Wartime Borneo (4/4): The Crush, The Journey, & The Partition
Catherine Margare Tonek, Clayton Brooke: The Rajah of Transition, (Bimasakti Press: 2000)
The first sign of crisis came to Sarawak with a bamboo tube.
To this day, the mountainous interior of Borneo and north-central Sarawak are widely known for their naturally-occurring salt springs, which are considered near-magical for the mountainfolk. For centuries, the Kayan, Kelabit, Lun Bawang, and other mountain tribes have extracted, evaporated, and bartered salt from these places for themselves, and the gifting of a bamboo tube filled with evaporated spring salt was (and still is) considered a great present to any chieftain or young bridegroom, ready to begin their adult lives. [1]
So when a small group of Lun Bawang tribesman – with interpreters in hand – canoed down the Limbang River to explain their fears to the Bruneian court in October 1906, asking for royal protection, they also carried around 20 tubes full of valuable mountain salt as tribute. Creating such gifts were feats of labour; to create even one tubefull required days of boiling salty springwater to enable salt crystallization, so such a quantity was incalculable in worth to the Lun Bawang emissaries. Their pleas piqued interest, but they were mostly met with a palace that was veering towards Islamic purity, and Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin IV requested the interior tribe to accept an adventurous Imam to return with them. Disgusted by the implications, the Lun Bawang group canoed out of Bandar Brunei in fury, their 20 bamboo salt-tubes thrown to the sea.
In the following months, the emissaries’ fears came true. The uprooted Murut and Kadazan-Dusun refugees were themselves uprooting other tribes in their wake, which then uprooted even more tribes and villages in their own search for new pastures. A domino effect had occurred, bringing war and displacement from Dutch Pensiangan to the Bornean central highlands. Roving groups scoured the mountains for new valleys to settle, bringing diseases, death, and destruction to all who wouldn’t accept them. Streams ran red with the bodies of men, and longhouses were full with the corpses of their families. The chaos of the era would be later known by many names; Ngedaluh, Kate’, Ngajau, Zumazad, but one term would rise to encapsulate the war of the rainforest: The Ancur – The Crush.
By 1907, the flames reached the then-inaccessible border between Brunei, Dutch Borneo, and the Kingdom of Sarawak. The Crush reached its bloodiest pitch. In avoiding the rule of neo-conservative Brunei, the tribes whom had migrated inwards now faced a fight for their lives. Newly-established longhouses quickly found themselves fighting for their existence between existing villages and armed refugee groups, displacing many into the hinterlands of Sarawak. North of Brunei was Murut territory, highly populated and armed to the teeth. Southwards lie the headwaters of the mighty Baram, which flow downstream to oil-rich Miri.
And because of thus, in March 1907, 5 different villages (3 Lun Bawang and 2 Kelabit) decided to form a pact of mutual defence. A group would be assembled, with each village supplying 3 men, who are tasked to canoe downriver and search for the “Chief of the Coasts”, to request aid and protection. The formation of Sarawak had reached even some parts of the deep interior, but the news of the modern era were distorted through retellings and distance, leaving the mountainfolk with garbled images of what lies at the great saltwaters. Some imagined the Chief as a pale monster, while others heard of a tough yet benevolent ruler. In any case, a simple sign language was taught amongst the men to ensure some communication with whomever they meet, for they were unsure if the mountain tongues were even spoken downriver. That the mountainfolk were still determined in their expedition showed how desperate they were for help.
And to ensure of their seriousness, the five villages pooled their labour for weeks on end to create their greatest gift: 30 bamboo tubes, corded and protected with layers of leaves, full of mountain salt.
a) Photograph of a tributary river to the Baram watercourse, with a group of Kenyah tribesmen boating downstream. It would be rivers like these that would bring the emissaries (and Ancur refugees) into Sarawakian attention.
b) Old photograph of a bamboo salt-tube wrapped in the traditional Kelabit style, stored in the Sarawak National Archives, circa 1950. Such tubes would have formed the gift of the mountainfolk to Brunei and Sarawak.
b) Old photograph of a bamboo salt-tube wrapped in the traditional Kelabit style, stored in the Sarawak National Archives, circa 1950. Such tubes would have formed the gift of the mountainfolk to Brunei and Sarawak.
And so, on March 23rd, the Peja’ Alud – the Boat Brothers – set off [2]. Instead of trekking directly north to Brunei – the whispers of the ‘Mad Sultan’ had reached even their ears – they would head west until reaching the Magoh River, which will flow into the great Baram, and to the sea. For over a week they trekked and canoed to where the two rivers met, through scorching sun and biting rains, and it is a testament to their jungle skills that not a single Boat Brother died or fell ill in their new environment. When they were finally discovered by a Sarawak riverboat patrol around 70 kilometres from the river mouth, their gifts of 30 bamboo salt-tubes were still sealed dry.
Upon their arrival to Kuala Baram, the Peja’ Alud were a sensation. Local Malays and Dayaks whispered incessantly on their origins, while the European class of Miri held excursions to simply see the rarely seen inhabitants of the deep mountains. The tribes’ assessment of the language barrier was proven correct; not a single person understood the Sarawak Creole of the coasts, nor they of the Lun Bawang and Kelabit tongues – but their sign languages were enough to convey what their concerns. Three days later, Rajah Clayton Brooke arrived at Miri.
To explain what happened next would only bloat this book beyond publishing, but it is enough to say that Clayton, while initially baffled by the tribute of 30 salt-tubes, quickly understood their significance and accepted them. The sign language was also enough to infer a horrible catastrophe deep upriver, prompting a flurry of interpreters and messages to all Resident-Councillors and chieftains for any interior news. Sure enough, they quickly returned and confirmed the Boat Brothers’ pleas: while most of Sarawak laid in relative peace, north-central Borneo was aflame.
And so launched the first post-war war expedition of the Kingdom of Sarawak. A retinue of nearly 10,000 men and Sarawak Rangers, armed with rifles and headed by the Rajah himself, trekked up the great Baram to make war and peace in the interior mountains. The kingdom’s Resident-Councillors would themselves be active in later months as the bloodshed, the Crush, spilled northwards into Sarawakian Sabah, prompting new alliances between the Malay, Murut, and Kadazan-Dusun residents as they all combated and rehoused their co-ethnic refugees.
These wars would take the Rajah and his people into unknown lands. Despite being a part of Sarawak, the deep mountains of north-central Borneo were still unexplored as of 1900, and the sheer isolation has left the places and inhabitants therein as much as myth as they were real. Stories abounded of rivers that flowed salt water, of caves that can swallow cities, of majestic valleys that grew endless rice, and mountain spires that housed protector gods. And indeed, exploration of these places would follow in the decades after first contact.
The journey would also lead them to cross uncharted Dutch and Bruneian borders, but no one knew that yet.
Amongst all punitive expeditions of Sarawak, this one – the 1907 Bario Expedition – is often cited as the last great interior journeys of the Brooke family. This is untrue; such war voyages would continue well into the 20th century, but this was the first expedition conducted after the conclusion of the Great War’s Sabah theatre. The bloodshed and horror of the far north had coloured everyone’s perception of honourable conflict, and there were many voices from both local tribesmen and downstream administrators to “spare the conflicters, wherever possible.”
And above all, it was the first war voyage conducted by Clayton Brooke as the sovereign. He had lead war parties in his youth, but no one was sure if the man was mentally ready for a large-scale undertaking, given his peculiar shell shock (now posited as mild PTSD) [3a]. But what few realized that his condition has been somewhat lessened by the months of overseeing the reconstruction of Sabah [3b]. While debate is still ongoing on whether Rajah Clayton’s overseeing of the dead and the reconciliation ceremonies of the local Sabahans was therapeutic, few were left un-shocked when they saw their leader taking the helm of a local gunboat, the Star of Borneo, leading a force of nearly 250 canoes and war Prahus.
But war-weariness was still in many minds, and perhaps it was that which coloured the Bario Expedition to be seen as a melancholic ‘last hurrah’. The troupe of Westerners following behind them certainly added to the change – local British, Dutch, and Austrian-German men; Photographers, botanists, and anthropologists – all wanting a peek from European-swilled Miri into what lies within the deep rainforests. The fellow explorers shall make mountains of observed information, yet they also ended the mystique and old valour of Sarawakian tribal war, once half-hidden from the world.
Now, the old ways of Sarawak are exposed to the world, naked.
Though there were still regions of Borneo where westerners hadn’t yet set foot, from then on, there shall be few hidden corners left of Sarawak.
As such, the expedition itself was an adventure unto itself. Following river valleys and with the help of advance scouts, the mighty force travelled deep into the rainforests where trees grew taller than the tallest oil derricks, and where the Malay language no longer holds onto local minds. Many of the mountainfolk were astonished to see such an army, and many villages surrendered outright or parlayed peace upon sight, but just as many – especially those from Dutch Pensiangan – decided to stand their ground. All did not last long before surrendering.
Smirking at the camera, the chieftain Jangan of the Sebop tribe (a branch of the Kenyah subgroup) inspects the repairs on his partially-destroyed longhouse. In his words, Jangan and his men defended their homes thrice from marauding newcomers before Clayton Brooke’s arrival. Taken circa 1907.
But the biggest change came from contact itself. Many of the Kayan, Kenyah, Kelabit, and Lun Bawang had heard of the ‘Chief of the Coasts’, and many were – although somewhat confused – similarly impressed at this foreign, pale-skinned and bright-eyed man and his nonchalance of living rough. As the chieftain of one highland Kenyah village, Oyong Turing, recalled to an accompanying anthropologist, “Your chief can walk along with his men for hours! He eats from the same cooking pot, and help those and be helped in cleaning legs infected with leeches. When the rains fall and the nights rise, he aids in making shelter and sleeps with a blanket on a mat on the ground. Where you found such a man, I do not know, but I can see why everyone looks to him as leader.” [4]
Perhaps the greatest show of this was when Clayton Brooke and his force arrived in the interior valleys. The plundered-yet-golden rice vales of Bario, Ba’Kelalan, Long Tanid, and Long Bawan (though the last valley was in Dutch Borneo at the time) would have been an astounding sight to the men whom have trekked and canoed for weeks across jungles and mountains. [5] In these high valleys, Clayton quickly held some of the greatest diplomatic overtures to the mountainfolk, redistributing his supplies to help the starving and injured, as well as repulsing invaders from Pensiangan whom were intent on ransacking the valleys for food.
This contact would have profound consequences for the mountainfolk in the future, but for now, it was in these valleys that the Ancur, the Crush, was halted. Though violence would wreak across north-central Borneo for some time afterwards, the bloodshed would mostly be on Dutch-held lands. The Sarawakian interior was now at peace.
…Decades later, on death’s door, Clayton would breathe out, “I left my heart there, in the rice-valleys. I want to go back.”
But as the Rajah and his administrators waged war and forged peace in the Bornean interior (while all the foreign hangers-on gasped at what they saw), as local Sarawakians tried to stand together against the new flood of peoples entering their lands, and as Lily Brooke and the Astana court tried to see eye to eye in maintaining their hard-won peace from the Great War, the old sultanate of Brunei finally ruptured…
Celluloid still of the Bario Valley from the Russian documentary ‘The Heart of Borneo’, filmed in 1977.
********************
Charlie MacDonald, Strange States, Weird Wars, and Bizzare Borders, (weirdworld.postr.com, 2015)
…According to one account, when the first Bruneian charter boats arrived at Aceh, one customs official remarked, “Wouldn’t the British and the Brooke family see all this as dangerous?” A Bruneian sailor answered thus, “They shall, but we shall not stand still to be laid down and rot.”
Okay, that is a bit badass and courageous. But it also highlights the desperation and “screw it” attitude that exemplified those who still believed in the Bruneian Empire.
Remember ol’ Salahodin’s horrible plan for Dayak resettlement? [6] Well, what if I told you that that was actually part of an even greater, more incredible plan? While the Bruneian court was truly thinking about how to stop semi-nomadic tribes from being semi-nomadic, that’s all just a sideshow. The main thing, the most pressing thing for the 500-year old Brunei Sultanate, above all things that lie before and around them, was the preservation of itself.
Thing is, that very sentiment may have been manipulated by an imam who may be good in critiques, but horrible at solutions.
Don’t believe me? Well here’s the declassified 10-step plan that ol’ Salahodin and Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin IV had for a reborn Bruneian Empire, paraphrased from the original documents in the Brunei State Museum:
- Procure rifles and artillery from Aceh. Those extra taxes will help to ‘grease the wheels.’
- Gain re-independence through negotiation from Sarawak and the British. In short, lie that you will neveeeer retaliate or attack either.
- Partially modernize. This may be tricky, so gain Acehnese, Johorean, and Ottoman investment.
- Islamize the interior Dayaks. Make them loyal to Brunei and only Brunei.
- Foster a Brunei=Aceh-Johor-Ottoman alliance.
- Wait till the right moment.
- When above comes, sneakily grab & control some border territories. To not alert Sarawak, take the deep interior bits. Extra points if can nab strategic areas.
- Exploit a crisis in Sarawak to finally go to WAR!! Use boats for rapid movement across river basins. Expand as much as can be defensively possible.
- Defend long enough for that sweet Aceh-Johor-Ottoman intervention.
- Party!! The Bruneian Empire has expanded for the first time since 1846!!!!!
Um… I have so many questions.
Like, what’s the timescale for these things? How will Brunei keep this all a secret? What will happen if the locals get testy from high taxes? Wouldn’t the Dayaks just… move? What sort of trouble would Sarawak be in to qualify as a crisis? And above all, how long would Brunei have to wait for the “right moment”?
It’s ambitious, I’ll give it that. But I can see why it all crashed and burned.
“You want us, the Penans, the rainforest people who are famous for being fully nomadic, to settle down?
How 'bout no?”
Surprisingly though, the first point went relatively smoothly. Given the chaos of the oceans, no Great Power had the eye or foresight to check on a few fishing vessels criss-crossing the seas between Aceh and Brunei. The weapons too were quickly kept hidden due to said vessels docking at out-of-the-way villages and kept in secret stashes. Brunei also got lucky in timing; Sarawak just lost their most absolutist Rajah in their history, and Charles Brooke could have sniffed out this conspiracy easily just by planting a few informants and spies in Brunei. Or by checking out the financial records.
But Charles Brooke is dead. So is his heir. The new Rajah Clayton was too busy dealing with Sabah and PTSD to care for Brunei (for now…) and the Dowager Ranee Margaret was too busy in Kuching with her search for marriage matches for her surviving children, which also divided Dayang Lily Brooke’s time and attentiveness. The informal spying ring orchestrated at the Sabahan front was disbanded, making the British the only force that really watched Bandar Brunei. But with Indochina being… Indochina, even they weren’t keeping full tabs on the sultanate. Besides, how can such a teeny-tiny state even be a threat?
And it might have stayed that way, if it weren’t for the aforementioned Dayaks. Turns out, they have legs! That can move! And arms! That can hold weapons!
So when they found themselves the subject of preachers coming up the sultanate’s rivers asking to convert to Islam, that was it. Some trekked to Sarawak, but a fair number just went inwards and upwards into central Borneo. But central Borneo was under its mini-version of the Mfecane = the Crushing, so the new Dayak arrivals quickly found themselves battling for their lives against old locals and displaced refugees. In fact, the conflict peaked especially at the headwaters of Brunei’s Limbang River, where many tribes and villages fought for control of the especially fertile valleys there.
Sensing an opportunity, the Bruneian court quickly tried to speed up their 10-step plan by asking the British “can you just, with all politeness here… leave?”. Then the sultan just threw away their 10-step plan altogether by ordering a few expeditions inland to see just what the ruckus was all about, and to see if there were no objections to some “defensive exploration” as he put it. The explorers quickly came back with reports of massive tribal fighting in the interior with the surrounding Sarawakian borderlands in disarray, which was good news for Salahodin. Over massive court opposition, he quickly espoused a punitive expedition to reassert Bruneian control in the interior and to entice the Sarawakian borderlands back into the fold.
Unfortunately, Brunei’s luck ran out by then.
“Did you forget us, dear Brunei?”
Besides the incredibly obvious, remember those ex-Bruneian Dayaks we’ve heard about? They finally met up with Clayton Brooke and his forces deep in north-central Borneo, and to say that everyone in the interior was disturbed at their tales was an understatement. Meanwhile, the British Consul at Bandar Brunei became suspicious at all the “independence, please…” proddings by the royal court and decided to make his own digging; where exactly were the sultanate’s finances going? – with all the increased taxes, why was the state still dependant on British and Sarawakian aid? Further westward, whispers of rifle caches and stored maxim guns began filtering past the border into Miri, and local Bruneians are beginning to grumble about their high taxes going nowhere.
By August 1907, the whole plan fell apart. After some prodding from the Astana and some clerical data-mining by Brunei’s British Consulate, the whole scheme was uncovered. You can imagine the shock and anger at all this, but this was nothing compared to the surprise on August 15 when the Bruneian towns of Limbang and Bangar publically rebelled against the capital. And when I say ‘rebel’, I mean that the locals there literally and publically punched and stomped on their tax collectors, because they have been paying high taxes for over a year with little to show for it. [7]
By then, Rajah Clayton was already heading back to the sea, but he and his men intended to go north via the Trusan River, as the journey there was quicker. But the route took on a new purpose for the Rajah after those ex-Brunei Dayak meetings and Clayton now wanted to check just what in the world was going on in Brunei. So you can imagine their surprise when they found the neighbouring Bruneian villages in chaos and the headmen there asking if they could please be a part of the Sarawakian kingdom? As one villager put it, recorded in Clayton’s journal, “You have lesser taxes.”
Fast forward by 6 days, and a combined Anglo-Sarawakian army and navy was headed for the capital. For the nobles, that. was. It. For over a year, they have housed, fed, and accommodated an Imam who has been nothing but a nuisance to some and a danger to others. For over a year, they have listened to ol’ Salahodin espouse for higher taxes, call for a re-armament, be denigrating to the sultanate’s oldest tribal allies, and now arguing for all-out war. Now, his actions may lose them literally everything. The only reason the fool wasn’t gone yet was because he was protected by the order of Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin IV. The man even slept in the sultan’s room.
By day 7, the sultan was gone.
When Clayton Brooke, his army, the British, and the Sarawakian forces assembled from Kuching arrived at Bandar Brunei, the throne was sat on by the man’s younger brother, Muhammad Jamalul Alam III, surrounded by a regency council. To their surprise, the old sultan was still alive! But was rather… kept under house arrest for the moment. Salahodin pretty much fled. So much for being valorous himself.
The subsequent investigations by both Sarawak and the British uncovered the full scope of the plot, and the findings directly influenced the final Brunei Agreement of September 4th 1907. The districts of Belait (the oil region), Limbang (the state’s money-spinner), and Temburong (‘cause the locals had enough of Brunei) were all ceded to the Kingdom of Sarawak, as was most of the Tutong District (though not Tutong town itself. The place remained loyal). The idea was to sap Brunei completely from making any sort of wealth, and thus nip any funding of an insurrectionist movement. The state shall thereafter become a British Protectorate, a tiny Malay state that is nothing more than an appanage of British Malaya.
This would be the last partition Brunei shall ever face. But is also the one that stings the most in local culture; Had Salahodin not arrived, Brunei might have retained all her existing lands. The state may be colonized but at least it wouldn’t be really dirt poor or dependant on her neighbours as much. Plus, the old Brunei might have made something from all that oil in Seria, which was now added to the Oil Policy enclave of Miri along with most of the coast. For the Kingdom of Sarawak, they now have not only two towns rich in petroleum, but a money-spinning river basin that can be a boon during peacetime.
And so the dance of the two nations continue, only now with one side pretty much eclipsing the other in power. But hey, at least now Brunei is sorta-immunized from the religious radicalism that shall grip other parts of the world. They have experienced what it’s like.
.....
One last thing. Well, two last things. Salahodin. The man escaped Bandar Brunei dressed as a peasant on a fishing boat, but if you think this is the end of him, oh no, he’s far from done. He hightailed back to Philippine Paragua, then to Sulu, and then disappeared into the thousand-islands of the Dutch East Indies. The experience in Brunei taught the man a few new things, and it is from that that he shall pen his most famous books and anti-colonial screeds.
This decade shall also see a change in how people would call him. Once, he was named Salahodin Abulkayr. But in Brunei, worshippers – and especially the Sultan – would call him by another name: Imam Salah. This name would be synonymous with him for the rest of his life.
I must note though that in Arabic, Salah usually means Piousness, or Righteousness. In the Malay language, however, Salah has an altogether different meaning, and the very opposite of righteous at that: Wrong. Or False.
Guess which nation means the second them when they refer to Salahodin Abulkayr.
____________________
Notes:
And now ya’ll can see why I had to split this update in two. What was originally planned to be a four-part conclusion to the current Sarawak arc became more and more unwieldy as I wrote on and on, especially in regards to the final portions regarding the Bario Expedition and the Bruniean partition. On another point, I also discovered a new treasure trove of early 1900’s photography of the Sarawakian interior and the peoples living therein, and all I want now is to cram as many as I could find on here. But as doing so would further increase the update’s length, that was why I created yesterday’s post to put this instalment in a new page.
Now, to those who are wondering “Why couldn’t just Clayton Brooke follow the Limbang River right to the highland valleys?” It’s because standing smack at the Limbang’s headwaters is Mount Murud, the tallest mountain in Sarawak today (discounting ITTL’s Kinabalu). The peak and the nearby Tama Abu Mountains will form a major barrier to any interior expedition for the early 1900’s, so the only way to avoid them is by going around the headwaters. Clayton Brooke and his forces did that, battled and made peace with more tribes on the new route, and stumbled into the highland valleys.
1. Bamboo salt-tubes packed with highland salt are still sold in Sarawak today. In fact, the very photograph of the salt-tube I used is taken from my own pantry!
Salt-making has a long history in the Bornean highlands, and many believe them to have special health and medicinal properties. In truth, the process of making one are very laboursome, even today; After boiling all the springwater, the crystallized salt is packed into a bamboo tube and then burned in a fire or charcoal for hours, in order to purify the crystals from any sediment or organic material. The resulting product is a hard salt cake that is than put into another bamboo tube before being wrapped with leaves. Today, the boiling process alone takes around 23 hours, so making these salt-tubes back then was a truly significant thing, to say less of actually getting one!
Today, some of the salt springs have this process modernized, though there are a few places that still use the old methods of extraction and packaging, like this spring at Pa’ Umor (video).
2. I based the words on BorneoDictionary. Please forgive my Kelabit, if I did an error.
Side note: Alud means "boat", while Peja’ means roughly, “to establish an in-law relationship or a brotherly relationship with a stranger”.
3a. and 3b. Refer to post #1573 on Clayton Brooke’s PTSD.
4. This may sound Gary Stu’ish, but the Brookes really did live rough when the times needed so. While sleeping in gunboats and longhouses was the norm for them in lowland tribal wars, those in the interior hills required them actually foraging for food and sleeping in the rainforest, often under a makeshift shelter of some sort. Margaret Brooke wrote in her journals of her boys sleeping beside Dayaks during expeditions, and she herself once slept in a makeshift ‘cabin’ made up of upright sticks and leaf-walls during an inland sojourn. Needless to say, this also helped them gain acceptance by the locals, but it also shows that the First Family of Sarawak was really serious about ‘walking the walk’.
5. IOTL, the first ever expedition to reach one of these valleys (Bario) was conducted in 1911, headed by the Resident of the Baram basin. Here, the discovery happens nearly half-a-decade early. Keen-eyed Sarawakian readers may also note the absence of a plague that decimated the Lun Bawang during this time too, making their numbers high and healthy enough to partially repulse the flood of refugees ITTL.
6. I don’t think I need to point out which update this was.
7. Recent-ish readers may note that I once said that Bruneian taxes during this period were so high, villagers murdered their tax collectors right out in the open. Here… they are a little bit more merciful.
Salt-making has a long history in the Bornean highlands, and many believe them to have special health and medicinal properties. In truth, the process of making one are very laboursome, even today; After boiling all the springwater, the crystallized salt is packed into a bamboo tube and then burned in a fire or charcoal for hours, in order to purify the crystals from any sediment or organic material. The resulting product is a hard salt cake that is than put into another bamboo tube before being wrapped with leaves. Today, the boiling process alone takes around 23 hours, so making these salt-tubes back then was a truly significant thing, to say less of actually getting one!
Today, some of the salt springs have this process modernized, though there are a few places that still use the old methods of extraction and packaging, like this spring at Pa’ Umor (video).
2. I based the words on BorneoDictionary. Please forgive my Kelabit, if I did an error.
Side note: Alud means "boat", while Peja’ means roughly, “to establish an in-law relationship or a brotherly relationship with a stranger”.3a. and 3b. Refer to post #1573 on Clayton Brooke’s PTSD.
4. This may sound Gary Stu’ish, but the Brookes really did live rough when the times needed so. While sleeping in gunboats and longhouses was the norm for them in lowland tribal wars, those in the interior hills required them actually foraging for food and sleeping in the rainforest, often under a makeshift shelter of some sort. Margaret Brooke wrote in her journals of her boys sleeping beside Dayaks during expeditions, and she herself once slept in a makeshift ‘cabin’ made up of upright sticks and leaf-walls during an inland sojourn. Needless to say, this also helped them gain acceptance by the locals, but it also shows that the First Family of Sarawak was really serious about ‘walking the walk’.
5. IOTL, the first ever expedition to reach one of these valleys (Bario) was conducted in 1911, headed by the Resident of the Baram basin. Here, the discovery happens nearly half-a-decade early. Keen-eyed Sarawakian readers may also note the absence of a plague that decimated the Lun Bawang during this time too, making their numbers high and healthy enough to partially repulse the flood of refugees ITTL.
6. I don’t think I need to point out which update this was.
7. Recent-ish readers may note that I once said that Bruneian taxes during this period were so high, villagers murdered their tax collectors right out in the open. Here… they are a little bit more merciful.
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