Bisaya Fables

I have always been curious about the slave raiders. However, most papers dealing with the subject, especially Sarawak, are behind paywalls with some costing $50.00 to download. I scoured the Internet, found four books in my library and discovered one paper which had information. AI and Wikipedia were not used in this work. Sarawak When […]

A Controversy on the Iron Industry at Santubong Ever since the rise of the Shang people in the Huang Ho basin in 1800 BC, bronze has been a Chinese precious metal. It consisted of a mixture of copper and tin or lead. In the 10th century BC, iron was discovered. The bronze casting technique was

The Chinese Ibans The Iban ethnic group in Borneo Sarawak is divided into seven major clans: Sebuyau, Remun, Balau, Saribas, Ulu Ai/Batang Ai, Undup, and Rajang Iban. The Chinese Hakka and Teochew ancestry from Southern China, and Hokien from Fujian (also called Min) or Hokien Province came in the 18th century. For generations, the Chinese

Here is part two in the collision between the Islam, traditional beliefs and the sea among the Bajau Sama people. There are very few articles, if any, that discusses the clash. Efforts to contact the authors have been fruitless.  You can find part one on my website, BorneoHistory.net An example of this is the ritual

Ceramics from a Sabah Shipwreck The ceramics from the Tanjung Simpang Mengayau Shipwreck off Sabah have been classified. The ship floundered during the northern Song dynasty(960-1127) off Kudat, Sabah. https://doi.org/10.26721/spafajournal.2l5br71rau Weather and South Kalimatan There have been significant changes in temperature over the past 40 years. The average temperature was 26.7ºC, average temperature increase of

The Baju’s love of the sea, their pre-Islamic customs(adat) and Islam come together to form a belief system where they co-exist and, seemingly, are not in contradiction with each other. This is part one of two parts The Bajau or Bajo people are groups of nomadic people traditionally living on the sea. They are known

For a change of pace, I present poetry from the kampongs along the Sarawak River. They are usually recited at gatherings of Malay people, where the men and women are seated separately. The ending of the first and third verse and the second and fourth verse must rhyme. The first two lines have no meaning,

Headhunting Among these spectacles, I was arrested by the ghastly appearance of a once human head. In mere derision it had been boiled, stripped of the skin and hair, and put on a post with a raw kumara [sweet potato] placed in the mouth. (John Alexander, nineteenth century New Zealand missionary, cited in Vayda, 1960:95)

Astronomy of the Ma’anyan of central Borneo When I was about 10, a youngster, I learned about constellations. An assistant scoutmaster used a light pointer to show us the various stars and constellations. He tried to show me the constellation of Cassiopeia but I did not see a chair, I saw something else.  He sighed and

Bats The microbes which live in the stomachs of bats depend on what they eat. Bats that eat fruit have microbes that are different from those that eat insects. The research was carried out in Sarawak. 10.1186/s42523-025-00389-w Punan and Genetics Recent genetic evidence has shown the Punan to be Austronesian people dating to 7,500 years