their language has almost disappeared through contacts with other
groups, as the area between Long Boh and Long Bagun, despite the
rapids, is a sort of crossroads.
THE UPPER MAHAKAM AREA 49
* Long Merah: Punan Merah, some Aoheng and Busang; pop. 137
(74 Catholics, 14 Moslems, and 36 Protestants 2).
* Rukun Damai: Kenyah Leppo’ Tau; pop. 620 (Protestants).
* Mamahak Hilir: Busang Uma’ Mahak and Uma’ Tuan; pop. 663
(Catholics).
* Mamahak Hulu: Bekumpai; pop. 236 (Moslems).
* Long Melaham: Kayan and some Bekumpai; pop. 379 (318 Catholics,
61 Moslems).
* Ujoh Bilang: capital village; original population, Long Gelat (eleven
families), Busang Uma’ Tuan (seven families), Busang Uma’ Pala (five
families). Others include Tunjung from Damai, other Busang groups,
Bekumpai, Bugis, Kutai, and Kayan. Kampung Baru, a little downstream,
has twenty families of Aoheng Long Apari. Total pop. 884 (676 Catholics,
146 Moslems, 15 Protestants, 47 traditional religion).
* Long Bagun Hilir: Aoheng Cihan; pop. 244 (224 Catholics,
20 Moslems).
* Long Bagun Hulu: original population, Busang Uma’ Wak (fifteen
families); others include Ot Danum, Aoheng, Punang Murung, Siang,
Kayan, Bekumpai, Bugis, and Javanese. Total pop. 370 (254 Catholics,
51 Moslems, and 65 traditional religion).
* Batu Majang: Kenyah Uma’ Tukung; pop. 310 (271 Catholics, 36
Protestants).
* Batu Kelau: original population, Ot Danum; others are Siang,
Aoheng, Busang, Punan Murung, Kayan, and Bekumpai; pop. 100 (33
Catholics, 5 Moslems, and 62 traditional religion).
Long Pahangai District has an area of 3700 square kilometers and a
population of 4,016. The villages are, from downstream 3:
* Liu Mulang: Busang Uma’ Lekue, abandoned.
* Long Tuyo’: original population, Long Gelat, Busang Uma’ Pala,
and Uma’ Tepai (397); newcomers include Busang Uma’ Lekue from
Liu Mulang (119), which still holds the status of desa. An overwhelming
majority is Catholic.
* Long Pahangai is divided into two desa: Long Pahangai 1 has a
population of 870 Busang Uma’ Suling and is the district capital; Long
Pahangai 2 has 235, also Uma’ Suling; newcomers in both villages
include other Busang, Kayan, and Bugis. The bulk of the population is
Catholic, but there are about 200 Moslems, mostly in Long Pahangai 2,
and a mosque is being built.
* Naha Aru’: on the Meraseh River; Busang Uma’ Suling, pop. 176 4.
* Long Isun: on the Meraseh River; Uma’ Suling, pop. 360.
52 INNERMOST BORNEO
villages, including those between Data Naha and Delang Krohong, will
be resettled in a large village close to the airstrip. Upstream, aIl the
villages from Akeng Noha to Long Apari will be moved close to Tïong
Ohang. Then, because the government wants to protect primary jungle
and forbids swidden cultivation (ladang liar), the population is expected
to adopt wet-rice cultivation with the help of government experts. At the
same time, secondary schools (SMP), small hospitals (PUSKESMAS)
with a doctor, and other facilities will be built in the resettlement centers.
Handicrafts and traditional arts will be stimulated. The RESPEN
program will be officially launched for Long Apari District by the middle
of 1980 and, even if the area above the rapids cannot really develop
economically and prices remain high because of transportation costs, at
least the people’s lives will be easier, especially when tourism begins to
develop.
NOTES
*. This text appeared in the Borneo Research Bulletin, 12 (2): 40-46, 1980. It has
been slightly edited. The local situation, as could be expected, has changed dramatically
since this paper was written, particularly due to improvement in the means of
transportation and the effects of resettlement.
1. The population and religion statistics are for the year 1979, issued in January
1980 by the district office at Ujoh Bilang.
2. The major religious groups are Roman Catholic, Protestant, Islam, and self-
declared “animists”, or persons practicing their traditional religion.
3. The population statistics are for the year 1979, issued in January 1980 by the
district office at Long Pahangai.
4. When there is no indication of religion, it can be assumed that the population is
95 percent Catholic.
5. The population statistics are for the year 1979, issued in January 1980 by the
district office at Tïong Ohang. Statistics for religion indicate that the population of the
district is almost 100 percent Catholic.
CHAPTER IV
FOREST ECONOMICS:
THE DAYAK AND THEIR RESOURCES *
K
alimantan’s interior peoples, whether paddy farmers (Dayak) or
forest nomads (Punan), have for generations exploited their
natural environment to earn a living. Modern times have brought
about drastic changes in their wider socio-cultural and economic
circumstances. This chapter presents two cases in which government
agents, either carrying out national policies or acting on their own
initiative, intervened in the peoples’ lives, ultimately generating more
harm than benefit.
The Punan of Tabang ranged remote upriver areas, subsisting mainly
on wild sago and collecting forest products for trade at downstream
markets. Time and again, through socio-economic programs based more
on certain humanitarian (or national ideological) principles than on a
rational evaluation of the Punan’s situation, government agencies tried to
resettle them near the district town. Those who settled often failed at
growing paddy and saw their income drop significantly. Many went on
collecting forest products. As successful hunter-gatherers, they are
wealthier than neighboring farmers, and their products contribute to the
national income. As failed farmers they become charges of the nation.
The Aoheng farmers of Long Apari have for centuries collected edible
swiftlet nests from caves they own within their territory. In the last years,
while long droughts destroyed paddy harvests, the bird’s nest trade
enabled them to survive.
As prices rose, however, local government, disregarding their traditional
rights as well as, allegedly, several items of national law, appropriated the
caves and auctioned bird’s nest exploitation rights to outsiders. This has
cut down the Aoheng’s income by 75 percent and led to social unrest.
56 INNERMOST BORNEO
Beketan settled at Muara Atan. The next year, they left for Pulau Beras,
to return the following year. In 1967, five Lisum families from Muara
Belinau—who came under desa Muara Ti’—and a group from Muara
Salung joined them. Six families remained at Muara Ti’, nine at Muara
Keba’, ten at Muara Salung, seven at Muara Belinau, and fifteen at
Muara Tubo’. Then Muara Tubo’ split, seven families moving to a new
location nearby, and eleven to Batu Aya’ on the Len River.
During the following decade, people moved back and forth a lot
between their original territories and the village of Muara Atan. Popula-
tion figures for 1971 (Anonymous 1973) are as follows: desa Muara Ti’
(Muara Atan), 56 souls; Muara Keba’, 26; Muara Salung, 39; Muara
Belinau, 57; and Muara Tubo’, 150. These figures, if correct, would set
the total Punan population at around 330. Of course, they do not tell
anything of where these people were really residing. The general trend, in
any case, was rather of a return to the upriver regions. The houses of
Muara Atan, mostly uninhabited and uncared for, slowly disintegrated.
In 1977 a new resettlement program was started, this time at Sungai
Lunuk, a bit downstream from Muara Atan. A village of separate houses
was built for the Punan. The first to move was, it seems, the group from
Muara Ti’ and Muara Salung already settled at Muara Atan. In 1979, the
Lisum from Muara Keba’ joined in, but some soon returned and settled
at Muara Salung. Population figures for 1980 (Franz 1988) are as
follows: 72 souls for desa Muara Keba’, 173 for Muara Tubo’, 52 for
Muara Salung, and 44 for Muara Belinau (the figure of 520 for desa
Muara Ti’ includes the personnel of a nearby forestry camp).
Those from Muara Salung moved back to Sungai Lunuk in 1982.
The Beketan of Batu Aya’ joined them in 1983. When I visited in 1983,
the original hamlets of Muara Ti’, Muara Keba’, and Muara Salung were
actually deserted. Sungai Lunuk comprised three desa: Muara Keba’ with
twelve families; Muara Salung, sixteen; and Muara Ti’, 29 (including
some families of outsiders); thus a total of about 55 families. Desa Muara
Tubo’ included 20 families at Sungai Lunuk (divided amongst the three
desa above) and seven at Muara Tubo’ proper, the latter due to reunite
with their kin the same year. Desa Muara Belinau had five families at
Sungai Lunuk (in fact under desa Muara Ti’) and eight families in Muara
Belinau proper, due to join at Sungai Lunuk in 1983-84. The number of
Punan, then, presumably amounted to 70-75 families.
Upon my last visit (1985), Muara Belinau and Muara Tubo’ had not
completed their move to Sungai Lunuk: seven families remained at either
settlement. At Sungai Lunuk, Muara Salung reportedly had seven
resident families; Muara Keba’, eight; and Muara Ti’, only three, plus the
THE DAYAK AND THEIR RESOURCES 59
Agesta. The Aoheng resented the monopoly. In March 1991, Kaya Lejo
gelar Mas Macan Wono, a prominent Aoheng leader, went to meet with
Mr Sudomo, then Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security,
requesting the return of the rights to his people. Mr Sudomo wrote to the
Governor of East Kalimantan. In December 1991, C. V. Semarang,
another Samarinda company, won the 1992 auction and appointed a
Chinese trader named Alin from Kutai. The governor confirmed the
auction but instructed the regent of Kutai to have the 1978 decree revised
so as to respect the people’s needs and follow market prices.
In January 1992, things started to turn sour in Long Apari, as Alin
moved in. The people had to surrender their nests for a flat “fee” (upah) of
Rp 105,000 per kilo, whereas Samarinda prices were around Rp 400,000.
Local Police (Polsek) and Army (Koramil), on Alin’s behalf, manned posts
along the river and at the caves and armed men in plainclothes made
arrests. The governor again instructed the regent to pay attention to
people’s needs and revise the decree. Many Aoheng, smuggling nests
through to Samarinda, where they could get market prices, were arrested,
held in jail or on bail—some beaten—and their nests confiscated. In
August, all the mayors and customary chiefs sent a request (countersigned
by the district officer) to the regent, and an Association of Bird’s Nest
Cave Owners hired Samarinda lawyers to act in its name to obtain the
return of their rights.
On 12 October 1992, 86 plaintiffs and their lawyers filed a lawsuit in
Tenggarong (Kutai) against the regent. Two meetings were held with the
regent and, in February, the Aoheng prepared a proposal (konsep damai)
for an out-of-court settlement that was not reached. An evaluation team,
on the regent’s orders, visited Long Apari. The trial dragged on and
judgement was postponed time and again, while a revision of the decree—
not favorable to the people—was prepared by a special committee at the
regent’s office, then passed by the regency parliament, awaiting the
governor’s seal. The plaintiffs finally lost (end of May 1993) and their
lawyers appealed at provincial level, with but little hope. The Association
prepared a counter-proposition for a revision of the decree, demanding
the cancellation of the auction system. In the meantime, in spite of the
lawyers’ request (7 December) that all business activity related to the
lawsuit’s object be halted, the regent held the auction for 1993, and
C. V. Semarang won again. Aoheng delegates and their lawyers went to
Jakarta in March to seek help from the LBH (a legal aid agency) and filed
a lawsuit against the regent at the Administrative High Court (PTUN).
The social situation in Long Apari in 1993 is steadily deteriorating.
People say it is “just like in the PKI [Communist Party] times [in the early
62 INNERMOST BORNEO
in Kutai), partially lost access to natural resources that they consider theirs
and, thus, had to relinquish an important portion of their income.
This clearly affects also the national economy. Government interven-
tion allowed outsiders—by providing them, directly or otherwise, with
access to local natural resources—to reap these resources, which they did
(and still do) in an unsustainable way. This leaves the local communities
despoiled of their income and impoverished, and the resources depleted.
In the short- or medium-term, the role of forest products (including
bird’s nests) in the regional and national income will significantly subside.
The cultural component of this complex question is, however, also
important. Now that national unity has been reached, policies have been
devised to preserve the rich and time-deep traditional values of the
country’s many and diverse cultures (GBHN 1988), and appropriate
strategies are being set into motion to that effect. As diversity is seen as
an important ingredient of the national identity, the diverse extant, local
or regional, cultural identities are to be protected, preserved, and
developed. Attempts at nation-wide standardization are no longer neces-
sary. The official notion of the “accomplished Indonesian” (Manusia
Indonesia Seutuhnya) should reflect a diverse, eclectic, multifaceted
human being.
The Punan and the Aoheng are “traditional” peoples, rather than
“backward” groups that have been left behind at a “primitive stage” in a
general evolutionary process of civilization. They have their own cultures
that they developed and refined in the course of the centuries, and
through which they have established and preserved a balanced
relationship with their environment. These cultures should not be
ignored, let alone deprecated. If the Punan, actually more useful to the
nation as successful nomads than as failed farmers, freely choose to
maintain their traditional way of life, what is then the true relevance of
an abstract humanitarian (or ideological) concept of social development?
If the Aoheng, really more competent than outsiders at exploiting their
own environment in a sustainable way, wish to maintain their traditional
customs and legal system, what is then the rationale for trying to bring
them to the national standard and norms? An empirical evaluation,
unbiased by ideological presumptions, of such traditional cultures is
much called for.
Traditional culture forms the foundation of society, and policies
requiring drastic changes ipso facto induce in a local community, by the
disruption of multiple aspects of its traditional way of life, a traumatic
human experience, a destabilization of its traditional values and,
ultimately, their total loss. As traditional values disappear, so fades
64 INNERMOST BORNEO
years: Prices for such products, especially bird’s nests, on the world market
have risen to unheard-of highs (locally, up to Rp 20 million for top-
quality nests in Samarinda), a relative law-and-order vacuum has followed
the fall of President Soeharto, the NTFP rush has dramatically intensified,
and our “traditional” people, caught in the race and far from exhibiting
their supposed “natural” leaning toward conservative and sustainable use
of their resources, have demonstrated instead a remarkable greed in the
exploitation and, indeed, overexploitation of these resources. Apart from
the rapid decrease in production due to depletion, the Aoheng and Punan
are now acutely experiencing social collapse in their own conflict-ridden
communities.
I do still believe that “traditional cultures” ought to be allowed to
survive, unless it is a proven fact that the participants do not truly care
about them (which, in my experience, is often the case); that quick-paced
social and economic development is harmful both to the traditional
people concerned and to development itself; and that local people ought
to be given the chance to benefit by their own territories’ resources for
their social and economic development along the lines that they should be
able to determine themselves. I also believe, however, that, since the
rehashed but unsubstantiated postulate that traditional peoples are,
intrinsically, good “keepers” or managers of their natural environment
must now be definitively rebutted, then notions of “sustainable
exploitation of natural resources” and “sustainable development” in
situations such as that prevailing for interior Kalimantan’s forest products
have become simply meaningless and should be done away with.
NOTE
*. The text above is based on a communication entitled “Government Intervention
in Interior Peoples’ Traditional Economic Activities and its Effects on the Local and
National Economy: Two Cases from East Kalimantan”, given at the Seminar on
Indigenous Communities of Asia and the Pacific in Pekanbaru, Riau, Indonesia, 2-5
September 1993.
REFERENCES
ANONYMOUS
1973 Resettlement Penduduk Propinsi Kalimantan Timur, Samarinda: Panitia Workshop
Resettlement Penduduk Propinsi Kalimantan Timur (Ed.)
66 INNERMOST BORNEO
APPELL, George N.
1988 ‘Costing Social Change’, p. 271-284 in M. R. Dove (Ed.): The Real and Imagined
Role of Culture in Development. Case Studies from Indonesia, Honolulu: University of
Hawai’i Press.
EGHENTER, Cristina and Bernard SELLATO (Eds)
1999 Kebudayaan dan Pelestarian Alam. Penelitian Interdisipliner di Pedalaman Kalimantan,
Jakarta: World Wide Fund for Nature/PHPA/The Ford Foundation, 573 p.
forthcoming, Culture and Conservation in Borneo. Interdisciplinary Studies in Traditional
Cultures in Kayan Mentarang National Park, Bogor: Centre for International Forestry
Research.
FRANZ, Johannes Frhr. von
1988 Population Development in East Kalimantan 1971-1987, Samarinda: Technical
Cooperation for Area Development (“Technical Report”, No. 88-10), 144 p.
SELLATO, Bernard
1980 ‘The Upper Mahakam Area’, Borneo Research Bulletin, 12 (2): 40-46.
1989 Nomades et sédentarisation à Bornéo. Histoire économique et sociale, Paris: Editions de
l’EHESS (“Etudes insulindiennes/Archipel”, 9), 293 p.
1994 Nomads of the Borneo Rainforest. The Economics, Politics, and Ideology of Settling
Down, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 272 p.
1994 ‘Forêts tropicales et sociétés traditionnelles à Bornéo : Vers une histoire régionale “en
contin” de l’environnement et des systèmes de subsistance’, Ecologie Humaine, 12 (2):
3-22, 1994 [Reprinted in Cahiers d’Outre-Mer, 51 (204): 421-440, 1998].
2001 Forest, Resources and People in Bulungan. Elements for a History of Settlement, Trade,
and Social Dynamics in Borneo (1880-2000), Bogor, Indonesia: Center for
International Forestry Research, 183 p.
2002 ‘Forests for food, forests for trade, between sustainability and extractivism. The
economic pragmatism of traditional peoples and the trade history of northern East
Kalimantan’, in R. L. Wadley (Ed.): Histories of the Borneo Environment: Economic,
political, and social dimensions of transformation, Leiden: KITLV Press.
forthcoming, ‘Culture, history, politics, and the emergence of provincial identities in
Kalimantan’, in M. Charras (Ed.): Beyond the State. Essays on Spatial Structure in
Insular Southeast Asia, Paris: LASEMA-CNRS.
SELLATO, Bernard and Peter G. SERCOMBE (Eds)
forthcoming, The Nomads of Borneo Today. Resilience and Change Among Forest Hunter-
Gatherers.
CHAPTER V
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN BORNEO:
A GENERAL OVERVIEW *
T
his chapter arose from a reflection, still at a preliminary stage, on
the systems of social organization of Borneo. At the same time, it
attempts to propose, within the framework of these systems, an
evaluation of the concept of société à maison (“society of the house”).
A few attempts have been made to classify the ethnic groups of
Borneo. Whether focusing on linguistic, technological, or social criteria,
none proved convincing. Let us mention those by Hose and McDougall
(1912), Leach (1950), and recently Wurm and Hattori (1982). Borneo
societies, varied and complex, have proved untractable to any labeling.
For the subject that concerns us here, we should mention Appell’s
attempt (1976), based on a criterion of “level of social and technological
complexity”, which offers a simple and accessible view of the situation.
Appell distinguishes between 1) the nomadic societies: forest nomads
(Punan) and sea nomads (Bajau Laut); 2) the swidden rice cultivating
societies, further distinguished between 2a) egalitarian societies (Iban,
Rungus, Berawan) and 2b) socially stratified societies (Kayan, Kenyah); 3)
the irrigated rice cultivating societies (Kadayan, Kelabit); 4) the Moslem
sultanates; and 5) multi-ethnic modern societies.
First, it should be noted that in all of Borneo’s traditional societies
kinship is cognatic. I found the technological distinction between swidden
and irrigated rice cultivation irrelevant for the present study. Besides,
there is a wide range of mixed economic situations (swidden and irrigated
rice cultivation, swidden rice cultivation and nomadic forest collecting,
horticulture and fishing, etc.) and modern interference (cash crops,
salaried jobs). Furthermore, we shall not concern ourselves here with the
multi-ethnic modern societies, and little with the sultanates.
68 INNERMOST BORNEO
lino tangoen, is one of the kajan heads, chosen for his (or her) competence.
S/he has no actual power in decision making, relying usually on
consensus. In particular, s/he has no authority to keep nuclear families
within the band. No form of political, economic, or ritual organization
exists above the band level; it is not certain, even, that the band itself is a
political or ritual unit. The kajan household, a residential unit, disappears
with the founding couple, as young couples leave it immediately to set up
neolocal residence. The kajan holds exclusive ownership rights over only a
few movable properties (weapons, tools, utensils), later shared among the
founding couple’s children. Band affiliation being fluctuant, there is,
therefore, no permanent social grouping (see Sellato, 1986).
– The Bajau Laut
The Bajau Laut (or Sama Laut) of Sabah are also called Sea Nomads
and traditionally live as nomads, traveling continually on their boats
between the coasts of Borneo, the Philippines, and Celebes. They subsist
exclusively on fishing and marine life collection and trade their products
to coastal peoples. Until around 1930 they were all still nomads, with no
other bond to firm land than their cemetery sites. It seems that most
nuclear families (dabalutu, likely named after their boat) now have a
coastal house, luma’, owned in common with other nuclear families of the
same extended family. The luma’ houses are clustered in neighborhoods,
ba’anan, in a village, lahat. A luma’, under the responsibility of a
household head, nakura luma’, is the unit of land residence, storage, and
consumption. However, the dabalutu family often leaves the luma’ for
offshore fishing and collecting expeditions, and then forms the unit of
production and migration. The luma’ cycle shows a stage of growth after
its foundation, then a stage of fission as young couples of the next
generation leave to found their own luma’. Ultimately the luma’ is
dissolved (see Sather, 1978).
• The “non-stratified” agricultural societies
It has to be stressed that these societies, in terms of population, form
the bulk of the “Dayak” peoples of Borneo. They can be roughly distin-
guished, on ethno-linguistic and cultural grounds, among four large sets:
the Barito groups, including the Ngaju, Ot Danum, and Ma’aanyan, in
the southern half of the island; the northeastern groups, including the
Rungus, Lun Dayeh, and Kelabit; the western groups, known as Land
Dayak or Bidayuh, heterogeneous and ill-known (including the Selako);
and the Iban and related groups, straddling the border between Sarawak
and West Kalimantan. All these groups are mainly swidden rice
cultivators (except for some local irrigated rice cultivation), while tuber,
70 INNERMOST BORNEO
the product of their labor is pooled in the lamin’s common granary and
cooking pot. The lamin holds rights on lands opened by its members,
and these rights, like other heirlooms, remain with the lamin. The lamin
perpetuates itself and, in case of a split, the original lamin (lamin po’on)
retains primary rights.
Kenyah society is divided into five formal named classes: high
aristocrats (deta’u bio), lower aristocrats (deta’u dumit), well-off com-
moners (panyin tiga), lower commoners (panyin ja’at), and the slaves and
their descendants (panyin lamin). The chief of a village (paran lepo) or a
longhouse (paran uma’ ) is chosen from among the aristocrats, although
not on a strictly hereditary basis. To split off from its longhouse, a lamin
needs its paran’s permission and must pay an indemnity—such cases seem
very rare. A lamin perpetuates itself as a component of an uma’ even if the
apartment itself has disappeared (see Whittier, 1973, 1978).
– The Maloh groups
The Maloh (or Taman) of the Kapuas live in rather large settlements
(banua), sometimes of several longhouses (sau). The apartment (tindoan)
is home to a nuclear or stem family (kaiyan), which is an economic and
ritual unit. The village collectively owns a territory, and each kaiyan
holds equal right of access to farm land and retains permanent rights on
lands opened by its members. The kaiyan perpetuates itself, and
membership in it is by birth, adoption, or marriage. An individual may
belong to only one kaiyan. A descent group, kapulungan, with a vaguely
defined affiliation gathers the descendants of a given ancestor and
collectively owns land and heirlooms, as well as the apartment. However,
the one among the descendants who remains in the apartment holds
primary rights over land and fruit trees and retains most of the moveable
heirlooms (jars and gongs). If the kaiyan splits in two, the young couple
leaving the apartment to found a new kaiyan maintain bonds with the
original kaiyan and, through (particularly) the kapulungan, retain
secondary or residual rights over patrimonial property.
Maloh society has four ranks or classes (ranakan): aristocrats (samagat),
middle-rank people (pabiring), commoners (banua), and slaves (pangkan).
A household’s affiliation to a given rank is permanent and each rank is
ideally endogamous. A longhouse chief is always an aristocrat, and
aristocrats hold a monopoly of economic, political, and ritual power (see
King, 1978, 1985).
• The Sultanates
Soon after the coming of Islam to Borneo, a number of coastal
sultanates emerged, such as Brunei in the north (15th-16th century);
76 INNERMOST BORNEO
The nuclear family appears to be the basic unit of ritual activity, for it
is a residential unit, either full-time (as among the Rungus) or part-time
(like the Ma’anyan dangau, ritually independent from the lewu’ group).
The existence of ritual activities involving a wider family group, however,
enhances the cohesion of this group. But such a ritual unit may be
perennial (the Ma’anyan tambak) or not (the Selako tumpuk). At the
local group (village) level, there may be no collective ritual activity (as
among the Lun Dayeh) or, on the contrary, such ritual activity may
involve all the village’s households (among the Iban, all households are
collectively in charge of rituals at the longhouse level; among the Land
Dayak, the “headhouse” serves as a focus of collective ritual activity).
Therefore, a relative autonomy of the family group vis-à-vis the local
group (longhouse, hamlet, or village) appears to be a feature common to
all the family groupings described above, and thus a specific feature
among what I call “non-stratified” societies (as opposed to stratified
societies). Most authors have stressed these family groupings’ economic
autonomy, and I have noted the question of their involvement in the local
group’s ritual activity, as well as the question of political power.
It is important to stress the residential autonomy of these family
groupings. The practice of post-matrimonial neolocal residence grants the
nuclear family (Ma’anyan, Ot Danum, Rungus, Lun Dayeh) a certain
degree of freedom as to the choice of their residence. Likewise, the Iban
bilek can leave the longhouse at will to settle somewhere else, and the
Selako biik’s affiliation to the residential grouping tumpuk is not perma-
nent. More generally (with the Selako being a border case), we can
consider the longhouse, hamlet, or village as a free association of house-
holds bound to one another primarily by blood, affinal, or friendship
relations.
This residential autonomy must be linked to the level of political and
ritual organization of the local group. With no (formal) system of political
authority and no collective ritual activities, the local group (longhouse or
village) forms only a “residential association”, not a cohesive and compact
social grouping. In this context, the family grouping, the household,
maintains a large degree of freedom (of movement).
Whenever some real, if informal, political authority and some collec-
tive ritual activities exist, the residential association becomes to a certain
extent a social grouping. It should be noted that the political and ritual
fields are sometimes intimately linked (as among the Iban). In the Iban
longhouse, which forms a social grouping, all households must be repre-
sented and all play a part. The perennial nature of a family grouping must
be connected with the household’s representativity vis-à-vis the local group.
80 INNERMOST BORNEO
LEGEND
• In stratified societies
Stratified societies, such as those described earlier, display true social
classes, ideally endogamous, with a strictly determined mode of
recruiting, and with strictly prescribed political, economic, and ritual
roles. There is no ambiguity in an individual’s affiliation to a household,
or a household’s affiliation to a local group, and no ambiguity in the
definition of each individual’s or household’s rights and duties.
The local group comprises several levels of rigid structures: The
individual is included in a household, the household in a longhouse, and
the longhouse in a village. Even at the regional (river basin) level, certain
forms of socio-political organization have emerged.
Even though the household may be an extended family, the principle
for its reproduction is the stem family, allowing for the perpetuation of its
structure through time, based on dominantly uxorilocal residential
practices. The household’s affiliation to a social category is just as strict as
its affiliation to a longhouse. An economic, social, and ritual unit, the
household is represented at longhouse level as an intrinsic component, as
is the longhouse at village level. Whatever the social class it belongs to, a
household as a social entity has rights and duties in the community—
except for the slave category, which only has duties. It exists in perpetuity
and survives symbolically even after the material structure that housed it
has ceased to exist.
The aristocratic class holds a monopoly of political power. Leaders are
chosen from amongst it, on a more or less hereditary basis varying with
ethnic groups. Aristocrats also sometimes hold a monopoly of ritual
power. But what is most important is that they monopolize economic
power. Among the Kayan, they own slaves who produce for them, they
may impose corvee upon members of the other classes, and they obtain
substantial benefit from the control of trade. It should be stressed that,
contrary to the situation in non-stratified societies, the slaves (war or raid
captives) are here indispensable to the functioning of society.
These societies, therefore, display very strongly integrated forms of
organization in which the whole political, economic, and ritual power is
formally appropriated by a ruling class. Within this very tight social
fabric, involving all households in the political, economic, and ritual
fields, the household - as well as the individual -- has a very low degree of
freedom vis-à-vis the local group.
The ‘house’ in Borneo
We can now turn to the question of the ‘house’. Of the three criteria
selected by Lévi-Strauss to define the ‘house’—the existence of a legal
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN BORNEO 83
societies of Borneo and cannot portray the region’s global social reality.
Another is that the ‘house’ is an ubiquitous organizational principle in
stratified societies and is also found in certain non-stratified societies.
Obviously, the existence of the ‘house’ is to be linked to the principle of
social reproduction through the stem family, rather than to the
egalitarian or stratified nature of a society.
Yet another conclusion can be drawn from the empirical finding that
there is a relation between the condensed and permanent nature of settle-
ments and the presence of ‘houses’. The economic circumstances of a
nomadic hunting-gathering society, particularly settlement imperma-
nence, are not conducive to the emergence of the stem family, all the less
so because the estate to be inherited includes neither a tangible building
nor land rights. Likewise, to some extent, the rather scattered settlement
pattern of certain non-stratified groups and the high autonomy of their
nuclear families inhibit the emergence of ‘houses’. This autonomy is
expressed in a low degree of organization and cohesion at the local group
level. Only in societies in which collective life sets family groupings in a
close social fabric is the existence of ‘houses’ observed. This close social
fabric can be found expressed in the practice of compact settlements (the
longhouse probably is a favorable factor, although it seems to not always
be a sufficient one); in the performance of collective ritual activities; in the
crystallization of political authority; in the ideology of social stratification;
or in a combination of several of the features above.
This leads us to more closely examine the question of the integration
of the household into a broader social grouping, the longhouse or the
village.
We must first consider the relation between the individual or, rather,
the minimal family grouping (the nuclear family) and the house as an
inhabitable material structure. In all instances where post-matrimonial
residence is regularly neolocal—that is, where all of the founding couple’s
children leave home to build their own house—the estate of patrimonial
assets, including the house itself, obviously will be more or less scattered.
The nuclear family’s affiliation to a broader kin group may occur, based
on a social entity focused on patrimony management, ritual activity, or
political influence, or may not occur at all. Thus, kin groupings are found,
some permanent, such as the Ma’anyan tambak ritual grouping, and some
impermanent, such as the Selako political and ritual tumpuk grouping.
It is with the stem family as a principle of social reproduction that a
family grouping’s perpetuation in a permanent inhabitable structure may
occur. Whatever the rules governing membership (descent, adoption,
marriage) and post-matrimonial residence (uxorilocality, virilocality, or
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN BORNEO 85
utrolocality), and their strict or flexible nature, the principle is that only
one of the children remains in the house. This child takes care of the
aging parents and inherits rights, either exclusive or primary, over an
estate of patrimonial assets that remains bound to the house itself. In all
instances, an individual’s (and, therefore, a married couple’s) affiliation
to a household is strict and exclusive. The individual obtains, through
adoption or marriage, new rights in the household of which s/he
becomes a member and, at the same time, s/he loses the rights s/he used
to hold by descent in his/her natal household (or only maintains
secondary rights). Varying with ethnic groups, this individual inherits or
acquires in the household of which s/he is a member a given wealth
situation, a political or ritual role, a social status, as well as a more or less
extensive set of rights and duties vis-à-vis neighbors and the community.
Here a second point may be articulated on the above: the degree of
the family grouping’s integration to the local group. All, then, rests on
the existence of collective political, economic, or ritual activities
involving the various component households and, in the final analysis,
on whether or not the local group is a legal entity.
Some of the non-stratified societies listed above have been described
as performing no collective economic or ritual activities at all. Even
though they may display collective political or military activities together
with their neighbors (e.g., for defense), the local group remains only a
simple residential association. Most often, the concept of village territory
seems absent, and land ownership, if it exists, is in the hands of family
groupings. We then have here “amorphous” societies, which may display
some hierarchy based on wealth but do not constitute social groupings of
a higher order at village level. Political or ritual power remains informal,
relying on influence rather than authority.
The Iban show a certain degree of involvement of component
households in the ritual workings of the longhouse. There is a ritual
leader, recognized by all households, and each household is represented in
the longhouse’s ritual activities. Likewise, among the Selako, households
associate together on a residential basis to form a broader entity with
political and ritual functions.
It is with the existence of such political or ritual “roles” of the house-
hold within a wider residential association that the latter becomes a social
grouping, and functions as such. It is important to remark, however, that
the households’ affiliation to a social grouping is impermanent, and that
the social grouping itself has a limited life time. Indeed, the Iban
household, at least among some groups, seems free to leave the longhouse
and Freeman stressed that the Iban longhouse is an “open” group and
86 INNERMOST BORNEO
only constitutes a legal entity in a limited way, i.e., in the ritual field.
Among the Selako, the local tumpuk group seems to be a legal entity (see
Schneider, 1977), but it appears to be dispensable and not perennial.
Among stratified societies, we find, on the one hand, a strict and
permanent affiliation of households, perennial family groupings, to the
longhouse, which is itself a perennial social grouping; and, on the other
hand, a differentiation of political, economic, and ritual “roles”. This
differentiation is expressed in the ideology and practice by the existence of
a class system. In this highly and strictly organized social grouping, an
individual has no choice in his/her affiliation to a household, and likewise
the household can choose neither its social rank nor its affiliation to a
longhouse.
It should be noted that the longhouse, a set of ‘houses’, is itself a
‘house’, insofar as it collectively owns a territory and may be politically
and ritually represented at a higher level, that of the village or cluster of
longhouses. The longhouse is symbolically embodied by its
aristocratic ’house’ and its head, like the household is embodied by its
family head. More importantly, the longhouse perpetuates itself, even in
abstentia, as a coherent and compact social group, particularly through its
name.
To summarize, the followings points can be made. First, from the
methodological angle, it is important to take into account not only the
familial residential unit, the household, but also its social and political
framework, the local group. We find that, when the local group does not
work as a unit of collective action (economic, political, ritual), then it is
only an amorphous “residential association” made of contiguous
“residential atoms”, which are not ‘houses’. In some instances, with the
emergence of political and ritual roles of households in the local group’s
life, ‘houses’ functioning as intrinsic components of a true social
grouping develop, based on the perennial stem family as a principle of
social reproduction. A much stronger social integration is found among
stratified societies, in which the ‘house’ is an intrinsic component, in all
fields (economic, political, and ritual), of a very tight social grouping, the
longhouse, itself being a ‘house’ within a higher organizational level, the
village. Political, economic, and ritual roles are formalized in a strict and
rigid ideology of social classes.
From the nomadic band to the stratified farming society, it is the
degree of social integration of the minimal family grouping to the local
group that, by setting restrictions on the household’s freedom of
movement, determines the existence of the ‘house’. Social stratification—
that is, true stratification, both formalized in the ideology and functional
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN BORNEO 87
NOTE
*. Translated from “Notes préliminaires sur les sociétés ‘à maison’ à Bornéo”, p. 15-
44 in Ch. Macdonald et les membres de l’ECASE (Eds): De la Hutte au Palais. Sociétés
“à maison” en Asie du Sud-Est insulaire, Paris: Editions du CNRS, 1987, 218 p.
REFERENCES
APPELL, G. N.
1972 ‘Rungus Dusun’, p. 150-153 in F. M. LeBar (Ed.): Ethnic Groups of Insular Southeast
Asia, Vol. 1, New Haven: HRAF Press.
1978 ‘The Rungus Dusun’, p. 143-171 in V. T. King (Ed.): Essays on Borneo Societies,
Oxford: Oxford University Press (“Hull Monographs on South-East Asia”).
APPELL, G. N. (Ed.)
1976 Studies in Borneo Societies: Social Process and Anthropological Explanation, Northern
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN BORNEO 91
Illinois University: Center for Southeast Asian Studies (“Special Report”, 12), 158 p.
AVÉ, J.
1972a ‘Kalimantan Dayaks’, p. 185-187 in F. M. LeBar (Ed.): Ethnic Groups of Insular
Southeast Asia, Vol. 1, New Haven: HRAF Press.
1972b ‘Ot Danum Dayaks’, p. 192-194 in F. M. LeBar (Ed.): Ethnic Groups of Insular
Southeast Asia, Vol. 1, New Haven: HRAF Press.
BROWN, D. E.
1976 ‘Social structure, history and historiography in Brunei and beyond’, p. 44-50 in G. N.
Appell (Ed.): Studies in Borneo Societies: Social Process and Anthropological
Explanation, Northern Illinois University: Center for Southeast Asian Studies
(“Special Report”, 12).
CRAIN, J. B.
1978 ‘The Lun Dayeh’, p. 123-142 in V. T. King (Ed.): Essays on Borneo Societies, Oxford:
Oxford University Press (“Hull Monographs on South-East Asia”).
FREEMAN, J. D.
1970 Report on the Iban, New York: The Athlone Press (“London School of Economics
Monographs on Social Anthropology”, 41), 317 p.
HOSE, C. and W. MCDOUGALL
1912 The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, London: Macmillan, 2 vol.
HUDSON, A. B. and J. M.
1978 ‘The Ma’anyan of Paju Epat’, p. 215-232 in V. T. King (Ed.): Essays on Borneo
Societies, Oxford: Oxford University Press (“Hull Monographs on South-East Asia”).
KING, V. T.
1978a ‘Introduction’, p. 1-36 in V. T. King (Ed.): Essays on Borneo Societies, Oxford:
Oxford University Press (“Hull Monographs on South-East Asia”).
1978b ‘The Maloh’, p. 193-214 in V. T. King (Ed.): Essays on Borneo Societies, Oxford:
Oxford University Press (“Hull Monographs on South-East Asia”).
1985 The Maloh of West Kalimantan, an ethnographic study of social inequality and social
change among an Indonesian Borneo people, Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 252 p.
KING, V. T. (Ed.)
1978 Essays on Borneo Societies, Oxford: Oxford University Press (“Hull Monographs on
South-East Asia”), 256 p.
LEACH, E. R.
1950 Social Science Research in Sarawak. A Report on the Possibilities of a Social Economic
Survey of Sarawak, London: H. M. Stationary Office for the Colonial Office
(“Colonial Research Studies”, 1), 93 p.
LEBAR, F. M. (Ed.)
1972 Ethnic groups of Insular South-East Asia, Vol. 1, Indonesia, Andaman Islands and
Madagascar, New Haven: HRAF Press, 226 p., 10 maps.
PRENTICE, D. J.
1972 ‘Idahan Murut’, p. 154-158 in F. M. LeBar (Ed.): Ethnic Groups of Insular Southeast
Asia, Vol. 1, New Haven: HRAF Press.
92 INNERMOST BORNEO
ROUSSEAU, J.
1978 ‘The Kayan’, p. 78-91 in V. T. King (Ed.): Essays on Borneo Societies, Oxford: Oxford
University Press (“Hull Monographs on South-East Asia”).
1980 ‘Iban inequality’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 136 (1): 52-63.
1985 ‘The ideological prerequisites of inequality’, p. 36-46 in H. J. M. Claessen et al. (Eds):
Development and decline: the evolution of socio-political organization, South Hadley,
Mass.: Bergin & Garvey.
SATHER, C.
1978 ‘The Bajau Laut’, p. 172-192 in V. T. King (Ed.): Essays on Borneo Societies, Oxford:
Oxford University Press (“Hull Monographs on South-East Asia”).
SCHNEIDER, W. M.
1978 ‘The Selako Dayak’, p. 59-77 in V. T. King (Ed.): Essays on Borneo Societies, Oxford:
Oxford University Press (“Hull Monographs on South-East Asia”).
SELLATO, B.
1986 Les Nomades forestiers de Bornéo et la sédentarisation, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Paris:
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 570 p.
WHITTIER, H. L.
1973 Social Organization and symbols of social differentiation: An ethnographic study of the
Kenyah Dayak of East Kalimantan (Borneo), East Lansing: Michigan State University
(Ph.D. thesis, authorized facsimile printed by University Microfilms International),
259 p
1978 ‘The Kenyah’, p. 92-122 in V. T. King (Ed.): Essays on Borneo Societies, Oxford:
Oxford University Press (“Hull Monographs on South-East Asia”).
WORTMANN, J. R.
1971a ‘Milestones in the History of Kutai, Kalimantan-Timur, Borneo’, Borneo Research
Bulletin, 3 (1) : 5-6.
1971b ‘The Sultanate of Kutai, Kalimantan Timur: A Sketch of the Traditional Political
Structure’, Borneo Research Bulletin, 3 (2): 51-55.
WURM, S. A. and S. HATTORI (Eds)
1983 Language Atlas of the Pacific Area, Part II: Japan Area, Philippines and Taiwan,
Mainland and Insular Southeast Asia, Canberra: The Australian Academy of the
Humanities, and Tokyo: The Japan Academy.
CHAPTER VI
THE SPECIAL SIBLING-IN-LAW:
KINSHIP IN THE MÜLLER MOUNTAINS *
T
his chapter shows and investigates, among former nomadic
hunting-gathering groups of Borneo, a correlation between the
nomadic way of life and economy, and utrolocal post-marital
residence, through the study of some complex terminological systems for
affines of the same generation, involving distinction of same-sex and
cross-sex relation, and gender differentiation.
It appears that very few social anthropologists have cared for
comparative analysis of Borneo kinship terminologies, and even fewer have
bothered to investigate affinal terminology.
Actually, complete affinal terminologies are extremely rare in the
ethnographic literature on Borneo.
This chapter is thus an attempt, based on the few pieces of available
information, to build a model, restricted to former nomadic groups, that
could turn inconsistent data into something more consistent. Its goal is
to provide, not definitive conclusions, but some hints as to possible
directions for further research.
Some affinal terminological systems for sibling’s spouse/spouse’s sibling
The following list, not to be considered exhaustive, focuses on central
Borneo languages. We shall first put aside some terminological systems,
such as the ones using the term *ipaR: Bajau ipal 1, Jama Mapun ipa 2,
Maloh epar 3, Ba’amang ipar 4, and the ones showing Malay influence,
such as Selako kaka’ minantu, abang minantu, adi’ minantu 5.
Let us consider here a large set of languages using a term that may be
reconstructed as *(C)angU(q): Kayan hangu 6, Busang hangu’, Bahau
hanguu’, Lun Dayeh lango 7 , Aoheng langu, Murut langoi 8 , Kayan-
94 INNERMOST BORNEO
9
Mahakam dango’, Punan-Ratah rango’, Bolongan sango’ , Long-Gelat
mengou, Murik angu 10, Punan-Ba langu 11.
Other languages also use one specific term for SbSp/SpSb: Benua’
ayuu, Tunjung-Linggang ngeringa’, while others refer to and address SbSp
and SpSb by sibling terms (Kenyah 12 ), or more commonly by personal
12 13
names (Kenyah ; Rungus-Dusun ).
Listed in Fig. 9 are languages that show a two- or three-term system for
SbSp and SpSb. The criterion for use of one or another term is exclusively
one of gender: gender of the speaker and gender of the person referred to
or addressed. M stands for male, F for female. When the speaker’s sex is
not stated in the source, the term is put in brackets.
From the point of view of the linguistic classification, it is to be noted
that *ipaR appears in exo-Bornean languages (as classified by Hudson 20 ),
such as Selako and Maloh, as well as in an endo-Bornean languages of the
West-Barito group (Ba’amang). We shall here consider *ipaR an exo-
Bornean term. *(C)angU(q) is found in languages of the Kayanic subgroup
of the Kayan-Kenyah group, of the Rejang-Baram group, of the Apo-Duat
group, but also in exo-Bornean languages of the Idahan group (Murut,
Bolongan). The first six languages in Fig. 9 are members of the East-
Barito and West-Barito groups, while the remainder (except Kajang, as far
as is known) forms what may be called a large scattered “Punan-Bukat”
group 21 composed of small former hunting-gathering ethnic groups,
whose languages have been classified partly in the Rejang-Baram group
and partly in the Kayan-Kenyah group.
19
seen as ideal . And among the Ot-Danum (including the Dohoi), resi-
dence is now neolocal, while it seems to have been uxorilocal in the past 28.
In central Borneo, sexual intercourse with one’s SbSp or SpSb is strictly
prohibited (although in certain cases marriage might be recommended
after Sb’s or Sp’s death). Besides, it is often forbidden to refer to one’s SbSp
(or SpSb) ’s personal name, or to address him/her.
In most cases, shyness and reluctance are the rule between any two
affines of this kind.
While it is easy for two affines to avoid each other when living in
different villages, or even in different households, cohabitation in the
same household brings some alteration to the initial situation. Two male
affines have to hunt and fish together, two female affines to work in the
fields or in the house together. So that initial reluctance between same-
sex affines will soon be eroded by daily collaboration. On the contrary,
cross-sex avoidance will be strengthened by cohabitation.
Post-marital residence and affinal terminology
• Neolocal residence
A young couple sets up house on their own. Usually there will be no
live-in affine, and relations with one’s SbSp (or SpSb) will be out of the
household, during formal meetings and socializing. Then a single term
for any kind of affine of the same generation will do, for avoidance or
reluctance is not emphasized by cohabitation. That would be the case for
Lun Dayeh, Murut, Bolongan (among others).
• Uxorilocal residence
Girls bring their husbands into their parents’ household, while boys
marry out. So a female ego’s live-in affines will be men only (her sisters’
husbands), and a male ego will reside with his wife’s sisters and have only
female affines.
The term *(C)angU(q) is thus restricted to cross-sex relation and is
heavily connoted with sexual taboo and extreme avoidance. This is the
case for Kayan and culturally related groups. The same pattern would
apply to groups where virilocal residence is the rule.
• Utrolocal residence
It often happens that several sons and daughters bring their spouses
into their parents’ household. Three kinds of affinal relations within the
same generation are then produced : male-male, male-female, and
female-female, following the diagrams in Fig. 10 below:
THE SPECIAL SIBLING-IN-LAW 97
We must note, however, the seemingly odd facts that the Kenyah
groups, whose residence is usually utrolocal, locally tending towards
uxorilocality 29, and the Rungus Dusun, whose residence is regularly
uxorilocal 30, apparently use no specific term for SbSp/SpSb. The Kajang
98 INNERMOST BORNEO
SbSp/SpSb, although this is only conjecture (it might be also that two-
term systems are just incomplete remains of former three-term systems).
Fig. 13. Three-gender third singular personal pronouns
NOTES
*. This paper was prepared in 1982 for the Conference on Cognatic Forms of Social
Organization in Southeast Asia, organized by the University of Kent at Canterbury and
the University of Amsterdam, and held in Amsterdam on Januray 6-8, 1983. Under the
title “Nomadism, utrolocal residence, and affinal terminology in Borneo”, it was
included in a two-volume collection of conference papers released shortly after the
conference (p. 82-91) but, for obvious reasons, was not selected to appear in the book,
Cognation and Social Organization in Southeast Asia, edited by F. Hüsken and J. Kemp
(Leiden: KITLV Press, 1991).
The paper is given here in its original form, save for minor language editing. It is
outdated with regard to the published sources cited, the wordlists available, the
reconstruction of protoforms, and the classification of Borneo languages. More recent
personal fieldwork (1983-1985, 1988-1996, 1998, 2000) has elicited among (formerly)
nomadic groups an extra four three-term sets (Beketan, Lisum, Punan Haput, Punan
Tubu) and three two-term set (Punan Belait, Punan Murung, Penan Benalui), as well as
five two-term sets among settled peoples: Kanowit (possibly former nomads), Merap
(closely associated with Punan Tubu), Tebilun/Abai (idem), Ot Danum (= Dohoi), and
Melahui (related to Dohoi). Among the eight two-term sets, six place emphasis on the
same-sex male relationship, the remaining two belonging to isolects of the Barito
language grouping. While the new data seem to substantiate this paper’s preliminary
conclusions, they certainly also warrant a more thorough reevaluation by specialists of
the whole set of data available on Borneo, not just in a purely linguistic perspective, but
taking also into consideration the historical and ethnographic data, to examine the
possible cultural influences and the distribution of certain features and patterns. The
attempt this paper makes, however inexpertly, at correlating, in a historical perspective,
cultural facts often considered separately, hopefully will trigger more cross-disciplinary
102 INNERMOST BORNEO
approaches to this and other such questions. I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to
Frédéric Plessis for the pains he took to retype and edit a twenty-year-old machine-
typed manuscript and create the tables and diagrams.
1. Sather in Appell (1976: 60).
2. Casiño in Appell (1976: 24).
3. King (1976: 151).
4. Hudson (1967: 96).
5. Schneider in King (1978: 77).
6. Rousseau in King (1978: 91).
7. Crain in King (1978: 141).
8. Needham (1955b: 160).
9. Beech (1908: 66).
10. Blust in Rousseau (1974: 162).
11. Needham (1955a: 32).
12. Whittier in King (1978: 112).
13. Appell in King (1978: 154).
14. Hudson (1967: 96).
15. Hudson in King (1978: 231).
16. Mallinckrodt (1925: 182).
17. Needham (1954: 522).
18. Needham (1965: 66 , 1966: 7).
19. De Martinoir in Rousseau (1974: 270-271).
20. Hudson (1978).
21. Data from my own fieldwork (1974-75 and 1979-81). Kereho-Busang are also
known as Punan-Penyabong, Kereho-Uheng as Punan-Keriau, Hovongan as Punan-
Bungan, and Semukung as Punan-Nanga Ira’ (Upper Kapuas).
22. Rousseau in King (1978: 82).
23. Prentice in LeBar (1972: 157).
24. LeBar (1972: 161).
25. Crain in King (1978: 140).
26. Needham in LeBar (1972: 179).
27. Hudson in King (1978: 224).
28. Avé in LeBar (1972: 193).
29. Whittier in King (1978: 120).
30. Appell in Appell : 1976: 69).
31. LeBar (1972: 176).
32. Hudson in LeBar (1972: 188).
33. Whittier (1973: 22).
34. Sellato (1981: 49).
35. Whittier in King (1978: 114).
REFERENCES
APPELL, G. N. (Ed.)
1976 The Societies of Borneo: Explorations in the Theory of Cognatic Social Structures,
Washington: American Anthropological Association (“Special publication”, 6), 160 p.
THE SPECIAL SIBLING-IN-LAW 103
BEECH, M. W. H
1908 The Tidong dialects of Borneo, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 120 p.
HUDSON, A. B.
1967 The Barito isolects of Borneo, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press (“Southeast
Asia Program”, Data Paper 68).
1978 ‘Linguistic relations among Bornean peoples with special reference to Sarawak: An
interim report’, Studies in Third World Societies, 3: 1-44.
KING, V. T.
1976 ‘The Maloh language: A vocabulary and summary of the literature’, Sarawak Museum
Journal, XXIV (45): 137-164.
KING, V. T. (Ed.)
1977 Essays on Borneo societies, Oxford: Oxford University Press (“Hull Monographs on
South-East Asia”, 7), 256 p.
LEBAR, F. M. (Ed.)
1972 Ethnic groups of Insular South-East Asia, Vol. 1, Indonesia, Andaman Islands and
Madagascar, New Haven: HRAF Press, 226 p., 10 maps.
MALLINCKRODT, J.
1925 ‘Ethnografische Mededeelingen over de Dajaks in de afdeeling Koeala-Kapoeas,
Hoofdstuck IV-X’ BKI, 80-81: 61-302.
NEEDHAM, R.
1954 ‘A note on some nomadic Punan’, Indonesië, 7 : 520-523.
1955a ‘Punan Ba’, JMBRAS, 28 (1): 24-36.
1955b ‘A note on some Murut kinship terms’, JMBRAS, 28 (1): 159-161.
1965 ‘Death-names and solidarity in Penan society’, BKI, 121: 58-76.
1966 ‘Age, Category and Descent’, BKI, 122: 1-35.
ROUSSEAU, J. (Ed.)
1974 The Peoples of Central Borneo, Kuching: Sarawak Museum, special issue of the
Sarawak Museum Journal, XXII (43), 383 p.
SELLATO, B.
1981 ‘Three-gender personal pronouns in some languages of Central Borneo’, Borneo
Research Bulletin, 13 (1): 48-49.
WHITTIER, H. L.
1973 Social Organization and symbols of social differentiation: An ethnographic study of the
Kenyah Dayak of East Kalimantan (Borneo), Ph.D. thesis, East Landing: Michigan
State University, 259 p.
CHAPTER VII
RECONSTRUCTING BORNEO’S CULTURE HISTORY:
THE RELEVANCE OF THE FOREST NOMADS *
T
he question of the origin of the hunter-gatherers of Borneo has
been an issue since early authors began to express theoretical
interest in them. Here below is a summary of the various theories.
THE ORIGINS OF BORNEO’S HUNTER-GATHERERS
Classical theories
The first idea to appear saw in the nomads the leftovers of a general
evolutionary process; that is, they were those who did not evolve into agri-
culturalists. Advocated by Hose & McDougall (1912), Kennedy (1935 in
LeBar, 1972), and Stöhr (1959), this idea was based on observed cultural
and linguistic affinities and frequent ethnic associations between the
nomads and agriculturalists. A second, later idea claimed that the culture
of the nomadic hunter-gatherers is independent from those of the
agriculturalists. Von Heine-Geldern (1946) and J. Nicolaisen (1976a,
1976b) drew this conclusion from existing features in the culture and
social organization of the hunter-gatherers that they deemed incompatible
with those of the agriculturalists. A third idea, developed later, was that of
devolution. I shall dwell at length on this last one below.
I would like to make a few preliminary comments before proceeding.
First, we should be aware that our knowledge of Bornean hunter-gatherers
to this day remains very fragmentary; we do not even have a complete and
thorough inventory of existing groups. Second, what we know bears the
heavy mark of the situation in Sarawak, where most serious studies were
made. Third, most of these studies focused on contemporary situations
and did not include investigations into history. Fourth, the exclusive,
polar opposition between hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists expressed
106 INNERMOST BORNEO
were over a half dozen bands traveling around. Some, on the lower
Mendalam and Sibau, were already associated with Taman agricultural-
ists; others were entering into conflict with the Aoheng of the upper
Mahakam; others still were roaming abroad with no contact whatsoever
with farming groups.
After the Kayan arrived on the upper Kapuas and displaced the
Taman, some Bukat came into association with them. Several Bukat
bands went to live on the Baleh around 1840, but Iban and Beketan
attacks forced them, between 1850 and 1900, to move East to the Müller
Mountains and later enter the upper Kapuas and Mahakam river basins.
Some of these refugees lived near the Hovongan, others near the Aoheng
and the Seputan. While the Mendalam Bukat began to settle between
1880 and 1900 near the Kayan, those in the Müller Mountains gathered,
with the intervention of the colonial government, in a hamlet on the
Mahakam in 1910, with one band moving back to the Baleh. The latter
band moved up the Rajang above the Pelagus, then to Belaga, where they
associated with the Kayan. Later they settled on the upper Balui, at Long
Aya’, but Bukat families kept moving back and forth between the Balui
and Mahakam.
Subsequently the Bukat, as an ethnic group, have been associated with
the Taman, the Kapuas Kayan, the Hovongan (or Punan Bungan,
former nomads), the Aoheng of the Huvung (of Ot Danum ancestry),
the Aoheng of Long Apari (former nomads), the Aoheng of the Serata (of
Kayan ancestry), the Seputan (of half nomadic and half Ot Danum
ancestry), and the Balui Kayan. During their far-ranging moves, many of
the Bukat bands entered into association with several successive
neighboring settled groups. The process of conversion of the Bukat to
agricultural practices touched one band after another, from those closest
to settled farmers to the most remote, during an extended period of time
since before 1800 until now. The earliest converts have long since been
assimilated by the Taman or the Kayan, whereas the latest still rely
heavily on wild sago. The various Bukat bands, according to their region
of residence, learned agriculture from several distinct patrons.
The Lisum of the upper Belayan River (East Kalimantan) have been
used by Hoffman (1986) as an example of a typical “partial society”.
Hoffman claimed that the Lisum are but an offshoot of the Lepo Timai
Kenyah who chose to move into the forest as nomadic hunter-gatherers in
order to exploit forest products for trade. Actually, the Lisum were living
on the upper Balui, above Belaga, around the turn of the twentieth
century. Because of Iban raids, they left Sarawak between 1910 and 1920
for the Apo Kayan area, where they placed themselves under the
RECONSTRUCTING BORNEO’S CULTURE HISTORY
111
protection of the Lepo Tau Kenyah (their former enemies). Later on, they
moved with the Lepo Timai over to the Belayan (see Sellato, 1988).
Therefore, the association of the Lisum with the Lepo Timai Kenyah, and
indeed with the Kenyah in general, is fairly recent (more on Lisum history
below).
Similar historical reconstructions have been made, using both archive
sources and local oral traditions, for a number of Punan and other
nomadic and formerly nomadic groups. I do not know of a single
documented example of full-time rice farmers having switched to full-
time hunting-gathering. In the last few centuries, actually, the general
trend has been for nomadic populations to switch to some form of
agricultural activities. What is known of the history of hunting-gathering
groups in Borneo dispels the very notion that any nomadic group is a
“partial society” of a given agriculturalist group.
Historical reconstructions for large settled agricultural groups, such as
the Iban or the Kayan, have been made, allowing for an understanding of
social, political, and economic factors in the processes of migration and
community fission and fusion. The reconstruction of historical, “genetic”
relationships between different Punan groups is less easy, because of a
relative dearth of data (inconsistent archive sources, shorter time-depth
in local oral traditions, stronger tendency to fission and fusion of smaller
population units, long-distance migrations, inconsistent ethnonyms).
However, such reconstructions can yield interesting conclusions.
Let us start with the now extinct Sru people (details and references in
Sellato, 1989a). The Sru were living in the eighteenth century on the Gaat
or Lugat River (Baleh basin). From there they were expelled by the Kayan
in the early nineteenth century. Some fled downstream to the Rajang,
others to the Kapuas. Those who fled to the Rajang were again attacked,
this time by the Iban, around 1850; some fled farther downstream the
Rajang and finally disappeared as an ethnic entity by 1900, others fled to
the Baleh, and others again fled “to Lusum” (sic; see Sellato, 1989a).
Those who fled before the Kayan to the Kapuas came to live, under the
name of Lugat, near the Maloh of the upper Embaloh River around
1820-1830, then near the Aoheng of the upper Kapuas between 1860 and
1880; some of those crossed over to the Mahakam, where they
contributed to the formation of the Kerio’ subgroup of the Aoheng, while
others probably went back to the Lugat River of the Baleh, where two
hamlets were noted in 1882. Those who fled to “Lusum”, in the upper
Balui, are the Lisum mentioned above and referred to as Uma Lissoom in
1900. As for those who fled before the Iban to the Baleh, they entered the
upper Mahakam; some remained there as Punan Kohi, later to be known
112 INNERMOST BORNEO
as Punan Serata, Punan Langasa, Punan Boh, and Punan Merah; others
ended up joining the Lisum in the upper Belayan River.
This reconstruction makes the Sru the forebears of the current Lisum,
Punan Oho’ (also Lisum), Lugat, Punan Kohi, Punan Merah, and of one
Aoheng subgroup. A similar connection has been established between the
Manketa and Beketan, Punan Busang and Punan Iwan, Punan Haput,
and perhaps others farther East. We have described the Bukat-Ukit
diaspora above. It is interesting to remark that, if Sru, Beketan, and
Bukat were distinct ethnic groups, they all originated in the same area—
that is, the middle section of the watershed between Sarawak and West
Kalimantan. Furthermore, their languages are closely related. It would
not be surprising if these three groups had formed one single group in
the period prior to the north-eastwards migration of the Iban to their
region. They possibly had relations then with the Land Dayak groups.
Another reconstruction suggests that an important party of then-
nomadic Punan Bah moved into the upper Kapuas basin (I. Nicolaisen,
1976), where they were known as Semukung. From there, some went
across the Müller Mountains to mix with the Long-Apari subgroup of
the Aoheng, others went down the Kapuas to mix with a subgroup of the
nomadic Kereho (or Punan Keriau) and form the Hovongan (or Punan
Bungan), others again went farther down the Kapuas where they still live
today as Semukung or Uheng (at Nanga Ira’; Sellato, 1989a). Other
historical reconstructions connect the Lisum to the Punan of northern
East Kalimantan (Mentarang, Malinau, Tubu), and the latter, probably,
to the Punan groups of the eastern coast (Punan Sekatak, Punan Batu,
Basap, and others; Sellato, work in progress)
Thus, it appears that a number of Punan groups are historically and
genetically related to one another and that the network of their genetic
relationships extends over Borneo from coast to coast. Each particular
nomadic band, in the course of its history and along its migration routes,
forged associations, many of them short-lived, with various successive
settled ethnic groups. Between 1900 and 1950, many nomadic bands
stopped migrating and started living more permanently near a given
farming group, which became their patron in the process of their
sedentarization and conversion to agriculture (this process is described in
detail in Sellato, 1989a). The nomads’ subsequent situation of economic
and political vassalage typically led to a certain degree of cultural
assimilation to their patrons’ culture. However, the various nomadic (or
formerly nomadic) groups are historically and genetically closer to one
another than any of them is to its closest long-settled agricultural
neighbor.
RECONSTRUCTING BORNEO’S CULTURE HISTORY
113
Cultural arguments
Studies and reports on a number of nomadic and formerly nomadic groups
of Borneo, though fragmentary, allow for some investigation concerning
several aspects of culture that appear to be common to most of these
groups. Since this has been described at length elsewhere (references in
Sellato, 1989a), I shall only briefly consider here a few specific arguments
on the material, spiritual, and ideological aspects of their culture.
• Material culture
Many Punan groups have only recently acquired iron tools and can
still remember pre-iron times (e.g., J. Nicolaisen, 1976a, 1976b). It has
been shown that sago trees can be felled with a stone ax and split open
with a wooden wedge and mallet (see Seitz, 1981), although it is more
time-consuming than with iron tools (Rousseau, 1977). It is most
probable that the pre-iron Punan hunting kit included a fire-hardened
spear and a weapon projecting arrows, and their techniques included the
beat hunt and vegetable poisons. Against the view that a hunting culture
could not have existed before the availability of iron (e.g., Seitz, 1981),
which allowed the boring of a hole in the hardwood blowpipe, I have
suggested the pre-existence of a bamboo blowpipe (similar to the one in
use in Peninsular Malaysia) or even the bow and arrow (the existence of
which is attested to in Borneo), associated with the use of vegetable
poisons, the wide knowledge of which might be the base of a specifically
Punan technology. The involvement of women in hunting appears to be
restricted in Borneo to Punan groups, but it is known among Philippines
Negritos (Estioko-Griffin & Griffin, 1981). Many Punan groups admit
that, until relatively recent times, they did not have dogs. Some, as has
been reported, did not know fishing nets, fish traps, nor even the fish
hook, and the most common fishing technique involved, again, the use of
poisons. Also often reported is the absence of the technique and use of
canoes among Punan groups.
Such reports of the lack, either in the ethnographic present or in the
past, of one or another of the technological items above concern a variety
of widely scattered Punan groups. It must be argued, then, that most
nomadic groups, at a certain time in their history, shared the same pre-
iron hunting-gathering technology. This also suggests that some Punan
groups have remained, until relatively recently, very isolated from any
trade networks. Why, if iron was available, would they have gone on
using stone tools?
Such dog-less, iron-less, hook-less, and canoe-less nomads have been
able, I argued, to make a living of the tropical rainforest. Some recently
114 INNERMOST BORNEO
paré (2), “the inside of the paddy (grain)”, borrowed from the Müller
Mountain Punan, the latter reflecting, using the Kayan loanword paréi
(“rice-plant” or “unhusked rice grain”; 4), the Ot Danum expression
luang paroi (2). The Belayan Beketan borrowed baha (2) from either the
Lepo Tau Kenyah (1) or their earlier Tanjong or Land Dayak neighbors
(1, 19), while the Balui Beketan probably borrowed belet (1) from their
Kajang neighbors (Ba Mali, 1).
* Pig (domestic) – The Kapuas and Mahakam Bukat borrowed succes-
sively two terms, ukot (2) from the Aoheng (okot) and uting (2) from the
Kayan (4, 5). Both terms are in use. The Belayan Beketan use uting (2),
while the Balui Beketan use bahoi (1), derived from the term for wild pig.
* Chicken – The Mahakam Bukat and the Kapuas Bukat use sio (2), a
term they probably borrowed recently from the Aoheng and the Müller
Mountain Punan (2), or perhaps earlier from the Kanowit and Tanjong
siau (1). The Balui Bukat, besides sio (6), borrowed the term yap (1) from
the Kayan (iap, hiap, hñap, 4, 5). The Belayan Beketan borrowed dék (2)—
see the Kajang diek (1)—before they moved from the Balui and maintain-
ed it, while today’s Balui Beketan use siap (1), which they probably bor-
rowed from Land Dayak languages (sio’, siop, siap; 19) before moving to
the upper Balui. Ultimately, all these terms, hñap, siap, and sio, seem to cor-
respond phonologically to Malay sayap, “wing” (K. A. Adelaar, pers. comm.).
* Iron – The Kapuas Bukat use uaja (2), borrowed from the Aoheng
(who themselves reinterpreted the term baja), while the Balui Bukat use
laté (1), perhaps related to the Kayan term tité or titéi (4, 5). The Beketan
borrowed besi (1), probably from the Iban, when they were still living in
West Kalimantan and western Sarawak. After moving into East Kaliman-
tan, the Belayan Beketan have maintained b2si (2). The Balui Beketan
borrowed also malat (1) from the Kajang (Kejaman, 1) or the Kenyah
(16), who themselves adopted for “iron” the Kayan term for “sword”.
Punan groups borrowed lexical items (along with the related
technology) from one or another of the settled ethnic groups with whom
they have been associated in the course of their history. The independent
acquisition of the lexical items above from distinct source languages by
different Punan sub-groups speaking the same language should suggest, a
contrario, that these items were absent in the language considered before
the various sub-groups split. Other examples of obviously independent
borrowing could be given for lexical items related to some social and ritual
practices (e.g., “bridewealth”).
120 INNERMOST BORNEO
• Lexical heritage
I propose here three chosen lexical items showing a wide spatial
distribution in Punan languages. These items are common to, or cognates
among, the languages of various Punan groups, some spatially very remote
from one another, and are not found in the languages of the main settled
ethnic groups with whom the Punan groups are often said to be
linguistically and culturally related.
* k2loβi, “child” – Mahakam and Kapuas Bukat (2): k2laβi; Lisum (2):
k2 loβ ai; Punan Bahau (7): keloφ ih; Punan Tubu (2): k2 loφ ii’; Punan
Malinau (3): kloφi:; Punan Sekatak (9), Sihan (13): k2loβi; Punan Batu
(12): kloβi; Basap or Punan Binai (3): klohéi; Sihan (17): klooi (“teenager”).
Compare with Aoheng (2) and Seputan (2): koβ i (ané koβ i, “young
children”; koβi laki, “male teenager”; doang koβi, “the commoners”). I have
not been able to locate cognates in non-Punan languages. Note that the
item “child” refers to either a kinship term or an age category, or both.
* (a)kan, “to give” – Hovongan (2), Aoheng (2), Kereho (2), Punan
Merah (2), Lisum (2), Punan Haput (2): kan; Seputan (2), Punan Batu
(12), Punan Kohi (10), Baluy Bukat (1), Sihan (13): akan; Mahakam and
Kapuas Bukat (2): ikan; Belayan Beketan (2): makkan. Compare with
Tutong (1): takan; Tanjong (1): akan; Punan Bah, Rejang (1): mekan;
Sekapan, Kejaman (1): makan; Lahanan: maka. The same item or a
derived form appears, with the meaning of “to feed”, “to give (food)”, in
Punan Busang (11): kan; Aoheng (2), Punan Bah (11): makan. In Basap
(15), “a present” is penakakan. This item (a)kan might have distant
cognates in some Land Dayak languages—e.g., Lara (1): mangkan.
* kaβo, “to die”, “dead” – Belayan Beketan (2), Mahakam and Kapuas
Bukat (2), Lisum (2), Punan Merah (2), Punan Batu (12), Sihan (13):
kaβo; Punan Busang (11): kaβoh; Baluy Bukat (6): kaβ2 (see Ukit (1):
kaβo, “to kill”); Aoheng (2), Seputan (2), Hovongan (2), Kereho (2):
koβo; Punan Haput (2): kaφo; Punan Tubu (2): k2φoh; Sru (8): makeboh;
Punan Malinau (3): mékéφoh; Basap or Punan Binai (3): makaho; Punan
Sekatak (9): ng2koφo; Mangketa (1): makabau; Baluy Beketan (1): kauwo
or makabo. Other terms can be derived from this one, e.g., Aoheng (2)
koβo -> p2ngoβo (“to kill”), koβon (“corpse”), k2n2koβon (“death”),
p2k2koβo (“to kill each other”), ny2k2koβo (“to try hard”), k2t2koβo (“to
faint”). Compare kaβo with Punan Bah (11): m2koβoh; Rejang: makaβo
(1) or kebeh (18); Tanjong (1): kebé or kabé; Kanowit: kabis (1) or kébéh
(2); Melanau (14, 18, 20): kabas, kebeh, or kubuh. This lexical item is
most probably related, if to anything, to the Land Dayak languages,
which display kobos, kabus, kaboi, kabis, kubus (1, 18, 19, 20). The terms
RECONSTRUCTING BORNEO’S CULTURE HISTORY
121
kabus, k2bos, and kebis are found among the Semang and Sakai languages
of the Malay peninsula (14, 20). This lexical connection was noted by
Skeat and Blagden (1906: 437, 576). Note that Kanowit (2) kébéh,
“dead”, derives into kubéh, “to kill”, while Sadong (18) kubus derives into
kenobus, and Lara (18) kabis into ngamis.
Such terms, as can be seen, spread across the island from western
Sarawak to the eastern coast. They have no close cognates, if any at all, in
the languages of either Kayan, Kenyah, or Iban, allegedly closely related to
Punan languages. The languages of these Punan groups, then, have some-
thing in common that their respective patrons’ languages do not have.
This should come as no surprise for those of the Punan groups included
by Hudson (1978) in his Rejang-Baram Group. Other languages of the
RB Group include the Lahanan, Kejaman, Sekapan, Tutong, Berawan,
Melanau, Kanowit, Tanjong, Punan Bah, and Sajau Basap. Indeed, this
group stretches across from western Sarawak to the eastern coast of
Kalimantan. Furthermore, Hudson himself stresses the “genetic relation-
ship” between his Rejang-Baram Group and the Land Dayak Group. The
Punan of the Müller Mountains (Aoheng, Seputan, Hovongan, Kereho),
though classified in the Kayan-Kenyah Group, share also lexical connec-
tions with the Kajang, Melanau, and Land Dayak. The situation of the
languages of the Punan-Nibong subgroup of the Kayan-Kenyah Group is
not clear. Let me stress again that such classifications as Hudson’s do not
take into account several significant linguistic features.
I would then suggest that the lexical items above belong to an ancient
lexical substratum common to the languages of both the Rejang-Baram
Group and the Müller Mountain Punan groups. I would consider this
old stratum a part of an old Punan linguistic entity.
• Phonology
We shall now have a very brief look at a few phonological features of
Punan languages. A preliminary study of a dozen Punan languages of
Kalimantan shows that they never display less than six phonemically-
distinctive vowels, and often as many as eight, whereas it seems that
standard (Baluy) Kayan and Iban have only five or six (Cubit, 1964;
Asmah Haji Omar, 1977).
As for consonants, it may be mentioned that semi-vowels (/j/ and /w/)
are symptomatically absent or rare, a fact which strongly sets off the
various Punan languages against Kayan particularly, but also against Iban
and most Kenyah languages. Bilabial fricatives, on the other hand, are
common in inter-consonantic position, another seemingly specific trait.
An almost generalized absence of preplosive nasal consonants in final
122 INNERMOST BORNEO
t p k
position (- n, - m, - ng) in Punan languages opposes them to Barito and
Land Dayak languages. The consistently absent or uncommon -CC-
forms in Punan root words (as well as regular cluster reduction in
loanwords) might be yet another typical feature. Certain consonant
clusters appear, however, in some affixed forms.
These preliminary remarks hint at the possible existence of specific
phonological features in Punan languages and suggest that further
investigation in this field might yield interesting conclusions.
• Morphology
Ongoing studies suggest that some morphological features (affixation
systems, ergative clauses) displayed by Punan languages are generally
rather weakly developed compared to those of languages like Kayan or
Iban. Punan languages, in this respect, might have to be connected with
Land Dayak languages. This remark is, again, only preliminary, as these
and others morphological features require further investigation.
• A Punan linguistic entity
I have therefore suggested that many Punan languages (i.e., languages
of nomadic and formerly nomadic groups) have retained a common stock
from a specific lexical substratum pre-dating the spread to, or develop-
ment within, Borneo of languages including modern items such as those
related to rice agriculture. I have also suggested that some phonological
and morphological features might be specific to Punan languages, setting
them apart from the neighboring farmers’ languages. Semantic analyses of
Punan languages might also uncover specific features.
The size and composition of the old lexical substratum, as well as the
degree of retention of specific phonological and morphological features, in
current Punan languages can be expected to vary according to the degree
of linguistic (and more generally cultural) interaction in the past between
a given Punan group and its specific (and often successive) farming
neighbors. In some current Punan languages, little remains, probably, of
the ancient lexical substratum. The permeable character of Punan culture
and probably also the relative population size should be seen as account-
ing for a heavy linguistic borrowing, occurring along with economic and
cultural interaction and overlaying the specific features of the old
linguistic substratum. In any case, more research in the Punan languages
is badly needed.
Conclusion
I shall here summarize the arguments above. It has been suggested that: i)
most nomadic (and formerly nomadic) groups are historically and
RECONSTRUCTING BORNEO’S CULTURE HISTORY
123
genetically closer to one another than any of them is to its closest long-
settled agricultural neighbor; ii) most nomadic (and formerly nomadic)
groups show deep-rooted cultural similarities that hint at an ancient and
original hunting-gathering culture, independent from the cultures of the
rice cultivators; iii) linguistic evidence (to be further investigated) points
at the implausibility of a number of Punan languages being mere dialects
of the languages of given long-settled rice-farming groups.
There is sufficient historical information to suggest that most of the
ethnic groups whose languages are included in the Rejang-Baram Group
and the Müller Punan Group have been economically relying, in the more
or less recent past, on either pure hunting-gathering or a mixed system
combining wild and cultivated sago. This conclusion, along with other
conclusions above concerning ideological and linguistic features, should
lead us to believe that these groups shared a common culture (including
here a linguistic background) that was (and indeed, to a certain extent,
still remains) autonomous from those of the rice-growing peoples. Once
again, the situation of the Punan groups of the Punan-Nibong linguistic
subgroup, linguistically more distantly related, is not clear, but they might
well have shared also into the same culture.
I should then conclude that the reconstruction of Borneo’s culture
history based on the theory of devolution is not valid and that we should
consider an alternative model.
BORNEO’S CULTURE HISTORY: AN ALTERNATIVE RECONSTRUCTION
The following summarizes an alternative reconstruction of Borneo’s
culture history that tentatively accounts for all available data and insists
on setting archaeological and linguistic data in a wider reference frame
including the data provided by ethnohistory and ethnography. This
reconstruction remains speculative for the moment, but I believe it is no
more and no less so than earlier ones. Besides, common sense suggests
that, between two speculative reconstructions, we should go for the one
that is most explanatory.
It appears to me that supporters of a devolutionary process (particu-
larly Hoffman) often conveniently forget to refer to a given historical (or
prehistoric) period: The Punan are devolved agriculturalists, they state;
but when have they devolved? Four millennia ago, or one century ago?
The question of hunter-gatherers in Borneo calls for a distinction between
three unrelated possible processes. The first concerns the prehistoric
adaptation of the Australoid hunting-gathering population to the
establishing tropical rainforest in Borneo (about 10,000 BP). The second
refers to the ancient colonization of the rainforest by allegedly agricultural
124 INNERMOST BORNEO
cultivators, and I tend to suppose that these populations did not have the
knowledge of rice. However, whether or not they had some knowledge of
the rice plant (and of the vocabulary related to it) might appear irrelevant,
in either the southern Philippines or Borneo, since they most probably
did not possess the technological equipment to cultivate it in the rain-
forest. Part of these people probably remained coast-bound, practicing a
mixed economy of forest foraging (particularly wild sago) in low plains,
coastal foraging and fishing, and perhaps some horticulture (cultivated
sago and tubers). Others penetrated farther inland to make a living strictly
on forest foraging. If it is established that these early Austronesians had
the knowledge of rice and if a devolutionary process, at this point in time,
should be argued for, then all incoming populations to Borneo would
have devolved, except possibly a few freshwater swamp rice cultivators.
Besides, devolution would have then taken three forms, with some rice
cultivators turning towards nomadic forest foraging, others towards
coastal fishing, and others again towards horticulture, the last referring to
a process never mentioned before in the literature on Borneo.
I would assume that these foraging Austronesians, equipped with the
superior Neolithic tool kit, successfully competed with a low-density
Australoid population and finally submerged it phenotypically and
linguistically. However, one Seputan subgroup of the Müller Mountains
claims that a part of their forefathers (the Mangan) were short people with
dark skin and curly hair; indeed, some of the Seputan still display to a
certain extent these features (Sellato, 1980). Some archaeological
excavations in the Müller Mountains might well revive the old polemic on
the existence of “Negritos” in Borneo. The resulting, predominantly
Mongoloid populations, the ancestors of today’s Punan, have persisted in
remote regions as subsistence foragers equipped with polished quadran-
gular stone axes until not so long ago.
Meanwhile, horticulture probably developed widely in coastal and low
plains, based on tubers, banana, and fruit trees and on the Neolithic tool
kit. Because of a continuous influx of Austronesian populations in coastal
areas and subsequent pressure for land, these horticulturalists spread
inland, ultimately covering most of the island. I believe that this wide-
spread horticultural civilization subsisted in the far interior of Borneo with
little, if any, rice cultivation until fairly recently, perhaps the eighteenth
century. The Siang and Ot Danum of the upper Barito River are still
derogatorily called “tuber eaters” by the Kayanized peoples of the upper
Mahakam. To this day, a number of ethnic groups still rely heavily for
their subsistence on tubers and cultivated sago (whether Metroxylon or
Eugeissona), besides some paddy.
126 INNERMOST BORNEO
cultivation, they found in the region the material provisioning for their
later expansion.
These three groups, becoming demographically and militarily powerful
and culturally dominant, started the real agricultural colonization of the
rainforest, forcing their way like wedges into the forested interior through
the domains of the horticulturalists, then coming into contact with the
isolated foraging bands. They conquered and culturally assimilated,
partially or completely, a number of the ethnic groups standing in their
way and became, in their respective regions, a focus for ethno-cultural
identification (see Rousseau 1990, about the Kayan). Iron then progressed
slowly inland, following the routes of the conquering rice-farming groups,
and may have been in general use among the most isolated populations
only one or two centuries ago. Some fifty years ago, stone tools were still
in use in remote regions among nomads and swamp rice farmers alike (see
J. Nicolaisen, 1976a & 1976b; Avé, 1977; Harrisson, 1984; Sellato,
1989a), with some Lun Dayeh groups having only one iron knife for a
whole village (C. Padoch, pers. comm.).
In spite of its high risk and notably poor yield, as compared to tuber
cultivation (see Conklin, 1980; Dove, 1984), the cultivation of paddy,
and rice as a staple food, have often come to be conceived of, in Borneo,
as high-status. There is obviously, in paddy-based economic systems, a
strong ideological component (for example, among the Iban and Kayan)
that was most probably introduced along with iron-implemented paddy
cultivation. As for paddy itself, it has yet to become the year-long staple
food for a number of ethnic groups that continue to rely heavily on
horticulture and foraging.
So, we would have to consider two successive and distinct processes of
cultural change. The earlier one concerns the switch to horticulture,
bringing nomadic hunter-gatherers into the horticultural civilization. The
later one concerns the switch to rice cultivation, indiscriminately
performed by horticulturalists, hunter-gatherers turned horticulturalists
and, more recently, still nomadic hunter-gatherers under government
pressure.
Therefore I suggest here (as a speculative alternative to a no less
speculative argument) that, instead of a full-fledged rice-cultivating
Austronesian population massively involved in a “devolutionary” process
to become tropical rainforest foragers, an early set of Austronesian-
speaking populations with a Neolithic technology and a flexible mixed
economy including foraging, fishing, and horticulture(?) settled in
Borneo some 4,000 years ago and developed one or another economic
activity according to local environments.
128 INNERMOST BORNEO
NOTES
*. This text was first published in 1993 under the title “The Punan question and the
reconstruction of Borneo’s culture history”, p. 47-81 in V. H. Sutlive, Jr. (Ed.): Change
and Development in Borneo, Williamsburg, VA: Borneo Research Council. It underwent
minor editing. I wish to acknowledge the kind assistance of Sander Adelaar, George
Appell, Lars Kaskija, Jérôme Rousseau, and the late Derek Freeman, who all provided
me with copies of their unpublished vocabularies.
LIST OF LINGUISTIC SOURCES:
1. Ray (1913).
2. Sellato, unpublished wordlists (1973-1990).
3. Kaskija, unpublished wordlists (1990).
4. Southwell (1990).
5. Rousseau (1974).
6. Rousseau, unpublished wordlist (1971).
7. Fidy Finandar (1979).
8. Bailey (1963).
9. Appell, unpublished wordlist (1984).
10. Lumholtz, unpublished wordlists (ca. 1916).
11. Tuton Kaboy (1965).
12. Freeman, unpublished wordlist (1950).
13. Maxwell (1992).
14. Swettenham (1880).
15. Anonymus, unpublished wordlist (KITLV, Leiden, ca. 1925).
16. Galvin, unpublished dictionary (1967).
17. Sandin (1985).
18. Roth (1968, 1st Ed.: 1896).
RECONSTRUCTING BORNEO’S CULTURE HISTORY
129
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Fig. 14. Sketch map of the site of Nanga Balang by Sawing
CHAPTER VIII
HISTORY AND MYTH
AMONG BORNEO PEOPLE *
A
n analysis of a recent manuscript by a leader of a forest nomadic
group of Kalimantan shows a multi-staged manipulation of the
historical tradition, in connection with ancient and modern,
political, cultural, and religious factors, and examines internal
contradictions due to the ongoing alteration of the mode of subsistence,
from hunting-gathering to swidden agriculture.
1. Introduction
The island of Borneo has maintained until fairly recently a number of
tropical rainforest hunting-gathering groups, generally referred to as
Punan or Penan (though other local ethnonyms are found). Today, a
large proportion of them have switched to a partly settled way of life and
some form of agriculture, but even these groups still rely heavily on the
forest, collecting jungle products for trade and, often, processing the wild
sago palms for their subsistence while collecting. The Bukat, one of these
partly settled groups, are found (see Fig. 2, p. 12) in Indonesia’s West
Kalimantan (three hamlets, totaling 300 persons) and East Kalimantan
(one hamlet of 150), and in Malaysia’s Sarawak (one hamlet of 150).
This text focuses on one of the Bukat communities of West Kaliman-
tan 1. It is based on a short manuscript in Indonesian entitled Kisah rakyat
tentang Sebab-sebab terjadinya/terdapatnya benda-benda tua di Kampung
Nanga Balang. This manuscript, dated 12 December 1982, was written by
Sawing Gemala, a Bukat notable of the tiny hamlet of Nanga Balang, on
the uppermost reaches of the Kapuas River (district of Putussibau, regency
of Kapuas Hulu, West Kalimantan). A copy of this manuscript of five
pages (including one page bearing a sketch map of the location of Nanga
138 INNERMOST BORNEO
4th or 5th century A. D.), gold jewelry, stone statues of Hindu gods and
Boddhisatvas (ca. 10th century), and a bronze Buddha were discovered 17.
Thus, it is clear that Indian cultural influence, at least in some of its
visual manifestations, reached quite far inland up Borneo’s major rivers.
As the uppermost Kapuas region is rich in gold and forest products, this
should not be surprising. Networks of trade—and, along with it, cultural
interaction—probably induced the emergence there of supra-tribal polities
in the form of petty trading kingdoms. According to the region, this
Indian influence appears to have been either Shivaist or Buddhist. Among
the artifacts found at the site of Nanga Balang, the presence of gold
jewelry (if not that of the phallic stone) might be interpreted as an
unambiguous clue to such influence. If Indian influence reached the
coasts of Borneo in the 4th or 5th century A. D. 18, it most probably took
several centuries to diffuse to the populations of the far interior. In any
case, western Borneo later came under the influence of the Hindu-
Javanese kingdom of Majapahit (around 1350). Similarly Islam, known to
have reached the coastal regions of West Kalimantan in the mid-16th
century, probably did not diffuse to Putussibau before the first half of the
18th century 19 . Catholic missionaries established themselves near
Putussibau in 1924, and it probably took another couple of decades
before they actually started converting the Bukat.
To my knowledge, none of the sites mentioned above has yielded
metals (that is, other than gold), with the exception of the two bronze
statues mentioned above. Although metal (bronze and iron) technology
might have reached certain points of Borneo’s coasts around 2000 B. P.,
we know that notable iron production in Borneo only started in the 10th
century A. D. 20 and was widespread only among a few inland groups (e.g.,
the Iban and Kayan), and probably not earlier than the 15th century.
Neither of these groups was present on the uppermost reaches of the
Kapuas at any time before the early 19th century. Most inland groups
went on using a Neolithic technology until a couple of centuries ago, and
the most isolated retained the use of stone tools until after World War II 21.
These groups relied on a horticultural economy until the availability of
iron tools allowed for the real opening of tropical rainforests and for the
advent of swidden rice agriculture in their hinterland territories.
• 3.5 Who lived at Nanga Balang?
As the Bukat cannot be retained as the original owners of the artifacts
of Nanga Balang, we should look for other, more plausible candidates.
We know that the Kayan coalition army under Liju Li’—the chief of the
Long-Gelat group, known as the Dayak Napoleon in the Dutch
literature—came over from the upper Mahakam River around 1830 to
148 INNERMOST BORNEO
22
wage war on the Taman and Ot Danum groups of the upper Kapuas .
Oral tradition has it that Liju made swiddens at the confluence of the
Muti River 23. This confluence is located just across the Kapuas from
Nanga Balang. There might have been in this area (Muti-Balang) a
logistic settlement for Liju’s armies. As Sawing states, this area is strategic-
ally located, just above the first rapids (see Fig. 15). Beyond the reach of
attacks from downstream, it is an ideal starting point for launching an all-
out sweeping offensive.
The same oral tradition contends that Liju put some of the local
nomadic groups (Kereho, Hovongan, Bukat) to work to help make
swiddens. The Kayan generally had good relations with the nomads 24
and I have suggested that Liju’s Bukat were nomads from the Mendalam
River, who were already acquainted in trade with the Kayan of the
Mendalam prior to Liju’s attack 25; part of them probably resumed their
association afterwards. We know that the Halangi band, when they left
Sarawak, joined the Belatung band of the Mendalam (ca. 1850), and
then we never hear about the Halangi again. But among the Bukat who
left the Mendalam in the 1910s and finally settled in Metelunai in the
1960s was the Belatung subgroup, to which Gemala belongs 26. If it were
to be speculated that some of Liju’s Bukat hands, after going back to the
Mendalam, left again in the 1830s for the Baleh River basin to become
the Halangi band, then Sawing might truly count among his direct
ancestors some of the Bukat who stayed in the Nanga Balang area with
Liju’s armies, and perhaps even a real band chieftain named Halangi.
Other peoples have passed through this area after Liju. Some Kayan,
the Uma’ Pagung, came from Sarawak to the upper Kapuas River basin
probably just before, or during the Great Kayan Expedition of 1863 and
settled in the 1870s at Nanga Tukung (near present-day Nanga Ira’).
They probably came via the sources of the Kapuas and may have first
resided at Nanga Hakat (near present-day Metelunai) and later other
places, like Nanga Balang.
These episodes, however, seem too recent, and several features of the
Long-Gelat and Kayan culture do not fit the artifacts excavated at Nanga
Balang. First, the Long-Gelat and Kayan did have iron implements and
they were even famous for their sophisticated ironsmithing, unrivalled in
Southeast Asia. Their mastery of iron technology was probably a major
factor in their military conquest of, and cultural dominance over, large
territories in central Borneo. Conversely, they are not known to have ever
worked precious metals, gold or silver (unlike some groups of the
Kapuas, like the Taman or Maloh). Besides, there is not much evidence
of Indian influence in their culture. Furthermore, these groups displayed
HISTORY AND MYTH AMONG BORNEO PEOPLE
149
we were [he was] fair and smart, to discard all these riches; then we [he]
left [i.e., went (back?) to the forest] and since then, we have become what
we are now [or were until recently], a nomadic people.”
Fig. 17
Kapuas region (“a backward area”) might bear traces of an ancient sophis-
ticated culture. This could only confirm my suggestions that the Bukat
only recently became aware of the existence of the artifacts (perhaps when
they settled in Nanga Balang ca. 1960) and that the legend is a relatively
new creation. The ambiguity concerning Halangi’s whereabouts after the
kensurai-flower episode might also be seen as a confirmation of the
speculation above that some of Liju’s Bukat subsequently remained with
the Kayan on the Mendalam, while others went from the Mendalam back
to the forest. In this case, it would make sense that the Bukat attributed the
recently-discovered Nanga Balang artifacts to the earliest episode when
they lived at Nanga Balang, as their oral tradition remembers it.
• 4.2 What should we do with our cultural heritage?
In the legend, Halangi (or the ancestors) discards all the material items
of the old culture. We are not told about the spiritual aspects of this
culture and we might assume that they are discarded, too. However, for
Sawing, this is not the end of the story, since 1) Halangi (the ancestors)
bequeaths the legend to his (their) descendants; 2) he buries the objects so
that, a) they are not damaged by the adherents to the new culture, and b)
his descendants can later find them, for either utilization or study; and 3)
he believes these things might be needed again in the future.
Sawing reinterprets the discarding as being really a careful burying of
the objects for preservation. His rationale is as follows: If the artifacts are
now found buried in the ground, it is because someone buried them on
purpose. This could only be Halangi, who must have believed that these
objects might be needed again by his descendants. It ensues that the old
culture must have had a certain value. If so, artifacts associated with this
culture must be viewed, in turn and retrospectively, as worthy of being
preserved in the ground for future generations to find them. Sawing,
however, admits that the artifacts are often found broken. His rationale
contradicts the legend, which describes Halangi’s total rejection of, and
even hate for, these objects.
In the legend, the manipulation of the tradition is clearly an attempt
at appropriating the culture that produced these artifacts in order to
justify, a contrario, the decision to reject it and to live a nomadic life. The
further stage of manipulation by Sawing appears to aim at asserting the
Bukat’s present moral and cultural rights over the artifacts and the
culture that produced them, for the sake of the Bukat’s past grandeur
and, perhaps, their future (see 5). Halangi rejected them but, after all,
they used to belong to the Bukat.
We should note that Sawing does not claim ownership rights to the
artifacts for the Bukat: “Please come and dig”, he writes. He would be
HISTORY AND MYTH AMONG BORNEO PEOPLE
153
happy enough, it seems, with the ensuing prestige for the Bukat. His
emphasis is in the cultural values that the artifacts represent, not in their
material value. Though this might be seen to constitute an echo to the
national policy of promoting traditional (moral, social, and cultural) values
(nilai-nilai tradisional ), I believe that Sawing is genuinely concerned, for
reasons of identity, with reaching a better comprehension of his group’s
past history.
• 4.3 The Christian point of view: an a posteriori legitimation
Certain ambiguous notions of a cultural heritage appear here. Even if
Sawing does not really believe in his own story, after appropriating this
heritage through the legend itself and through his own interpretation, he
finds himself wavering: If Halangi meant his descendants to find these
artifacts, the question arises of what the current-day Bukat could, and
indeed should, do with them. Utilize them (but how?), or study them (or
rather, find some specialist to do so), but in any case promote them
abroad. Here it is no longer a question of moral right, but one of moral
duty. The author clearly asks: “We have an ancient cultural legacy, but
what is its message to us? What did Halangi expect us to do with it?”
Finally, after studying the problem from the Bukat point of view and
coming up short of answers, Sawing turns to the Christian point of view.
After the first mission opened in the 1910s, the whole upper Kapuas
region converted to Catholicism and, for most Dayak, Christianity has
become an important factor of identity in the context of the Moslems’
dominant regional role. Sawing, again, starts from the idea that Halangi
did bury, not discard, these artifacts. Then the message that Halangi
meant to tell the Bukat, as Sawing reconstitutes it, is: 1) What is created
by God is more perfect than what is made by Man; 2) live simply, do not
be attached to worldly riches, get rid of the superfluity; 3) submit to
God’s decisions with a noble heart.
Sawing’s reconstituted pieces of advice by Halangi to his descendants
form another set of cultural-political statements, strictly parallel to those
we have found in the legend above (see Fig. 17). One suggests, by
stressing the superiority of God-made things over Man-made things, and
therefore that of Nature over Culture, that: “We Bukat were right, from
a Christian point of view, to make the decision to abandon all worldly,
artificial riches for the riches of Nature”. At the same time, this
legitimizes again the nomadic way of life, which is shown as supported
by the Christian teachings. Sawing stops short of stating that it was the
Christian ideology that led the Bukat to become nomadic.
The second statement is of a political-religious nature and addresses
the neighboring ethnic groups: “As we [Halangi and our forebears] came
154 INNERMOST BORNEO
to the conclusion that God-made things [the kensurai flower] are superior
to Man-made things [clothes, jewelry], and as we live simply and have
gotten rid of the superfluity, thus we are better Christians than you who
have remained attached to worldly riches”. This a posteriori use of
Christian teachings to upgrade the status of the usually-despised nomadic
way of life is interesting, the more so because the Bukat are in the process
of settling down and abandoning this way of life, as we shall see below.
• 4.4 The curse and the blessing
We have in this legend and its interpretation a dual rationale for the
Bukat’s nomadic way of life: It is the result of both a curse and a blessing.
The legend itself, whereby Halangi, defeated by a superior power,
dispossesses himself of everything (and supposedly goes to live in the
jungle), is reminiscent of other nomads’ stories explaining the origin of
their nomadic way of life by a defeat, a curse, or a mistake. Shortcomings
in the cultures of nomads (as opposed to farmers) or of interior peoples (as
compared to coastal peoples), as supposed or acknowledged by the partici-
pants in these cultures, are often explained in the same way. The Moken
sea nomads of southwestern Thailand state that they were cursed by a
Malay princess to live wandering on the seas 34. Similarly, a widespread
Bornean legend tells how the Dayak in ancient times, like all humans, had
a Book and were able to read. While crossing a river or during the Great
Flood, they kept their books in their loincloths, the books got wet and
blurred, and this is why the Dayak have no writing. The Malays kept their
books dry in their hats, and so they can still read and write.
I have shown elsewhere 35 how, in the context of Borneo, historical
events bearing a negative impact on a given community’s collective self-
esteem are distorted by the community’s oral tradition, how defeats are
changed into victories, or retreats into free decisions. Even when it can’t
get around an undeniable historical fact, the oral tradition still manages
to come up with an honorable explanation: When the chief is killed by
enemies, for instance, the story tells of either his suicide or his free
decision to let himself be killed.
In the same way I believe that, in this Bukat legend, Halangi’s defeat
by the kensurai flower should be regarded as a curse, which has become
an explanation (intended both for the neighboring farmers and for the
Bukat’s collective self-esteem) for the Bukat’s being (that is, according to
the legend, becoming) nomads. Does this curse conceal a real historical
event? Perhaps the Bukat were sent home by Liju when he had no more
use of them, and they had to abandon all these things they had utilized
or been familiar with while they were staying with Liju’s armies. I would
believe that, one way or another, they had to abandon these objects.
HISTORY AND MYTH AMONG BORNEO PEOPLE
155
They were “banned” from that culture, and the banishment was turned,
in the oral tradition, into Halangi’s “free and noble” decision.
In a typical fashion, Sawing’s interpretation, by making use of the
Christian point of view, attempts to transform the curse into a blessing:
The nomadic way of life is the right way shown by the Christian
teachings, it conforms to God’s will and, by living “in a state of nature”,
the nomads are God’s blessed children. Their feeling of cultural inferiority
vis-à-vis their neighbors is reevaluated into a feeling of religious
superiority, and the nomadic ideology finds here an unexpected modern
religious prop.
• 4.5 Of trees and cultures: a system of representations?
Although I am not certain that symbolic representation systems have a
relevance to the process under study here, I want to devote a few lines to
the tree symbolism in the kensurai story (see 2.3) and in Sawing’s
comments (the last paragraph of 2.3 should belong in 2.4). In both the
legend and Sawing’s comments, it seems that the biyu tree stands for the
old culture, that is, the ancient Bukat culture of Nanga Balang. We
might take the kensurai tree of the legend to represent the nomadic
culture and way of life. We shall see below (4.6) that Sawing does not
state clearly his opinion on what replaced the old culture.
However, Sawing stresses continuity, or rather revival: The biyu tree
under which Halangi was sitting has died but a new biyu tree has
stemmed from the old stump. The old culture has died, but the buried
objects have been bequeathed by Halangi to his descendants, they have
been found again and might be utilized again in the future. Some old
man, in the future, will again hang his rattan swing seat from the
branches of the new biyu tree, when it becomes strong enough. But there
is a shadow in Sawing’s picture: A powerful sengkuang tree has also
grown there and threatens to suffocate the young biyu tree. Does this
mean that the modern world culture, symbolized by the sengkuang, is
expected to overtake the old culture, as if the latter were on the verge of
being revived, only to be doomed to die again by suffocation?
What can we learn from the choice of these tree species 36 ? All three, as
could be expected (a Bukat would not make a mistake in identifying a
tree), grow by rivers (see Fig. 18). The biyu grows on hillsides near rivers,
especially in the secondary forest of fallowed swiddens, which would
make it quite symbolic of a farming culture. The kensurai, growing on
shale rocks on river banks, might symbolize the upriver region, where
rocks crop out on steep river banks. Conversely the sengkuang, growing
on alluvium, would be an appropriate symbol of the flatter downstream
regions. Indeed, the geologist Molengraaff mentions that no rock in situ
156 INNERMOST BORNEO
appears on the Kapuas during the first day’s journey beyond Putussibau,
whereas Balang Island is made of outcropping tuffs 37. The symbolism of
this set of trees and their habitat fits remarkably well with the identifica-
tion of the three cultures. Is it only by sheer chance? Or did Sawing
choose deliberately these three trees to express something? Do these trees
have a meaning in Bukat collective representations? This must remain
open to conjecture for the moment.
Fig. 18
Let us now return to these cultures. We shall refer to them using those
poetic tree names. In my interpretation, the ancient Nanga Balang
culture (the biyu-culture) should be that of Hindu-influenced Pin or Ot
Danum and date back to, say, the second half of the 18th century. The
legend’s kensurai-culture, apparently, refers to the traditional nomadic
Bukat culture, both before and after the Kayan episode (ca. 1830). As for
Sawing’s sengkuang-culture, we shall admit that it refers to the modern
world culture. Sawing disregards the kensurai-culture and considers in its
place a “new culture”, allegedly adopted by the Bukat after they abandon
the biyu-culture. Let us call it simply the new-culture. This one might
really refer to the Kayan culture of Liju’s times.
• 4.6 Plural identity and ideological contradiction
What should we think of the way these cultures are dealt with in the
Bukat legend and in Sawing’s interpretation? The legend mentions only
what we called the biyu-culture and suggests that Halangi rejected it for a
nomadic way of life, which we have called the kensurai-culture. The biyu-
culture is sophisticated and rich but, though it may be regarded as a
cultural golden age, it is not the way of life the Bukat want; the kensurai-
culture is pure, simple, and more appropriate. The legend opts for the
latter, with Halangi possibly deciding to become a nomadic forest dweller
(or to make a retour aux sources by returning to the nomadic way of life
of an earlier stage of Bukat history?).
HISTORY AND MYTH AMONG BORNEO PEOPLE
157
Fig. 19
and a dream for the future. The legend claims that the biyu-culture is the
ancient Bukat culture only to strengthen the nomads’ identity; Sawing
does the same, but for a different purpose: Whether directly (see 2.4) or
metaphorically (see 2.3) he suggests that, out of pride in their own past
or of desire to return to their roots, the Bukat might try to revive their
old culture.
The historical or mythical material on which, in a not-so-remote past,
the still traditional-minded Bukat had drawn in order to strengthen their
ideology and collective identity in face of contemptuous settled farmers is
now becoming irrelevant in the modern Bukat’s living conditions. Even
from the religious point of view, the Bukat can no longer claim to be
better Christians than the farmers, since they themselves have become
consumers, too. Sawing’s comments on the legend he recounts reflect a
re-adjustment, in the process, of the Bukat’s ethnic historical tradition to
new social-economic circumstances. The very same historical and
mythical material is being reworked and its meaning reinterpreted to
better suit the current, slowly changing ideology and way of life. The fact
that this reinterpretation has been committed to paper by a respected
Bukat intellectual confers it more weight in Bukat circles, as it is
common Bukat belief that anything written must be more trustworthy
than something oral.
Postscript
The present paper might, I hope, also serve as a reminder to scholars
tempted to take local oral (or written) testimonies or literature at face
value—particularly when these accounts seem congruent with trendy
theories—without going through the pains of investigating in depth into
ethnography and history and into possible manipulations of historical
accounts for ideological reasons. It would be all too easy to uncritically
make use of such “evidence” as this Bukat legend to bring grist to the
mill of the current spate of “revisionist” hunter-gatherer studies, some of
which conclude too hastily that hunter-gatherers—particularly tropical
rainforest hunter-gatherers—have “devolved” from agricultural societies.
The analysis in this paper, along with those in earlier publications 38,
presents counter-evidence, suggesting that some of these “revisionist”
studies may be overdrawn.
160 INNERMOST BORNEO
NOTES
*. The text above appeared under the title “Myth, history, and modern cultural
identity among hunter-gatherers: a Borneo case” in Journal of Southeast Asian Studies,
24 (1): 18-43, 1993.
1. On the history of the Bukat, see B. Sellato, Nomades et sédentarisation à Bornéo.
Histoire économique et sociale (Paris: Ed. de l’EHESS, “Etudes Insulindiennes/Archipel”
9, 293 p., 1989), p. 35-108; and B. Sellato, Nomads of the Borneo Rainforest. The
Economics, Politics, and Ideology of Settling Down (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press,
272 p., 1994). Michael Heppell carried out a study of the Bukat of Sarawak.
2. B. Sellato, Les Nomades forestiers de Bornéo et la sédentarisation: essai d’histoire
économique et sociale (Ph.D. thesis, Paris: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales,
570 p., 1986); B. Sellato, 1989 and 1994, both op. cit.
3. Baling Avun (a manuscript map of villages of the upper Kapuas), 1961 (my
grateful thanks to Jérôme Rousseau for making this document available to me).
4. R. A. M. Wariso, Suku Daya Punan (Pontianak: Universitas Tanjung Pura,
Fakultas Sosial dan Politik), 1971.
5 V. T. King, ‘Notes on Punan and Bukat in West Kalimantan’, Borneo Research
Bulletin, 6 (2): 39-42, 1974.
6. A. J. Ding Ngo, Mengunjungi Mahakam, unpublished MS, 156 p., 1977.
7. See Sellato, 1989 and 1994, both op. cit.; I had a few interviews with Sawing
there.
8. Anonymous, Monografi Daerah Kalimantan Barat (Jakarta: Dep. P & K, Proyek
Pengembangan Media Kebudayaan, 1976), p. 1.
9. Goenadi Nitihaminoto et al., Laporan Hasil Survai Kepurbakalaan di Propinsi
Kalimantan Barat (Jakarta: Departemen P & K, Proyek Pengembangan Media
Kebudayaan, Berita Penelitian Arkeologi, No 6, 51 p., 1977); there is no mention in this
work of the gold jewelry and nuggets listed in Sawing’s manuscript.
10. The Bukat, contrary to a number of other nomadic forest groups of Borneo,
claim to have maintained through time their autonym (really Buket, where e stands for
a nasalized /µ/), derived from the Bukat name of the Mendalam River, their centre of
origin; though their nomadic bands separately ranged around widely, the Bukat have
always defined their ethnic identity quite sharply in contrast with the other three groups
of forest nomads of the upper Kapuas area, with whom there was permanent hostility;
see also a series of 14 articles by A. Bücher, The Djakarta Times, 1970.
11. See Sellato, 1989 and 1994, both op. cit.
12. See Sellato, 1989, op. cit. p. 45-46; and B. Sellato, 1994.
13. Goenadi, op. cit.
14. See F. D. K. Bosch, 1925a, ‘Oudheidkundig Verslag over het derde en vierde
Kwartaal 1925’, Oudheidkundig Verslag, p. 69-104, 1925, particularly p. 89; N. J.
Krom, ‘Voorloopige Lijst van Oudheden in de Buitenbezittingen’, Oudheidkundig
Verslag, Bijlage T, p. 101-177, 1914; N. J. Krom, Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis (’s-
Gravenhage: Nijhoff, 494 p., 1926), p. 72; D. Lombard, ‘Guide Archipel IV: Pontianak
et son arrière-pays’, Archipel, 28: 77-97, 1984; particularly p. 78, 80; also Anonymous,
HISTORY AND MYTH AMONG BORNEO PEOPLE
161
1976, op. cit., p. 1; and Anonymous, Peta Sejarah Kalimantan Barat (Jakarta: Dep. P &
K, Proyek Inventarisasi dan Dokumentasi Sejarah Nasional, 1985-86).
15. T. Harrisson & S. J. O’Connor, Excavations of the Prehistoric Iron Industry in West
Borneo (Ithaca: Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program, Data Paper No 72, 2 vol.,
1969); and T. Harrisson, ‘The Prehistory of Borneo’, p. 297-326 in P. van de Velde
(Ed.): Prehistoric Indonesia (Dordrecht: Foris, 1984) (this article first published in 1970).
16. E. L. M. Kühr, ‘Schetsen uit Borneo’s Westerafdeeling’, BKI, 46 (6 no 2, 1896):
63-88, 214-239; 47 (6 no 3, 1897): 57-82; A. H. B. Agerbeek, ‘Batoe Darah Moening.
Eene Kalang-legende van West-Borneo’, Tijdschrift v. Indische Taal-, Land- en
Volkenkunde (Bataviaasch Genootschap): 153-157, 1910.
17. H. Kern, ‘Over de Sanskrit opschriften van Kutei (Borneo) (ca. 400 A. D.)’, in
Verspreide Geschriften 7 (’s-Gravenhage: Nijhoff, 1917), p. 55-76; J. Ph. Vogel, ‘The
Yupa inscriptions of king Mulavarman from Koetei (East Borneo)’, BKI, 74: 167-232,
1918; F. D. K. Bosch, ‘Oudheden in Koetei’, Oudheidkundig Verslag, Bijlage G, p. 132-
146, 1925; N. J. Krom, op. cit., 1926; J. G. de Casparis, ‘Some notes on the oldest
inscriptions of Indonesia’, p. 242-256 in C. M. S. Hellwig & S. O. Robson (Eds): A Man
of Indonesian Letters. Essays in Honor of Professor A. Teeuw (Dordrecht: Foris, “Verhand.
KITLV” no 121, 1986).
18. See de Casparis, op. cit.
19. See Anonymous, 1985-1986, op. cit.
20. See T. Harrisson & S. J. O’Connor, op. cit.; J. W. Christie, ‘Ironworking in
Sarawak’, in J. W. Christie & V. T. King: Metal-working in Borneo: Essays on iron- and
silver-working in Sarawak (Hull: The University of Hull, Centre for South-East Asian
Studies, 56 p., 1988).
21. E.g., Harrisson, op. cit.
22. See A. W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer durch Borneo (Leiden: Brill, 2 vol., 1904-07) I:
57-58; M. A. Bouman, ‘Ethnografische aanteekeningen omtrent de Gouverne-
mentslanden in de boven-Kapoeas, Westerafdeeling van Borneo’, Tijdschrift v. Indische
Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Bataviaasch Genootschap), 64: 173-195 (1924), parti-
cularly p. 182; M. A. Bouman, ‘Gegevens uit Smitau en Boven-Kapoeas’,
Adatrechtsbundels 44: 47-86 (1952), particularly p. 50; see also a discussion in Sellato,
1986, op. cit.; and 1989, op. cit., p. 41-42.
23. See also Bouman, 1924, op. cit., p. 182.
24. O. von Kessel, ‘Statistieke aanteekeningen omtrent het stroomgebied der rivier
Kapoeas (Westerafdeeling van Borneo)’, Indisch Archief, 1 (2): 165-204, 1849,
particularly p. 187; P. J. Veth, Borneo’s Westerafdeeling, Geographisch, Statistisch, …
(Zaltbommel: Joh. Noman en Zoon, 2 vol., 1854-56), I, 57; G. A. F Molengraaff,
Borneo-Expeditie. Geologische Verkennings-tochten in Centraal Borneo (1893-94) (Leiden:
Brill, Amsterdam: Gerlings, 1900), p. 177; also G. A. F. Molengraaff, Borneo Expedition.
Geological Explorations in Central Borneo (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.,
1902); and C. Brooke, Ten years in Sarawak (London: Tinsley, 2 vol., 1866), II, 250.
25. Sellato, 1989, op. cit., p. 43; and Sellato, 1994, op. cit.
26. Sellato, 1989, op. cit., p. 64, 106; and Sellato, 1994, op. cit.
27. See for example J. Rousseau, Central Borneo. Ethnic identity and social life in a
stratified society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).
28. S. W. Tromp, ‘Uit de salasila van Koetei’, BKI, 37: 1-108, 1888, particularly
p. 62-63.
29. Sellato, 1989, op. cit., p. 40; and Sellato, 1994, op. cit.; details are found in
Sellato, 1986, op. cit., p. 416.
162 INNERMOST BORNEO
T
hrough a study of the history of the Aoheng, this chapter attempts
first to illuminate the connection between ritual and ethnic
identity, and shows that ritual, the basis for the emergence of the
Aoheng as a new composite ethnic entity, is a major factor in
ethnogenesis. Through a study of social organization, it goes on to show
how a major ritual, pengosang, has been utilized by an ethnic fraction of
the Aoheng as a political tool to counterbalance the formal political
prominence achieved by another ethnic fraction through social
stratification, and to remain in control of all aspects of the village’s
political life, in domestic affairs as well as in foreign relations. Finally,
some more general comments will be proposed on the relation of ritual
and politics in Borneo.
This study considers the question of rituals, as it appears among the
Aoheng of the central part of Borneo, in its historical setting. The
Aoheng nowadays form a very homogeneous ethnic group, which came
into being in the course of the last two centuries from various ethnic
constituents in a complex social and cultural setting.
The study will first attempt to clarify the link between ritual—or,
rather, traditional religion as expressed in ritual—and ethnic identity.
Among the Aoheng, a rare and most important religious festival,
pengosang, is held in critical circumstances. This festival has been the
main factor in the genesis of the composite entity known as Aoheng,
which focused its identity on it.
As the process of emergence of the Aoheng as a new ethnic entity took
place in a complex social and cultural setting along a considerable period
164 INNERMOST BORNEO
their neighbors, the Acüé nomads, by then the strongest group in this
mountainous area, in exchange for protection. After a while, the Aüva
came to live with the Acüé and other minor groups at Pacan Asü under
Ber&aré’, the first Acüé band chieftain to become settled in a village.
At Pacan Asü, the political and economic influence of the Long-Gelat
began to be felt. After pacifying the turbulent nomads, the Long-Gelat set
out to “civilize” them. Paddy, chicken, and metal tools were introduced. A
dual leadership seems to have developed then, with Ber&aré’ as the political
leader and the Aüva chief as the religious leader. The former, after
marrying his son to a Long-Gelat princess, established a hereditary noble
house, recognized by the Long-Gelat. It might be said that it is to the
Long-Gelat that the emergence of the future Aoheng ethnic entity is due.
The Aüva held at Pacan Asü, on behalf of Ber&aré’, the first pengosang, their
major religious festival, to consecrate the new village. During the cere-
mony, the sacred hornbill bird of the Aüva escaped, a very bad omen, and
the whole village was moved to another site, Long Apari, to be moved back
to Pacan Asü when things had “cooled off”. Later on (ca. 1840), the Long-
Gelat brought these future Aoheng to gather at Data Noha and put them
at work to grow paddy. From then on the Long-Gelat, Kayan, and others
will only know of this group under the name of Panhing or Penihing (see
p. 171) and forget about its composite character.
After this first stage of population concentration, a second stage,
between 1840 and 1870, emphasizes population redistribution (see Fig. 21,
and Fig. 23). In 1840, there were, besides the village of Data Noha, one
refugee Pin group (known as the Pïratoran) on the Huvung River, and
other Pin on the Kacü River. Downstream, the plains were Kayan, Long-
Gelat and Uma’-Suling territory. The Aoheng sub-group of the Kapuas
(West Kalimantan) soon formed around a core of Pïratoran who moved
across from the Huvung. Some stranger named Bang, claiming kinship
links with the chiefs at Data Noha, started a small hamlet on his own in
the vicinity, and the Acüé chief gave him six families of commoners,
including one family of Aüva so that his group, the future Aoheng sub-
group of the Cihan River, “can perform the right rituals”. Around 1860,
another stranger, a Lugat from the Kapuas, also came to live nearby,
married his son to an Acüé chief’s daughter, and received from him a few
Pïratoran families, who later bacame the Aoheng Long-Kerio’ sub-group.
As for the Aoheng sub-group of Tïong Bu’u, which split off from the
Long-Kerio’ around 1870, it includes descendants of Pïratoran from the
Huvung.
As all the Aoheng communities now claim that they include
descendants of the Aüva and, therefore, are entitled to hold the pengosang
170 INNERMOST BORNEO
festival, we should infer that Pïratoran and Aüva are synonyms: either
they are two names for the same Pin group, or at least they refer to two
very closely related Pin groups. Certainly neither name is an autonym.
The name Pïratoran (pïra toran, lit. “under the coffin”) is actually a
derogatory nickname, as it is said that some of these people hid under-
neath a coffin during a thunder storm. As for the name Aüva, it refers to
the massacre of the group of this name by the Long-Gelat, whereby the
waters of their river turned red with blood (üva is the red sticky sap of a
vine, a metaphor for blood). It should also be noted that the three
Seputan communities, which include a notable Pin ethnic component,
also perform the pengosang festival, albeit with minor variation. It is thus
beyond any doubt that the pengosang festival belongs to the Pin cultural
substratum.
names referring to Pin groups that have remained as ethnonyms for the
composite entities (Penihing, Aoheng). Whereas the ethnonym Aoheng,
in the past, may have been an exonym (“they of the ironwood [taboo]”),
the current autonym reads as “we of the ironwood [taboo]”. Although
this ethnonym may originally have been a derisive or derogatory
designation (like Pïratoran), we should not exclude some ancient form of
ritual relations of people to elements of the natural world. This would be
no great news in the Borneo setting.
The Aoheng language is very homogeneous from one sub-group to the
other, despite diverse ethnic origins. The main distinctive criterion
enabling an Aoheng to recognize his interlocutor’s origin is accent.
Lexically, only a half-dozen items show some variation, principally in the
presence or absence of a final glottal stop 2. Its homogeneity and specificity
contributes to making the Aoheng language a powerful support for
identity.
• Territory
The Aoheng communities have remained autonomous entities
throughout their history. Each moved its village or migrated, according to
political arrangements with its respective neighbors that never took into
account, except in critical circumstances (war), the other Aoheng sub-
groups. Each had its own, precisely bounded territory—something that
has recently become blurred, however, because of the government’s
resettlement programs. There has never been a regional chief, a leader of
all the Aoheng, in the same way that the Kenyah, for example, have
paramount chiefs in certain river basins.
In 1840, the Aoheng and neighboring Pin groups were restricted to the
uppermost section of the main Mahakam River, above the Batu Ura’
rapids, and to its tributaries, the Kacü and Huvung. The chief of the
soon-to-become Aoheng-Cihan obtained from his Kayan cousins, after
1860, a small tract of territory on the Cihan River, where he settled. A
decade later, he purchased from the Kayan the whole basin of the Cihan
and some land along the Mahakam. The Aoheng Long-Kerio’ moved
downstream, below the confluence of the Kacü, around 1870. The
Aoheng Tïong-Bu’u, also around 1870, moved downstream and obtained
or purchased from the Long-Gelat a village site on the Mahakam, and
from the Uma’-Suling some lands on the Serata River. All these Aoheng,
becoming increasingly reliant on paddy for their subsistence, were in need
of more and better farming lands. Becoming at the same time more
Kayanized, with intricate kinship links with the Kayan, they could obtain
good deals and thus expanded widely downstream from their original
territories (see Fig. 21, and Fig. 23).
THE ETHNOGENESIS OF THE AOHENG 173
In 1885, however, a large Iban army came over from Sarawak to wage
war on the Aoheng Long-Apari, who had beheaded some encroaching
Iban forest-product collectors. Not distinguishing between the Aoheng
sub-groups, the Iban burned to the ground all the Aoheng villages, and
eventually that of the Kayan, before withdrawing. Blamed by their Kayan
suzerains—who did not sort out the sub-groups either—the Aoheng
were forced to remain at a distance from the border. These events did
not contribute to improve the political relations between the Aoheng
sub-groups. Each developed its own political strategies and, when the
Long-Kerio’ made an oath of allegiance to the Sultan of Kutai, the Cihan
traveled a long way to seek the Sultan of Banjarmasin’s support, and the
Long-Apari considered emigrating to the Rajah Brooke’s Sarawak.
Nevertheless, the common humiliating experience of their defeat, their
suzerains’ contempt, and the threat of another Iban attack—which did
happen in 1912—created conditions for an increased Aoheng self-
identification and the consolidation of the Aoheng ethnic entity.
After 1885, the Aoheng sub-groups on the upper Mahakam steadied
somewhat. The Long-Apari returned to their upstream territory to not
move again, while the Cihan remained on the Cihan River, and the
Tïong-Bu’u on the Serata. The Long-Kerio’, in the 1890s, obtained from
the Kayan the basin of the Cemui River. Altogether, in a matter of thirty
years, the Aoheng gained a fairly large tract of territory downstream,
including some good farmlands. From then on, from the small Pani
River upwards to the border with Sarawak and the water divides of the
Kapuas and the Barito, it is Aoheng territory, some 6,000 sq. km,
exclusive of the upper Kacü basin, belonging to the Seputan. This
territory will be sanctioned by the Dutch, and later Indonesian,
administrations and turned into the district of Long Apari. Such as it is,
this territory—”our district”—contributes heavily to Aoheng identity,
with the new, administrative reference now challenging ethnic affiliation.
Thus, the process of integration of miscellaneous, unrelated groups
occurred in two stages: first at the level of the local communities, each a
mix of several such groups; then, as at that of the ethnic group, the
Aoheng emerging from the five autonomous pre-Aoheng settlements.
Aoheng identity today
There is a century-old rivalry between the Long-Apari, Long-Kerio’, and
Cihan for prominence in Aoheng affairs. Long Apari, the most populous
village and also the most Aoheng, was somewhat discredited by its
irresponsible stance in the face of the Iban threat—leading to the Iban
wars of 1885 and 1912—and its propensity to carry on headhunting after
174 INNERMOST BORNEO
it was abolished. The Long-Kerio’ leaders, much criticized for their taste
for river piracy, consistently tried, with some measure of success, to make
themselves identified as leaders of all the Aoheng through their participa-
tion in the great “peace-makings” (tribal peace talks) staged by the Rajah
Brooke administration in Sarawak, and later to obtain endorsement from
the Dutch colonial administration. At some point, in 1954, one Long-
Kerio’ chief managed to be appointed district customary chief by the
Indonesian administration, something the other villages could never
condone.
Tïong Ohang, the village of the Aoheng Cihan and the most
Kayanized of all, was chosen as the district’s head village, and its position
thus strengthened by the administration. The competition now is between
Tïong Ohang and Long Kerio’, facing each other across the Mahakam
River. With Tïong Ohang and Long Apari much weakened by the
emigration of almost half their population to the downriver region, Long
Kerio’ still under heavy suspicion of hegemonic intents, and each village
still clinging to its autonomy, chances that the Aoheng become united
under one leader, like Kenyah regional groups, are very scant.
Since the 1880s and throughout the 20th century, the Seputan, now in
three settlements (totaling 313 persons in 1990), have been drawn into
the Aoheng cultural sphere, to the extent that they are now hardly distin-
guished from them. The same has been going on since the 1930s with a
tiny Bukat hamlet, Noha Tivap (157 persons in 1990). A government
resettlement scheme, initiated in the 1970s, has now come to its end, with
all nine settlements of Long Apari District being, in 1991, gathered
around the head village of Tïong Ohang 3.
The Aoheng pattern of ethnic self-identification depends on the
distance from home and the interlocutor’s identity. An Aoheng calls
himself Aoheng and distinguishes among the five Aoheng villages
according to accent. In the absence of roads, the river’s upstream-
downstream polarity rules over an inventory of ethnic denominations.
Facing his immediate downstream neighbors, the Uma’-Suling (or Busang)
and Kayan, he would use the exonym Penihing. Facing a Dayak of the
middle Mahakam, he would call himself a Busang, thus referring to the
upper Mahakam’s major group. Facing a Dayak of the lower Mahakam, he
would call himself a Bahau, referring to the middle Mahakam’s major
group, considered to include the Busang. Facing a coastal Moslem, he
would then call himself a Dayak (orang Dayak) or Dayak of the Mahakam.
In Jakarta, he would call himself a Kalimantanese (orang Kalimantan) or
Dayak of Kalimantan. Recently, in an increasingly multiethnic situation
at the archipelago’s scale, the Aoheng have begun to resort to adminis-
THE ETHNOGENESIS OF THE AOHENG 175
The high-noble families and the minor aristocrats are not distinguished in
ritual, except for, on the one hand, the ruling high-noble family—
symbolizing the whole village, it is given special treatment in rituals—and,
on the other hand, the “fallen” aristocrat, who married down and is living
with his/her commoner spouse’s parents. The high commoners, however,
though also subject to ritual corvee, are sharply distinguished from the
ordinary commoners. The golden numbers for life cycle rituals are 16 for
the nobility, 8 for the high commoners, and 4 for the commoners—and
zero for the slaves. For example, a dead aristocrat remains exposed 8 days
in the house and 8 more days on the veranda, whereas it is 4 plus 4 for a
high commoner, 2 plus 2 for an ordinary commoner, and an immediate
burying for a slave. Likewise, in the ceremony for the seventh month of
her first pregnancy, a noble woman is carried from her house down to the
river and back 16 times, a high commoner, 8 times, etc. It should be
noted that, although commoners and slaves are distinguished in ritual,
hardly any distinction is found on socio-economic grounds between poor
commoners and slaves.
The high-commoner category consists of specific high-commoner
“houses”, i.e., perennial units similar in nature to the noble houses, with
affiliation following residence. Two houses of high commoners are
intimately linked to each major noble house. Indeed, in a longhouse, the
high-commoner apartments flank the nobles’ apartment on either sides
(see Fig. 22). One of the high-commoner families, called kovi maum
THE ETHNOGENESIS OF THE AOHENG 177
tekohong hocan (lit., top of the ladder), is in charge of defence and secu-
rity and provides the war leaders (lakin kovi, lit., brave commoner). Its
apartment is located immediately downstream from that of its noble, and
just in front of the notched log leading to the longhouse veranda. The
other, called kovi maum la’in adet (lit., words of the custom), is in charge
of religious affairs and rituals and provides the religious leader (begawa’ ),
and its apartment is immediately upstream from that of its noble.
The two houses of high commoners attached to the high-noble house
provide generally the top war leader (lakin kovi haü’ ) and the top
religious leader (begawa’ haü’ ) for the whole village. The top religious
leader, always a man, is assisted by, or “makes a pair” with, the top
female religious leader (begawa’ haü’ doang dora), who is in charge, with
her staff (the female heads of begawa’ families), of the whole “female
custom” (adet)—all that is related to the life cycle (except for death) and
agriculture—as well as the all-important “female part” of religious
festivals.
According to today’s informants, the top religious leader’s function is
higher than that of the top war leader—but this may not have always
been true in the past. The former chairs the council of elders, composed
of all the high-commoner family heads (called doang botï’, lit., the
important ones). The council also includes the high-commoner female
family heads, called doang dora botï’ (lit., the important ladies). Among
the Aoheng Cihan, this council has the upper hand on all political and
religious matters: It chooses the ruler, man or woman, from amongst the
various high-noble candidates, oversees and manages him/her, judges
disputes, arranges marriages and settles divorces, and makes all major
decisions (war, alliance, dynastic marriage, village relocation, or
migration); and it handles all rituals for both the noble houses and the
whole village, from standard household rituals to extraordinary festivals.
In Borneo’s stratified societies, the interface between minor nobility
and good commoners has often been viewed as the midpoint of social
mobility (King, 1988; Rousseau, 1990), allowing for the downward
draining of an overabundant noble folk and the upward promotion of the
best commoners. But the Aoheng high-commoner category is much more
than just that. The top religious leader is on an “equal [footing] with the
high aristocrat”, he “forms a pair” with him/her (kovi maum bekapit süpï).
This expression also connotes the fact that the ruler’s apartment is located
between the two high-commoner apartments (apit means “double” or
“twin”; ngapit, “to pinch”; bekapit, “to couple” or “to yoke”). Neverthe-
less, a top religious leader is accountable to the council, which could prob-
ably revoke him and elect a new one from the same (or another?) house.
178 INNERMOST BORNEO
From the outside, Aoheng society seems to have a single ruler, the high-
noble leader of the village, and this is indeed the case for Long Kerio’,
whose leader is often described, in the modern setting, as a dictator. In
other Aoheng communities, one is tempted to see a bicephalous leadership,
with the high aristocrat as a political leader and the begawa’ haü’ as a
religious leader.
In the past, however, in times of war and headhunting raids, the
leadership, emphasizing the role of the war leader, is likely to have been
rather tricephalous. In any case—and this is particularly true of the Aoheng
Cihan—it is clear that, in Aoheng society’s internal functioning, the high
aristocrat is pretty much under the council’s control for every decision, be
it on home affairs or foreign relations.
Image and reality of power: the historical process
Whatever of political and religious affairs, it should be noted that the
economic power of the whole village lies in the hands of the aristocrats.
Thanks to the labor of their slaves and to corvee procured from com-
moners, they are able to produce, store, and redistribute food surpluses.
Moreover, they have the monopoly of the profitable trade of forest
products, acting as middlemen between the upstream nomads and the
downstream merchants. Therefore, manufactured goods, too, are
accumulated and redistributed. The commoners, particularly the high
commoners, want to make sure that their lords are wealthy and to
enhance their power and prestige, which in turn guarantees the commu-
nity’s strong position in the regional alliance network and its increased
physical safety vis-à-vis its enemies.
A very important factor is the community’s quest for prestige and the
image it presents to the outside world, particularly its immediate
neighbors. The village must be able to proudly show its leader off, and the
villagers are prepared to sacrifice much so that the leader can reach and
retain a high profile in the region, display his/her wealth, give lavish feasts,
acquire a high-ranking spouse from another village, and altogether
maintain or improve the village’s prestige abroad. That the high aristocrat
represents the village in all external relations should not conceal the fact
that (s)he is mainly a symbol, a showcase, as everything of importance is
decided on by the top religious leader and the council. In this respect, the
relationship between the aristocratic leader and the council in Aoheng
society is very much like that found in a parliamentary monarchy. This is
not specific of the Aoheng, and a similar system has been described
among the Punan Bah of Sarawak (Nicolaisen, 1984). Stratification in the
Aoheng society is thus a façade, meant to give them the semblance of
THE ETHNOGENESIS OF THE AOHENG 179
those of their suzerains (Kayan and Long-Gelat) and other such groups
with which they have dealings.
It is clear that the early nomadic bands that participated in the
emergence of the Aoheng had an egalitarian ideology. Here I refer to
ideology as that “system of fundamental ideas and values” (Dumont, 1986;
see also the concept of habitus in Bourdieu, 1980, and Mauss, 1936) that
nomadic groups maintain at the core of their culture and put to action
when it comes to preserving their essential life ways through social and
economic change (Sellato, 1989, 1994). And, most probably, the Pin
groups displayed some misgivings regarding the concept and practice of
social stratification among Kayan groups. When these pre-Aoheng peoples
began trading with the Kayan and Long-Gelat, it became important for the
former to put forward an appropriate counterpart to the latter, and to
surround him with enough pomp and paraphernalia to present a valorized
image of the group. In a later stage, when they subdued the Aoheng, these
Kayan and Long-Gelat, as it was common practice, married their sons or
daughters to these prominent Aoheng chieftains’ offspring, thus starting
noble lineages meant to perpetuate the alliance and the vassal bond.
A tension certainly developed in the early Aoheng settlement between
the new Kayanized aristocracy and their Pin commoners. As no aristocrats
could survive as such if their commoners deserted them, the former had to
put up with the Pin’s struggle to prevent the establishment of a strict social
stratification. The Kayan idea that noble folk are different by nature from
ordinary people was probably unacceptable to the Pin’s ethos, as it was to
that of the minor groups of nomadic origins associated to the Acüé.
The Pin groups were the holders of a sophisticated religious tradition
(adet, the corpus of legal and ritual traditions). They probably gained
distinction among the emerging Aoheng group that they lived in, insofar as
they were able to provide it with the appropriate image to live up to the
cultural standards demanded by the Kayan groups with which it had rela-
tions. It should be recalled that the Pin were very probably the initiators of
the other, nomadic pre-Aoheng groups to agricultural practices, although
rice cultivation was only later promoted by the Kayan and related groups.
In this mixed ethnic setting, the Pin were able to make their religious
expertise indispensable to guarantee, through their rituals of fertility, the
success of the crops. Contrasting with the nomads, the Pin knew “how
Man should behave with regard to sacred matters” (Durkheim, 1912). A
dynamic balance thus established itself between Aoheng aristocrats and Pin
ritual experts. Although probably in small numbers and not in a position
to claim or acquire direct political prominence, the Pin raised to constitute,
in the ritual field, a counter-power for their own benefit.
180 INNERMOST BORNEO
Later on, after a war in which no winner emerged, the numerous and
powerful Semukung nomads of the upper Kapuas allied with the Acüé
and settled down with them, forming an important component of the
resulting combined population. Pin leaders found in the Semukung an
implicit support against a strict social stratification exclusively benefitting
the Acüé. Pin and Semukung then managed to exercise through their
respective, ritual and military, prominence some control over their Acüé
rulers; and so, through this new type of social organization, to maintain
the ideological premises of their former types of social organization.
In later Aoheng villages, both the Pin and Semukung retained their key
positions. To this day, the high commoners in charge of religious affairs
and rituals (kovi maum la’in adet) are members of the original Aüva (Pin)
houses, while the high commoners in charge of defence and security (kovi
maum tekohong hocan) are members of the original Semukung houses.
In the modern administrative situation, a village mayor (kepala desa) is
elected, as well as a chief of the custom (kepala adat) in charge of tradi-
tional customary law. The old political relationship between aristocrats
and high commoners has had to adjust itself, according to local circum-
stances. In Tïong Ohang, the high-noble families have monopolized both
charges for several decades, taking advantage of them to gain the upper
hand in village politics. But nobody liked that very much and recently, a
high commoner was chosen for chief of the custom, then another high
commoner for mayor.
The split from Tïong Ohang in 1973 was initiated by a group of
influential high commoners, who convinced several aristocratic families to
lead the migration. These aristocrats held both charges in Long Bagun,
until a high commoner was elected in 1983. Then the current, elderly
high aristocrat was chosen for chief of the custom. At the mayor’s death
(1988), a younger, open-minded aristocrat was elected.
Whoever the mayor, the influence of the traditional council remains
very strong, since the mayor is conceived, as was formerly the high
aristocrat, as only a mouthpiece for the council in the village’s relations
abroad—and the Indonesian administration, definitely, is part of the
abroad. Likewise, nowadays, the chief of the custom, especially if he is an
aristocrat, is only a figurehead for the council. When it comes to holding
the pengosang festival, all informants agree that “the high aristocrat asks
the high commoners who meet and make a decision”.
The pengosang festival
For an Aoheng community, holding a pengosang is the highest and most
sacred expression of ritual life. It was traditionally held only in critical
THE ETHNOGENESIS OF THE AOHENG 181
were dismissed and everybody bathed in the river and, on the last day, no
activity was allowed and the village was taboo to strangers. It is likely that
these features related to headhunting, very similar to Kayan or Long-
Gelat rituals, were added to the pengosang after the Aoheng had
undergone some degree of Kayanization. Indeed, the Aoheng have several
types of shorter festivals, held in relation to specific events (e.g., the
return of a trade or headhunting expedition) and including certain
episodes of the pengosang. These festivals, called üva (probably as a
metaphor for blood), are similar to the Uma’-Suling’s dangai festival.
Furthermore, the war chant sung by the returning warriors is called
ngayan, a clear reference to the Kayan. These shorter Aoheng festivals,
however, do not feature the pengosang’s major phases—erection of a tree
of life, visit of the dragon-tree, traction on the hook.
While the tree of life is made of the trunk of an asang tree (not yet
identified), the dragon-tree, sengaang, is a wild species of rambutan
(Nephelium sp.) and the hook is made of the wood of a lansium (Aoheng
losot; Lansium domesticum Correa). The prominent role of fruit trees in
the pengosang might be viewed as hinting to an horticultural orientation
of the original Pin groups’ economy.
The Aoheng Cihan held their last true pengosang in the mid-1930s.
Later, under the pressure of the Catholic missionaries and the adminis-
tration, they had to content themselves with performing incomplete
festivals. Around 1950, the new village of Tïong Ohang had to be
consecrated without a fresh head, so that, to avoid upsetting the gods,
the Aoheng chose to use an ordinary tree in place of the sengaang. A new
trend appeared in the 1980s, and the Aoheng were required to stage a
pengosang for the entertainment of the province governor and his party
(1981). Then again, they did it without the real sengaang tree. A large
Aoheng Cihan party, seceding from Tïong Ohang in 1973, settled at
Long Bagun in 1978 and erected their noble longhouse there in 1980.
By 1984, these people, considering themselves now settled for good and
their village completed, held an incomplete, provisional festival. They
finally held a complete pengosang in 1989 to consecrate the village. Of
course, no headhunting raid was staged and the final episode of the
dismissal of the spirits was skipped, but the tree was a true sengaang and a
little piece of skull bone, borrowed from the neighboring Busang village,
was placed, wrapped in palm leaves, in the sacred gong.
The Aoheng Long-Apari have not held a pengosang since 1962, but the
Aoheng Huvung held theirs in 1975, and so did the Seputan after they
had relocated their villages from the Kacü to the Mahakam. Lately,
traditional religious festivals have been raised by the administration to the
184 INNERMOST BORNEO
status of performing arts and turned into objects of tourist interest and,
after the example of Long Bagun and in spite of the heavy expenses, it
appears that the other Aoheng villages are planning to stage a pengosang. As
no other ethnic group in Kalimantan can stage this sort of festival, and as
the provincial government is inclined to subsidize such “cultural events”
(see Sellato, forthcoming), the pengosang may well soon serve, again, as an
ethno-cultural marker and contribute to a revival of Aoheng identity.
The high commoners in the pengosang
The high commoners in council decide whether or not the village should
hold the pengosang festival. Two factors are taken into consideration: the
village’s spiritual need for the gods’ assistance, and its economic situation.
The village must stock paddy, since the festival is long and the guests are
numerous. The pengosang must be planned at least one year in advance,
and large swiddens prepared. This involves a major economic decision.
When the council has assessed the harvest (nï’ap toan, lit., “to count the
year”) and elected to hold the pengosang, then it is the responsibility of the
different high-commoner families to organize it. The ritual experts make
sure the festival begins during the early waxing of the moon.
The festival is held by the high commoners for, and on behalf of the
noble folk, especially the ruling family, and for the benefit of the whole
community. In the festival, different lines (puhu’ ) of high commoners hold
distinct charges, particularly in the climactic phases. The allocation of a
function or role takes into account both residence and genealogy, as well as
the availability of physically apt individuals. The major actors of the
pengosang are chosen from amongst the high commoners and, whenever
possible, those of the two high-commoner houses attached to the noble
“big house”. Alternatively, individuals from the minor high-commoner
houses (i.e., those attached to minor noble houses) may intervene. Both the
male high religious official and his female alter ego supervise the festival.
The ritual roles ascribed to the two categories of high-commoner
houses, described above (p. 175-177), differ notably. The observation of
the 1989 pengosang in Long Bagun and inquiries into older pengosang
were used in the following description, but change in traditional residence
patterns makes this task a delicate one. The (male) top religious leader,
ideally the head of the house of the high commoners of religion and
rituals (kovi maum la’in adet, henceforth RR) attached to the “big house”,
is the only person who may handle the hook to capture the gods’ blessings
upon the village. Only RR members may light the new fire. As for the
dragon-tree, things are more complex: It seems that only RR members
may handle the sengaang tree. Furthermore, different RR houses hold
THE ETHNOGENESIS OF THE AOHENG 185
distinct ritual functions relative to the sengaang tree: One provides the
man who climbs up the tree to pray to it while it is being uprooted;
another provides the man who chops the roots of the tree and then
covers its root end—the dragon’s head—with a large piece of black cloth;
another again provides the man who cuts the branches of the tree and
covers its upper end—the dragon’s tail—with cloth. The RR houses also
provide the top female religious leader, in charge of the whole female
part of the pengosang.
Conversely, the houses of the high commoners of defense and security
(kovi maum tekohong hocan, henceforth DS) provide the two male dancers
who perform a mock fight against the dragon-tree when it enters the
village. They also provide the female dancers who perform the hornbill
dance, when the dragon-tree appears and, again, before the sacrificial pig
is put to death.
At first sight, this role ascription seems linked to an upstream-
downstream polarity. The sengaang tree is always selected in the forest
upstream from the village, so that the dragon-tree enters from upstream.
For the Aoheng, blessings come from upstream (or above), whereas bad
luck and misfortune should be evacuated downstream. In the longhouses
of old, the houses of the RR were located upstream from their aristocrat’s,
whereas the DS’s were downstream. In today’s Long Bagun, although the
pattern of separate family dwellings blurs the situation, it seems that most
of the major RR houses are upstream from the aristocrats’ longhouse, with
most of the major DS houses downstream. In ancient times, the Aoheng—
or pre-Aoheng—village thus possibly was constituted of two halves, an
upstream Pin (RR) half and a downstream Semukung (DS) half.
Was it a type of organization in moieties? This would not be too
surprising. The possibility of a former social organization in upstream
and downstream halves has been reported for the Modang (Guerreiro,
1984). Moreover, the Ngaju and other Barito groups of Central
Kalimantan, as well as the Benua’ of the middle Mahakam, all culturally
related to the ancient Pin, display a pattern of ritual halves in their death
festivals. Often, an opposition is staged between “those of the dragon”
and “those of the hornbill bird”, Practically, ritual games oppose those
representing the living villagers’ souls to those representing the spirits of
the dead, or else, the local villagers to spiritual visitors (see, e.g., Schärer
1966). The Aoheng might display a similar, residual pattern. Tingang
Senéan, the first chief of the Acüé remembered by name, started a long
line of Aoheng leaders, many of whom also called Tingang (tingang, the
rhinoceros hornbill bird, Buceros rhinoceros). This is no coincidence, since
the hornbill was the sacred bird of the Aüva. Besides, the hornbill’s
186 INNERMOST BORNEO
face of their neighbors, their Acüé overlords adopted the festival. The
Aüva managed, however, to uphold their ritual monopoly on the
pengosang. The Semukung, through their numbers of warriors, established
themselves as the military force behind the Acüé leader. Both the Pin and
Semukung, major components of the emerging composite Aoheng group,
each with an unrivalled field of expertise, respectively ritual and military,
maintained political prominence in the form of a council of elders that
had the power to control and censor the Acüé leaders, thus corrupting the
nature of the strict social stratification inherited from the Kayan and
Long-Gelat neighbors and suzerains of the Aoheng.
Decades later, the future Aoheng Cihan group formed around a core
of Kayan or Kayanized aristocrats, to which a few families of Semukung
and Aüva from the Long-Apari were added. The pattern of organization
prevalent among the Long-Apari was transferred to the Cihan, and two
categories of high commoners developed, one derived from the Aüva and
the other from the Semukung. The council of high commoners, likewise,
was able to control and censor the aristocrats.
Within the Long-Apari group, the Pin, sole holders of the pengosang
festival, may have imposed on the Semukung a taboo on the sacred
sengaang tree. At the same time, they retained their own taboo on the
ironwood. Later on, the same situation was transferred on to the Cihan,
whose RR observed the ironwood taboo, while the DS observed the
sengaang taboo. Some Cihan state, however, that the top religious leader,
the chief of the RR, had no taboo to observe, not even the ironwood
taboo, since his high position protected him from spiritual risk. The
upstream-downstream distribution of Pin and Semukung populations
may have been subject to the same transfer.
Also, at an early stage, the Acüé leaders of the Long-Apari may have
been brought to observe both taboos. Whether or not the Acüé originally
observed the taboo on the sengaang tree, the leaders of the Cihan—not
descended from the Acüé and, in fact, not really Aoheng—are said to be
forbidden to touch the sengaang tree. Among the Cihan, no one but the
chief of the RR was (is) entitled to hold a pengosang. As this festival was
spiritually of primordial importance for the well-being and, indeed, the
very survival of the community, it gave the RR an edge over their aristo-
cratic leaders. As mentioned earlier, the Long-Apari leaders, descendants
of the Acüé chiefs, have to this day retained the ironwood taboo.
Whether the Aüva imposed their own ironwood taboo upon their Acüé
overlords, or the Semukung retained the exclusivity on the handling of
ironwood, the resulting ethnonym Aoheng certainly originated in the
Long-Apari group (see p. 171).
THE ETHNOGENESIS OF THE AOHENG 189
Thus, both the Cihan and Long-Apari developed two ritual groups
within each community, those of the sengaang tree (taboo) and those of
the ironwood (taboo), historically based on two distinct ancient ethnic
entities. Such was the importance of the high-commoner leaders that, to
this day, the genealogies of the main high-commoner—particularly RR—
houses are as well-remembered as those of the main noble houses. In the
last half-century, for obvious reasons, the top religious leader’s role gained
extra prominence over the war leader’s; the former stood level with the
high aristocrat and, in fact, through the council he was chairing, he ruled
the village, irrespective of the formal system of social stratification.
We have then here a case of a multi-ethnic group crystallizing its
common identity in a ritual. Each component group, if it has lost its
original identity, has retained social and ritual rights and duties. Among
the Cihan, the Kayanized aristocracy has retained its status and nominal
leadership; the Semukung, later the DS, have remained the war leaders;
the Aüva, later the RR, have retained ritual prominence over the whole
community; as for the rest of the population, ordinary commoners mixed
with war captives and their offspring, they were simply workers with
little say in village affairs. This four-fold organization, reminiscent of the
situation in other regions of the world, might simply be here the chance
result of historical circumstances, just as would be, say, the situation of a
17th-century French king surrounded by Swiss or German mercenary
guards, Lombard money-lenders, and a Roman cardinal as his minister,
the last category often being the real power behind the kings. All
eventually became French.
Ritual and politics: some considerations
The primary function of the pengosang festival, as a ritual tool, is to
ensure the fertility of the crops and the fecundity of humans, and the
future of the community in general. It has, however, allowed for a
secondary function whereby the ritual became a political tool for an
ethnic fraction of the community, the Pin, to achieve control over the
community’s affairs. The festival serves to secure the village’s future, but
it is utilized for political purposes.
Since the Semukung did not care much for an ideology of social
inequality such as that expressed in stratification, the Pin probably found
in them an ally in their attempt to counterbalance the Kayanized Acüé
leaders’ effort to impose hereditary social stratification for their profit.
Clearly, the combined Pin-Semukung high-commoner lobby was strong
enough to impose a de facto oligarchic control over the aristocratic leaders
and to perpetuate it through time.
190 INNERMOST BORNEO
downfall and a plunge into debt slavery, while other families raise from
poverty to replace them.
In stratified societies, if ritual certainly is an element of village and
ethnic identity, its role is made somewhat redundant by the existence of
strict rules of group affiliation. Among non-stratified groups, ritual may
not play an important role in identity as the concerned kin networks
often reach far beyond ethno-cultural boundaries.
The case of the Aoheng pengosang is different. Among these “faux-
stratified” communities, the ritual is held by the high commoners in the
name of their noble folk and the community. The ritual stakes are high
for the village (fertility, growth, welfare). So are the political stakes: the
prestige of the village and its leader vis-à-vis neighboring communities.
Moreover, identity also appears prominently among the stakes, and the
pengosang is a statement of ethnicity: The Aoheng are “those who hold
the pengosang”, and those who hold the pengosang are Aoheng.
Nevertheless, on closer scrutiny, most striking is the “internal” socio-
political and ideological confrontation. The festival expresses a “class
struggle”. If, on a daily basis, aristocrats are under the high-commoner
council’s control, during a festival they are completely on the sideline. In
principle, the festival is held in their names, but they play no significant
part in it. The festival actualizes the high commoners’ control over the
community’s business and that of the RR chief over the aristocrats’
business. It also asserts anew the ideological choices that governed the
process of Aoheng ethnogenesis, particularly, the rejection of an absolute
dominance, through social stratification, of Acüé chiefs over the
emergent composite society. The pengosang, an expression of and a tool
for political intents, bluntly denies the “official” ideology of social
stratification. Ritual, as noted by Bourdieu in different circumstances,
“sanctions difference”.
NOTES
*. The present text is a free translation of an article in French (‘Rituel, politique,
organisation sociale et ethnogenèse : les Aoheng de Bornéo’) appeared in Bulletin de
l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, 79 (2): 45-66, 1992. A few pages that unfortunately
had disappeared from the published French version have been included here.
1. The data below on the Aoheng were collected in 1974-75, 1979-81, 1983-85,
1989, and 1990. Most of them were included in Sellato, 1986.
2. Aoheng is lexically a blend of Kayanic and Barito languages (about the position of
Aoheng, part of the Müller-Schwaner Punan group, see Wurm and Hattori, 1983). It
has also retained a small number of items that appear typical of an old Punan lexical
substratum (see Sellato, 1993). Phonemically, it has retained the phoneme noted / r& /—
192 INNERMOST BORNEO
co-existing with /l/ and /r/—that is specific to the Ot Danum and related languages but,
contrary to them, Aoheng does not produce it at the initial. It displays also a wide set of
eight vowels, a trait apparently specific in Borneo to Punan languages. Grammatically, it
is among the very few languages of Borneo (the Müller-Schwaner Punan languages) that
show a three-gender personal pronoun system (for the third-person singular), including a
variation according to the sex of speaker (see Sellato, 1981).
The Seputan language can be considered a dialect of Aoheng, but displays a specific
strong stress on the penultimate syllable, whereas Aoheng always stresses the last syllable.
On the transcriptions of Aoheng terms:
* The transcription “r&” refers to a retroflex (forward) single flap, phonemically
distinct from both the alveolar flap “r” and the “l”.
* The transcription “v” stands for the voiced bilabial fricative /∫/.
* The vowel noted “ü”, close to /y/, is phonemically distinct from “u”, which stands
for the centralized /U/.
* The vowel noted “ï”, standing for /i/, is phonemically distinct from “i”, which
stands for the centralized /I/.
* The “e” stands for the schwa /2/, while “é” stands for /e/.
Note that the term long (actually or&ong Aoheng) means “confluence [of river X]”.
3. By 2001, seven villages had actually gathered at or in close proximity to Tïong
Ohang, while Long Apari and Noha Tivap chose to remain upstream.
4. In this section, I make use of the ethnographic present.
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1989 ‘The Analysis of Culture in Complex Societies’, Ethnos, 54 (3-4): 120-142.
BARTH, F. (Ed.)
1969 Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. The Social Organization of Culture Differences, Boston:
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BOURDIEU, P.
1980 Le Sens pratique, Paris: Ed. de Minuit, 475 p.
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1970 Natural Symbols, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
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1988 ‘The Ecology of Intoxication among the Kantu’ of West Kalimantan’, p. 139-182 in
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from Indonesia, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
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1985 ‘Identités collectives et idéologie universaliste: leur interaction de fait", Critique, 51:
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THE ETHNOGENESIS OF THE AOHENG 193
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194 INNERMOST BORNEO
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CHAPTER X
THE AOHENG, THE GODS,
THE SPIRITS, AND GENDER *
T
his chapter investigates notions of rank and gender appropriateness
among the Aoheng, as they are revealed through the division of
ritual labor and knowledge in negotiations with supernatural
powers.
The Aoheng, or Penihing, of East-Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo)
are a small group of former hunters and gatherers who switched to
swidden agriculture about one-and-a-half centuries ago. They now
number 2,500 and live in five villages with no supra-village chieftainship.
Much of their social organization and custom (adat) has been
borrowed from their neighbors, although both have been notably watered
down. Their social stratification system consists of four groups: the ruling
families (süpï), the high commoners (kovi maum), the lower commoners
(kovi), and the slaves (dïpon). High commoners, in particular, have
important political and ritual functions, and both men and women may
become ritual or adat specialists. Aoheng society reckons kinship
bilaterally, and residence—rather than birth order or gender—plays the
key role in social affiliation. Post-marital residence is utrolocal.
Although they massively converted to Catholicism some fifty years
ago, the Aoheng recognize a wide range of supernatural powers, most of
them spirits residing on earth. However, some deities, possibly belonging
to an ancient pantheon now half-forgotten, reside in heaven and are still
recognized in Aoheng rituals. No form of ancestor worship is found in
Aoheng religion.
Like many swidden agriculturalists in Borneo, the Aoheng feel a strong
opposition between a safe human space (the villages and fields) and a
threatening outer world (the jungle, mountains and rivers). This
196 INNERMOST BORNEO
officiant may ask a heavenly spirit to draw the gods’ attention to the
sacrifice.
At the village level, auguries are also taken in rare circumstances, such
as the major purification ritual mengosang, as well as the ritual cleansing of
a new village site. Injunctions are then delivered to a pig’s soul by the
great male adat chief. A number of other rituals, such as the first bathing
of all recently-born babies, the ritual bath during the first pregnancy of a
ruler’s daughter, or a ruler’s wedding ceremony, also involve the whole
village and are considered to be “female” rituals, in which the great female
adat chief directly addresses Amun Tingai, using no spirit mediator, and
asking him to grant divine power to sacred objects used in the ritual: the
water for anointing the babies or the pregnant princess, a sword for laying
upon the bride’s and groom’s heads. These objects will then strengthen
these persons’ souls, increase their resistance to misfortune, and ensure
them the protection of the gods and, therefore, a good life. At this same
time, divine protection and godsends—health, fecundity, rice, game,
fish—are asked from Amun Tingai for the whole community.
The importance of a ritual can be seen through a number of features.
First, we must look at the number of persons involved in it: Does it
concern only an individual, a household, or the whole village? Second,
we can assess the performer’s ritual competence: Is (s)he a lonely hunter,
an elder, a high-commoner elder, or a great adat chief? Third, the
categories of supernatural powers dealt with express the importance of a
ritual: Do people deal with earthly ghosts, heavenly spirits, or gods?
Fourth, the goals at stake are clearly relevant in defining a ritual as major
or minor: Is the purpose to simply cure a sick person, to take the
auguries to foresee the village’s future, or to call for godsends and
protection to ensure the community’s long-term welfare? The highest
rituals deal with the highest supernatural powers (the gods), are held by
the most competent performer (a great adat chief), and involve the
largest possible number of persons (the whole village).
Now, considering the mode of negotiation with the supernatural
powers, it appears that spirits, either earthly or heavenly, are directly
dealt with, while in most cases mediators are needed to communicate
with the distant gods. Notable exceptions are the ’female’ major rituals,
in which the gods are directly addressed.
These exceptions provide an important clue for understanding local
gender specificity in ritual labor. Considering the types of actions
performed by rituals, it seems that minor rituals (individual or familial)
mainly aim at repelling all kinds of supernatural threats: ghosts,
malevolent souls, or diseases. These rituals are mostly performed by men.
198 INNERMOST BORNEO
NOTE
*. This text is based on a paper entitled “Men talk to spirits, women talk to gods”,
given at the 81st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in
Washington, D. C., in 1982.
CHAPTER XI
AN AOHENG PURIFICATION RITUAL *
T
his brief study examines the performance of a healing ritual, nya9ri
(lit., to cleanse, to purify), among the Aoheng (or Penihing) of
East Kalimantan. As it includes the sacrifice of a pig, the nya9ri is
one the most elaborate healing rituals, involving one or several
households. The person in charge of the ritual is a renowned specialist in
the village, although not a professional, and the ritual is held in one
apartment of the longhouse.
The ritual expert is the only person who speaks during the ritual. His
assistants do not speak. The utterances transcribed below constitute the
whole spoken part of the ritual. The ritual sentences uttered are not
frozen formulae, as there may be variation in their formulation. Each
section below relates to a ritual episode, with long periods of silence
possibly occurring between two utterances.
Description of the ritual
The pig is lying on the floor, with its feet tied. Next to it, a gong and the
pig’s “costume”, neatly folded into a pile: a set of human clothes and
various ornaments (male or female, according to its sex).
The ritual expert addresses the pig:
1 “Ni bavang éta’ ku’ okot nin, ni su9ru takop urung ku’, uhing büa
oké’ ku’, lemïang otop maton ku’ ” (here is a flat gong that will be
your eating plate, Pig, here are the shell opercula that will cover
your nostrils, the tiny bells that will hang from your tail, the
carnelian beads that will be your eyeballs).
Then the man makes recommendations (nütok) to the pig:
2 “Ku’ tekara havun nin. Kaï no’on nya9ri do né miram do né
200 INNERMOST BORNEO
béong kovo ko daha ku’ no’on masa’ ko do jadi cïan” (you shall
climb to heaven. We shall purify those who suffer from fever,
those who are close to dying, and your blood shall enter them
so that they become well again).
The pig is lifted toward the skylight open in the roof, as an offering to
the gods. The ritual expert shouts:
3 “Jüï!”
This shout is meant to open a channel of communication with the
world of the gods. Then, the man calls upon the gods:
4 “Kito mo Bang Kahan
Ou mo Büan
Halung mo Haan”
(Kito and Bang Kahan,
Day and Moon,
Halung and Haan).
Those are the lesser gods, whose fields of specialty are unclear. They
are subordinate to the supreme god, Amun Tingai (lit., Father High-up),
but stand higher than spirits. They are always invoked in pairs, whether
pairs of names for a same given deity, or pairs or couples of deities.
The man turns back to the pig:
5 “Ku’ nyaki karing mo keriman nyang Amun Tingai ko do né poco
jadi murip” (you shall request from Amun Tingai his mercy and
his blessings, so that those who are ill shall live).
Then the pig is placed back on the floor and the ritual expert nya9ri
(cleanses) the patients, the assembly, and the apartment by waving
around in the air a handful of sacred plants, while shouting:
6 “Nya9ri porin iram, nya9ri porin ïsong, nya9ri porin otü ca’at,
nya9ri porin cema’at do tepatung” (cleansing to drive out fever,
cleansing to drive out the influenza, cleansing to oust evil spirits,
cleansing to remove curses and maledictions).
The man then turns again to the pig:
7 “Dü ko Amun Tingai pasa’ tava bé üong ku’ okot nin, ko do no’on
cïan, do nin arinu cïan to9ri tava Amun Tingai, tava düo Kito
mo Bang Kahan, düo Ou mo Büan, düo Halung mo Haan” (come
on, may Amun Tingai please infuse medicine into your body,
Pig, so that they [the ill] are soon well, thanks to the medicine
AN AOHENG PURIFICATION RITUAL 201
from Amun Tingai, the medicine from Kito and Bang Kahan,
from Day and Moon, from Halung and Haan).
The pig’s throat is slit, its blood collected in a bamboo container. Its
meat is cooked and fed to the patients and the assembly. The ritual
expert eats the blood.
A mixture of rice and pig blood is prepared and hung from the skylight
frame and placed at the other openings of the apartment, as offerings to
the spirits. Some is tossed up in the air for the lesser gods. Both categories
of spiritual entities are called on, and immediately dismissed:
8 “Ni okun kam otü nan! Bohu mono! Ni pari nyang daha, okun
kam düo Tingai mo Tipang, Ou mo Büan, Kito mo Bang Kahan!”
(here is your food, spirits! Go home now! Here is rice with
blood, your food, Tingai and Tipang, Day and Moon, Kito and
Bang Kahan!).
Here the Tingai-Tipang pair refers to two names for the god Tipang,
a loan from the neighboring Kayan’s pantheon, and not to the high god
Amun Tingai.
The healing ritual will resume after nightfall, as its second phase,
called penyangun, is performed.
Interactions
While the ritual expert is the sole actual speaker, the text and context
described above nonetheless clearly express an exercise of communication
and interaction between various partners, real or supernatural.
Interlocution involves four parties, those represented by personal
pronouns of the first person singular and the second person singular or
plural: the ritual expert; the pig; the local spirits; and the lesser gods.
Between those four partners (or groups of partners), direct interaction
occurs: Words are addressed, or rewards given.
Other parties are involved in this interaction, albeit not in inter-
locution, i.e., those included by the use of the personal pronoun “we”
and those referred to in the third person: the patients, for whom the
ritual is being held; and Amun Tingai, who is only addressed through the
pig, here used as a mediator.
Others still, who are neither addressed nor referred to, are included in
the context of this interaction: the other members of the household and
the assembly, who also consume the pig’s meat containing the medicine,
are cleansed by the sacred plants, and receive Amun Tingai’s blessings;
one inanimate party, the house, also undergoes cleansing. And ritual or
sacred objects (the pig’s clothes and ornaments, the cleansing plants),
202 INNERMOST BORNEO
which are not stricto sensu partners in the interaction, play a role, admit-
tedly not well understood, in the ritual and cannot be dispensed with.
Furthermore, the dead pig’s parts (meat, blood) may be taken into
account, too.
We may consider here a complex situation with eight partners
(individuals, groups of individuals, agencies; the apartment is viewed as a
partner). The extent of these partners’ involvement in the problem dealt
with by the healing ritual varies, and so does the extent of their effective
participation in the ritual.
And we may attempt to establish a list of interactions among the
various partners. Interaction may be real—words uttered, gestures
performed—or viewed as such—e.g., the gods’ intercession, the
impregnation of medicine into the pig.
Real interactions
The ritual expert describes to the pig its ornaments and their uses; he
makes recommendations to the pig, explaining its role; he exhibits the
pig to the lesser gods (and, indirectly, to his assistants, or the healthy
members of the household, or the assembly in general?); he establishes,
by a ritual yell, a bridge between the world of humans and that of the
gods; he calls on the lesser gods; he makes recommendations to the pig
regarding its role as a mediator to the supreme god; he cleanses the
patients, the assembly, and the house by uttering ritual formulae for
cleansing.
Addressing the pig, he indirectly invokes Amun Tingai, requesting
that he (and the lesser gods) infuse the medicine into the pig’s body. The
pig is sacrificed and consumed by all humans present, including the ritual
expert. Offerings are made to the lesser gods and local spirits, and words
are uttered to invite them to consume the offerings. Finally, the lesser
gods and the spirits are dismissed by the expert.
Assumed interactions
The pig’s clothes and ornaments play a role (unclear). The lesser gods
hear and respond to the expert’s call to them. They recognize and accept
the pig that will be sacrificed. The sacred plants play a role in the
cleansing (unclear). The lesser gods (and the local spirits?) assist in the
cleansing (with Amun Tingai appearing only later).
The pig (or its soul?) climbs to heaven, carrying a two-fold
supplication (for blessings and medicine). It reaches Amun Tingai—is
the pig’s soul itself the offering to Amun Tingai? Amun Tingai sends
(directly or not?) his blessings (to the patients only?) and instills medicine
AN AOHENG PURIFICATION RITUAL 203
NOTE
*. This text, under the title Partenaires humains, animaux et surnaturels. Interactions
complexes dans un rituel de purification aoheng, was given in French at a doctoral seminar
at CeDRASEMI (Centre de documentation et de recherche sur l’Asie du Sud-Est et le
Monde insulindien, L.M. n° 682 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Ecole des
Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) in Paris in 1986.
204 INNERMOST BORNEO
T
his note very briefly examines the diverse forms of literature in use
among the Aoheng. The term “literature”—here, oral literature—
includes formal genres, such as epics, in which the text or lyrics are
set and known and which undergo very little alteration from one
performance to the next, or from one performer to another; and informal
genres, such as folktales, in which variation is common. Certain genres, or
sub-genres, are sacred and only performed in ritual situations, and are
subject to taboo outside these situations. According to genres, musical
instruments—or another type of device—do or do not accompany the
performance.
In the 1970s, all the genres of Aoheng literature described below were
still performed, albeit rather uncommonly for some (e.g., shamans’
songs, dirges). At the beginning of the 21st century, most genres have
vanished, except for those concerned by a relative revival of Aoheng
culture in the modern context: the kelisum spirit songs have benefited
from the now common use of tape recorders, while invocations are, more
often than ever, performed in festivals such as the pengosang. Folktales
and, particularly, epics are gone forever. Extensive recordings made in
the 1970s and 1980s may allow, in due time, the Aoheng to re-
appropriate this lost heritage. Recordings of Aoheng music and sung
literature are expected to be published soon.
Songs, lengot
This genre, called lengot, “song”, includes solo or choir, sometimes
polyphonic, melodies. They may be performed in informal, private or
familial, situations—such is the case of, particularly, lullabies—and are
not accompanied by musical instruments.
206 INNERMOST BORNEO
Funeral rhymes
These songs are only performed by choirs of children and teenagers
during funeral vigils, held to entertain and keep the deceased’s soul
company. Their rhymed, but mostly meaningless, lyrics accompany parlor
games only played in this ritual situation. Much laughing, mocking, and
teasing occur in conjunction with these games—which may become quite
rough—along with some sexual laxity.
Spirit songs
In this genre, a single singer is possessed by a heavenly spirit, otun, who
either prompts him/her or sings through his/her mouth. While singing,
the singer strikes with a rattan stick a rattan string attached to the side of a
shield. According to context, two types are distinguished: The kelisum is
performed in festive situations, and the songs are meant to instruct and
entertain the humans; the penyangun is performed in ritual situations, and
spirits are called upon to help the shaman cure a patient. In the latter case,
the shield used has truncated ends and is anointed with sacrificial blood.
Invocations
Invocations, tütok, are messages addressed to gods and spirits, either
directly or through an animal sacrificed in a ritual and used as a medium.
Invocations are more or less standard phrases, mostly in prose, and recited
only by the person in charge of a ritual, at the household or village level.
At major village festivals, gongs and drums are often beaten unrelentingly
during the whole duration of the rituals.
Dialogue songs
This genre, called pantun all over the Malay world, is used during mass
dancing in festive times. While a number of verses are common sayings or
funny phrases, this genre more often resorts to improvisation: One person
improvises a verse, either referring to one recent event or making fun of
someone else, and the choir of the dancers repeats it, then another person
responds to the first verse, and so on. The melodies are borrowed from
coastal groups. No musical instrument is used.
208 INNERMOST BORNEO
The text below is a kerimi, a folktale. It was told on the evening of May
25, 1980, by Baü Lahay, a forty-five-year-old widow, at her home at the
village of Tïong Ohang, and I translated it from the recording two years
later. This folktale was analyzed by Jean-Jacques Guionnet as part of his
DEA (post-graduate) degree in Semiotics at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en
Sciences Sociales in Paris in 1982.
The Orphan Marat 1 and his widowed mother are preparing their
paddy field. Orphan goes to their field and clears the brush and fells the
trees. When he is done felling the trees, he leaves them to dry, as he wants
to burn the field 2. But the field cannot dry, because of the incessant
downpour.
— Hey, says Orphan, what am I to do? The field can’t dry! Nothing
doing, the weather is not hot, the weather is not dry.
— Hold on, he says, this can’t go on! This is all the Sun’s fault. I am
no man if I can’t get that Sun to do as I want!
Their field will soon be ruined if they cannot burn it. Orphan sharpens
his sword, places it in his backpack basket, and leaves home. On his way,
he fells a large botung bamboo, and he walks on to the hills to find tacom
trees 3.
To the first tacom tree he finds, Orphan asks:
— Tacom tree, how many spirits do you house? 4
— Only one, replies the tree.
Orphan walks on and finds another tacom tree:
— Tacom tree, how many spirits do you house?
— Only two, the tree replies.
And Orphan goes on walking. Now he has asked ten tacom trees, and
the last one had ten spirits. But he goes on searching for other trees:
— Tacom tree, how many spirits do you house?
— Twelve.
AOHENG ORAL LITERATURE: A TYPOLOGY 209
give him eight days and eight nights of dry weather will he do it. He’s
planning to shoot a blowpipe dart at you.
— Alright, says Sun, let’s see if he knows how to use his blowpipe. Let
him shoot at my whetstone. If he can split it into two, then I’ll give him
dry weather.
And then Ari Arang, Tïong ‘Et, and the other birds bring down Sun’s
message to Orphan.
— Good, says Orphan. Where is his whetstone?
— It’s on the kitchen platform behind his house.
Then Orphan sharpens his dart and shoots. And his first shot splits
Sun’s whetstone into two.
— Well, says Sun, what do I do now? Does he want his dry weather
now, the eight days and eight nights? The message is relayed down by the
birds to Orphan.
— Alright, says Orphan. I’ll put out my fire now.
And Sun makes dry weather, eight days and eight nights of dry weather
for Orphan. Orphan has put out his fire. Sun’s eyes are no longer
smarting. It is so dry now that one can ford the Mahakam without getting
wet. And Orphan burns his field.
When he is finished burning, he wants rain because he wants to sow
his paddy. But it does not rain. He sows his paddy anyway, but the
seedlings die from lack of rain.
— Hey, calls Orphan, make rain now, Sun, for my paddy! It doesn’t
have enough water. Make eight days and eight nights of rain, now, Sun!
But Sun does not reply. And Orphan’s paddy is dead.
NOTES
*. This text is based on a brief report entitled “Littérature orale comparée”, included
in Rapport Annuel du CeDRASEMI (Centre de documentation et de recherche sur l’Asie du
Sud-Est et le Monde insulindien, L.M. n° 682 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), p. 155-157, 1983.
1. The name Orphan is a necronym, used in addressing and referring to persons,
even adults, who have lost a parent; here, a father. Therefore, while Marat is his personal
name, the hero is known as and called Orphan by kin and neighbors.
2. This is swidden or slash-and-burn rice cultivation, whereby paddy seeds are sown
on a dry hillside that has been cleared of its forest. The cut undergrowth and felled trees
must be burned, and the ash fertilizes the poor soils.
3. The botung, Dendrocalamus asper (Schult. F.) Backer ex Heyne (Poaceae), is the
largest of all bamboo species. The tacom tree, Antiaris toxicaria (Pers.) Lesch. (Moraceae),
provides a strong poison used by the Aoheng to smear on their blowpipe darts.
4. Tacom trees are believed to be home to natural spirits. The power of the poison
extracted can be rated by the number of spirits hosted by the tree.
AOHENG ORAL LITERATURE: A TYPOLOGY 211
5. The Aoheng make blowpipe darts from the stem of a palm, Arenga undulatifolia
Becc. (Palmae). The feathering actually is a cone of very light palm marrow.
6. A set of birds flying at different elevations are relaying Sun’s order to Orphan. Ari
Arang is a mythical bird, Sun’s messenger, assumed to be flying extremely high.
Tïong ’Et and Kototïang are real birds: the former name covers several species of the
genus Drongo (Dicruridae), particularly the Crow-billed drongo (Dicrurus annectans);
and the latter refers to the Greater racket-tailed drongo (D. paradiseus brachyphorus).
Finally, Konyü refers to a variety of hawks and eagles (Accipitridae) and, most
commonly, to the Brahminy kite, Haliastur indus (Boddaert).
Fig. 25. Aoheng taxonomy of sedimentary rocks
CHAPTER XIII
STONE AND THE AOHENG:
INVESTIGATION IN TRADITIONAL TAXONOMIES *
D
ayak cultures of Borneo have been called cultures du végétal.
Indeed, almost everything is made from wood, bamboo, rattan,
or otherwise procured from the vegetable kingdom governing as
a generous provider the natural environment. The animal kingdom only
comes second: hunting and fishing are auxiliary to farming and
gathering. And what of the mineral kingdom, in the great humid tropical
forest? What is its part in the Dayak groups’ daily life? In the field of
ethnoscience, which has notably developed in the last decades,
ethnogeology—a term that I favor over the narrower ethnomineralogy—
has been treated as a forgotten stepchild, in Borneo like elsewhere. There
is hardly any book devoted to it, as A.-G. Haudricourt noted (1968:
1771), and this remains true at the beginning of the new millenium (but
we should mention Léger’s work [1978]).
This paper attempts, through a study of the immediate perception of
the mineral world by a Dayak group, the Aoheng of the upper Mahakam
River in East Kalimantan, to show how the organization of local geologic
categories may be essentially distinct from that of animal and vegetable
categories, particularly in relation to technological uses. Later, it briefly
examines the concept of “stone” in connection with the surpernatural
realm, rituals, and myths.
Form and size
At the onset, Aoheng categories focus on grain size, the size of a particle
in a field of particles (“grains”) of the same size. One lexical sequence (see
Fig. 25) ranges from the decametric boulder to a very fine sand, the last
material in which particles are still visible to the bare eye. This sequence
214 INNERMOST BORNEO
the whole scene of the transgression, not just the offender, is immediately
and forever turned to stone, and total silence suddenly settles. It appears
that the petrified objects or scene do not induce fear or avoidance among
the living, as they are not packed with evil potency, contrary to sites of
other tragic events, such as bloody deaths. Here, the punishment has been
carried out and the case is closed.
Another type of place where stone and death meet is caves or rock
shelters, the traditional sites of burial for many interior Borneo groups.
Stone (dïang also means cemetery; see Nieuwenhuis, 1904-07), here,
protects the body and its gravegoods from the elements, if not from
animals. There might not be much more elaborate ideas about caves, since
the souls of the dead do not remain with the body, according to Aoheng
conceptions of death and afterlife. Certain caves, however, reportedly are
passageways or bridges between the human world and the inferior worlds,
through which dwarves or holy animals, not necessarily evil, may emerge.
Stone, rice, and life
Among the Aoheng, Neolithic-style tools, commonly found in fields or
rivers, are seldom recognized as tools, or even as man-made artefacts—
they are elsewhere in Borneo (see Sellato, 1993b and 1996). Their shapes,
often that of a quadrangular adze (see Duff, 1970), has led the Aoheng,
like so many other groups in Southeast Asia, to interpret them as
“lightning stones” or “lightning fangs”. Such a stone adze, along with
other ritual objects (including a Planorbis shell), form a set called üngot
pari, kept from one year to the next in a small basket with a few paddy
ears. These objects, the paddy spirits (otü pari), hold the soul of the paddy
(berüon pari) and watch over its growth. They secure the fertility of the
paddy and, subsequently, the fecundity of women. More generally, they
guarantee the group’s prosperity.
The stone adze (batü üngot), or lightning fang, is male, whereas the
female Planorbis shell (üngot bélong) is the lightning’s food. Paddy, thus,
seems to be under the authority of lightning. In a remote past, the
Aoheng probably invoked Lightning, a deity fertilizing the paddy soul by
means of the stone adze, by a blood offering to the adze—a ritual that
the Ot-Danum, southern neighbors of the Aoheng, still practice—in
order to ensure the fertility of the paddy and a good harvest, and the
group’s demographic and economic development.
Epilogue: the sex of stones
Interestingly, the lightning-stone pair is thus connected, on the one hand,
to death, punishment, and sterility and, on the other hand, to the paddy,
220 INNERMOST BORNEO
plant and human fertility, and life. I have suggested elsewhere (Sellato,
1983) that the Aoheng’s half-forgotten pantheon featured a couple of
major deities, one male and associated with natural elements, command-
ing thunder and wind, the other female and associated with the moon,
commanding water and initiation. Both deities merged in the course of
time, and only their blurred and degenerated avatars are perceptible today.
This merging and the resulting mixed-sex situation may be the reason for
the double relation of stone to a vindictive god and a prolific goddess.
Even in the last situation, however, stone is not necessarily male and
phallic. The Hovongan (or Punan Bungan), related to the Aoheng,
reportedly used to possess three sacred stones, forming their üngot pari:
One was shaped like an ax blade, another (very likely redundant) like an
adze blade—both viewed as male—and the third was a large, pink
siliceous concretion, known as “rhinoceros liver” and viewed as female.
The first two, male, stones were long ago stolen by another tribe, but the
Hovongan, once a year at the time of sowing the paddy, still sacrifice a
hen to the lone female stone—it is said that the liver was that of a female
rhinoceros. They proclaim it a “super-female” (ketongon üngot) and
declare themselves satisfied with its efficiency. Then the Planorbis shell of
the Aoheng, a female counterpart to the phallic stone adze, might well be
viewed as a female stone.
NOTE
*. This text was translated from a communication in French entitled “Le monde
minéral des Aoheng : catégories et concepts chez les Aoheng de Borneo”, read at the
Table Ronde sur l’Ethnoscience in Sophia-Antipolis, France, in 1983. The bibliography
has been updated.
REFERENCES
BAIER, Martin
1987 ‘Megalithisch Monumente des Bahau-Gebiets (Kecamatan Pujungan/nördliches
Zentralborneo)’, Tribus, 36: 117-128.
BLUST, Robert
1981 ‘Linguistic Evidence for Some Early Austronesian Taboos’, American Anthropologist,
83: 285-319.
BROSIUS, Peter
1986 ‘River, forest and mountain: The Penan Gang landscape’, Sarawak Museum Journal,
36 (57): 173-184.
STONE AND THE AOHENG 221
DUFF, Roger
1970 Stone adzes of Southeast Asia: an illustrated typology, Christchurch, NZ: Canterbury
Museum Board, Canterbury Museum Bulletin, No. 3.
HAUDRICOURT, André-Georges
1968 ‘L’ethnominéralogie’, p. 1767-1771 in J. Poirier (Ed.): Ethnologie générale, Paris:
Gallimard (“Encyclopédie de la Pléïade”).
KARINA ARIFIN & B. SELLATO
1999 ‘Survei dan penyelidikan arkeologi di empat kecamatan di pedalaman Kalimantan
Timur’, p. 397-436 in C. Eghenter & B. Sellato (Eds): Kebudayaan dan Pelestarian
Alam, Jakarta: World Wide Fund for Nature [Forthcoming: ‘Archaeological survey
and research in four districts of interior East Kalimantan’, in C. Eghenter & B. Sellato
(Eds): Culture and Conservation in Borneo, Bogor, Indonesia: Center for International
Forestry Research].
LÉGER, Daniel (R. P.)
1978 L’Ethnominéralogie et la vie religieuse des Bähnar-Jölöng, province de Kontum, Vietnam,
unpublished doctoral thesis, Paris: Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, 488 p.
NEEDHAM, Rodney
1964 ‘Blood, Thunder, and Mockery of Animals’, Sociologus, 14 (2): 136-149.
NIEUWENHUIS, A. W.
1904-
1907 Quer durch Borneo. Ergebnisse seiner Reisen in den Jahren 1894, 1896-97, und 1898-
1900, Leiden: Brill, 2 vol.
SELLATO, B.
1983 ‘Le mythe du tigre au centre de Bornéo’, ASEMI, XIV (1-2): 25-49.
1989 Nomades et sédentarisation à Bornéo. Histoire économique et sociale, Paris: Editions de
l’EHESS, 293 p. [Nomads of the Borneo Rainforest. The Economics, Politics, and
Ideology of Settling Down, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, translated from the
French by S. H. Morgan, 272 p., 1994].
1993a ‘Salt in Borneo’, p. 263-284 in P. Le Roux and J. Ivanoff (Eds): Le Sel de la vie en Asie
du Sud-Est, Patani, Thailand: Prince of Songkla University (“Grand Sud”, 4), 438 p.
1993b ‘Myth, history, and modern cultural identity among hunter-gatherers: a Borneo case’,
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 24 (1): 18-43.
1994 ‘Forêts tropicales et sociétés traditionnelles à Bornéo : Vers une histoire régionale “en
continu” de l’environnement et des systèmes de subsistance’, Ecologie humaine, 12
(2): 3-22, 1994 [reprinted in Cahiers d’Outre-Mer, 51 (204): 421-440, 1998].
1996 ‘Stone nutcrackers and other recent finds of lithic industry in interior northeastern
Kalimantan’, Sarawak Museum Journal, 50 (71): 39-65.
COUVERTURE ET COMPOSITION
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Borneo, comparable in size to Texas (or the combined United Kingdom and France),
is the planet’s third largest island. Lying on the Equator, it possesses stunning tropical
rain forests, among many other natural resources, and a broad variety of traditional
cultures, among which the Dayak have long achieved world fame.
This volume traverses thirty years of acquaintance with and work on the great
island and its peoples. The author first went to Borneo in the early 1970s as a
geologist, and has returned many times as an anthropologist and historian.
The essays collected here focus on a set of small tribal minorities living in one of the
most remote corners of the Borneo hinterland, the Müller Mountains. Among these
groups, the Aoheng, with whom the author spent a number of years, feature
prominently.
With a multidisciplinary approach, this volume examines various facets of these
peoples’ lives and cultures, from their history, economic system, and relation to their
natural environment, to their social organization, beliefs, rituals, and world views.
Altogether, it offers a comprehensive picture of innermost Borneo’s traditional life.
ISBN 2-914936-02-8
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