R. A. Cramb: Land and Longhouse—Agrarian Transformation in the Uplands of Sarawak

Abstract

Robert Cramb has written an important book. It makes a major contribution to swidden agriculture studies, to customary systems of land tenure and to development studies generally in the way it demonstrates how change will occur naturally when communities have sufficient security and confidence to make choices and time to adjust them to fit their own requirements. The book focuses on the Saribas Iban. The Iban are a well studied group with Derek Freeman making a particular contribution to swidden agriculture studies with his work in the late 1940s on Iban agriculture. Relevant to that past is that the Iban were headhunters par excellence. They took heads to ensure the fertility of their women, their land and their sacred padi seed. The cultivation of rice was central to their religion and well being. Not something that would be abandoned with equanimity, one would imagine. The "White Rajahs of Sarawak", the Brookes, were not sympathetically disposed to these fundamentals of Iban religion and spent some 80 years trying to discourage headhunting. The first Iban to suffer the wrath of the Brookes were the Saribas, who, in 1849 at Batu Mering, were roundly defeated by a Brooke force, supported by the British navy. For the Saribas Iban, this was a watershed. They adapted to this reverse by accommodating the Brookes and replaced the Balau Iban as the Brooke's firmest and most trusted supporters, probably because of some outstanding war leaders they had at the time. As a result, they have remained close to government and more exposed to outside influences than most other Iban groups. Nevertheless they remained staunchly Iban,