BORNEO RESEARCH BULLETIN Vol. 17. No. 2 September 1985 PAGE Notes From the Editor: "Return to Borneo;" Other Publications; Contributions. ... Research Notes Urban Migration into Bibu. Sarawak - Vinson H. Sutlive, Jr. ......... Plantation Development in West Kalimantan I: Extant Population/Lab Balances - Michael R. Dove ............ An Ethnological Survey of the Kelai River Area Kabupaten Berau, East Kalimantan - Antonio J. Guerreiro (CeDRASEMI). ... Orangutan Research in Borneo - Kim A. Bard .............. Brunei Malay Traditional Ethno-Veterinary Practice - Linda Amy Kimball. ..... News and Announcements. ......... 150 Borneo News ............... 151 Book Reviews, Abstracts, and Bibliography.- ............ L57 The Borneo Research Bulletin is published twice yearly (April and September) by the Borneo Research Council. Please address all inquiries and contributions for publication to Vinson H. Sutlive, Jr., Editor, Borneo Research Bulletin, Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia 23185. USA. Single issues are available at USf2.50. ite this reali: naior itnportance, no one of Sarawak) . "Therefore, It he continued, "they wouldn't knt3ws how many lban are f research proposal. want to come into towns." r had indic at 1 st? This stereotype of lban as oranq UJwas repeated by zescrlue rne unlrs reslaenr In Sibu. another member of the same department when I visited the ~eriodof greatest immigration. office during the second week of August. Having been told ~nddemographic patterns of the urban bv the fit-st staff member that they had obtained data and rural areas . from which would be useful to my research, I went .to the census data. office. but neither he nor the Divisional Director was in. When I explained my research to a Malay staff member, he, Another reality I encountered, however, is that also, assured me that there couldn't be many lban in census data for such a description do not exist. This is Sibu, "because they are an interior people." in no way intended as a criticism of the Department of Statistics. According to two members of that Departmentis This image of lban is widely held, and not by civil Sibu office, they neither have the staff nor the cate- servants alone,. Discussing my research with a Chinese qot-ies to produce such data. Further, today's census businessman, i was quickly informed that it was interest- would be unreliable tomorrow with the coming-and-going of ing but that I wouldn't find many lban in Sibu. "They are the very mobile Iban. oranq bumai" (farmers, strictly, hill-rice farmers 1. Despite this lacuna, however, or perhaps because of During several preseritations to local service clubs, it, it is im~ortantto establish the reality of the secondary school students, and church groups, I encounter- situation and. at the same time. responses to it. ed similar stereotypes and even more explicit denial or rejection of the possibility of lban urban migration. The During the first week in Sibu, I visited the Depart- followinq examples illustrate the reactions of Chinese ment of Statistics and talked w~thone of the staff. (and probably other groups as well) to the movements of Asking for information about the above, I was shown the Iban : 1970 and 1980 censuses, neither of which contained as specific information as I required. Having looked through I do not believe that lban are coming the censuses with the staff member, I asked him his to town. Where are they? Do you estimate of the number of lban In Sibu. "Three or four encourage them to come to Sibu? Is hundred." was his answer. But, I queried, there were that it good or bad? How can they many in 1960, about 3,500 in 1970, and surely more by improve their way of life in the rural 1980. Taking another tack, I asked him what percentage of area? And, The lban should not the population was lban in 1980. "About five percent," he come to Sibu. How can we stop replied. I than asked the Sibu urban population in 1980, them? and he said. "131,000." Immediately, we agreed that the lban population in 1980 was over 6,000-not, "three or four As innocuous as these questions may sound, the hundred. " defense mechanisms noted above -- stereotyping, denial, and rejection -- contain a variety of feelings, anxieties, Equally significant as the problematic data are the and, even, resentments. An altercation which occurred on psycholoqical reactions to the reality of lban inmigra- the morning of July 5th at the "lban Market", and was tion. When I first ventured that there were 10,000 or observed and described by an lban graduate student on more lban in Sibu, the same staff member I-esponded, "There holidav from overseas studv, reveals the depth and can't be, because they are oranq y& (upriver people; intensity of emotions of townsfolk concerning the poten- technically, people in the more remote, easterly regions tial competition from yrban migrants. ,One category of "Iban-on the-street" ( and off it, too J deserves qomments and will require special atten- - Sungai Antu; where there are 38 squatter tion, viz., lban youth. Sixty-eight percent of lban I families on titled land, 24 families being Iban; contacted are 18 years of age or younger (1,374). Eighty-five percent (1,160) of them are still in school, - the Police barracks on Jalan Tun Abang Haji and the others (214) of the latter describe their situa- Openg; tion as jobless (nadai kereja), as living with relatives or friends, or, whatever their circumstances, not per- - Pulau Kereto, the west side of the Batang Igan, manently employed. For several reasons, but most notably Batu Enam: and the exposure of primary and secondary school students to - the town, & equally important, the experience of the Nang Kiew Hotel, where at any time there are dependence upon government support of their room and between 12 and 30 prostitutes. board, this category of urbanizing lban deserves careful attention because (1) it is likely to grow larger and more It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that these rapidlv than categories of older Iban, and (21 its areas of higher concentration are just that; and that lban constituents are learning a new value system, one in which are dispersed and distributed in all other sections of they are being provided for without work or any assumption Sibu. of responsibility other than "being there." I1 I. The Evidence II. fication of Concentrations on lban We acknowledged at the beginning that no one knows ~ntrastto settlement patterns in most other how many lban there are in Sibu. The number varies from 3ourneasL.-... Asian towns and cities, Sibu has no exclusive day to day, given the mobility of the population. And "ethnic wards" ,or -neighborhoods. While it is true that there may be disagreement as to how many is many. But the Chinese predominate in the pasar and Malays and Melanaus evidence is clear that (11 there are more than there were in the various kampong, even in these areas lban and a decade ago and (2)there are more tha'n there were a year members of other ethnic groups live amongst these numeri- ago. call y larger societies. We believe that the worldwide process of urban Responses to a survey distributed to 1,500 lban show migration, in which the most dramatic demographic change that lban live in' almost all parts of Sibu. Within this in human history is taking place; includes Sarawak. The relatively broad distribution, it is possible to identify United Nations estimates that at mid-century, 75 percent 7 areas of higher concentration to almost exclusively of the world's population was rural. For a multitude of Iban. These are: reasons, some social, others personal, by the end of this century 75 percent of the world's population will be - Usaha Jaya, Upper Lanang Road, where there are urban. 178 "lban houses", either completed and occupi- ed, or under construction; One government officer jokingly observed that "Sarawak usually lags behind other countries. What - Lanang Camp, where live approximately 400 lban happens in other places happens here about 50 years men and their families; later." While this self-deprecating remark may have been true for the first half of this century, and although - school boarding houses for secondary schools. there clearly are technological gaps between Sarawak and especially Kampong Nangka and Rosly Dhobi; more developed countries, instantaneous communications now tie Sarawak to an emerging worldwide system in which all Hna one of these trends is easier movements between I encountered two teen-age girls whom the lban mistook for areas, a~nd the entrance of more rural folk ral and urban, z fellow lban and asked directions to the bus; the girls I :o towns ties. I I i and ci f, indeed, "what happens in other turned out to be Malays. I took pleasure in jokingly aces ha(ppens k)ere ablout 50 years later." the years to ..a .a asking him. lllf you canit tell Malays from Iban, how do me WIII be exciting--or A~nressing--as--,-. - Sibu continues to you expect us non-lban to do so?" ow in territorial size, and i: ! ~opulation. They will be citing, if the challen!3es of planning for and servicing I do not consider the estimated proportions of lban e growing population are met . They will be depressing rt these challenges are ~gnoredor are not met. and, as to be in any way scientific. One of the canons of science 1s replicability of results or findings. and. depending na:'--s occurred in numerous Third World cities, e.g., Manila upon numerous factors and circumstances. the proportions I Sao Paulo, cities are blighted with "instant slums" an'd estimated would certainly vary.