Sarawak in the 1880's: part 1/?
Philippe Correa, Foreign Rajahs on Foreign Soils: Sarawak before the Great War (Singapore Lion Press: 1991)
"I first studied Sarawak expecting a kingdom." Quoted the historian and TV personality Louis Mountbatten. "Instead, I found an empire."
Indeed, one could say that the kingdom of the White Rajahs is a unique yet familiar case in the history of empire-building. Though it had no emperor nor glory-seeking Shahanshah, it had a conquest-happy head of state who expanded said state through various means of diplomacy and war, as well as instituting a system of rule that leaned towards absolute power. Though it had a growing bureaucracy and a general assembly of notables to leaven the balance of power, the ruling Brooke family governed as near-absolute monarchs in their own right over their vast domain.
And it was truly vast.
With a combined land area of over 150,000 square kilometres, the Kingdom of Sarawak was larger than the British polities of England and Wales combined. In fact, Sarawak by the close of 1883 was larger than the land areas of Andorra, Monaco, Vatican City, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Denmark, Belgium and Switzerland all put together. If the portions of the South China and Sulu seas belonging to the country were also included, then the kingdom would literally engulf the islands of Cyprus, Crete, Iceland, and the Ottoman vilayet of Bosnia. By the end of the 1880’s, the writ of Rajah Charles Brooke extended from the southern power centre of Kuching to the sleepy villages surrounding Kudat Bay, his reach stretching from the peaks of Kinabalu to the shores of the Natuna Islands.
Aside from vast domains, Sarawak also had another hallmark of an empire: multi-ethnicity. Aside from the obvious example that was the Brooke family (whom are actually part Anglo-Indian due to James Brooke being born and raised in Benares, India) the kingdom had over 50 different ethnic and tribal groups intermingling with the local Malay minority whom were also divided into innumerable villages, sub-groups and affiliations of their own, all weaved and held together by a multitude of aspects which included tribe, family, blood, culture, local society, and traditional laws. Besides that, decades of Brooke administration plus the circumstances of a turbulent region meant that many more immigrants were also streaming into the kingdom from afar: Teochew merchants, Hakka coolies, Bugis and Acehnese pepper planters, Tamil traders, Sikh fort guards, and even a few Persian travelling groups. In a land that was already full of diversity, Sarawak could be counted as a place where everything pooled.
All this intermingling also brought about another feature of empire: trade. The relative safety of Sarawak lent well to commercial business and the anti-headhunting expeditions had united most of the lowland peoples from endemic tribal wars. Contact between the Dayaks and the immigrants increased during this decade, opening new commercial doors that were unthinkable a few decades back. Porcelain from China became a status item amongst Dayak communities whilst timber and gutta–percha became valuable trade goods for the Chinese, East Indies, and European merchants. Spice plantations, artisanal crafts, and small-scale ore extraction also became profitable industries and by 1887 the Sarawak Gazette even began publishing bankruptcy notices on its inside pages to inform readers which businesses were up for grabs. Connections to foreign ports also intensified during this period and it quickly became the norm to see private vessels from Singapore and abroad jostling for space at Kuching harbour with Chinese junks, Malay sampans, and Cambodian vessels bearing the French flag.
However, as with all large empires the tropical kingdom also had its own fair share of problems. While the usual threats of rebellion and crime warranted a degree of attention, it was the outside world that vexed the Kuching administration the most. To the kingdom's northeast lay Italian Sabah, a colonial state meant to be a resource extractor but quickly found itself facing huge rebellions among the Dayak population, threatening the Brooke kingdom's own north-eastern frontiers. From beyond the sea came new businessmen and entrepreneurs, eager to discover the resources of Sarawak and exploit them for their home industries. Last of all was the beating heart of the British Empire that lay half a world away; for almost 40 years, the Colonial Office in London had seen Sarawak as nothing more than a strage offshoot of Britain’s reach, to be best left alone. Then came the Sulu Affair and Italy’s entrance to Borneo, forcing the Whitehall officials to restrain the Brooke monarchy lest they inflame too much trouble down in the East.
And with all of this, Sarawak thrived. It thrived as it had never thrived before, and its people – for better or worse – was shaping the land’s history, while also being shaped by it…
Chloe Pang, A Socio-Political History of Sarawak; 3rd Edition (Kayangan Publishing: 1999)
…If there was one group of people that could symbolize Sarawak’s growing connections with the outside world during the 1880’s, it would be the Peranakans. The opening of commercial opportunities coupled with growing relations between the ports of Kuching, Singapore and Batavia over the past decades brought a newfound change in the contemporary society of the kingdom, and nowhere was this more evident than in the advent of a new class of people that was recognizable partly by wealth, partly by ethnicity, and partly by political leanings.
The first Peranakan sub-group to take root in Sarawak were the Chinese Peranakans, also known in the region as the Baba-Nyonya. These were locally-born or regionally-born Chinese families, often of the trading class, whom have settled in the Brooke kingdom from its inception or during its first decades. Along with attaining wealth, these businessmen and entrepreneurs also possess a history of intermarriage with the locals (as child-bearing Chinese women were very uncommon during the era and the previous centuries) and had assimilated somewhat with the local culture while still retaining their Chinese roots. This synthesis of blood and culture created a new merchant class that was fundamentally different from the local Malays and Dayaks, as well as creating a cultural hallmark that differentiates them from the Chinese immigrants whom flooded the East Indies during the latter half of the 19th century.
Following the Baba-Nyonyas were the Chettiar and Jawi Peranakans: Indians, Persians, Afghans and Arabs whom have also followed the same path as their aforementioned Chinese counterparts. However, these part-assimilated families from India and the Middle East were more culturally fragmented with the ‘Chettiar’ term being primarily used to denote Hindu practitioners while ‘Jawi’ signifies those who follow Islam instead. Even then there were numerous splits among the latter as many of the Jawi families follow different strains and jurisprudences of Islam according to their families’ place of origin, setting them apart from the Shafi’i and syncretic-dominated Islam of the Sarawak Malays. Nevertheless, these Peranakan groups still hold a substantial influence over the region’s commerce and were quick to seize the opportunities of a new Sarawakian market.
And as these groups began settling down in Sarawak, they brought their own cultures, beliefs and ideals with them. The 1884 Mandor Expedition and the final conquest of the Lanfang Republic in Dutch Borneo also added more Peranakan families to reside in the kingdom, fleeing along commercial routes that had developed between Bornean merchants over the previous decades. As they established themselves in their new home, their business empires took root as well and connected themselves with the wider Peranakan communities across the seas in Malaya, Singapore, Sumatra and Java. Joint commercial enterprises were not out of the ordinary, as were intermarriages between families to keep their wealth and their companies among themselves.
Besides dealing with business, the Peranakans were also great patrons of various social and cultural works. In fact, nearly every major cultural product that originated within Sarawak during the late 19th and early 20th centuries were either produced, funded or invested by the community in some way or another. Many Jawi families endorsed the fledgling local theatre industry and many early Malay Opera companies were funded or saved from bankruptcy by their mixed-Indian or mixed-Persian patrons. The Baba-Nyonya themselves were lovers of theatre and invested substantially in traditional Teochew and Hakka operas, as well as writing the first modern Sarawakian novel and the first local secular schools. Later on, both the Chinese and Jawi Peranakans would be responsible for launching both the earliest Malay and Chinese newspapers in the Brooke kingdom.
But the thing that most united them all, no matter in race, ethnicity or faith, was political discussion. The upswing in global trade during the latter 19th country also brought new political ideas into the East Indies, and the Peranakan families were the earliest to absorb these new strains of thought…
Ibrahim Munsyi, Sarawak: A History of Culture (Kenyalang Press: 2005)
…In 1875, a Persian theatre company hosted a performance in the British Malayan port of Penang to great acclaim from both the ruling officers and the local people. Another performance followed, then another, and then another. Soon, word of the genre’s popularity spread across the East Indies and beyond, bringing numerous theatre companies and troupes into the region. At the same time, local troupes and performing companies also began popping up, it’s leaders inspired by the successes and style of the new medium of entertainment. In December 1879, the first play of its kind was hosted at Kuching by an Indian-Johorean travelling company, and thus the Bangsawan theatre arrived at Sarawak.
Today, the Bangsawan theatre – and its subsequent offshoots – evoke a strong notion among the nations of Southeast Asia whom look at it as their cultural inheritance, regardless of its foreign roots. In Sarawak, the genre has been credited for synthesizing the numerous peoples and cultures of the land together while unifying the kingdom on a local level through entertainment and mass-media. While the statement is not wholly untrue, it is important to highlight just how far the Bangsawan theatre – and Sarawakian theatre in general – has evolved across the decades, and how much influence local culture has brought upon the genre as a whole.
The introduction of theatre to Sarawak and the greater East Indies was nothing short of a revolution during the late 19th century. A more literate population, coupled with exposure to the outside world and a rising urban class created new demands for ideas, products, and forms of play. Prior to this, most traditional forms of dance and music were either reserved for religious ceremonies or important events and were thus out of the normal spectrum of “public entertainment”. Upon arrival, the introduction of theatre created a new and open space for locals to interact, work and have fun, making it revolutionary from their point of view. Theatre also brought disparate and different forms of local culture together such as music, literature, dance, and even martial arts, creating a new medium for all these parts to interact together.
And chief among all the theatre styles was the Bangsawan theatre, with its signature style of royal court drama, grand adventures, and retelling of various epics. In Sarawak, the arrival of the Bangsawan theatre somewhat mirrored that of the surrounding region: During the early to mid-1880s, theatre productions were conducted either in or around the capital city and were hosted almost exclusively by travelling companies or outside troupes. Performances were usually held outside near grassy fields or open places to maximise viewership and patrons (which added an edge of real-life drama during the monsoon season). Performances are rarely scripted and were often based on established Malay epics such as the
Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa or the legendary exploits of Hang Tuah. An
Orkes Melayu (Malay Orchestra), consisting of traditional drums with bronze and brass instruments, provide the music.
However, like elsewhere, the Sarawak Bangsawan theatre would began to take on the local culture of its new home, and all the more so once the local companies began establishing themselves. Slowly, the stories performed would change from the Malayan-based epics to ones about Borneo, the orchestra would accumulate more and more local and foreign instruments, and the watching crowd would include more than just Malay farmers and townsfolk…
A highly decorated copy of the Sarawak Annals, dated circa 1899.
…Another important cultural milestone during the 1880’s was the creation of the
Sejarah Sarawak, or the Sarawak Annals. The Astana palace court was one of the very few places in which women could get educated beyond the norm for the decade, and it was done mainly through the guidance of Muhammad Sawal, an immigrated religious teacher from the Sumatran city of Palembang. Hired by Margaret Brooke to instruct herself, her children and her bevy of friends further knowledge of the Malay language, his teaching skills led to many of Margaret’s friends to send
their own children to the Astana to be educated, leading to one of them – the young Siti Shahada – gaining knowledge of writing and composing stories.
After trawling through the family’s history and after corresponding with other figures of the Astana court (interspersed by an estimated five months of writing and re-writing) Siti Shahada created what was Sarawak’s own literary epic to be presented towards the Ranee on her birthday in 1885: the
Sejarah Sarawak. Written in Jawi and in a style similar to the epics of Brunei, the Sarawak Annals tells of the decline and fall of the Bruneian Empire followed by the ascent of James Brooke and the Kingdom off Sarawak, culminating in the state triumphing over the rebellions of Rentap and Sharif Masahor.
To say that Ranee Margaret was delighted was an understatement, though it should be noted that the
Sejarah Sarawak still contained a few irregularities in respect towards history such as the aggrandising of Rentap’s Rebellion and the absence of the Royal Navy’s involvement with the state. Nevertheless, it was considered by the Astana court as an achievement in its own right, especially considering the gender of its writer and the topic in question. Copies of Shahada’s work were quickly produced and it quickly became known amongst the literary community as an “abridged history of Sarawak”, though not everyone was happy at how the book portrayed the kingdom and it’s history…
Apart from historical palace literature, the decade also saw the beginning of Dayak literary transcription as numerous anthropologists began streaming into the nation, attracted by the lure of analysing exotic cultures and the increased attention of Sarawak on the academic and public map. The latter decades of the 19th century was the height of exploration and scientific racism with many theories being posited to explain the advancement of certain cultures and the supposed “primitiveness” of other peoples. The Kingdom of Sarawak, with its White Rajahs, unique government, and past history of headhunting, was an obvious destination.
Photograph of an anthropologist studying a highland Kenyah tribe, circa 1888.
However, one of the side effects of this anthropological attention was the increased study and documentation of Dayak culture and traditions. One way this was shown was the transcribing of oral Bidayuh, Iban, Melanau and other ethnic epics and poetry onto ink and paper. Many of Sarawak’s Dayak tribes possess an astounding oral culture in which, at this moment of writing, adds up to form around 35 major genres and over 212 sub-genres, each as different as the next. Some of the transcribed works from this period range from true epics – such as the Iban legend of Keling the Warrior-God and his wife Kumang – to more community-driven works such as the encapsulatory-longhouse poetry of the Bidayuhs.
Despite this, the transcription of indigenous oral literature was a process that would take decades to accomplish, and one that would consume multiple careers. Even to this day, transcription of oral culture remains an ongoing endeavour amongst the highland tribes living along the national border. Nevertheless, the first steps to understanding Dayak culture have been taken, and it was only a matter of time before the coastal theatre companies began looking for new inspirations…
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Notes:
1) The Sarawak Gazette really did publish bankruptcy notices IOTL, along with weather reports, tides, and even monthly taxation accounts from the state’s various Divisions.
2) The
Mandor Rebellion did happen as per OTL, finally ending the Lanfang Republic. However, the ITTL merchants of that region had built trade connections with their counterparts in Sarawak over a decade ago, leading to a part of the populace emigrating to the kingdom when the republic fell (though most would still head for Singapore).
3) If there is only thing most alt-history historians overlook, it is the role of theatre in colonial Southeast Asia. Prior to WWII, the region had a thriving theatre and opera industry that included some early entertainers, as well as laying the foundation for the iconic musicals and entertainers of the 1960’s-70’s.
4) IOTL, Margaret Brooke noted that one of her court ladies actually wrote an eulogy for the late Rajah James Brooke, but it was mentioned in passing and was never elaborated upon. ITTL, the addition of a learned teacher within the Astana might drive a learned person to write something greater, thus creating the
Sejarah Serawak.
5) The Quranic-looking tome is actually of picture of a centuries-old
Malay-Minangkabau manuscript.
