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Thursday, 10 January 2013
Sunday, 25 November 2012
Dayak:Adat Iban
The Origin of Iban Adat.
“Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.” —Albert Einstein
Mythical Past and Social Setting:
Myth, by its nature, tells “how one state of affairs became another: how an unpeopled world became populated; how chaos became cosmos…” Victor Turner.
Professor Clifford Sather wrote in his introduction on Iban Adat and Augury, 1980:
The Iban or Sea Dayak of Sarawak are the single most populous indigenous group in Malaysia aside from the Malays. By tradition the Iban are a riverine people, dwelling in longhouse communities located along the main rivers and smaller streams of the interior of Sarawak. A vigorous, mobile people, the Iban have spread during the last two hundred years from the Batang Lupar and Saribas river systems of Sarawak, and from the adjoining Kapuas region of western Kalimantan, through the central Rejang valley, north and eastward, until today they are present in every district and division of Sarawak, in both urban areas and in the rural country side. In the course of their expansion the Iban evolved a highly successful social system that stressed individual resourcefulness, egalitarianism and personal mobility. Greatest honour accrued to those who pushed forward known frontiers by opening new land for settlement, through success in warfare, or by pioneering new economic ventures. Such persons were respected in their lifetime and were remembered after death in ritual invocations and their exploits commemorated in oral genealogies.
At the heart of the traditional social system was, and still remains, the longhouse community. Here the individualism so highly valued by the Iban is tempered by mutual economic and ritual interdependencies buttressed by a complex code of social rules, or adat. To the Iban the term adat covers all of the various customary norms, jural rules, ritual interdictions and injunctions that guide an individual’s conduct, and the sanctions and forms of redress by which these norms and rules are upheld. In the first part of the study that follows the main elements of traditional Iban adat are described as they apply to the individual in his dealings with others, to marriage and family life, economic undertakings, major life crises events, and significant ritual and ceremonial occasions.
Iban augury is essentially a system of divination in which divine guidance is sought in natural events, particularly the behaviour of birds and other natural species. As a rule, augury is of special importance to the Iban in those areas of life in which the outcome of an individual’s action is uncertain or cannot be fully foreseen. In traditional Iban society the practice of augury was closely related to a view of the social world as governed by the rules of adat. It is therefore useful to consider adat and augury together.
The longhouse community is essentially a microcosm of the total society. The prime function of adat is to assure harmonious relations among community members. At the same time, conduct in accordance with adat was traditionally believed to maintain a community in a state of ritual well-being with respect to the gods and spirits. Any serious breach of adat threatens this relationship and is dealt with accordingly, not only by secular means, but, as we shall see presently, often by supernatural sanctions or forms of ritual propitiation as well. Thus the correctness of adat, when properly adhered to, is demonstrated by a continuing state of spiritual well-being expressed outwardly in terms of health and material prosperity.
Augury, as practiced by the Iban is based on a belief in the interpretation of divine revelation in the behavior of birds, reptiles and animals. Its observance complements the certainties of adat. It provides the individual with a more immediate means of ascertaining spiritual favor or condemnation of particular lines of intended action. Within the normative framework of adat, choices have constantly to be made in which success or failure cannot be entirely foreknown (predetermined). In such circumstances, augury is significant to the Iban as a source of direct guidance through which, it is thought, the gods make known to the individual their personal support or disapproval of his conduct within the permissible perimeters defined by adat.
ADAT
The Iban concept of adat, like cognate notions in other Malayo-Indonesian societies (cf. Hooker 1972, Ter Haar 1948), refers very broadly to rules, canons and sanctions held to be binding by the members of a community. For the Iban, these rules apply to virtually all spheres of human life, social, economic, religious and political.
At the beginning of this study it is important to stress that the author in the following chapters applies the concept of adat broadly, to cover the entire normative framework of traditional Iban life, in accordance with ordinary Iban usage. In contrast to the Malays, the Iban do not distinguish between adat and religious rules and practices; much of Iban adat is believed to be of religious origin or is concerned with ritual observances and other facets of religious life. Also adat for the Iban is not restricted to what is commonly known as “customary law” (Ter Haar 1948: 5). Some elements of Iban adat are enforced by constituted legal means, are sanctioned by fines, for example, imposed by longhouse or regional authorities, or by other accepted forms of redress, but others are not, and both are given equal treatment here. In short, the present study treats the rules of adat that govern various areas of Iban social life, including religion, and is not specifically, or even predominantly, a study of adat law, although attention is given to community sanctions and to the judicial procedures by which adat is, and was traditionally, upheld.
An Iban generally means by adat roughly what an English-speaker means by custom in its broadest sense. Thus adat describes essentially the various things people customarily do and the ways in which they customarily do them. For the Iban virtually every area of human activity has its own particular adat consisting of concrete rules and interdictions. Thus there is marriage adat, adat of mourning, adat concerned with the construction of a new longhouse, farming adat, adat for making sacrifice or propitiating the spirits, and adat for dividing game taken in a communal hunt or fish taken by communal netting. Some account is given here of each of these different bodies of adat. Adat also regulates interpersonal relationships and defines the respective rights and responsibilities of individuals standing in different relationships to one another. It also stipulates the rights persons may enjoy in land and other tangible property and the manner in which these rights may be inherited or otherwise transferred from one person or group to another.
Like the English notion of custom, adat also covers personal habits. In this sense the Iban frequently speak of an individual as having either good or bad adat. To have good adat implies not only that a person’s behavior is in accordance with the specific rules of adat accepted in his community, but also that it exemplifies more abstract ideals, such, for example, as generosity or personal courage. Thus the notion of adat is seen by the Iban as embracing more general values, moral norms and standards. Besides innumerable rules governing social and ritual behaviour, adat in addition, therefore provides an essential measure, or gauge, against which the conduct of individuals can be judged. Although the Iban are relatively homogeneous culturally, there are, nonetheless, notable local differences in adat, and in the case of ritual prohibitions (pemali) variations exist even between families. Most Iban recognize that what is right in one community may be judged differently in another. A basic principle evoked when strangers have dealings with one another is that each party should, as far as possible, respect the adat of another person.
From this it follows that the Iban generally view adat as something rather more binding, and less tangential to the existence of orderly social life, than is generally implied by the English notion of custom. In this sense, the Iban concept differs. Large areas of adat have a strongly normative character. Thus rules of adat tend to stipulate, in a normative sense, what an individual should or should not do in varying circumstances.
Adat defines correct behaviour and is seen as essential to the maintenance of moral order and the continued existence of society itself. A violation of adat is described as penyalah, a “wrongful act”. While specific rules of adat vary, all Iban share basically similar notions of what constitute penyalah. The Iban frequently argue that the fact that a particular rule of conduct is adat is reason in itself why it should be followed. In describing Iban judicial process, Heppell (1957: 303) observes that a statement by a respected elder that a particular rule is adat is sufficient to clarify the provisions of the rule, and when this is done and accepted, there is little necessity to seek precedent to establish its correctness. “The fact that the rule is adat precludes any necessity for further enquiry” (1975: 303).
Wrongful acts contrary to adat evoke disapproval and in many instances are punished. The Iban concept of adat also refers to the ways in which people customarily deal with such acts. When the Iban discuss adat they very often use the term to describe, in any given situation, both the rules of behavior that apply and also the correct punishment to be meted out should these rules be transgressed. The term adat applies to both. For many transgressions, punishment takes the form of fines, or reparations of value. The notion of fines (tunggu) is closely associated with adat and written codifications of adat are characteristically described as tusun tunggu, or “fine lists” (cf. Richards 1963).
Traditionally tunggu is reparation payable to the injured party and mutually agreed to by both disputants. This is distinguished from the more recent ukum, an imposed fine or penalty, retained all or in part by the government or presiding authority. After the arrival of the Brookes in 1841, Iban fines were systematized and assigned monetary equivalents. In the first chapter of this study the author describes the major scale of fines used today by Iban judicial authorities in the Second Division of Sarawak. Later, in listing specific rules of adat, he stipulates in each case the appropriate class of fines levied in the event of its violation. Generally these fines are stated as maxima and may be reduced depending on circumstances.
Many wrongful acts have also spiritual implications (ngasoh samengat siga or Liar Samengat) and so require ritual propitiation. Some are thought to disturb relations with the spiritual world and unless repaired by ritual means are believed to provoke supernatural retaliation. For serious offences, such as incest, supernatural danger may extend to the whole community to which the transgressor belongs. In such cases, ritual redress is aimed at preserving the group’s collective well being.
In addition, violations of adat that cause personal injury, or result in damage or loss of possessions, are perceived by the Iban as an attack upon the victim’s soul, or spiritual personality. Such acts therefore require ritual redress aimed at reviving the victim’s soul, either by itself or in addition to fines. Thus wrongful acts often have spiritual consequences, or are thought to invite supernatural punishment, and these notions further reinforce the moral authority of adat, and the application of fines and more diffuse social sanctions in maintaining compliance.
Ultimately every person is thus the member of an adat community, the continued existence of which is believed to depend upon his behaving in accordance with its accepted norms and sanctions. When a person is the victim of a transgression, he is expected to minta adat, “to ask for adat”, meaning, specifically, that he is expected to insist upon compensation in accordance with the stipulations of adat (cf. Heppell 1975: 318). The responsibility of the longhouse headman and other community elders is to see to it that correct fines and ritual sanctions are applied and every act of redress is looked upon as a triumph of adat that restores the social harmony and spiritual health of the adat community.
Background to the study of adat
Prior to the arrival of the Brookes, the Iban present a picture of an exceedingly energetic people, warring among themselves and with others, and constantly expanding territorially, absorbing and displacing other groups of people in the process. This pattern of aggressive outward expansion continued into the 1850’s and, on a more peaceful basis, even later. Throughout this traditional period, social loyalties centered on major river systems. The watersheds dividing these rivers tended to delimit major regional groups, or “tribes”, and these groups, under the leadership of senior warriors and war leaders, the raja berani, tuai kayau or tuai serang, constituted the maximal units of traditional society organized for aggression and territorial defense. While regional leaders sought to minimize the dangers of fratricidal conflict among their followers, their formal powers were limited almost entirely to the context of warfare. Thus Iban society was traditionally “acephelous” and totally without a centralized, hierarchical political order. Political power was dispersed between basically sovereign local communities, longhouses and kindred. It was in this turbulent setting that traditional Iban adat evolved, as an intricate system of social rules and sanctions, in independent, highly egalitarian communities without centralized authority, which, yet, for reasons of survival, required effective means for resolving contention and preserving internal order.
A basic factor shaping traditional adat was thus the lack of a hierarchical political order and leaders having at their disposal the organized force to impose their decisions on others. Each regional group, or “tribe”, consisted of a set of autonomous longhouses linked to one another by cognatic kinship, as a generally endogamous collection of overlapping kindred. When disputes arose, they could only be settled by longhouse consensus, supported by the judgment of community elders, or through the workings of the kinship system.
When members of different longhouses within a region were in dispute, each side was represented by influential kinsmen, acting as arbiters and go-betweens. Both within and between longhouses the existence of an unwritten, but highly codified body of adat was of utmost importance in this regard, providing an established, locally accepted basis for composing differences. Moreover, the authority of adat was upheld by belief in its moral correctness and, in many instances, by forms of ritual redress and notions that supernatural punishment follows upon disturbance of the adat order. But ultimately settlements had to be accepted, and mutually acceded to. If differences could not be composed, either the parties involved had to accept the situation or one of them might resort to force, physical retaliation (bepalu) or forcible seizure of property (ngerampas). In such situations a grave danger always existed that internecine violence might result. Faced with this danger, longhouse and regional leaders sought to restrain the parties involved and press them to accept negotiation or submit to ritualized conventions such as diving ordeals (kelam ai) or contests with wooden clubs (batempoh). Between different tribes, no such mechanisms existed for settling disputes, and at this level a state of intermittent warfare prevailed.
The establishment of Brooke rule profoundly altered the structure of Iban society. Although the early policy of the Rajahs’ government was to interfere as little as possible with indigenous adat, the creation of a centralized government and the elimination of blood feud and the gradual suppression of intertribal warfare had far reaching effects on Iban political life and internal institutions of social control.
One of the first administrative acts of James Brooke was to accord official recognition to Malay written law, the Undang-Undang, shortly after establishing his government in 1842. For the other indigenous groups, including the Iban, both James Brooke and his successor, Charles Brooke, extended similar recognition to those areas of adat constituting an accepted body of customary law. The policy pursued was basically one of non-interference with adat, except in cases involving physical violence, capital offences, or where traditional punishments were considered to be too harsh. This policy was dictated by practical necessity. But it was also one to which the Rajahs were ideologically committed, as is well expressed by the Second Rajah, writing in the Sarawak Gazette of 1872 (quoted by Chater 1964: 225):
“A Government such as that of Sarawak may start from things as we find them, putting its veto on what is dangerous or unjust and supporting what is fair and equitable in the usages of the natives, and letting system and legislation wait upon occasion. When new wants are felt, it examines and provides for them by measures rather made on the spot than imported from abroad; and to ensure that these shall not be contrary to native customs, the consent of the people is gained for them before they are put in force.”
As Pringle (1970: 173-75) notes the first Rajahs as men of strongly conservative instinct, steadfastly resisted efforts to systematize adat. A comprehensive code of law, based on the Indian Penal Code and Indian Criminal Procedure Code, was instituted in Sarawak only in the time of the Third Rajah, and even then, its provisions were understood to apply only to offences not covered by customary rules of adat (Chater 1964:225).
Despite the cherished belief of the first two Rajahs that their government preserved indigenous adat very largely as they found it, the development of administrative institutions that took place during their rule inevitably brought in its train profound changes. Most importantly, the Brookes introduced courts to the Iban and elevated and ultimately backed the judicial role of indigenous leaders. At the level of the longhouse, the traditional longhouse forum (Baum) was restructed, as a court (bechara), as we shall see presently, and the longhouse headman was formally empowered through its use to settle disputes among his followers according to the principles of adat. In contrast to traditional society, the state, government magistrates and police thus sanctioned his legal authority, and the binding force of adat itself. Judicial decisions were enforceable and non-compliance or resort to force was strictly punishable. Indeed, many instances of such punishment occurred during the early years of Brooke rule. At the regional level, the status of regional leaders was similarly formalized in the creation of salaried Penghulus or native chiefs. These leaders assumed responsibility for their own bechara. Moreover, the Penghulu courts were not only granted special areas of jurisdiction, but were formally instituted as superior courts of appeal vis-à-vis the longhouse bechara. The basis on which adat operated as a mechanism of social control was thus profoundly altered.
In addition the Brookes moved gradually to eliminate some elements of adat that they considered bad, or in need of reform, and this process was continued by local officers through the years. Several aspects of Iban custom were ultimately proscribed, including the death penalty for incest; the right of an aggrieved husband to take the lives of an adulterous pair caught inflagrante delicto, rights of forcible seizure of property, and head hunting. In the case of adultery and forcible seizure, their proscription coincided with the efforts of Iban leaders themselves to avert recourse to these measures. Forced appropriation of property, called ngerampas, was an important element of traditional Iban law, and was only gradually suppressed through the substitution of effective means of judicial redress and the enforcement of monetary fines.
Head hunting was even more important and was the focus of a complex religious cult bearing importantly on political leadership. Its suppression was also gradual, and indeed, during the early days of the Raj its practice was sometimes fostered as a punitive measure in extending control over recalcitrant tribal groups (cf. Wagner 1972). Two other institutions, though officially disapproved, were only gradually eliminated: slavery and legal contests. Both are described in some detail later in this study. As Pringle (1970: 176) observes, the first two Rajahs liked to think of themselves as acting always within a traditional framework, even when they introduced changes in the customs of the country. But more than this, they often did, in fact, make use of traditional means in bringing about changes, one of the reasons why innovations made by the Brookes took such deep root in Sarawak. Resistance to the elimination of slavery came not so much from the Iban and other interior communities as from the Malay aristocracy. Although the Iban formerly kept slaves, whose status was theoretically heritable, slaves, in fact, usually enjoyed eventual emancipation. As a consequence, the Iban preserved their basic egalitarianism and there never developed a significant slave class in Iban society. The final elimination of slavery was brought about, as Mr. Sandin indicates here, by means of the traditional Iban procedure of manumission through adoption (batimbang) and the descendants of former slaves were protected from formal disability by Iban rules against personal defamation.
In suppressing slavery, the Brookes thus showed considerable insight, bringing it about largely through the inner workings of indigenous institutions. Similarly legal contests were only gradually eliminated, and not totally disallowed until alternative judicial procedures become generally accepted. Ordeals by fire and boiling water were disliked by the Iban themselves and were allowed to die a natural death. Legal contests involving the use of wooden weapons were seen as a dangerous convention by the Iban themselves and their suppression, again, coincided with the efforts of indigenous leaders to avert their use. For reasons that will become clear presently, diving contests proved to be more resilient and their gradual elimination took many years to achieve.
While the Brooke government and its court system recognized and enforced Iban adat, no attempt was made to embody it in a written code or to reduce, or eliminate, differences that existed from region to region until the reign of the Third Rajah. Partly this was due to a realistic fear that doing either of these things might destroy its flexible character (Pringle 1970: 174; Richards 1963: 5). However, the need for some systematic compilation of primary rules and for guidelines to be used in their application came increasingly to be felt by government magistrates and Iban Penghulu. In 1915 Mr. A.B. Ward, the Resident of the Second Division, compiled a list of Iban offences and fines intended as a guide for court use entitled “Notes on Fines and Customs Recognized in the Court at Simanggang.” This list was later published (Ward 1961). Subsequent government officers amended and annotated this original list and a heavily annotated version appeared in Richards (1963) Dayak Adat Law in the Second Division.
As the first step in arriving at an accepted codification of Iban adat, a major conference of Penghulus from the Third Division, together with the Tuan Muda, Bertram Brooke, was held in Sibu in 1932. A provisional list of offences and fines was compiled, issued the same year in Romanized Iban as the Tusun Tunggu Daya (Iban). A further conference was held in 1936, again at Sibu, and resulted in the first systematic code, Sea Dayak (Iban) Fines, Third Division (Sarawak, 1940). Both Sea Dayak Fines, and the earlier Tusun Tunggu, apply only to what was then the Third Division, which today includes, as well, the newly formed Sixth and Seventh Divisions. The Rejang area covered by these codes is not part of the Iban menoa lama, the original Sarawak heartland of Iban settlement, but was occupied in late historical times by Iban coming from a number of different adat traditions. Because of the differences in adat represented within the region, Sea Dayak Fines aimed at standardizing customary law so as to reduce the difficulties involved in settling disputes between persons adhering to different traditions. Although covering all major offences, it represents by no means a complete codification of Iban customary law (cf. Freeman 1970: 114fn). In 1952 a further conference of Penghulus was held at Sibu, as a result of which this fine list was again revised. More recently yet, a state council, the Majlis Adat Istiadat, has been created, under the direction of a prominent Iban leader, Tan Sri Dato Temenggong Jugah, as an advisory body to the government on matters relating to customary law.
Iban adat for the Second Division was not codified until 1961. In July a conference of Penghulus, bards and others, including the author of this study, was held at Simanggang. The results were published as Dayak Adat Law in the Second Division (Richards 1963). This work, in addition to its practical use as a legal guide, is also valuable for a more general understanding of traditional adat, since, unlike the earlier fine lists, it sought to go beyond providing a basic, abbreviated penal code, to giving a rather more comprehensive account of the various areas covered by adat and an explanation of some of its salient characteristics. It contains a brief, but insightful introductory discussion of the role of adat in traditional Iban society, the main Second Division fine list (tusun tunggu) in both Iban and English translation; a brief discussion of rules of inheritance, divorce and family custom; an annotated version of A.B. Ward’s “Notes on Fines and Customs”, and some discussion of land tenure taken from additional outside sources. Nevertheless, Dayak Adat Law suffers some of the same limitations as the Third Division fine lists. In its actual application, Iban adat represents a highly intricate, detailed body of rules and interdictions, showing considerable local variation, and is applied with due regard to the circumstances of each particular case. Although the participants were well aware of this, the main fine list inadequately reflects the actual intricacies of adat and is far from exhaustive.
Even before these efforts were made at codification, one of the first areas of adat to receive careful scrutiny, for pragmatic administrative reasons, was that concerned with the regulation of land use and tenure. The first Land Order in Sarawak was promulgated in 1863. A revised Land Order superseded it in 1920, and the provisions of this Order and later amendments were subsequently incorporated in the present Land Code enacted in 1958 (cf. Potter 1967, Richards 1961). J.D. Freeman began the first systematic study of Iban social structure in 1949 and part of its purpose was to investigate the traditional system of Iban land holding, particularly in relation to patterns of shifting cultivation and land pioneering.
As a result Freeman’s studies the principles of traditional Iban land tenure are exceptionally well described (cf. Freeman 1970: 130 ff). Formerly each longhouse was independent in matters of land ownership. The local community had ultimate control over rights of access to land within its immediate domain (menoa) as against other longhouses. By felling primary forest (kampong), an individual living in the community secures for his bilek family rights of use to the tract of land felled for as long as the family remained in the longhouse. The act of clearing farm land from forest is called berimba. The claim of the feller to the future use of newly cleared land (rimba) is thus recognized by Iban custom and accrues automatically to the feller’s family. Such claims, however, undergo a temporal development. When rimba reverts to secondary forest it is called temuda. A further stage in the development of tenure rights occurs when this land is reused, and through the subsequent re-farming of temuda, a family’s claims are strengthened and safeguarded. Once acquired and reaffirmed in this way, land becomes the general property of the bilik family and parcenary rights to its use are inherited by successive generations of family members as part of its joint estate. Should an individual give up membership of his bilik, he ordinarily relinquishes any further claim to these rights. In the event of family partition, both sections retain the right to use land acquired prior to their division. Thus, in contrast to a family’s moveable assets, such as jars and brass wares, there is no formal partition of land, although land acquired after partition is separately owned by one family or the other. Rights of use were formerly contingent on continued community membership. Land abandoned by a family moving from the longhouse reverted to the community, and together with unused land within the local domain, was available for re-apportionment among its separate families. The introduction of individual titles and the planting of permanent crops have altered this principle.
Exclusive family rights in land, it should be added, apply only to agricultural use. Families without customary claims based on initial felling are free to gather rattan, collect wild foodstuffs or hunt game on temuda land belonging to other families.
Although it has not been described in previous writings on the Iban, land may also be borrowed from a farming season. The practice of borrowing land is especially frequent in communities, as, for example, those of the Krian and Rimbas rivers, with which I am most familiar, where it is no longer possible for families to open new land for farming by traditional berimba. Here virtually all land has been felled and is subject to family ownership. Those who have insufficient land most borrow from others who have more land than they can immediately use. The farming of borrowed land is called nasih tanah, and is distinguished from the farming of family-owned land (bumai tanah), to emphasize its temporary nature. In ultimate terms, land is said by the Iban to belong to the gods. Therefore, if possible, no man should deny its use to others. Because of this view, and owing also to more immediate social obligations, most Iban are reluctant to refuse a request for the use of family land should a genuine need exist. However, such use requires the owner’s prior consent. When land is borrowed, the borrower is requested to make a payment to the owner in kind, or now possibly in cash, called tasih tanah. This is to compensate the owner of the land for the loss of its future use during subsequent fallowing, secure the user’s claim to the season’s yield, and most importantly acknowledge that such usage is temporary and in no way creates a future claim to the land by the borrower or his descendants.
The agricultural god, Simpulang Gana, is thought in particular to be the final owner of all farm land and ritual tasih tanah, in the form of offerings, is presented to Simpulang Gana at the beginning of every farming year. Occasionally additional offerings are also made to local spirits thought to be dwelling on particular parcels of land. In areas of land scarcity, the practice of nasih is often widespread and is frequently a highly important economic institution, allowing for the sharing out of land within communities where there exist marked inequalities in the distribution and size of holdings. Today, in such areas, land may also be hired out in return for rent (sua), reflecting new and very different economic values.
For the Iban, the most far-reaching effect of government legislation was restriction of the traditional system of acquiring rights to the use of land by jungle clearage. More fundamentally yet, the sovereignty of the local community in land matters, a basic feature of all indigenous tenure systems (Richards 1961: 20-21, 56), was replaced by a system in which land rights are ultimately maintained and administered by the state. Considerable litigation has resulted in adjusting indigenous adat to this principle, particularly where the land use patterns of shifting agriculturalists have not been fully understood. With the introduction of courts, the most frequent single area of litigation concerned land disputes, and at the present time, as well, land rights remain a major source of legal contention. Today Iban patterns of land holding are changing radically, with extensive, but as yet little studied social consequences.
Only one extended study has been made of indigenous Iban institutions of social control. This study, by Michael Heppell (1975), is of special importance because it is the first to give a systematic account of the various mechanisms and conventions by which disputes are resolved and the rules of adat enforced within Iban society itself. While some attention has been given to recording individual facets of adat, very little previous study has been made of the procedural side of Iban customary law. As an analysis of social control, the scope of Heppell’s study only partially coincides with that of adat proper, being both broader and narrower in focus. Social control is seen essentially in terms of primary rules of behaviour and conventions that sanction these rules in a way that tends to contain or minimize contention.
Clearly not all aspects of adat have directly to do with social control. On the other hand, one of the interesting features of Heppell’s study is that he includes, as social control mechanisms, more general patterns of socialization, parent-child relations and elements of child training aimed at developing self-control and personal ability to cope with conflict. However, his study also discusses the role of adat and more especially provides an extended treatment of the specific procedural mechanisms used to resolve contention, illustrated with extensive case material. It also considers the historical development of these mechanisms in terms of both the inner dynamics of Iban society and the influence of external forces. As such, Heppell’s work provides an excellent complement to the present study.
The Role of Adat in Traditional Iban Society
In order to understand the social role of adat it is necessary to describe some of the main features of traditional Iban society that bear on its workings as a body of primary rules, sanctions and judicial principles. The basic jural units of Iban society are the longhouse and the family. Essentially the longhouse consists of a series of family apartments, joined laterally, and connected by a communicating passageway, gallery and open-air verandah. Each apartment, or bilek, together with its section of gallery and verandah, is separately owned and maintained by a single family, much like a row of terraced apartments. Each family, whose members share a bilek, subsists as an independent domestic unit (cf. Freeman 1958). The family possesses its own fields and other lands on which its members cultivate their own rice, grow and collect a large variety of supplemental crops, and in general produce very nearly all of their other necessities. Although it may exchange labor (bedurok) with members of other families, the bilek family is responsible for its own affairs and prospers or fails largely on its own. In addition to its landholdings, fruit trees and standing crops, its bilek apartment and agricultural and domestic tools, every family also owns its own jars, brass wares and other heirloom valuables, possesses charms and other ritual paraphernalia, and is subject to its own ritual prohibitions, or pemali.
In composition, the Iban family is typically a small group, very similar to that of European and American society, except that it is organized as an enduring group. In each generation, one child, either a son or a daughter, real or adopted, remains after marriage in possession of the bilek to continue the family group and take over the temporary management of its economic and ritual estate. The Iban are highly concerned with the perpetuation of the bilek family. This is stressed through the use of important symbols of continuity, such as sacred strains of rice, ritual prohibitions and the inheritance of personal names, and it is the responsibility of each generation of family members to provide, as far as possible, for the future wealth and well-being of subsequent generations.
It can be seen from this that the Iban family is clearly a significant right-bearing unit in a jural sense. In addition to rights in tangible property, the family is also the focus of a complex of social rights and duties traditionally enjoined and upheld by adat. Some elements of family law are discussed here, particularly in connection with marriage, divorce and adoption, but a more detailed description of the jural nature of the family, provisions of membership, inheritance and division of its properties can be found in Freeman (1958, 1970: 1-60). In general terms, the family is a primary unit of jural rights and liabilities. The family head is responsible for defending its interests against encroachment and for representing its members should they be involved in litigation with the members of other families. When a family member is found guilty of a wrongful act, fines are usually paid out of family resources. Also owing to Iban notions that personal character is inherited, a family’s reputation suffers from the misdeeds of its past members.
Although each of its component families is largely autonomous, the longhouse as a whole also functions as an important legal unit. In former times, every longhouse was, as we have noted, a politically sovereign community. Even now, the longhouse headman is looked upon as the chief guardian of community adat. He and other longhouse elders are expected to be well-versed in adat and to make known to their followers what the rules of adat require of them. Through informal meetings and judicial hearings they are also expected to enforce compliance with these rules and, following their stipulations, resolve disputes and redress complaints that arise within the community.
In addition to this the longhouse as a whole is thought to possess a collective ritual status with regard to the spiritual world (Richards 1963: 1-2). Ritual is essential to preserve the spiritual well-being of the whole longhouse, as well as its families separately, and in the middle sections of this study Mr. Sandin outlines the major ritual festivals, or gawai, performed by the longhouse and describes the adat gawai, or rules of ritual procedure, that govern the performance of each of these festivals. More generally yet, observance of adat and ritual well being are closely interrelated, a point I shall return to presently. As the author stresses at the outset of this study, the longhouse is a religious congregation, whose members are bound together by ties of ritual interdependence. For this reason, adat is of special importance to the Iban, for not only does it preserve social harmony among longhouse members, but, in doing so, it makes possible ritual cooperation upon which their collective prosperity and well-being is thought to depend.http://gnmawar.wordpress.com/adat-iban/
“Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.” —Albert Einstein
Mythical Past and Social Setting:
The Sky - Domain of God
Through acts of creation, and out of the
dissolution and reconstitution of society, myths reveal a sacred cosmos
that both transcends, and at the same time sanctions the established
moral and social order. Thus, myths are not only a guide to culture; we
see how nature and human spirit shape a society.
The traditional Iban view believed that this world (dunya tu)
is separated from, and yet influenced by events and by actions of
“beings” in a series of inter-connected unseen realms. The gods or Petara and other beings, like the Orang Panggau, spirits and antu, inhibit this unseen realm. Very generally, the gods are associated with the sky (langit). A small number, such as Raja Niram and Dara Rambai Garuda, make their domain in the world of the dead (menoa Sebayan)
where they lead the spirits of the dead. The term Petara refers to all
supernatural beings that have benevolent intentions toward humankind.
They are considered anthropomorphic supernatural, having all the
physical and psychological characteristics of human beings. Like
humankind, they live in longhouse communities, farm and engage in
migrations and warfare. Unlike human being, they possess supernatural
powers that permit them to perform miraculous deeds and have the ability
to metamorphose themselves into other forms at will.
Humankind (mensia) share “this world” with other “living things” (utai idup) – with plants (utai tumboh or “growing things”) and animals (jelu) – but also with the spirits or antu,
who, like the Petara, are ordinarily unseen and possess supernatural
power. In contrast to the petara, the antu are generally, although not
always, said to be hostile to human purposes. The most dreaded spirit
feeds on human souls, causing sickness and death, or consume the
material wealth of humankind (antu rua). The antu domains are believed to be in an unseen dimension, entered into by human beings chiefly through dreams (mimpi). Dream are said to be the direct experience of the human soul (samengat).
In this dream world, the soul of human beings, physical object and
other beings are similarly active giving this unseen world a waking
reality.
Intermediate between humankind and the petara in
the sky is a third major category of supernatural, the Orang Panggau.
These are the heroes and heroines of the mythic Panggau-Gellong world.
Their domain is said to lie between the visible world and the sky. Thus
in myth and ritual liturgy, those who journey to visit the gods and
goddesses frequently pass through the Panggau-Gellong world to make
their way to the homes of the petara. Like the gods, these heroes and
heroines possess supernatural powers and are believe to be capable of
metamorphosis. Being great mythical heroes, they are credited with
exemplary physical ability, beauty, creativity, skills in craftsmanship
and other attributes of humankind. They are, for example, the patrons of
women weavers and male warriors. Their prowess is the subject of vast
oral epic literature among the Iban society. Like the gods and
goddesses, the Orang Panggau are beneficent and acts in ways that
further human purposes and this makes them the invisible intermediaries.
During major Gawai festivals, they represent the gawai sponsor in
inviting, welcoming and entertain the gods and goddesses whom the human
bards have called down from the sky to bless and participate, unseen, in
the ritual work of the Gawai.
Domain Of Bunsu Bintang Banyak
The Iban or Sea Dayak of Sarawak are the single most populous indigenous group in Malaysia aside from the Malays. By tradition the Iban are a riverine people, dwelling in longhouse communities located along the main rivers and smaller streams of the interior of Sarawak. A vigorous, mobile people, the Iban have spread during the last two hundred years from the Batang Lupar and Saribas river systems of Sarawak, and from the adjoining Kapuas region of western Kalimantan, through the central Rejang valley, north and eastward, until today they are present in every district and division of Sarawak, in both urban areas and in the rural country side. In the course of their expansion the Iban evolved a highly successful social system that stressed individual resourcefulness, egalitarianism and personal mobility. Greatest honour accrued to those who pushed forward known frontiers by opening new land for settlement, through success in warfare, or by pioneering new economic ventures. Such persons were respected in their lifetime and were remembered after death in ritual invocations and their exploits commemorated in oral genealogies.
At the heart of the traditional social system was, and still remains, the longhouse community. Here the individualism so highly valued by the Iban is tempered by mutual economic and ritual interdependencies buttressed by a complex code of social rules, or adat. To the Iban the term adat covers all of the various customary norms, jural rules, ritual interdictions and injunctions that guide an individual’s conduct, and the sanctions and forms of redress by which these norms and rules are upheld. In the first part of the study that follows the main elements of traditional Iban adat are described as they apply to the individual in his dealings with others, to marriage and family life, economic undertakings, major life crises events, and significant ritual and ceremonial occasions.
Iban augury is essentially a system of divination in which divine guidance is sought in natural events, particularly the behaviour of birds and other natural species. As a rule, augury is of special importance to the Iban in those areas of life in which the outcome of an individual’s action is uncertain or cannot be fully foreseen. In traditional Iban society the practice of augury was closely related to a view of the social world as governed by the rules of adat. It is therefore useful to consider adat and augury together.
The longhouse community is essentially a microcosm of the total society. The prime function of adat is to assure harmonious relations among community members. At the same time, conduct in accordance with adat was traditionally believed to maintain a community in a state of ritual well-being with respect to the gods and spirits. Any serious breach of adat threatens this relationship and is dealt with accordingly, not only by secular means, but, as we shall see presently, often by supernatural sanctions or forms of ritual propitiation as well. Thus the correctness of adat, when properly adhered to, is demonstrated by a continuing state of spiritual well-being expressed outwardly in terms of health and material prosperity.
Augury, as practiced by the Iban is based on a belief in the interpretation of divine revelation in the behavior of birds, reptiles and animals. Its observance complements the certainties of adat. It provides the individual with a more immediate means of ascertaining spiritual favor or condemnation of particular lines of intended action. Within the normative framework of adat, choices have constantly to be made in which success or failure cannot be entirely foreknown (predetermined). In such circumstances, augury is significant to the Iban as a source of direct guidance through which, it is thought, the gods make known to the individual their personal support or disapproval of his conduct within the permissible perimeters defined by adat.
The Earth - Domain of Humankind, Spirits & Demons
The Iban concept of adat, like cognate notions in other Malayo-Indonesian societies (cf. Hooker 1972, Ter Haar 1948), refers very broadly to rules, canons and sanctions held to be binding by the members of a community. For the Iban, these rules apply to virtually all spheres of human life, social, economic, religious and political.
At the beginning of this study it is important to stress that the author in the following chapters applies the concept of adat broadly, to cover the entire normative framework of traditional Iban life, in accordance with ordinary Iban usage. In contrast to the Malays, the Iban do not distinguish between adat and religious rules and practices; much of Iban adat is believed to be of religious origin or is concerned with ritual observances and other facets of religious life. Also adat for the Iban is not restricted to what is commonly known as “customary law” (Ter Haar 1948: 5). Some elements of Iban adat are enforced by constituted legal means, are sanctioned by fines, for example, imposed by longhouse or regional authorities, or by other accepted forms of redress, but others are not, and both are given equal treatment here. In short, the present study treats the rules of adat that govern various areas of Iban social life, including religion, and is not specifically, or even predominantly, a study of adat law, although attention is given to community sanctions and to the judicial procedures by which adat is, and was traditionally, upheld.
An Iban generally means by adat roughly what an English-speaker means by custom in its broadest sense. Thus adat describes essentially the various things people customarily do and the ways in which they customarily do them. For the Iban virtually every area of human activity has its own particular adat consisting of concrete rules and interdictions. Thus there is marriage adat, adat of mourning, adat concerned with the construction of a new longhouse, farming adat, adat for making sacrifice or propitiating the spirits, and adat for dividing game taken in a communal hunt or fish taken by communal netting. Some account is given here of each of these different bodies of adat. Adat also regulates interpersonal relationships and defines the respective rights and responsibilities of individuals standing in different relationships to one another. It also stipulates the rights persons may enjoy in land and other tangible property and the manner in which these rights may be inherited or otherwise transferred from one person or group to another.
Like the English notion of custom, adat also covers personal habits. In this sense the Iban frequently speak of an individual as having either good or bad adat. To have good adat implies not only that a person’s behavior is in accordance with the specific rules of adat accepted in his community, but also that it exemplifies more abstract ideals, such, for example, as generosity or personal courage. Thus the notion of adat is seen by the Iban as embracing more general values, moral norms and standards. Besides innumerable rules governing social and ritual behaviour, adat in addition, therefore provides an essential measure, or gauge, against which the conduct of individuals can be judged. Although the Iban are relatively homogeneous culturally, there are, nonetheless, notable local differences in adat, and in the case of ritual prohibitions (pemali) variations exist even between families. Most Iban recognize that what is right in one community may be judged differently in another. A basic principle evoked when strangers have dealings with one another is that each party should, as far as possible, respect the adat of another person.
From this it follows that the Iban generally view adat as something rather more binding, and less tangential to the existence of orderly social life, than is generally implied by the English notion of custom. In this sense, the Iban concept differs. Large areas of adat have a strongly normative character. Thus rules of adat tend to stipulate, in a normative sense, what an individual should or should not do in varying circumstances.
Adat defines correct behaviour and is seen as essential to the maintenance of moral order and the continued existence of society itself. A violation of adat is described as penyalah, a “wrongful act”. While specific rules of adat vary, all Iban share basically similar notions of what constitute penyalah. The Iban frequently argue that the fact that a particular rule of conduct is adat is reason in itself why it should be followed. In describing Iban judicial process, Heppell (1957: 303) observes that a statement by a respected elder that a particular rule is adat is sufficient to clarify the provisions of the rule, and when this is done and accepted, there is little necessity to seek precedent to establish its correctness. “The fact that the rule is adat precludes any necessity for further enquiry” (1975: 303).
Wrongful acts contrary to adat evoke disapproval and in many instances are punished. The Iban concept of adat also refers to the ways in which people customarily deal with such acts. When the Iban discuss adat they very often use the term to describe, in any given situation, both the rules of behavior that apply and also the correct punishment to be meted out should these rules be transgressed. The term adat applies to both. For many transgressions, punishment takes the form of fines, or reparations of value. The notion of fines (tunggu) is closely associated with adat and written codifications of adat are characteristically described as tusun tunggu, or “fine lists” (cf. Richards 1963).
Traditionally tunggu is reparation payable to the injured party and mutually agreed to by both disputants. This is distinguished from the more recent ukum, an imposed fine or penalty, retained all or in part by the government or presiding authority. After the arrival of the Brookes in 1841, Iban fines were systematized and assigned monetary equivalents. In the first chapter of this study the author describes the major scale of fines used today by Iban judicial authorities in the Second Division of Sarawak. Later, in listing specific rules of adat, he stipulates in each case the appropriate class of fines levied in the event of its violation. Generally these fines are stated as maxima and may be reduced depending on circumstances.
Many wrongful acts have also spiritual implications (ngasoh samengat siga or Liar Samengat) and so require ritual propitiation. Some are thought to disturb relations with the spiritual world and unless repaired by ritual means are believed to provoke supernatural retaliation. For serious offences, such as incest, supernatural danger may extend to the whole community to which the transgressor belongs. In such cases, ritual redress is aimed at preserving the group’s collective well being.
In addition, violations of adat that cause personal injury, or result in damage or loss of possessions, are perceived by the Iban as an attack upon the victim’s soul, or spiritual personality. Such acts therefore require ritual redress aimed at reviving the victim’s soul, either by itself or in addition to fines. Thus wrongful acts often have spiritual consequences, or are thought to invite supernatural punishment, and these notions further reinforce the moral authority of adat, and the application of fines and more diffuse social sanctions in maintaining compliance.
Ultimately every person is thus the member of an adat community, the continued existence of which is believed to depend upon his behaving in accordance with its accepted norms and sanctions. When a person is the victim of a transgression, he is expected to minta adat, “to ask for adat”, meaning, specifically, that he is expected to insist upon compensation in accordance with the stipulations of adat (cf. Heppell 1975: 318). The responsibility of the longhouse headman and other community elders is to see to it that correct fines and ritual sanctions are applied and every act of redress is looked upon as a triumph of adat that restores the social harmony and spiritual health of the adat community.
Waterworld - Domain of the Spirits of Water Creatures
Prior to the arrival of the Brookes, the Iban present a picture of an exceedingly energetic people, warring among themselves and with others, and constantly expanding territorially, absorbing and displacing other groups of people in the process. This pattern of aggressive outward expansion continued into the 1850’s and, on a more peaceful basis, even later. Throughout this traditional period, social loyalties centered on major river systems. The watersheds dividing these rivers tended to delimit major regional groups, or “tribes”, and these groups, under the leadership of senior warriors and war leaders, the raja berani, tuai kayau or tuai serang, constituted the maximal units of traditional society organized for aggression and territorial defense. While regional leaders sought to minimize the dangers of fratricidal conflict among their followers, their formal powers were limited almost entirely to the context of warfare. Thus Iban society was traditionally “acephelous” and totally without a centralized, hierarchical political order. Political power was dispersed between basically sovereign local communities, longhouses and kindred. It was in this turbulent setting that traditional Iban adat evolved, as an intricate system of social rules and sanctions, in independent, highly egalitarian communities without centralized authority, which, yet, for reasons of survival, required effective means for resolving contention and preserving internal order.
A basic factor shaping traditional adat was thus the lack of a hierarchical political order and leaders having at their disposal the organized force to impose their decisions on others. Each regional group, or “tribe”, consisted of a set of autonomous longhouses linked to one another by cognatic kinship, as a generally endogamous collection of overlapping kindred. When disputes arose, they could only be settled by longhouse consensus, supported by the judgment of community elders, or through the workings of the kinship system.
When members of different longhouses within a region were in dispute, each side was represented by influential kinsmen, acting as arbiters and go-betweens. Both within and between longhouses the existence of an unwritten, but highly codified body of adat was of utmost importance in this regard, providing an established, locally accepted basis for composing differences. Moreover, the authority of adat was upheld by belief in its moral correctness and, in many instances, by forms of ritual redress and notions that supernatural punishment follows upon disturbance of the adat order. But ultimately settlements had to be accepted, and mutually acceded to. If differences could not be composed, either the parties involved had to accept the situation or one of them might resort to force, physical retaliation (bepalu) or forcible seizure of property (ngerampas). In such situations a grave danger always existed that internecine violence might result. Faced with this danger, longhouse and regional leaders sought to restrain the parties involved and press them to accept negotiation or submit to ritualized conventions such as diving ordeals (kelam ai) or contests with wooden clubs (batempoh). Between different tribes, no such mechanisms existed for settling disputes, and at this level a state of intermittent warfare prevailed.
The establishment of Brooke rule profoundly altered the structure of Iban society. Although the early policy of the Rajahs’ government was to interfere as little as possible with indigenous adat, the creation of a centralized government and the elimination of blood feud and the gradual suppression of intertribal warfare had far reaching effects on Iban political life and internal institutions of social control.
One of the first administrative acts of James Brooke was to accord official recognition to Malay written law, the Undang-Undang, shortly after establishing his government in 1842. For the other indigenous groups, including the Iban, both James Brooke and his successor, Charles Brooke, extended similar recognition to those areas of adat constituting an accepted body of customary law. The policy pursued was basically one of non-interference with adat, except in cases involving physical violence, capital offences, or where traditional punishments were considered to be too harsh. This policy was dictated by practical necessity. But it was also one to which the Rajahs were ideologically committed, as is well expressed by the Second Rajah, writing in the Sarawak Gazette of 1872 (quoted by Chater 1964: 225):
“A Government such as that of Sarawak may start from things as we find them, putting its veto on what is dangerous or unjust and supporting what is fair and equitable in the usages of the natives, and letting system and legislation wait upon occasion. When new wants are felt, it examines and provides for them by measures rather made on the spot than imported from abroad; and to ensure that these shall not be contrary to native customs, the consent of the people is gained for them before they are put in force.”
As Pringle (1970: 173-75) notes the first Rajahs as men of strongly conservative instinct, steadfastly resisted efforts to systematize adat. A comprehensive code of law, based on the Indian Penal Code and Indian Criminal Procedure Code, was instituted in Sarawak only in the time of the Third Rajah, and even then, its provisions were understood to apply only to offences not covered by customary rules of adat (Chater 1964:225).
Despite the cherished belief of the first two Rajahs that their government preserved indigenous adat very largely as they found it, the development of administrative institutions that took place during their rule inevitably brought in its train profound changes. Most importantly, the Brookes introduced courts to the Iban and elevated and ultimately backed the judicial role of indigenous leaders. At the level of the longhouse, the traditional longhouse forum (Baum) was restructed, as a court (bechara), as we shall see presently, and the longhouse headman was formally empowered through its use to settle disputes among his followers according to the principles of adat. In contrast to traditional society, the state, government magistrates and police thus sanctioned his legal authority, and the binding force of adat itself. Judicial decisions were enforceable and non-compliance or resort to force was strictly punishable. Indeed, many instances of such punishment occurred during the early years of Brooke rule. At the regional level, the status of regional leaders was similarly formalized in the creation of salaried Penghulus or native chiefs. These leaders assumed responsibility for their own bechara. Moreover, the Penghulu courts were not only granted special areas of jurisdiction, but were formally instituted as superior courts of appeal vis-à-vis the longhouse bechara. The basis on which adat operated as a mechanism of social control was thus profoundly altered.
In addition the Brookes moved gradually to eliminate some elements of adat that they considered bad, or in need of reform, and this process was continued by local officers through the years. Several aspects of Iban custom were ultimately proscribed, including the death penalty for incest; the right of an aggrieved husband to take the lives of an adulterous pair caught inflagrante delicto, rights of forcible seizure of property, and head hunting. In the case of adultery and forcible seizure, their proscription coincided with the efforts of Iban leaders themselves to avert recourse to these measures. Forced appropriation of property, called ngerampas, was an important element of traditional Iban law, and was only gradually suppressed through the substitution of effective means of judicial redress and the enforcement of monetary fines.
Head hunting was even more important and was the focus of a complex religious cult bearing importantly on political leadership. Its suppression was also gradual, and indeed, during the early days of the Raj its practice was sometimes fostered as a punitive measure in extending control over recalcitrant tribal groups (cf. Wagner 1972). Two other institutions, though officially disapproved, were only gradually eliminated: slavery and legal contests. Both are described in some detail later in this study. As Pringle (1970: 176) observes, the first two Rajahs liked to think of themselves as acting always within a traditional framework, even when they introduced changes in the customs of the country. But more than this, they often did, in fact, make use of traditional means in bringing about changes, one of the reasons why innovations made by the Brookes took such deep root in Sarawak. Resistance to the elimination of slavery came not so much from the Iban and other interior communities as from the Malay aristocracy. Although the Iban formerly kept slaves, whose status was theoretically heritable, slaves, in fact, usually enjoyed eventual emancipation. As a consequence, the Iban preserved their basic egalitarianism and there never developed a significant slave class in Iban society. The final elimination of slavery was brought about, as Mr. Sandin indicates here, by means of the traditional Iban procedure of manumission through adoption (batimbang) and the descendants of former slaves were protected from formal disability by Iban rules against personal defamation.
In suppressing slavery, the Brookes thus showed considerable insight, bringing it about largely through the inner workings of indigenous institutions. Similarly legal contests were only gradually eliminated, and not totally disallowed until alternative judicial procedures become generally accepted. Ordeals by fire and boiling water were disliked by the Iban themselves and were allowed to die a natural death. Legal contests involving the use of wooden weapons were seen as a dangerous convention by the Iban themselves and their suppression, again, coincided with the efforts of indigenous leaders to avert their use. For reasons that will become clear presently, diving contests proved to be more resilient and their gradual elimination took many years to achieve.
While the Brooke government and its court system recognized and enforced Iban adat, no attempt was made to embody it in a written code or to reduce, or eliminate, differences that existed from region to region until the reign of the Third Rajah. Partly this was due to a realistic fear that doing either of these things might destroy its flexible character (Pringle 1970: 174; Richards 1963: 5). However, the need for some systematic compilation of primary rules and for guidelines to be used in their application came increasingly to be felt by government magistrates and Iban Penghulu. In 1915 Mr. A.B. Ward, the Resident of the Second Division, compiled a list of Iban offences and fines intended as a guide for court use entitled “Notes on Fines and Customs Recognized in the Court at Simanggang.” This list was later published (Ward 1961). Subsequent government officers amended and annotated this original list and a heavily annotated version appeared in Richards (1963) Dayak Adat Law in the Second Division.
As the first step in arriving at an accepted codification of Iban adat, a major conference of Penghulus from the Third Division, together with the Tuan Muda, Bertram Brooke, was held in Sibu in 1932. A provisional list of offences and fines was compiled, issued the same year in Romanized Iban as the Tusun Tunggu Daya (Iban). A further conference was held in 1936, again at Sibu, and resulted in the first systematic code, Sea Dayak (Iban) Fines, Third Division (Sarawak, 1940). Both Sea Dayak Fines, and the earlier Tusun Tunggu, apply only to what was then the Third Division, which today includes, as well, the newly formed Sixth and Seventh Divisions. The Rejang area covered by these codes is not part of the Iban menoa lama, the original Sarawak heartland of Iban settlement, but was occupied in late historical times by Iban coming from a number of different adat traditions. Because of the differences in adat represented within the region, Sea Dayak Fines aimed at standardizing customary law so as to reduce the difficulties involved in settling disputes between persons adhering to different traditions. Although covering all major offences, it represents by no means a complete codification of Iban customary law (cf. Freeman 1970: 114fn). In 1952 a further conference of Penghulus was held at Sibu, as a result of which this fine list was again revised. More recently yet, a state council, the Majlis Adat Istiadat, has been created, under the direction of a prominent Iban leader, Tan Sri Dato Temenggong Jugah, as an advisory body to the government on matters relating to customary law.
Iban adat for the Second Division was not codified until 1961. In July a conference of Penghulus, bards and others, including the author of this study, was held at Simanggang. The results were published as Dayak Adat Law in the Second Division (Richards 1963). This work, in addition to its practical use as a legal guide, is also valuable for a more general understanding of traditional adat, since, unlike the earlier fine lists, it sought to go beyond providing a basic, abbreviated penal code, to giving a rather more comprehensive account of the various areas covered by adat and an explanation of some of its salient characteristics. It contains a brief, but insightful introductory discussion of the role of adat in traditional Iban society, the main Second Division fine list (tusun tunggu) in both Iban and English translation; a brief discussion of rules of inheritance, divorce and family custom; an annotated version of A.B. Ward’s “Notes on Fines and Customs”, and some discussion of land tenure taken from additional outside sources. Nevertheless, Dayak Adat Law suffers some of the same limitations as the Third Division fine lists. In its actual application, Iban adat represents a highly intricate, detailed body of rules and interdictions, showing considerable local variation, and is applied with due regard to the circumstances of each particular case. Although the participants were well aware of this, the main fine list inadequately reflects the actual intricacies of adat and is far from exhaustive.
Even before these efforts were made at codification, one of the first areas of adat to receive careful scrutiny, for pragmatic administrative reasons, was that concerned with the regulation of land use and tenure. The first Land Order in Sarawak was promulgated in 1863. A revised Land Order superseded it in 1920, and the provisions of this Order and later amendments were subsequently incorporated in the present Land Code enacted in 1958 (cf. Potter 1967, Richards 1961). J.D. Freeman began the first systematic study of Iban social structure in 1949 and part of its purpose was to investigate the traditional system of Iban land holding, particularly in relation to patterns of shifting cultivation and land pioneering.
As a result Freeman’s studies the principles of traditional Iban land tenure are exceptionally well described (cf. Freeman 1970: 130 ff). Formerly each longhouse was independent in matters of land ownership. The local community had ultimate control over rights of access to land within its immediate domain (menoa) as against other longhouses. By felling primary forest (kampong), an individual living in the community secures for his bilek family rights of use to the tract of land felled for as long as the family remained in the longhouse. The act of clearing farm land from forest is called berimba. The claim of the feller to the future use of newly cleared land (rimba) is thus recognized by Iban custom and accrues automatically to the feller’s family. Such claims, however, undergo a temporal development. When rimba reverts to secondary forest it is called temuda. A further stage in the development of tenure rights occurs when this land is reused, and through the subsequent re-farming of temuda, a family’s claims are strengthened and safeguarded. Once acquired and reaffirmed in this way, land becomes the general property of the bilik family and parcenary rights to its use are inherited by successive generations of family members as part of its joint estate. Should an individual give up membership of his bilik, he ordinarily relinquishes any further claim to these rights. In the event of family partition, both sections retain the right to use land acquired prior to their division. Thus, in contrast to a family’s moveable assets, such as jars and brass wares, there is no formal partition of land, although land acquired after partition is separately owned by one family or the other. Rights of use were formerly contingent on continued community membership. Land abandoned by a family moving from the longhouse reverted to the community, and together with unused land within the local domain, was available for re-apportionment among its separate families. The introduction of individual titles and the planting of permanent crops have altered this principle.
Exclusive family rights in land, it should be added, apply only to agricultural use. Families without customary claims based on initial felling are free to gather rattan, collect wild foodstuffs or hunt game on temuda land belonging to other families.
Although it has not been described in previous writings on the Iban, land may also be borrowed from a farming season. The practice of borrowing land is especially frequent in communities, as, for example, those of the Krian and Rimbas rivers, with which I am most familiar, where it is no longer possible for families to open new land for farming by traditional berimba. Here virtually all land has been felled and is subject to family ownership. Those who have insufficient land most borrow from others who have more land than they can immediately use. The farming of borrowed land is called nasih tanah, and is distinguished from the farming of family-owned land (bumai tanah), to emphasize its temporary nature. In ultimate terms, land is said by the Iban to belong to the gods. Therefore, if possible, no man should deny its use to others. Because of this view, and owing also to more immediate social obligations, most Iban are reluctant to refuse a request for the use of family land should a genuine need exist. However, such use requires the owner’s prior consent. When land is borrowed, the borrower is requested to make a payment to the owner in kind, or now possibly in cash, called tasih tanah. This is to compensate the owner of the land for the loss of its future use during subsequent fallowing, secure the user’s claim to the season’s yield, and most importantly acknowledge that such usage is temporary and in no way creates a future claim to the land by the borrower or his descendants.
The agricultural god, Simpulang Gana, is thought in particular to be the final owner of all farm land and ritual tasih tanah, in the form of offerings, is presented to Simpulang Gana at the beginning of every farming year. Occasionally additional offerings are also made to local spirits thought to be dwelling on particular parcels of land. In areas of land scarcity, the practice of nasih is often widespread and is frequently a highly important economic institution, allowing for the sharing out of land within communities where there exist marked inequalities in the distribution and size of holdings. Today, in such areas, land may also be hired out in return for rent (sua), reflecting new and very different economic values.
For the Iban, the most far-reaching effect of government legislation was restriction of the traditional system of acquiring rights to the use of land by jungle clearage. More fundamentally yet, the sovereignty of the local community in land matters, a basic feature of all indigenous tenure systems (Richards 1961: 20-21, 56), was replaced by a system in which land rights are ultimately maintained and administered by the state. Considerable litigation has resulted in adjusting indigenous adat to this principle, particularly where the land use patterns of shifting agriculturalists have not been fully understood. With the introduction of courts, the most frequent single area of litigation concerned land disputes, and at the present time, as well, land rights remain a major source of legal contention. Today Iban patterns of land holding are changing radically, with extensive, but as yet little studied social consequences.
Only one extended study has been made of indigenous Iban institutions of social control. This study, by Michael Heppell (1975), is of special importance because it is the first to give a systematic account of the various mechanisms and conventions by which disputes are resolved and the rules of adat enforced within Iban society itself. While some attention has been given to recording individual facets of adat, very little previous study has been made of the procedural side of Iban customary law. As an analysis of social control, the scope of Heppell’s study only partially coincides with that of adat proper, being both broader and narrower in focus. Social control is seen essentially in terms of primary rules of behaviour and conventions that sanction these rules in a way that tends to contain or minimize contention.
Clearly not all aspects of adat have directly to do with social control. On the other hand, one of the interesting features of Heppell’s study is that he includes, as social control mechanisms, more general patterns of socialization, parent-child relations and elements of child training aimed at developing self-control and personal ability to cope with conflict. However, his study also discusses the role of adat and more especially provides an extended treatment of the specific procedural mechanisms used to resolve contention, illustrated with extensive case material. It also considers the historical development of these mechanisms in terms of both the inner dynamics of Iban society and the influence of external forces. As such, Heppell’s work provides an excellent complement to the present study.
The Role of Adat in Traditional Iban Society
In order to understand the social role of adat it is necessary to describe some of the main features of traditional Iban society that bear on its workings as a body of primary rules, sanctions and judicial principles. The basic jural units of Iban society are the longhouse and the family. Essentially the longhouse consists of a series of family apartments, joined laterally, and connected by a communicating passageway, gallery and open-air verandah. Each apartment, or bilek, together with its section of gallery and verandah, is separately owned and maintained by a single family, much like a row of terraced apartments. Each family, whose members share a bilek, subsists as an independent domestic unit (cf. Freeman 1958). The family possesses its own fields and other lands on which its members cultivate their own rice, grow and collect a large variety of supplemental crops, and in general produce very nearly all of their other necessities. Although it may exchange labor (bedurok) with members of other families, the bilek family is responsible for its own affairs and prospers or fails largely on its own. In addition to its landholdings, fruit trees and standing crops, its bilek apartment and agricultural and domestic tools, every family also owns its own jars, brass wares and other heirloom valuables, possesses charms and other ritual paraphernalia, and is subject to its own ritual prohibitions, or pemali.
In composition, the Iban family is typically a small group, very similar to that of European and American society, except that it is organized as an enduring group. In each generation, one child, either a son or a daughter, real or adopted, remains after marriage in possession of the bilek to continue the family group and take over the temporary management of its economic and ritual estate. The Iban are highly concerned with the perpetuation of the bilek family. This is stressed through the use of important symbols of continuity, such as sacred strains of rice, ritual prohibitions and the inheritance of personal names, and it is the responsibility of each generation of family members to provide, as far as possible, for the future wealth and well-being of subsequent generations.
It can be seen from this that the Iban family is clearly a significant right-bearing unit in a jural sense. In addition to rights in tangible property, the family is also the focus of a complex of social rights and duties traditionally enjoined and upheld by adat. Some elements of family law are discussed here, particularly in connection with marriage, divorce and adoption, but a more detailed description of the jural nature of the family, provisions of membership, inheritance and division of its properties can be found in Freeman (1958, 1970: 1-60). In general terms, the family is a primary unit of jural rights and liabilities. The family head is responsible for defending its interests against encroachment and for representing its members should they be involved in litigation with the members of other families. When a family member is found guilty of a wrongful act, fines are usually paid out of family resources. Also owing to Iban notions that personal character is inherited, a family’s reputation suffers from the misdeeds of its past members.
Although each of its component families is largely autonomous, the longhouse as a whole also functions as an important legal unit. In former times, every longhouse was, as we have noted, a politically sovereign community. Even now, the longhouse headman is looked upon as the chief guardian of community adat. He and other longhouse elders are expected to be well-versed in adat and to make known to their followers what the rules of adat require of them. Through informal meetings and judicial hearings they are also expected to enforce compliance with these rules and, following their stipulations, resolve disputes and redress complaints that arise within the community.
In addition to this the longhouse as a whole is thought to possess a collective ritual status with regard to the spiritual world (Richards 1963: 1-2). Ritual is essential to preserve the spiritual well-being of the whole longhouse, as well as its families separately, and in the middle sections of this study Mr. Sandin outlines the major ritual festivals, or gawai, performed by the longhouse and describes the adat gawai, or rules of ritual procedure, that govern the performance of each of these festivals. More generally yet, observance of adat and ritual well being are closely interrelated, a point I shall return to presently. As the author stresses at the outset of this study, the longhouse is a religious congregation, whose members are bound together by ties of ritual interdependence. For this reason, adat is of special importance to the Iban, for not only does it preserve social harmony among longhouse members, but, in doing so, it makes possible ritual cooperation upon which their collective prosperity and well-being is thought to depend.http://gnmawar.wordpress.com/adat-iban/
Guardiola eager to succeed Fergie
Pep Guardiola could succeed Sir Alex Ferguson as Manchester United boss when the 70-year-old retires, according to reports.
• Guardiola linked with Brazil move
Rafa Benitez is believed to be a temporary replacement at Chelsea as owner Roman Abramovich attempts to lure Guardiola into a full-time position at the club for next season.
But while Guardiola has remained coy on his future after a hiatus from the game, the Sun has reported that the Spaniard is set to turn down Chelsea's offer and wait for a move to Old Trafford.
"The whole history of Manchester United, his relationship with Sir Alex and the way the club is run appeals to Pep," a source close to Guardiola told the Sun. "Right now I'd be astonished if he went to Chelsea. He really wants to wait for the United job even if it means extending his time out of the game."
It is believed that Abramovich's influence on the playing style at Chelsea has deterred Guardiola.Pep link to MU
GettyImagesPep Guardiola has triumped over Sir Alex Ferguson in two Champions Leagues finals
Rafa Benitez is believed to be a temporary replacement at Chelsea as owner Roman Abramovich attempts to lure Guardiola into a full-time position at the club for next season.
But while Guardiola has remained coy on his future after a hiatus from the game, the Sun has reported that the Spaniard is set to turn down Chelsea's offer and wait for a move to Old Trafford.
"The whole history of Manchester United, his relationship with Sir Alex and the way the club is run appeals to Pep," a source close to Guardiola told the Sun. "Right now I'd be astonished if he went to Chelsea. He really wants to wait for the United job even if it means extending his time out of the game."
It is believed that Abramovich's influence on the playing style at Chelsea has deterred Guardiola.Pep link to MU
Saturday, 24 November 2012
EPL event this week:Rooney available for QPR clash
Wayne Rooney is set to return for Manchester United against Queens Park Rangers on Saturday.
• Young team suffers positive loss
Rooney has missed the last two games but has recovered from tonsillitis while Chris Smalling should also be available after picking up a shoulder injury in midweek.
"Wayne Rooney is fit," Sir Alex Ferguson confirmed. "He had tonsillitis but has been training all week, which is good.
"Jonny Evans will hopefully train today but I don't know if he will be available for tomorrow. Chris Smalling had a small shoulder injury on Tuesday night.
"I wanted to play Phil Jones anyway - at least the two of them are back because I thought Jones did very well in his first game back, which is really good news. Nani is not available yet, he's not fit yet. He's still got a little problem with his hamstring."
PA PhotosManchester United's Wayne Rooney: Back in contention
Rooney has missed the last two games but has recovered from tonsillitis while Chris Smalling should also be available after picking up a shoulder injury in midweek.
"Wayne Rooney is fit," Sir Alex Ferguson confirmed. "He had tonsillitis but has been training all week, which is good.
"Jonny Evans will hopefully train today but I don't know if he will be available for tomorrow. Chris Smalling had a small shoulder injury on Tuesday night.
"I wanted to play Phil Jones anyway - at least the two of them are back because I thought Jones did very well in his first game back, which is really good news. Nani is not available yet, he's not fit yet. He's still got a little problem with his hamstring."
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