Book Review: SMJ 1970
The Malays of South-West Sarawak before Malaysia by Tom Harrisson
Reviewed by Gale Dixon (Department of Geography, University of Oregon)
This big, heavy volume is packed with good information important to professional anthropologists, historians economists, geographers, and sociologists and of interest to a wide readership of informed people who make the social sciences their avocation. Mr Harrisson discusses thoroughly the Malay technologies for utilizing the resources of the seas, swamps, estuaries, tidal zones, and hills. The descriptions of fruit farming, rubber tapping, and padi growing are nicely detailed and., for the first time in print, present an accurate picture of the work these activities entail.
To the Westerner travelling through the delta of the Sarawak River, the swamp appears a vast green wasteland devoid of resources or value. Harrisson, on the other hand, presents a much brighter and more accurate view. The swamp teems with fish, plants, and animals which the Malays recognize as resources and utilize- The lowly Nipah palms standing hip-deep in brackish water and mud, is a valuable source of thatch, mat material, edible seeds, leaf for rolling cigarettes, and, in hard times, sugar, salt, and alcohol, other swamp trees yield a variety of building materials, firewood, dyes, cutch (for preserving cotton nets), fibre for rope, and flour, similarly, the author catalogues the resources of the hill, mud, sand, estuary, and sea zones and describes their utilization.
Harrisson is much concerned with the economy of southwest Sarawak and offers a detailed picture of it, starting with monthly budgets for sixteen representative families. He examines the effects of religious holidays and celebrations (and the Haj) on the expenditures of individuals. With each major source of cash income, Harrisson is careful to describe the relationships of the producers to those who transport the goods, the buyer, and the ultimate consumed. Although overall economic statistics are not consistently presented, it is possible for the reader to grasp the day-to-day operation of this economy.
Harrison’s perspective on the time depth of human occupancy to Sarawak River delta is supported by his archaeological investigations effectively completes the historical view with quotations from folk legends about early Malay settlers and from modern records.
It is unfortunate that all this good information has been obscured by poor writing. On page after page, Harrisson’s syntax is either awkward or ambiguous- A sad sample, chosen at random: “And at 7.45 the ‘Jolly Bachelor’, reported wrecked on Sampadi, launched in from 5atang to make it, long overdue, to prepare and reassure the overdue advent of keluang the fine period on the theoretical regularity of which life in the southwest, at all levels, closely depends, right down to shrimp paste for the kids.” (Page 187-7 Conceptual or logical errors also crop up. For example, in defining the limits of Malay settlement, he says that there are no Malays farther up the coastal streams than the appearance of Malay “; In other words, one only finds Malays where they build their structures.
Harrisson’s organizational style is probably best described, as cocktail party;” indeed, I have been told that he is quite entertaining in that venue. In writing, he hits from anecdote to anecdote with no someone sairi- krniw ™ a cental tk someone said in a bar once. If there is a central theme to the book, it is most cleverly disguised. Chapter titles are a little more indicative of their contents than would ve numbers.
For all the book’s detail, there are some glaring errors of omission. Anthropologists will find it particularly frustrating that there is no list of kinship terms. Geographers will be disgusted that Harrisson refers in text to place names which never appear on. his maps, and the maps themselves represent a perigee in the cartographic endeavor. A more serious fault is Harri’sson’s disdain for proper referencing. Quotations from the field notes of his research assistants are presented freely, but nowhere are we told -the assistants’ names, there is no bibliography and few references to the considerable body of literature already published on the Malays. Cross-referencing is limited to chapter numbers Avhich do not appear at the top of each page. There is a glossary of Malays terms which does not include many of the terms used frequently in the text; it is broken into five sections, and the entries are not alphabetized.
Also omitted are a number of topics which one assumes Harrisson could have easily covered given his long period of research. Factors ntra-community cohesion are hardly mentioned; neither are patterns of political, social, and religious leadership- Family ties are also slighted. References to economic and kinship ties of the Malay villagers to the city of Kuching are legion but the reader is left to wonder what kinds of relationships exist between the Malay villagers themselves. Except for the final section, which deals with the largely political events occurring in this study area since the formation of Malaysia, the book has little to offer the political scientist.
Most of the fieldwork for this book was completed before Malaysia was formed in 1963—-seven years before publication—yet change has been slow enough in coming to the study area that the work suffers little from obsolescence, nor is it likely to in the near future. A couple of the villages Harrisson describes have since lost most of their full-time residents, and the author’s assertion that Malay beggars in Sarawak are unknown (page 178) indicates that he hasn’t had a meal in Kuching’s open market for some time. But, on the whole, life in the delta is very much as Harrisson describes it. More importantly, changes which have occurred are for the most part along the lines which the author has predicted.
A good example of the problem, If Harrisson intended to break away from the stilted, overly-qualified language too common in academic literature, he is to be commended for that intent; unfortunately, the result is a step backwards rather than forward His bad grammar, awkward sentences, and utter lack of organization render the book: most difficult to read. The publisher, too, should share some of the blame for allowing the worst passages to pass uncorrected. Together, the author and the publisher display an arrogant disregard for the reader.
My final criticism concerns the price of the book. At Slo&OO in Sarawak (£12 in the UK.), it is fantastically over-priced and beyond the reach of almost every potential reader. I could never recommend that anyone buy the book. However, since it does contain large amounts of good information of use to academicians, every research library worthy of the name should have a copy for the diligent researcher who is willing to dig out the important facts. As one scholar told- me, “A man of Harrisson’s experience can hardly assemble 657 pages without including something good.”