Seventeen Years Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo: A Record of Intimate Association with the Natives of the Bornean JunglesGomes, Edwin Herbert
History
Seventeen Years Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo: A Record of Intimate Association with the Natives of the Bornean Jungles
Gomes, Edwin Herbert
Iban (Bornean people); Sarawak (Malaysia) -- Description and travel
He has on an elaborate headkerchief decorated with tassels and small
pieces of silver or brass. These headkerchiefs are sometimes woven by the
Dyaks themselves, or else they make the border of bright-coloured threads
and sew it round a piece of red or blue imported cloth.]
[Illustration: A DYAK LAD
On his head he has a headkerchief which consists of a square piece of
cloth tied in such a manner as to form a cap.]
Buda was the youngest of the warrior sons of the old Orang Kaya Pemancha,
the famous pirate and war-leader of the Saribas Dyaks in the old
lawless days. One of his brothers, Haji, was killed fighting against
the Government forces sent to punish the rebels and restore order in
the Saribas. Loiyo and Nanang, two other brothers, were at one time
followers of Rentap, who held out so long against the Sarawak Government,
and made Sadok Mountain, between the Saribas and the Skrang Rivers, his
headquarters. The Dyaks often relate with keen interest the story of
those ancient days when Rentap’s stronghold, high up on Sadok Mountain,
with precipitous approaches on every side, was considered impregnable.
Many an expedition did the Government lead against Rentap, but to no
purpose. Rentap, who was called by his followers the “Inland Rajah,” and
was the leader of the opposition to the rule of the Rajah of Sarawak, was
supported by a large force of disaffected Saribas and Skrang Dyaks, and
was not to be easily beaten.
In 1861, however, Rentap was losing his popularity, and a great many of
his followers had deserted him. They could not endure the violence and
wilfulness of their leader, and they saw that the Dyaks who had submitted
to Rajah Brooke’s Government were happy and flourishing. Moreover, Rentap
had offended their Dyak prejudices. He had discarded his old wife, and
married one of the girls he had taken captive, and called her “the Ranee
of Sadok.” This was contrary to all Dyak custom, and was greatly resented
by his followers. In that year Loiyo and Nanang, two of Rentap’s leading
warriors, and their adherents, made their submission to Rajah Brooke.
They had to give security to the amount of forty valuable jars (worth
about £500), which were to be retained for three years, and then returned
to their owners should they remain loyal.
The next expedition led by the Government succeeded in defeating Rentap.
When he found that his stronghold was no longer tenable, he fled with
such of his followers as were able, down the opposite side of the
mountain. Deserted by most of his followers, he retired to the Entabai
branch of the Kanowit River, and died there some years after.
Buda and his brother Unting, the two other sons of the Orang Kaya
Pemancha, did their share of fighting during these troubled times, and
took part in many a bold deed, to the annoyance of the Government. Unting
married and settled at Saribas, and I knew him well. Buda married into a
family at Sebetan, and made his home there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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