3 Dayaks prior to independence (up to 1945) [...] we [...] asked the [Dayak] headman, whether the Dayaks … would send their children to us, provided we opened a school in Sambas to teach them. His reply was ‘that he did not know, it must be just as the sultan said’. (Doty and Pohlmann 1839:286.) This chapter examines conditions prevailing prior to independence in the region that later became West Kalimantan. Those conditions pre- vented the emergence of Dayaks in the colonial-era government and contributed to the challenges that they faced after independence. The small advances in education that Dayaks experienced in the last years of colonial rule, however, helped to shape the role they would play in post- independence politics. An understanding of the roots of ethnic identity of the two major native groups of West Kalimantan, the Dayaks and Malays, is central to this book. Dayaks and most Malays descended from the same ancestors and became differentiated by religion following the spread of Islam. Dayaks who converted to Islam transformed their identity into Malays and abandoned many of the practices and customs that had previously identified them as Dayaks. The backward conditions of Dayaks in the pre-independence era shaped the discriminatory administration of the Malay sultanates and the uncaring approach of the Dutch colonial regime. Dayaks in areas directly ruled by the Dutch experienced slightly better conditions without the burden of Malay sultanates rule. History shows that Dayaks from directly ruled areas were more advanced than their counterparts in the sultanates. Among the conditions instrumental in preparing the Dayaks to take the opportunities that arose after WWII was the education provided by © Taufiq Tanasaldy, 2012 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NonDerivative 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-NC-NDTaufiq 3.0) Tanasaldy License. - 9789004253483 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:51:53AM via free access | Regime change and ethnic politics in Indonesia the Catholic mission to the Dayaks. The short period of Japanese occu- pation also made an important contribution to Dayak emancipation by brutally eliminating much of the previously dominant Malay aristocracy that had obstructed Dayak advancement. Dayak political leaders began to emerge for the first time following the end of WWII. the dayaks, malays and senganan Like many other provinces in Indonesia, West Kalimantan has a diverse ethnic population. Based on the 2000 population census, the two largest ethnic groups were the Dayaks and Malays, followed by the Javanese, Chinese, Madurese, and Bugis. Muslim Malays made up about thirty- five percent of West Kalimantan’s population of 3.7 million, largely non-Muslim Dayaks were about thirty percent, Javanese and Chinese each about ten percent, followed by smaller migrant communities from other parts of Indonesia including Madurese, Bugis and others. Ethnicity 1930 1971 2000 Dayaks 48.9* 41 30.0 Malays 28.5 39 34.7** Javanese 1.2 2 10.4 Chinese 13.5 12 9.5 Madurese 0.8 0.6 5.5 Bugis 6.6 5 3.2 Table 3.1 Ethnic population in West Kalimantan (1930, 1971, 2000) (percentages) *The Dayak figure in 1930 was a combination of the Dayaks and ‘unknown’ categories (onbekend), which were mostly Dayaks. **Official source (Karakteristik penduduk 2001:34) gives the percentage of Dayaks at 33.1 percent, and Malays at 32.4 percent. Source: Census 1930, Riwut (1979:49); Census 2000. West Kalimantan’s post-independence history has seen considerable conflict between Dayaks and Madurese, as well as outbreaks involving Chinese and the Malay communities. However, this chapter will focus 50 Taufiq Tanasaldy - 9789004253483 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:51:53AM via free access 3 Dayaks prior to independence (up to 1945) | on the origins and development of distinctive ethnic identities within the indigenous Dayak and Malay populations of the province. The Dayak peoples were the original inhabitants of the island of Kalimantan.1 However, in the contemporary political discourse in the province, the Malays, and sometimes, the Chinese and Bugis, are consid- ered natives because they have long and significant associations with the province. In this book, the terms ‘native’ or ‘indigenous’ mostly refer to Dayaks; in some contexts (as will be indicated) the terms will also include Malays. The Dayaks include at least 400 sub-tribes (Riwut 1958:182-206). These sub-tribes were usually classified into several larger groups.2 The recent 2000 population census listed at least 130 sub-tribes living in West Kalimantan some of the main groups being the Kanayatn, Darat, Ketungau, Desa, and Mualang. The population of other sub- tribes including the better known Iban, Kantuk, Kayan, and Kenyah, is rather small — less than 2 percent each of the Dayak population in the province. These native groups shared many social and cultural similarities. In the past, most Dayaks lived in interior regions, lived in longhouses and practised headhunting.3 Most lived in interior districts and carried on swidden agriculture or hunting-gathering. Despite these similarities, the groups were not exactly the same. For example, not all Dayaks practised headhunting, such as the native Jelai of Ketapang (Bamba 2003:21). The Aoheng and Punan also did not initially headhunt, but they learnt it from their belligerent neighbours (Sellato 1994:141). While it is true that majority of Dayaks lived by swidden culture in the interior region, many Iban Dayaks adapted to coastal living and were known as Sea Dayaks. Social systems also varied among the Dayak sub-tribes with some more 1 Kalimantan is also known as Borneo, a term introduced by the Portuguese explorers from the sixteenth century to refer initially to northern region of the island belong to Brunei Kingdom (Broek 1962:133-5). It was a better known term before the founding of Republic Indonesia, and still in use in Malaysia and Brunei. 2 Although they are aware that Dayaks have many sub-groups, the majority of scholars who exam- ined ethnic conflict in the province treated Dayaks as a single ethnic group. Scholars who researched anthropological and sociological aspects of the group tended to view the Dayaks as a heterogeneous group. 3 Headhunting was not exclusive to Dayaks. Ethnic groups such as those from Siberut, Nias, Su- lawesi, Sumba, and Timor were also known to have headhunting pasts (Colombijn 2001:27; Hasan et al. 2004:135, 140; Hoskins 1996). The practice had been common in many parts of the world. For more on this topic, see http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/258121/headhunting, (accessed 26-10-2010). 51 Taufiq Tanasaldy - 9789004253483 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:51:53AM via free access | Regime change and ethnic politics in Indonesia or less egalitarian in their social organization such as the Iban, Kantuk, Desa and Punan, whereas others like the Kayan, Taman, Kenyah and Mualang were more stratified (King 1993; Rousseau 1990; Sellato 2002). The difference in the social categorization generated further differences in social and cultural practices. The majority of Dayaks who lived in the interior professed Christianity. The 2000 census showed that 65 percent of Dayaks pro- fessed Catholicism and 30 percent Protestantism. Dayaks who converted to Islam usually changed their identity and became Malays. Prior to the coming of these modern religions to Kalimantan, the Dayaks were animists. Based on the population census in 2000, about 1.5 percent of Dayaks in the province retained their traditional beliefs. Unlike the externally coined word ‘Dayak’, the term ‘Malay’ was al- ready known before the arrival of Europeans. Local written references to Malay can be found from the seventh, eleventh, and mid-fourteenth centuries (Andaya 2004:66). The Malay language was already a lingua franca in inter-island trading long before the Europeans arrived. One scholar concluded that the Proto-Malay language was spoken at least 2000 years ago from west Borneo to southeast Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula (Andaya 2004:66). The Malay language became closely linked to Islam when the reli- gion came to the region. The earliest Islamic sultanates, Perlak (840 AD) and Pasai (1042 AD), were established in Aceh, on the western tip of Sumatra. Perlak was the first Islamic sultanate in the archipelago and in the whole of Southeast Asia. Malays were believed to have originated in southeast Sumatra (Andaya 2004:58), and they were one of the first peoples in the archipelago to adopt Islam, and to spread the new religion. Not surprisingly, Islam became identified with the Malays. Marsden (1811:26-7), for example, wrote that when the natives of Sumatra em- braced Islam, they often said they had ‘become Malay’ (masuk Melayu) rather than embraced Islam (masuk Islam).4 Through religious conversion, the number of Malays increased exponentially. 4 There were a few exceptions. Kipp notes that in north Sumatra, Mandailing Bataks and Angkola Bataks did not describe themselves as Malays after conversion to Islam. They would retain their Man- dailing and Angkola labels but would drop the term ‘Batak’ (Kipp 1993:39). Marsden (1811:27) also mentioned the example of a native ruler who refused to be called ‘Malay’ after his conversion to Islam. 52 Taufiq Tanasaldy - 9789004253483 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:51:53AM via free access 3 Dayaks prior to independence (up to 1945) | Such conversion was also found in West Kalimantan. The term ‘Malay’ was not only used to designate peoples from Sumatra and the Malayan peninsula who came to the region for trading and religious proselytizing, but also referred to the natives who had converted to Islam. The conversion of the natives increased rapidly after the local rulers were converted. Royal conversion was usually made through marriage between religious leaders and members of noble families, or through family connections between Islamic sultanates and other sultanates.5 In West Kalimantan, the first ruler to convert to Islam was the ruler of Tanjungpura in Ketapang, Panembahan Giri Kusuma, in the mid- sixteenth century.