Kuching - Page 8

Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts might be an unfamiliar name today, but about a hundred years ago she was the “richest heiress in England”.

King Edward VII even reportedly described her as “the most remarkable woman in the kingdom”, only second to his mother, Queen Victoria.

Born on April 21, 1814, Burdett-Coutts became one of the wealthiest women in England in 1837 when she inherited her grandfather’s fortune of around £1.8 million (approximately £196 mln in 2018).

Burdett-Coutts was in love with James Brooke

Many historians believe Burdett-Coutts was in love with the first White Rajah of Sarawak.

When James Brooke first established the Kingdom of Sarawak, he needed money to develop it. He considered many options, including selling the country to Belgium.

At the same time, Brooke also wanted his kingdom to be protected. Even when he was in England, the White Rajah constantly worked on making connections with powerful people in the country.

His networking efforts landed him in a levee at the palace as a guest of Queen Victoria.

According to writer Robert Payne in The White Rajahs of Sarawak, this was when Brooke caught the attention of Burdett-Coutts. He wrote:

“Born to great wealth, she was determined to use her money as a weapon to advance her humanitarian ideas, and when the Rajah spoke to her about the Dyaks and Malays plagued by their feudal Sultans and by Ilanun pirates, still living in the Middle Ages, her heart went out to them.”

According to Payne, Brooke skipped out the fact that the Dayaks were headhunters back then.

It seemed to work. In 1859, Burdett-Coutts and Brooke exchanged many letters. These letters were later published in a book in 1935.

In Brooke’s letter to Burdett-Coutts, he asked about her health and how she took care of herself. As he knew the baroness loved riddles, he made riddles for her in his letters.

Their correspondence lasted almost nine years till Brooke died.

Burdett-Coutts and Sarawak

Thanks to Burdett-Coutts, Sarawak had money to spend. One of the kingdom’s expenditures included a ship which Brooke named ‘Rainbow’ after the baroness.

This was, according to Payne, to “honour the beauty of Miss Burdett-Coutts, the goddess of the Dayaks, and the calm following a storm”.

Brooke trusted her so much that he willed Sarawak to Burdett-Coutts at one point. He wrote in his will:

“I do hereby nominate and appoint her to be my true and lawful successor in the dignity and office of the Rajah of Sarawak now vested in me, to be held by her, the said Angela Burdett-Coutts, as a public trust for the good of the people.”

But Brooke long lived long enough to change his will.

Nevertheless, there is a fort in Mukah called Fort Burdett, which was named after her.

What happened to Burdett-Coutts and James Brooke

With all those letters and evenings spent together, why didn’t they get married?

According to British historian Owen Rutter this was because Brooke was sexually incapacitated.

British journalist Henry Nevinson pointed it out in an article published in The Spectator on April 5, 1935.

“He (Rutter) tells us that in storming Burmese stockade in 1825 James Brooke received a wound that rendered him incapable of marriage in the physical sense, and so he carefully avoided any approach to the subject.”

Of course, many claimed that this was not true.

Nonetheless she did everything she possibly could to help Brooke and his Sarawak, a country she herself never set foot on.

As Nevinson wrote:

“She forwarded all his schemes; she advanced vast loans for his people, she presented him with ships to cruise among the islands and stamp out rebellion among the Dayak headhunters and other savages.

“Whatever the mese, she did not marry till late in life, many years after her Rajah had died. She is to be regarded, I think, as a final sacrifice to the idol of Victorian prudery, and it was the Rajah who sacrificed her.”

Unlike other traditional houses in Sarawak, the Melanau tall house was built distinctively higher.

However similar to longhouses of other ethnic groups such as Iban and Kayan, this Melanau traditional house can accommodate up to 50 families.

Besides the one in Sarawak Cultural Village, it is difficult to find a traditional Melanau tall house in the state. Most of the houses in Melanau villages now are built individually on stilts, and the designs are believed to be inspired by houses in the Malay community.

Here are 3 things to know about the architectural heritage of a Melanau tall house:

1.They are built very tall for a lot of reasons.

Traditionally, a Melanau tall house is built about 10 to 40 feet above the ground. For this, the Melanau have to thank the Filipinos for inspiring the need for this design.

As the Melanau people lived mostly along the coastal region, particularly near the mouth of the Rajang river, they were often attacked by pirates from the Southern Philippines in the olden days. To protect themselves, the Melanau built tall houses and even fortified them with cannons.

Besides the pirates, the tall houses also protect the Melanau people during tribal wars against the Ibans.
The Brooke authority also had some scuffles with the Melanau on one point when the former accused the latter for harbouring pirates.

Furthermore according to author Peter Metcalf in The Life of the Longhouse: An Archaeology of Ethnicity, a house raised on stilts serves many advantages.

“It escapes the mud below; it allows disposal of kitchen waste, soon cleaned up by free-roaming chickens and pigs; and it greatly improves ventilation.”

Particularly in Borneo, an elevated building like a Melanau tall house and a Bidayuh baruk would reduce the number of insects in your home.

2. The floor of a Melanau tall house was designed for defensive and offensive purposes.

Besides the height advantage, the floor of a Melanau tall house also serves to defend the community.
The flooring of the main level of the tall house are arranged in a crisscross pattern with small gaps in between.

When there was an attack, the flooring made it hard for the enemies to pierce their sharp weapons through the floor. As for the Melanau, they would pour hot, boiling water on their enemies.

The columns, which are the main structure of the building, are typically made from belian while the wall and flooring structures are made from nibong.

Meanwhile for the roof, they used sago leaves, which also happen to be the main economical source for the Melanau people.

The rungs on every staircase in a Melanau tall house were built in odd numbers. This is because they believed that by doing so it could bring wealth and good health to the household members.

3.The living arrangement in a Melanau tall house.

According to research done by Universiti Sains Malaysia, gender and marital status affected the organisation of the space in a Melanau tall house.

Every tall house was built with a few levels and each level had multiple bedrooms.

Only unmarried men occupied bedrooms located aon the first floor while married couples and unmarried women had their bedrooms on the upper level.

The upper level also houses the family’s ceremonial items and assets.

Curious visitors still can see some of Melanau artifacts at Sarawak Cultural Village’s tall house.