Sarawak River Valley, Early Times to 1840: Santubong Kuching Brunei by
SURAINI BINTI SAHARI and TOM MCLAUGHLIN, Kuching, Sarawak, Sue
J’s Enterprises, 2020, ISBN 978-967-17890-0-1; 205 pp; maps, plates, bibliography.
This is an unusual history book by Suraini Sahari and Tom McLaughlin. The scope of this study is overwhelming, more so for these new, and untrained, history writers. Their attempt to write of the past long before the arrival of James Brooke in 1840 is a highly commendable break from the prevailing Brooke-centric history of Sarawak. Unfortunately, what we get from this book are mostly raw notes from various sources without a flowing narrative of the remote past into normal historical periodization.
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The book’s table of contents shows a notable absence of chapters and appears to be a collection of a myriad notes. A quick count reveals about 62 topics altogether,which could not possibly have become chapters due to their sheer number.Attempts to use periodization obtained from unreliable oral history accounts make up twenty percent of the whole book.The first 19 topics resemble research notes that appear to belong to the first
part of the book. Some notes are interesting and supply valuable information on origins of various ethnic groups in Borneo and the Malay Archipelago, though not necessarily the people of the Sarawak River Valley. The writers should have given their own interpretation to make a certain historical narrative of time and space as a contribution to the historiography of Sarawak.The second part of the book, if it may be described as such, is the translation of an oral history of Santubong narrated by a respondent. The writers accepted as historical facts any information imparted to them by the respondent regarding
dates and personalities from 925CE to 1490CE. There is no attempt at corroboration oral history of Santubong, in fact, has been referred to by Baring-Gould and Bampfylde in their book, The History of Sarawak Under the Two White Rajahs, published in 1909 relatingto the origins of the Malays of Sarawak. At the same time H. Everett and H. Hewitt
wrote an article that was published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of A popular book on the subject appeared in Malay by Haji Mohammad Tahirbin Abdul Ghani, the Hikayat Datuk Merpati (1987), that was transliterated from an original Malay-Jawi manuscript. From all these published sources there is no mention of Indrana Jang Sorgi or Hyang Gi, 925–974 and his descendants as the founder and rulers of Santubong. According to the published sources the founder
of Santubong was Datuk Merpati/Marapati.Another point of contestation is the existence of two figures of Sultan Tengah
which are not supported by other sources. Sultan Tengah is a well-known historical figure who, as the Sultan of Sarawak (1599) later founded the Sultanate of Sambasas written in the royal genealogies of Sultanate of Sambas and Brunei. The authors further suggested that the Bidayuh once lived in Santubong and in some areas of present-day Kuching. The myth regarding origins of the Bidayuh has been recorded from oral history and published by Heidi Munan, a well-known local writer, to the
effect that the Bidayuh came from what is now West Kalimantan which is far inthe interior and not along the coast of Santubong. The writers mentioned that the Ibans were also found near the present-day city of Kuching at Bukit Mata Kuchingbefore James Brooke’s arrival in 1839. This is problematic because Brooke wrote in his journal that he was told to sail to Lundu to meet some Ibans, the Sebuyaus who originated from Batang Lupar.It is important to point out that name of an important ethnic group that we know today as ‘Iban’ is a Rejang Kayan word, ‘hivan’, that means ‘wanderer’, referring to this particular group of Dayak in Borneo. R. Pringle in Rajahs and Rebels (SecondEdition, 2010, p. 19) gives an insightful discussion on the subject. However, the two authors claim that the term ‘Iban’ is a Malay word that means ‘relative’. This suggests a certain lack of discrimination in the authors’ research.220 | book reviews The writers, Suraini Sahari and Tom McLaughlin appear to be passionate enthusiasts in the history of Sarawak before Brooke. As stated in their preface, they spent a substantial amount of money and many years researching, travelling, and publishing. Their passion, however, may not be sufficient for their questionable historical judgments. The heavy reliance on oral traditions by unknown respondents makes the book an unreliable history of Sarawak. Although oral history has its challenges in its verifiability, the authors’ effort is commendable for the voluminous amount of folklore, myths and stories collected where hardly any written sources of the historical period examined in the book is available. This effort is laying the ground for a people’s history or a history from
below of Sarawak where historical narratives from common people and nonacademics is opening up new areas for historical inquiry.
Sanib bin Hj. Said Former Director of Sarawak Museum
and Institute of Borneo Studies,
and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak