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John Beville Archer, the last Chief Secretary of Sarawak of Brooke-era

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“As I stood there in the blinding sunlight memories of the Rajahs of Sarawak, of days of festivity, of new awakening, of stirring scenes, flitted through my mind. The timid young gawk of a cadet, who had landed so hopefully thirty-five years ago, who had wandered all over the country and done so many things in so many places and with such a willing heart, had now finished. As the drums rolled and the troops presented arms, I stood there in my disgraceful suit, hiding my battered old sun helmet down my side wondering if I would ever make it. Just as I was leaving my house I had sent a telegram to the Rajah. I said:

‘In a few minutes I shall hand over your State to His Majesty’s representative with full honours and ceremony. I have impressed upon all that the best way of showing their loyalty to you is to support the new government fully and work for the rehabilitation of the State. As your last Officer Administering the Government I wish your Highness and Her Highness the Ranee all happiness in your position.’

This was what John Beville Archer wrote in his autobiography ‘Glimpses of Sarawak between 1912 and 1946’ (1997) which was published posthumously.

In this particular part, he narrated what happened on July 1, 1946 when Sarawak was officially declared as a British crown colony.

The book was compiled and edited by Vernon L. Porritt who is known for his other works such as The Rise and Fall of Communism in Sarawak 1940-1990 and British Colonial Rule in Sarawak, 1946 and 1963.

Archer was born in 1893 and was recruited from the Channel Islands in the Sarawak Administrative Service by the second White Rajah Charles Brooke in 1912.

According to his obituary which was published in the Sarawak Gazette, Archer spent the first eight years of his service, apart from a brief interlude at Sadong (Serian), in the Third Division, mainly in the Coastal District.

“It was during these years that he learnt the Melanau language and formed the strong affection for this people which was noticeable in his later writings. His interest in the Sarawak Gazette, which he retained until the end of his life, dates from 1922 when he was Editor of the Gazette and Manager of the Printing Office in addition to his other duties,” the Sarawak Gazette reported in 1948.

Archer was first promoted to a Resident in 1930 and then the Chief Secretary and Chairman of the Committee of Administration in 1939.

He also contributed many interesting articles for the Sarawak Gazette under the pen name of Optimistic Fiddler or O.F.

John Beville Archer
John Beville Archer in 1927.

John Beville Archer and the 1941 constitution

The 1941 constitution of Sarawak is the first known written constitution during the White Rajahs reign.

The main objective was to approve and fulfill the promise by the third Rajah, Vyner Brooke which was to give self-governance of Sarawak to the locals.

Kenelm Hubert Digby who served as the legal advisor to the government played a major role in the writing of the constitution.

As one read through Digby’s memoir, he pulled no punches in criticising Archer. He accused the senior Brooke officer of having ‘a somewhat feudal outlook’.

Digby stated, “He had joined the service in 1912, at the age of 19, and he had loyally served two Rajahs. He would have preferred to continue under such conditions. He distrusted these new-fangled, democratic ideas, and he had somehow got it into his head that the Committee of Administration was forcing the constitution on the Rajah against the will of the latter. He rather prided himself on his diplomatic skill, and in April and May 1941, he was appearing to co-operate in the deliberations of the Committee of Administration on the one hand, while communicating his private opinions secretly to the Rajah on the other.”

The Committee of Administration was a body that governed the country in the Rajah’s absence.

As for Archer, he did not elaborate much on his opinion about the constitution in his memoir.

He pointed out that the constitution was one of the big events that marked an entire change in the administration of Sarawak.

As a true Brooke loyalist, Archer only expressed that it was the Rajah desired to mark the centenary of Brooke rule by granting a constitution.

In the end, Archer was forced to retire in May 1941 ‘over trying to serve both the Rajah’s and the Committee of Administration’s interests’.

After his retirement, he remained in Sarawak as an Information Officer of Sarawak, the editor of the Sarawak Gazette as well as a Special Policeman.

John Beville Archer as an internee at Batu Lintang Camp

When the Japanese invaded Sarawak, Archer was among those interned by the Japanese.

In his book, Archer did not fail to share his experience as an internee at Batu Lintang Camp.

A talented storyteller; one of the stories he shared is about the pet goat the internees kept at the camp.

“In stories of prisons there are invariably the pets which the prisoners keep out of their scanty fare but the only pet we ever had was a goat. We called it Eustace. Why, I do not know considering it was obviously feminine and later produced a kid. However, although like most goats it could live on the ‘smell of a dirty rag’, there just was not any food to give it so the time came when it was decided that she should go into the cooking pot. This caused quite a stir. Poster artists (we had several) opened a picture campaign. One that touched our hearts was a portrait of Eustace looking sadly at us over the inscription ‘BE KIND AND LET ME LIVE. I HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG.’ A petition signed by many influential internees was presented to the committee. A reprieve was allowed but the cooks were not beaten. In a fortnight after several days of extremely lean rations, they opened up a fresh attack. This time all our sob stuff was of no avail – Eustace went into the pot.”

At one point, Archer was taken in for questioning by the Kempeitai for four days.

He was imprisoned and spent most of his mornings being interviewed by the secret police.

Describing his prison, Archer wrote, “It was a row of small semi-dark cells opening on to a backyard. The whole of the front of each cell was barred like a beast’s cage in a menagerie, except that the door was like that of a dog kennel. You had to bend double to get inside, which gave the gaolers a heaven-sent opportunity of kicking you hard on the behind every time you did so.”

Thankfully, he survived his ordeal with the Kempeitai.

John Beville Archer and the hoisting of the flag

Perhaps the most popular photograph of Archer is the image of him hoisting up the Sarawak flag in the civilian compound of the Batu Lintang Camp taken on Sept 12, 1945 after Sarawak was liberated by the Allied Forces.

According to his autobiography, the photo was a photo op.

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John Beville Archer hoisting up the Sarawak flag at Batu Lintang Camp. Copyright expired – public domain

“On the 9th we were told by dropped leaflets that unless negotiations broke down the Allied forces would arrive on the 11th. On that morning rumours came in that the Allied sips were at the mouth of the river and that the Japanese Commander had gone down to sign capitulation. The hours dragged on. At three o’clock I went along to the wire at the back of the soldiers’ camp to receive a Sarawak flag which some Chinese friend had promised to bring.

“That evening we procured a long bamboo pole and hoisted the Sarawak flag in our Camp. The next morning the official photographers arrived and I had the honour of hoisting the flag officially.”

After the war ended, Archer was first given a job at the Sarawak Museum office.

He shared in his memoir, “One of my duties was trying to collect what I could of the Rajah’s property. Strangely enough, the Japanese had done no damage to the Astana, and its contents were almost intact but scattered.”

Apart from that, he found the museum ‘lost very little’, the chief secretary’s office ‘became a gaol with a pig-sty outside’, the Anglican Cathedral ‘was a store’, a Catholic School was a Courthouse and the Sarawak Club bowling alley was turned into a shrine.

John Beville Archer and Sarawak cession to the British

On Nov 1, 1945, Archer was appointed the Political Adviser to the British Military Administration in Sarawak.

Few months later in early 1946, Vyner announced his intention to cede Sarawak to Britain.

Looking back at history on how Sarawak was ceded to Britain, the whole process was a practically a mess.

Historian Steven Runciman in his book The White Rajah: A History of Sarawak from 1841 to 1946 opined that the cession ‘had been hurriedly and clumsily handled’.

He added, “It is a story from which few of the principal characters emerge with enhanced credit. Sarawak was to suffer for it.”

The motion was unpopular among the locals who saw the cession as a violation of a provision in the 1941 constitution which stipulated that the Rajah would grant the right of self-rule to Sarawak.

The British government sent two Members of Parliament to Sarawak to enquire whether the people agreed to the cession.

They reportedly found that there was enough support for the cession to be debated in the Council Negri.

John Beville Archer and Cession Debate

Presided by Archer, the meeting took place on May 16 and 17, 1946 with 34 members attended the debate on the second reading and 35 on the third reading.

According to later accounts, there were no speeches translated for the benefit of the 26 non-European members who attended the meeting.

Christopher Dawson who was sent out to Sarawak by the Colonial Officer to supervise the legitimization of the cession said Archer appeared to be drunk during the debate.

Later, many accused him of making no attempt to maintain impartiality as a presiding officer of a legislative body.

Looking back at his official winding up speech, it is understandable where these accusations came from.

“Having heard all the references made to the cession, I hope you all here realise that is not a rich country. There has been talk about war debts and if this question is broached then we have to pay our share of the war. I think we all agree on that point. We cannot get everything free. I am sorry to say that we cannot carry on with our independence in Sarawak. You can look at it from any point you like. We have our revenue here which shows that it is considerably less than it was before the war, and we probably will have even less later, and it is up to us at this moment to come together with the rest of the countries into some sort amalgamation otherwise we are sunk. I want you to remember that we are servants of the Rajah and I am a servant myself. I have been a servant of His Highness the Rakah and also His Highness the Tuan Muda, but there comes a time when we cannot be alone. The Rajah has not done this thing on his own. He has had the best advice and has consulted the highest authority in London, the Secretary of State for the Colonies. There are no snags behind it. We cannot afford to be on own. Ask The Treasurer about it. We have set aside a certain amount of money for agriculture in order to increase our food supply, otherwise we will starve. There seems to be a sort of feeling here, I am sorry, that it is a ramp. The British Government is not bad. I can assure you that we will get a fair and absolutely good deal. I do not know how long I will be here but you will be here anyway. You have got to vote on it. I can see the feeling of the house is rather tense now. Please understand that there is no ramp. There is no idea of suborning about the British Government. I can assure you that. I am not lying about it.”

The final vote of the council was 19 to 16 in favour of cession. A difference of only three votes that changed Sarawak history forever.

When the Rajah left Sarawak for the last time on May 21, 1946, Archer was appointed as the Officer Administering the Government.

With this post, he was entrusted with the job of handing the country over to the British.

On Cession Day July 1, 1946, Archer relinquished all his official posts.

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Vyner (sitting left) signing the Instrument of cession at the Astana with Archer standing at his left hand side.

John Beville Archer, “It has been a labour of love”

Regardless of his view which was clearly unpopular among the anti-cession movement members, no one could deny Archer’s loyalty to Sarawak and especially to the people of this land.

According to his autobiography, one of Archer distinctive characteristic was his ‘debilitating stutter’ when he was speaking in English.

Curiously, he did not stutter at all when speaking in local languages such as Malay and Iban.

In his reply to an Address of Appreciation from the Supreme Council on the occasion of his retirement, Archer said,

“You all know, I think, how sad I feel at leaving a Service of which I was proud to be a member for so long. I was the last European active member of His Highness the late Rajah’s staff, and I served His present Highness throughout the whole of his reign. It may be considered trite, but I can truthfully say that it has been a labour of love…”

On July 17, 1948, Archer’s nephew Owen Wright found him in his bedroom with a gunshot wound on the forehead.

He was pronounced dead a few hours later at Sarawak General Hospital. According to the official inquest, he was suffering from depression as well as alcoholism.

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What you should know about the Dayak shields of Borneo

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While Captain America has his vibranium shield, the Dayak people in Borneo also have their own.

Here are five things you should know about Dayak shields of Borneo:

1.Different tribes call their Dayak shields in different names.

The Kliau, also known as Keliau or Klau, is the more common term for the traditional shield of the Dayak community.

Meanwhile, the Kelabit, Kayan and Kenyah people called it Klebit Bok or Kelavit Bok.

Klebit means shield while bok means hair.

All Dayak shields are typically in a hexagon shape.

2.Some of the illustrations on the Dayak shields meant to protect the owner.

When Norwegian explorer Carl Lumholtz visited the Mahakam, Kalimantan sometimes between 1913 and 1917, he got himself a shield from the locals.

Although he did not mention from which Dayak group the shield belongs, Lumholtz was informed the meaning behind the feature of his shield.

In his book Through Central Borneo (1920), Lumholtz stated, “I acquired a shield which, besides the conventionalised representation of a dog, exhibited a wild-looking picture of an antoh (ghost), a very common feature on Dayak shields. The first idea it suggests to civilised man is that its purpose is to terrify the enemy, but my informant laughed at this suggestion. It represents a good antoh who keeps the owner of the shield in vigorous health.”

3.In the same time, some designs on the Dayak shields meant to frighten the enemy.

Researcher Augustine Anggat in his paper Basic Iban Designs (1989) explained that the preferable design for adorning Iban shields is giant head motifs of tendrils.

“The melancholic, fierce looking face on the shield give a courageous heart to the warrior who uses it during combat and at the same time it will frightened the enemy by the sight of a demonic looking face of such a shield design,” he stated.

4.One of the favourite ornaments of Dayak shields is human hair.

Norwegian explorer Carl Bock was commissioned by the Governor-General of the Netherlands East Indies to travel and report on the interior part of Kalimantan in 1879.

During his visit, he came across many Dayak groups and observed their culture.

On the kliau he wrote, “Among the Trings and one or two other tribes, it is the fashion to adorn the outer side of the shield with tufts of human hair.”

Bock added, “This shield forms a valuable weapon of defence against blows from the mandau, while it is perfectly proof against the poisoned puff-arrows.”

The Dayak Tring was not the only who put human hair on their shields.

According to British zoologist and ethnologist Charles Hose, the Kenyah did theirs as well.

Hose wrote in his book The Pagan Tribes of Borneo (1912), “The shields most prized by the Kenyahs are further decorated with tufts of human hair taken from the heads of slain enemies. It is put on in many rows which roughly frame the large face with locks three or four inches in length on scalp, cheeks, chin and upper lip; and the smaller faces at the ends are similarly surrounded with shorter hair. The hair is attached by forcing the ends of the tufts into narrow slits in the soft wood and securing it with fresh resin.”

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5.How to surpass the Dayak shields

Brooke Low explained in Catalogue of the Brooke Low Collection in Borneo that there is a way to attack even when the enemies are defending themselves using the Dayak shields.

“As everybody in the attacking party is anxious to be foremost in the race for heads, there are sure to be one or two boats so far in advance of the rest as to make it worth the defenders’ while to put them to their mettle. Some convenient spot is selected and a strong defending party placed in ambush among the trees. One or two men are thrown out to stroll upon the shingly bed to lure the enemy to their destruction.”

The moment the bait is sighted, the boats give chase, and as the enemies leap ashore, the men in ambush spring from their covert to their feet and hurl stones to shatter the shields, and engage with spears and swords in what should be a short but desperate conflicts.”

Since the shields are made of wood or bamboo, just throw some heavy stones to break them apart.

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Reflecting on Anthony Abell’s 1959 Chinese New Year Message: A Historical Perspective

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Sir Anthony Abell was a British colonial officer who served as the Governor of Sarawak. He joined the Colonial Administrative Service back in 1929 and was posted to Nigeria. Then in 1950, Abell was offered the governorship of Sarawak where he was concurrently High Commissioner to Brunei.

He was originally appointed for a three-year term only but his term was extended.

In the end, Abell worked in Sarawak from Apr 4, 1950 till Nov 15, 1959.

When the formation of the Malaysian federation was still in discussion, Abell returned to be a member of the Cobbold Commission.

Here is a little random, unknown fact about the former governor; he was not exactly a foodie.

Peter Mooney, the former Crown Counsel of Sarawak once wrote in his autobiography, “The Governor, Sir Anthony Abell, was a bachelor who had spent his previous service in Africa. He had no great interest in food and the lunches and dinners he gave were adequate but undistinguished. Simple Malay food, clearly chosen as well as prepared by the staff, was served at his private lunches and dinners.”

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In 1959, Abell delivered a Chinese New Year Message which was published in The Sarawak Gazette. Here are some key points of his message:

“May I start this New Year message by wishing all of you peace and prosperity and happiness in the year ahead. This year I am spending Chinese New Year in Sibu where I will be visiting many friends of long standing. I would however like to send a special message to all my kind friends in Kuching who in the normal course of events I would today visit in their homes to meet their families on this great Chinese family occasion.”

The tranquility of Sarawak

“This will be the last Chinese New Year I shall spend among you as Governor. The pleasure I always derive from your unvarying hospitality and kindness is therefore on the occasion touched with sadness. You and I have spent nine peaceful and very happy years together during which time Sarawak was made great material progress. These years have been unmarred by any form of strife and our ancient tradition of tranquility and concord have been maintained and I hope strengthened. I am very thankful for this and I know you and all the other people in Sarawak are proud of our record too.

“It is customary to count our blessing at a season of happiness and goodwill like this because they provide the basis of our confidence in the future but it is also wise at the New Year to do little stocktaking as well and see how we can face better the problems of the coming year.”

The Chinese Contribution

“It is true that 1958 was not a year of great commercial prosperity. By comparison with my early years in Sarawak it was rather lean. This is due to circumstances over which we have little control and we can but hope that the prices of our major exports will hereafter improve. You have in the past often experienced similar fluctuations in our fortunes. For you Chinese have been in Sarawak for many generations and have made a very notable contribution to the prosperity we at present enjoy. One of the most outstanding of your characteristics is your resilience and adaptability. You came here as strangers long ago to a land which was very different to your own. You had little more than the clothes you wore.

You could not speak the language of this country, you knew nothing of its customs but your vigour and adaptability quickly made an essential part of the community and showed how best you could contribute to Sarawak’s progress.

It is interesting to recall that as long ago as 1850 the first sago refinery was opened in Kuching by Chinese. In 1878 the Rajah allocated land to certain Chinese merchants so that they could experiment with the cultivation of pepper. You found gold and exploited it in Bau. You brought rubber from Malaya and in very many ways demonstrated the commercial promise of this country.”

Chinese Qualities

“Your genius for taking the long view in trade and politics is equally required today. We cannot rely for always on the old methods of earning our living. But by exercising those great virtues of industry, initiative and perseverance which everybody so particularly admires in the Chinese. I know Sarawak will develop its economy with that vigourous pioneering spirit which has served us all so well in the past. I imagine such ideas and plans are among your New Year’s resolutions and I am sure your initiative and enterprise will be increasingly followed by your countrymen of other races.”

The Present and the Future

“You know well that when you are on to a good thing, you should stick to it and back it for all you are worth. Sarawak offers you security in a peaceful environment. In this country enterprise and opportunity can flourish, assisted and protected by an honest and an efficient administration. aWe live by the rule of law. There is freedom and justice assured for all without regard to class or race or creed. There are some who lag behind others in education of health, in wisdom or in riches and it is in all our interests to give a helping hand to the weak and the backward until a common high standard of living and education has been achieved. In this the Chinese can make the greatest contribution of all and therefore perhaps the greatest sacrifices. There can be no real happiness or harmony in our Sarawak family if there is a wide disparity of wealth or learning. Ignorance and poverty breed dangerous frustrations which can explode in savage retaliation.”

It has been more than 60 years since Abell delivered this Chinese New Year Message. His message to help those who are weak and stay united still resonates with Sarawakians today, don’t you agree?

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Discover Eric Mjöberg’s Curious Animal Descriptions as Sarawak Museum Curator

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In 2004, a former Sarawak Museum curator made controversial headlines across the globe thanks to what he did 90 years earlier.

Eric Mjöberg served two years as a curator for the Sarawak Museum from 1922 until 1924.

Before he found himself in Borneo, he had made various expeditions to Australia during the early 1900s to prove his Darwinian human evolution theory.

A zoologist and ethnographer trying to do his job… how controversial could his work be?

In Western Australia, Mjöberg who started off by collecting plant and animal specimens for research purposes, had also desecrated the sacred burial grounds of the Aboriginal people.

After stealing their human remains, he then passed them off as kangaroo bones and smuggled them back to his home country Sweden.

He did this reportedly over the course of two expeditions between 1910 and 1916, collecting parts from 12 deceased individuals.

After suffering from an extended, undiagnosed illness, Mjöberg passed away in Stockholm in 1938, living in poverty. Throughout this period, he endured recurring nightmares that mirrored his encounters in the Kimberleys. These haunting dreams involved a feeling of being chased by Aboriginal individuals and interactions with the Dreamtime’s creation spirits called the Wondjina.

In September 2004, Lotte Mjöberg, his great-niece, took the initiative to return the skeletons to the Aboriginal people.

Interestingly, Mjöberg actually exposed his own unethical practices through his 1915 publication of his diaries ‘Among Wild Animals and People in Australia’.

Apart from this book, he also published another book Forest Life and Adventures in the Malay Archipelago (1930).

In the book, he wrote mainly brief descriptions of the rich fauna and flora in the region while giving more attention to Borneo.

Although he was described by historians as aggressive, arrogant and devious, his descriptions and observations of nature are interesting and detailed.

We might never see this type of explanation in a formal zoology textbook again, so here are some of examples of Mjoberg’s curious descriptions:

1. Mjöberg called the pangolin ‘stupid and obstinate’.

“Our ant-eater is stupid and obstinate, two attributes no doubt inherited from the dim past. When in danger he rolls himself up into a ball, and no power on earth can induce him to unroll until he wishes, which in other words, is not until all danger is over.”

2.The proboscis monkey is ‘a human caricature in flesh and blood’

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A proboscis monkey spotted at Tarakan’s Bekantan and Mangrove Conservation Park

“Sometimes a man may be as ugly as a monkey, and a monkey may have something very human about it; indeed, it is quite customary to call monkeys humanity’s caricatures. Of none can this be said with such truth of the Borneo proboscis monkey.

“The Malay natives in Sarawak call them ‘orang belanda’ which is a contraction of orang hollanda or hollandare (Dutchmen). Not a great compliment, this, to Queen Wilhelmina’s representatives in the Tropics!”

3.Banded archerfish or squirting fish is one of the shrewdest of fish and ‘the most economical marksman’ in the world.

“One of the shrewdest of fish is the little squirting fish (Toxotes jaculator). The struggle for existence and one’s daily bread is not hard on dry land only, but the under the water as well. It is essential before all else to satisfy the strongest and most primitive of impulses, the desire for food, the first essential of any individual’s existence.

“He is generally seen patrolling in the water along the river banks, carefully inspecting the leaves of the water plants. As soon as he discovers a suitable victim he backs, takes in more copious supply than usual, and with soldierly precision shoots a stream of water at his prey. Taken aback by the sudden cold douche, the insect loses its self-possession, and tumbles down into the water, where he is speedily dispatched by our ingenious little shot. Inspired by his success, he continues this pastime until he has satisfied his appetite.

“Since he only uses water, the squirting fish is undoubtedly the most economical marksman in the world.”

4.The most pugnacious bird in the Malay Archipelago is the Argus pheasant

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“Argus Pheasant” drawn by T. W. Wood for Charles Darwin‘s 1874 book, Descent of Man

“The Argus pheasant is very defiant and suffers from a hot and choleric temperament: an affliction of which the clever Malays take the utmost advantage.

“They plant in his dancing ground some dozens of yard-long pointed bamboo sticks, in such a way that the sharp points stick up a little more than a foot – the height of the dancer’s breast – out of the ground. When he arrives at break of day to give proof to the fair sex of his superabundant vitality, he flies into a towering rage at these unexpected hindrances to love’s measure, and at first makes disdainful attempts to kick away the sticks.

“But this is no easy matter, for they are firmly fixed. His undisguised wrath flares up and he attacks them with tooth and claw. His fury – violent as it is – reaches boiling point, and he slashes round fiercely in every direction, with the final result that he wounds himself mortally on the little stakes planted at fixed distances. There have been birds that in blind frenzy have literally beheaded themselves, or have hung dead with pierced throats, transfixed by the pointed bamboos.”

5.The flying frog inventive for being the only flying expert amongst thousands of his tribe.

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Illustration from Wallace’s 1869 The Malay Archipelago by J. G. Keulemans

“There is only one single specimen of earth’s multifarious frogs – wellnigh a thousand in all – that has climbed to heights beyond the commonplace and sails above his four-footed clumsy relatives. This fellow with the black feet goes by the name of Rhacophorus nigropalmatus, and lives on a high, moss-covered height, Mount Dulit in Northeast Borneo.

“When he feels like flying, or is very much disturbed by the neighbourhood of green tree snake, who is too evidently anxious to have him for breakfast, our sticky aviator climbs up the mossy trunk to get a good start and a better view of the country.

“His greatly elongated phalanxes are quite joined by a web for swimming or as might be more correctly said in this special case for flying.

“When the psychological moment arrives, he fills his lungs with air to their utmost capacity and takes the daring leap, drawing his feet aside so that the wide flying-webs become one with his body, and this begins his flight in long bold curves, taking intelligent advantage of any local puffs of wind. The whole proceeding is so grateful as to fill us with amazement that an awkward frog can manage anything of the kind.”

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Explore the Intriguing History of Nissa Shokai: Former Japanese rubber estate in Samarahan and uncover espionage allegations

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In the contemporary business landscape, welcoming foreign companies to invest in and establish their presence in our country has become a commonplace occurrence. The allure of international investment has evolved into a standard practice, shaping the dynamics of our economic landscape.

However a century ago, it was something rare.

Here in Sarawak, the only Japanese trading firm that successfully broke through our local market was a company called Nissa Shokai.

According to a paper by The International Journal of East Asian Study, Japanese immigrants first arrived in Kuching in the latter part of the 1880s.

In the early days, many came voluntarily, seeking out new opportunities as they worked as petty traders and street hawkers among other professions. The more notables include Japanese professionals like Dr. Nakagawa, a dentist in Kuching whose daughters, the ‘Iwanaga sisters’ were teachers at Kuching’s St. Mary’s School.

The paper stated, “Later arrivals during the early 1900s engaged in smallholdings, para rubber cultivation and market gardening on the eastern infringes of the town. Other worked as physicians, dentists, photographers and prostitutes in the bazaar.

“Nissa Shokai, a trading firm specialising in Japanese goods, was established at the turn of the century, to cater for the needs of the then small Japanese community in Kuching and its outskirts. This firm was affiliated to a Japanese-owned Para rubber plantation in Samarahan. On this Samarahan estate, attempts were made to grow pineapples and other tropical cash crops. There were ambitious attempts to establish a Japanese rice-farming community during the late 1920s. However, the wet-rice cultivation undertaken by a small group of Japanese farming families on the Nissa Shokai property in the Upper Samarahan did not go beyond the experimental stage.”

While it was good to have foreign companies investing in the local market, apparently there were some drawbacks. In some cases, it was like bringing in a Trojan horse.

Here are five things you might not know about Nissa Shokai:

1.At one point, Nissa Shokai housed the largest concentration of Japanese in Sarawak during the Brooke-era.

Former Sarawak Attorney-General Kenelm Hubert Digby wrote briefly about Nissa Shokai in his 1980 memoir Lawyer in the Wilderness.

According to Digby, the largest concentration of Japanese in Sarawak was to be found on the Nissa Shokai estate on the banks of the Samarahan river.

Explaining further about the estate, he wrote, “This consisted of about twelve persons holding executive posts, including a resident doctor. There were also, I think a few foremen. There were a handful of wives and children. The labour employed were mostly Malay and Chinese. The estate included one hundred acres of wet paddy and a large area of pineapples but the greater part of the land was under rubber. It had its own Chinese bazaar and its own police station, kindly garrisoned by the Government with one lance-corporal and four constables presumably to keep the labourers in order.”

2.The company successfully established a good relationship with the reigning Rajah at that time.

For Nissa Shokai to be able to have all that in Sarawak was greatly contributed to their relationship with the then government run by the White Rajah.

Ooi Keat Gin in his book The Japanese Occupation of Borneo, 1941-1945 wrote, “Nissa Shokai cleverly curried favour with Rajah Vyner Brooke of Sarawak, including arrangement for his visit to Japan (1928) following discussions in London (1926) about Sarawak’s mineral resources (oil, coal, etc) during the second half of the 1920s.”

These discussions turned out successful as the Japanese company was able to secure concession for prospecting coal at the Pila and Pelagus rivers in the Upper Rejang area as well as at Sama, Murit and Pegau rivers.

It wasn’t until 1936 or 1937 that the British Colonial Office in London took notice the increased interest of Japanese in Sarawak that they immediately moved to halt ‘any concession which afforded the Japanese a pretext for penetration into Sarawak as eminently undesirable from the defence point of view’.

3.The boycott against Nissa Shokai products

Boycotting products based on its origin due to war is not something new.

When the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the local Chinese in Sarawak boycotted agricultural produce from Nissa Shokai.

There were also some cases of sabotage against the Japanese reported such as cutting off the telephone line to the Nissa Shokai estate.

The Brooke government tried their best to kill the boycott of Japanese goods out of that spirit of comradeship but all of their attempts were unsuccessful.

4.Some of the employees of Nissa Shokai were believed to be spies.

According to Ooi, in Sarawak there was an espionage network known as Yorioka Kikan named after Yorioka Shoza, the founder-proprietor of Nissa Shokai.

Ooi pointed out in his book, “Allied sources reported that the company’s manager in Sarawak and its agent in Kuching as well as employee, Kurasaki, Mori and Matsui Tomisaku respectively were all active in this espionage network.”

Digby in his memoir also shared how he found out that one of the Nissa Shokai employees turned out to be a Japanese army.

“I could not withhold my admiration from one of the Nissa Shokai executive officials, who visited Serian for a court case, and rejecting my offer of hospitality, insisted on staying in the thoroughly hostile Chinese bazaar. The next time I saw that man was on Dec 24th, 1941, the day on which the Japanese occupied Kuching. He was then in the uniform of an officer of the Japanese army.”

Japanese paratroopers heading to Borneo 1941
Paratroopers of the 2nd Yokosuka Naval Landing Force under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Genzo Watanabe (standing on top in the left) inside a transport ship before the invasion of Borneo. Copyright: Public Domain.

If there was an espionage network in Sarawak way before the war began, how much information did these spies obtain?

Apparently according to John Beville Archer in his memoir Glimpses of Sarawak between 1912 and 1946, they knew ‘a lot’.

“When I was passing through Singapore on my way back from furlough in 1939, I visited a Japanese house down the East Coast road to sup off that splendid Japanese dish know as sukiyaki. We were party of four and whilst we squatted on the floor watching the girls prepare and cook it we got talking. They spoke some Malay and some English. We asked them their names and asked them to guess our professions. Well, blast my buttons, if those girls didn’t know not only our names but our jobs and where we lived! Not much of a story but just an inkling as to what a far-reaching spy system they must have had. Again, a few days after I was captured I was called before one of the local Japanese residents who had obviously stepped into some official position at once. He called for my dossier and I could not help noticing that it was a pretty fat document already. This was confirmed when he read out extracts from it. My personal and domestic life was apparently no secret to the Japanese; I was amazed at the lot they knew about me.”

5.There are records of former Nissa Shokai employees that had assimilated into the Sarawak community.

Like many migrant workers in the present day who found love and home in their new countries where they worked, there is no surprise to find out that some Nissa Shokai employees also found the same thing in Sarawak back in the early 20th century.

In 2021, The International Journal of East Asian Studies published a paper on Japanese immigrants in Sarawak before World War II who assimilated through inter-ethnic marriages. The purpose of this paper was to posit that cemeteries involving Japanese immigrants should be promoted as tourist destinations as they reflect Sarawak’s rich multicultural heritage and history of assimilation with foreigners.

One example from the paper which was written by Md Nasruddin Md Akhir, Geetha Govindasamy and Rohayati Paidi, was the case of Seiji Kuno.

The paper stated, “Seiji Kuno, a Japanese national was believed to have arrived in Sarawak 1909 or 1910. He was reportedly a former employee of Nissa Shokai. Seiji Kuno who was known by several names – Mohd Towfek or Mohamed Towpik Kuno or Mohd Jepun, owned a shop in India Street in Kuching. Reportedly, he was an acupuncturist and herbalist. Kuno married Ejah binti Haji Rais when she was 18 years old on 12 June 1917 and had 7 children. Prior to his marriage, Kuno had already converted to Islam. Having immersed himself with the local community, he eventually became the Tua Kampung of Seniawan, located in Samarahan, for about 17 years.”

Kuno had assimilated so completely that he was seen as a defender of Islam and the local community during the Japanese occupation period.

“Prior to the war, Kuno taught religious classes in Samarahan. He even assisted the Malays by obtaining support from the Japanese authorities to fund certain activities in the mosque. Eventually the authorities began providing $900 annually for wages, grass cutting, feasting on important occasions like that of the birthday of prophet Mohammad as well as supporting expenses for entertainment during the fasting month.”

So if there is DNA ancestry test to be done, don’t be surprised to see some Sarawakians today with Japanese heritage.

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KajoReviews: Rajah’s Servant by A.B. Ward, an account of a Brooke officer in Sarawak

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It is always fascinating to read books written by Europeans who came to Sarawak before there were even proper records by locals of our own state.

Stories about our ancestors’ lifestyles and customs were sometimes seen narrowly through their European point of views.

Hence, the words such as ‘savages’ and ‘primitive’ were often found in their writings.

However if the books were written by Europeans who worked here during Brooke dynasty and during the time Sarawak was under British colony, the tone of writing can be completely different.

Perhaps due to the years they called Sarawak home and getting to know the local peoples, these writers tended to write with not only less judgmental mind but with more understanding and sometimes, fondness.

Brooke officer Ward
Resident Arthur Bartlett Ward at Simanggang circa 1913 (back row, left). Vyner Brooke (seated, second left)

Looking at a Sarawak forgotten historical figure through the eyes of a Brooke officer

One of the things we can learn from reading the memoirs of Brooke’s former civil servants or British colonial officers is to know about the locals.

Some of these locals had contributed to Sarawak but became pretty much forgotten in history.

Thankfully, they left a lot of impact to these former Sarawak officers that their stories were recorded in their books, including Arthur Bartlett Ward.

Ward was born on May 14, 1879. He served for 24 years in the Sarawak Civil Service from 1899 until 1923, 17 of which were spent under the second White Rajah, Charles Brooke.

Throughout his service, he had worked in Sri Aman, Bintulu, Limbang, Brooketon and Kuching.

In his memoir written in 1934, Ward had described many of his experiences visiting outstation posts throughout Sarawak.

While in Lubok Antu, he had the pleasure to meet with a police officer named Dagang.

“The fort was garrisoned by a guard of fortmen under the charge of old Police Sergeant Dagang. He was known to us as ‘Sniff and Jingle’ from his habit of sniffing and jingling his official keys to announce a visit to the officers’ quarters. After making a report Dagang always expected a drink of gin. His face was reminiscent of a hideous gargoyle covered with green mildew after gin it almost seemed to assume phosphorescent light.

All the same Dagang was a man in ten thousand. A Banting Dyak who had embraced Mohammedanism, he enlisted as a fortman at Simanggang at 17 years of age. He accompanied the Rajah (then Tuan Muda) on board the sailing gunboat Venus at the attack on Mukah in 1860. The advance up the Mukah river was made at night and the ‘Venus’ ran foul of thick rattan hawser stretched from bank to bank. Heavy fire was opened on the helpless vessel and things are looking bad when Dagang leaped overboard, a ‘parang’ between his teeth, and severed the rope.

Dagang showed his pluck in numerous expeditions, always proving himself a steady soldier and a gallant leader. The old man died in 1915. He was the type of the old class of government servant one was proud to know and treat as a trusted friend.”

If Dagang hadn’t appeared in Ward’s memoir, we would never heard of about the gallant story of ‘Sniff and Jingle’.

Brooke’s policy: Turning enemies into alliances?

Often through these memoirs, we caught a glimpse what was it like to be working under the Brooke’s administrations.

On that note, we can’t help but notice one specific way the former White Rajah ‘managed the locals’ in those days.

During his posting at Simanggang, Ward worked closely with senior native officer Tuanku Putra.

This local Brooke officer had interesting background.

Ward wrote, “The Tuanku was the son of Sharif Sahap, the prime pirate who had been defeated by Sir James at Pemutus in 1844. He was distinctly of the Arab type, and being a Sharif, claimed lineal descent from the Prophet Mohammed. Tall with spindle legs and a Jewish nose, his nickname with us was ‘The Camel, though his fine character had nothing in common with the animal.

“His responsible position was an example of the Rajah’s policy towards those who had once defied him. Having shown his power and reduced his opponents to impotence, they were gradually given important positions in the Government and in practically every case, these ex-rebels proved their worth, and became the most reliable and loyal supporters of the Rajah’s ruler. ‘En passant’ it is rather curious to reflect that, with natives especially, the greatest rascals always make the most faithful servants.”

More than 100 years ago, there were Ibans who made it to New York?

Having spent so much time among the Ibans in Simanggang, there is no surprise Ward spoke highly of them.

He wrote,

“The Dyak in his jungle retreat is a charming person, both men and women of pleasing appearance, short in stature but well made, full of life, hardworking and independent. Hospitality with them is not so much as a custom as a law. The Malay, owing to his contact with Islamic traditions, is reserved and indolent, his womenfold lurk in the background. Not so the Dyak, he is open in his nature, and the women are very much in the fore. My experience of the so-called ‘savage’ of the jungle is that he is definitely more moral, honest and sober than his fellow who has learned Western ideas.

“There is not so much that our wonderful civilization can teach them. The Dyak has an adventurous, roving disposition, so that parties of the young men constantly break away seeking what fortune may bring them in other lands. They go the Malay Peninsula, to Java, to the Celebes Sea, and once in a Dyak house far in the interior I was proudly shown a picture postcard of Brooklyn City Hall sent home by the chieftain’s son, who had reached New York as a ship’s hands.”

We would have never known these little yet still important facts like this about our own people if it were never been mentioned in Wards’ autobiography.

Some facts are still debatable

Still, there are many things told through Wards’ words are debatable to this day.

It is understood that Ward jotted them down based on what the locals told him back in those days. Yet, some of these facts are never or rarely heard of during present times.

This include about the origin of the Kedayan people.

Ward called them ‘one of the riddles of Borneo’ perhaps due to of their unclear origin.

As for they came from, Ward wrote, “Bulkiah, Sultan of Brunei about 1500, a sea-rover and conqueror better known throughout the East in verse and prose as Nakoda Ragam, married a Javanese princess who brought with her many followers to Brunei. These intermarried with the Bisayas, and it is conjectured that the Kedayans spring from this union.”

As we compare this to the common legend about the Kedayans, it is widely believed that a group of Javanese came to Borneo during the rule of Sultan of Bolkiah in Brunei.

However, the common known reason is that the Sultan was interested in Java’s local agricultural techniques.

Hence he brought some of the Javanese farmers back to Brunei to spread their knowledge.

These Javanese farmers subsequently intermarried with local Bruneian Malay people (not Bisaya as per stated by Ward) giving birth to the Kedayan people.

Rajah’s Servant, a book that is definitely worth reading

There are plenty of other Brooke officers as well British colonial officers who came and left with written memoirs of their experiences in Sarawak.

One of many reasons why Rajah’s servant is different from the rest is easily you can tell by the title ‘Rajah’s Servant’.

Ward obviously loved his job in Sarawak and even more so enjoyed working under Charles Brooke. He had mad respect for the former rajah.

When writing about Charles’ death, Ward wrote, “Sarawak had lost a loving ruler. I had lost my hero and a benefactor.”

As for his last days as a Sarawak officer, Ward described them as ‘painful’.

“I sent in my request to be allowed to retire. It was a wrench to so after twenty-four years in a country I was devoted to. All the same I think I was right. I had held the chief executive post for nearly eight years and in that period ideas become set. In every undertaking fresh blood infuses a new spirit, so necessary when old methods move slow to modern thought,” Ward wrote.

Perhaps that is the number one quality from Ward we need from leaders these days; the self-awareness to know when to stop and retire, the consciousness to know that their ideas are slowly going irrelevant against time, and above all having the grasp of reality of when to let go their powers.

Ward might not share the same nationality with Sarawakians but we can never doubt his love and passion for Sarawak.

However, if you also share the same passion for the state like he did, this is one of the books you must read.

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5 controversies surrounding the Malayan Emergency we’re never told in history class

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Also known as the Anti-British National Liberation War, the Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought in British Malaya between communist pro-independence fighters of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) and the Commonwealth military forces.

To understand why the guerrilla war started, we need to go back to the end of World War II.

After the war had ended, the Japanese left Malaya with a weak economy. There was high food price inflation, many people were unemployed and even those who were working had to suffer with low wages.

Some Malayans were naturally unhappy and a number of them turned to communism. These communists fought to win independence for Malaya from the British empire and to establish a socialist economy.

At the same time, the British were preparing Malaya to be an independent country, but were only willing to pass on the power to a government who put British interests in mind.

One of their interests was in Malaya’s rubber and tin resources. These were crucial for the British as they used them to pay war debts to the United States as well as to recover from the economical damage from World War II.

The result from this difference in interests was a conflict that spanned more than 12 years from June 1948 to July 1960.

Here are five controversies surrounding the Malayan Emergency that they never told you in history class:

1.Batang Kali Massacre

This horrific event is often referred to as ‘Britain’s My Lai’. The Mỹ Lao Massacre was the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by the US troops on March 16, 1968 during the Vietnam War.

It is believed that between 347 and 504 unarmed people were killed by American soldiers.

Meanwhile, the Batang Kali Massacre was the mass murder of 24 unarmed villagers by the Scots Guards under the British Army on Dec 12, 1948.

The killings took place in a rubber plantation near Batang Kali, Selangor.

The British soldiers rounded up the civilians and separated the men from the women and children for interrogation.

Later, a total 24 unarmed men were killed using automatic weapons fire. They ranged from teenage boys to elderly men.

Their bodies were found to have been mutilated and their village burned to the ground.

The first one to respond to the killing was the British government. After the massacre, British diplomats introduced Regulation 27A, which authorised ‘the use of lethal weapons’ to ‘prevent escape from arrests’.

In other words, it was ‘legal’ to kill the 24 unarmed men since they were allegedly trying to escape from being arrested.

However, in 1969, six of the Scots Guards on patrol that day gave interviews to The People newspaper, claiming that they had been ordered to massacre the villagers in Batang Kali. Meanwhile, two sergeants insisted that the men had been shot because they tried to escape.

Over the years, there has been an ongoing court battle between the UK government and the families of the civilians executed by British troops.

In November 2015, the United Kingdom Supreme Court ruled that the British government was not obliged to hold a public inquiry into the Batang Kali massacre even though it may have been a war crime because the atrocity had occurred too long ago.

2.Headhunting by Iban trackers

During the Emergency, Iban trackers were brought in from Sarawak by the British to be attached to units who were fighting the Communists.

Their primary task was not to fight but to track. Still, there was a strong element of danger in the job.

In April 1952, the British communist newspaper the Daily Worker published a photograph of British Royal Marines in a British military base in Malaya openly posing with decapitated human heads.

Malayan Emergency

The Commonwealth forces instructed the Iban trackers to decapitate suspected MNLA members for identification purposes.

They also allegedly permitted the trackers to take the scalps of corpses to be kept as trophies.

Regardless of the reason, this act of decapitating the heads of the enemies were controversial and the controversy was even brought up in the British Cabinet.

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe wrote in his book British Counterinsurgency, 1919-60, “On 2 May 1952 the First Lord of the Admiralty told the Cabinet that the decapitation had been performed solely for identification purposes after the bandit had been killed. While he agreed that taking the photograph was ‘reprehensible act’, he hastened to point out that the patrol involved had lost an officer and a well-loved corporal, and that the ‘indiscretion’ was the work of private soldiers.”

After the Cabinet had considered the matter for some time, they eventually agreed that British troops in Malaya ‘should be instructed to discontinue the practice’.

3.New Villages

In order to separate guerrillas from their supporters within the rural civilian populations, the British came up with a method.

The plan was to force these civilians to resettle in brand new areas far from the communists.

1011px New Village in Malaya 1950s
Photograph of a model new village, designed as part of the Briggs Plan to separate the largely Chinese Malaysian rural populace from communist guerrillas. Credit: Public Domain.

One of the biggest critics of this counterinsurgency method was British historian John Newsinger.

He wrote in the paper Hearts and minds: The myth and reality of British counterinsurgency,

“The key to British victory in Malaya was the so-called “Briggs Plan”. This was a counter-insurgency strategy proposed by the new director of operations, General Harold Briggs, that involved the forcible resettlement of Chinese squatters, living and farming in the jungle, into so-called new villages. The support of these communities was vital in sustaining the guerrilla units in the jungle. The British had tried intimidating them and now opted for something considerably more drastic.

“Between 1950 and 1952 some 400,000 people had their homes, possessions and crops destroyed before being herded into camps where they could be effectively policed. Here they lived under police state conditions, without civil liberties or freedom of movement. They were held behind barbed wire, overseen by guard towers and searchlights, their every move watched by informers and spies, and they were subjected to the arbitrary brutality of the police. Alongside the round up of the squatter population, the British also set about forcibly “concentrating” Chinese and Indian plantation workers and tin miners in policed camps under the control of their employers.

“By the end of the Emergency some 650,000 people, workers and their families, primarily Chinese, had been brought under police supervision and control. Something like half of Malaya’s Chinese population was forcibly resettled in this way. This was repression on a massive scale that had nothing whatsoever to do with any notion of “hearts and minds”. And, of course, the casual brutality and occasional murder continued.

“In 1953 a British officer wrote home to his parents that “no Chinese rubber tapper is safe when we search an estate, my men are trigger-happy with Chinese and several platoon commanders have had to plant grenades on tappers and call them bandits when their men have made ‘a small error in judgement’.”

“Alongside this resettlement policy, the British interned over 30,000 people without trial, a figure that would have been much higher except for the fact that they also deported large numbers of Chinese men and women suspected of Communist sympathies.

“By 1955 some 31,245 Chinese people, many of them born in Malaya, had been expelled from the colony.”

After Malaya was liberated from the British, these resettlement areas which were called ‘New Villages’ became ordinary residential towns and villages.

4.Beating, torturing and killing of civilians by British troops

British journalist and historian Brian Lapping in his paper End of Empire (1985) said that there was ‘some vicious conduct by the British forces, who routinely beat up Chinese squatters when they refused, or possibly were unable, to give information about the insurgents’.

Officially, there were 38 confirmed killings of civilians by British military forces during the emergency.

On top of that, there were 56 fatal shootings by British security that have been flagged as suspicious.

The justifications for these killings were that they were shot while attempting to flee or failing to stop when ordered to do so.

Instead of confirming these individuals were the ‘bandits’ or ‘insurgents’, the reports used the terms such as ‘Chinese’, ‘Indian’, ‘squatter’ or ‘suspect’.

The absence of evidence for these fatal shootings raised the question of whether war crimes were committed during the emergency.

5.The use of Agent Orange

During the Vietnam War, there was a US military operation called the Operation Ranch Hand.

It involved spraying an estimated 19 million gallons of defoliants and herbicides over rural areas of South Vietnam in an attempt to deprive Viet Cong of food and vegetation cover.

The use of these herbicides during the Vietnam War was controversial. However, the American government maintained the legality of using this method because the British did the same thing before.

Britain was the first nation in history to use herbicides and defoliants as a military weapon, and Malaya was the first region to be exposed to this method of warfare during the Malayan Emergency.

It was used to destroy bushes, food crops and trees to deprive the insurgents of both food and cover.

This mixture of the herbicides and defoliant were later nicknamed Agent Orange.

After the Vietnam War had ended, the Vietnam government claimed that there were up to four million people were exposed to the chemical and as many as three million people have suffered from the effect of it.

The health effects include various types of cancer such as chronic B-cell leukemia, multiple myeloma, prostate cancer, lung cancer and many more.

For Malaya, the estimated number of civilians and insurgents who were reported to have suffered from the effect of the defoliants is 10,000.

But many believed that the number is much larger. Unlike the US, the British has remained silent about how much of Agent Orange was used during the Malayan emergency making it difficult to confirm the real number of how many people have been affected by the chemical.

In fact, the prolonged absence of vegetation caused by defoliation has also resulted in major soil erosion to areas of Malaya.

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10 things you should know about Dayak traditional weapon, mandau

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While the Japanese are known for the katana and the Korean for their geom, here in Borneo the Dayak are collectively known for their mandau.

The katana, geom and mandau are all traditional weapons once used to slay enemies.

The mandau for instance, was highly associated with the headhunting custom which was officially abolished in Sarawak during the Brooke administration (but saw something of a revival during World War 2 and even the Communist insurgency).

Mandau rotated
A mandau from Kutai, Indonesia. Part from Tropenmuseum. Photo credit: Creative Commons.

Here are 10 things you might not know about the Dayak traditional weapon, the mandau:

1.It is known by many names.

While the Iban, Bidayuh and Penan people call it parang ilang, the Kayan call it the malat.

This traditional weapon is called baieng by the Kenyah people, bandau by Lun Bawang or Pelepet by Lundayeh.

2.A mandau usually comes with a whittling knife.

A whittling knife or a pisau raut is a popular accompanying knife placed in the same sheath with the mandau.

While the mandau is used as a weapon, a whittling knife is used as a common crafting tool.

3.A Dayak man without a mandau was considered a ‘naked’ man.

Author Charles C. Miller in his book Black Borneo (1946) described how important the mandau was to a Dayak man back in the olden days.

“A Dayak would no more be caught without that formidable weapon attached to his person than a white man would be caught without his trousers. It was so essential that a man deprived of it in battle has been known to slink around the outskirts of the kampong like a pariah for weeks, not daring to be seen in public until he has secured another one to conceal his nakedness. Proud as the Dayaks are of their carved verandahs and doorways, their real craftmanship is lavished upon their mandaus.”

4.The beauty of a mandau perhaps lies in its hilt not in the blade.

Miller in the same book described the mandau as a ‘thirty-inch combination of battle axe, sword, cutlass and machete’.

He wrote, “The blade is about two feet long by three inches wide, whetted to razor-edge sharpness on one side, and nearly a quarter-inch thick on the other to give it weight. When they swing, they want it to mean something. A slight curve to the edge makes it especially effective in a cutting stroke, such as a blow aimed at the base of the neck.

“Though the blade is intricately engraved, the real soul of the instrument is in its handle, usually of ivory, though sometimes of ebony or horn. Dragons, human heads, reptiles and every conceivable form of Oriental symbolism are delicately carved thereon with such loving attention to detail that if it be an open-jawed dragon represented there you can see every feature of the mouth to the tonsils.”

5.They used to add their victims’ hair to the handle.

Explorer Carl Bock in his book The Headhunters of Borneo in 1881 wrote, “A thick rim of gutta-percha marks the point where the handle is fitted to the blade. Here are hung tassels of horse-hair, dyed various colours, or more often of human hair taken from victims.”

Meanwhile, Miller in his account also described similar thing about the origin of human hair on a mandau.

“Instead of the weapon being notched for every human life it has taken, a tuft of the victim’s hair is added to the handlle. A bald-headed mandau, no matter how handsome its carving, is still regarded by its owner as an inferior weapon until the sorry condition can be remedied. The chief I noticed, had more hair on his mandau than on his head.”

6.In the olden days, a man was not allowed to carry a mandau regularly unless he was married or had been on a headhunting expedition.

According to Bock in his book The Headhunters of Borneo, a man with a mandau is a sign of manhood.

“It is a rule among all the tribes that no youth can regularly wear a mandau, or be married, or associate with the opposite sex, till he has been on one or more headhunting expeditions. A mandau is presented to him, probably, at his birth, or when he receive a name; but not till he has washed it in the blood of an enemy can he presume to carry it as part of his everyday equipment.”

7.A mandau is equally useful in both battle and farming fields.

The mandau was, and still is, a common farming tool. It is perfect for clearing creepers as well as cutting paddy.

Thanks to its sharp and efficient blade design, it is also useful in bringing down large timber when clearing land for farming.

8.A mandau was a common form of gift and payment.

In this modern days, the last thing you thought of gifting someone as a birthday, Christmas or farewell present gift is a sword, right? You might want to give someone who loves to cook a chef’s knife but you wouldn’t think of a weapon as a present.

However during the olden days, the mandau was a common form of present.

Norwegian explorer Carl Bock was given a mandau as a farewell gift by Sultan of Kutai when he visited the region in 1878.

In the olden days before conventional medicine, the Kayan people turned to dayong or a priestess to cure them of illnesses.

Apart from money, the fee to pay the dayong for her service usually included a gong, a valuable bead (lukut) and a fine mandau (malat bukan).

A malat was and still is a common betrothal gift among the Kayan people during a traditional engagement ceremony.

9.A mandau or parang ilang used to be a ‘sought after’ item among tomb raiders.

Frederick Boyle (1841-1914) was an English author, journalist and orchid fancier. In 1863, he visited Sarawak with his brother and the result of this trip was a book ‘Adventures Among the Dyaks of Borneo’ (1865).

According to his travel account, Boyle bought himself a parang as a souvenir.

He stated,“The finest parangs – or those esteemed so – are found in the graves of Kayan warriors, which are consequently rifled by Dayaks and Malays on every possible occasion. I have one, purchased at Kanowit, which I was told had been obtained from a sepulchre three hundred years old – a rather improbable assertion, though I believe the weapon was really found in a Kayan grave, for it was strangely stained and rusted when I bought it.”

10.It was used during World War II.

According to some reports, “hundreds of Japanese soldiers’ heads were cut from their bodies with traditional weapons called mandau.”

This happened mainly in West and Central Kalimantan, Indonesia where Dayak people took part in guerrilla warfare against the Japanese occupation during World War II.

One of the highlights of this conflict was the Dayak Desa War or Majang Desa War.

The Dayak tribes from Ketapang to Sekadau initiated the mangkuk merah (red bowl) ritual as a symbol of hostility to the Japanese. This resulted in the town of Meliau falling under Dayak control from June 24, 1945. Many Japanese were killed and their heads taken.

Weeks later, Japanese forces managed to retake the town on July 17.

Even after the war had ended, the Dayak in the area continued to resist but this time the return of Dutch colonial authority.

Decades later on July 30, 1981, the Dayaks returned five skulls of Japanese soldiers to their families in Japan.

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5 things to know about former Chief Secretary of Sarawak – Cyril Drummond Le Gros Clark

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Cyril Drummond Le Gros Clark held the position as the Chief Secretary of Sarawak for barely seven months from May till December 1941.

But those seven months were a crucial part in Sarawak history.

On Mar 31, 1941, Le Gros Clark announced the decision of the third White Rajah Vyner Brooke, to introduce a democratic constitution.

Commenting on the Rajah’s move, Straits Budget on Apr 17, 1941 reported Le Gros Clark stating, “The Rajah took the opportunity of the Centenary of Sarawak to make public his decision, and the official Advisory Committee of His Highness received it with gratitude. The position of the Brooke family in Sarawak is one of extremely close personal contact with the people. Whatever is the position of the Rajah in the future, he remains in the eyes of the people as their Rajah.”

Here are five things to know about Cyril Drummond Le Gros Clark:

1.Le Gros Clark spent time on Gulangyu island to learn Hokkien language.

Le Gros Clark was born in 1894 and had started his career as a soldier. He joined the Sarawak Civil Service in 1925. According to Gustav Ecke and Edward Erkes in a 1947 obituary dedicated to him, Le Gros Clark went to Gulangyu Island and spent 1925 to 1927 to learn Hokkien language and culture.

Ecke and Erkes wrote, “Here on the shores of the Eastern Ocean, in the gorgeous mountain wilderness near the ancient port of Zayton, his imagination was captivated. He began to understand the life and atmosphere of the real China. The result was an intensive study of the country’s history and literature, which inspired him with the wish to do creative work as a scholar.”

2.Le Gros Clark was a translator of Su Shi from Chinese into English.

In 1928, he returned to Sarawak and was appointed Secretary for Chinese Affairs.

While working on his day job, Le Gros Clark managed to squeeze some times for his passion, researching and translating the works of Su Shi from Chinese into English.

At the end of 1931, he published his work ‘Selections from the Works Su Tung-Po’.

His hard work was paid off when he received great reviews for his book.

3.His last job was as the Officer Administering the Government in the absence of the rajah.

Right before the World War II, the last Rajah of Sarawak Vyner Brooke put out this proclamation on the Sarawak Government Gazette.

“Whereas we are about to leave the State on the 29th October, 1941:

Now therefore, know ye all men whom it may concern that we hereby appoint Cyril Drummond Le Gros Clark, Chief Secretary, to administer the Government of the State during our absence, and we enjoin that all respect and obedience be paid to the said Cyril Drummond Le Gros Clark in this position.”

When the war was about to hit the shore of Sarawak, it was suggested that Le Gros Clark withdraw with the Military Headquarters ‘as to facilitate the functioning of the Sarawak civil government elsewhere in Borneo’.

Le Gros Clark, however, was adamant that he should remain in Kuching.

He reportedly said during his later internment, “With these people of Sarawak, among whom I have spent, many years of my life, and in whose interests I have believe devoted my unselfish and loyal services, I have determined to remain and to share with them their sufferings during this period of trial.”

4.His final days as a civilian internee during WW2 at Batu Lintang Camp

After the Japanese had arrived In Kuching on Christmas Eve 1941, all the European officers were captured and eventually held in Batu Lintang Camp.

There, he served as the camp master.

Despite the poor condition and lack of basic necessities such as food and clothes, things were rather somehow uneventful at the camp.

Until, the issue of Chinese newspaper.

At first, the internees were permitted by their captors to receive the local Chinese newspapers. Those who could read Chinese translated them to those who didn’t understand.

Then in July 1943, the Japanese withdrew their permission but the internees continued to receive them illegally.

By October 1943, the Japanese became more strict and severe attitude towards their captives.

Naturally, some of the internees became fearful of the consequences that might fall upon them if they defied this order.

In his memoir Lawyer in the Wilderness (1980), Sarawak attorney general and judge Kenelm Hubert Digby claimed the whole situation had the internees divided.

He wrote, “We were promptly accused of cowardice by half-a-dozen members of the camp, who would not have been in personal danger themselves if the legality which they favoured had come to light.”

According to Digby, an American named Henry William Webber continued to arranged to receive the paper privately through the wire. His fellow internees reportedly asked him to desist but he refused to do so.

This is how Digby narrated on what happened next on the newspaper incident.

“In April 1944, the conspiracy was uncovered. The Chinese, who passed the paper to the British sergeant in charge of an outside working party, and the sergeant himself were caught. Having been very badly knocked about, the latter gave the names of his “contacts” in the civilian camp. In the result Le Gros Clark, who, as Camp Master, was deemed to have primary responsibility; Cho, the Chinese consul at Sandakan before the occupation who translated the Chinese part of the paper; Abbott, a North Borneo administrative officer , who translated the Malay part of the paper; Hill, another North Borneo administrative officer, who, in his capacity as secretary of the General Committee, had had the job of reading out the translations in the huts; Macdonald, a Sarawak planter; Stokes, a North Borneo doctor; and the American, Webber, were all arrested in June.”

5.Remembering Cyril Drummond Le Gros Clark

Some reports stated that the group was arrested in May. Regardless, Le Gros Clark and the rest of them first sentenced to prison in Kuching and later in Batu Tiga in Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu).

In January 1945, the Japanese moved their prisoners to Beaufort and on April 12, 1945, they moved them to Keningau.

Since then, nobody knew the fates of these prisoners at first. As none of them were seen alive after the war had ended, the British government started inquiries to locate them.

Then in October 1945, the group of investigators led by former resident of the Sabah West Coast Division Richard Evans found the graves of Le Gros Clark and others at an airfield used by the Japanese.

As it turned out, Le Gros Clark, Cho Huan Lai, Valentine A. Stokes, Henry William Webber and Donald Macdonald were all executed on July 6, 1945, two months before the Japanese had surrendered.

All of their remains were later reburied at the old Anglican Cemetery of Jesselton.

Today, a monument is erected near the former airfield where Le Gros Clark and others been executed.

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Taboos followed by the Iban women when their men went to war during the olden days

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While Kayan women had their forbidden things to do when their husbands left for headhunting trips, Iban women also had a list of their own taboos when their men were out for war.

John Hewitt who was the Curator of the Sarawak Museum from 1905 to 1908, published the paper ‘Taboo customs of the warpath amongst the Sea Dayaks of Sarawak’ in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in March 1909.

In the paper, Hewitt discussed some of the taboos observed by Iban (Sea Dayak) women when their husbands were sent to a punitive expedition against some border tribes.

These men were part of the Sarawak Rangers and mainly came from villages around the Batang Lupar area.

Here are some taboos that must be followed by Iban women when their husbands were sent to war:

1.The Iban women must wake up early in the morning and at the streak of dawn all windows must be opened, for fear that their husbands would oversleep and be caught by the enemy. With the window opened early to bring light into the room, so would be bright when the men commence their march.

2. Wives were not allowed to take a nap during the day or else their husbands would be drowsy when walking.

3.It is forbidden (pemali) for the women to oil their hair as it was feared that their husbands would slip while walking along a batang (tree trunks) path.

4.Hewitt stated, “Every morning they must scatter popcorns (made of rice) on the verandah: and just as the elastic popcorns bounds and rebounds on the hard floor so will the men be agile in their movement. At the same time the women sing a verse-

‘Oh kamba, enti tinggi surok,
Enti baroh, perjok,
Munsoh suroh genong
Awak ka baka ditanggong, baka sangkutong’

This can be translated to “Oh you absent ones dodge under the high obstacles and leap over the low ones. Petrify the enemy and keep off the hands raised against you”.

5. It was pemali (forbidden) to bathe in the usual way with the petticoat on because the garment would become wet and heavy so it was believed that their husbands would also feel heavy in body and unable to move rapidly.

6. Homes must be kept very tidy, all boxes being placed near the walls, for should anyone stumble in the house so may the men fall when walking and thus be at the mercy of the enemy.

7. During eating, they must eat their food only at meal times and must be sitting down properly. Otherwise, the men will be tempted ‘to chew leaves or earth on the march’.

8. At each meal, a little rice must be left in the pot and must be put aside. This is to ensure that the men shall have plenty to eat and never go hungry.

Iban weaver
A woman is not allowed to sit so long that she might have the cramp of her husband will surely become stiff and unable to rise up quickly after resting or to run away. Image is under Creative Commons.

9.Hewitt also listed, “On no account may a woman sit so long at the loom as to have the cramp’ or the men will surely become stiff and be unable to rise up quickly after resting or to run away. Accordingly the women intersperse their weaving operations by frequent walks up and down the veranda.”

10. It is forbidden to cover up the face with a blanket or the men will not be able to find their way through tall grass or jungle.

11.When it comes to sewing, the women must not sew with a needle or the men will thread upon ‘tukak’ (sharpened spikes of bamboo placed point upwards in the ground by the enemy).

12.The women are not allowed to wear flowers or scent, otherwise the movements of the men will be revealed to the enemy by their smell.

13.It is bad luck to break the ‘kain apit’ (the piece of leather or bark of tree with which the women support their backs when weaving); should this occur the men will be caught be the chin on some overhanging bough during their expedition.

14.Lastly, the women are not allowed to be unfaithful or commit adultery during the absence of their husbands or he will lose his life in the hands of his enemy.

In the same paper, Hewitt further explained some of taboos and customs that must be observed by the men during the war trip. These include:

1.The men must not cover up the rice when cooking, or their vision will become obscured and the way difficult to see.

2.The spoon must not be left standing up in the rice pot, otherwise the enemy will so leave a spear sticking in their bodies.

3.During cooking time should the pots be a distance apart from each other they must be connected by sticks; so will the men have neighbours near at hand should they be surprised by the enemy. It is thus customary to put the pots very close together.

4.It is pemali to pick out the bits of husk from the rice when feeding lest the enemy in like manner pick out that man from a group.

5.As the rice is taken from the pot, the cavity thus left in the food must be immediately smoothed over; otherwise wounds will not heal quickly.

6.It is unlucky to sleep with legs crossed or touching those of a neighbour lest the spears of the enemy smite the unfortunate offender of this taboo.

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