Who invented the Dayaks? : historical case studies in art, material culture and ethnic identity from Borneo

Abstract

Ethnie identification is known to be a significant force in directing or justifying human behaviour. However, the relationship between the ethnic identity of groups of people and the material culture assemblages they produce has been acknowledged in only diffuse terms in prehistory. In order to focus on the factors which cause changes in ethnic identification and shifts in its signification through material culture, I have chosen to study an area and time period where pressures caused by aggressive migrating groups have intensified the significance of ethnicity and accelerated changes in affiliation. A historical analogy of processes in action has more significance to prehistory than an ethnographic analogy in a static time frame. The island of Borneo and its indigenous population, the Dayaks, only received any significant degree of colonial attention by both the British and the Dutch from around 1840 onward. At this time there were two major migratory movements in train which continued through the period of colonial control and which still continued after the incorporation of Borneo into the modern nations of Indonesia and Malaysia. The people now known as Iban expanded from the southernmost part of Sarawak across the full length of this country and became its most populous indigenous group. At the same time, a diversity of peoples including the Kayan and Kenyah groups were moving downriver from the interior plateaus into the major river systems of Sarawak, West Kalimantan and East Kalimantan. The nature of ethnic relations within and at the borders of these migratory movements tended to be somewhat different. The Iban adopted a single name and presented a unified cultural image. The central Borneo region developed a mosaic character with the retention of many small scale ethnic identifications and a greater diversity of custom and presentation. As conditions changed, so did the meaning of certain terms of ethnic identification. At the most basic level, the term Dayak is only just becoming a term which has the same meaning for all its users. Within this milieu, ethnic identity can be seen not to be a signifier of origin or descent, although group origin folk histories are used to encapsulate and validate identity. Ethnic identity is a matter of choice and the ethnic identities of particular groups of people and their descendants can change over time. The choice is, however, a highly significant one as it involves use of language, community ritual and belief, social organization, material culture and group values. Ethnic identity is not simply a process of association with a named enclosed entity, although this is what it has become in modern bureaucratic processes of government. Rather, it represents a series of relationships, defining a degree of inclusion within or exclusion from other groups. The structure or membership of a group may be difficult to define. The nature of the various boundaries created and maintained may be a more useful indicator of the nature of relationships. The use of material culture to signify ethnic identity does not require an enclosed or unchanging tradition. Material culture assemblages of a defined group may change over time as they diversify, innovate or incorporate material from outside. Some degree of boundedness may limit the vocabulary and syntax of an art tradition, but the tradition may be maintained in a deliberate act of boundary maintenance when alternative forms are well known to the producers. As with ethnic identity itself, the nature of the boundaries may reveal more about relationships than the nature of broad ranging cultural assemblages. The period under scrutiny for this study has produced great social change. Certain types of objects have changed their function as a result of changes to the nature of conflict, to religion and to political organization. The changing patterns of use of these objects indicate that an important factor in the analysis of art and material culture in ethnic identification is the examination of the social function of objects. Mere typologies do not allow for an understanding of the use of objects or art styles in boundary maintenance. The concept of ethnic identity in understanding the behaviour of human groups in prehistory is an important one, as it involves the recognition of human choice. When dealing with the unwritten evidence of human behaviour over large spans of time and territory, deterministic explanations, technological evolutionism or the evocation of very vague concepts such as cultural diffusion are tempting. The recognition of processes of ethnic affiliation is the recognition of large scale human decision making processes in action.