Who are You?
Tom McLaughlin
I have been researching the origins of the people of Sarawak for about ten years now. It has been fun but frustrating.
These are my opinions from the research:
The Malays came from Taiwan. These people were the indigenous residents and not the current Chinese who now run the island. They moved south through the Philippines, then Borneo and finally into Sarawak. They became the tribes taken over by the Ibans in the interior. Later, Islamic Malays came from Sambas, Sumatra and Java to establish the later Kingdoms scattered throughout Borneo. They are the Austronesians.
The Chinese came very early, around 400 A.D. possibly before, and established a trading post at Santubong. They stopped over, on their return voyage to China with trade goods from Sumatra, which were needed to obtain fresh water and replace palm leaf sails as there were no cloth ones. They traded with south Sumatra. They continued as boat builders, repaired ships and provided food before heading to China.
The Bidayuh came from what is now Viet Nam, Burma and Cambodia. They were the earliest residents of Sarawak. They established four or five distinct communities. One clue could be the preponderance of the throat-nose cancer gene.
We have connected the Ibans to Sumatra because of artwork discovered in both South Sumatra and Borneo. Early research suggests the Ibans came from mainland Southeast Asia and moved to Sumatra and then to the Kapuas river valley. They followed the river north and entered Sarawak.
The Bidayuh and Ibans are from different roots and are not connected. However, there have been no genetic studies or very few scattered ones done on either group.
A paper written by Dr Ho et al described what we do know about genetics in the region.
1. The ancestors of Southeast Asian people migrated via the southern route.
2. The Negrito population of the Peninsula once shared ancestry with an east Asian group.
3. Data shows the Negrito population of the Peninsula has been here since about 50,000 years ago.
4. The native populations of the Malay peninsula and Borneo are genetically distinct.
5. Austronesian expansion occurred from Taiwan to the Philippines and then to Borneo.
6. There are at least four waves of people coming into Southeast Asia over a period of time.
6a.The first was likely derived from the first negroid population.
6b. The second was an Austoasiatic migration south from what is now Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia etc
6ba This is where I think the Bidayuh came from
6c. The third was from Taiwan or Austronesian migration
6d. The last was the island migration to the islands in the Pacific.
7. The residents of the Malay peninsula and Borneo received little if any impact from the Denisovian (Hobbit) people
Now we look at what we don’t know:
1. The genetic link between all the negroid populations in Southeast Asia
2. The prehistoric migrations of the negroids into Southeast Asia.
3. What is the relationship between the orang asli and Senoia negritos
4. The “from Taiwan to Southeast Asia and back again” theory needs revision
Future Research.
A study that needs to be performed is to inform who are Bidayuh and Iban and when they came to Sarawak. This will require a major study and a lot of money. I cannot simply wander around Borneo and take mouth swabs of people who I think are Iban and Bidayuh and send it off to Ancestry.com. This study will settle the matter once and for all.
Boon Peng Ho et al The Peopling and Migration History of the natives in Peninsular Malaysia: A Glimpse on the Studies of the Past 100 years in Frontiers in Genetics 22 January 2022 doi: 10.3389/fgene.2022.767018
