Iban - Pre-Brooke

  General Description   The Kapuasi basin is located in Western Kalimantan, in Borneo, and has long been inhabited by the Iban or Dayak. These are a river people whose culture emphasizes individual resourcefulness, egalitarianism, personal mobility, and opening new land for settlement. ^[1] The Iban in fact trace their origins to the Kapuasi basin, and it was from there that they aggressively expanded their territory between the 17th and the 19th centuries, practising headhunting and slavery. ^[2] In 1841, Iban expansion was checked by British adventurer James Brooke, of the so-called Brooke Raj. This pushed some Iban westward, while others became part of the Raj itself. The governed Iban communities were relatively autonomous in the regulation of local matters, although a colonial administrative structure was superimposed onto the Iban system. The White Rajahs sought to suppress infighting and mobilize Iban communities for their own military interests. ^[3] With the exception of a period of Japanese control during the Second World War, ^[4] the British maintained control over this particular region up until Brunei’s independence in 1984. ^[5]
Population and political organization
Before the establishment of the Brooke Raj, there were no permanent leaders among the Iban: instead, groups of family leaders directed the affairs of each house. Warriors, bards, augurs and other specialists could all become men of influence. James Brooke, as Rajah of Sarawak, created political positions, such as headman, regional chief and paramount chief, to better control Iban society, particularly in terms of extracting taxes and suppressing headhunting. Iban political organization also changed profoundly with the creation of permanent political positions and the establishment of political parties in the early 1960s. ^[2]
It seems that the Iban lived in autonomous longhouse communities of about 500 inhabitants each, both before and probably for some time after the imposition of Brooke Raj authority. ^[2] More recently, we know that the 1985 census for Sarawak estimates the number of Iban at around 439,000 people. ^[6]

[1]: (Sandin 1980, xi) Sandin, Benedict. 1980. Iban Adat And Augury. Penang: Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia for School of Comparative Social Sciences. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/3I4RXPUZ.

[2]: (Sutlive and Beierle 1995) Sutlive Jr., Vinson H., and John Beierle. 1995. “Culture Summary: Iban.” eHRAF World Cultures. http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4.

[3]: (Gomes 1911, 77) Gomes, Edwin H. 1911. Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo: A Record of Intimate Association with the Natives of the Bornean Jungles. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott & Co. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/N6JNADA8.

[4]: (Andaya and Andaya 2016, 261-68) Andaya, Barbara Watson, and Leonard Y. Andaya. 2016. A History of Malaysia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/VXPWW92R.

[5]: (Andaya 2008, 455) Andaya, Barbara Watson. 1992. “Political Development between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” In The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, Vol. 1: From Early Times to C. 1800, edited by Nicholas Tarling, 402-59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/UQTUBXM2.

[6]: (Davison and Sutlive 1991, 158) Davison, Julian, Vinson H. Sutlive, and Vinson H. Sutlive. 1991. “Children of Nising: Images of Headhunting and Male Sexuality in Iban Ritual and Oral Literature.” In Female and Male in Borneo: Contributions and Challenges to Gender Studies, 153-230. Williamsburg, VA: Borneo Research Council. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/5U8X7Q5P.