Iban Of Sarawak Research Articles

Crossing The Rubicon? Maintenance and Change Among Today’s Iban in Sarawak

Among communities reliant on subsistence agriculture as a means of production, transition to wage work may seem indicative of economic progress. In the 21st century, the Iban in East Malaysia utilise three production modes: subsistence rice farming; commerce; and, waged work, to support food requirements and satisfy consumer needs. Waged work is increasingly important, even replacing subsistence and commerce. This study considers perceptions of maintenance and change among the Iban in the Sri Aman Division of Sarawak. The purpose is to gain perspectives of heads of households about “maintenance” and “change”. Research was conducted qualitatively, via observation and interviews. Maintenance is reflected through ongoing use of the Iban language; the longhouse is seen as being of continuing importance for resident and non-resident relatives, even if no longer bound to ancestral longhouse territory. Changes include new technologies, the importance of money, reduced adherence to Iban traditions, and conversion to Catholicism, among the community studied here. Salience of these matters lies in Iban understanding of ways in which modernisation is occurring in their community, in a region known for its biological, cultural and linguistic diversity, providing a voice for community members, and their insights about the contemporary Iban world.

TOWARDS CURBING CYBER-BULLYING IN MALAYSIA BY AUTHOR IDENTIFICATION OF IBAN AND KADAZANDUSUN OSN TEXT USING DEEP LEARNING

Online Social Network (OSN) is frequently used to carry out cyber-criminal actions such as cyberbullying. As a developing country in Asia that keeps abreast of ICT advancement, Malaysia is no exception when it comes to cyberbullying. Author Identification (AI) task plays a vital role in social media forensic investigation (SMF) to unveil the genuine identity of the offender by analysing the text written in OSN by the candidate culprits. Several challenges in AI dealing with OSN text, including limited text length and informal language full of internet jargon and grammatical errors that further impact AI's performance in SMF. The traditional AI system that analyses long text documents seems inadequate to analyse short OSN text's writing style. N-gram features are proven to efficiently represent the authors' writing style for shot text. However, representing N-grams in traditional representation like Tf-IDF resulted in sparse and difficult in grasping the semantic information from text. Besides, most AI works have been done in English but receive less attention in indigenous languages. In West Malaysia, the supreme languages that transcend ethnic boundaries are Iban of Sarawak and KadazanDusun of Sabah, which both are inherently under-resourced. This paper presented a proposed workflow of AI for short OSN text using two Under-Resourced Language (U-RL), Iban and KadazanDusun tweets, to curb the cyberbullying issue in Malaysia. This paper compares Tf-Idf (sparse) and SoA embedding-based (dense) feature representations to observe which representations best represent the stylistic features of the authors’ writing. N-grams of word, character, and POS were extracted as the features. The representation models were learned by different classifiers using machine learning (Naïve Bayes, Random Forest, and SVM). The convolutional neural network (CNN), a SoA deep learning model in sentence classification, was tested against the traditional classifiers. The result was observed by combining different representation models and classifiers on three datasets (English, Iban, and KadazanDusun). The best result was achieved when CNN learned embedding-based models with a combination of all features. KadazanDusun achieved the highest accuracy with 95.76%, English with 95.02%, and Iban with 94%..

Ngajat Iban: A Cultural Study

The Ngajat is a traditional dance which synonym with the ethnic of Iban in Sarawak. This dance is usually performed in festive such as the Gawai Dayak and matrimony. The purpose of the dance is to entertain and showing gratitude for the attended guest. In Iban’s culture, the Ngajat dance can be divided in two categories by referring to gender, which are Ngajat Indu (Female’s dance) and Ngajat Laki (Male’s dance). Other than that, the Ngajat dance have significant meaning and scared in the Iban’s culture depending on the ritual performed by the ethnic itself. Therefore, this is an ethnography study emphasized on the intangible culture of the Iban’s Ngajat. This study applied the qualitative method of exploratory research and exploring a concept of phenomena through conducting field work and interview with an expert in the Iban’s culture. The studies sites are located in Betong and Sri Aman which have the largest Iban’s settlement in Sarawak. The studies find the Ngajat dance still widely practised and there is an effort to conserve the traditional dance to prevent it from extinction.

A DECONSTRUCTION OF THE TRADITIONAL BUNGA TERUNG TATTOO AND THE SEQUENCE OF ITS APPLICATION AMONG IBAN MEN FROM JULAU, SARAWAK, SUNGAI UTIK AND SUNGAI SADAP PUTUSSIBAU INDONESIA.

Bunga terung is a symbol synonymous with the Iban ethnic group in Borneo. This study is aimed to deconstruct the bunga terung based on Ferdinand de Saussure’s Linguistic Unit comprising of Sign, Signified and Signifier. In Sarawak, the bunga terung is worn by Iban men who have attained puberty to signify entry into adulthood. There are varying practices on the sequence of application of the bunga terung between the Iban of Sarawak and Kalimantan. An interesting observation regarding the sequence is the time the bunga terung is worn. In Sarawak, the isi ginti (fish hook) tattoo is worn first – pre-puberty, followed by the bunga terung, and the pantang rekung leher (neck tattoo) before other tattoos for the back and the legs. In Kalimantan, the bunga terung is not worn if the Iban male has not gone berjalai. This study discusses two findings; the significance of the bunga terung; and the sequence of its application on the Iban men from Sarawak.

Protective power: The nabau or water dragon among the Iban of Sarawak

This article discusses the origin, nature and significance of the nabau, which I gloss in English as ‘water dragon’. I show how there are clear indications that the nabau is regarded by the Iban as protective. The nabau has been woven into pua cloths, skirts and strips of cloth called labong Bungai Nuing. The nabau on labong Bungai Nuing are regarded as manifestations of a culture hero from the parallel semi-spirit world of Panggau Libau, Bungai Nuing, and they are used as protective amulets. This is the clearest demonstration of the protective nature of the nabau. I suggest that the significance of the nabau should be understood in the context of its association with water and with beliefs about the flow of cosmic power and fertility through water. The use of the figure of Bungai Nuing hints, I suggest, at the nature of beliefs about the flow of cosmic power, kuasa, and the ways in which humans engage with this.

The Iban Traditional Religion: Miring

This paper aims to discuss about the offering ceremony, which is one of the traditional cultures performed by the Iban in Sarawak. Miring is performed to give honor to their Gods (Petara), Holy Spirit (Orang Panggau & Bunsu Antu) and souls of their dead ancestors (Petara Aki-Ini) whom they invited to their various festivals. If the supernatural is not fed, they will not obtain the necessary kindness in which will cause disaster. The arrival of Christianity led to the fact that almost all the Iban left their pagan religion. At the same time, the Iban community today is less aware of the offering ceremony procedure. Fieldwork was carried out at several locations in Saratok, Betong, Sarawak. The data are collected through participant observation technique and through face-to-face interview with the informants. The interviewed informants were selected based on their expertise in the origins, customs and cultures of the Iban community. Results show that not all of the Iban perform the miring ceremony. Lack of ritual specialists and conversion to Christianity among the Iban are the causes of this ritual to be less performed. The Iban community today faces many challenges in maintaining and practicing the traditions inherited by their ancestors. Even though there are changes and differences of miring performed by the Iban community in Sarawak, their aims and needs remained the same, and that is to beg for the gods’ protection and avoid unwanted or bad thingsto happen.

The Political Economy of Ending Headhunting in Central Borneo: Inter-colonial and Kenyah perspectives on the 1924 Kapit Peacemaking Agreement and its aftermath

AbstractThis article, largely based on archival research, highlights two contradictory outcomes of colonial state formation in central Borneo. The first is characterized by territorial consolidation and efforts to neatly sedentarize peoples within each colonial territory, while the second is characterized by pacification that unwittingly liberalized the flows and movements of people and commodities transgressing colonial state boundaries. The 1924 Kapit Peacemaking Agreement in colonial Sarawak is often noted for its significance in bringing a final end to the practice of inter-ethnic headhunting, principally between the Iban of Sarawak and the Kenyah from Dutch Borneo. While it marked the successful outcome of a long phase of colonial pacification and territorial consolidation for both colonial states in Borneo, the agreement's outcome simultaneously highlights the contradictory inter-colonial motives and expectations regarding the resulting increase of cross-border flows of people and commodities. The presented case highlights challenges facing Dutch colonial state formation when attempts to subjugate and sedentarize riverine peoples, who were geographically tied to fluid commodity chains and flows, directly undermined the former's own efforts to establish authority in its borderland frontier.

Comparing schizophrenia symptoms in the Iban of Sarawak with other populations to elucidate clinical heterogeneity.

The symptom profile of schizophrenia can vary between ethnic groups. We explored selected symptom variables previously reported to be characteristic of schizophrenia in the Iban of Sarawak in transethnic populations from Australia, India, and Sarawak, Malaysia. We tested site differences to confirm previous research, and to explore implications of differences across populations for future investigations. We recruited schizophrenia samples in Australia (n = 609), India (n = 310) and Sarawak (n = 205) primarily for the purposes of genetic studies. We analyzed seven identified variables and their relationship to site using logistic regression, including: global delusions, bizarre delusions, thought broadcast/insertion/withdrawal delusions, global hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, disorganized behavior, and prodromal duration. We identified a distinct symptom profile in our Sarawak sample. Specifically, the Iban exhibit: low frequency of thought broadcast/insertion/withdrawal delusions, high frequency of auditory hallucinations and disorganized behavior, with a comparatively short prodrome when compared with Australian and Indian populations. Understanding between-site variation in symptom profile may complement future transethnic genetic studies, and provide important clues as to the nature of differing schizophrenia expression across ethnically distinct groups. A comprehensive approach to subtyping schizophrenia is warranted, utilizing comprehensively ascertained transethnic samples to inform both schizophrenia genetics and nosology.

‘Shifting ground’: Renegotiating land rights and rural livelihoods in Sarawak, Malaysia

In this paper, we use an actor-oriented perspective to explore the nature and extent of conflict and negotiation with regard to land use and tenure among the Iban of Sarawak. The Iban are shifting cultivators who have long been involved in smallholder cash crops. We argue that the complexity of land-use change and the major shifts in land law and policy in Sarawak in recent decades, particularly those favouring the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations on both state and customary land, have created a situation of indeterminacy that can be exploited to renegotiate land rights and livelihoods. We present a case history of an Iban community that has ‘shifted ground’ several times over the past century, both geographically and in its strategic position relative to state and private sector actors. We show how, under formidable pressure from these actors, this community has nevertheless renegotiated its access to land and other resources, and opportunistically developed a diversified livelihood system that has enabled it to survive in rapidly changing political and economic conditions. While not necessarily typical, the case sheds light on the limits and modes of negotiability in the context of a strong developmental state.

Changes and Diversity in Rules of Natural-resource Tenure by the Iban of Sarawak, East Malaysia

Changes and Diversity in Rules of Natural-resource Tenure by the Iban of Sarawak, East Malaysia

Knowledge, literacy and media among the Iban of Sarawak. A reply to Maurice Bloch

Social AnthropologyVolume 11, Issue 1 p. 79-99 Knowledge, literacy and media among the Iban of Sarawak. A reply to Maurice Bloch John Postill, John Postill Bremer Institut für Kulturforschung (BIK) Universität Bremen D-28334 Bremen Germany jpostill@usa.netSearch for more papers by this author John Postill, John Postill Bremer Institut für Kulturforschung (BIK) Universität Bremen D-28334 Bremen Germany jpostill@usa.netSearch for more papers by this author First published: 19 January 2007 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8676.2003.tb00073.xCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume11, Issue1February 2003Pages 79-99 RelatedInformation

Ecological study on site selection for shifting cultivation by the Iban of Sarawak, Malaysia. A case study in the Mujong River area

Site selection methods for shifting cultivation of the Iban were studied at five longhouses in the Mujong River area of Sarawak, Malaysia with special reference to their knowledge of secondar y vegetation. Shifting cultivation practices in the area were more intense than reported in previous studies and were conducted with one-time cropping of upland rice followed by about a 2−10 year fallow period. In all, 42 sites of secondary forests were selected for the vegetation survey. They were classified into 25 suitable sites and 17 unsuitable sites for shifting cultivation by landowners, based on their perception through knowledge of vegetation. Inter views of farmers were also conducted to discover and assess indicator plants from plants encountered during the vegetation survey. In the first stage of decision- making for site selection, old secondary forests, especially with dif ficult access, were excluded. Secondly, the farmers took into consideration the composition and growth of secondar y vegetation and, to a lesser extent, other environmental factors. During the early fallow period, less than about three years, some species such as Lalang (Imperata cylindrica) and Kemunting (Melastoma polyanthum) dominated. The farmers perceived such sites as unsuitable for shifting cultivation. Left fallow for several years (more than three years), tree species replaced small plants, e.g., grasses, ferns and shrubs, through vegetation succession. Farmers perceived the presence of many tree species as indicating fertile land, but some of them occurred more frequently or with higher density at unsuitable sites than at suitable sites. Nevertheless, tree size as measured by stem diameter at breast height was greater at suitable sites than at unsuitable sites, indicating that the farmers comprehensively grasp the growth condition of these plants for land fertility evaluation and site selection. Judging from the rice yield survey, the Iban farmers' site selection was appropriate for achieving sufficient rice production for their subsistence.

IN THIS ISSUE

This issue features papers using functional imaging in psychiatric disorders linked with neuropsychology to explore underlying brain systems, together with other neuropsychological papers, and a related Invited Review by Nelson et al. (pp. 163–174) on neural changes which may underlie the developmental social changes of adolescence. Three papers deal with psychiatric disorders in childhood and adolescence. Two further papers report studies of suicidal behaviours and of depression. An additional paper from Barrett et al. (pp. 281–293) describes the prevalence and features of schizophrenia in an unusual cultural population isolate, the Iban of Sarawak.

Relationships among secondary forests and resource use and agriculture, as practiced by the Iban of Sarawak, East Malaysia

Previous research has dealt with the relationships between forests and the people living in and around forests practicing swidden farming, in tropical rain forest climates in insular Southeast Asia. It was pointed out that hill swidden farming with a long enough fallow period has been considered to be in harmony with the forest environment. However, there have been few studies on the relationships between forests, and resource use and agriculture as a whole. This paper, as a result of a case study in an Iban village in Sarawak, demonstrates that the Iban allow all their agricultural lands (swamp paddy fields, Para rubber gardens, fruit gardens, pepper gardens, and, of course, hill swiddens) to return to natural forests, or construct man-made forests that are similar to natural forests. In addition, considering other activities such as fishing, hunting and collection of forest products, it can be seen that the resource use and agriculture practices of the Iban are based on secondary forests. In resource use and agriculture, the natural, social and economic environments play important roles. One important natural factor is strong vegetation recovery. As the villagers recognized, when forests recover, thick weeds on agricultural lands disappear and the fertility and structure of soils are improved. After the return to secondary forest with a strong recovery of vegetation, agricultural land is opened again. The villagers benefit with less labor and capital, as tillage work and fertilizer application are not necessary. Large fluctuations in social and economic conditions outside the village affected the villagers’ attitudes toward resource use and agriculture. Within this setting, the Iban in Nakat have survived by rapidly changing activities regarding resource use and agriculture, adapting to the social and economic conditions of their surroundings. For the Iban, secondary forests have a high potential value. The secondary forests house plants and animals that are current and potential resources. These forests can also be easily converted to other kinds of agricultural use at a low cost. These are the reasons for the Iban’s secondary forest based resource use and agriculture.

Knowledge, literacy and media among the Iban of Sarawak. A reply to Maurice Bloch An earlier version of this article was published in the Proceedings of the Sixth Biennial Conference of the Borneo Research Council. University of Malaysia, Kuching, 1014 July 2000. The article follows from research I carried out in Sarawak for some 17 months in 19968 was part

Maurice Bloch has rejected Jack Goody's ‘autonomous’ theory of literacy for being deterministic and eurocentric. The Merina of Madagascar, says Bloch, have adapted literacy to local purposes. Rather than altering their (oral) knowledge system, bringing it closer to European models, literacy has actually extended this system. In this article I apply Bloch's insight to another Austronesian people: the Iban of Sarawak. While agreeing that his indigenist ‘ideological’ approach is helpful in some cases (e.g. Christian prayer books that extend pagan notions of ancestry), it can also blind us to the wider realities of developing countries where literacy is both a ubiquitous ideal and an unevenly distributed resource. To overcome the ideological–autonomous impasse, I suggest (a) closer cooperation between literacy and media anthropology and (b) more geopolitical rigour when comparing social units.

Minority Language Education in Malaysia: Four Ethnic Communities' Experiences

Malaysia is a multilingual, multicultural society. The National Language Policy that established Bahasa Malaysia as the official national language includes a provision for the use of the nation's numerous other languages, including those of the indigenous minorities, provided that the parents request it and that there are at least fifteen students to make up a mother-tongue class. For many years, Tamil and Mandarin were the only language communities acting on that provision. However, in more recent years, several indigenous people groups, concerned about what they perceive as a decline in the use of their ethnic language among the younger generation, have begun language development and/or mother tongue education programmes. In this paper the author looks at four language minority groups – the Kadazandusun and the Iranun in Sabah, the Iban in Sarawak, and the Semai in peninsular Malaysia – and what they are doing to provide beginning education programmes for their children that use the children's own languages. Three of these mother-tongue programmes are presently in the formal education system. These educational trends aim not only at developing the students cognitively in their mother tongue and Malay thus achieving better results in school, but also at maintaining their unique cultural and linguistic heritage.

Hornbill Carvings of the Iban of Sarawak, Malaysia

Hornbill Carvings of the Iban of Sarawak, Malaysia

Iban on the Infobahn: Can We Integrate the Global Village without Annihilating Cultures?

As a teacher of Elizabethan drama, I've learned to appreciate dialectics. While Shakespeare, I've discovered, as Altman points out, that the plays evolve from questions puzzling the playwright, the dramas giving form to debates that those questions inspire. This may explain why my initiation to global, educational telecomputing prompted investigation of the questions and debates inspired by such endeavors. Some of the most troubling questions stem from the issue of integration itself. While state, national, and international initiatives focus upon Internet connectivity, we would be wise to consider the cultural ramifications of integrating technology into classrooms and curricula. Though they are seductive, we ought to resist the fallacy that computer networks will inevitably integrate communities divided by race, ethnicity, and culture. No media will compensate for human flaws; they merely enable human expression. What's essential, therefore, is to begin with a fundamental question when we consider the impact of computer networks upon humanity: Can we integrate disparate groups and cultures without annihilating them in the process? Such questions became especially poignant when I moved to Malaysia in 1992 to take a teaching position at the International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL). Malaysia, after all, is an interesting place from which to argue such questions, if you can find people brave enough to venture an opposing viewpoint. And that is what the Internet meant to me during my four-year stint in that country: opposing or, at least, alternative viewpoints. Before locating the entrance ramp to the Infobahn, I felt as isolated as the Iban of Sarawak, but by the time I departed in June of 1996, the Internet made it possible to engage in dialectics rather than embrace the official story. Recent events in Southeast Asia not only challenge the concept of a global village, they also underscore the difficulty of integrating multinational, multicultural students through educational telecomputing.

サラワク・イバン人社会における都市への移動とロングハウス・コミュニティの空洞化

サラワク・イバン人社会における都市への移動とロングハウス・コミュニティの空洞化

The Evolving Concept of Land Ownership among the Iban of Sarawak, Malaysia

There have been two different trends in research on land systems in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Anthropological studies have often dealt with land tenure systems or the nature of property inheritance and exchange in order to grasp kinship relations and social structures in imagined 'traditional' communities. However, this has been criticized for insufficient consideration of the social dynamism or changes brought about by interaction with outside worlds. In contrast, in the fields of development and agricultural economics, discussion has been accumulating about the perspectives and results of various kinds of policies on land administration, but with less regard to the custom or tradition of local communities.Recently, some studies have taken into consideration the vulnerability of smallholders who experience a transition from traditional land tenure systems to new land registration systems or situations of legal plurality. With some exceptions, however, their arguments are focused on the friction and rivalry between governments and smallholders.In this paper I discuss the process in which indigenous smallholders have been becoming conscious of proprietary rights of land through the introduction of commercial tree crops or the acceptance of new land systems. This study is based on field research among the communities of the Iban, shifting cultivators of Sarawak, Malaysia, whose society was based on their own customary law but which has been confronted with drastic legal changes brought about by colonial rule and the ensuing independent government of Sarawak.According to the customary land law of the Iban, the first clearer of primary forest holds right to use the parcel of land and such usufruct may be inherited as long as it is remembered. When the land registration system was introduced into the study area (Kanowit) at the beginning of this century, most of the Iban hesitated to register their customary lands, because they were still satisfied with their customary land tenure system and thought it absurd to pay a survey fee, annual rent or registration fee. Instead, the Iban were eager to plant rubber trees introduced at the time which was almost the same as the introduction of the land registration system. They planted rubber trees on dry paddy fields after harvest because it was much easier to utilize fallow land than felling thick forest.The use of fallow land for cash cropping has recently been evaluated by some scholars, who have argued that land use in rotation (for example, paddy field-young rubber garden-matured rubber garden-paddy field) is sustainable ecologically as well as economically. In the research area, however, the purpose of planting rubber was not only for tapping but also to claim that the land was continuously occupied by the feller. If they leave fallow land without any perennial trees, it is more likely to fail to be remembered as a distinct boundary after some decades and thus it becomes difficult to be imparted to the next generation. In contrast, rubber gardens, which exist as permanent farmland, preserve the boundary of one's land to defend it from another's invasion. By the 1970s, rubber gardens thus rapidly increased in number and spread over hilly areas and have been left standing even after abrupt fluctuations in the price of rubber.Paddy farming as a subsistence activity of the Iban has also changed. In brief, the diffusion of agricultural poison and fertilizer in the 1950s made it possible to shorten the fallow period or even to repeatedly cultivate the same field, and the construction of an irrigation system in 1968 stimulated their wet paddy farming. In addition, due to the population decrease caused by continuous out-migration since the 1980s, the annual production of paddy has fallen.