Dayak PDF

Bernard SELLATO
INNERMOST
BORNEO
STUDIES IN DAYAK CULTURES
P
SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY PRESS
INNERMOST BORNEO
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.
Borneo. People of the Rainforest (a CD-Rom), Singapore: Daiichi Media, 1998.
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
Maps and photographs by the author
76 avenue de Saint-Mandé 75012 Paris SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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HUMAN NATURE Series

ETHNOLOGY, LITERATURE AND NATURAL HISTORIES
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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
1. Political map of Borneo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2. River systems and location of ethnic groups studied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3. Nieuwenhuis’ route. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4. The upper Kapuas river system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5. Administrative divisions in the upper Kapuas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
6. Ethnic map of the upper Kapuas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
7. The upper Mahakam area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
8. Location of ethnic groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
9. Siblings-in-law in selected languages in Borneo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
10. Types of affinal relations in Ego’s generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
11. Post-marital residence and affinal relationships. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
12. Residence and nomadism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
13. Three-gender third singular personal pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
14. Sketch map of the site of Nanga Balang by Sawing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
15. The Bukat setting and nineteenth-century movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
16. Regional situation around 1800 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
17. Statements in the legend and Sawing’s comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
18. Trees and cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
19. The tree-cultures in the legend and Sawing’s comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
20. Ethnic conglomeration, 1800-1840 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
21. The Aoheng: general historical chart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
22. The central longhouses, Tïong Ohang, ca 1950. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
23. Redistribution and expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
24. Ritual interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
25. Aoheng taxonomy of sedimentary rocks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
26. Petrographic composition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
27. Mineralogical composition and the technological cut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Fig. 1. Political map of Borneo
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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.
Marseilles, May 2002

Fig. 2. River systems and location of ethnic groups studied
INTRODUCTION
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
economic surveys, such as those routinely carried out prior to starting a

program, are a sure recipe for failure. Instead, in-depth, multi-disciplinary
studies of the target communities are truly useful preliminaries, the
expense of which projects cannot afford to spare themselves. Only then
would such projects stand a fair chance of reaching their goals.
Although each chapter of this book is, taken on its own, but a loose
piece of a puzzle—and the puzzle is necessarily incomplete—they have
been organized to form a logical sequence to more easily bring the reader
from short introductory pieces through to more substantial ones and,
finally, to rather “light”, sketchy additional presentations.
As an hors-d’œuvre, Chapter 1 retells the first traverse of Borneo
through the Müller Mountains, one of the first great scientific expedi-
tions, in the last years of the 19th century. This is set against the general
backdrop of the colonial exploration policies of that century, aimed at
pacifying warlike interior tribes, establishing military and, later,
administrative control and ultimately bringing to them the benefits of
civilization. Nieuwenhuis’s work had a lasting impact on the ideas of his
time and on administrative policies and constitutes the first important
corpus of scientific information on the island’s interior tribes.
The ethnic and cultural setting of the hinterland region straddling the
Müller Mountains is then succinctly described: to the west (Chapter 2),
the region of the uppermost course of the mighty Kapuas River, Borneo’s
longest waterway; and to the east (Chapter 3), the upper Mahakam River
region, safely closed off from the lower plains by dangerous waterfalls.
These chapters list the local ethnic groups—powerful farming tribes and
tiny nomadic bands—sparsely populating this immense tract of climax
forest.
Forest economics, or, the ways in which forest people earn a living off
their natural environment—the tropical rain forest, and the resources it
provides—is the focus of Chapter 4, which examines the conflicts
between these people and the State’s social and economic policies. The
latter, whether genuinely intended for the people’s welfare or geared
toward ulterior strategies of systematic extraction of forest resources,
interfere with the local people’s wishes to carry on with their own
traditional ways of life and economic activities.
After describing the various forms of social organization found among
the ethnic groups of Borneo, Chapter 5 proposes a typology: the
hunting-gathering nomadic band; the socially stratified farming group,
displaying feudal features; the non-stratified, but fiercely competitive,
farming group; and the coastal, trade-based polity, influenced by
exogenous social forms. Examining patterns of integration of households
16 INNERMOST BORNEO
to higher social groupings, it discusses Lévi-Strauss’ concept of “society of

the house”, and considers different levels of “houses”.
Chapter 6 investigates, among former hunting-gathering groups, a
correlation between the way of life and economy, and post-matrimonial
residence practices, through a study of the terminology used for in-laws.
It suggests that the pattern of taboos and avoidance in a person’s
interaction with opposite-sex in-laws changed when the nomadic band
settled down and took up farming, inducing the emergence of a
particular set of terms referring to siblings-in-law.
The origins of hunter-gatherer groups, a problem of theoretical
importance, is the focus of Chapter 7. An alternative reconstruction of
Borneo’s culture history is proposed, correlating ethnohistorical,
ethnographic, and linguistic data—a method seldom put into practice. It
argues for a Neolithic colonization of the island’s interior by Austro-
nesian-speaking hunter-gatherers and horticulturists, before metals
allowed for a substantial opening of tropical forest to swidden rice
cultivation.
The complex relationship between history and myth is analyzed in
Chapter 8, such as it appears through a text written by a leader of the
Bukat, a former nomadic group. This study shows how ethnic and
cultural identity is constructed based on the group’s oral historical
tradition and some more recent social or religious notions, and how
history is politically manipulated to adjust and refine the image that the
group wants to give of itself to the modern outside world.
Moving further on into the fields of politics and religion, Chapter 9,
through a study of the role of a major religious festival in shaping social
organization, tries to shed light on the connection of ritual with politics
and ethnic identity. Focusing on the history of the Aoheng—now a
cohesive ethnic entity, emerged from several very distinct groups in a
complex cultural setting over a long period of time—it describes
processes of ethnogenesis, or, “how tribes come into being”.
Chapter 10 focuses on the supernatural world of the Aoheng, the
categories of spiritual entities known to them, and the respective roles of
women and men in ritual. It shows that, while men deal with the
protection of the human sphere by repelling evil influences or
propitiating potentially harmful spirits, women deal with the higher gods
to attract their beneficent influence and thus ensure the community’s
prosperity and growth.
An Aoheng cleansing ritual involving the sacrifice of a pig, whose soul
is meant to carry a message to the high gods, is examined in Chapter 11,
using the method of pragmatics. The study of the verbal and non-verbal
INTRODUCTION 17
interaction of the various—human, animal, or inanimate—partners,

present, or assumed to be present in, or concerned by, the performance
of the ritual, shows that a ritual sets into motion more complex links
than a mere “invocation” suggests.
The many forms of traditional Aoheng oral literature are dealt with in
Chapter 12: formal or informal, told or sung, accompanied or not by
musical instruments—from the mundane nursery rhymes to the ritually
potent funeral dirges. As an example, one brief folk tale carrying a social
and moral message offers a glimpse of Aoheng daily life.
Chapter 13, investigating Aoheng traditional taxonomies, focuses on
ethnogeology, a commonly overlooked field of inquiry. It shows how the
Aoheng perceive of that part of their natural environment, and the role
that the “mineral kingdom” plays in local technology—for instance in
the selection of a sharpening stone—as well as in religious life—witness
the relationship of certain stones with taboos, fertility, or death.
Apart from the illustrations connected with the chapters, this volume
includes some forty photographs documenting diverse aspects of past and
present life in the Müller Mountains region. Beyond their strictly
documentary value, these photographs are meant to help the reader form
a better idea of the region and its people and feel more comfortable and
familiar with them.
There is much more to Borneo than meets the eye in the present
unassuming little book, which offers a tentatively comprehensive, albeit
impressionistic, picture of Dayak traditional life in a small region. The
great island’s many remaining secrets are still to be discovered, as many
regions have hardly been visited at all and numerous ethnic groups have
never been surveyed, let alone studied. Hopefully, this book will trigger in
its reader a longing to visit, travel, and perhaps more, in innermost Borneo.
Fig. 3. Nieuwenhuis’ route
CHAPTER I
FROM WEST TO EAST:
THE FIRST WRITTEN SOURCES *
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
Guinea. The British North Borneo Chartered Company, taking over in

Sabah in 1881, was challenged by local rebels—including the famous
Mat Salleh. The discovery, in the 1880s, of petroleum and coal in
Borneo prompted its integration into the wider world.
The colonial powers then found that controlling trade was no longer
enough and that they needed real territorial control, requiring the
establishment of administrative and military structures. It was in this new
context, in the last quarter of the 19th century, that the great expeditions
took place, in hitherto unexplored regions: the upper Rejang (Hugh
Low, in the 1880s), the upper Baram (Charles Hose, between 1884 and
1907), the Mahakam (Tromp, in the 1880s), and the upper Kapuas
(Nieuwenhuis, from 1893 onwards).
The last decade of the 19th century also marked, for the colonial
governments, the close of all major armed conflicts. It should be recalled
that 1894 was the year of the great peace-making that brought together
about thirty Dayak groups to Tumbang Anoi in the upper Kahayan
River (May through July 1894). More exploration was to follow in the
new century’s first years—by Knappert in the Mahakam basin, Enthoven
in the upper Kapuas basin, Stolk on the Busang River, van Walchren in
Apokayan—and more again until, in the 1930s, the whole of Borneo’s
interior had come under the actual control of the colonial powers, with
the exception of a much reduced sultanate of Brunei.
The region of the watershed between the Kapuas and Mahakam Rivers
is one of the most remote areas of Borneo. In the upper Mahakam, a
region isolated by very dangerous rapids, the Kayan-Mahakam, the
Busang (Uma’ Suling and others), and the Long-Gelat (a Modang
subgroup) occupied the fertile plains, while the Aoheng inhabited the
western foothills. In the upper Kapuas, the small trade town of Putussibau
was surrounded by Senganan (Moslems), Taman, and Kayan villages
with, farther upstream, a couple of Aoheng and Semukung hamlets. In-
between, a large mountain range reaching almost 2000 m was inhabited
by nomadic Bukat and Kereho (Punan Keriau) and semi-nomadic
Hovongan (Punan Bungan). The first foreigner to reach and cross this
mountain range, Major Müller, did not live to retell his travels.
Major Müller’s ill-fated 1825 expedition
Georg Müller, an engineering officer in the army of Napoleon, went after
Waterloo into the civil service of the Dutch Indies. Representing the
colonial government, he made official contact with the sultans of
Borneo’s east coast. In 1825, in spite of the sultan of Kutai’s reluctance
to let the Dutch penetrate through and beyond his territories, Müller
FROM WEST TO EAST 21
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
het natuurkundig onderzoek der Nederlandsche Kolonien (Society for the

Promotion of Natural History Exploration in the Dutch Colonies) in
Amsterdam decided to organize a first expedition, whose main objective
was the scientific exploration of central Borneo, especially the region of
the upper Kapuas and its main tributaries.
The first expedition (1893-94)
This first, multidiscipinary, expedition (1893-94) included Johann
Büttikofer, Curator at the National Museum for Natural History in
Leiden, for zoology; H. Hallier, Assistant at the Herbarium of the
Botanical Gardens in Buitenzorg (Bogor), for botany; G. A. F.
Molengraaff, for geology; Nieuwenhuis, for physical anthropology and
ethnography, and as medical doctor.
The expedition got underway in November 1893 and from its
headquarters at Semitau, where all members finally gathered on
26 February 1894, it left for the Mandai River. Nieuwenhuis and
Büttikofer stayed from March through May 1894 on the upper Mandai,
in the village of Nanga Raun (later famous as the longest longhouse in
West Kalimantan), among the Ulu Air Dayak (a branch of the Ot
Danum who call themselves Orung Da’an). Meanwhile, Molengraaff
made a geologic survey. Then Nieuwenhuis and Molengraaff went back
to Putussibau to prepare for the journey towards the Mahakam.
Controleur van Velthuysen, the district officer of the Upper Kapuas,
was appointed leader of the expedition, which included, besides
Nieuwenhuis and Molengraaff, 19 prajurit (East Indies soldiers), 5 Malay
coolies, 8 Batang-Lupar (Iban) Dayak in the special service of the
controleur, and 85 Kayan Dayak from the Mendalam River as boatsmen
and porters. They departed Putussibau with 24 canoes on 15 June 1894.
They crossed over into the Mahakam basin on 14 July—the first time
a European had done so since 1825. But the regional political situation
had not changed much since Müller’s times. Preparations were being
made for a hostile reception by the tribes ahead—so went the rumor
brought by a Dayak messenger returning from the Mahakam—and the
controleur decided to turn back on 15 July. The expedition was back in
Putussibau by 22 July.
Molengraaff and Nieuwenhuis then parted ways. Molengraaff went
south, crossed over to the Samba River, and went down the Katingan
River (now part of Central Kalimantan), making geologic and
ethnographic observations and reaching Banjarmasin in October 1894.
Meanwhile, Nieuwenhuis settled among the Kayan at Tanjung Karang
on the Mendalam for two months (August-September 1894). Seeing the
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
Kayan settlement of Koeng Irang, remained a constant impending threat.

Koeng Irang, the most influential chieftain on the upper Mahakam, was
striving to keep his region independent from Kutai, whose interference
had done much harm among the tribes of the middle Mahakam area.
Competing for prominence, Belare’, one of the major Aoheng chiefs, had
allied himself with the sultan of Kutai, who wanted to break Koeng’s
resistance, while another important Aoheng chief, Paron, had pledged
allegiance to the sultan of Banjarmasin.
Belare’, playing Kutai’s game, was very probably behind the unrest that
prevented the first expedition from entering the Mahakam drainage in
1894. It was Koeng Irang who made the second expedition’s success
possible, as he soon became aware that the Dutch were powerful and
could be his trump card in the local politics. He asked Nieuwenhuis, “on
behalf of all the Mahakam groups”, to petition the Dutch authorities to
take direct control of the area. Nieuwenhuis could not have been happier.
The journey down the Mahakam ended on 5 June 1897, when the six
members left Samarinda for Surabaya and Batavia. On his return to
Batavia, Nieuwenhuis held talks with Government officials and
convinced them to finance a third expedition, in order to explore ways
and means of extending Dutch rule to the upper Mahakam and the
upper Kayan regions to establish peace and security.
The third expedition (1898-1900)
This third expedition (1898-1900), thus, had mainly political aims. In
addition, the same ethno-sociological and medical goals were
maintained. Again, it was led by Nieuwenhuis and included Jan
Demmeni; J. P. J. Barth, a first-class controleur who had studied the
Busang language; H. W. Bier, a topographer; Midan, Nieuwenhuis’
cook; Sekarang and Hamza, two Javanese employees of the Botanical
Gardens of Buitenzorg, for botanical collections; and Doris, a Javanese
taxidermist, for zoological collections.
This time Nieuwenhuis took an armed escort of five East Indies
troops to deal with possible roving bands of Iban. He had made a special
trip to Singapore to buy glass beads and ivory bangles, unobtainable in
Java. He decided to go, again, from West to East, because he knew the
sultan of Kutai, who himself wanted to extend his influence into the
interior, would obstruct him if he attempted to start from the East.
The expedition left Pontianak on 24 May 1898, for Putussibau,
which it reached in June. But, because the Kayan of the Mendalam were
busy with their agricultural chores, they were only able to leave
Putussibau on 18 August, with 25 canoes and accompanied by Akam
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,
Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie. Eventually, the mountain range

between the Baleh River of Sarawak and the upper Kapuas was given the
name of Nieuwenhuis Mts.
After a long academic career as an expert on Indonesia, Nieuwenhuis
decided to retire in May 1934. He was succeeded in his position in 1935
by J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong. Nieuwenhuis died in Leiden on
21 September 1953, leaving a large number of scientific works. Writing
his obituary, Bertling acknowledged his important pioneer role in
Indonesian anthropology, and Smythies did not hesitate to call him “a
Borneo Livingstone”.
The expeditions’ significance
Nieuwenhuis’ expeditions fulfilled their political goals by leading, in due
time, to the establishment of the pax neerlandica in these regions plagued
by wars and headhunting. Furthermore the controleurs, as soon as they
were appointed on upper river basins, started supervising trade activities
and ensuring that the Dayak groups were not systematically cheated in
their barter deals with Malay and Chinese merchants. The Dutch, in that
respect, very much followed the example offered by the Brooke
administration in Sarawak.
These expeditions produced accurate maps of regions hitherto
untraveled (including the first topographic link between West and East
Borneo and a survey of the Mahakam: the “blank on the map” was
finally filled); linguistic studies (Barth’s Busang dictionary); and a wealth
of ethnographic and historic information on the local Dayak groups.
They also gathered important zoological and botanical collections:
1,500 skins of 209 species of birds and 659 specimens of fish (including
51 new species) were sent to the Museum in Leiden; some 2,000 plant
specimens were sent to the Herbarium in Buitenzorg; a number of rock
samples ended at the University of Utrecht. A rare species of bulbul,
captured in Apokayan in 1900, was named after Nieuwenhuis. A large
number of scientific publications were based on the expeditions’
observations and collections.
Nieuwenhuis’ medical observations, reported in several scientific
articles, showed that smallpox and cholera epidemics, diffusing from the
coasts, were fairly common, often destroying one-fourth to one-third of
the population of an infected village.
Chronic malaria and syphilis were very common in the Kapuas,
Mahakam, and Apokayan regions. These observations caught the
attention of the government, which soon established medical stations
with traveling doctors in those regions.
28 INNERMOST BORNEO
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
belonged to the early decades of anthropology, when the scientific

environment was still dominated by evolutionism. “Animism” was seen as
a primitive stage along a civilization scale assumed to have a universal
value. Neither the approach promoted by Durkheim’s sociological school
nor that of the subsequent functionalist school were really taken into
account in Nieuwenhuis’ work (e.g., 1911 and 1917).
Two books: In Centraal Borneo and Quer durch Borneo
In Centraal Borneo (1900; henceforth ICB), written in Dutch, and Quer
durch Borneo (1904-1907; henceforth QDB), in German, are two major
outputs of Nieuwenhuis’ Borneo expeditions. In several respects, they are
different books, although they concern the same peoples and subjects.
ICB describes Nieuwenhuis’ stay on the Mendalam (August-September
1894) and upper Mahakam (August 1896 to March 1897), whereas
QDB reports on all three expeditions.
ICB consists of two volumes totaling some 700 pages, whereas QDB,
also in two volumes, reaches over 1,000 pages. QDB also includes 170
beautiful black-and-white photographic plates, plus 18 color hand-
painted photo plates of ethnographic artifacts. ICB is a “popular” book,
meant for the general public, whereas QDB, due to the hand of Dr. M.
Nieuwenhuis-von Üxküll-Güldenbandt, the explorer’s wife, is more
“scientific”, with an extensive ethnographic account of the customs and
material culture of the groups of central Borneo. QDB is, in Smythies’
words, “a truly monumental work”. It proved too monumental,
unfortunately, for our Indonesian translation, and we chose to use the
shorter and more accessible Dutch-language ICB. Furthermore, we
decided to abridge the text into a still shorter and easy-to-read version.
However, the photographs accompanying this text were selected from
the vast stock of the Nieuwenhuis expeditions’ photo archives at the
Ethnographic Museum of Leiden. Most of them are by Jan Demmeni—
including some never before published—and a few others, it seems, by
Nieuwenhuis himself. Jan Demmeni’s photographs are among the very
best of his time. His skills and art have been recently recognized and
praised in a book devoted to his work (Indonesia. Glimpses of the Past,
1990). His equipment, described at length in Nieuwenhuis’ writings,
featured a Zeiss lens mounted on a 13 x 18 cm wooden box, and his high-
speed (for the time) films were among the first such films available on the
market and later replaced photo plates.
The 100-year-old photographs presented here constitute an invaluable
visual testimony, as an homage paid to the grandeur and beauty of the
free Dayak tribes of old and of their culture.
30 INNERMOST BORNEO
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.).
BY OTHER EXPEDITION MEMBERS.

BÜTTIKOFER, J. & G. A. F. MOLENGRAAFF
1896-
1897 ‘Toch naar de Boven Kapoeas op het eiland Borneo’, TNAG, 11: 289-292, 432-438,
642-643, 749-751, 858-859, 965-972, 1008-1012; 12: 113-133.
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.
HOSE, C. & W. MCDOUGALL

1912 The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, London: Macmillan, 2 vols.
IVANOFF, P.
1955 Chez les coupeurs de têtes de Bornéo, Paris: Arthaud.
JONGEJANS, J.
1922 Uit Dajakland, Amsterdam: Meulenhoff.
KESSEL, O. von
1849-
1850 ‘Statistieke aanteekeningen omtrent het stroomgebied der rivier Kapoeas
(Westerafdeeling van Borneo)’, Indisch Archief, I (2): 165-204.
KNAPPERT, S. C.
1905 ‘Beschrijving van de onderafdeeling Koetei’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en
Volkenkunde v. Nederlandsch-Indië, 58: 575-654.
LII’ LONG, S. & A. J. DING NGO
1984 Syair Lawe’, Yogyakarta: Gajah Mada University Press, 5 vol.
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1851 ‘Aanteekening over de landen van het stroomgebied der Kapoeas’, Natuurkundig
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LUMHOLTZ, C.
1920 Through Central Borneo, London: T. F. Unwin, 2 vols.
ROTH, H. L.
1968 The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, Singapore: University of Malaya
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1988 Central Borneo: A Bibliography, Kuching: Sarawak Museum Journal, 38 (59), Special
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1990 Central Borneo: Ethnic Identity and Social Life in a Stratified Society, Oxford:
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1853-4 Borneo: Beschrijving van het stroomgebied van den Barito, Amsterdam: P. N. van
Kampen, 2 vols.
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1991 ‘Vous avez dit explorateurs?’, p. 31-40 in A. Guerreiro & P. Couderc (Eds.): Bornéo.
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1955 ‘Dr. A. W. Nieuwenhuis. ‘A Borneo Livingstone’’, The Sarawak Museum Journal, 6:
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1989 A Journey among the Peoples of Central Borneo in Word and Picture, edited and with an
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34 INNERMOST BORNEO
TROMP, S. W.
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1907 ‘Een reis naar de bovenstreken van Boeloengan, Midden-Borneo’, TNAG, 24: 755-
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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
Fig. 4. The upper Kapuas river system

THE UPPER KAPUAS AREA 37
All ethnic groups in Kapuas Hulu Regency—including in the town of

Putussibau—still form local communities ruled by traditional custom
(hukum adat). Aside from its mayor (kepala desa), a desa also has a
customary leader, the kepala adat, among the Dayak and a religious leader
(Islamic cleric) among the Moslems. At district level, under the district’s
administrative head (camat), two or more higher-ranked customary
leaders are found, covering a geographic sector ranging from a small
cluster of desa to a whole river basin, and called temunggung among the
Dayak and pengawa’ among the Moslems.
Ethnic groupings
The lines below provide a brief description of characteristic features of
the ethnic groups reviewed. These groups’ traditional territories and/or
current distribution are shown on Fig. 6 (see also Sellato, 1994a: 228).
Population figures are given for 1992 (see Registrasi, 1992). Ethnic
ascription of desa and dusun was in part kindly provided by Mr Sonan of
the Sospol office in Putussibau and his staff in August 1995.
• The Melayu
The Melayu in Kapuas Hulu Regency are also locally known as Mbau
(or Embau, originally a Dayak group; see King, 1976). Petty sultanates
emerged in the 18th and 19th century in villages like Selimbau, Jongkong,
and Bunut, which were vassal to the sultanate (Panembahan) of Sintang.
The Melayu occupy the whole Embau District (approx. pop. 14,000),
slightly downstream the Kapuas River from Putussibau. They have spread
in significant numbers to the districts under review: they are present in
Manday District (desa Nanga Kalis, pop. 2,500), in Embaloh Hilir
District (desa Embaloh Hilir, pop. 2,000), in Batang Lupar District (desa
Sepandan and Melemba; pop. 300), and in the town of Putussibau. Their
language is one of the several interior dialects of Melayu (Malay). They
are involved either in trading activities along the main Kapuas River
downstream from Putussibau District and in all the region’s small towns
(Nanga Kalis, Nanga Embaloh, Jongkong and surroundings) or in fishing
in small settlements in the inundated Lakes region (see Wadley, 2000).
• The Senganan
These are the Melayu of the upper reaches of the Kapuas, restricted to
Putussibau District, including the town of Putussibau, Hilir Kantor,
Kedamin, Harapan Mulia, Pala Pulau, and Suka Maju (approx. pop.
12,000). They are originally Dayak converted to Islam, and they probably
came from downstream around the turn of the 20th century. They are
mainly farmers and traders. Senganan is a Melayu dialect.
38
INNERMOST BORNEO
Fig. 5. Administrative divisions in the upper Kapuas

• 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 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.
1970 Report on the Iban, London: Athlone Press, 317 p.

JACOBUS, Frans
1992 ‘The death rituals of the Banuaka’ Dayak of Kapuas Hulu Regency, West
Kalimantan’, paper, Second Biennial International Conference of the Borneo Research
Council, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, July 1992.
JENSEN, Erik
1974 The Iban and their Religion, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
KING, Victor T.
1976 ‘The peoples of the middle and upper Kapuas: possible research projects in West
Kalimantan’, Borneo Research Bulletin, 8 (2): 87-105.
1985 The Maloh of West Kalimantan: An Ethnographic Study of Social Inequality and Social
Change among an Indonesian Borneo People, Dordrecht: Foris.
MERING NGO, T. H. G.
1988 Luma’ umaa’: Suatu kajian perladangan ulang alik orang Kayan di Desa Padua,
Kecamatan Putussibau, unpublished thesis, Jakarta: University of Indonesia,
Department of Anthropology.
1989 ‘Antara pemilik dan pemanfaat: Kisah penguasaan lahan orang Kayan di Kalimantan
Barat’, Prisma, 4: 73-86.
1991 ‘Ambiguity in property rights: Lesson from the Kayan of Kalimantan’, paper,
Interdisciplinary Conference on the Interactions of People and Forests in Kalimantan,
New York Botanical Garden, New York, June 1991.
NIEUWENHUIS, A. W.
1994 Di Pedalaman Borneo. Perjalanan dari Pontianak ke Samarinda 1894, with an
introduction by B. Sellato, Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama & Borneo Research
Council, 266 p.
PAX BENEDANTO et al.
1994 Dinamika komunitas suku Dayak di pedalaman Kalimantan menghadapi intervensi
penguasaan sumber daya alam. Sebuah penelitian awal terhadap komunitas suku Dayak
Bungan di hulu Sungai Kapuas…, report, Ekspedisi Kapuas-Mahakam, Kompas-
Gramedia-Mapala Universitas Indonesia, 70 p.
REGISTRASI
1992 Registrasi penduduk Kabupaten Kapuas Hulu, Putussibau: Kantor Statistik BPS
Kabupaten Kapuas Hulu, 63 p.
ROUSSEAU, Jérôme
1990 Central Borneo. Ethnic Identity and Social Life in a Stratified Society, Oxford:
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
Fig. 6. Ethnic map of the upper Kapuas

CHAPTER III
THE UPPER MAHAKAM AREA *
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.
Some Bekumpai came over from Central Kalimantan, settling long

ago in the Ratah River area and on the upper Mahakam. There are some
in almost every village below the rapids, and a few upriver. The
Bekumpai are Dayak communities that have converted to Islam.
Malays settled long ago at Delang Krohong. Few in numbers, they
have been culturally and linguistically assimilated by their Kayan
neighbors of Long Kuling, but they have remained Moslems.
A group of Punan, the Punan Merah, moved a lot around the upper
Mahakam. About 1900 they were found on the upper Seratah River, then
by 1925-30 on the Meraseh, later again in the Nyaan River basin, and on
the Merah River. They have been resettled recently to Long Merah.
Kenyah are newcomers to the Mahakam, although they often raided it
in the past from their bases in Apo Kayan. A group of Kenyah Uma’
Tukung came from Long Sungai Barang (upper Kayan) to Long Mujut
(lower Boh), and later moved to Batu Majang. Also, a group of Kenyah
Leppo’ Tau from Long Nawang settled at Rukun Damai. The latter
village is still part of Long Merah, although it is bigger, but will soon be
made into an administrative village of its own.
Other Kenyah groups moved into the Mahakam via the Boh and
went downstream. The Uma’ Jalan from Long Ampung (Apo Kayan)
first stayed at Data Bunyoh (lower Boh), and then settled at Data Bilang
(Long Iram District), together with a fraction of the Uma’ Bakung of
Metulang (upper Ogah River). The upper Boh and Ogah area, formerly
part of Long Bagun District, is now part of Kayan Hulu District
(Bulungan Regency). Several Kenyah villages in that area, Metulang and
Mahak Baru (Uma’ Bakung), Dumu Mahak, Long Lebusan, and the
Punan village of Long Top (Uhu’ River), are thus now officially under
the authority of Long Nawang.
Miscellaneous groups are represented in the upper Mahakam area, in
addition to those described above. These form no separate communities
and include Siang, Murung, and Punan Murung from Central
Kalimantan; Tunjung, Bugis, and Kutai from the lower Mahakam
regions; and some Javanese and a few Chinese.
The villages
Long Bagun District used to extend over 11,750 square kilometers,
including the Boh-Ogah area, but it has been reduced to 6,500 square
kilometers. The population is 4,069 persons, living in eleven administra-
tive villages (desa), which are, from downstream 1 (see numbers on Fig. 7):
* Long Hurai: Busang Uma’ Asa, pop. 126 (77 Catholics, 36 Moslems,
and 10 Protestants).
50
INNERMOST BORNEO
Fig. 7. The upper Mahakam area

* 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
* Data Naha: Busang Uma’ Tuan (fifteen families), Busang Uma’

Mahak (seven families), Long Gelat (eight families); total pop. 188
persons.
* Lirung Ubing: Busang Uma’ Suling, a few Busang Bang Kelau; pop.
249.
* Long Lunuk: Busang Uma’ Tuan (twenty families), Long Gelat
(eight families), Busang Uma’ Urut (six families), Busang Uma’ Sam
(five families), Busang Bang Kelau (five families); population 467.
* Long Kuling: Kayan; population 873.
* Delang Krohong: Kayanized Malays; pop. 84 Moslems, with
mosque.
Long Apari District extends over about 5,000 square kilometers (the
official figure of 63,000 square kilometers is highly questionable). The
villages are, from downstream:
* Long Mutai 3: Seputan from Long Penane; population 98.
* Long Kerio’: Aoheng Kerio’; population 250.
* Tïong Ohang: Aoheng Cihan, a few Busang, Kayan, and Bugis; the
district capital; pop. 303. There are about a dozen Moslems, mostly civil
servants.
* Akeng Noha (also known as Tïong Bu’u): Aoheng Tïong Bu’u; pop.
267.
* Lirung Aham: Aoheng Huvung; pop. 224.
* Noha Tivap: Bukat; pop. 131.
* Long Apari: Aoheng Long Apari; pop. 616.
New horizons
While Long Bagun District is connected to small downriver market-
towns, such as Long Iram, by traders’ river boats (the village of Long
Bagun being their last stop), the other two districts are above the rapids
and can only be reached by longboats with outboard engines. Only
small-scale trade has penetrated there, and essential items reach very high
prices. (The price of a package of salt in Long Apari is ten to twenty
times the price in Samarinda, and salt is not always available.) Because of
these difficult conditions, and a total lack of jobs, the districts above the
rapids have lost almost one-fourth of their population in the last decade.
The Indonesian government is now launching a resettlement program
(RESPEN, for Resetelmen Penduduk) in the area above the rapids. An
airstrip will be cleared in Data Dawai, and the population from several
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
Furthermore, exploitation has now reached unsustainable levels and, with

a dwindling bird population, production has dropped by half.
Government intervention, in the form of either well-intentioned
socio-economic programs or less philanthropic trade monopolies, may
have a detrimental impact on the nation’s natural resources and, directly
and indirectly, its income, as well as, of course, on the local people
themselves, their prosperity, their culture, customary law and values
(adat), and ultimately their identity.
The two cases below may at first sight appear incongruent with each
other, describing as they do two very different situations: that of a group
of forest nomads trying to dodge the official injunction given them to
settle down and farm; and that of a group of farmers fighting tooth and
nail to keep control of the natural resources of their territory.
Both groups, however, are here seen striving to maintain their tradition-
al culture, society, and way of life. In both cases, government intervention
entailed a disruption of these. In both cases, the diagnostic conflictive
feature, the cornerstone of an apparently social problem, lies really in the
group’s disrupted economics. But in both cases, what is ultimately at stake
is the group’s traditional values, its very socio-cultural identity.
Punan: the need to remain nomads
Punan is a standard term used in East Kalimantan to refer collectively to
all groups of forest hunter-gatherers. The “Punan” of the upper Belayan
River (Tabang District) now comprise two related ethnic groups, the
Lisum and the Beketan. The Lisum originated, they say, from West
Kalimantan and moved into the Rajang and up the Baleh River in
Sarawak; they came across into the Apokayan area of East Kalimantan in
several groups between the 1860s and 1910s. The Beketan, also claiming
remote origins (the Palin River, West Kalimantan), moved into the
upwaters of western Sarawak, then up the Rajang; some, then, went
north and towards the coast; others went up the Baleh and, around
1880, into East Kalimantan. Both groups moved into East Kalimantan
primarily to escape from repeated headhunting expeditions staged against
them by the Iban of Sarawak. A third group, the Punan Mentarang,
which originated from the Malinau area in northern East Kalimantan,
has long assimilated into the first two.
All three nomad groups, in many small bands, gathered in the region
between the Boh and Belayan Rivers—some way from the Sarawak
border, and under the protection of various Kenyah groups—between
1890 and 1920. The first hamlets appeared then, forming trade points
where the nomads came once in a while to barter their forest products,
THE DAYAK AND THEIR RESOURCES 57
from which the Kenyah chiefs acting as middlemen derived an important

income. Several hamlets in the 1930s saw the first attempts at agricul-
ture, under pressure from colonial policies regarding the nomads. The
Dutch entrusted Kenyah chiefs with the task of tutoring the Punan in
these farming attempts. The Punan started growing cassava and fruit
trees, or other hardy cultigens requiring little care. A new type of sexual
division of labor developed, with women taking care of the fields and
men collecting forest products, now less for food than for trade.
But the Dutch wanted, mainly for humanitarian reasons, to bring the
Punan to the rice farmers’ level and norm. The Punan avoided the issue,
viewing rice farming as an unattractive economic alternative, because of
its demand for a rigorous attendance to the farm, its low calory-output to
work-input ratio, and its high risk of failure. Besides, rice farming was
inconsistent with their ideology. For their part, the Kenyah patrons only
reluctantly complied with the task assigned them: Punan occupied with
farming their rice fields were much less profitable partners than nomads
collecting forest products.
The Indonesian government continued the Dutch policies: the
nomads should be settled in permanent villages, controlled and included
in censuses, and made to benefit from education and health services.
Besides, nomads were giving a poor image of the nation. In the 1950s,
five Punan desa were in existence—Muara Ti’, Muara Salung, Muara
Tubo’, Muara Belinau, and Muara Keba’. Most families, however, still
lived in forest camps scattered over several river basins, several days’
travel from one another. The term desa is used here to refer to a some-
what abstract administrative entity taking into account the persons
registered as belonging to it, irrespective of where they really reside.
Reliable population figures can seldom be procured for such Punan desa,
as their autonomous nuclear family groups are often moving between
one settlement and another.
In the early 1960s some 65 Punan families were living in the region
between Boh and Belayan, part of them still circulating widely, relying
on wild sago and collecting forest products for sale, and part being really
half-settled in remote hamlets that mainly functioned as base camps and
trading places for collectors. In the mid-1960s, an attempt was made at
resettling them in a larger village at Muara Atan, on the middle course of
the main Belayan River, near the district town of Tabang. One group,
originally from Muara Ti’, had lived there before the war, in the course
of its migrations. This group, then living at Muara Belinau along with
some Beketan from Muara Tubo’, was the first to answer the call, under
prominent leader Ibau Ajang: a half-dozen families of Lisum and three of
58 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
five families from Muara Belinau. It is unclear whether the Beketan of

Batu Aya’ were still to be included in desa Muara Ti’. So, 34 families
resided at Sungai Lunuk. This total of about 50 Punan families left some
25 more unaccounted for: some possibly had married in Kenyah villages
or settled elsewhere; but most, doubtless, were still wandering somewhere
in the region, collecting forest products and showing up in town once
every few months to trade their goods. Population figures for 1985
(Franz 1988) are: 143 souls for desa Muara Ti’; 70 for Muara Salung; 78
for Muara Keba’; 62 for Muara Tubo’; and 62 for Muara Belinau. The
total number of Punan would then be around 415. The remarks above
concerning the 1971 figures apply here, too.
The tedious historical-demographic survey above shows that the
resettlement scheme that in 1967 had gathered some 30 percent of the
Punan families had not, by 1985, succeeded in bringing together more
than 50 percent. A conclusion can be drawn: they were not very interested.
Why is that so?
Among other Punan ideological traits (mobility, egalitarianism), nuclear
family autonomy entails a lack of group cohesion, and a strong fluidity of
the population, amply demonstrated above. But Punan economics must
also be taken into account. Coastal markets’ demand for forest products
having notably increased during the last decades, modern traders have
replaced the Kenyah as the Punan’s patrons. Using their predecessors’
devices, they have pushed the Punan into debt (sistem utang), and the
latter have to go and collect for their patrons. Although they are often
cheated, the Punan make a good living—better than their rice farming
neighbors. Generally more affluent than most farmers, they own boat
engines, cassette-players, and wristwatches that their patrons tricked
them into purchasing. They are pragmatic people, and a settled residence
clearly is incompatible with their economic choice.
Those who chose to become full-time farmers face difficult times.
Certainly they could easily acquire the farming techniques, but they find
it hard to plan in advance, schedule the farming calendar, manage the
paddy seed, take into account the weather, deal with plagues, or work
long hours in the open (which makes then ill), all tasks they are not used
to. Relevant government agencies have tried their best, but the Punan
never seem to receive enough instruction in rice farming to succeed.
With various plagues, long droughts or rain in excess, harvests hardly
amount to three months’ self-sufficiency in rice, and the Punan need to
go to the forest to live on wild sago for the rest of the year. Therefore,
they cannot devote enough time to the next farming cycle and feel that
they would better return to their old ways.
60 INNERMOST BORNEO
In regions where the Punan no longer range and collect, traders in

forest products have introduced teams of outsiders (Bugis or Javanese).
Contrary to the Punan who know the forest well and exploit it in a
sustainable way, these outsiders are ravaging it, cutting the rattan vines
too short off the ground and indiscriminately felling barren aloe wood
(incense wood) trees. These forest resources, depleted within a couple of
years, will be unable to regenerate.
Aoheng: the control of resources
Collecting bird’s nests (sarang burung walet) has been a traditional
economic activity—and a very dangerous one—of the Aoheng people of
Long Apari District, on the upper Mahakam River, for many
generations. Until 1978, the collection and sale were strictly regulated by
custom, adat. Under the Aoheng traditional legal system, bird’s nest
caves within the traditional territory (the wilayah adat under community
right, hak ulayat, for each village) are privately owned (hak adat), and
outsiders have to request permission from the village mayor (kepala desa)
and/or the customary leader (kepala adat), then from the cave owner.
In 1978, the Kutai Regency issued a new regulation (Decree No. 8,
revoking the earlier Decree No. 8 of 1969) claiming “ownership” of the
birdsnest caves (menjadi hak milik Pemerintah Daerah). The right to
exclusive purchase of bird’s nests was to be granted by public auction.
However, Kutai staged no auction before 1990. The regent, for a small
annual lump sum paid to the public treasury, directly appointed a trader
to purchase the nests but, it is said, more money went illegally to certain
civil servants (oknum tertentu). Prices were low, however, and only small
quantities were collected, to be shipped to Java (processing facilities),
then exported, mainly to Hongkong. The regulation was not enforced
and the people were enjoying free market prices.
Then prices started skyrocketting, due to the demand of opening
mainland China markets, reaching, for the gray nests (sarang gundul),
about Rp 500,000 per kilo of dry nests, and people started massively
collecting them. Kutai activated the public auction system, setting a floor
price of Rp 130,000 per kilo. The official rationale, as huge amounts of
money were at stake, was that more should go to the public treasury and
less to the oknum. The production of Long Apari, indeed, was in 1992 to
reach officially about 6 tons, although in reality it was 8 to 10 tons.
In December 1990, exclusive purchase rights on four districts of the
upper Mahakam (Long Apari, L. Pahangai, L. Bagun, and L. Iram) for
the year 1991 were auctioned to an Army cooperative, PRIMKOPAD
(ABRI AD), which appointed as its agent a Samarinda company, C. V.
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
1960s]”, with a weighty presence of the Police and Army. In May, a

number of people were arrested, kept in jail up to 10 days (and then out
on bail), and their nests seized. Those were the “guilty” people, but many
innocent ones were also held at gunpoint and beaten up by Police/Army
men who, though in plainclothes, were armed and, more often than not,
without proper written orders. People accuse the company’s agent of
“social disturbance”: Indeed, he managed to raise people against one
another and drive wedges between groups, bribing some to spy on and
denounce others, or ordering some to steal nests from other people’s caves.
The economic situation, too, is alarming. The hill paddy harvests, the
base of Aoheng economy, have repeatedly failed in the last years because
of long droughts. Basic goods, commonly very expensive in Long Apari,
can fetch up to 10 times the Samarinda prices during droughts like in
September 1992. The people badly need the income from the bird’s nests.
However, they do not even get what is due to them. The company’s agent
refuses to pay in cash the collectors’ fees and forces them to purchase
goods from him at very high prices. They end up owing him large
amounts of money and, ensnared in the credit system, they have to comply
with his orders.
From the environmental point of view, it is also very serious. The
nests, usually to be collected only once in three months after the young
have left them, are now raided much too frequently and eggs or
fledglings thrown out. The birds can no longer reproduce properly and
their population drastically declines. Consequently, in most caves,
production has decreased by 50% or more in the last three years. Because
of plain carelessness and the lack of a sustainable system of management,
this important resource is under imminent threat of total destruction.
The Aoheng are worried and angry. Interestingly, many of the people
involved in the lawsuit against the regent are not cave owners but people
concerned with the general deterioration of the situation. On 24 May
1993, a violent demonstration against the agent took place in Long Apari.
Conclusion: Let them have it their way
In the two cases above, the immediate and critical component lies in the
local communities’ economics. Both the Punan and Aoheng had for
centuries earned a living from their natural environment in a self-sufficient
and sustainable manner. In both cases, government intervention, by
compelling a change in residential habits or forcing an alteration of the
customary legal system (hukum adat), seriously disrupted traditional
economic patterns. The local communities, through either sheer geogra-
phic distance (resettlement village in Tabang) or legal proscription (decree
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
identity. The community’s ethno-cultural identity then lies in limbo, and

its culture is soon doomed to vanish. Unfortunately, no alternative culture
and identity have as yet been made available to the interior people, other
than those of the currently emerging international mass-media society.
Change, admittedly, is unavoidable, and the Aoheng and Punan will
change, as they have already spontaneously started to. Sudden change
constitutes a brutal and traumatic blow to a traditional community.
Therefore, change should be achieved in a smooth, modulated transition
by the community itself—along its own lines in agreement with its
culture and ideology, and at its own rhythm—not as a socio-economic
duty legislated from outside and to be carried out in a hurried manner.
Traditional societies, as stated above, are not frozen forms from a
prehistoric past; they are involved in a permanent, dynamic interaction
with their socio-cultural surroundings, constantly adjusting to external
factors. They are flexible enough to incorporate new elements into their
traditional cultural and ideological framework. As change slowly
pervades, the community spontaneously and painlessly performs the
transition—instead of enduring it—and, at the same time, preserves the
core elements of its traditional culture and way of life, and its identity.
Most nations in the world are now concerned with finding ways of
eating their cake while keeping it. The Punan and Aoheng had been
doing just that since time immemorial. Why not, then, let them go on
with it while the transition is under way and, eventually, let them show
us the way? The traditional forms of their cultures and societies have
proved functional and efficient in managing the environment. Why not
allow them to perpetuate themselves as the framework for local resource
management policies? Why not, indeed, help develop them and entrust
the local communities with the management of the natural resources of
their traditional territory? Policies that would acknowledge and respect
the interior peoples’ cultures, ways of life, and customs, and take into
account their opinions—before passing laws and implementing
programs, and instead of taking for granted that we know what is good
for them—would contribute to making them more prosperous in this
fast-changing world, thus making the nation, too, more prosperous.
Postscript (February 2002)
Further acquaintance with the Aoheng and the Punan of Tabang in the
course of the years and until very recently (2001) has led me to revise
some of my ideas on the subject raised above (see Sellato, 2001, 2002, and
Forthcoming 2). The situation pertaining to the non-timber forest
products (NTFP) in Kalimantan has seriously deteriorated in the last few
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
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
The distinction between so-called “egalitarian” and “stratified” societies

appears more relevant. The term “egalitarian” will hardly be used in the
following, but I shall maintain a contrast between “stratified” and “non-
stratified” societies. A few remarks must be made. First, strictly egalitarian
societies probably do not exist in Borneo (with the exception of nomadic
bands) and the so-called egalitarian societies generally function in a way
that refutes any ideological principle of equality. Besides, a number of
societies display a social hierarchy in various forms, either functional
without being ideologically formalized, or ideal without being functional.
For convenience’s sake, I shall call these societies “non-stratified”. Finally,
some societies have a social stratification with formal classes that are
named and functional: They are the “stratified” societies proper.
The societies of Borneo
In the following pages, I shall propose a rough, inexhaustive overview of
the types of organization found in the societies of Borneo, which dis-
tinguishes between three major types: the nomadic band; the “stratified”
agricultural societies (such as defined above); and the “non-stratified”
agricultural societies (including so-called “egalitarian” forms and hierar-
chized forms). A fourth type, the sultanate, will be briefly considered for
comparison purposes.
• The nomads
– The Punan
The nomadic forest hunter-gatherers, known under various regional
ethnonyms (Penan, Ot, Ukit, Beketan, Bukat), traditionally travel as
bands of twenty-five to fifty people in the interior’s wide forest expanses,
upstream from the farming peoples. They subsist on sago, a starch
extracted from the marrow of several genera of palms, and also on
hunting, forest collecting, and some fishing.
The band, an egalitarian society and an economic unit, is self-sufficient
for its subsistence but collects commercial forest products and maintains
trade relations with its settled neighbors. In the last few centuries and,
more particularly, in the last decades under the pressure of successive admin-
istrations, most bands have converted to a more settled way of life, more
oriented towards certain agricultural activities; many groups, however, still
widely practice forest collecting as part-time nomads (see Sellato, 1986).
The Bukat, a traditionally nomadic group of the upper Kapuas, were
organized in bands named after toponyms, each including an extended
family, puhu’. The band is an economic and migrational unit composed
of nuclear families, kajan. Each kajan lives in a separate hut, has a broad
degree of freedom, and can leave the band at any time. The band head,
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN BORNEO 69
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
vegetable, and fruit-tree cultivation, as well as hunting and fishing, play a

part in their economy. They mostly settle along the middle courses of
rivers, between coastal regions and mountain ranges.
An overwhelming majority of these groups do not display a formal
stratification system in named classes or ranks. In those that do, the
stratification appears to have resulted from an earlier ideological
borrowing and to not be really relevant and functional in daily life; I shall
call this a “quasi-stratification”. On the other hand, we shall see that the
so-called “egalitarian” societies are not really egalitarian in practice, and
that many of them show a hierarchy, expressed or at least latent, between
the politically-influential rich people and the poor. We should mention
the existence of a servile category, in several of these societies, made of
debt slaves and/or war captives. This category is relevant to the all-
pervasive opposition between free men and slaves and plays a role in the
opposition between the rich (owning slaves, among other property) and
the poor, but it is not essential per se to the system of social organization,
which can exist without slaves.
– The Barito groups
In the societies of this ethno-linguistic group, political organization
above the village level is rarely found, despite the existence of named
ethnic groups and subgroups. These societies generally distinguish
between free people and slaves, and no institutionalized system of classes
seems to have ever existed, except among the Ma’anyan. The settlement
pattern rarely features the longhouse (in the case of the Ot Danum), but
rather small hamlets scattered near the farming areas. The minimal
social, economic, and ritual unit is most often the nuclear family, rarely
the stem family.
The Ma’anyan focus their social, economic, and ritual activities on the
nuclear family, dangau, which mainly resides near its fields. However, a
village house, lewu’, is the focus of a descent group gathering several
dangau descended from the founder of the lewu’. Whereas the dangau
family disappears with its founding couple, the lewu’ group, owner of the
house and some heirlooms (here defined as comprising all types of
tangible or intangible inheritable assets or properties), perpetuates itself
through dangau families of the next generation. A broader descent group,
bumuh, overlaps the lewu’ and includes its out-married offspring, who
maintain secondary rights in the lewu’ group. Yet another descent group,
tambak, focuses on the container of the dead forefathers’ ashes. It forms a
ritual unit, gathering several lewu’ descended from the same ancestor,
and seems to perpetuate itself through the lewu’ of the caretaker of the
tambak.
Ma’anyan society shows traces of a now obsolete stratification in four

classes, bangsawan (noble folk, among which are the ruling families),
panglima (warriors, among which are the families of war chiefs), panganak
ruma’ (commoners), and walah (slaves). The commoners were comprised
of minor bangsawan and panglima families. This suggests that political
and military roles were in fact differentiated within a single category of
free people, itself sharply distinguished from the slave category. Further-
more, this stratification system as a whole and the related terminology
seem to have been borrowed from the nearby Banjarmasin sultanate (on
the Ma’anyan, see Hudson, 1978 and LeBar, 1972).
The Ngaju distinguish between the free people, including the utus
gantong (rich, influential people) and the utus rendah (the poor), and the
slaves, including the jipen (debt slaves) and the rewar (war captives). The
traditional leader, demang, is chosen from amongst the utus gantong for his
competence. Besides, ritual specialists, basir (priests) and balian
(priestesses), have a status apart. Hereditary noble titles of Malay origin
have in the past been bestowed upon outstanding individuals. The Ngaju
village is described as a mere juxtaposition of more or less autonomous
family units. However, it seems that, like the Ma’anyan, the Ngaju have
ritual-focused descent groups, meant particularly to hold funeral rituals
(see Sevin, 1983).
The Ot Danum, it seems, never had an institutionalized system of
classes, but they had slaves. The village had a traditional leader, demang.
In spite of the existence of village longhouses, betang, the Ot Danum live
most of the year as nuclear families scattered at their farm houses, repau
umo. In this neolocal situation, heirlooms are ideally shared equally
among all the children (see Avé, 1972).
– The Northeastern groups
Data concerning the social organization of groups in Sabah are
incomplete and sometimes contradictory. The Kelabit of eastern Sarawak
distinguish between an aristocratic category and an inferior category. It
seems, however, that this distinction dwells essentially on a question of
inherited wealth, and that political power is rather diffuse. Among the
Ida’an Murut of Sabah, no formal social stratification exists, but free
people and slaves are sharply distinguished, and political power, based on
wealth, remains within certain descent groups (see Prentice, 1972). It
appears that these groups, as well as those described below, were
traditionally living in longhouses.
Among the Rungus, an informal hierarchy is based on wealth, but
social organization is conceived of as egalitarian and there are no
hereditary rulers. The Rungus are described as politically acephalous. The
72 INNERMOST BORNEO
household consists of a nuclear family (angkob), the minimal economic

and ritual unit. It is started by a young couple setting up neolocal resi-
dence and terminated by its founders’ death, with property being shared
among the children. A household’s affiliation to a longhouse is imperma-
nent and the longhouse itself, having almost no collective ritual activity, is
hardly more than a residential association. However, the village as a whole
collectively owns a territory and holds rituals (see Appell, 1972, 1978).
The Lun Dayeh live in small villages (kapung) of one or two
longhouses (ruma’ kadang). The household (uang ruma’ ) appears to
consist in a stem family and is the production and consumption unit. It is
not, as a rule, a group owning heirlooms. With young couples system-
atically setting up neolocal residence, the uang uma’ does not perpetuate
itself and is finally dissolved and the heirlooms shared. Neither the
longhouse nor the village collectively owns property, and no collective
economic or ritual activity is found. A system of vague, fluctuating social
hierarchy, apparently based on wealth, not formal categories, is said to
have existed in the past (see Crain, 1978).
– The Western groups
The Land Dayak or Bidayuh include variegated and poorly known
groups, collectively gathered under these ambiguous names. They
generally live in longhouses that are often clustered in villages, and
apartments house stem families that are economic and ritual units.
Households form descent groups (turun) holding land rights. Some
ethnic groups do not seem to discern ranks or statuses, while others select
their chief, orang kaya (literally, rich man), from amongst certain descent
groups, with this selection having to be confirmed by a council. Locally
these descent groups may form a quasi-aristocracy, but the chief’s
authority is limited. No socio-political or ritual organization exists above
the village level. The Land Dayak are known for their “headhouse”, a
special building forming the focus of male activities and rituals in the
village (see Geddes, 1954, 1957; LeBar, 1972).
The Selako probably deserve a separate place among the western
groups. Selako society shows no stratification but distinguishes informally
between the rich and the poor. The village (kampong) is a cluster of
longhouses or hamlets (tumpuk), each composed of households (biik).
The biik, sometimes a stem family, is described as a legal entity owning
property and land rights and forming a production and consumption
unit. It perpetuates itself through a ritual transfer of the house and
heirlooms to one of the children. The tumpuk, a residential association of
biik households related by blood or affinity, has political, economic, and
ritual functions. These related households form a descent group
(katurunan) owning a territory. The tumpuk is headed by a tuha rumah,

whose power resorts more to persuasion than to authority. Although the
tumpuk has many collective functions, the biik’s affiliation to a tumpuk
seems to be neither strictly necessary to its functioning (a biik can be
isolated) nor really permanent (see Schneider, 1977, 1978).
– The Iban groups
The term Iban (or Sea Dayak) covers groups with a rather homo-
geneous culture and language, located north of the Kapuas and in
Sarawak. Several related groups are referred to as “Ibanic” (Kantu’,
Seberuang, Desa, and others) and live on the middle Kapuas.
Iban economy is often oriented towards agricultural expansion in the
primary forest. The longhouse (rumah), mostly gathering related families,
is not a territory-owning group. An apartment (bilek) in the longhouse
shelters a stem family, which is a legal entity owning heirlooms (the
apartment, moveable property, and land rights) and perpetuating itself.
Only one of the children remains in the bilek, as well as a large part of
the heirlooms. A leader (tuai rumah) rules over or coordinates questions
of customary law, while a religious specialist (tuai burong) is in charge of
rituals. Each bilek, though it is represented in collective rituals, is an
autonomous entity and free to split from the longhouse. Iban society is
generally seen as “egalitarian” in the sense that it conceives of itself as
such. However, leaders are often chosen (although not in a strictly
hereditary way) from amongst rich and politically influential families (see
Freeman, 1958, 1970; LeBar, 1972). Rousseau (1980) challenged the
egalitarian character of Iban society by stressing that the same individual
very commonly holds both the offices of tuai rumah and tuai burong,
exercising strong de facto authority over his longhouse’s families.
• The stratified societies
We shall consider here the societies in which inequality is ideologically
expressed by formal, named classes (or ranks) that are, furthermore,
functional and relevant in social life. The economic base of these societies
is globally the same as that of the “non-stratified” societies: prominent
swidden rice cultivation, and hunting and fishing of varying importance.
It seems that the stratified groups of Borneo can be reduced to two
large regional sets, one including the Kayan, Kenyah, and Modang
groups, the overwhelming majority of which live in East Kalimantan and
interior Sarawak, and the other including the Maloh groups of the
Kapuas.
These stratified groups, particularly the Kayan and Kenyah, have
passed their stratification system (or part of it) on to some of their
74 INNERMOST BORNEO
neighbors. However, the Aoheng of East Kalimantan or the Kajang

groups of Sarawak, for instance, have considerably softened the system
that they borrowed, with the political power actually remaining in the
hands of commoner families’ heads. Some groups of Sarawak, like the
Kelabit (see above), have also been obviously influenced by their stratified
neighbors. Finally some groups, like the Ma’anyan (see above), have been
influenced by Moslem sultanates, which introduced noble or military
titles. Groups showing such borrowed social features will not be taken
into account here.
– The Kayan, Kenyah, and Modang groups
Among the many Kayan subgroups distributed in the island’s
northeastern quarter, those of the upper Balui (Sarawak) have been
described in detail. The autonomous village, home to a named subgroup,
is typically made of only one longhouse (uma’ ), divided into apartments
(amin). The household, generally a stem family, is the sole owner of the
amin, its moveable property, and the product of its members’ labor. The
village collectively owns a bounded territory, but there is no permanent
land ownership connected with the amin. The amin perpetuates itself,
even if the physical apartment has been moved or has disappeared. Amin
membership is by birth, adoption, or marriage, but an individual may
belong to only one amin at a time, and membership is rigid. Heirlooms,
as a whole, remain with the amin.
Kayan society is divided strictly into high aristocrats (maren),
noblefolk (hipuy), commoners (panyin), and slaves (dipen). Any amin
permanently belongs to only one of these classes, which tend to be
endogamous. There is a further opposition between two ritual categories,
the higher one including maren and hipuy, and the lower one including
panyin and dipen. Chiefs are chosen exclusively from amongst the maren,
and chieftainship is hereditary. Neither panyin nor hipuy (let alone slaves)
can leave the village without the chief’s agreement, and the amin is,
therefore, tightly maintained within the community. Conversely the
maren, conforming to the class-endogamy ideal, often marry aristocrats
from other villages, which enables them to play an important role in
relations beyond the community and to control trade (especially with the
nomads). They alone can own slaves, who work for them, and demand
corvee from members of other classes (see Rousseau, 1978).
The Kenyah live in large settlements (lepo) of several longhouses
(uma’ ), sometimes gathering several thousand people. Regional chiefs
extend their authority over several villages or a whole river basin. The
household (lamin) includes either a nuclear, stem, or extended family.
Young adults and young couples generally make separate swiddens, but
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
Sambas, Sukadana, and Landak in the west; Banjarmasin in the south;

and Kutai and others in the east. Most probably replaced earlier Hindu-
Buddhist kingdoms connected to the Javanese kingdom of Mojopahit.
After contacts with incoming Javanese, Malays, or Bugis, the conversion
of these princes or coastal tribal chiefs to Islam allowed for the emergence
of Moslem dynasties whose power dwelled primarily on economic bases:
A harbor town, located at the mouth of a major river and open to
maritime trade, controlled the trade routes of forest products from the
interior. The colonial powers, on the scene as early as the 16th century,
entered into competition with the sultanates for the control of trade and
progressively abolished or placed them into tutelage.
The existence of the kingdom of Kutai, near the mouth of the
Mahakam, is attested by a Brahmanical inscription of ca. 400 AD, the
oldest inscription ever found in the Indonesian archipelago. Islam
imposed itself there around 1606, and the Dutch came into contact with
Kutai around 1635. The sultans’ power, much more economic than
political or religious, was based on a toll on all trade goods transiting
through the harbor. The sultan was the sole recipient of this income and,
besides, he levied taxes on opium, salt, and gambling. Although he had
many wives and concubines, he was succeeded by the oldest of his
legitimate sons. His very large family constituted by itself the sultanate’s
whole aristocracy, while official positions (mantri negri and others) were
granted, in a non-hereditary way, to influential persons, members of the
sultan’s family or not. On the other hand, titles were given to leaders of
the various ethnic communities that were vassal to the sultan (see
Wortmann, 1971a/b).
It is not necessary to enter into the detail of the sultanates’ social
organization here. However, let us stress that, as is confirmed by Brown
(1976) for Brunei, these harbor towns formed multiethnic communities
in which social rank was conditioned by ethnic affiliation. Therefore,
these societies are not traditional societies but, rather, “modern” societies
with marked exo-Bornean features.
The family and its social integration
Let us review the distinctive elements of social organization as they
appear in the various categories of the typology above.
• In nomadic societies
Nomadic societies, differing in their natural—forested or maritime—
environment but closely similar in their economic bases, display
traditional forms of functional organization at the level of the stem
family and, more clearly, the nuclear family, since young couples
regularly set up neolocal residence. No property belongs collectively to a

group above the autonomous and mobile nuclear family, no social
grouping perpetuates itself, and property is divided upon the founding
couple’s death. Furthermore, there is no social differentiation. The
nuclear family’s high degree of freedom entails a low degree of social
integration and cohesion.
The process of sedentarization of nomadic groups (Punan or Bajau
Laut), in the modern context just like in historical times, has caused
nuclear families to gather into extended families. However, the extended
family, a residential and economic unit bound to a house, has no
continuity through time, since neolocal residence remains the common
practice and the nuclear families retain a broad autonomy. Extended
families are the base for broader residential associations (hamlet or village).
• In “non-stratified” societies
What do these variegated societies, which we have gathered under the
phrase “non-stratified societies”, have in common? According to these
societies’ own varying conceptions and to the researchers’ varying
approaches, several types of social organization appear to be found side by
side, from an “egalitarian” type to a “quasi-stratified” type, via other types
showing a more or less obvious inegalitarian character. These other types I
call “hierarchized”.
Among the “egalitarian” Iban, it is implicitly admitted that leadership
is monopolized by the rich and influential families. Among the Ma’anyan,
who seem to think of themselves as “stratified”, an indisputable
differentiation in political and military roles cannot really be equated with
a system of social classes, insofar as the “noble” families not currently in
power are viewed as commoners.
Between these two extreme cases, societies appear hierarchized into an
upper and lower categories, on the basis of a unique criterion, that of
wealth. In local terminologies, “upper” is equated with rich, noble, and
“good”; while “lower” is equated with poor, commoner, and “bad”.
Depending on the group, these categories are either formally acknowledged
and named in terms of classes, or informally viewed through an empirical
evaluation of wealth. In all instances, they boil down to a de facto contrast
between the rich and the poor. The categories are only vaguely bounded
and an individual’s or household’s affiliation to one or the other category
is a matter for appreciation and can change through time following their
respective destinies. It is necessary to distinguish such “hierarchizations”
in vague and permeable categories (even if they are expressed in terms of
classes) from real systems of social stratification in discrete, permanent,
and mutually exclusive classes.
78 INNERMOST BORNEO
In all these “non-stratified” societies, it seems sound to contemplate a

unique class, within which an unstable hierarchy between the rich and the
poor develops. In a number of them, a servile category also exists, but it
should be stressed that a free man can become a debt slave after a reverse
of fortune, to later buy his freedom back. The contrast between free
persons and slaves would then, in many instances, be not so much a matter
of class than of wealth, and would be encompassed in a one-class system
displaying a more or less formalized but always fluctuating hierarchization
in three terms, rich, poor, and slave. This remark may be groundless
regarding war captives but these, in any event, are only “strangers”.
Most often, in these societies, there is not really such a thing as
political power but, rather, a political “influence” exercised by the rich
families over the community. A rich family may, at some point, have a
political influence and, some time later, be incapacitated by a setback and
displaced by a formerly “poor” family grown rich. We should mention
that the foundation of this “influence” may be more religious than
political. In some (apparently few) societies, hereditary chief lines have
emerged, always founded on wealth, but political authority remains
diffuse or informal, and commonly unfit to prevent families from leaving
the community.
As the political agencies at the level of the local community are
relatively weak, it should come as no surprise that, generally, no socio-
political organization exists above the village level.
The minimal social and economic unit, varying with the ethnic
groups, is either the nuclear, stem, or extended family. Several well-
documented cases show a very autonomous nuclear family (e.g.,
Ma’anyan, Rungus). While the nuclear family is sometimes a ritual unit,
it is not a perennial social grouping, since it is the product of a systematic
neolocal residential pattern.
With the stem family, we find a principle of perpetuation of a family
group: only one of the children remains in the house, taking care of the
aging parents and inheriting the bulk of the heirlooms. This is the case of
the Selako biik and the Iban bilek.
The extended family group as a residential unit (village house) does not
have any perenniality if it practices regular neolocal residence, as does the
Lun Dayeh uang ruma’ (like the Bajau Laut luma’): The nuclear families
scatter and the heirlooms are divided. However, an extended family group
can perpetuate itself, on the reproductive model of the stem family, if one
or two (or more) of the children do not go away to a neolocal residence
and remain in their parents’ house. This is the case of the Ma’anyan lewu’,
a perennial house-owning and patrimony-managing group.
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
Fig. 8. Location of ethnic groups

(scale: approx. 1:10,000,000)
LEGEND
NOMADIC GROUPS A Punan

1 Bukat
B Bajau Laut
NON-STRATIFIED GROUPS C Northeastern Groups

1 Rungus Dusun
2 Lun Dayeh
3 Kelabit
4 Kadayan
5 Murut Ida’an
6 Berawan
D Western Groups 1
1 Selako
E Iban Groups
1 Iban
2 “Ibanic”
F Barito Groups
1 Ngaju
2 Ot Danum
3 Ma’anyan
4 Groups of the Melawi 2
STRATIFIED GROUPS G 1 Kayan

2 Kenyah
3 Modang
4 Maloh
5 Kajang 3
3
6 Aoheng
COASTAL SULTANATES H 1 Kutai

2 Brunei
3 Banjarmasin
4 Sambas
5 Sukadana
Notes: 1. Also called Land Dayak or Bidayuh.

2. Culturally related to the Ot Danum.
3. Social stratification here is a borrowed trait.
82 INNERMOST BORNEO
• 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
entity or corporate body (personne morale), its holding an estate of

patrimonial assets, and its continuity through time—only the last appears
truly distinctive in the Bornean context, and I shall examine it more in
depth.
Indeed, a legal entity, the holder of an estate of assets, likely exists in all
instances, if only in its minimal form, a married couple. The question of
whether such a minimal form is a political or ritual unit may be but a
minor point. It always is a residential unit. But it is not always an eco-
nomic unit, thus the ethnographic record may be viewed as ambiguous:
among the Punan, which legal entity should be considered, the married
couple of the nuclear family, which is an estate-holding residential unit, or
the band, which is the economic (and possibly political) unit? Among the
Ma’anyan, is it the dangau nuclear family, which is the economic and
residential unit, or the village’s lewu’ descent group, which is the warden
of a patrimony?
On the other hand, the existence of assets in one or the other type of
family group is established in all instances, if only consisting of the
Punan’s weapons and tools or the Bajau’s fishing nets, which are owned
by the nuclear family. The transfer of these goods from one generation to
the next in no way presumes the perpetuation of a legal entity.
Then it is, indeed, the question of the permanence of a family
grouping as a legal entity that lies at the core of the problem and is crucial
in establishing the existence of a ‘house’. Among nomadic societies, we
have noted that no family grouping perpetuates itself. A large part of the
non-stratified farming societies appear organized with no permanent
family grouping. The Selako biik and Iban bilek alone, based as they are
on the reproductive pattern of the stem family, seem to function as
‘houses’. As for the case of the Ma’anyan’s lewu’ group, an extended
family in which membership rules are not strictly set, it remains
ambiguous.
Conversely, all stratified societies indisputably display ‘houses’, based
on stem families. It is important to stress that, in these societies with a
class system, all households in all classes (except for the slave category)
are ‘houses’, functioning as residential, economic, and ritual units.
Moreover, each such ‘house’, set in a tight social fabric, has, firstly, a
role—more or less active varying with the class to which it belongs, and
in any case a role of representation—in the political, economic, and
ritual activities of the village community’s life; and, secondly, a symbolic
existence as an intrinsic component of the community.
At this stage, several conclusions may already be drawn. One is that
the concept of société à maison can only apply to a small fraction of the
84 INNERMOST BORNEO
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
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
in the whole set of social relations—seems to only exist based on a system

of ‘houses’, but does not appear to be absolutely necessary, since certain
social forms with a lower degree of integration (e.g., restricted to collective
ritual activities) may also be associated with a system of ‘houses’.
Different levels of ‘houses’
It is beyond the scope of this study to consider the factors underlying the
establishment of a high or low level of social integration. We can,
however, parallel this concept of social integration with that of the
“closure of the group” (see Rousseau, 1985), which rates an individual’s
or a family’s freedom to leave their local group and join another. For
Rousseau (1985: 42), this closure of the group is not per se the reason for
social inequality but it brings about a social environment that makes it
possible. This would suggest that the existence of ‘houses’, beyond a
certain degree of social integration, allows for the emergence of
formalized inequality (classes) founded on ideology—instead of informal
inequality, as an ad hoc rich vs. poor contrast.
I have shown elsewhere (1986), by examining the social processes
by/through which forest nomads settle down, that Punan band chieftains’
attempts (seldom successful) at imposing the stratification system (or, at
least, hereditary chieftainship) for their own benefit commonly led to
intensified social integration of nuclear families in the local group settling
in a hamlet. It then appears that, in some instances, formal inequality—
including, at least, the emergence of a ‘noble’ line, from which chiefs are
recruited in a hereditary way—borrowed from neighboring stratified
societies may play a part in the families’ social integration to the local
group and, therefore, in the transition from a ‘residential association’ to a
true ‘social group’.
This brings us back to the ‘house’ and, especially, the different levels of
‘houses’. In stratified societies, as noted above, both the household and
the longhouse are ‘houses’. Very likely, in Kenyah villages comprising
several longhouses (and several thousand souls), the village itself, as a local
group performing collective political, economic, and ritual action and
owning a territory, is a ‘house’, represented by its highest aristocrat (paran
lepo) and symbolized by this leader’s apartment (his ‘house’), family line,
and sacred heirloom objects.
We are then led to consider a system of ‘houses’ encased in one
another, like a nest of Russian dolls. This system closely parallels the
system of social integration described above, which is strict and rigid. An
individual’s affiliation to a household is exclusive and strict at any point
in time, but may change through adoption or marriage—likewise his/her
88 INNERMOST BORNEO
affiliation to a social class may be altered through anisogamic marriage.

However, a household’s affiliation to a longhouse and, possibly in a less
obvious way, a longhouse’s affiliation to a village are ideally strict,
exclusive, and permanent.
A key to this system may be the principle of representation of a social
entity by its chief vis-à-vis a higher-order social entity in the latter’s
collective activities. Thus, a household head represents his/her household
in longhouse-level political, economic, or ritual activities (note that a
woman may play this part). Likewise, a longhouse head represents his/her
longhouse in village-level collective activities. Finally, the village head
him/herself plays a role of representation abroad. This pyramidal system
of representation clearly replicates social hierarchy. Any individual
(except from the slave class) is a representative at his/her own level and is
represented at the higher level by the head of his/her social entity.
Another key, to be linked to the one above, is the symbolic nature of
representation. A family head does not only represent the members of
his/her household, but s/he also and mostly represents the perennial
‘house’ of which s/he is in charge, and which is part and parcel of a
whole, the longhouse. The longhouse, in turn, is symbolized by its
leader’s line and apartment, which is also a ‘house’, but a ‘noble house’,
morally and politically responsible for the component households, the
owner of a territory and holder of sacred heirloom objects, and
responsible for the longhouse’s rituals and spiritual welfare. This ‘noble
house’ is the longhouse. Through its leader, this ‘noble house’ is
represented to the ‘high noble house’, that of the village leader, which in
turn symbolizes the village in alliances or transactions with other villages.
It is the symbolic nature of representation that endows the social
fabric with its potency and allows the social group to view itself as a
whole, a unit, all component parts of which are indispensable.
Therefore, ‘houses’ exist at different levels: The village, just like the
household, is a ‘house’. The household of the village head and that of the
lesser commoner may be comparable and on the same level in terms of
their internal workings—despite some notable differences, such as the
presence of house slaves and the corvee system that guarantee the noble
household’s economic efficiency—but they cannot be compared at the
symbolic level. The commoner household only represents the minimal
legal entity, whereas the leader’s household represents the village, a
higher-order legal entity.
It should be noted that this pyramidal symbolic system and the related
high level of social integration are responsible for most of the social
group’s feeling of identity, from the longhouse to the village and the
ethno-linguistic group. In societies with a low level of social integration

(non-stratified groups) and, even more so, in nomadic or newly-settled
bands, ethnic identity undergoes considerable shifts, through assimilation
to neighboring groups or due to vague ethnic or linguistic boundaries. In
stratified societies, however, a strictly bounded territory, strong traditional
ideals, and lack of inclination toward mixing or borrowing (all of which
make them “closed” societies), specific dialectal and cultural features
persist within the group to grant it a very strong ethnic feeling.
Before concluding, the case of the sultanates should be briefly
reviewed. The sultanate is in Borneo an anomalous, imported social
type—this type of polity includes Indian and Moslem elements—and,
furthermore, it is multiethnic. Strictly speaking, there is no social
stratification: the sultan and his family constitute an aristocratic category
with vague boundaries; a certain number of official positions are often
granted to members of one given ethnic category, but often are not
hereditary; and the people are a multiethnic crowd of fleeting residential
and political affiliation. In this trade harbor situation, the social fabric
appears loose, with a low level of social integration.
While the sultan’s palace is probably a ‘house’, and one endowed with
a high symbolic (religious) value since the sultan is a descendent of the
Prophet, this symbolic value vouching for the sultan’s legitimacy could
not always secure the social and political order or economic functioning,
which had to depend on special categories of civil servants and military.
What we have, then, is a ‘town’, the raison d’être of which is trade and
which, while not necessarily more populous than a large Kenyah village,
works on the basis of market economy in a very ‘open’ group rather than
on those of a social ideology in a ‘closed’ group. This urban organization
does not display the various levels of symbolic representation found
among Borneo’s traditional stratified societies. Sultanates, thus, are
“modern” systems of social organization, quite distinct from endo-
Bornean systems.
Conclusion
The concept of société à maison, as has been noted, can only apply to a
part of Borneo’s societies: stratified societies, coastal sultanates, and some
non-stratified societies. It cannot account for the general situation of the
island. Likewise, we should question Leach’s suggestion to discern,
among certain principles of Dayak social organization likely to define “a
Bornean type of pattern of organisation” (1950: 57), a politically
influential “house-owning group” present in societies with marked class
distinction and in more egalitarian societies alike (1950: 61). Both these
90 INNERMOST BORNEO
concepts, as far as Borneo is concerned, clearly bear the stamp of the

prejudice created by the ethnography of Sarawak, where groups with
‘houses’ are indeed widely dominant.
There is no single model of social organization that would be typically
Bornean. Studies on Philippines societies suggest that the same comment
holds true for that archipelago as well. It is important to reposition
Borneo societies within the broader framework of Southeast Asian
cognatic societies.
By examining not only the family group but also its inclusion in the
local group, I have shown that it is only beyond a certain level of social
integration of the household in the village—through dense settlement
patterns, the family groups’ restricted autonomy and intense involvement
in collective activities, and possibly also the ideology of social
stratification—that ‘houses’ come into existence, which perpetuate
themselves based on the social reproductive principle of the stem family
and which only make sense within the framework of the local group.
I have also shown that the local group changes from a simple
residential association into a true social group with collective political,
economic, and ritual action in stratified societies, and that, through a
system of symbolic representations of social entities of a given level to the
higher level, the longhouse, representing a group of ‘houses’, is itself a
‘house’, and likewise the village, representing several longhouses. There
are, therefore, several distinct levels of ‘houses’ that, while comparable in
their internal workings, are not comparable at the symbolic level.
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
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:
1978b ‘The Maloh’, p. 193-214 in V. T. King (Ed.): Essays on Borneo Societies, Oxford:
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:
SCHNEIDER, W. M.
1978 ‘The Selako Dayak’, p. 59-77 in V. T. King (Ed.): Essays on Borneo Societies, Oxford:
SELLATO, B.
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:
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.
Fig. 9. Siblings-in-law in selected languages in Borneo

THE SPECIAL SIBLING-IN-LAW 95
Going through Fig. 9, one question arises, that of terminological

reciprocity in the cross-gender SbSp/SpSb relation. My own data (all
languages with source not stated above) show evidence of a strict
reciprocity in reference terms. Among members of the same generation,
the only known case of non-reciprocal terminological reference is, in some
languages, that of a husband and wife. In the most sophisticated among
the terminological sets given above, those of Kereho-Busang and Bukat,
using three terms, there is a regular same-gender and cross-gender
reciprocity : m <-> m , f <-> f , m <-> f.
In the Barito groups, only Dohoi and Ma’anyan (besides my own data
on Mandai) show this reciprocity, because Hudson has clearly investigated
every possible gender situation, which has not been done for Kapuas and
Murung-2. It may thus be expected that a further investigation, bearing in
mind the gender question, would find evidence of terminological reciproc-
ity. Then Needham’s data (if I am not misreading him) on the Western
Penan terminological set would be the only case showing clearly stated
non-reciprocal terms.
Patterns of post-marital residence and behavior
Let us first consider the ethnic groups using one term, of the *(C)angU(q)
type. Among the Kayan 11, as among other members of the Kayan group
(Busang, Bahau, Kayan-Mahakam), uxorilocality is predominant. Other
groups have long lived with or under the cultural influence of one or
another of the Kayan groups: Aoheng, Punan-Ratah, Long-Gelat, and also
practice uxorilocality as an ideal pattern of residence. The Lun Dayeh,
Murut and Murut-related Bolongan usually practice a neolocal type of
residence, at least after a short initial patrilocal (Idahan-Murut 23 ), matri-
local (Kelabit 24 ) or utrolocal (Lun Dayeh 25 ) period.
Among the six Punan-Bukat groups I have studied, utrolocal residence
is a general feature. Although most of these groups have more or less
adopted the bride-price system from their swiddening neighbors (members
of *(C)angU(q) group) near whom they settled, residence is always
arranged between both sets of parents according to the need for a balanced
male-female work force, necessary to the economic survival of both
households. This seems to be the same among Penan in Sarawak, where
the decision depends in each case on the particular circumstances,
although ideally a man should remain with his wife’s group 26. The same
pattern also prevails among the Ma’anyan: post-marital residence is
ideally uxorilocal, but ultimate residence is de facto with the groom’s
family in about half the marriages 27. Among the Kajang, on the contrary,
eighty per cent of the unions are uxorilocal, while utrolocal residence is
96 INNERMOST BORNEO
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:
Fig. 10. Types of affinal relations in Ego’s generation
In Bukat, the terminological set is: 1 (same-sex male relation) lavet ; 2

(cross-sex relation) langu’; 3 (same-sex female relation) ngaran. It is
obvious here that only langu’ bears a strong avoidance connotation. Same-
sex relations are partly or fully devoid of this connotation, and other terms
are used to express de-taboo-ization, or at least the fact that they are not
subject to the maximum avoidance required by the term langu’.
Ultimately, it is the brother-sister pair, residing in the same
household, that gives birth to complex terminologies, while in uxorilocal
groups the sister-sister pair produces only one term, bearing a strong
taboo. Among neolocal groups, there is only one term, probably bearing
a weak taboo, for ideally affines do not reside together (see Fig. 11).
Fig. 11. Post-marital residence and affinal relationships
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
situation might give a hint. According to De Martinoir, two factors are

structurally essential in the development of Kajang familial life: the solidar-
ity of the sororal group, and a close affective link between a man and his
immediate younger sister 19. It appears that these two factors have opposite
effects: the latter emphasizes the importance of the brother-sister pair and
is consistent with utrolocality being viewed as the ideal pattern of resi-
dence, and also with the affinal terminological set given above; the former
might have developed with a de facto dominant uxorilocality probably
borrowed from neighboring Kayan after inter-marrying over a long period.
Nomadism and utrolocal residence
Fig. 12 shows patterns of post-marital residence (column 1), type of eco-
nomy (i.e., swidden agriculture since long ago, or recently-settled hunter-
gatherer [HG] economy, column 2), the number of different terms used
for SbSp/SpSb (column 3), the relation particularly emphasized by the
affinal terminological system (column 4, see also Fig. 9).
A correlation appears between utrolocal residence and a former
nomadic economy. It is obvious for Punan-Bukat groups. Furthermore,
there is no evidence that Kajang groups were not fully nomadic before the
Kayan came and partly assimilated them. In the southern half of the
island, Dohoi and Mandai are part of the Ot-Danum (or Ulu Ayer)
groups and we must keep in mind that the Ot-Danum (lit., “upper river”)
were considered forest nomads (Ot was a synonym to Punan) by down-
river agriculturalists 31, and that Ma’anyan came from the Ulu Sungai
(upper river) district of South Kalimantan 32. The Kenyah, a numerous,
complex set of ethnic groups, say that they were “Punan” on the upper
Iwan river before they settled down in Apo Kayan and switched to
agriculture under Kayan influence 33.
Let us keep some exo-Bornean groups such as utrolocal Iban out of the
discussion, and investigate further the post-marital residence patterns.
While the Kajang probably practiced utrolocality before switching to
uxorilocality under Kayan influence, the Ma’anyan might have retained a
de facto utrolocality, although they see uxorilocality (borrowed?) as the
ideal pattern. What about the Dohoi? They have recently developed
neolocal residence and say residence was uxorilocal in the past. Was it
really? Or was uxorilocality just seen as an ideal pattern, long ago
borrowed from the adat of neighbouring agriculturalists? Neolocality
might well have replaced a de facto utrolocality.
Most of the groups listed show complex terminological systems for
SbSp/SpSb. Does the difference between two-term and three-term
systems reflect a difference in social organization?
Fig. 12. Residence and nomadism
A three-term system equally stresses all three types of affinal relation,

while a two-term system gives particular emphasis to one of these types,
which is always a same-sex relation. So why do some systems emphasize
the male-male relation, and other the female-female relation? In all
fifteen terminological sets given in Fig. 9, the male-male and female-
female terms are different.
It is thus most probable that the two types of relationship are
conceived as being of a different nature, and related to different patterns
of behavior.
Among two-term systems, Dohoi terminology stresses the female-
female, while Ma’anyan stresses the male-male relation. Is this evidence
of a closer type of relationship between affinal women in Dohoi society,
and between affinal men in Ma’anyan? Or, on the contrary, does
terminological emphasis stress a more reluctant behavior?
We may note here that four languages (10, 11, 12, 15 in Fig. 9)
exhibit three-gender third singular personal pronouns (see Fig. 13) 34.
A parallel may be drawn between emphasis on male-male relation in
personal pronoun systems and emphasis in the reference terminology for
100 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
Complex affinal terminology and the “transitional phase”

We believe that the discussion above hints at a correlation between the
nomadic way of life, utrolocal residence and the existence of a complex
affinal terminology. How can the relation of the latter with the former
two be explained ? Let us try the following hypothesis. The central part of
Borneo was inhabited by utrolocal hunting-gathering (HG) Punan-Bukat
groups, while new cultural patterns related to swidden agriculture slowly
diffused from downriver areas. It might be that HG groups had no
specific term for affines of the same generation (like the Kenyah until this
day). Economic, cultural, and linguistic interaction between HG and
swidden agriculturalists went on for about a century or more before
sedentarization was completed. During this period, HG groups borrowed
some cultural and adat patterns from numerically and technologically
dominant agriculturalists.
Among other patterns was/is a specific term for SbSp/SpSb with a
strong taboo connotation, as neighboring agriculturalists’ post-marital
residence is generally uxorilocal. Yet most HG groups seem to have stuck
firmly to utrolocality for a long period. They had to make imported
terminological categories fit with their own utrolocal reality. That need
for distinction between weak-taboo and strong-taboo terms induced them
to borrow other terms from other agriculturalists elsewhere (most HG
groups moved over very long distances during the last two centuries), or
to create new words. Referring here to Fig. 9, it appears that langu’ or
lango has been borrowed from the Kayan groups, ayup from Barito
languages, iwan or kivan being probably a general term for affinal relation,
both in Borneo and in other parts of Indonesia. So HG groups built up a
set of two terms (one with weak taboo and one with strong taboo) and
sometimes three when male-male and female-female affinal relation were
considered of a different nature.
At the end of a transitional phase, the HG groups settled down for
good and adopted uxorilocality, either as an ideal or as an actual pattern.
If residence is still de facto utrolocal, a two- or three-term system is
retained (Ma’anyan). If residence is de facto uxorilocal, but with utro-

locality still viewed as the ideal pattern, a complex system is also preserved
(Kajang). If residence become actually uxorilocal and uxorilocality is
considered ideal, then the terminological set might be reduced to a single
term, the one with strong taboo connotation (Punan-Ratah). As for the
Kenyah, a numerically important group, it might be that, sticking to their
original utrolocal pattern, they did not even bother to borrow a specific
term (although they did borrow the verb ngiban: to take up residence with
one’s spouse 35 ). Then, the emergence of complex affinal terminology
would not be connected to the nomadic way of life itself, but to the
transitional phase of sedentarization of nomadic groups, i.e., between the
first cultural contacts with, and the full cultural assimilation by, neighbor-
ing uxorilocal swiddening groups.
The hypothesis above obviously lacks definitive proof. Other different
hypotheses may be valid as well. If we want to understand cognatic
societies in such a complex cultural setting as that of Borneo, ethno-
graphic data are urgently needed for comparative purposes.
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
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).
30. Appell in Appell : 1976: 69).
31. LeBar (1972: 176).
32. Hudson in LeBar (1972: 188).
33. Whittier (1973: 22).
34. Sellato (1981: 49).
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.
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.)
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
or implied by many authors is, I believe, definitely irrelevant and non-

functional; the subsistence systems currently practiced in Borneo show a
continuum of stable and enduring combinations of rice agriculture, sago
and tuber cultivation, forest foraging, hunting and fishing.
Hunter-gatherer studies and devolution
Until the1966 Man the Hunter Conference, contemporary hunter-gatherers
were commonly spoken of as dwindling remnants of archaic populations,
the study of which may provide some insights to the understanding of
early human populations. At the same time, however, it was suggested that
the Siriono or the Vedda exhibited cases of “cultural devolution” or re-
adaptation to hunting (Lathrap, 1968). Later on, with more cases of
contemporary hunter-gatherers being discussed, we came to a point where
it was denied, on the grounds that none of them appeared to be “pure” or
an “isolate”, that anything we can observe of contemporary hunter-
gatherers is relevant to the understanding of prehistoric hunting-gathering
groups. Emphasis was laid on recognizing the existence of relations
between foragers and their food-producing neighbors, then on the impor-
tance of these relations in understanding a number of foraging societies.
In a further step it was argued, rather convincingly, that, for a certain
number of these societies, such relations have been going on over long
periods of time (Leacock & Lee, 1982). And a number of authors began
to see contemporary hunter-gatherers as “devolved” agriculturalists. After
Lathrap’s coining of the expression “devolution” (1968), other similar
expressions, like “professional primitives” (Fox, 1969) and “secondary
hunter-gatherers” (Hoffman, 1983), appeared over time.
More recently the tropical rainforest environments, for some reason,
came into focus. All tropical rainforest foragers were found “impure”, and
it was argued that the rainforests have never been a suitable environment
for foragers to subsist in (Headland & Reid, 1989, Bailey et al., 1989).
One has the feeling that, for some authors, it would be just as well if no
“pure” hunter-gatherers ever existed on the face of this planet (see, for
instance, Headland, 1990). However, over ninety percent of man’s time
on earth has been as a forager (Bicchieri, 1972); this is something that, I
suggest, should be kept in mind all along in studies on hunting-gathering.
Besides, there is nothing so far to prove that man has not lived in tropical
rainforests prior to any human food-producing activity.
The devolutionist theory in Borneo
Let us now settle into the Borneo case. Cole (1945, 1947) refused to consi-
der Borneo’s nomads as separate ethno-cultural entities. Harrisson (1949)
RECONSTRUCTING BORNEO’S CULTURE HISTORY
107
suggested that some segments of agricultural populations might have “gone

bush”, and he coined the expression “secondary primitivity” although he
never, to my knowledge, argued that all Borneo nomads were the result of
such a process. A similar idea was put forth by De Martinoir (cited in
Rousseau, 1975: 37).
For Blust, on the basis of glottochronological reconstructions, the
Austronesians who populated Borneo would already have mastered
agricultural technologies, particularly that of paddy (1976); therefore the
hunter-gatherers of Borneo, being Austronesian speakers, should be
“devolved agriculturalists” (Blust, 1989). That some Punan languages
appear to belong to the same groupings as do some languages of
neighboring agriculturalists, and that Punan do not appear racially distinct
from their neighbors, led Blust to conclude: “It is not language but rather
culture that has been replaced” (1989: 54). Seitz (1981), making use of
technological arguments, concluded that all of Borneo’ nomads might
descend from agricultural populations (see also Hildebrand, 1982).
Hoffman, going several steps further, contended that Borneo’s hunter-
gatherers are descendants of agriculturalists who decided to specialize in
the commercial exploitation of the tropical rainforest (1984, 1986, 1988).
Drawing on the scant archaeological data, Bellwood (1997) tended to
doubt that the densely forested interior of Borneo was inhabited very
much, if at all, prior to Austronesian settlement; archaeological data and
Blust’s linguistic conclusions led him to infer that Austronesians started
populating Borneo around 4000 BP; he further suggested, endorsing
interpretations by Blust and Hoffman, that hunter-gatherers here
recently penetrated forested regions, and he concluded with the rather
ambiguous statement that “clearly there is little scope for any widespread
and ancient hunting and gathering adaptation in Indonesia”.
AN INDEPENDENT HUNTER-GATHERER CULTURE

A few years ago, I had to review a book on the French Gypsy societies and
their patterns of cultural reproduction (Formoso, 1988; Sellato 1989c),
and I was struck to see how similar Gypsy and Punan cultures were, both
in their functioning and in their reproduction patterns. After examining
the case of a number of Punan groups, I realized that these groups display
a core of social values and behavior patterns—that is, an ideological
system—that plays an important role in perpetuating their way of life
through historic vicissitudes and cultural interactions. This ideological
system, obviously, has persisted through intense cultural borrowing. Such
an ideological system contributes to make Punan society an “open”,
individualistic, opportunistic, and secular one. This very openness makes
society extremely permeable to cultural borrowing from neighboring

groups. By cultural borrowing I mean technological, religious, as well as
linguistic borrowing. And I suggested that most Punan groups display a
dual culture, combining an inner, ideological core and an outer, mainly
borrowed, cultural layer. This is in no way a new idea, as Louis Dumont
heralded it some time ago (1986).
I recently came across a stimulating article by Ron Brunton (1989),
challenging Woodburn’s assertion (1979, 1982) that egalitarian societies
are relatively stable. Brunton shows that true egalitarian societies (that is,
immediate-return hunting-gathering societies, not based on economic
competition) are always potentially unstable, because of their openness,
cultural fluidity, susceptibility to acculturation, and low level of collective
representations. There is often, Brunton writes, a strong “structural oppo-
sition” between such groups and their neighbors. Later on he calls this a
“cultural principle”. This is what I (and Dumont, for that matter) call
ideology. Even though, Brunton goes on, cultural loss can go as far as
causing these groups to move across cultural and linguistic boundaries. He
mentions the Mbuti Pygmies, the Batek Negritos, the Paliyan, and the Hill
Pandaram as such groups having lost their original language. True egali-
tarian societies, Brunton writes, are just not viable. No wonder they have
disappeared at a high rate; no wonder there are so few left in the world.
All this should lead us to reconsider Blust’s statement that “It is not
language but rather culture that has been replaced” (1989: 54). I would
argue that actually, among many current nomadic Punan groups, both
language and culture have been deeply adulterated, except for the
ideological core—that is, the structural opposition—that still maintains
them distinct from their neighbors. In some almost completely
acculturated groups like the Kajang (I. Nicolaisen, 1986), this ideological
core still pervades their highly flexible and opportunistic economic
system. I have suggested that many formerly nomadic groups have rather
willingly assimilated into Iban society, which appeared acceptable to the
Punan ideology, whereas few Punan groups (even such acculturated
groups as the Kajang) have come to completely adopt the constraining
and incompatible system of social stratification of the Kayan.
I propose here to investigate the situation of the Punan groups of
Borneo a bit beyond the apparent evidence, something that has not been
done too often, it seems: i) A given Punan group is currently associated
with a given farming group. Has this always been true? What of the
Punan group’s earlier associations, of its ancient history? We should
investigate, as far back as possible, these ancient relationships; ii) The
culture of a given Punan group appears very close to that of its nearest
109
agricultural neighbor. Isn’t there something deep down in the Punan

group’s culture that is distinctive? We should investigate the specific
aspects of this culture that are not congruent with the farming cultures;
iii) The language of a given Punan group appears closely related to that of
its nearest farming neighbors. Isn’t there a substratum in the Punan
group’s language that is not attested to in the farming neighbors’
languages? We should investigate the specific aspects of this language (and
not just lexical features) that set it off against the languages of the farming
neighbors.
In a second stage, we should put together the results of our investiga-
tions of various Punan groups and attempt to discover what is common
between them: i) What do the various Punan groups share in their
historical and genetic relationships, beyond their current affiliation to
their respective farming neighbors? ii) What specific elements of culture do
they have in common, beyond the superficial layer of borrowed elements?
iii) What specific elements of language do they have in common, beyond
the superficial layer of borrowed elements?
I shall now present a few selected arguments against this devolutionist
view of the hunter-gatherers of Borneo. Some of the data come from my
fieldwork, others from the published literature. The data are drawn from
several, unfortunately too often disconnected, fields of study: ethno-
history, ethnography, linguistics. I would suggest that data and
interpretations from these different fields of study should systematically be
brought together, cross-checked, and integrated in a wider multi-
disciplinary frame. Such a comprehensive approach, I believe, should yield
incredibly fertile conclusions.
Ethnohistorical arguments
A study of the history of most nomadic groups shows that first, as far as
their oral tradition reaches, there has never been in their past a period
when agriculture was practiced, and second, that a nomadic group usually
had, in the course of its historical migrations, relationships with several
successive settled farming groups, not just one in a single long-term
association.
The history of the Bukat since the early nineteenth century serves as a
typical example (see details and references in Sellato, 1989a: 35-108).
Although their autonym is Buket (/bukµt/), they are known as Bukat on
the Kapuas and Mahakam Rivers and as Ukit on the Balui River. They
consider the Mendalam and Sibau Rivers of the upper Kapuas as their
homeland, but their migrations ranged as far as the Baleh River to the
North and across the Müller Mountains to the East. Around 1800, there
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
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
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.
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
developed arguments supporting the devolutionist theory, whereby the

tropical rainforest could never allow pure foragers to find their
subsistence, are completely unconvincing. It has been reported by
Harrisson himself (1949) that some Punan groups were wholly self-
sufficient for their subsistence without trading, even for salt, and Brosius
(1990) also stresses that whatever trade they do, even today, does not
involve foodstuffs (contrary to the case of the Batek or the Agta; see
Endicott, 1984; Griffin, 1984). Iron-less Punan had a more difficult task,
certainly, but still could manage to subsist. Indeed, the abundance of sago
palms in Borneo is an important factor.
It is hardly surprising that the Punan eagerly adopted technological
innovations when they reached them, and that some subsequently became
expert canoe and hardwood-blowpipe makers, dog breeders, and
blacksmiths, and even catered to their settled neighbors. I suggested that
the pre-dog, pre-iron Punan were too busy earning a living in the forest as
subsistence foragers to be at all interested in collecting forest products for
trade. This situation was later radically altered, with iron and dogs making
subsistence chores easier and less time-consuming, and settled farmers
demanding that dogs and iron tools be paid for in forest products.
Later on, in what may seem a paradoxical step, the Punan band would
take up a partly sedentary residence and some simple agricultural practices
(tubers, bananas), enabling the men to devote more time to commercial
collecting (see Sellato, 1989a). The later switch to rice farming, as an effet
pervers of the sedentarization process, led to a regression of forest collect-
ing activities. Indeed, many Punan groups were reluctant to get involved
in rice farming, one reason being their decision to carry on with their
lucrative trade of forest products, another being their distaste for rice.
• Spiritual culture
Although data are rather poor concerning spiritual, and particularly
religious and cosmogonic, aspects of the culture of Punan groups, two
facts are striking. First, rites of passage in general are very limited.
Second, the Punan do not show much interest in rituals and religion.
Marriage often occurs informally, with the young couple taking up
residence together and simply being considered married. Marriage
rituals, when they exist, appear similar to neighboring settled groups’,
though in a shorter form. Besides common first-cousin marriages, some
uncle-niece and aunt-nephew marriages, sororate, polygyny, and local
polyandry have been noted in Punan groups, whereas monogamy is the
rule among agriculturalists (except for some high chiefs). It seems that
the Punan have a very pragmatic view of the optimal management of the
band’s fertility, bringing down incest taboos to their minimal expression.
115
Bridewealth is sometimes not compulsory, sometimes totally absent. In

some cases, it is the woman who presents her husband with a hunting
weapon. It might just be that, formerly, both sets of parents got together
to provide the young couple with the necessary equipment to set up hut.
Neolocal residence of the nuclear family was probably the rule in Punan
bands before the sedentarization process developed.
Funerals, like marriage, usually show no elaborate rituals, if any at all.
While the detail of the procedure varies, these rituals, when they exist,
are generally short and simple. Most nomadic groups have in common a
specific attitude of withdrawal before death: When death occurs, the
corpse, the camp, and sometimes the whole area are almost immediately
abandoned. Whether the body is left on the spot, wrapped in a mat, or
buried, the deceased’s hut is often pulled down or burned. Contrary to
the settled groups, the nomads refuse to remain in contact with their
dead, as it seems that they often have no ritual to accompany the soul to
its last abode and that they fear the soul’s mischief. Reports on Punan
rituals hardly ever mention offerings or sacrifices for funerals. Indeed the
notion of sacrifice, apparently connected with the existence of domestic
animals, might be irrelevant here. Few taboos apply to the deceased’s
relatives, besides the withdrawal from the place of death. Punan attitude
towards death is then clearly different from that of agricultural groups. A
very similar attitude has been reported concerning African forest nomads
(Woodburn, 1982a).
What can be said of the religion of the Punan? It seems that the
Punan, like their neighbors, consider that human beings have one soul (or
several), which at death becomes a potentially harmful spirit. But it is not
clear whether, like their neighbors, they believe in a final resting place for
the souls. Their flight from the place of death would suggest that they do
not. The Punan have no rituals for extracting the sago, hunting, or
collecting; they have few taboos, auguries, healing or exorcism ceremonies
and, when they do, these most often appear to be reduced, “portable
versions”—as Hoffman (1988: 102) ironically writes—of borrowed
rituals. Punan groups having switched to rice agriculture seem to have
hardly ever bothered to borrow the associated rituals. It is likely that a
number of Punan groups have in common the belief in a high god
(known as Kito) who created the world, but this belief is not accompanied
by any significant ritual or cultual activity. The cosmogonic notions of the
Punan seem generally very vague, insofar as they have not been borrowed.
I would then conclude, like J. Nicolaisen, that the Punan groups share
a common core of specific religious beliefs. But I would tend to see the
Punan society as secular or sceptical, that is, showing no leaning towards
religious behaviors, ritual activity, or cosmogonic speculations. This, of

course, contrasts sharply with the case of the rice farmers for whom the
human life cycle, the cycle of the paddy, and the house are highly ritualized.
The Punan’s lack of interest in religious matters is not unique among the
nomads. Similar remarks have been made concerning, in various parts of
the world, the Basseri, the Pinatubo, the Siriono, the Mbuti, the Hill
Pandaram, the Paliyan, the !Kung Bushmen (see the works of Barth, Fox,
Gardner, Holmberg, Morris, Turnbull, Woodburn, and others).
• Ideology
For the Punan, I would connect this secular attitude described above
to their ideological background. As said above, I have argued that Punan
society is open, secular, individualistic, and opportunistic. It stresses
certain values: social equality, nuclear family autonomy, spatial mobility,
economic flexibility, opportunistic adaptability, preference for immediate
return on work and time investment. These values form a specific set of
mental schemes and, through child-raising patterns, a self-reproductive
ideological system. This system allows the Punan to adapt themselves very
successfully to technological innovations and to a changing environment
and economic markets, insofar as their values can be maintained. They
want to remain mobile, independent in their work, flexible in their various
(often simultaneous) immediate-return economic activities. Similar
remarks have been made on the other groups of nomads, including the
European Gypsies. No wonder, then, that the Punan became excellent
blacksmiths or boat makers; no wonder, either, that they are not much
interested in rice farming, which they find antagonistic to their ideology.
When they do settle, the Punan manage to maintain a mixed subsis-
tence system combining wild sago, cultivated sago or tubers, and eventually
some paddy, plus hunting and fishing (see Langub, 1974; Kedit, 1982).
They find this subsistence system more reliable than full-time rice farming.
Besides, it enables them to devote time to collecting forest products for
trade or to gold panning, and to take advantage of an illipe nut season or
an occasional salaried job, something full-time rice cultivators cannot do.
The Punan feel they are economically better off than their farming
neighbors. In Kalimantan, indeed, they often are.
Punan identity does not dwell so much on notions of collective
territory, common history, or autonym (Barth, 1969) as it does on a
common statement on a way of life—that is, on a common ideology;
Endicott (1988: 127) clearly reaches a similar conclusion concerning the
Batek. I would tend to see in current Punan cultures a duality. They
show, first, a core of specifically nomadic behavioral schemes, common to
all Punan groups and based on what I would call their nomadic ideology;
117
and second, an outer layer of traditions and customs (technological,

religious, linguistic), resulting from borrowings along the groups’
migration routes and therefore varying widely from one group to the
other. Whereas the core is enduring through time due to its self-repro-
ductive function, the outer layer is highly impermanent and permeable to
borrowings, insofar as these are not antagonistic to the ideological core.
Such a duality of culture occurs probably in many nomadic societies in
contact with sedentary societies. It has been variously formulated concern-
ing different groups (Benjamin, 1979; Guillaume, 1986; Formoso, 1986;
Turnbull, 1961 and 1966; Zacot, 1986). In the Punan case, there is a low
degree of integration of the external and internal cultures, which remain
in persistent opposition.
• A hunting-gathering culture
So it appears (although, considering the current dearth of data, it is
difficult to prove it unambiguously and definitively) that: i) most Punan
groups have shared a common hunting-gathering material culture that
allowed pre-iron nomadic societies to make a living in the tropical
rainforest; ii) they have much in common in their views and practices of
rituals and religion, and in their spiritual life in general, that contrasts
sharply with those of the rice farmers; iii) they have in common a
specifically Punan ideological system, based on durable, clearly “nomadic”
values; this system shows through a variegated outer cultural layer, it is
perpetuated through historic vicissitudes, and it allows for unchanged
nomadic behavioral patterns through economic alterations and in modern
conditions. I would then conclude that the cultures of the nomadic and
formerly nomadic groups, as we can observe them today, refer to an
ancient and original hunting-gathering culture that was independent from
the cultures of the rice cultivators.
Linguistic arguments
That current Punan languages are Austronesian languages is not question-
ed for the moment; most of them do share with other Bornean languages
a significant part of their vocabulary and some other linguistic elements.
However it appears difficult to assess, for any given Punan language,
which elements have been (more or less) recently acquired through bor-
rowing and which might belong to an ancient Punan linguistic heritage.
As yet, linguistic investigations in Punan languages, such as they have
been made available in the literature, have not gone very far. They have
been too often restricted to lexical studies. The lexical aspect is but one
among other linguistic features. Phonological, morphological, and
semantic features should be viewed as at least as important as the lexical
features in the description of a language, especially when one attempts to

reconstruct proto-languages or to elaborate classifications. I should make
it clear here that I do not consider definitive, or even valid, any conclu-
sions exclusively based on lexical features.
Since, however, most of the available data are of the lexical kind, the
argument below will dwell mainly on lexical data, but some other typo-
logical features, on the phonological and morphological levels, of Punan
languages will also be very briefly discussed. All this is based on partial and
preliminary results of an ongoing long-term work on Punan languages
and should not considered my final statement on the subject. Sources
used below include some published wordlists and dictionaries, as well as a
number of unpublished wordlists collected by myself (between 1973 and
1990) and others scholars. They are referred to below by numbers in
parentheses and listed in the bibliographic references.
I shall first show how various nomadic groups have differentially bor-
rowed certain lexical items and, second, how some other lexical items are
shared among a number of nomadic groups but not with their farming
neighbors. In the following, “´” refers to either /O/, /œ/, or a schwa, “é”
to /e/, and the “e” of some published sources to unspecified phonemes;
the transcriptions “v” and “f” of published sources have been interpreted
here as the voiced bilabial fricative /B/, noted “β”, and its unvoiced
equivalent /∏/, noted “φ”.
• Lexical borrowing
Let us first consider the question of loanwords. Certain items of the
lexicon of Punan languages are common to other Bornean languages as
well and have been used to argue in favor of a theory viewing the
nomadic groups of Borneo as former agriculturalists. The examples
below concern only four key items in the languages of two nomadic
ethnic groups, the Beketan and the Bukat. The Beketan are represented
in the Balui (Sarawak) and Belayan (East Kalimantan) rivers. The Bukat
are present in the Balui (Sarawak, where they were called Ukit), the
Kapuas (West Kalimantan), and the Mahakam (East Kalimantan). Each
group displays a homogeneous language common to its various sub-
groups, except for a few items, such as those considered here. The
numbers refer to the List of linguistic sources on page 128.
* Rice (husked) – The Kapuas Bukat and the Balui Bukat became
acquainted with the rice plant through their neighbors, respectively the
Mendalam Kayan and Balui Kayan, and both Bukat sub-groups have baha
(2, 6), borrowed from Kayan bahah (4, 5), “husked rice”. The Mahakam
Bukat, not bothering for a specific term, settled for the expression luang
119
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”).
• 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
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
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
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
Austronesian populations, presumably a process started some 4,000 years

ago (following Bellwood). The third concerns limited segments of
agricultural groups allegedly taking to the rainforest for either survival
(oppression or aggression by other groups, epidemics) or economic
reasons (search for commercial products to trade). I have dealt with this
third process above.
Let us first say a word about the Australoid populations. The tropical
rainforest environment is said to have established itself here around
10,000 BP, replacing earlier parkland and monsoon forest environments
(Bellwood, 1997). As no interaction whatsoever with yet nonexistent food
producers was possible, one would reasonably suppose that these
Australoids were “pure” foragers. Bellwood (1997) suggests that they may
not have adapted massively, if at all, to the rainforest. They might have
practiced, it has been argued, some fruit-tree and tuber cultivation. There
does not seem to be much data to support these views and, as we have
seen above that “pure” pre-iron Punan groups most probably were able to
make a living in Borneo’s forests, there is no reason for not assuming here
that the Australoids were really subsistence tropical rainforest (and,
locally, coastal?) foragers.
The Austronesians, we are told, started populating Borneo around
4000 BP, introducing polished stone tools and the agriculture of cereals.
Arguments for such a colonization of Borneo belong to the fields of
archaeology and linguistics, with respectively Bellwood (1997) and Blust
(1976) as the main background promoters. Then, the Austronesians had
to face the dense rainforest. Insofar as archaeological datings and
glottochronological studies can provide an accurate time framework for
the real situation, metals (bronze and iron) presumably only reached
Borneo’s coasts around 2000 BP.
Then, how could the early Austronesians clear Borneo’s rainforests for
rice cultivation before the advent of metals? I find it rather difficult to
conceive of any massive spread of swidden paddy cultivation in the rain-
forest by improbable full-fledged rice-cultivators without iron (see
Hutterer, 1983; also Davison, 1990). The situation must have been fairly
similar in the southern Philippines. However, it cannot be excluded that
some early (but then, how early?) wet-rice cultivation might have been
carried out by metal-less populations in narrow natural freshwater swamps,
as was still practiced (also without metal tools) by some Kelabit and Lun
Dayeh not long ago (Harrisson, 1984; Padoch, 1983; also Morgan, 1968).
I would rather believe that early metal-less Austronesian populations,
who reached Borneo between 4000 and 2000 BP, presumably from the
Philippines, were really foragers and fishermen much more than they were
125
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.
The inland expansion of this horticultural civilization then caught up,

for economic reasons, with the nomadic foraging bands. The develop-
ment of Southeast Asian inter-island trade networks (see, for instance,
Wolters, 1967; Hall, 1985) induced, within Borneo, a demand by the
coastal ports for forest products, which the horticulturalists relayed to the
nomads. The subsequent economic, and later political and cultural,
interaction between horticulturalists and nomads probably initiated a
process of slow and progressive conversion of some nomadic bands to
simple forms of agriculture, while others chose to retreat farther inland for
their subsistence (see Sellato 1989a). This very process of conversion of
the nomads is the one that is still going on before our eyes today.
If iron technology did indeed reach Borneo’s coasts around 2000 BP, it
appears likely, considering the size, bulky shape, and difficult terrain of
the island, that it only started progressing inland after the sixth century.
With iron accounting for the opening of the rainforest, swidden paddy
cultivation could begin spreading notably to the interior, possibly not
earlier than the seventh or eighth century (see Avé & King, 1986). The
crucial relation between the acquisition of iron and the development of
swidden rice cultivation has been stressed in the Iban case (Davison, 1990;
see also Dove, 1986, on the Kantu’). It seems, indeed, highly sensible to
believe that it is precisely the combination of iron and swidden rice
cultivation (see Sellato, 1989b) that allowed, in such ethnic groups as the
Kayan, the Iban, and probably also the Ngaju, for a strong demographic
impetus and a powerful spatial expansion.
Clearly, iron was present as an indigenous industry on Borneo’s coast
in the tenth century (Christie, 1988, discussing Cheng, 1969, Harrisson
& O’Connor, 1969). The Iban and the Ngaju, who probably were
autochthonous low-plains horticulturalists in the southern half of
Borneo, might have acquired both iron and rice through trade with, and
promotion by, the coastal settlements or kingdoms a few centuries later
(Richards, 1981; Drake, 1990)—likely candidates are Matan and
Sukadana on the southwestern coast. Davison (1990) suggests that the
Iban switched to swidden paddy farming around the fifteenth century,
before they migrated towards the Northeast. In certain regions
(Northwest, Barito, and Mahakam Rivers), the spread of paddy
cultivation might also be related to the development of gold exploitation.
By the turn of the fifteenth century, the Brunei Bay area turned into an
important trade center. At the same period the Kayan, relative
newcomers and the probable introducers of social stratification to
Borneo, were in the neighboring lower Baram River. Although they
probably had already mastered iron technology and swidden rice
127
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.
Among the descendants of those who, joining the Australoid foragers,

went to forage for their subsistence in the rainforest, some have remained
very isolated and have maintained a subsistence hunting-gathering
culture with a Neolithic tool kit until a fairly recent period; others, in
contact with settled neighbors, have opted for a more or less significant
involvement in the collecting of forest products for trade; others again,
through a more extensive interaction with their neighbors, have switched
to a durable mixed economic system combining foraging (for subsistence
and/or for trade) and farming (with or without some rice cultivation; see
Sellato, 1989a); others, finally, have settled down for good and have been
completely assimilated into their rice-farming neighbors’ culture. As I
have argued, the exclusive opposition between rice farmers and
subsistence foragers is utterly irrelevant and non-operational, for there is
in Borneo a continuum of economic systems. The synchronic situation
of the various Punan and related groups today reflects a millennia-long
diachronic process of abandonment of the hunting-gathering way of life.
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).
129
19. Adelaar, unpublished wordlists (1988-1990).

20. Skeat & Blagden (1906).
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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
Balang) was lent to me by Dr. Mudiyono Diposiswoyo, Dean of the

Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIPOL) of Tanjungpura
University (UNTAN) in Pontianak, in April 1990.
The manuscript includes introductory notes by Sawing (see 2.1 and 2.2
below), the text of a Bukat legend (the first two paragraphs of 2.3), and
Sawing’s comments (the rest of 2.3, and the following two sections). As my
translation of the Indonesian text tries to remain close to the original, it
may appear clumsy or heavy. Parentheses enclose original elements of the
text, while brackets enclose my editing notes. I have kept Sawing’s original
freehand sketch map of the site of Nanga Balang (see Fig. 14), but transla-
tions of captions and the orientation of the sketch map are mine.
I found this manuscript interesting for three reasons. First, I have
personally met Sawing. Second, the text refers to the history of the Bukat
nomads of West Kalimantan, the subject of lengthy sections of my
dissertation and subsequent book 2 . Third, it struck me that i) the
legend’s implications contradict notably what I know of Bukat history,
and ii) Sawing’s reading of the legend and his comments on Bukat
history, as revealed in this text, obviously stray from the information he
offered in the course of our interviews.
The legend clearly originated in the unearthing by local people of a
number of artifacts (including gold jewelry), suggesting an “ancient and
sophisticated culture”, at the site of Nanga Balang. While these artifacts
evidently point at some real historical episode, the Bukat legend, in a first
stage, provides an interpretation of the artifacts, manipulating the histori-
cal tradition to fit certain purposes of the times when it was elaborated.
Sawing’s reading of the legend and comments on Bukat history constitute
a second stage of manipulation, leading to other conclusions, meant to
better fit the Bukat’s current (1982) social-economic situation.
It is not the goal of this chapter to discuss theoretical issues or to
establish the comparative or theoretical significance of the data presented.
It is commonplace to state that people manipulate their historical
tradition for cultural or political reasons and much has been written about
this subject (for example, R. Rosaldo on the Ilongot or M. Sahlins on
Hawai’i, and the growing literature on the “invention of tradition”). This
chapter only attempts to provide, in a restrictedly regional cultural
context, an interpretative analysis of the Bukat’s manipulations of
historical tradition in the context of their changing circumstances.
The manipulation here sets into motion several combined
mechanisms. The legend comes up with a sort of myth of origin meant
to legitimize the nomadic way of life and improve the nomadic Bukat’s
low status in the eyes of their farming neighbors. Sawing, drawing a
HISTORY AND MYTH AMONG BORNEO PEOPLE
139
posteriori on the Christian teachings in his reinterpretation of the legend

and of Bukat cultural history, makes the point, in a similar attempt to
upgrade the nomadic Bukat’s status, that they are better Christians than
the farmers. A recently-introduced world religion here provides new
means to strengthen the ethnic and cultural identity of a hunting-
gathering group.
In the process the problem emerges, however, that the Bukat have been
progressively abandoning the nomadic way of life in the last few decades
and Sawing, appearing obviously uncomfortable about this, attempts at
the same time to re-appropriate the rich ancient culture of Nanga Balang
for the sake of the now partly-settled Bukat’s current prestige. As I, in
turn, reinterpret the legend and pull apart Sawing’s comments, I am in
fact led to the conclusion that there is no ancient connection whatsoever
between the Bukat and the artifacts unearthed at Nanga Balang.
I believe we have here a rare clear Southeast Asian example—and in
written form—of an in-the-process manipulation of the historical
tradition by a hunting-gathering society, in a multi-staged sequence
involving ancient and modern factors of a different nature—political,
cultural, and religious—and displaying internal contradictions that are to
be related to the ongoing alteration of the mode of subsistence, from
forest hunting-gathering to swidden agriculture.
2. Sawing Gemala’s Bukat manuscript (Translation)
“A Popular account of the reasons for the origin and existence of old artifacts
in Nanga Balang.
• [2.1] “Introduction
“Ancient artifacts might be of a high value although their appearance
may not be very attractive, and they might also have a high scientific
value. Thus, their discovery is an interesting event. These old things are
usually found in old regions [i.e., regions known as having a long history
of human settlement]. But why are they found in the upper Kapuas
[River basin], and precisely the uppermost region (considered a backward
area)? Because I was attracted to this fact, I tried to commit to writing
the following Bukat legend.
• [2.2] “Origin of the name Nanga Balang
“In a remote past, there was a Bukat village on the upper Kapuas
River. It had a very strategic location, for it was the ideal place for people
traveling up and down the upper Kapuas to stop over and rest. For
travelers going upriver, it is [nowadays] the [last] place where they can
procure all [gear and food] they still lack before departing; for those
going downstream, it is the most appropriate place to relax after a scary

canoe ride [see Fig. 14].
“Not far from the village, there is a hill, with its peak pointing up like
a bottleneck (bottle is balang in Bukat). It is called Balang Mountain.
The Balang River flows down along its flank to the Kapuas River where,
opposite the confluence, there is an island, Balang Island. The Bukat
village, just downstream from the confluence, is called Nanga Balang.
• [2.3] “The victory of the kensurai tree
“Once upon a time [in Nanga Balang], there was an elder by the
name of Pak Halangi, who is acknowledged as one of the ancestors of the
Bukat of the Kapuas. As an elder, Pak Halangi was often seen resting on
the river bank, watching the canoe traffic in front of the village. He had
made himself more comfortable by sitting in a rattan seat hanging from
the branches of a biyu tree, which is a common tree here.
“One day, resting in his seat, he noticed a splendid red flower swaying
on the opposite bank. He said to himself: ‘What a beautiful flower.
Could it be that my best clothes, if I wear them, would be less beautiful
than this flower?’ The flower was that of the kensurai tree. Pak Halangi
went back home, and put on all his best clothes, then returned to his
swinging seat. ‘Let’s make a contest’, he said [talking to the tree], ‘to see
which is more beautiful, the color of your flower or my clothes’.
“He sat there a long time, alternately watching his clothes and the
kensurai flower. After a long time, he bravely recognized that his clothes
were not as beautiful as the color of the flower. He began to hate his
clothes, and he threw them away, with his jewelry, and all his daily tools
and implements. Where Pak Halangi went afterwards is not told.
“The legend says that the ancient artifacts found at Nanga Balang are
the things Pak Halangi threw away after his defeat. To this day,
whenever we dig the ground here, we find some, though often in a poor
condition. To this day, the kensurai trees abound along the upper Kapuas
River banks, whereas they are rare downstream. The artifacts found at
Nanga Balang include: a stone in the shape of a penis, necklaces of beads,
gold bracelets and rings, gold nuggets, stone axes, and shards of tempayan
jars. If we dig only a half-meter or one meter, we surely find some
objects, at least glass [here, ceramic] shards. It’s not far, just in front of
the houses.
“The biyu tree of the legend has died, and a new tree has stemmed
from the old stump. But a very strong sengkuang tree also grows there,
overshadowing the biyu tree. We might say that one lifetime of a biyu
tree gives an estimate of the ancientness of the [Pak Halangi] episode,
which is not that old [?].
141
• [2.4] “Author’s comments

“From this legend, we gather that a Buddhist-like [sic] culture flourish-
ed long ago at Nanga Balang. At some point, a new culture (perhaps
Moslem or Christian) arrived and suppressed the influence of the ancient
one. When they adopted the new culture, the ancestors of the Bukat left
the legend for their descendants. They buried the ancient artifacts so that
they would not be damaged by the adherents to the new culture, and so
that their descendants could find them, either to utilize or to study them.
“By burying these things, they meant to give advice [to their
descendants]: 1) Whatever is made by God Almighty will be more perfect
than what is made by Man (the kensurai flower is more beautiful than Pak
Halangi’s clothes and jewels). 2) Don’t be impressed by other people’s
riches, live simply (Pak Halangi was impressed by the flower’s beauty, he
destroyed his property); 3) Act with nobleness; if God wants us defeated,
we must bravely acknowledge our defeat, and not slyly try to take revenge
(Pak Halangi admitted honestly and nobly his defeat, he threw away his
belongings but did not destroy the tree).
“Besides, Pak Halangi meant to allow his descendants to adhere to the
new culture, but with the hope that the old culture would not be totally
damaged, because it might be needed some time (he threw away his
belongings, but without destroying them, so that they might be found,
and perhaps utilized, by others). It is not impossible that, in the future,
this old culture would attract specialists who would study it. However, for
this to happen, we all should make some efforts to make the existence of
ancient artifacts in Nanga Balang known to the public.
• [2.5] “Conclusion
“Such is the story of our old artifacts. Whether the reader believes it
or not, he is always welcome to see for himself. But please be careful if
you dig here, for you might dig up something of great historic-cultural
value. Please forgive all my shortcomings”. [Here the manuscript ends].
3. The Bukat and Nanga Balang: historical reconstruction
Before beginning an analysis of the text, it is important to reassess the
historical setting to which it refers. First, Sawing’s background and the
Bukat’s recent history, including their settlement at Nanga Balang, are
outlined. Second, the available archaeological data about the site of
Nanga Balang are reviewed. Third, a reconstruction of the history of
various Bukat bands that might have lived at Nanga Balang in a distant
past is proposed. Then, a general outline of the culture history in a wider
regional setting is given. Finally, the question is addressed of who, really,
lived at Nanga Balang and left the artifacts mentioned in the manuscript.
142
INNERMOST BORNEO
Fig. 15. The Bukat setting and nineteenth-century movements

143
• 3.1 The Bukat of Nanga Balang

Sawing is one of the sons of Gemala (or Gembala), the old Temenggong
(a title conferred by the Dutch administration) of the Bukat of the upper
Kapuas. During the decade 1960-1970, the Bukat (probably less than 200
people) gathered in a single village, Metelunai (Fig. 15), under the leaders
Narok (son of Sekudan) and Gemala (son of Nyeparin). However, in the
early 1960s, Sawing moved with two or three families down the Kapuas
River to settle at Nanga Balang. A visitor 3 mentions this settlement at Liu
Daro (Long Island, that is, Liu Balang or Balang Island, at the confluence
of the Balang River; see Sawing’s sketch map, Fig. 14). The tiny
settlement of Nanga Balang welcomed a few families of Kereho (or Punan
Keriau, another, neighboring nomadic group). Wariso 4 probably visited
it, then King 5 in the early 1970s, and Ding Ngo 6 counted five houses
there.
In 1981 there were six houses 7: three of Kereho, two of Bukat (includ-
ing Sawing’s), and one of Senganan (a group of upstream Islamized
people). The hamlet of Nanga Balang was then included in the community
(desa, the smallest administrative unit) of Metelunai. In this manuscript
(dated 1982), Sawing calls himself headman (kepala kampung) of Nanga
Balang (and not mayor, kepala desa). My estimate for Nanga Balang’s
Bukat population was, at the most, 20 to 25 persons. Whereas the Bukat
of Metelunai were still relying heavily on wild sago, commercial collecting,
and gold panning, along with some marginal paddy farming, those of
Nanga Balang were living in more “settled” economic conditions.
• 3.2 The available archaeological data
It seems that no thorough archaeologic investigation has ever been
carried out at Nanga Balang. In 1971 a government team briefly visited
this site, along with many others in West Kalimantan, and collected
artifacts, presumably from the local population 8. Most artifacts are kept at
the museum in Pontianak. Some pieces of decorated earthenware sent to
Jakarta have since been lost. A superficial report was produced 9, from
which the following information is extracted.
The artifacts originating from Nanga Balang and described in that
report include sixteen stone tools of varying shapes and sections. Their
sizes range from 6 to some 13 cm. One (a fragment) is obviously chipped,
while the rest are polished, most of them rather roughly. Only one of the
polished tools seems quadrangular in section, the rest showing a lenticular
section. The cutting edge is either straight or convex, and asymmetric
(one face sharper than the other). The shape and size of the tools would
hint at scrapers rather than axes or adzes. No petrographic indication is
given besides the (dark gray) color.
144
INNERMOST BORNEO
Fig. 16. Regional situation around 1800

145
Earthenware shards were also collected, some with geometric motifs

(not shown in the plates). The shards are thick, but made of a very fine
smooth material. A stone lingga “of a normal size” (sic; according to the
scale it would be some 13 cm long) shows at its base a square grid of
incisions. Though displaying a clear phallic shape, this is definitely an
utilitarian object, either a pottery paddle, as is suggested in the report, or
maybe a bark cloth beater. Other, spherical stones also with an incised
grid might be beaters as well. A so-called grinder and its mortar, of
unconvincing shapes and found far apart, might just be natural stones or,
perhaps, were used to shape clay pots. What are called a stone tablet with
incised lines and a block in the shape of a goat head could as well be
natural forms. No metal implements are mentioned.
• 3.3 History of the Upper Kapuas Bukat
The main character in the legend told in this manuscript is a Mr.
Halangi, a chieftain at Nanga Balang and a forebear of the Bukat. He is
called a leader (pemuka; the use of this term instead of one referring to
some form of aristocracy is congruent with the Bukat’s consistent denial
of any formal social stratification). The objects that Halangi discards
suggest that the village was populated by agriculturists, who were rich
with gold ornaments, and the holders of a sophisticated material and
spiritual culture. The fact that only stone tools were found might imply
that they had not yet acquired iron implements.
What is known of the culture history of the Bukat rebuts the legend’s
claim to a sophisticated farmers’ culture. Bukat informants, particularly
old Gemala, affirm rather proudly that the Bukat have always been forest
nomads. The Bukat originated, according to informants, in the
Mendalam (or Bukot) and Sibau Rivers area 10. Nanga Balang is located
some distance above the first rapids of the Kapuas, within the nomads’
traditional territory (see Fig. 15). But this section of the Kapuas River was
the limit between Punan (i.e., Hovongan and Kereho) and Bukat
territories, and the Bukat were in a situation of long-lasting hostility with
the Punan. The nomadic Bukat, for that reason, hardly ever came to live
near the banks of the Kapuas before the 20th century (except on
headhunting raids and during the Kayan-Taman war; see 3.5). No settled,
or even semi-settled, Bukat village ever existed anywhere on this section of
the Kapuas before 1910 11. So it is most probable that the people who left
these artifacts at Nanga Balang were not any settled Bukat farmers.
Besides, Halangi is the name of a subgroup of the Bukat, a nomadic
band living ca. 1840 on the upper Baleh River in Sarawak (see Fig. 15). I
suggested that the name Halangi could be that of either the Langei or the
Jalangi Rivers 12, left-bank tributaries of the upper Baleh, but it might well
be that it was a band chieftain’s name before, or instead of, being a

toponym. The Halangi band (known as Ukit, an exonym for the Bukat
in the Baleh area) left Sarawak around 1850, resided some time at the
sources of the Kapuas, and went overland, in a circular movement, to
join other Bukat on the Mendalam. As far as I am aware, this Halangi
band never lived in the Nanga Balang area. This does not preclude, as
these nomadic Bukat traveled extensively, that a Mr. Halangi (whoever
he might have been) might have been sitting, one lazy day, watching
flowers at the confluence of the Balang River.
• 3.4 An outline of regional history
Contrary to what many scholars may believe, Borneo offers scores of
archaeological sites, even in its far hinterland, and one can only regret
that so little attention has been granted to an island whose history is
crucial in Southeast Asia. Hardly any of these sites have been excavated,
besides a few famous ones in Sarawak. At Tanjung Lokang, a Hovongan
(or Punan Bungan, another formerly nomadic group) settlement on the
Bungan River, one of the uppermost tributaries of the Kapuas (see
Fig. 16), people preparing an airstrip in the early 1980s unearthed a
hoard of artifacts very similar to those of Nanga Balang (necklaces,
bracelets, rings, beads, stone axes, and plenty of pottery shards). Again,
no metal artifacts were mentioned by informants. These two sites, and
others in the same region, still remain to be scientifically excavated. As
Sawing writes, you just have to dig down two to three feet in front of the
village houses.
Other sites in West Kalimantan are briefly described by Goenadi et al. 13.
Some of them, in the regency of Kapuas Hulu, have yielded ceramic
plates or shards thereof. Further downstream along the middle Kapuas
River, in the regency of Sintang, several lingga—including one with a
carved face of Shiva (mukhalinga) and a basal yoni—are found, also large
stone tools and anthropomorphic stone statues. Near Sanggau, inscrip-
tions have been reported, both Hindu and Buddhist, as well as stone
statues of Nandi bulls and Ganesha, and a bronze statue of Shiva with
four arms 14. At the northwestern tip of the island, several hoards of gold
objects were excavated, some attributed to a Tantric Buddhist cult 15.
To the south, on the upper Melawi River (Fig. 16), an elaborate lingga
and yoni was found in the territory of the Ot Danum groups 16. Farther
to the southwest, some Hindu-Buddhist objects were also reported. To
the east, on the Mahakam River, a number of stone Nandi bulls had
been placed at the sites of important settlements by the Pin groups (who
lived along the Mahakam before the Kayan invasion); one can still be
seen in situ. Also in East Kalimantan, inscribed yupas (in Pallava script;
147
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
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
149
a tightly stratified type of social organization, featuring three basic

categories (aristocrats, commoners, and slaves 27), which does not seem to
fit the image we get of the Nanga Balang people through the Bukat
legend. We should investigate further back in history.
When the Mahakam Kayan and Long-Gelat, arriving from the Apo
Kayan Plateau in the north (see Fig. 16), started conquering the upper
Mahakam region in the second half of the 18th century 28, the local
populations (the Pin, a set of groups related to the Ot Danum) scattered,
mostly across to the Barito River basin and downstream to the middle
Mahakam area 29. Some of these Pin, the Pin Bawan (and maybe others as
well), fled across the Müller Mts. 30 around 1800 or 1810. They resided
some time on the Bungan River, went across to, and then down, the
Keriau River to the Kapuas, to cross overland again and settle on the
upper Mandai River. These people, now called Orung Da’an, are the
same people as the Ot Danum living on the upper Melawi River. Indeed,
some groups went back and forth across the water divide between Kapuas
and Melawi, particularly when Liju’s armies swept the upper Kapuas 31.
There might have been other such Pin or Ot Danum subgroups in the
Kapuas area prior to the exodus from the Mahakam (and it may be that
some of today’s Taman are former Pin).
The Ot Danum and Pin cultural setting is far more satisfying with
regard to the artifacts found in Nanga Balang. The people who lived in
Tanjung Lokang and in Nanga Balang might very well have belonged to
the same ethnic group. They were part of what I have called the Barito
Culture 32, presumably covering the island widely before the advent of
iron technology and rice agriculture, two cultural traits that probably
diffused slowly inland with the advance of bellicose pioneer swidden-rice
farmers like the Kayan and Iban 33. The economies of the Barito Culture
groups were probably based on horticulture; their societies, not stratified,
were loosely organized in scattered hamlets; and, even very far inland,
their cultures were or had been, to a varying extent, under the Indian
influence diffusing from the coasts. As stated above, in the most isolated
regions—and the uppermost Kapuas area is one—some groups
maintained these cultural features until fairly recently.
I would conclude that the artifacts found at Nanga Balang should be
attributed to some residing or transiting Hindu-influenced Ot Danum or
Pin populations (at the latest around 1810 or 1820, perhaps earlier in the
18th century), and definitely not to the Bukat—as the legend assumes
it—not even during that episode where they were associated with the
Kayan (the Kayan war and subsequent presence on the Kapuas, 1830-
1840).
4. Legend and history: manipulations of the tradition

Sawing struck me in 1981 as a no-nonsense, open, and intelligent indi-
vidual, a leader with some education, ideas of his own, and initiatives. He
proved a valuable and reliable informant, and I have no doubt that he
knew for certain that the Bukat of his father Gemala’s generation had
grown up as hunter-gatherers, as Gemala himself had also made it clear to
me. But his plural identity, as a Bukat, as a Christian, and now also as a
settled nomad, entails in the modern context certain specific views about
his group’s history.
• 4.1 The legend and Sawing: interpretation and reinterpretation
I believe it is irrelevant to oppose, in terms of the general process of
historical manipulation, the legend—an allegedly “collective” creation
whose origin and inventors are lost in the mists of the past—to Sawing’s
highly personal, “intellectual” explication. Irrespective of whether the
origin of a legend or that of its reinterpretation can be traced to particular
individuals, insofar as the group, for a specific purpose or convenience,
espouses the views offered, it is society as a whole that participates in the
manipulation of history.
The legend’s age is not clear. The Bukat who lived with Liju at Nanga
Balang left in the 1830s and no Bukat community ever settled there again
before the early 1960s. Some Bukat may have camped there any time
between these dates, but it is unlikely that they dug the ground at Nanga
Balang before the 1910s, when the very first attempts at swidden farming
were made. Thus, we have three options: i) The Bukat discovered the
artifacts for the first time between the 1910s and the 1960s while farming,
or even around 1960 when building the village; ii) they heard about the
discovery of the artifacts from other groups (some Kayan?) who happened
to farm there in the 19th century; iii) they retained some memory of an
early discovery, dating back to the times they were living there in the
1830s. However ancient the Bukat’s knowledge of these artifacts is, I
would tend to believe that this legend is a fairly new elaboration.
Both the legend and Sawing’s comments, relying on different sets of
available materials, offer cultural constructions or reconstruction in the
form of cultural, political, or religious statements (see Fig. 17). Let us first
focus on the legend itself. The kensurai-flower story seems to offer two
cultural-political statements. One addresses the neighboring, farming
ethnic groups: “We Bukat used to be rich and settled [farmers], like all of
you; therefore you have no ground for looking down on us”. The second
functions as a myth of cultural origin, legitimizing the nomadic way of
life: “Long ago, we [our ancestor Halangi] made the free choice, because
151
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
Then we should have a closer look at Sawing’s personal comments.

Although fairly ambiguous and couched in overly simplistic terms, they
show some insight into the historical process which, as it is described,
occurs in three stages: 1) A new culture arrives [from elsewhere] and takes
over the old one [allegedly the traditional Bukat culture]; 2) the ancestors
of the Bukat adopt the new culture, with Halangi’s approval [whereas the
legend implies that Halangi went away]; and 3) they discard all the
implements of the old culture. We shall see later what we should think of
the old culture and the new culture. The author, in his introduction
about “old regions”, betrays his genuine surprise at the fact that the upper
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
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
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.
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
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?).
157
Sawing does not acknowledge Halangi’s clear rejection of the biyu-

culture, nor his likely departure (see Fig. 19). Diverging from the legend,
he assumes that Halangi endorses the replacement of the biyu-culture by
a culture introduced by newcomers, the new-culture. He suggests that,
instead of being discarded forever, the biyu-culture—the Bukat’s
heritage—is like a sleeping beauty that could be revived. For Sawing, like
for the legend, the rich and sophisticated biyu-culture is beyond any
doubt the real ancient Bukat culture. However, as stated above, Sawing’s
evaluation of the biyu-culture is ambiguous: This golden culture is too
luxurious to allow for a healthy Christian way of life. But, at the same
time, it is highly valued, nostagically regretted, and tentatively revived.
Fig. 19
Sawing’s attitude towards the new-culture is equally ambiguous: From

some of his comments (first paragraph of 2.4), we understand that the
new-culture is not to be equated to the nomadic culture; it is clearly
imposed by outsiders. Sawing seems to attribute to Halangi mixed feelings
about the new-culture: On the one hand, Halangi [whether or not he
adopts the new-culture himself] means his descendants to adhere to it; on
the other hand, Halangi appears suspicious of the new-culture and
carefully preserves the artifacts of the biyu-culture for a possible future
need. These misgivings appear somewhat odd to us, since Sawing states
that the new-culture might be the Islamic or Christian culture. However,
from the Christian point of view (second paragraph of 2.4), Sawing seems
to rather endorse the legend’s statements and equate the new-culture with
the nomadic culture (our kensurai-culture), as it is a simpler one, more
conforming to God’s teachings. As for the sengkuang-culture, Sawing
seems to perceive it as a threat, to the biyu-culture at least. The sleeping

beauty might be doomed for good because of the modern sengkuang-
culture.
5. From hunting to farming: re-adjusting the tradition

To summarize, I would suggest that the legend, elaborated by the Bukat
at a time when their nomadic ideology was still unchallenged (perhaps
only a couple of decades ago), stresses the legitimation of the nomadic
way of life and strives to strengthen the nomads’ status. The legend claims
the biyu-culture to be the real ancient Bukat culture only in order to state
that the Bukat deliberately chose to become nomads.
Sawing’s comments appear somewhat inconsistent and contradictory.
This, I suggest, is due to the multi-facetted aspect of this modern, open
character. As an educated man, he simply acknowledges the superseding
of an old “Buddhist-like” culture (our biyu-culture) by another, imported
culture (our new-culture), on which he does not elaborate much; he also
sees in the same light the future advent of the modern culture (our
sengkuang-culture). As a traditional Bukat, Sawing attempts—like the
legend—to legitimize the nomadic way of life. As a Christian Bukat, he
goes further in the same direction by making use of the Christian
teachings, to stress that the nomadic Bukat are better Christians than the
farmers.
We find in Sawing’s comments—though not in the legend—an all-
pervasive reference to the rich old culture, which appears highly valued
(somehow a contrario) and vividly regretted. It seems to me that Sawing
has elaborated a sort of nostalgie des origines about this biyu-culture, after
the Bukat discovered the artifacts and came up with this legend about
them. It is not clear to what extent the rest of the Bukat share into this
construction. The whole elaboration on Halangi burying the artifacts,
bequeathing them to his descendants, and entrusting the latter with some
moral duty in relation to these artifacts has, in my opinion, something to
do with the current social-economic situation of the modern Bukat.
In any case, it is clear to us that these origins are not the Bukat’s.
Besides, the nostalgia is in total contradiction with both the legend’s
cultural-political statements (see 4.1) and Sawing’s political-religious
statements (see 4.3), all aiming at legitimizing the nomadic way of life
and upgrading its status. The point is, as we have said above, that the
Bukat are now progressively abandoning their nomadic way of life,
switching to a more permanent settlement pattern and to an economic
system relying partly on agriculture. The biyu-culture, that golden age,
might therefore be perceived by the modern Bukat as both a lost paradise
159
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.
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,
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.
30. S. C. Knappert, ‘Beschrijving van de onderafdeeling Koetei’, BKI, 58: 575-654,

1905, particularly p. 592-593.
31. J. J. K. Enthoven, Bijdragen tot de Geographie van Borneo’s Westerafdeeling
(Leiden: Brill, 2 vol. 1903), p. 418.
32. B. Sellato, Hornbill and Dragon. Arts and Culture of Borneo (Singapore: Sun
Tree, 1992).
33. See B. Sellato, ‘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: The Borneo Research Council, 1993).
34. See J. Ivanoff, ‘L’épopée de Gaman : Histoire et conséquences des relations
Moken/Malais et Moken/Birmans’, ASEMI, XVI (1-4): 173-194, 1985.
35. B. Sellato, ‘Mémoire collective et nomadisme’, Archipel, 27: 85-108, 1984; this
paper has also appeared in English translation: ‘Collective Memory and Nomadism:
Ethno-historical Investigations in Borneo’, in Indonesia (Cornell), 57: 155-174, 1994.
36. Botanical notes: kensurai is probably Dipterocarpus oblongifolius Bl.
(Dipterocarpaceae); sengkuang is probably Shorea seminis (De Vriese) V. Sl.
(Dipterocarpaceae); biyu might be Pterospermum stapfianum Ridl. (Tiliaceae).
37. See Molengraaff, 1902, op. cit., p. 171, 178.
38. Sellato, 1986, 1989 and 1994, 1993, all op. cit.; and B. Sellato, ‘The Nomads of
Borneo: Hoffman and ‘Devolution’’, Borneo Research Bulletin, 20 (2): 106-120, 1988 [a
review article on The Punan: Hunters and Gatherers of Borneo, by Carl L. Hoffman, Ann
Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1986].
CHAPTER IX
HOW TRIBES COME INTO BEING:
THE ETHNOGENESIS OF THE AOHENG *
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
of time, it is quite indispensable, in order to understand the role played

by the pengosang festival in this process, that we take into consideration,
wherever it is relevant, the detail of the historical background of the
Aoheng, on which this process is closely dependent. Conversely, due to
constraints of place, it did not appear crucially important to give a
detailed account of the rituals themselves 1.
Then, through a study of Aoheng social organization, the study
attempts to show how the pengosang festival has allowed some of the
original ethnic component entities to maintain themselves, in the midst
of the compound ethnic group, as a particular social category, the high
commoners. The festival was utilized by these entities to block efforts by
another ethnic component entity to install a rigid system of social
stratification and achieve political control over the whole group. It
allowed the former to retain a prominent role in the village’s domestic
affairs, as well as in its foreign relations.
Ritual, here, is a powerful political tool, put into action toward
ideological goals. Aoheng society, in the end, is not at all what it looks
like at first sight. The high commoners, not the aristocrats, rule over the
community, despite an official ideology of social stratification.
Moreover, the pengosang festival is a locus where a set of proscriptions
is expressed, which hints at a partitioning of the community into ritual
categories with well-defined roles—and possibly also ancient forms of
totemism. It is through rituals that these categories, derived from the
various ethnic component entities that made up the Aoheng, have been
able to maintain their specificity.
The Aoheng
The Aoheng are a group of swidden paddy cultivators of the central region
of Borneo. They are located on both sides of the Müller Mountains range.
Most of them, about 1,700 persons (1990), reside in East Kalimantan, in
five settlements along the uppermost section of the Mahakam River
(Long Apari District, Kutai Regency), with some 700 more living further
downriver (district of Long Bagun), where they recently emigrated (see
Fig. 7). Some 200 Aoheng reside in the upper Kapuas River area (West
Kalimantan), at Nanga Enap (district of Putussibau, regency of Kapuas
Hulu), where they are mixed with other minor groups (see Fig. 6), and
over 100 more have settled in Sarawak, in Samarinda, and other towns of
the Mahakam. The overall Aoheng population in 1990 is probably
around 2,750.
One interesting characteristic of the Aoheng is that they just, “by
accident”, happened to become an ethnic entity (see Dumont, 1985).
THE ETHNOGENESIS OF THE AOHENG 165
Although this is nothing unusual in itself, the emergence of the Aoheng

occurred in a relatively recent past and is, therefore, accessible through
oral tradition, which gives us an insight into how the Aoheng themselves
view it. The Aoheng group derived from the amalgamation of different
cultural and linguistic groups, agricultural groups, on the one hand, and
various nomadic hunting-gathering bands, on the other hand. Diverse
combinations of these ancient groups gave birth to several distinct,
autonomous pre-Aoheng sub-groups, that progressively integrated into a
single ethnic, cultural, and linguistic entity (see Sellato, 1986: 289-453).
Conversely, the West Kalimantan Aoheng, who branched out from one
East Kalimantan sub-group, have drifted away culturally from their stem.
A complex ethnic setting
The Müller Mountains region, Borneo’s major water divide, constitutes
the water catchment area of the uppermost arable plains of Borneo’s four
major river basins (Kapuas, Mahakam, Barito, and Rajang). Although it is
very much a human desert (0.4 person per sq. km), it has always been an
important cross-roads, connecting as it does these river basins, and an
ethnic and cultural melting pot where local and transiting hunting-
gathering groups amalgamated with runaway or migrating parties of
farmers (Sellato, 1986: 412). Contrary to many other cases in Borneo, the
hunting-gathering components, once settled, retained the nominal
leadership in the emerging, consolidating ethnic entities.
In the second half of the 18th century, groups of Pin farmers living in
the upper Mahakam plains were defeated by Kayan invaders and fled to
the southern and western mountainous areas. There they mixed with local
hunting-gathering bands, particularly the Acüé, said to be the original
Aoheng. In the course of the late 18th and 19th centuries, other bands of
nomads, local—the Halungé and the Bukat—or not—the Lugat and
Punan Kohi from the West, the Semukung or Uheng from the
Northwest—agglomerated to this nucleus of Pin and Acüé. The resulting
population progressively came under the influence of their powerful
downstream neighbors, the stratified Kayan groups—Kayan stricto sensu,
Long-Gelat, Uma’-Suling—and adopted certain features of the Kayan
culture, taking up swidden paddy farming and social stratification.
By the end of the 19th century, squeezed between their Kayan and
Long-Gelat suzerains (whose aristocrats their chiefs intermarried with)
and the aggressive Iban groups in the North, the five settlements of the
uppermost Mahakam—forming as many sub-groups of distinct ethnic
composition—began to develop a common identity as Aoheng, along
with a homogeneous culture and language.
166
INNERMOST BORNEO
Fig. 20. Ethnic conglomeration, 1800-1840

The Aoheng Long-Apari are constituted of several bands of hunter-

gatherers—the Acüé, Halungé (related to the Bukat), and Semukung
(related to the Kajang of Sarawak)—and several groups of Pin—the
Amüé, Aüva, Pïratoran, and Aséké (Sellato, 1986: 342-344). The Aoheng
Huvung are basically of Pin ethnic stock (Pïratoran) with some Aoheng
and Bukat input. This sub-group later split to give birth to the Aoheng
Nanga-Enap, the sub-group of West Kalimantan, which mixed on the
upper Kapuas with the Semukung and Kayan. The Aoheng Cihan started
out with a tiny core of Kayan aristocracy (or, rather, Kayanized Pin), to
which were added some Semukung from Long Apari and a few Aüva. The
Aoheng Long-Kerio’ formed around a core of Lugat and Semukung from
the Kapuas, with added Semukung of the Mahakam and Pïratoran from
Long Apari. The Aoheng Tïong-Bu’u are a mixture of Semukung and
Aoheng of the Huvung, with some Lugat. Later, they mixed with the
Uma’-Suling (a Kayan group) and with the Punan Kohi (a nomadic band
related to the Beketan). The following study will focus mainly on the
Aoheng Cihan of the villages of Tïong Ohang and Long Bagun.
The Pin background
The Pin do not exist any longer under this name. These groups, in the
first half of the 18th century, were populating the whole upper and
middle Mahakam River basin (see Sellato, 1986: 295-301). Scant
information is available in the literature (Nieuwenhuis, 1904-07: I, 277;
Knappert, 1905: 592-3), but oral tradition provides hints. Whereas the
Kayan, Long-Gelat and Busang call them Pin, or Ping, the Aoheng refer
to them metaphorically as Ponyang-Botung, perhaps meaning “those
carrying amulets in a bamboo container”. The term Pin might have been,
in fact, the title given to their chiefs. These Pin or Ponyang-Botung were
related to today’s Siang and Ot Danum (or Uut Danum) groups of the
upper Barito River basin (Central Kalimantan) and to the Ot Danum of
the upper Kapuas and Melawi River basins (West Kalimantan). Indeed, a
famous old epic, Tatum Bungai, mentions the peoples then living in the
upper Mahakam.
According to the oral traditions, the Pin have been living on all the
major tributaries of the upper Mahakam River (Kacü or Kasau, Serata,
Blu’u, Apari, Cihan, and Huvung; see Fig. 20) and at other places farther
downstream from the great rapids. Many sites are attributed to them:
carved boulders, stone statues, cave cemeteries, gold diggings, village
sites, fruit orchards, fish pools.
A half dozen stone Nandi bulls, located at major river confluences, are
said to have marked major Pin settlements.
When the Kayan and related groups—highly stratified societies of

dedicated paddy swiddeners—coming from the Apo Kayan plateaus in
the North started conquering the upper Mahakam River region (see
Fig. 20), they enslaved some of the Pin groups. Other Pin fled upstream
towards the sources of the Mahakam or in the Kacü, Huvung, and Cihan
rivers, or straight across the water divides into either the Kapuas or Barito
rivers basins, or downstream the Mahakam. Ultimately, the conquerors
occupied, along with the enslaved populations, the whole of the arable
plains of the upper Mahakam, leaving in the surrounding mountains a
few pockets of Pin refugees, who then associated with the hunting-
gathering nomads.
We do not know much about the culture of the Pin. They were
certainly farmers, more likely horticulturalists than paddy cultivators.
They bred fish, carved stone statues indicating some Hindu influence
(like the Ot Danum), extracted gold, and buried their dead in long
canoe-shaped coffins (like the Siang of Central Kalimantan). It is said
that they were peaceful people—some informants even claim that they
were forbidden to kill human beings—and did not know social
stratification; that, contrary to the Kayan, they had no taboo relative to
the consumption of deer meat, but were forbidden to use the ironwood
(oheng; see p. 186).
Most importantly, the Pin—and specially those later called the
Aüva—are said to have had a very sophisticated set of rituals.
The Pin, although probably more numerous than the incoming
Kayan groups, did not constitute highly structured societies with a strong
leadership that would have enabled them to resist the invaders. The story
about a taboo on taking human lives might just reflect the Pin’s historic
failure to fight back the invaders and their quick surrender. It would be
sensible to condone informants’ statements that the Pin societies were
not stratified, and to view them as fragmented in scores of little hamlets
scattered in their respective farming zones, much like the Ot Danum of
the Melawi River (West Kalimantan) today.
Pin and Aoheng
The Aüva, living in a small stream by that name in the uppermost course
of the Mahakam at the turn of the 19th century, were most probably one
of these runaway Pin groups that had left the upper Mahakam plains
under Long-Gelat and Kayan attacks to take refuge in the mountains
(Sellato, 1986: 313). In reduced numbers, without a territory, unable to
farm due to harassment by the nomadic Halungé and attacks by the
Long-Gelat, they finally, around 1830, surrendered their sovereignty to
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
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.
Fig. 21. THE AOHENG: GENERAL HISTORICAL CHART

Towards the Aoheng group

The various communities of the future Aoheng thus all contain similar
components—former hunter-gatherers and former Pin—and all focus
their identity on the great pengosang festival of Pin (Aüva or Pïratoran)
origin. Each, through village endogamy, first mixes and integrates its
diverse components. Integration is also under way between the
communities, through intermarriage and because of external (military as
well as political) pressure. Whereas only the people of Long Apari, it is
said, were originally called Aoheng—and are still considered the original,
true Aoheng today—the name Aoheng has been endorsed as the only
autonym by the other communities, most probably through the
recognition of the common use of an exclusive language, la’in aoheng,
which is spoken by no other group in Borneo; the idea of a wider Aoheng
“territory”, validated by the Dutch colonial administration and made into
a district; and the performance of a unique festival, the pengosang.
However, only the noble households of the Aoheng Long-Apari still
maintain the ironwood taboo and may not sleep under a roof of ironwood
shingles.
• Name and Language
The Aoheng are known as Panhing or Panihing by the Kayan,
Penihing by the Busang, Piheng by the Kenyah, Peng by the Iban, and
Heng by some of the former nomadic groups of the Müller Mountains.
The autonym Aoheng—in fact pronounced ’aoheng or ’auheng, according
to speakers—might have two distinct, though historically converging,
etymologies, both put forth by the Aoheng themselves (see Sellato, 1986:
292-293). In ’a we have an indefinite personal pronoun meaning “one”,
“people”, and, according to context, a polite form for either “we”, “you”,
or “they”. The gloss oheng refers to the Borneo ironwood (Eusideroxylon
zwageri), while Uheng is the name given by the local nomadic groups to
the upper course of the Kapuas River. We recognize oheng/uheng in the
various exonyms given to the Aoheng—Penihing, Panhing, Piheng,
Heng—which then suggest a combination of Pin and (o/u)heng.
It may be assumed, then, that the ethnonym, Aoheng, originally
referred to that sub-group of the Pin which had this taboo on the use of
ironwood. Later on, when the Semukung—who also call themselves
Uheng—came from the upper Kapuas (or Uheng) region to the
Mahakam, the convergence brought about by the near-homophones
oheng and Uheng contributed to further integration.
Most of the nomadic groups were not known by ethnonyms other
than those referring to local toponyms (e.g., Acüé, Halungé). But it is
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).
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
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-
trative rather than ethnic references: they introduce themselves as hailing

from Kutai (name of regency), or from East Kalimantan (orang Kaltim).
Aoheng social organization
Aoheng society is stratified 4. This system of organization, a form of
ideological inequality, rests on a natural theory: It sorts out individuals
into categories of a different nature (Rousseau, 1990: 163, 183). Aoheng
society displays three major categories or strata (Sellato, 1986: 401-404):
the aristocrats or noble folk (süpï), the commoners (kovi, literally, “the
little ones”), and the slaves (dïpon). The individual’s strict and exclusive
residential ascription to a given stem family and longhouse apartment,
and thus to a given social category, is by birth, adoption, or marriage (on
the “house” in Borneo, see Sellato, 1987: 15-44; and chapter V in this
volume, p. 67-92). This type of social organization, in its principles as well
as terminology (see Rousseau, 1990), was borrowed from neighboring
stratified paddy farmers (Kayan and related groups).
Among the village’s several noble houses, one is higher, and the
current head of the “big house” (baang haü’ ) is the overall village lord,
süpï haü’ (lit. high aristocrat), whereas heads of minor noble houses, who
may be longhouse lords (süpï oki’, lit., small noble folk), are subordinate
to the high noble. Long Apari and Long Kerio’ have only one high-noble
house, from which the leader is exclusively chosen in strict hereditary
line. In Tïong Ohang (Aoheng Cihan) there are several, and a leader is
selected from amongst the best candidates these houses can offer. Beside
the high aristocrat, the current village leader, there is also a süpï mungun
(lit. autochthonous noble), heading the most purely local noble house—
the oldest branch that has least mixed with other villages’ aristocracy.
Amongst the seven noble houses of Tïong Ohang (before the major split
that occurred in the 1970s), one was headed by Anyé’, the süpï mungun;
that of Kavung, a famous female leader, was the “big house”; Dia’s was a
rather minor house, being an offsplit from Kavung’s; two other houses
were genealogically stained by foreign blood of unprestigious origin and,
like the last two, were of minor importance.
Amongst the commoner category, one group, the high commoners
(kovi maum, lit., ancient commoners), plays an important role that will be
described below (p. 184). Ordinary commoners, sorted into good
commoners (kovi cïan), i.e., rather well off, and bad commoners (kovi
ca’at), i.e., rather poor, are free people but, subject to corvee, work for their
noble folk’s well-being, wealth, and prestige. The top layer of the “good
commoners” (kovi cïan) is often identified with the high commoners. As
for slaves, mostly war captives and their offspring, they are exclusively
owned by aristocrats and are distin-guished between domestic slaves

(dïpon baang), residing in, and working about the noble houses, and field
slaves (dïpon ümo), used as farm hands.
Fig. 22. THE CENTRAL LONGHOUSES, TÏONG OHANG, CA. 1950
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
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.
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
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.
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
circumstances endangering the community’s survival (a succession of bad

crops or epidemics) to call on the gods’ assistance, or in establishing a new
village, to accomplish the necessary delineation of a new “human” space
in the midst of the “wild” natural world, the realm of the spirits. Probably
hardly any individual, in the past, could witness, or participate in, more
than three pengosang in a lifetime.
The term pengosang is derived from the substantive osang, meaning a
“message”, “instruction”, “directive”. In more specific circumstances,
osang refers to the goods offered to the bride and to a mark carved on a
tree, and the action verb posang then means “to reserve”, “to engage”, “to
book”, “to save”, “to set aside”, “to assign to”. In ritual context, osang
refers to the idea of a spiritual message, and the semantic field of posang,
between “to send a message” and “to place an order”, is very much that
of Indonesian pesan (probably a cognate). The substantive pengosang,
with the agent prefix pe- (and its sandhi -ng-), means “[the ritual] that
sends a message”, or “that calls for [the gods’ blessings]”. It should be
noted that pengosang tends to be replaced, in common modern speech,
by the intransitive action verb mengosang. Until recently, both words
were taboo due to their high spiritual power, and the Aoheng used
conventional formulae, püto urip (lit., “to take care of life”) or pevü’o urip
(lit., “to improve life”). Today, when conversing with outsiders, the
Aoheng generally use the term érau, the name of the annual festival of
the sultanate of Kutai.
The pengosang is ultimately aimed at securing the fertility of the fields
and the fecundity of the people. Its highlight is the arrival to the village
of a spiritual dragon bestowing its blessings on the community.
Extending over eight days, it includes several distinct stages, not always
performed in the same order: All the fires in the village hearths are put
out and a new fire lit by ritual experts using a strand of rattan and a piece
of dry wood; all the little children are carried down to the river, anointed
with water, and given their Aoheng names; marriages are performed; a
tree of life is erected, and chickens and pigs are sacrificed; in the forest, a
large sengaang tree is uprooted and brought back, representing the
dragon, to the village with great pomp; tall poles are erected, at which all
men and boys slash ritually with their swords before stepping in a sacred
gong filled with pig blood; a large wooden hook is attached to a long
rattan rope, on which all the villagers pull at once to attract the
beneficent influences.
In the old days, the festival would only begin upon the return of a
team of warriors gone on a headhunting trip, with the women receiving
the heads from the warriors. On the last night, the spirits of the heads
182
INNERMOST BORNEO
Fig. 23. Redistribution and expansion

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
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
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
feathers, as ornament in costume and dance, are exclusively used by the

noble folk. And the hornbill dance is performed facing the incoming
dragon-tree, in front of the village’s “big house”.
A more striking—and more specifically Aoheng—ritual opposition is
found in the taboos relative to the pengosang. The Pin introduced the
pengosang festival which, in its climactic phase, features the dragon, made
of the sengaang tree. Today, only the RR, the offspring of the Aüva, may
handle the sengaang tree. As for the DS, descending from the Semukung,
the sacred sengaang is said to be taboo to them. They would become mad
(masot) if they ever touched it. When the RR bring the dragon-tree to the
village, the DS put up a mock fight before allowing it in. Conversely, it is a
DS man who sticks a piece of ironwood (oheng) in the ground during the
children’s name-giving ceremony, and he does so downstream from the
noble longhouse. It seems that no RR touches the ironwood, at least in this
ritual setting. Transgressing this taboo, it is said, would drive them mad.
The ironwood taboo seems to have been of the utmost importance in
the past. In today’s daily life, the term toheng simply means “taboo”, while
the transitive verb noheng means “to observe a taboo [on something]”. But
toheng also refers to the ancient religion—that is, before conversion to
Christianity. Most probably, then, that the toheng religion was a set of
beliefs centered around the taboo on ironwood and connected to the
pengosang festival. And taboos, in olden times, were not something to joke
about. The Hovongan of the Kapuas relate how a whole Pin group that
lived nearby suddenly went mad after carving statues from ironwood and
committed mass suicide by jumping into a waterfall.
We are thus led to suggest that the early Aoheng composite society
included the Acüé, the dominant core, whose chiefs were endorsed as
aristocrats by their Kayan overlords in an imported system of stratified
organization; upstream from them, were the Pin (including the Aüva),
whose leaders were in charge of the religion and rituals on behalf of the
Acüé; and downstream, were the Semukung, renowned warriors, whose
leaders were in charge of defense and security for the village. While the
Acüé remained the whole village’s nominal aristocrats, the leading Pin and
Semukung houses upheld their control over their respective field of
expertise, ritual and military, and became the two high-commoner
categories we know today.
Ritual in Aoheng ethnogenesis
We have thus gained an understanding of Aoheng society, through a
historical reconstruction of its emergence, which we could have sought
vainly in its synchronic description as a coherent whole.
A culture, as has been shown (Rousseau, 1989; Barth, 1989), is made

of bits and pieces; it is neither a structure nor a close system, but rather a
transient, more or less random, assemblage of traits not necessarily
connected. It acquires (innovation or borrowing), replaces, or obliterates
such traits. The assemblage is dynamic: Its coherence, unendingly chang-
ing through interaction with the outside and through internal innovation,
is only partial; it displays too much internal tension, incompatibility, and
contradiction to allow the anthropologist to explain a culture in terms of a
structure or system. And it is only too often that the anthropologist, ever
so slightly, twists the data in order to reveal a homogeneous and coherent
cultural whole.
A society is not identical with a social organization. The latter, which
may be described as a system, is but one component of society. Society
itself ought to be described in the same terms as culture: It is a dynamic
mixture of social features, the ephemeral result of a social history, with its
train of discrepancies banning its being explained in terms of a system.
Partial coherence, however, suffices for society to function. Contrasting
with matter, society aims at reducing entropy, it tends toward higher inter-
nal coherence, a higher integration of its discordant components. Old and
new traits are progressively better fitted to one another; those that, in a new
situation, appear irreconcilable are eliminated ou reinterpreted. Should this
integrative process happen to fail, society would cease to exist as such.
Clearly, then, the hic et nunc status of a given society cannot be
grasped through only a synchronic study. It is necessary to be able to
apprehend that society’s various, successive past combinations of traits.
The study of the Aoheng, and possibly that of composite societies more
generally (with the exception of modern societies), procures a picture of
the processes in action in the formation of an ethnic group, an ethno-
cultural entity, from diverse elements.
Let us now summarize some historical elements relevant to the process
of ethnogenesis. The original Aoheng, the Aoheng Long-Apari, formed
around a dominant core of Acüé, a nomadic group in the process of
settling down. Other groups aggregated, among them, the Aüva and other
Pin and the Semukung. The Pin, runaway farmers (probably horti-
culturalists) with a rich religious and ritual tradition, surrendered their
sovereignty to the Acüé. The Semukung nomads, famous as warriors,
allied and intermarried with the Acüé and came to settle down under the
latter’s leadership. From the insight gained above, we may propose the
following sequence: The Pin and Aüva were the holders of the important
pengosang festival and observed a strong taboo on ironwood. To ensure
the fertility of their rice crops and also for reasons of respectability in the
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).
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.
Whatever of political goals, the pengosang became the major factor,

along with language, of Aoheng society’s internal coherence and the
major agent of integration. Later on, it became the focus of ethnic
identification, and in itself a statement of ethnicity.
Political and ideologic designs are often present in the “great festival”
organized in these particular circumstances by Borneo societies. In order
to sort out these designs in a simple way, we need to take into account
the types of social organization.
Strictly stratified societies, such as the Kayan or Modang, constitute
bound social entities (see Douglas, 1970) with low social mobility. Affilia-
tion to the group is exclusive: an individual is either a full member of the
group, or else a total stranger. It is their common affiliation to a group
that binds individuals together. The festival, staged by the noble stratum
with the commoners’ material assistance, ensures the community’s welfare
and growth. Aristocrats, being by nature superior, have nothing to prove
to their commoners, and the prestige procured by the festival remains
with the community, vis-à-vis neighboring communities. While ritual
intents are internal and confined to the community itself, in the regional
setting intents that are political (enhance prestige, promote alliances) and
economic (promote trade) prevail (see, e.g., Dove, 1988), and concern the
whole community.
Among non-stratified groups, which I called “hierarchized” elsewhere
(1987), leaders are not by essence different from their next-door neighbors.
The group is but vaguely bounded, and affiliation is fluctuating; social and
spatial mobility is high; and individuals are only bound to one another by
kinship and exchange networks, particularly in ritual situations. The
festival—often a funerary festival—is held by a well-to-do family, and the
whole kin network, well beyond the local community, is called upon. The
primary purpose, i.e., a ritual meant to ensure the contentment of the
deceased’s soul’s, here comes second to the political purpose, i.e., social
promotion, a gain in prestige and status through a lavish distribution of
goods (rice, meat) to the local community’s other families and to other,
neighboring communities.
In these non-stratified societies, the festival creates a relation of
inequality and induces in recipients a duty to reciprocate, and the
economic designs then seem subordinate. With this potlatch system,
prominent families compete for a higher regional status. These local
families, through history and relations with neighboring stratified groups,
coastal sultanates, or the colonial administration, are granted noble titles.
From notability, they then gain nobility. Although they attempt to
perpetuate this distinction through generations, they always risk economic
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& /—
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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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
horizontal opposition, relevant in everyday life, is much more important

than an abstract, theoretical vertical opposition between earth and heaven.
While male and female occupations are complementary and
sequential when work is concerned, gender differences are blurred when
it comes to socializing. Men and women are legally equal in ownership
and inheritance. Although most ruling chiefs are men, and a ruling
family usually manages to keep its male offspring at home to take over
titles and functions, it sometimes does happen, that a woman becomes
the ruler. In any case, actual political power is held by a village council of
elderly high commoners, who make decisions both in the ruler’s family
affairs and in village politics and foreign policy. The council also decides
upon and organizes every village-scale ritual and festival. One of these
eIders (begawa’ ) is elected to the charge of great adat chief, and in this
role he is assisted by a great female adat chief. She and her own staff of
leading ladies, all elderly women of the high-commoner class, are in
charge of the “female” parts in the rituals.
Let us now review the various categories of supernatural powers and
the way the Aoheng negotiate with them. Special places such as
mountain tops, big rocks, or certain trees are haunted by ghosts, who are
generally neither benevolent nor malevolent but may become dangerous
if not given proper offerings. As only men venture in what we have called
the outer world, it is they who deal with those ghosts.
Souls of people who died of a so-called “bad” death are condemned to
roam the earth and are feared as malevolent. Either the place where such
a death happened must be carefully avoided, or the ghost must be chased
away or turned innocuous by appropriate rituals held by men.
Humans have very little relation with the souls of ordinary dead, who
reside in heaven. However, people may appeal to a particular breed of
benevolent heavenly spirits in the penyangun healing ritual. This ritual,
requiring sacrifice of a chicken, is held by a male or female eIder.
Some special heavenly spirits, known by name, are called to mediate
between humans and the gods. These eight or ten lesser deities, always
listed as pairs, are headed by a supreme god, called Amun Tingai (High
Father). In the ritual, Amun Tingai is first called on, and the names of
his subordinates follow. They all are distant gods, usually unconcerned
with human matters, and they are called upon only in major rituals.
Major rituals are held at both the family and village levels. At the family
level, the high healing ritual, tosop, requires the sacrifice of a pig. The
officiant, a man (more uncommonly a woman) of the high-commoner
category, makes recommendations (tütok) to the pig’s soul so that it brings
to the gods a message, asking for a sign to be given in the pig’s liver. The
THE AOHENG, THE GODS, THE SPIRITS, AND GENDER
197
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.
Among the village rituals described above, there is a crucial difference

between those performed by the great male adat chief and those
performed by the great female adat chief. While the latter calls for
godsends, the former repels evil forces in purification rituals and, if he
calls for anything, it is only omens.
Thus we see that men are viewed as more efficient at repelling threats
by an immediate spirit world, just as they are efficient at repelling
enemies. These threats have their source in a horizontal earthly periphery,
and by repelling them men ensure the protection and continuity of the
community in the present. On the other hand, women can deal directly
with the gods and thus procure godsends and protection from them.
Their spiritual communication acts along a vertical axis between earth and
heaven, and by requesting help from deities women ensure protection for
and growth of the community for the future.
We may then suggest the following oppositions as possible tools for
our understanding of gender appropriateness in ritual labor among the
Aoheng, with the first part being associated with “male”, and the second
with “female”: protection against the spirits vs. protection of the gods;
repel vs. attract; maintenance vs. growth; static vs. dynamic; immediate
periphery vs. center and heaven; horizontal action vs. vertical action;
present vs. future.
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
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),
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
into the pig’s body (through the lesser gods?).

The patients and the whole assembly consume the medicine. The
ritual expert consumes the pig’s raw blood—as do the spirits and the
lesser gods; does this mean that, during the ritual, he is himself part of
the spiritual world? The spirits and the lesser gods consume the food
offerings. They then withdraw, signalling the end of the ritual.
The diagram (Fig. 24, below) attempts to display all the elements
above, showing the two-way interaction between the human, animal,
spiritual, and inanimate parties concerned. As can be seen, the analysis of
a single ritual still leaves many unanswered questions. How, precisely, do
the Aoheng conceive of their relations with the spiritual world? What and
how do they transact with their gods? Such questions might be elucidated
through the observation and analysis of a larger set of interrelated rituals.
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.
Fig. 24. Ritual interactions

CHAPTER XII
AOHENG ORAL LITERATURE: A TYPOLOGY *
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.
Songs for dancing

Mass dancing round the longhouse veranda is performed during festivals,
and choir singing generally accompanies it. A number of lengthy lengot
occur in this context, as well as several korï, historical epics. Often, a line
is sung by a solo singer, male or female, who knows the song well, and
then is repeated by the rest of the dancers. Normally, no musical instru-
ments are used.
Shamans’ songs
Some lengot are only used in ritual situations. Called lengot karang habai,
they pertain to the habai ritual, the highest of several shamanistic healing
rituals. Performed by the shaman, these songs are accompanied by the
two-stringed lute, sapai habai, and the mouth organ, keroni burung.
Folktales
Folktales, kerimi, comprise a broad range of stories, usually with both
entertainment and moral values (see an example p. 208). While some are
quite short, others may last several consecutive nights. They are in prose
in the daily language, but with a peculiar style of elocution, and may be
told to children, with the odd adult attending, either on the longhouse
veranda during the hot hours of the day, or at home in the evening.
Epics
The recitation of epics, korï, occurs in the quiet of the night hours in the
house. The singer, usually a senior man or woman, lies on his/her back,
with one foot resting on the knee of the other folded leg, and one forearm
covering his/her eyes. The audience sits or lies around, dozing, drinking
coffee or chewing betel, sometimes playing cards. A formal genre, in
rhymed verse, korï make use of archaic and metaphoric language with
scores of loanwords, and not just anyone in the audience can understand,
let alone perform them.
Dirges
These chants, temotang, are performed only in the house or apartment of a
newly deceased person, and in the presence of the body. Refrains are sung
by a senior relative or attendant and repeated by the audience. The songs
are in verse, using a language similar to that of the epics, and no musical
instruments are used. Temotang sium are chanted to entertain the soul of
the dead during the vigils and, the last night before burial, temotang icu’ is
performed to accompany the soul, along a difficult path, to its last abode.
AOHENG ORAL LITERATURE: A TYPOLOGY 207
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.
Orphan and the Sun. An Aoheng folktale
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:
— Twelve.
Another tree, again:

— Thirteen.
Orphan climbs up to the mountain ridge, still searching for tacom
trees. He finds one:
— Twenty!
Only then does Orphan put down his basket and prepare the bamboo
tube, which he positions at the point where he is going to cut the bark of
the tree. With his sword, he scrapes his finger nail to check whence comes
the wind, whence blows the wind. When he sees that the wind blows
from the right direction, he cuts the bark and fills his bamboo tube with
the sap that seeps from the cut.
This done, Orphan walks down the mountain back home, carrying his
poison. He starts boiling the poison. All day long, the poison is boiling.
Then, he carves a special dart, complete with its feathering, for his
blowpipe 5.
— What are you doing there? asks Orphan’s mother.
— Don’t say a word! Don’t you see our field over there? Other people
are already sowing, and our field is still covered with cut brush and felled
trees. I want to shoot a dart at the Sun because he won’t give us a single
day of dry weather. He only makes rain fall incessantly.
And Orphan continues to collect firewood and boil his poison. His fire
burns incessantly, incessantly.
As for the Sun, he now has a headache due to the smoke, he feels that
he is going to suffocate because of all that smoke.
— Hey, says Sun, what is to become of me now? I am going to
suffocate. Ari Arang, go tell Orphan to put out his fire, or I won’t survive.
Ari Arang, go tell him.
Ari Arang flies down to pass Sun’s message on to Tïong ‘Et, and Tïong
‘Et flies down to tell Kototïang, and Kototïang flies down to tell Konyü,
and Konyü flies down to tell Orphan 6.
— Orphan, the old man up there orders you to put out your fire. He’s
getting very sick. He’s going to die because of your fire.
— I won’t put out my fire! As long as he won’t give me eight days and
eight nights of dry weather, my fire will go on burning! I’ll carry on
gathering firewood and throwing it into this fire! says Orphan.
And Konyü flies up to tell Kototïang, and Kototïang flies up to tell
Tïong ‘Et, and Tïong ‘Et flies up to tell Ari Arang, and Ari Arang flies up
to report to Sun:
— He won’t put out his fire. He’ll continue to feed it. Only if you’ll
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.
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
does not concern itself with the particles’ composition, homogeneity, or

color. For solid rocks, in which particles may not be visible, the Aoheng
language appraises texture in another sequence—ranging from coarse to
fine detrital rocks (sandstone to siltstone), to ultradetrital rocks (clay-
stones), and chemical rocks (e.g., limestone)—which partly overlaps with
the first sequence.
The semantic field of the term for “stone” (batü) includes all objects of
mineral origin (or, eventually, of animal origin, such as gallstones found
in certain animal species) that, from sight and touch, appear compact,
solid, and relatively hard. Such is the case of a rock outcrop and of any
individual “grain” of a size equal or superior to a river pebble or shingle.
Here, gravel, grit, sand, and soft clay come under the category of the
“fluid” rather than the “hard”. Hence the contrast, marked by the lan-
guage, between the fluid bara (sand) and the solid batü bara (sandstone),
the affinity of which has not escaped the Aoheng. Likewise, batü ülak
(limestone) and ülak (lime, used in chewing betel) are associated, but
belong to distinct fields, since human action (calcination) has caused
limestone to lose its batü condition.
Although it recognizes geologic objects in geographic and geo-
morphologic features, the Aoheng language does not go much into detail.
A few morphologic terms describe geologic objects, without referring to
their petrographic origins: in situ outcropping rock (derïlï), a bare rocky
peak (dïang) of limestone or volcanic rock, a cliff (opang dïang), scree
boulders (hakang dïang), large isolated boulders in the jungle (batü horun).
Those are but geographic markers. While a variety of terms pay particular
attention to the shape of a ridge, a hill, or a mountain, the morphology of
an extinct volcano, for example, is neither detected nor differentiated in
language.
Individuals and categories: the technological criterion
Whereas ethnozoology and ethnobotany have long been part of the field
anthropologist’s investigation kit, the word ethnogeology sounds like a
neologism. An immediate explanation comes to mind: Men are much
less knowledgeable about their mineral environment than their animal
and vegetable environment because it is much less relevant to their daily
lives—which is also true of Western peoples.
A fundamental difference exists, however, between stones, on the one
hand, and animals and plants, on the other, and it exists on two levels. In
the animal or plant kingdoms, man generally deals with individuals, at
least in the case of animals and most higher plants: this particular
chicken, or that mango tree. In the mineral kingdom, individuals do not
STONE AND THE AOHENG 215
exist, except for a rare idiomorphic crystal. A pebble, a grain of sand, or a

block of limestone is no more individual than a piece of wood or a chunk
of meat, and it has no definite or identifiable shape.
At the genus, species and, sometimes, sub-species level, animal or plant
individuals are most often sorted into mutually exclusive categories by
folk taxonomies, although closely related species may constitute a
continuum (see Sellato, 1994/1998). Roughly, as zoology and botany
display individuals belonging to discrete, mutually exclusive categories,
traditional systems of classification resort to the same principles. Such
traditional categories are named—which does not mean that all genera or
species are—following criteria that are specific to the society that
conceives them. Thus, the Aoheng gather several genera of epiphytal
orchids under the same name, while they distinguish between several
varieties of a same rattan species. Here, it is use, alimentary or techno-
logical, that governs the need for accuracy in identification.
In the mineral world, continuum is found at all levels, petrographic
(names of rocks), mineralogical (name of constituent minerals in a rock),
and even chemical (within a given mineral). For example, in the most
common case of the ubiquitous sedimentary rocks, a rock is constituted
of a detrital portion (which may here be called sand or sandstone), an
ultradetrital portion (let us call it clay), a chemical portion (to simplify,
let us call it limestone), and more. A triangular diagram is used, with
each summit standing for a petrographic pole (detrital, ultradetrital,
chemical) and each side carrying a percentage scale: Any rock can then be
described (Fig. 26) by a dot in the triangle, showing the respective
percentages of its three portions. Categories of rocks identifiable by sight
or other means by the petrographer then derive from conventional limits,
expressed in percentages, drawn through a continuum: Marl contains
more calcium carbonate than calcareous claystone, but less than clayey
limestone. Through technological use, pure limestone is recognized from
the fact that it only can be transformed into lime, and pure clay from the
fact that it only can be molded. But not all pure clays can be molded, as
mineralogical composition plays a part. Likewise, not all pure sandstones
can be used as sharpening stones.
Pure sandstones, i.e., rocks comprising 100 percent detrital elements,
most often are made of different minerals. Mineralogical composition,
too, can be represented on a triangular diagram (Fig. 27), by considering
only three components (quartz, feldspath, mica). A sandstone containing
too much mica is too friable; too much feldspath, and the farmer soon
realizes that he will not be able to sharpen his knife. The “sharpening
stone” category is defined through empirical appraisal of mineralogical
composition, and therefore it derives from a “technological cut” in the

continuum of siliceous, feldspathic, and micaceous sandstones. Likewise,
the type of claystone, batü korop, that pregnant women sometimes select
and eat, probably to procure minerals and metals, should contain almost
no silt fraction at all, lest they damage their teeth.
Fig. 26. PETROGRAPHIC COMPOSITION
Mineralogical composition may sometimes be quantified: The “grade”

can be assessed in terms of “sufficient/insufficient”, for example, in the
case of iron ore (batü üaja); or in terms of “pure/impure”, for example,
for gold (boan). Here, too, use defines the technological cut.
Finally, it should be noted that, at the chemical level, ions may replace
other ions within a given mineral, in a continuum between two or more
poles.
Names and uses
In short, animals and plants easily lend themselves to taxonomic clas-
sifications of individuals into named discrete categories. These categories
are recognized by sight, whether or not a particular alimentary or techno-
logical use has led to a refining in identification. Such a category is

identified by name before individuals belonging to it are collected for use.
For rocks, conversely, a category, that is, the name of a rock, cannot
immediately be recognized and it only exists after the collected rock
sample’s capacity to fulfill a given technological purpose has been
substantiated. Categories derive from a technological cut in a continuum.
A man looking for a whetstone to sharpen his knife will first spot a hard
piece of rock of appropriate size and shape, then he will test it, verifying
that it contains enough quartz and bites into the metal. Only then will
that stone fall into the “sharpening stone” category. The man must still
test the stone’s grain size, according to the condition of the knife to be
sharpened, hence three sub-categories, also technological, based on the
stone’s grain size (see Fig. 25).
Thus, only categories of useful rocks are named, according to
predefinite uses, technological or ritual (see below). The name only exists
and can be applied to the object when the object’s suitability for a given
use has been recognized. Rocks without a use simply remain unnamed,
or are named in reference to their shape or size.
Fig. 27. MINERALOGICAL COMPOSITION AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL CUT
From geology to myth

Other kinds of geologic objects accessible to man in Borneo include salt
springs (sopan; see Sellato, 1993a), the sites of hunting and trapping;
natural petroleum seeps, sometimes exploited manually for lamp fuel;
iron ore deposits, which the Dayak know how to smelt; and alluvial gold,
commonly exploited by family groups, by panning or diving when the

river level is very low.
Fossils (osï batü) are often recognized as petrified animals. Osï refers to
small freshwater gastropods. It also refers to meteorites (osï kenyühï), the
unusual shapes of which evoke petrified life forms. Fossils, meteorites, and
also crystals or strangely shaped stones found in the river are perceived as
“alien” objects and kept by their finder, who often credits them with
supernatural, generally protective, qualities. The same qualities are
ascribed to megalithic monuments, carved rocks, or stone Nandi, all
remains of earlier cultures (see, e.g., Baier, 1987; Karina & Sellato, 1999).
Due to their shape, certain rocks, cliffs, or boulders have been
integrated into legends or myths: Such rock was split into two by a hero’s
sword, or such shape on a riverside rock is a giant’s foot print. Among
groups that do not know the sun dial, particular boulders or peaks are
used as markers in relation to the sun’s course to set the date of sowing.
Caves, if they are dry, are often used for shelter (see Sellato, 1989/1994
and below).
These geologic features, like the events, real or fictional, to which they
are associated and like the uses that they are put to, are part and parcel of
the Aoheng terroir, in the sense of a cultural landscape, into which the
group’s history is deeply rooted (see, e.g., Brosius, 1986).
Finally, the plain and banal batü, the useless stone should be mention-
ed, as it may eventually find a chance use in grinding chillies, steadying a
house post, or even as a projectile; and the Seputan, a neighboring group
to the Aoheng, tell how Oang Batü Hatü (Hundred-Rock Oang) alone
defeated a whole enemy army by pelting it with river pebbles.
Stone, taboo, and death
Possibly in connection with the recognition of fossil animal forms, the
Aoheng, like other Borneo groups, tend to recognize in scores of natural
geologic features all sorts of petrified humans, animals, canoes, or houses.
Petrification is the surpernatural sanction that strikes those who have
transgressed certain types of taboos. The taboo most commonly
encountered in Aoheng oral literature concerns a disrespectful, mocking,
or insulting demeanor toward animals (see Needham, 1964; Blust, 1981),
particularly captured or killed game animals and domestic animals. A
transgression of this taboo routinely precipitates a set of phenomena called
hüvon, including petrification. Pythons and domestic cats figure
prominently among hüvon makers.
This set of phenomena typically features thunder, lightning, hurricane-
like winds, and torrential rains or, more often, a rain of stones. Generally,
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,
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.
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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(PRINTED IN FRANCE)
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.

Bernard Sellato, born in 1951, graduated from the Ecole Nationale
Supérieure de Géologie in Nancy, France, in 1973 and was sent immedi-
ately to Borneo to work as a field geologist, mapping the then yet
uncharted far interior of the island. There he became acquainted with
the Aoheng and other isolated Dayak groups. After a spell of several
years in Saharan and sub-Saharan West Africa, he returned to Borneo
to spend two years with the Aoheng.
After joining CeDRASEMI, he started work in 1982 as a consultant
to a petroleum company, resigning in 1985 to take a doctorate from
the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 1987. He
then worked as a consultant anthropologist to several major inter-
national foundations and environmental organizations. In 1992, he
became a member of CNRS, the French National Science Research
© Jean-André Bouchard (1974)
Center. He currently heads the Institute for Research on Southeast
Asia (IRSEA) in Marseilles, France, and edits the journal Moussons. Social Science Research on
Southeast Asia.
Bernard Sellato is the author of Nomades et sédentarisation à Bornéo (1989), Hornbill and Dragon.
Arts and Culture of Borneo (1989 and 1992), Nomads of the Borneo Rainforest (1994), Borneo.
People of the Rainforest (a CD-rom; 1998), Forest, Resources, and People in Bulungan (2001), and a
number of articles in journals and books, and editor of several other books.
ISBN 2-914936-02-8
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Bernard SELLATO

Borneo. People of the Rainforest (a CD-Rom), Singapore: Daiichi Media, 1998.

Maps and photographs by the author

76 avenue de Saint-Mandé 75012 Paris SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Distribution in Southeast Asia (diffusion en Asie du Sud-Est et en Extrême-Orient)

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1. Political map of Borneo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Marseilles, May 2002

economic surveys, such as those routinely carried out prior to starting a

to higher social groupings, it discusses Lévi-Strauss’ concept of “society of

interaction of the various—human, animal, or inanimate—partners,

Guinea. The British North Borneo Chartered Company, taking over in

het natuurkundig onderzoek der Nederlandsche Kolonien (Society for the

Kayan settlement of Koeng Irang, remained a constant impending threat.

Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie. Eventually, the mountain range

belonged to the early decades of anthropology, when the scientific

BY OTHER EXPEDITION MEMBERS.

HOSE, C. & W. MCDOUGALL

Fig. 4. The upper Kapuas river system

All ethnic groups in Kapuas Hulu Regency—including in the town of

Fig. 5. Administrative divisions in the upper Kapuas

1970 Report on the Iban, London: Athlone Press, 317 p.

Fig. 6. Ethnic map of the upper Kapuas

Some Bekumpai came over from Central Kalimantan, settling long

Fig. 7. The upper Mahakam area

* Data Naha: Busang Uma’ Tuan (fifteen families), Busang Uma’

Furthermore, exploitation has now reached unsustainable levels and, with

from which the Kenyah chiefs acting as middlemen derived an important

five families from Muara Belinau. It is unclear whether the Beketan of

In regions where the Punan no longer range and collect, traders in

1960s]”, with a weighty presence of the Police and Army. In May, a

identity. The community’s ethno-cultural identity then lies in limbo, and

The distinction between so-called “egalitarian” and “stratified” societies

vegetable, and fruit-tree cultivation, as well as hunting and fishing, play a

Ma’anyan society shows traces of a now obsolete stratification in four

household consists of a nuclear family (angkob), the minimal economic

(katurunan) owning a territory. The tumpuk is headed by a tuha rumah,

neighbors. However, the Aoheng of East Kalimantan or the Kajang

Sambas, Sukadana, and Landak in the west; Banjarmasin in the south;

regularly set up neolocal residence. No property belongs collectively to a

In all these “non-stratified” societies, it seems sound to contemplate a

Fig. 8. Location of ethnic groups

NOMADIC GROUPS A Punan

NON-STRATIFIED GROUPS C Northeastern Groups

STRATIFIED GROUPS G 1 Kayan

COASTAL SULTANATES H 1 Kutai

Notes: 1. Also called Land Dayak or Bidayuh.

entity or corporate body (personne morale), its holding an estate of

in the whole set of social relations—seems to only exist based on a system

affiliation to a social class may be altered through anisogamic marriage.

ethno-linguistic group. In societies with a low level of social integration

concepts, as far as Borneo is concerned, clearly bear the stamp of the

Fig. 9. Siblings-in-law in selected languages in Borneo

Going through Fig. 9, one question arises, that of terminological

Fig. 10. Types of affinal relations in Ego’s generation

In Bukat, the terminological set is: 1 (same-sex male relation) lavet ; 2

Fig. 11. Post-marital residence and affinal relationships

situation might give a hint. According to De Martinoir, two factors are

Fig. 12. Residence and nomadism