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VOL. 27 1996 PAGE NOTES FROM THE EDITOR 2 MEMORIALS Henry Gana Ngadi 3 Tan Sn Datuk Gemsin Lembat 7 Pastor A.J. Ding Ngo, S.M.M. 21 Jack Prentice 24 RESEARCH NOTES Confirmation of an Early Date for the Presence of Rice m 29 I Borneo: Preliminary Evidence for Possible Bidayuh/Aslian Links, Paul Beavitt, Edmund Kurui, and Gill Thompson Bnef Comment, Peter Rellwood 3 8 A Florentine Source for Nineteenth Century Sarawak 39 History, J.H. Walker Wings over Borneo. Marlin and Osa Johnson, 1935-1936, 44 Anne Millbrooke An Annotated Bibliography of the Penan of Brunei, Peter G. 52 Sercombe Five Brunei Malay Spatial Deictlcs, Linda Amy Kimball 64 Forest Conversion and the Role of Slash-and-Bum 70 Agriculture In Lowland Kallmantan, Yoshiyuki Kiyono and Hastaniah Borneo Biomedical Bibliography, A. Baer and G.N. Appell 77 Theses on Sarawak and Sabah Presented to the Department 90 of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Malaya, with Some General Remarks, Tan Chee-Beng Back to Square One: The 1995 General Election In Sabah 98 and Sarawak, James Chin Urba~sationand Rural Depopulation in Sarawak, Philip S. 127 Morrison I BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS 138 I BORNEONEWS 153 BOOK REVIEWS, ABSTRACTS AND 159 BIBLIOGRAPHY The Borneo Research Bullelin is published by the Borneo Research Council. Please address all inquires and rontribulions for publication to Clifford Sather, Editor, Borneo Research Bullelin, Department of Anthropology, Reed College, Portland, Oregon 97202-8199. USA. Sinele issues are available at US $10.00. 2 Borneo Research Bulletin Vol. 27 Vol. 27 Borneo Research Bulletin 3 MEMORIALS NOTES FROM THE EDITOR [Editor's note: M~keReed's personal reflections were one of several eulog~espresented I would l~keto preface these, my first notes as editor, with a few well-deserved. if during funeral services for Henry Gana at St. Thomas' Cathedral. Kuching, on wholly inadequate, words of appreciation for my predescessor. September 17th 1995. Paul Beavltt's note was written expressly for this memorial.] Professor Vinson Sutlive assumed the editorship of the Borneo Research Bulletin in 1975. For the last twenty years, the output and scope of the Bulletin, and the work of the Research Council generally, have grown enormously. Today the Bulletin publishes HENRY GANA NGADI over 200 pages of research reports, notes, reviews, and bibliographic items annually, 1948-199S1 coverlng virtually every field of study concerned with the peoples, social institutions. history, and envirnonment of Borneo. In addition, its mission has come to be Henry Gana joined the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at the Un~versityof Hull supplemented by regular biennial meetings, proceedings volumes, and a monograph in 1987 to read for an MA in Southeast Asian Studies. He had prev~ouslytaken a serles. So far as the Bulletit? ~tself1s concerned, it would come as a surprise to most Diploma in Translation at the University of Malaya as pan of his professional career readers, I think, to discover the exTent lo which its product~on remalns, despite this development in the Borneo Literature Bureau and then the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. phenomenal growth, very largely a "one-man operation". Having had a chance to make His school years were spent at St. Augustine's School (Betong), Saratok Secondarp this d~scoveryfirst-hand, I can only express my awe and personal admirat~onand School and finally Tanjong Lubang College (Miri) extend. on behalf of us all. our profound appreciation for the energy, imagination, and In h~sobvious com~nitmentto the study of Malays~an,and In pan~cularSarawak wisdom with which Professor Sutlive has nurtured and guided the Bulletin over these cultures, Henry had made a strong impression upon us prior to his coming to Hull. He twenty years of growth. was engaged in translating Augustine Anggat Ganjing's Basic Ihan Design from ban I hasten to add that Professor Sutlive remains an invaluable source of advice and, Into Engl~sh(publrshed by DBP In 1988) and In compiling a Kat~rusBahasa fbo~l- as editor, I look fonvard to his continuing counsel. In addition. I wvould like to thank Dr. Bahasa h1alav.sia with Hussain bin Samil (published by DBP in 1989). Henry more than kck Fldler (Rhode Island College) for h~ssuperb editor~alhelp and Dr Phillip Thomas lived up to our expectations. He proved to be a most conscientious postgraduate student, (Library of Congress) for his work in processing textual materials and photographs for untiring rn his pursuit of knowledge and always eager to discuss h~scoursework with his publ~cation tutors and lecturers Subsequently Henry wrote an excellent dissertation on Iban rites of Dr. Thomas and I will be work~ngthis coming year to streaml~nethe Bullerin's passage, which was based on his own research and experience, panicularly in his home operations in order to make better use of computer technology. We are both on E-mail: area of the Paku In Sarawak. <[email protected]> <clifford sather@reed edu>, and I am prepared to receive texts The dissertation is soon to be publ~shedby the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka in from contr~butorsdlrectly and exchange editoral comments and revisions by E-mail. In Malaysla and it represents a genulne contr~butionto our knowledge about Iban cullurc this manner, I hope for fuhlre volumes that we can shorten the turn-around lime needed Mer completing h~sMA Henry returned to his post at the Dewan Bahasa in between submission and publication of Items. With Phillip's techical help, I also plan to Kuching, but he was determined to continue with his research on ban oral tradition. It establish shortly a homepage address for the Bulletiti on which I can post timely news seemed to me to have become something of an obsess~onwith him, that he should announcements, schedr~lesof forthcoming meetings, recent publications, and other items record, translate and interpret important parts of th~strad~tion before it was lost to his with narrow time-hor~zons,a service that it is dificult to provide at the moment At the people He therefore began his doctoral studies at Hull in 1990 assisted by a British High BRC meetings in Brunei, the des~rabililywas posed of co~npiling a directo~y of Conimiss~oner'saward and a grant from The Sarawak Foundation In London. At some institutions and scholars engaged in research, education, and publication relating to sacrifice 10 himself and with the considerable goodwill of the Dewan Bahasa, Henry Borneo. Dr. Rita Armstrong has offered to coordinate the project and anyone who managed to secure unpaid leave of absencc so that he col~ldfind time to undertake his wishes to assist her, or has names and addresses for inclusion, please contact either Dr. research Rita Armstrong (Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, It is a tragedy that Henry should be taken from us while he was in the final stages. AUSTRALIA) or myself In the next BRB, I will report further on the project's progress. of completing his recording and analysis of ban pengap (invocation of deities at major In the meantime, Rita and I tvould welcome your suggestions. rituals) He had accumula~edan enormous amount of data from knowledgeable Iban (Continued on last page.) 'W~ththe author's permission, reprinted from A,YEA,YI/h' News, no. 18. Autumn 1995. I I Borneo Research Bullet~n Vol 27 Vol 27 Borneo Research Bulleun 1 bards (lenta~~ihatig),and thls materlal must represent a unlque resource for the study of studles, for he was friendly, charmlng outgolng helpful and generous wlth h~s Iban culture and hstory knowledge He was always ready to lend a hand to others, whether II be translating In many respects Henry was an Iban 'nat~onal~st',though not as overtly polltlcal as Malay te\?s, revlewlng an essay, explalnlng the finer polnts of anthropological fieldwork that term rmght suggest He was justly ploud of h~speople's achievements and he or slmply talking through a problem HIS door was always open to frlends and wanted to bring the record of these ach~evernentsto a wlder audlence When he was colleagues tallilng about ban culture to outsiders he showed that prlde and forthrightness which are Henry also had a \ude clrcle of frlends from outslde the department He was among the outstand~ngcharacterlstlcs of the Iban community In a publlc fomm Henry equally at home with Zulu accountancy students. Iraq1 engineers and Japanese had the ability to draw you Into lban culture wlth the power of lus oratory, he was soc~olog~slsWhat was partlcularly unusual was h~slack of academlc snobbery, unllke always uantlng to convert you to the Iban worldvlew He was a marvelous many senlor postgraduates, Henry was happy to spend tlme wlth and enjoy the company conversat~onal~stwho had considerable knowledge of h~speople's culture Yet, In h~s of young undergraduates Thls lack of pretens~onmade Henry popular wlth people from quieter and more prlvate moments, he was a rather modest man often wllllng to admlt all walks of Ilfe, notjust those ln the unlverslty that he was a mere siudent of Iban culture, only a faithful recorder and Interpreter of the As well as h~sacademlc track record, Henry will be remembered by his fr~endsand wlsdorn of the bards colleagues at Hull for hls love of I~fe,h~s sense of humour, and h~scooklng You may be Henry also had a wlder Interest In the oral tradltlons of Sarawak In the last letter surprised at thls last polnt but Henry's currles and fish soups were something of a whlch I recelved from hlm dated 8 August 1995, he had just returned from field research legend In Hull, and he gave many young students the11 first