BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers Volume 5 Volume 5 (1993) Article 8 1993 Lun Bawang Beads Heidi Munan Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/beads Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons, Science and Technology Studies Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Repository Citation Munan, Heidi (1993). "Lun Bawang Beads." BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers 5: 45-60. Available at: https://surface.syr.edu/beads/vol5/iss1/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers by an authorized editor of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LUN BA WANG BEADS Heidi Munan The Lun Bawang and related peoples of east Sarawak, west (Pollard 1935:225). J.B. Crain (1978:124ff.) prefers Sabah and Brunei have a long tradition of using beads for "Lun Dayeh" ("we people of the interior"), generally personal ornamentation and as value objects. They share in used in Sabah, to cover not only Lun Bawang, Lun the general Borneo bead heritage, but follow their own Dayeh and Lun Lod, but also the Kelabit and related and fashions. Some Lun Bawang have started repro­ tastes people of central Borneo. ducing their favorite opaque beads from clay to sell as well "Lun Bawang", now generally used in Sarawak, as to wear on informal occasions. This new cottage industry brings a satisfactory income to the beadmakers, and helps means "people of the land" or "people of this place." to preserve their heirloom property. It is in its way a question-begging term, like "person of the house," implying permanency of occupation and undisputed property status. In this paper, Lun Bawang THE LUN BA WANG refers to the people living in Sarawak who call themselves thus; Lun Dayeh to their fellows in Sabah, Their Name Brunei and Kalimantan. "Muruts" in quotation marks is used when quoting historical sources which refer to The Lun Bawang of Sarawak were referred to as the same people. "Murut" in the past, this being" ... a name given by the people of the coast to any upriver heathen race, whether ethnologically the same or not" (Pollard Their Territory 1933: 139). Elsewhere in Borneo, "Dayak" was applied in an equally haphazard fashion. In older The majority of the people on the island of Borneo anthropological texts, confusion reigns; there are a who call themselves Lun Bawang live in the Lawas people called Murut who live in the western portion District of the Limbang Division of Sarawak and in of Sarawak's neighbor, Sabah. (There was never any the Temburong District of Brunei (Fig. 1). Their oral confusion for the bead researcher; until quite recently tradition, confirmed by approximately 200 years of the "Sabah Murut" wore different beads.) recorded history, indicates that they originated in the As recently as 1972, a then-retired curator of the central Borneo highlands which now lie in the Sarawak Museum referred to the people settled in Indonesian part of Kalimantan where the bulk of this various areas of Lawas and Limbang between the group, variously called Lun Bawang or Lun Dayeh, headwaters of the Trusan and Limbang rivers as the still lives. "Muruts;" a group "larger than any other racial group Sarawak's Lun Bawang are aware of their of people in the area today" (Sandin 1972:50). The origins and maintain contact with their relations to Lun Bawang, the Lun Dayeh (upriver) and the Lun the south. There is much pedestrian and motorcycle Lod (downriver) live in adjacent regions of Sarawak, traffic across the shallow watershed; consumer Sabah and Brunei. One early writer linked the Kelabit goods from Tarakan on the Kalimantan coast find and Lun Bawang (or Murut) on sartorial terms: "the their way into the highlands of Sarawak and Sabah short skirt and bead headdress are common to both" by this route. BEADS 5:45-60 (1993) 46 SOUTH CHINA SEA •Mahit 'I BRUNEI \ I ' J' I I I \... ---....... ' ', I .... ) --.. , ... _ I I I I I \ ' I I, Sarawak / ) KALIMANTAN I I BakelalanJ, • Paraye 0 25 ,,,,. MILES .' • Longbawan ' Figure 1. Map showing the principal settlements of the Lun Bawang in East Malaysia, Brunei and East Kalimantan (drawing by Carol Pillar). 47 Their History from time to time. Once the main venues for such re-enablement had been cut off, he no longer led. In the last century, the Lun Bawang were known People respected him as the descendant of worthy throughout the highlands and down to Brunei Bay as lineage, but his executive power, and with it the center fearless warriors, raiders and headhunters. Mountain of society, had collapsed. lore and physical stamina gave them the edge over But the Lun _Bawang persevered. The majority enemies from the lowlands. As they spread down river embraced Christianity in the late 1930s. They towards the sea, they learned to handle boats but are preserved such of their old customs as were seen to be not expert sailors. compatible with their new way of life; the leaders of The Rajah of Sarawak acquired the Trusan district old often became the religious teachers and pastors. in 1885. A fort was built, and a few Chinese and Malay Formal education opened a way for industrious and traders' shops sprang up in its shelter. Soon there was gifted persons from the lower classes to rise in status. law and order in the Trusan, at least within firing When Europeans (including foreign missionaries) in distance of the fort. Ulu Trusan was another story. Borneo were interned by the invading Japanese forces Here feuds were carried on as usual during the "open in . 1942, local leaders kept the Lun Bawang season" between rice harvest and planting. It took community and church together during the frying time several punitive expeditions to subdue the more of war. reckless of the Lun Bawang leaders, among them The war hardly touched the upl~nds, except that Okong, Dayong and Dawat Tubu. imported commodities became s_carce. In September The Lawas district reports of the 1920s contain of 1945, 600 Japanese soldiers moved upriver and depressing entries: disease, drunkenness and inland, intending to cross into Indonesian Borneo. population decline. The observation of omens and They did not know that the highlands were a center of portents at the peak agricultural seasons caused food the Allied Z Force, assisted by enthusiastic local shortages. A smallpox epidemic wiped out half the guerillas who harassed the Japanese mercilessly in the Lun Bawang. Survivors grabbed such children as inhospitable terrain. The surviving Japanese looked uninfected and took to the jungle, abandoning surrendered on 30 October 1945, beside a tumbledown the dead and dying. 1 Christian missionaries who farm hut in the rice fields of Ba Kelalan. And that was entered the region were told by the civil authorities to the end of the war in the highlands. concentrate their efforts on the more worthwhile heathens and to leave the moribund "Murut" to their fate. Their Society, Culture and Economy How could warriors who had threatened Brunei sink to near-extinction within a few decades? The present concern is with. the people of the Leadership in the old days depended partly on Lawas District of Sarawak who call themselves Lun hereditary status and partly on personal achievement. Bawang. A considerable number of them live in the Besides the traditional qualities of wisdom, legal township of Lawas and elsewhere "downriver," knowledge and persuasive oratory, a leader needed engaging in business or paid employment, and living sufficient wealth for display and hospitality, and to country-town lifestyles. Almost all of them are in raise and provision the labor force needed to make the regular contact with their villages, either along the memorials connected with aristocratic mourning Lawas and Trusan rivers, or in the highlands. (Pollard 1935). This wealth could be obtained by The terms "highlands" and "lowlands" mean a lot inheritance, by trading or by raiding; the latter offered in this context. Central Borneo's high plateau ends in the extra advantage of procuring head trophies and/or a rugged edge; rivers roar through rapids on their fall slaves, both necessary adjuncts to aristocratic prestige to the undulating lowlands. Before aviation reached (Datan 1989: 149). the island, the highlands lay days of trekking from the The Rajah's punitive expeditions aimed at lowlands. A center of Lun Bawang population, Ba destroying the main leaders' fighting power. This they Kelalan (Fig. 2) on the upper Trusan River was a tough did, and subverted the leaders' authority in the week's walk from the downriver town of Lawas. Now process. A Lun Bawang chief had to ratify his position the journey is done in one rough day by jeep, on 48 Figure 2. The Lun Bawang heartland, the fertile upland plains of Ba Kelalan (photo by H. Munan). logging roads which cut ever deeper into the interior. Much was expected of the "good" classes by way But the civilized way to travel to and from this fertile, of leadership and example; the actual rulers (lun isolated, highland valley is by light plane. mebala or "illustrious people") sprang from their The Lun Bawang/Lun Dayeh of the uplands and ranks. Individual leaders needed to be successful and lowlands share a mutually intelligible language. They sufficiently rich in goods and buffalos to provision big have a common culture of rice farming, lives~ock feasts, equip raiding parties~ lead migrations or rearing and strong commercial interests. All their longhouse building. Upper-class marriages involved a heirloom goods have come to them by way of trade; complicated exchange of valuable prestige objects today's Lun Bawang take to modern business in a very like heirlooms (antique jars [Fig.