Histories of the Borneo Environment" Economic, Political and Social Dimensions of Change and Continuity [231, 1 ed.] 9789004454279

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HISTORIES OF THE BORNEO ENVIRONMENT

VERHANDELINGEN VAN HET KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE

231

HISTORIES OF THE BORNEO ENVIRONMENT Economic, political and social dimensions of change and continuity Edited by REED L. WADLEY

KITLVPress Leiden 2005

Published by: KITLV Press Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) P.O. Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands website: www.kitlv.nl e-mail: [email protected]

KITLV is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)

Cover: Creja ontwerpen, Leiderdorp ISBN 90 6718 254 0 © 2005 Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner.

Printed in the Netherlands

Contents Preface Reed L. Wadley Introduction; Environmental histories of Borneo

vii 1

Part One: Distant and local economies Eric Tagliacozzo Onto the coasts and into the forests; Ramifications of the China trade on the ecological history of northwest Borneo, 900-1900 CE Bernard Sellato Forests for food, forests for trade - between sustainability and extractivism; The economic pragmatism of traditional peoples and the trade history of northern East Kalimantan Cristina Eghenter Histories of conservation or exploitation? Case studies from the interior of Indonesian Borneo Lesley Potter Commodity and environment in colonial Borneo; Economic value, forest conversions and concern for conservation, 1870-1940

25 61

87 109

Part Two: Colonial and national resource politics Reed L. Wadley Boundaries, territory, and resource access in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, 1800-2000 Amity A. Doolittle Controlling the land; Property rights and power struggles in Sabah, Malaysia (North Borneo), 1881-1996 Michael R. Dove and Carol Carpenter The 'poison tree' and the changing vision of the Indo-Malay realm; Seventeenth to twentieth centuries

137 159 183

Contents

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Part Three: Social transformations George N. Appell Dismantling the cultural ecosystem of the Rungus of Sabah, Malaysia; A history of how the ideology of Western institutions led to the destruction of a Bomean environment Monica Janowski Rice as a bridge between two symbolic economies; Migration within and out of the Kelabit Highlands, Sarawak Graham Saunders Epilogue; in the eye of the beholder - development or exploitation? Changing perceptions of the Borneo environment

213

245 271

List of abbreviations

295

Glossary

297

Index

301

About the authors

313

Preface This book is a product of a two-day, international seminar convened in August 2000 on 'Environmental change in native and colonial histories of Borneo; Lessons from the past, prospects for the future', held in Leiden, the Netherlands. The inspiration for the seminar came from a number of sources, not least of which was the book, Paper landscapes; Explorations in the environmental history of Indonesia (Peter Boomgaard, Freek Colombijn and David Henley, KITLV Press, 1997), a product of the EDEN-project of the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (KITLV, Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies). A special focus on one island, Borneo, seemed an appropriate way to build on this earlier work, providing a means of crossing colonial and national boundaries which so often direct scholarship, and building on a concern for linking past histories and present circumstances. The seminar was sponsored by the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), where I was Research Fellow from 1998 until 2001. Supplementary funding came from the Leiden Universiteit Fonds (LUF) and the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences). The Borneo Research Council acted as an intellectual sponsor, providing its mailing list and invaluable support network. Each of the conference contributors provided much intellectual food for engaging thought and lively discussion. Most of their contributions are represented here. Dimbab Ngidang, Jayantha Perera, Antonio Guerreiro and Adela Baer gave papers which will appear elsewhere, while Freek Colombijn and Peter Boomgaard provided critical, comparative commentary. Special thanks are due Marieke Brand for her indispensable efforts in organizing the seminar, some of which occurred while I was in the field and quite inaccessible to electronic communications.

REED L. WADLEY

Introduction

Environmental histories of Borneo The closing decades of the twentieth century brought many dramatic environmental challenges to the peoples of Borneo, the consequences of which now affect the environment of the rest of Southeast Asia. These problems included oil palm plantation development, continued logging and mining, devastating forest fires and controversial transmigration. From the first years of the new century, this book takes a historical look at the Borneo environment from native, colonial and national perspectives. It examines change and continuity in the economic, political and social dimensions of human-environment interactions throughout the island and over the centuries. Reflecting the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of environmental history, the book brings together a diverse, international group of historians, anthropologists, geographers and social foresters; studying historical aspects of the environment in the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, the Indonesian provinces of Kalimantan and Brunei (Map 1). Drawing on extensive archival and field research, these ten, original contributions cover eleven centuries of history in Borneo, examining a set of inter-related topics that include long-distance trade, conservation, land tenure, resource access, property rights, views of the environment, migration and development policy and practice. We come at these topics from a range of perspectives: from Fernand Braudel' s histoire de la longue duree to actions and perceptions of local peoples, from colonial construction and imposition of ecological knowledge to shifts in 'symbolic' economies. In addition, political ecological themes, with a focus on the dynamics surrounding material and discursive struggles over natural resources, run through many of the chapters, either implicitly or explicitly. Romantic images evoked by the mere mention of Borneo are often of deep, impenetrable forests. Indeed, forests and forest-dependent peoples, their transformations and images, are dominant features of the contributions, something that is not so unusual coming from historical studies of what Lesley Potter (this volume) calls 'this formerly most forested of islands'. Yet others show that different aspects of the environment have been equally

Reed L. Wadley

2

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~ AMITY A OOOLITTl.E

LESLEY POITER

EAST KALIMANTAN

WEST KAUMANTAN

REED WADLEY

CENTRAL KALIMANTAN

REGION WIDE MICHAEL R. DOVE AND CAROL CARPENTER GRAHAM SAUNDERS

500 km

Map 1. Contributions by location on Borneo

important, such as marine resources, colonial plantation development and indigenous settled agriculture. Yet Borneo has long been regarded as peripheral to the political and economic centers of Southeast Asia, despite its geographically central location. This should not imply, of course, insignificance, and many of the contributions shift the focus back and forth between local events and wider contexts, relying on localized studies placed within circumstances beyond Borneo's shores and demonstrating the importance of the island to wider studies of human-environment interactions.

Introduction

3

Environmental history Most scholars understand environmental history to be 'an attempt to elucidate the interaction between humans and nature in the past' .1 According to Timo Myllyntaus (2001:145-9), there are five features that distinguish environmental history: 1. a focus on long-term changes in nature; 2. a perspective that is not bound by national boundaries, but that is international (I would add 'transnational') and even global; 3. 'a resolute tendency' toward interdisciplinary approaches; 4. an orientation to timely research problems with 'wide historical and social dimensions', reflecting environmental history's early focus on North American conservationist and preservationist movements; and 5. a 'tendency to reassess our views of the past'. Eschewing the' environmental history' label, anthropologists have favored the more scientifically sounding, 'historical ecology', but have been debating its definition for nearly a decade. For example, Carole Crumley (1994:6) equates it with landscape history, 'the study of past ecosystems by charting the change in landscapes over time' and tracing 'the ongoing dialectical relations between human acts and acts of nature, as observed in the landscape' (Crumley 1994:9; see Russell 1997). Bruce Winterhalder, taking a literalist stance, contends that historical ecology 'is a misnomer' (Winterhalder 1994:40), for how can there be an a-historical ecology in the modern, dynamic sense of the term (Winterhalder 1994:18)? The label is appropriate only if we 'take it to represent an epistemological commitment to the temporal dimension in ecological analysis' (Winterhalder 1994:40). He cautions against reliance on concepts like ecosystem, community and succession that anthropologists have borrowed from the older field of ecology, but that have now been replaced by such concepts as persistence, resilience and patchiness. For his part, William Bah~e (1998:14) argues that historical ecology focuses on the interpenetration of culture and the environment, instead of 'humans merely adapting to the environment'. His four (rather obvious) postulates that define the field are 1. human activity affects much, if not all, of the non-human biosphere; 2. human activity neither necessarily degrades nor improves the non-human biosphere; 3. political economies have different effects on the environment and historical trajectory of subsequent political economies; and 4. human communities, cultures, landscapes and regions can be understood as total phenomena (Balee 1998:14-24). Tristam Kidder (1998:162) puts it more eloquently:

Myllyntaus and Saikku 2001:2. For general reviews of environmental history, see Myllyntaus 2001; Arnold and Guha 1995; Grove, Damodaran and Sangwan 1998; for a review of Indonesian environmental history, see Boomgaard 1997.

4

Reed L. Wadley Historical ecology has as its most persuasive argument the notion that humans are part of the dynamic environment, and thus not necessarily limited because of the natural world. Change in human behavior through time is in part the reflection of humans as they live and adapt within their natural world, but critically too it is the result of humans as they transform and reach beyond their constraints, natural or otherwise.

In contrast, Neil Whitehead (1998) questions the paradigmatic status of historical ecology, arguing that it has no theory of history or historiography, and is dependent on historical anthropology for its conceptual tools. Historical ecological anthropologists 'seem largely content with grafting a temporal dimension onto the chronological study of systems' (Whitehead 1998:36), but in the end, the work they have produced has certainly fallen within a broadly conceived environmental history. 2 Donald Worster (1988, 1990) argues that environmental historical research involves three levels of analysis: 1. the natural environment or historical ecology, concentrating 'on the history of nature's ecosystems and striv[ing] to reconstruct the natural environment of the past' (Myllyntaus 2001:152); 2. human modes of production, particularly 'the interaction between social conditions, the economy, and the environment' (Myllyntaus 2001:153); and 3. perceptions, ideologies and values attached to the environment. Myllyntaus splits the third level into two separate levels, one focused on 'environmental policy and decision-making in society in general', and the other on 'the mental and intellectual history of environmental consciousness, the human outline of the surrounding world and its natural resources' (Myllyntaus 2001:153). The task of the environmental historian is the study of the interaction of these levels over time (Boomgaard 1997:2; Knapen 2001:4) as, for most topics, it may prove difficult to keep the three separate. The contributions in this book, dealing with both distant and more recent pasts, are primarily focused on the second and third levels, with the first providing a necessary, though often implicit, background. This focus is, in large part, driven by the archival and ethnographic information on which we rely, sources that are not always amenable to examining the first level.

Although some make a case for a distinction between environmental history and historical ecology (Arnold and Guha 1995:1-4; Knapen 2001:3), in many practical respects these are one and the same or simply emphasize different levels of analysis, with one borrowing from and relying on the other.

2

Introduction

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Environmental histories of Borneo In this volume, we build on a number of recent works on human-environment interactions in Asia - Southeast Asia and Borneo, in particular. Although some have emphasized history and others recent trends, 3 few have explicitly combined the two to study links between the historical and the contemporary environment, between continuity and change from the distant and recent past to the present. The contributions here do just that, showing that the past is very much a part of recent and on-going processes of change, that continuity forms an important facet of transformation, for both natural and social environments. Explicit attention to and emphasis on environmental history is fairly new to studies of Borneo, although some of this may be a matter of earlier work simply not applying an 'environmental history' label. For example, Derek Freeman's (1970) Report on the Iban, though concerned with contemporary matters of Iban social organization and pioneer farming, gave a nod to settlement history but did not take the next step; that is, by asking how that specific history might have influenced land use patterns. Conversely, in James Jackson's (1970) study of the Chinese gold-miners in western Borneo, the environment provides an ever present but quite silent background. So too with Thomas Lindblad's (1988) study of Southeast Borneo's economic history. It is not until we come to the work of scholars such as Michael Dove, Lesley Potter and Bernard Sell~to that we begin to find history and environment explicitly linked in the ways we might recognize as environmental history. For example, Dove has investigated land tenure (Dove 1985), forest preference and warfare (Dove 1988), technology changes (Dove 1989) and the adoption and integration of cash crops within indigenous economies.4 For her part, Potter has looked at colonial forest policy (Potter 1988) and forest product collection (Potter 1997), as well as co-authoring a wide-ranging survey of environmental history on Borneo and the Malay Peninsula (Brookfield, Potter and Byron 1995). Sellato's work has focused on forest product collection, migration, settlement patterns and geography. 5

For example, Arnold and Guha 1995; Sankoff 1999; Bennett 2000; Boomgaard, Colombijn and Henley 1997; Brookfield, Potter and Byron 1995; Bryant 1997; Elvin 2001; Grove 1997; Grove, Damodaran and Sangwan 1998; Hirsch and Warren 1998; King 1998; Knapen 2001; Li 1999; Padoch and Peluso 1996; Peluso 1992; Parnwell and Bryant 1996. 4 Dove 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997a, 1997b. 5 Sellato 1989, 1994, 2001, 2002. Sellato's historical environmental interests also come forth in a recent edited volume (Eghenter, Sellato and Devung 2003); in addition, a recent edited collection (Lye, De Jong and Abe 2003) on the political ecology of Southeast Asian tropical forests in historical perspective contains chapters on Borneo.

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Reed L. Wadley

Others too have tied history and environment together without explicit use of the label; for example, European intervention into indigenous trade patterns (Cleary 1996, 1997), fire and drought cycles (King 1996), property and resource access6 and population dynamics (Eghenter 1999). To date, the work that most unambiguously fits the label of environmental history is that of Han Knapen (1997, 1998, 2001) with his detailed study of Southeast Borneo between 1600 and 1880. 7 Within a framework of changing environmental, economic and political uncertainty, he examines a wide range of human-environment interactions such as disease, climate, physical geography, settlement patterns, warfare, forest product trade, indigenous and colonial politics, systems of subsistence, cash crop cultivation and animal husbandry. His study provides an important model for future work on the island, and the contributions here offer examples of other, complementary research directions. I have organized the contributions according to three broad themes - 1. distant and local economies involving trade in forest and other natural products; 2. colonial and national resource politics with a focus on the political ecology of resource control; and 3. social transformations stemming from environmental change. There is, however, a good deal of cross-over among these themes, as one might expect. 'Part One: Distant and local economies' focuses on the complexity of the extraction economy and the trade that drove it into the interior. In his opening article covering one thousand years of history, Eric Tagliacozzo sets much of the scene for the other three contributions by examining intertwined ecological and trade histories with a wide historical lens. Relying on a longue duree perspective, he elucidates broad patterns and connections from pre-modern to late colonial times, with special attention to extraction along the coasts and in the interior. His main focus is the impact of Chinese trade contacts in what is today Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei, with particular attention to their pace, nature and consequences for the ecological history of the island. From the first millennium CE, this trade was already having a significant effect on northern and western Borneo; indeed, scattered smelting and trading sites at the time were probably oriented toward commerce with China. In the medieval and early modern periods, small ports sprang up in Borneo in response to this trade as well, funneling sea and forest produce from nearby hinterlands to waiting Chinese junks. By the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, entire systems were in place to ferry desired produce from the island, and Chinese trade commodities 'onto the coasts, and into the forest'. 6 7

Peluso 1996; Doolittle 1999; Harwell 2000; Peluso and Vandergeest 2001. See also Wadley 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003.

Introduction

7

Resident Chinese merchants enabled these exchanges, but multi-ethnic partnerships and competitions were also important, involving (among others) Malays, Bugis, Dayak and Europeans. Tagliacozzo thus contributes not only to the environmental history of the island, but also to the larger history of regional commerce, to which Borneo has played an integral and longstanding role. Taking up the theme of forest product trade, Bernard Sellato examines an important, though frequently overlooked, distinction between resources with local subsistence value and those with long-distance trade value. The focus here is on traditional peoples' conceptions and practices in their exploitation of their natural environment. Drawing from the subsistence and trade history of forest exploitation, Sellato analyzes two groups of rice swiddeners, the Aoheng and the Kenyah (East Kalimantan), as well as by several groups of nomadic and formerly nomadic peoples. He suggests that these people, in a situation of low population density, generally display sound and sustainable practices of subsistence resource management (including land and waters), and that local concepts of estates and of their ownership or guardianship linked to genealogical and residential continuity, play an important role in generating and maintaining these practices. Conversely, in the exploitation of forest resources with value in long-distance trade, but no local use, these same people have engaged in severe and opportunistic extractivism. Sellato uses this distinction to critique the recent environmental discourse concerning indigenous people as wise stewards of their environment. Continuing the thread of investigation developed by Sellato, Cristina Eghenter contends that the interactions between people and forest products have often been portrayed in academic as well as conservation circles as either inherently conservative or destructive. She argues that we must move away from such a dichotomous view and replace it with a strong concern for contextual analysis. Only in this way can we answer questions about events, constraints and circumstances that have promoted overexploitation or protection of forest resources. In doing this, Eghenter outlines the conditions and modes of exploitation and trade of two forest products in the region of Apo Kayan (East Kalimantan) - gutta-percha at the beginning of the twentieth century and gaharu in the 1990s. By comparing these two historically distant cases of exploitation, she uncovers commonalities between local use and exploitation of forest products and their social, economic and environmental circumstances. She identifies key factors in support of sustainable exploitation of forest resources, and shows how social factors as well as the choice environment of individuals can influence under-use or over-use of forest resources. Eghenter subsequently uses her findings to suggest an alternative framework for natural resource management that may prove sustainable over time while remaining flexible to local conditions.

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In contrast to Sellato' s and Eghenter' s emphasis on local actors, Lesley Potter continues her earlier contributions to Borneo environmental history by examining the prevailing environmental ideas emerging from the colonial writings on Borneo (including Sarawak, British North Borneo and the former Dutch territories of Kalimantan) from 1870 to 1930, and the links between these ideas and the economic value of certain naturally occurring forest products or replacement crops. From among major colonial attempts at commodifying the landscape, Potter selects five products that were dominant at particular times: wild rubbers - gutta-percha (1870-1905) and jelutong (1903-1915); replacement crops - tobacco (1887-1906) and exotic rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) (1910-1930); and a limited range of timbers, especially Bornean ironwood (Eusideroxylon zwagerei) (1870-1925). Each of these experienced a significant market boom during at least part of its dominant period, which elicited intense discussion within colonial circles about the commodity in question. Potter investigates these discussions and the subsequent policies, some of which related to economic and trade questions, while some involved political, social and environmental concerns. Ironically, authorities would countenance, even laud, deforestation where conversion was for replacement by plantation tobacco or rubber for export, while swiddeners were often criticized for forest clearing and burning, and collectors for forest destruction. As Potter notes, this attitude and accompanying forest policies have continued into the national period, a theme explored in more detail by Amity Doolittle (below). 'Part Two: Colonial and national resource politics' deals more explicitly with state involvement and control of the environment and people of Borneo, from territorialization to changing visions of the environment. In my own contribution, I explore the creation and maintenance of boundaries as an essential component of territoriality, with a focus on the upper Kapuas River in West Kalimantan, Indonesia over the last two centuries. Boundaries define rights of access to natural resources and to the social-political resources of states or communities. For modern and colonial states, boundaries are most often lines on maps, abstractions and instruments in defining access to resources. State-made boundaries set off a state's territory from other states, but also provide the means for 'internal territorialization' within state possessions. The state often reserves the right to acknowledge or ignore local-level boundaries, and its boundary-making imposes and shapes social, economic and political realities locally. When states slice and apportion such a landscape, the locals variously accommodate, challenge and even ignore state-made boundaries. With this comparative background, I examine the history of boundary-making, territorialization and resource access in the borderlands of the upper Kapuas, with an emphasis on the areas inhabited by the lban. Of

Introduction

9

particular historical importance are the creation of the inter-colonial border between Dutch West Borneo and British Sarawak, and colonial involvement in drawing use-boundaries between rival ethnic groups for non-timber forest product collection. This perspective applies as well to national-era timber concessions and a recent boom in illegal logging, which has resulted in local communities reconfiguring and disputing territorial boundaries. This history has implications for the process of 'state simplification', the complexities it imposes on the local level and the resulting instability of state control. Doolittle continues these political ecological concerns in her compelling comparison of 'strategies of rule' - the colonial state's imposition of Western property law on indigenous people and the post-colonial state's rural development project in Sabah. She argues that in both eras, the state has explicated access to resources• through discourses that marginalize local people while privileging the ruling European and Malay elite. (Her descriptions here find a strong echo in Potter's chapter.) For the colonial period, Doolittle demonstrates how European law served as a 'technology of rule' by constructing assumptions about local people and thereby strengthening colonial power. Now, in contrast, officials in the present state in Sabah are not concerned with delineating (and thus limiting) native land rights. Instead their rule finds legitimacy in notions of modernity and development which generally justify state interventions into rural areas. Through her analysis, Doolittle finds that the colonial and post-colonial state share some important characteristics: Legal institutions in both privilege 'private property' over local, customary practices and thereby control resource access. Resource commodification and commercialization provides ultimate advantage to elite over local concerns, and ideologies created by both justify centralized rule while ignoring or obscuring the positions of those who depend directly on natural resources. What is more, those ideologies blame rural, forest-dependent people for resource degradation while simultaneously disregarding how the state structures the ways in which rural people use resources. Moving beyond the shores of Borneo, Michael Dove and Carol Carpenter bring together the themes of forest product trade and political ecology (particularly the colonial construction of knowledge) in their analysis of the famous upas tree of the East Indies. As they show, the 'poison tree' was exaggeratedly portrayed by the German, Rumphius, in the late seventeenth century as a source of incredible natural danger. Two centuries later, the tree had been de-mythologized, with colonial scholars and officials describing the tree as little more than an object of curiosity for travelers. These two accounts concern the same tree, but the images they evoke are very different. Dove and Carpenter argue that during the earlier colonial era when Rumphius wrote, the upas tree symbolized the colonial struggle over control of natural

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resources; it also represented the challenge that interior plants and their associated peoples posed to the colonial project. When the colonial project changed its nature and direction, this challenge shifted too, along with the portrayal of the upas tree. Using the shifting image of the poison tree, Dove and Carpenter trace the changing image of state, people and nature in the Indo-Malay archipelago, and assess its implications for ongoing ethnographic traditions of the region. 'Part Three: Social transformations' concerns just that, social transformations - from environmental degradation and its social, political and economic causes and entailments to migration and symbolic economies. While drawing on some relevant colonial era material, the particular concern within these chapters is more recent histories, often within living memory. They serve to underscore the point made in most of the other contributions that environmental histories have important links to the present. Drawing on over forty years of his own research in Sabah, Malaysia, one of the senior scholars of Borneo, George Appell, analyzes the history of the transformations to Rungus society. Reflecting many of the same concerns seen in the previous section (in particular Doolittle's contribution), Appell argues that Western ideology has driven development plans and action for Borneo people and environments, instituted first by colonialists and missionaries, and then by the Western-trained post-colonial elites. He contends that an invariable and deleterious characteristic of this ideology has been a cavalier ignorance of the environment, indigenous cultures and their interrelationships. This ideology has fueled development programs that have resulted in destructive changes to societies and environments. In the Rungus case, Appell asserts, such Western-informed ideologies and developments led to disruptions in the exchanges between the population and their environment such that both were transformed to a lower level of integration and unsustainable resource use. Critical plants and animals disappeared, and the destruction of sacred groves and the planting of acacia trees disrupted the hydrological cycle such that the region now experiences continuing, major droughts. This has necessitated the construction of expensive, regional systems to pipe water. In addition, the traditional agricultural system with its complex association of cultivars that provided secure resource use has given away to monoculture. At the societal level, some of the Rungus have moved into the slums of the cities, suicide rates among the young have climbed, alcoholism has appeared and dysfunctional families now occur along with many pregnancies out of marriage. Monica Janowski moves us to the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak. Rice cultivation as an activity and rice as a food form the core of her chapter as they provide a means for the Kelabit to link old and new 'symbolic economies' in the context of migration within and beyond the Highlands. (Symbolic econo-

Introduction

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mies refer to economic systems that are intertwined with and based on the cultural values attached to different economic activities.) As Janowski shows, the Kelabit traditionally grow rice in both dry and wet highland fields, but since the early 1960s, they have increasingly adopted permanent wet rice agriculture. Additionally, people have migrated in large numbers to nearby areas suitable for wet fields. In these places, they are able to grow more rice and send out highly prized wet-rice varieties to regional markets. Rice has thus become both a subsistence crop and a cash crop. Within the traditional symbolic economy, rice has played a central role, especially in the huge rice meals provided at irau 'naming' feasts. Now, within the new symbolic economy with rice as a cash crop, it continues to its focal role in building high status as its sale allows people to hold irau. In addition to these changes, the Kelabit have also been migrating to the coast, mainly to the town of Miri, since the 1960s. While some Kelabit have stayed in town, others have returned 'home'; many others go back and forth between the Highlands and the coast. In town, the new symbolic economy within which rice has acquired a role as a cash crop changed even more, as almost everything is monetarized. There is no clear-cut boundary, however, between the old and new symbolic economies, and the Kelabit are attempting to negotiate a relationship between the two. Although the new symbolic economy has considerable weight and power, the older symbolic economy persists as a powerful force. Janowski tells us that the Kelabit are coming to something of a compromise in which a mixture of the two symbolic economies is emerging, bridged by the central importance of rice in both town and the Highlands. Finally, in his Epilogue, Graham Saunders explores the myth that in pre-colonial times the peoples of Borneo lived in partnership with their environment and that wicked capitalist imperialists from the West, driven by greed for profits, conquered, exploited and destroyed to the detriment of Borneo and its people. Like all myths, Saunders argues, there is an element of truth, but myths are often created to explain events with far-reaching consequences, to avoid or shift responsibility for what has occurred and to serve the needs of the present rather than explain the events of the past. In particular, they often ascribe malevolent motivations to particular protagonists in events, without placing those people and their motives in historical context. Saunders examines the changing perceptions of the Borneo environment - indigenous, Arab, Chinese and European - as well as the continuities in those perceptions. In particular, he draws on the views presented and analyzed in the other chapters of this volume, from Tagliacozzo's account of Chinese trade links to Dove and Carpenter's analysis of the upas myth.

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Future environmental histories of Borneo In many ways, the contributions in this book represent the state of the field for environmental histories of Borneo, although they do not (indeed cannot) encompass the breadth of possibilities for research. Much remains to be done, and in this section, I would like briefly to outline several topics to which more future attention might be directed. Historically, rivers and river networks formed the principal means of transport and communication from the coasts to the interior (although ridgelines in the interior were more important for people such as the Penan). Studies of river basins and networks (much like Knapen' s for the Barito and adjacent rivers) would be of immense value, particularly to those of us focused on particular areas within a basin or watershed. The Rejang, Batang Lupar, Mahakam and Kinabatangan rivers come to mind, as does the Kapuas of West Kalimantan. The historical material available on any of these rivers varies greatly, of course, with possibly the Kapuas having the deepest documentation of them all (excepting the Barito covered by Knapen). Related to this are specific areas within (or between) the rivers. For example, certain geographic regions, particularly nearer coasts and inhabited by Malay peoples, have been neglected as researchers have been drawn toward the more romantically-portrayed, Dayak-dominated interior. Such areas as Sambas, Landak or Sukadana in West Kalimantan and Kutai in East Kalimantan would be important topics of study, not only for the relative depth of historical material but also for the long-term transformation of their environments. 8 In addition, environmental histories focused on particular ethnic groups throughout the island remain scarce (Sellato 1989, 1994). Much might be done, for example, by expanding Knapen's work on the Bekumpai or Banjar of southeastern Kalimantan. Such studies have been successfully executed elsewhere in the world, of both indigenous and settler societies.9 The growth of urban areas has been greatly neglected. This may again stem from the emphasis on the forested interior and rural areas, along with a related view of cities as negative factors, as parasites on the hinterlands. Yet urban areas provide a more diversified economy, outlets for surplus population and extra labor from rural areas, stable demands for food and materials and centers for communication (Knapen 2001). Environmental histories of such cities as Kuching, Sibu, Brunei, Kota Kinabalu and Pontianak would be most complementary to those of wider river basins and networks. Related to urbanization are changes in transportation (for example, shifts from rivers to 8

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2002.

See Magenda 1991 for a political history of Kutai. Harms 1987; Griffiths and Robin 1997; Balee 1994; Giles-Vernick 2002; Rival 2002; Webb

Introduction

13

roads, sail and oar to steam and diesel), the subsequent realignments of settlements and markets and their attendant affect on local and regional social and natural environments. Along with this is what Claessen and Van de Velde (1985) call 'societal format' -the interaction of physical geography and human population distribution. At least one contribution here deals with this explicitly (Wadley, this volume), but for more thorough analyses, more attention needs to be given to these factors (see, for example, Colombijn 2003). There are other more or less overlooked topics. On mining, for example, Jackson's (1970) study of western Borneo stands virtually alone (compare Knapen 2001), despite the presence of long-standing mining concerns throughout the island. Perhaps the largest (for coal) since colonial times has been that in southeastern Borneo or the antimony mines in western Sarawak, although numerous, other places have had continuous or periodic mining of coal, diamonds and gold. Studies of the environmental effects on the surrounding peoples and environments, historically and today, would be of immense value. In addition, just as recent studies have paid attention to the interior more than coastal areas, so too has the farming of rice received more attention than other crops. While in many areas of Borneo today, rice is the preferred and principal grain, it was not always that way (Knapen 2001), and many peoples relied on different crops at different seasons or different periods of history. One need only recall the sago exported from the Oya and Mukah rivers in Sarawak (which provided the Brooke state with its principal incentive to annex the area from Brunei in the 1860s). Historical and regionally focused study of older crops (for example, sago, millet and taro) as well as more recently introduced crops (for example, maize and cassava) would go a long way to countering the 'rice bias' of today. Although a number of studies have focused on cash crops or non-timber forest products (including several in this volume), no comprehensive histories of these commodities have yet been produced. 10 This is equally so for diseases and natural disasters, with Knapen's study standing largely alone.11 There is also a danger of allowing the borders of the colonial world to shape research on topics that often go beyond those borders (compare Potter 1997; Kathirithamby-Wells 1997). For example, the land borders of Borneo may have meant something to the colonial authorities who drew them, but to local people, animals and plants, these were next to non-existent for a long while. 12 The same can be said of maritime boundaries separating Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. This is not to deny the importance that colonial See, for example, Totman 1989; Marks 1998; Dean 2002. See Crosby 1986; De Bevoise 1995; Bankoff 2003; Henley 2005. 12 For the irrelevance of borders to disease in animals see Reid et al. 1999. For the importance of trans-border conservation see Wikramanayake et al. 1998.

10

11

14

Reed L. Wadley

and national boundaries had and still have on local ecologies and peoples. Along the long land border, a tension exists between common ecology and ethnicity across borders and different colonial and national experience. 13 Perhaps future work will investigate environmental histories along the intercolonial border. This would involve working with a wider range of sources - archives in the Netherlands, Indonesia, Britain and Spain. This volume, by and large, continues the reliance on colonial borders to define the targets of research, with some exceptions. Tagliacozzo's study of the China trade necessarily goes beyond colonial borders given the fact that Chinese traders both pre-dated Europeans in the area and regularly crossed colonial divisions once established. Potter makes a cross-island comparison of forest products and tree crops, and Dove and Carpenter take a regional perspective on the changing conceptions of the upas tree within and outside the area.14 Studies of colonial and national census and mapping projects, as has been done elsewhere in Southeast Asia, 15 would be helpful; particularly in relation to topics such as economic and environmental policy. Another line of research might involve selected biographies of colonial officials. While this might be regarded as being more a concern for history than the environment, such work would be of value for environmental history as it was by and through colonial officials that economic and political policies were implemented and formed, which in turn affected the local and colonial use of the environment. Although a good deal of attention has been paid to the Brooke state (Tarling 1982; Walker 2002), the Dutch side has been rather neglected (see Heidhues 2003:106, note 93). Colonial figures that come to mind for Dutch West Borneo include Cornelis Kater who began his career as a clerk and harbor master in 1852 and retired as Resident in 1885, or S.W. Tromp who served in both West and South-East Borneo throughout the 18801890s. The Dutch archives would be a rich source for these officials' actions and opinions regarding environmental matters. This also brings up the issue of portraying colonial or national states as negative players. As with most dichotomies, the state-as-bad versus the local-as-good may be too sharply drawn (although Doolittle and Appell provide convincing counter-cases in their contributions here). More nuanced study of state influences on the environment and local peoples (thfough, for example, colonial biographies) are also needed (Knapen 2001).

See Ishikawa 1998; Wadley 2000. One thing that is interesting here is the consistency of perception across European nationalities. is For example, Anderson 1991; Thongchai 1994. 13 14

Introduction

15

There is, most certainly, much more work to be done, and I hope this book answers some questions and spurs more research on environmental histories of this complex and fascinating island. References Anderson, Benedict 1991 Imagined communities; Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Revised edition. London: Verso. [First edition 1983.] Arnold, David and Ramachandra Guha (eds) 1995 Nature, culture, imperialism; Essays on the environmental history of South Asia. Delhi: Oxford University Press. [Studies in Social Ecology and Environmental History.] Balee, William L. ' 1994 Footprints in the forest; Ka'apor ethnobotany- the historical ecology of plant utilization by an Amazonian people. New York: Columbia University Press. 1998 'Historical ecology; Premises and postulates', in: William L. Balee (ed.), Advances in historical ecology, pp. 13-29. New York: Columbia University Press. [The Historical Ecology Series.] Banko££, Greg 1999 'Societies in conflict; Algae and humanity in the Philippines', Environment and History 5:97-123. 2003 Cultures of disaster; Society and natural hazard in the Philippines. London: Routledge Curzon. Bennett, Judith A. 2000 Pacific forest; A history of resource control and contest in Solomon Islands, c. 1800-1997. Leiden: Brill, Cambridge: White Horse. Boomgaard, Peter 1997 'Introducing environmental histories of Indonesia', in: Peter Boomgaard, Freek Colombijn and David Henley (eds), Paper landscapes; Explorations in the environmental history of Indonesia, pp. 1-26. Leiden: KITLV Press. [Verhandelingen 178.] Boomgaard, Peter, Freek Colombijn and David Henley (eds) Paper landscapes; Explorations in the environmental history of Indonesia. 1997 Leiden: KITLV Press. [Verhandelingen 178.] Brookfield, Harold, Lesley Potter and Yvonne Byron (eds) 1995 In place of the forest; Environmental and socio-economic transformation in Borneo and the eastern Malay Peninsula. Tokyo: United Nations University Press. [UNU Studies on Critical Environmental Regions.] Bryant, Raymond L. 1997 The political ecology offorestry in Burma, 1824-1994. London: Hurst.

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Claessen, H.J.M. and P. van de Velde 1985 'The evolution of sociopolitical organization', in: H.J.M. Claessen, P. van de Velde and M.E. Smith (eds), Development and decline; The evolution of sociopolitical organization, pp. 1-2, 126-40, 196-218. South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin and Garvey. Cleary, Mark 'Indigenous trade and European economic intervention in north-west 1996 Borneo c. 1860-1930', Modern Asian Studies 30:301-24. 'From hornbills to oil? Patterns of indigenous and European trade in 1997 colonial Borneo', Journal of Historical Geography 23:29-45. Colombijn, Freek 2003 'The volatile state in Southeast Asia; Evidence from Sumatra, 16001800', Journal of Asian Studies 62:497-529. Crosby, Alfred W. 1986 Ecological imperialism; The biological expansion of Europe, 900-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Studies in Environment and History.] Crumley, Carole L. 1994 'Historical ecology; A multidimensional ecological orientation', in: Carole L. Crumley (ed.), Historical ecology; Cultural knowledge and changing landscapes, pp. 1-16. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. [Advanced Seminar Series.] De Bevoise, Ken 1995 Agents of apocalypse; Epidemic disease in the colonial Philippines. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dean, Warren 2002 Brazil and the struggle for rubber; A study in environmental history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Studies in Environment and History.] Doolittle, Amity 1999 Controlling the land; Property rights and power struggles in Sabah, Malaysia, 1881-1996. [PhD thesis, Yale University.] Dove, Michael R. 1985 'The Kantu' system of land tenure; The evolution of tribal land rights in Borneo', in: G.N. Appell (ed.), Modernization and the emergence of a landless peasantry; Essays on the integration of peripheries to socioeconomic centers, pp. 159-82. Williamsburg: College of William and Mary. [Studies in Third World Societies 33.] 1988 'Forest preference in swidden agriculture', Tropical Ecology 24:122-42. 1989 'The transition from stone to steel in the prehistoric swidden agricultural technology of the Kantu' of Kalimantan, Indonesia', in: D.R. Harris and G.C. Hillman (eds), Foraging and farming; The evolution of plant exploitation, pp. 667-77. London: Unwin Hyman. [One World Archeology 13.] 1993 'Smallholder rubber and swidden cultivation in Borneo; A sustainable adaptation to the ecology and economy of the tropical rain forest', Economic Botany 47:36-47.

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'Transition from native forest rubbers to Hevea brasiliensis (EUPHORamong tribal smallholders in Borneo', Economic Botany 48:382-96. 1996 'Rice-eating rubber and people-eating governments; Peasant versus state critiques of rubber development in colonial Indonesia', Ethnohistory 43:33-63. 1997a 'The political ecology of pepper in the Hikayat Banjar; The historiography of commodity production in a Borneo kingdom', in: Peter Boomgaard, Freek Colombijn and David Henley (eds), Paper landscapes; Explorations in the environmental history of Indonesia, pp. 341-77. Leiden: KITLV Press. [Verhandelingen 178.) 1997b 'The "banana tree at the gate"; Perceptions of pepper production in a seventeenth century Malay state', Economic Botany 51:347-61. Eghenter, Cristina . 1999 'Migrants' practical reasonings; The social, political, and environmental determinants of long-distance migrations among the Kayan and Kenyah of the interior of Borneo', Sojourn 14:1-33. Eghenter, Cristina, Bernard Sellato and G. Simon Devung (eds) 2003 Social science research and conservation management in the interior of Borneo; Unravelling past and present interactions of people and forests. Jakarta: Center for International Forestry Research. Elvin, Mark 2001 The retreat of the elephants; China's history from an environmental perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview. Freeman, Derek 1970 Report on the !ban. London: Athlone. [London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology 41.) Giles-Vernick, Tamara 2002 Cutting the vines of the past; Environmental histories of the central African rain forest. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Griffiths, Tom and Libby Robin (eds) 1997 Ecology and empire; Environmental history of settler societies. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Grove, Richard H. (ed.) 1997 Ecology, climate and empire; Studies in colonial environmental history, 1400-1940. Cambridge: White Horse. Grove, Richard H., Vinita Damodaran and Satpal Sangwan (eds) 1998 Nature and the Orient; The environmental history of South and Southeast Asia. Delhi: Oxford University Press. [Studies in Social Ecology and Environmental History.] Harms, Robert Games against nature; An eco-cultural history of the Nunu of equatorial 1987 Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Studies in Environment and History.] 1994

BIACEAE)

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18

Harwell, Emily E. The un-natural history of culture; Ethnicity, tradition and territorial conflicts in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, 1800-1997. [PhD thesis, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.] Heid.hues, Mary Somers 2003 Golddiggers, farmers, and traders in the 'Chinese Districts' of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University. [Studies on Southeast Asia 34.] Henley, David 2005 Fertility, food and fever; Population, economy and environment in North and Central Sulawesi, 1600-1930. Leiden: KITLV Press. [Verhandelingen 2000

201.]

Hirsch, Philip and Carol Warren (eds) 1998 The politics of environment in Southeast Asia; Resources and resistance. New York: Routledge. Ishikawa, Noburu 1998 Between frontiers; The formation and marginalization of a borderland Malay community in southwestern Sarawak, Malaysia, 1870s-1990s. [PhD thesis, City University of New York.] Jackson, James C. 1970 Chinese in the West Borneo goldfields; A study in cultural geography. Hull: University of Hull. [Occasional Papers in Geography 15.] Kathirithamby-Wells, Jeya 1997 'Human impact on large mammal populations in Peninsular Malaysia from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century', in: Peter Boomgaard, Freek Colombijn and David Henley (eds), Paper landscapes; Explorations in the environmental history of Indonesia, pp. 215-47. Leiden: KITLV Press. [Verhandelingen 178.] Kidder, Tristram R. 1998 'The rat that ate Louisiana; Aspects of historical ecology in the Mississippi River delta', in: William Balee (ed.), Advances in historical ecology, pp. 141-68. New York: Columbia University Press. [The Historical Ecology Series.] King, Victor T. 1996 'Environmental change in Malaysian Borneo; Fire, drought and rain', in: M.J.G. Pamwell and R.L. Bryant (eds), Environmental change in South-East Asia; People, politics and sustainable development, pp. 165-89. London: Routledge. [Global Environmental Change Series.] 1998 (ed.) Environmental challenges in South-East Asia. Richmond: Curzon. [Man and Nature in Asia Series 2.] Knapen, Han 1997 'Epidemics, droughts and other uncertainties in Southeast Borneo during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries', in: Peter Boomgaard, Freek Colombijn and David Henley (eds), Paper landscapes; Explorations in the environmental history of Indonesia, pp. 121-52. Leiden: KITLV Press. [Verhandelingen 178.]

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'Lethal diseases in the history of Borneo; Mortality and the interplay between disease environment and human geography', in: V.T. King (ed.), Environmental challenges in South-East Asia, pp. 69-94. Richmond: Curzon. [Man and Nature in Asia Series 2.] Forests of fortune? The environmental history of Southeast Borneo, 16002001 1880. Leiden: KITLV Press. [Verhandelingen 198.] Li, Tania Murray (ed.) Transforming the Indonesian uplands; Marginality, power and production. 1999 Amsterdam: Harwood Academic. [Studies in Environmental Anthropology 4.] Lindblad, J. Thomas Between Dayak and Dutch; The economic history of southeast Kalimantan 1988 1880-1942. Dordrecht: Foris. [KITLV, Verhandelingen 134.] Lye Tuck-Po, Wil de Jong and Ken-ichi Abe The political ecology of tropical forests in Southeast Asia; Historical perspec2003 tives. Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, Melbourne: Transpacific. [Kyoto Area Studies on Asia 6.] Magenda, Burhan East Kalimantan; The decline of a commercial aristocracy. Ithaca, NY: 1991 Cornell Modem Indonesia Project, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University. [Cornell Modem Indonesia Project Monograph Series 70.] Marks, Robert B. Tigers; rice, silk, and silt; Environment and economy in late imperial south 1998 China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Studies in Environment and History.] Myllyntaus, Timo 'Environment in explaining history', in: Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko 2001 Saikku (eds), Encountering the past in nature; Essays in environmental history, pp. 141-60. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. [Ohio University Press Series in Ecology and History.] Myllyntaus, Timo and Mikko Saikku 'Environmental history; A new discipline with long traditions', in: 2001 Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku (eds), Encountering the past in nature; Essays in environmental history, pp. 1-28. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. [Ohio University Press Series in Ecology and History.] Padoch, Christine and Nancy Lee Peluso (eds) Borneo in transition; People, forests, conservation, and development. Kuala 1996 Lumpur: Oxford University Press. [South East Asian Social Science Monographs.] Pamwell, Michael J.G. and Raymond L. Bryant (eds) Environmental change in South-East Asia; People, politics and sustainable 1996 development. London: Routledge. Peluso, Nancy Lee Rich forests, poor people; Resource control and resistance in Java. Berkeley, 1992 Calif.: University of California Press. 1998

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'Fruit tree and family trees in an anthropogenic forest; Ethics of access, property zones, and environmental change in Indonesia', Comparative Studies in Society and History 38:510-48. Peluso, Nancy Lee and Peter Vandergeest 2001 'Genealogies of the political forest and customary rights in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand', Journal of Asian Studies 60:761-812. Potter, Lesley 'Indigenes and colonisers; Dutch forest policy in South and East Borneo 1988 (Kalimantan), 1900 to 1950', in: J. Dargavel, K. Dixon and N. Semple (eds), Changing tropical forests; Historical perspectives on today's challenges in Asia, Australasia and Oceania, pp. 127-53. Canberra: Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University. 1997 'A forest product out of control; Gutta-percha in Indonesia and the wider Malay world, 1845-1915', in: Peter Boomgaard, Freek Colombijn and David Henley (eds), Paper landscapes; Explorations in the environmental history of Indonesia, pp. 281-308. Leiden: KITLV Press. [Verhandelingen 178.] Reid, S.A., A. Husein, G.W. Hutchinson and D.B. Copeman 1999 'A possible role for Rusa deer (Cervus timorensis russa) and wild pigs in spread of Trypanosoma evansi from Indonesia to Papua New Guinea', Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz 94:195-97. Rival, Laura M. 2002 Trekking through history; The Huaorani of Amazonian Ecuador. New York: Columbia University Press. [The Historical Ecology Series.] Russell, Emily W.B. 1997 People and the land through time; Linking ecology and history. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sellato, Bernard 1989 Nomades et sedentarisation aBorneo; Histoire, economique et sociale. Paris: Editions de L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. [Etudes Insulindiennes 9.] 1994 Nomads of the Borneo rainforest; The economics, politics, and ideology of settling down. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. 2001 Forest, resources and peoples in Bulungan; Elements for a history of settlement, trade and social dynamics in Borneo, 1880-2000. Jakarta: Center for International Forestry Research. 2002 Innermost Borneo; Studies in Dayak cultures. Paris: Seven Orients, Singapore: Singapore University Press. Tarling, Nicholas 1982 The burthen, the risk, and the glory; A biography of Sir fames Brooke. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Thongchai Winichakul 1994 Siam mapped; A history of the geo-body of a nation. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Totman, Conrad 1989 The green archipelago; Forestry in pre-industrial Japan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Introduction

21

Wadley, Reed L. 2000 'Warfare, pacification, and environment; Population dynamics in the West Borneo borderlands (1823-1934)', Moussons 1:41-66. 2001 'Trouble on the frontier; Dutch-Brooke relations and lban rebellion in the West Borneo borderlands (1841-1886)', Modern Asian Studies 35: 623-44. 2002 'The history of displacement and forced settlement in West Kalimantan, Indonesia; Implications for co-managing Danau Sentarum Wildlife Reserve', in: Dawn Chatty and Marcus Colchester (eds), Conservation and indigenous mobile peoples; Displacement, forced settlement and sustainable development, pp. 313-28. Oxford: Berghahn. 2003 'Lines in the forest; Internal territorialization and local accommodation in West Kalimantan, Indonesia (1865-1979)', South East Asia Research 11:91-112. Walker, John 2002 Power and prowess; The origins of Brooke kingship in Sarawak. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. [Southeast Asia Publication Series.] Webb, James L.A. 2002 Tropical pioneers; Human agency and ecological change in the highlands of Sri Lanka, 1800-1900. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Whitehead, Neil L. 1998 'Ecological history and historical ecology; diachronic modeling versus historical explanation', in: William L. Balee (ed.), Advances in historical ecology, pp. 30-41. New York: Columbia University Press. [The Historical Ecology Series.] Wikramanayake, Eric D., et al. 1998 'An ecology-based method for defining priorities for large mammal conservation; The tiger as case study', Conservation Biology 12:865-78. Winichakul, Thongchai see Thongchai Winichakul Winterhalder, Bruce P. 1994 'Concepts in historical ecology; The view from evolutionary theory', in: Carole L. Crumley (ed.), Historical ecology; Cultural knowledge and changing landscapes, pp. 17-41. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. [Advanced Seminar Series.] Worster, Donald 1988 'Appendix; Doing environmental history', in: Donald Worster (ed.), The ends of the earth; Perspectives on modern environmental history, pp. 289-307. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1990 'Transformations of the earth; Toward an agroecological perspective in history', Journal of American History 76:1087-106.

PART ONE

Distant and local economies

ERIC TAGLIACOZZO

Onto the coasts and into the forests

Ramifications of the China trade on the ecological history of northwest Borneo, 900-1900 CE

Introduction The celebrated historian Fernand Braudel wrote thirty years ago that 'mountains as a rule are a world apart from civilization, which is an urban and lowland achievement: their history is to have none, to remain almost always on the fringe of the great waves of civilization, even the longest and most persistent' (Braudel 1972:116). This, surely, is history written by the victors: an urban, 'lowland-dwelling' man evaluating the worth of various pasts from an office on the banks of the Seine. In a more recent article, however, the anthropologist Rena Lederman (1986:25) has challenged this shared bias of many historians, arguing instead for a different conception of the history of 'peripheralized' peoples (mountain and forest dwellers, 'outer islanders', and so on). Drawing on the example of the village of Mendi in Highland New Guinea, she has shown comprehensively that peoples along the 'margins' have always been more incorporated into global history than we have ever conceived or even chosen to believe. Yet up until quite recently, she postulates, we haven't known how to spot these clues of incorporation: the diffusion of high-status goods into the forests, for example, or the exploitation of certain ecological zones by indigenous peoples for export into world markets. These are the legacies of cross-cultural contact with the 'outer orbits' of mankind, says Lederman, more subtle (and productive, generally), than searches for lost temples or crumbling ancient texts. What is true for Mendi is certainly true elsewhere in the region. Perhaps nowhere is this more so than in northern and western Borneo. 1 1 For the purposes here, when I refer to northern and western Borneo I will be speaking of the areas comprising modern Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei. Since the majority of events discussed, however, occurred before the delineations of these polities as such by the British, occasionally the narrative includes borderlands stretching into Dutch Kalimantan.

26

Eric Tagliacozzo

Borneo has been caricatured in Western literature as the end of the earth: an enormous, impenetrable forest, populated by headhunters and a bevy of strange animals and birds. But Borneo has also been a surprising and longstanding part of the great maritime trade routes of Asia, which skirted its coasts in the long voyages between China and many countries to the south and west. This chapter will attempt to analyze the ramifications of this commerce on the ecological history of north and west Borneo, specifically the Great China trade that started in the waning years of the first millennium and reached its apex in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Chinese luxury markets and medicinal pharmacopoeia came to demand a large cross-section of the ecological products of Borneo, both from the heart of the forest and the littoral strand bordering the sea.2 Initially transported by a variety of Asian shippers, this specialized commerce later became a prime concern for European powers as well, who were always looking for goods to sell for Chinese silks and teas. By the mid-1840s, there were many different ethnic groups engaged in competition for these environmental resources, with no single diaspora in Borneo enjoying a clear advantage over any of the others. 3 The result of these two millennia of interest in the ecological wealth of Borneo changed the island's societies in many important ways. Modes of production were altered, rituals came to encompass the acquisition of Borneo's natural products and political allegiances were forged and broken according to the demands of foreign markets. I will chart these metamorphoses from both coastal and inland perspectives, before ending with a look at later variations of the trade in the second half of the nineteenth century. A wide range of sources will be utilized as the history of such 'margins' has indeed been a neglected one: geography, anthropology and archaeology all have their place in this inquiry, therefore, alongside more conventional historical documentation (such as contemporary newspapers, shipping logs and travel accounts of the region). The central argument of the essay is that Braudel (and the Annales School of historiography in general) actually have much to offer to the study of places like northwest Borneo, contrary to the quotation that serves as a beginning to this chapter. Yet this contribution lies less in the assertion that the mountains and forests of the world have no proper place in the 'history of civilization', and more on Braudel's insistence that the longue duree of events must be scanned for signs of meaningful change. Northwest Borneo underwent a significant evolution between 900 and 1900 2 For an exhaustive list of tribute items and gifts that flowed between Southeast Asia and China during the Sung Dynasty (960-1279 CE), see Wong 1977. 3 Several authors have tried to gauge the long-term impact of Chinese economic interaction with the Archipelago; among the most notable attempts have been A. Reid 1996; Trocki 1990 and Wang Gungwu 1991. Indonesian scholars have also looked at these patterns over the longue duri~e, for example, I Putu Gede Suwitha 1985.

Onto the coasts and into the forests

27

CE. This essay attempts to track the entwined ecological and trade histories of this region, as seen through the vagaries of the China market, late colonial capitalism and a full millennium's passage of time.

The China trade and Borneo - early connections The history of Borneo's commerce and relations with China stretches far back into antiquity. Chinese chronicles first mentioned a sporadic trade with the Nanyang ('Southern Ocean') countries in 140 BC, with the Han Shu Ti Li Chih outlining these early contacts as being undertaken in both Chinese and foreign ships (Tan 1989:29). By the Six Dynasties Period (219-580 AD) and the T'ang (618-906 AD), however, the majority of this traffic seems to have been from the Middle East: coastal peoples from Persia and Arabia who specialized in carrying low-bulk, high-value goods (such as spices and resins) from the Indian Ocean, through the conduit of Southeast Asia and up the China coasts. Yet Chinese continued to sojourn along the maritime nexus, no matter who owned the boats. The monk Fa Hsien was one such traveler, describing Buddhist communities in India and Palembang, Sumatra; he is also perhaps the first recorded Chinese to touch down in Borneo, based on Paul Wheatley's transcription of the toponym Ye-po-ti (Wheatley 1961: 37-41, 108). The Malay /Indonesian world in which Fa Hsien found himself also started sending trade missions to China at this time, with a Javanese embassy arriving for. the first time in 430 AD and the Chinese list of known area potentates expanding to six one century later (Wolters 1974:151). The ascension of Sriwijaya in the seventh century solidified these contacts into a regulated trade, with monsoon-climate forest products being sent north in exchange for items like gongs, porcelain and ceremonial banners from China (Wong 1977:81-91). The itinerant Chinese scholar I-ching, who composed his Nan hai chi kua nei fa chuan 4 at the very end of this century, while still in residence in Southeast Asia, furthered China's knowledge of the region even more (Nicholl 1989b:26). During these earliest centuries the first anthropological writings on the customs and traditions of Southeast Asians appear in Chinese sources, revealing a concerted Sinic fascination with the strange worlds to the south.s 'A record of the Buddhist religion as practiced in India and the Malay Archipelago, 671 to 695 CE'. See, for example, early writings on the customs of the people of P' oni (Brunei): notices exist describing a people who were skilled at throwing chiselled knives with edges like a saw, punished murderers and thieves with amputation of the hand, sacrificed to ancestors on nights with no moon, floated ceramic bowls downriver in religious rites and wove cloth from local plants called kupa and tieh. John Chin (1981:2) has shown how all of these early descriptions were in

4

28

Eric Tagliacozzo It was in the Sung Dynasty (960-1279 AD), however, that the Chinese mari-

time trade with Southeast Asia expanded by several dimensions to become an important national industry. Professor Feng Xianming has attributed this renaissance to several interlocking factors (Feng Xianming 1981). First, trade was institutionalized during these years by the creation of mercantile and shipping offices in several important ports along the southeastern seaboard, with Guangzhou, Mingzhou, Hangzhou and Chuanzhou serving as the major sites of organization. This brought merchants under official protection and jurisdiction, as well as under the vigilant tax-collecting eyes of the central government. Second, court officials were also dispatched abroad to renew old trade contacts and encourage brand new ones, fully outfitted with gifts befitting the munificence of emperors who expected substantial South Seas ecological tribute in return. Third, the Sung Court also launched ambitious ship-building and financing projects in the southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, so that ocean-going junks would be fully provided with the most up-to-date technologies for piloting, depth-sounding and direction-finding. And fourth, kiln-building was also encouraged in these same southern coastal provinces, to provide China with an export industry to pay for the increasing volume of natural products that were being funneled north from places like Borneo. The revival of Taoism during the Sung (with its attendant needs for ritual paraphernalia like ivory, scented wood and mother of pearl) was one reason for this gradual influx of goods (Roxas-Lim 1987:27). Wang Gungwu has defined another as the burgeoning of a new leisure class, striving to enjoy the refinements of aristocratic living such as aphrodisiacs, rare birds and gemstones (Wang Gungwu 1958:57). Southeast Asian ecological products were also becoming more solidly integrated into a traditional pharmacopoeia, with Bornean products like rhino horns, bezoar, camphor and tortoise shell being used as antipyretics, diuretics, analgesics and tonics respectively (D. Reid 1987:96-7, 118, 184). Chau Ju Kua, Superintendent of Trade in Chuanzhou, wrote in his Chu fan chi (1225 CE) that many of these products (such as sandalwood and gaharu wood) were coming directly from Borneo (Nicholl 1989b). Trade grew so fast that at the beginning of the dynasty one-fiftieth of Chinese national income derived from these transactions; by the late Sung, however, the taxes on Nanyang produce alone constituted a tenth of all money in the hands of the Imperial Bureaucracy (Roxas-Lim 1987:28). Chinese traders heading down to Borneo and Southeast Asia in general to barter for these products stimulated a maritime 'Golden Age' for overseas Chinese shipping. The massacre of most of the Muslim population of Canton some way or another true of the peoples of the area: the first and second of the Muslim population of Brunei, the third of the Kadayans, the fourth of the Melanaus (for water-spirit propitiation) and the fifth of many Malay and Dayak villages along the Brunei coasts.

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in 878 in the xenophobic death-throes of the T'ang had already done much to discourage long-distance Arab shipping in the area, but technological innovations in junk construction and design simultaneously vaulted Chinese vessels into the forefront of the ocean-going trade. By the middle of the Sung junks could carry up to 600 tons of cargo and 300 merchants and crew in voyages down to Southeast Asia: this in ships over 100 feet long, with beams and depths running 30 feet at the widest points. 6 As these journeys became more and more frequent the captains of these junks acquired specialized knowledge: the distances between cities and kingdoms, the ebb and flow of local tides, typhoon and storm frequencies and the location of dangerous reefs and shoals. Two routes along the Jiao-guang, the 'Eastern sea route' (Wong 1984:201), could take a trading junk to Northwest Borneo in search of the ecological products of the region. Both left China with the northeastern monsoon in the dead of winter, with the first plying south along the coasts of the Southeast Asian mainland and returning up through Borneo, the Philippines and Taiwan (Purcell 1965:18). The other alternative, which Mills transcribed from the Wu-pei-chih charts, followed a direct path across the South China Sea in the inverse direction, calling at Luzon, Mindoro, the Visayas and Sulu before branching down to the northern extremities of Borneo (Mills 1973:19; also Ptak 1999). In either case, however, junks seemed to depend less on charts than on portolans or rutters (sailing directions), with the ones published during the fourteenth and fifteenth-centuries about the northwest coasts of Borneo (such as the 1304 Nan hai chih and Ma Huan's Ying-yai sheng Zan) giving extremely detailed references (Mills 1974:42-51; Brown 1978:46-58). From the archaeological work completed along the Borneo coasts in the last forty years (Cheng 1972:10), a picture is emerging of how these earliest contacts with China trade traffic distributed power and people up and down the strand. Much of the evidence is metallurgical; along with Brunei (which will be discussed further in a moment), the Sarawak Delta seems to have been one of the first regions involved in the international commercial net, based on T'ang and Sung Dynasty artifacts unearthed in the region. Tom Harrisson and the Sarawak museum excavators found Chinese cash-string coins, crucibles, pottery and graveyards in the Sungei Ja'ong and Bongkisam sites, as well as small gold figurines identifiable with schools of Tantric Buddhism. 7 The porcelain, especially, placed the series of inter-connected Delta sites within a dateable time sequence, beginning in the early eighthcentury and then disappearing out of the trade orbit around the time of the Kwan and Martin 1985:52. For other good accounts of the nautical dimension to the Nanyang trade, Manguin 1980:266-76, 1983, 1984; Mills 1979 and Ma Huan 1970. 7 The rest of the sites were Tanjong Kubor, Tanjong Tegok, Buah, Bukit Maras and Muara Tebas (T. Harrisson 1967:141).

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fall of the Mongols (1368 AD). Based on this evidence (or lack of it after this date), Harrisson conjectured the existence of a 'Ming Gap' for Sarawak's involvement with the trans-national China trade, pointing to large amounts of Ming and Ch'ing wares that were simultaneously coming to light further north along the coast around Kota Batu, the old capital of Brunei (T. Harrisson 1959:132, 1961:253). Yet further investigations since the time of these digs in the 1960s have diluted the 'Ming Gap' theory, as post-Sung export wares have been unearthed in the Delta, although still in lower concentrations than at Brunei. 8 Harrisson's hypothesis about the rhythm of Bornean coastal settlement still stands in principle, however: the earliest sites were located both in Brunei and the Delta, with a subsequent shift in importance to the Sarawak coastal centers, before a final recapturing of this dominance by Kota Batu at the onset of the Ming. Brunei and its environs, indeed, seem to have occupied a special symbolic place to the Chinese from a very early date. P'oni (the Chinese transcription of the city I region) is first mentioned in official court chronicles in 517 CE (the earliest definitive Chinese record of Borneo, as Fa Hsien's landfall is still in doubt); subsequent notices in 522, 616, 630, and 690 CE attest to the growth of contacts with this polity - whatever its nature may have been - over the centuries.9 In 977 two Muslim envoys appeared in the Chinese court as emissaries of the 'King of Brunei', which occasioned the first direct contact between the kingdoms as recorded by the Sung chroniclers (Wong 1978:56). This Muslim dimension to Sino-Brunei contacts continued up until the appearance of the Mongols in the second half of the thirteenth century, with the oldest Chinese inscription in all of Southeast Asia in fact unearthed in a Chinese trader's tomb outside of Brunei city- 'Here lies P'u' (apparently 'Abu', an Islamicized Chinese from Chuanzhou in Fujian, the date inscribed 1264 CE (Franke and Ch' en T' ien Fan 1973:91-6). The first Ming Emperor commissioned a separate essay to be written about the nature of tribute and trade relations with Brunei, apart from the regular notices printed in the Ming-shih; by this time Brunei was already becoming an important ecological-collecting center, and therefore had grown important to the court (Brown 1972:219). Fei Hsian, who traveled on Admiral Zheng He's ships to Southeast Asia, mentioned good relations in his Hsing cha sheng Zan, while the early fifteenth century chronicler Wang Ta-yuan (in his Tao i chih Zia) was also impressed with the richness of trade, singling out gold dust, tortoise shell and aromatic wood exports from West Borneo in general (Sin 1971:37; Rockhill 1915:266). Final 8 For example, L. Chin 1977:6 and Guy 1986:35. A Fujian export shard with the inscription 'Muhammad is the Prophet' in Arabic has also recently been found here; destined for Muslim markets further West, it is extremely rare (Osman 1991:10-21). 9 J. Chin 1981:2. On the questioning of the temporal continuity of P'oni, see Christie 1985:80.

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evidence of this high regard stands in a grave complex outside of Nanjing, where the head of a delegation from Brunei was buried in 1408 after contracting a sickness in such unaccustomed northern climes. The Emperor closed the court for three days, pensioning off some of the ambassador's relatives to remain and conduct the yearly ritual sacrifices (Nicholl 1984:35). By the time further embassies arrived in the early fifteenth-century, announcing the union of Brunei and Sulu under the jurisdiction of the former, Brunei was known to the Chinese as the most important entrepot in the Nanyang, a market for all types of ecological products indigenous to the region. 10 A new dimension was added to the China trade with Borneo only several decades later, one that heralded a change in older commercial relationships and the start of new systems befitting a complicated new world. European ships began to arrive in Southeast Asia, at first only a few Portuguese carracks and caravels at a time, but later the representatives, traders and explorers of a variety of maritime nations (England, Spain and Holland), one after another. Coercive mercantile tactics were eventually initiated by all of these powers, as each attempted to shift trade to benefit their own distant treasuries. A Ming memorial from 1530 AD recounted the situation: During the Period Cheng Te (1506-1521) the Franks (Portuguese) had been violently spreading their influence, and tribute (from Brunei to China) had ceased. A few years afterward the natives have tried to begin sending it again, but it is evident · that their regard for the Chinese Empire has suffered very much. (Purcell 1965:22.)

The concerned tone of the memorial was more than justified, as many Southeast Asian polities which had formerly shipped ecological tribute to China now had to deal with the more aggressive trade policies of various Europeans. This was a gradual shift to be sure, but the general predation, war, and 'piracy' that spread along the maritime routes changed the character of the sea routes. In the case of Northwest Borneo and the societies which had traditionally participated in this trade, these changes were to be significant and encompassed the ways in which many Borneans led their everyday lives.

Metamorphoses - the coastal dimension The majority of this paper concerns the transitional centuries after this European intrusion (approximately 1500-1900 CE), focusing on how and why the accelerated pace of trade acted as an ecological catalyst in the region. Few Bornean societies, from the Kelabit deep in the interior of the island to the 10

Wang Gungwu 1970:375-402, see also Matussin and Sharaffuddin 1978:59-60.

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Bajau communities scattered along the coasts, can be said to have escaped these fluctuations altogether. 11 Most, in fact, dealt with the rise of the China trade as an important socio-economic part of their existence: exploiting certain jungle products for export to the Canton market, engaging in 'piracy' as a means toward garnering tradewares or technology (porcelain, munitions, and so on), or allying themselves with more powerful groups also involved in the trade (the Sulu Sultanate, diasporic Bugis communities, etcetera). Particularly along the coasts, such incorporations into the greater systems that were evolving to push ecological produce north to Canton were almost unavoidable. Competition (between Southeast Asians, and between Europeans as well) was a hallmark of these new inter-relationships, as was the transit of a variety of new goods with strong cultural repercussions. Perhaps the best place to start in examining the impact of the China trade on the societies of coastal Borneo is with the genesis of a new phenomenon: the rise of cities along the strand, foremost among them the port/kingdom of Brunei. We have already seen that Brunei was known to the medieval Chinese through a series of court records and essays, which recorded the polity's existence and growth in the international maritime circuit of Sung and Yuan times. Written in the form of acknowledgments of tribute, these notices tell us little about the nature of the city, however, and still less about the process of urbanization in Borneo as a direct result of the China trade.12 From Chau Ju Kua, the aforementioned superintendent of trade in Chuanzhou harbor, Fujian, we do know that the city walls were built of timber, and that the population was nearing ten thousand in 1225 AD; these attributes certainly imply the presence of local logging, not just for Brunei's ramparts but also for the construction of houses (Hirth and Rockhill 1967:63). Other Chinese sources reported that the king wore Chinese silks on formal occasions, and that there had been inter-marriage going on with Chinese merchants for quite some time (Nicholl 1989a:7; Han Sing Fong 1975:29). Oral traditions even abounded into this century in some parts of Sabah that these earliest Chinese had come looking for a lost metallurgical treasure: a great gem on the summit of Mount Kinabalu, which was defended so well by a dragon that the Chinese were forced to stay, settling and marrying into the royal house of Brunei. 13 For an interesting Indonesian analysis of the history of Chinese migration and trade with the Archipelago (which also touches on Borneo), see Priyono 1984:715-26. 12 For theoretical discussions on the nature and dimensions of Southeast Asian port cities at the dawn of European contact, see O'Connor 1983; Reeves 1989; Broeze 1989 and A. Reid 1989. 13 Roth 1896:24 and Evans 1922:274. John Chin (1981:4) reports that there was some amount of truth to this legend: the Ming envoy Ong Sum Ping apparently settled with his followers on the Kinabatangan River in Sabah in 1375, marrying his daughter to Sultan Akhmed, the second sultan of Brunei, whose daughter then married Sharif Ali, who succeeded to the Brunei throne as Sultan Berkat. 11

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Yet it was only with the arrival of European observers in the early sixteenth-century that more solid descriptions were left of how the China trade had spurred the gradual urbanization of Brunei. Pigafetta, who visited the city in 1521 after the death of Magellan in the Philippines, left an eyewitness account of a burgeoning metropolis, replete with the trappings of an international commerce. His ship was met by prahu whose bows and sterns were decorated with gold, which then led him past partially brick walls (implying the existence of kilns) into a palace defended by cannon (Bellwood and Omar 1980:157). Carpets and cushions were laid down for comfortable seating, while all around Pigafetta hung silk trappings and banners from China, as well as locally-mined precious stones and gold. Sliding windows barely concealed phalanx after phalanx of guardsmen, each equipped with 'cutlasses and shields'; elephants then came marching into the audience hall, bringing Chinese porcelains as presents (Carroll 1985:54). Pigafetta estimated the total population of the city to be in the neighborhood of 100,000 by 1521, which would have meant a substantial increase in pressure on local timber stands, as well as the development of a significant agricultural sector to feed the local populace. Chinese coins were used as Brunei's currency, and the weights and measures of the Middle Kingdom also regulated transactions in the city's markets (J. Chin 1981:7). Fifty years later, with the Spanish on much less friendly terms with Brunei (and in fact about to invade it), an anonymous Spanish account provided further information - this time strategic - on the workings of the urban sultanate (Carroll 1986). Because of its vast trade connections and the diffusion of technology, Brunei was now casting its own cannonballs of hard cast iron, importing the raw materials from small offshore islands where the ores occurred naturally. Lances, pikes, harpoons and aquebuses were also being forged, keeping Brunei's metallurgical industry busy, while the city received its gunpowder from Chinese shippers via Siam. Spain would attack, occupy, and lose Brunei all in the next few years, but the important information for our purposes is to note the accumulation in the city of material wealth and cutting-edge technology, all through Brunei's contacts in the China trade. Mining, metallurgy, and the acquisition of precious metals were all undertaken on an increasingly wide scale, as the city utilized its local environment for both building and defensive purposes. Chinese inhabitants and visitors were an important part of the local population balance of this burgeoning city. In late sixteenth and early seventeenth century records, they appear as captains, pilots, envoys and pepper merchants, as well as slaves and debtors on the run. 14 By the late eighteenth 14 Don Juan de Arce's letter of 21March1579 in Blair and Robertson 1973:195; Admiral Olivier van Noort's commentary of 26 December 1600 in Historische beschrijving der reizen 1758a:33; the

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century, a full-scale trade with 'sister emporia' like Macao was flourishing, with dozens of ships sailing between the two ports to conduct the valuable trade in Borneo's natural products (Manguin 1987:17). The English East India Company scribe William Milburn noted a few decades later that trade with China was still important (though by this time -1813- the sultanate's prosperity had been eclipsed by neighboring polities like Sulu): Ten miles upriver junks of six hundred tons can still reach the city: the river here is almost as wide as the Thames at London Bridge, with six fathoms of water in the channel. Here lie moored, head and stem, the junks, four or five of which come annually from Amoy. Some of the houses on the right side of the water are two stories high (on stilts), with stages of wharves to them; all for the convenience of trade. (Milburn 1813:419.)

Milburn noted that although Spanish dollars were now the preferred currency in Brunei, Chinese cash was still accepted; traditional imports continued to make their way down from the coasts of China (gongs and iron bars, glassware and coarse cutlery), all paying for the ecological produce Brunei collected. As a warehousing, shipping, packing and storage center, Brunei was representative of other, smaller towns which had sprung up along many of Borneo's rivers in response to Chinese commerce. Uncommon (and somewhat unnecessary) before the China trade became pervasive, such complexes would eventually grow into multi-functional, multi-cultural exchange centers geared towards the collection of ecological goods. Kuching became the largest example of this phenomenon in the Bornean context in the mid-nineteenth-century, though it was eventually joined by other coastal sites on a smaller scale that fulfilled similar roles.

Metamorphoses - the inland dimension James Warren and I have both explored further patterns of coastal change in North Borneo over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, concentrating primarily on marine produce. 15 Yet the lives of inland peoples were also directly affected by the ecological impact of centuries of trade with China. The next section of this paper focuses on two major themes, both of which explore the incorporation of Borneo's interior into the expanding world economy. The first of these sketches a brief analysis of changing geographic same admiral's description over the course of the new year, 1601, in Nederlandsche reizen 1758b: 240; and the letter of Sultan Hassan of Brunei to Spanish Governor Tello, 27 July 1599, in Blair and Robertson 1973:120. 15 Warren 1981 and Tagliacozzo 2004.

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relations, as upriver and downriver societies met with growing frequency and impact, primarily in the confines of the 'ecological market'. Secondly, the role of two specific jungle products will be examined - camphor and edible birds' nests - to see what their collection and sale can tell us about the evolving nature of the China trade. The portrait that emerges from these inquiries is one of gradual but inexorable attraction, a deepening of contacts which brought the peoples of the forest to the brink of the expanding colonial world. This process was a painstaking one, gathering momentum only slowly over the centuries, with profit and mutual fascination acting as the twin engines of change.

Ecological patterns of upland/lowland relations F.L. Dunn, in his monograph Rainforest collectors and traders; A study of resource utilization in modern and ancient Malaya has developed a fascinating temporal analysis for the history of the forest: one based in geography, economics and demography, all at once (Dunn 1975:117-8). Dunn charts the movement of ecological products out of the Malaysian forest in a series of sequential periods: in Phase 1 (fifth to fourteenth centuries) most of this organization came from orang asli; in Phase 2 (fifteenth century) impetus started moving toward Malays and coastal Muslims; in Phase 3 (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries) the process emerged as a 'free-for-all' between Chinese, Malays and Europeans; while in Phase 4 (nineteenth century) predominance swung to the latter. This is a simplified schema, to be sure, but the dynamics of change delineated are very useful - especially in the case of Northwest Borneo. We have already seen how the Bornean world was divided into a Muslim coastal fringe and a predominantly 'animist' interior, with fiefdoms developing in the rivermouths as centers for China trade exports. This system held both among the Taosug in Sabah and in Sarawak among the Brunei Malays. From these centers merchants traded along the coasts, searching for trepang and pearls, but they also sailed into the interior, in search of valuable forest products. On the Kinabatangan River alone in Sabah, up to thirty trade prahus made the journey each year, as noted by an Englishman in the 1830s (Hunt 1837:55). Markets began to develop under the canopy of the forest which were enormous in complexity: one example (as described by the Dutchman Schwamer in 1853) listed an exhaustive variety of goods that were regularly available for trade.16 By the mid-nineteenth century even the 16 Schwamer described the scene thus: 'I have met traders on the Kapuas, Kahayan and Katingan rivers where they were dealing in tobacco, gambir, salt, rice, beads, herbs, ammunition, guns, European white cloth, Chinese pots, gongs, pans of iron and copper. They exchange these for gold, rattan, bezoar stones and vines' (quoted in B. Harrisson 1986:118).

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Kayan of Central Borneo, whose mountain abodes were only reachable by tortuous and slippery foot-tracks (setapak), possessed an impressive array of items: firearms and salt, beads and coarse cloth, all taken in exchange for bezoar, nests and horns (Burns 1849:140-52). Who were these traders that made the winding, upriver journeys into the interior of Borneo for China trade goods? Most, as stated previously, were Malays and other coastal Muslims (transplanted Javanese, Minangkabau and the like), who made their bases in the lower deltas and estuaries, and who usually claimed allegiance to large coastal sultanates for their own protection (for example, Sulu and Brunei).17 These traders were the agents and subordinates of riverine datu who imposed local three-tier systems: some regional populations were held as vassals of their own; a watchful eye was kept on others who were directly bonded to a sultan, while trade pacts were conducted with more powerful groups, who managed to keep some degree of independence (Warren 1981:76). Bugis merchants also paddled upriver, primarily on the borders of north and east Borneo, as did 'Free Bajau', who were idle from marine collection activities during the change in seasons (T. Harrisson 1973:38). By the mid-nineteenth century Chinese too were very active in these procurement trade activities, disappearing up the rivers in tiny boats of their own. One of the salient features of the China trade's effect on upland-lowland relations was the creation of the long-distance market. As the commercial value and status of many forest goods grew in importance to the Chinese, the volume required to sustain Canton's demand skyrocketed. This necessitated more formal arrangements in the transport of ecological products from the forest canopy and the mountains of the interior. Small local markets already existed in many parts of northwest Borneo, where coastal peoples like the Iranun and Bajau met plains-dwellers like the Dusun in mutual exchanges of goods. Yet the China trade spawned a different sort of market, one to which inlanders would walk for many days at a time, weighted down with produce. These new markets were usually held somewhere in-between the high ground and the coasts, at sites that were mutually agreeable (and roughly equi-distant) for both sets of parties. Coastal dwellers rode up with water buffaloes and set up temporary stalls; forest people descended out of the mountains, their backs wrapped in portage-baskets that were supported by leather head-straps. Inside rested dammar-gums, local tobaccos, beeswax and nests, for which they took back up into the mountains porcelain, cloth and salt. Later, in the mid-nineteenth century, the majority of these markets were moved further down to the plains, as the British could better police 17 For a description of these dynamics in the Dutch sphere, Nieuwenhuis 1903:1-28; for evolving rules regulating Chinese journeys in this context, see Heijting 1887:175-94.

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them there when head-hunting incursions expanded (Evans 1970:129-32). Yet the effect of increased commerce between the mountains and the coast also served to mutate existing status relationships between the peoples of both milieus. Originally (before the fifteenth century and the quickening of the volume of trade) these relationships seem to have been more or less egalitarian: each side had goods the other wanted, but the monetary stakes were not yet high and there were few players in the game. The arrival of Europeans in the area, who were desperate for 'exotica' saleable in Canton, and who were willing to ship a large variety of trade goods into the region to get it, changed these dynamics considerably. A wider composite of lowlanders now began pushing their wares upriver, with items of foreign provenance and manufacture mutating local systems of culture. The appearance of large quantities of porcelain and gongs, for example, once items only within reach of warriors and elites, now became available to a variety of people; similarly status relationships within villages that had seen very few tradewares of this kind also altered, as the first locals to lay hands on them immediately gained in stature. 18 On the macro-level relations were qualitatively changed between the highlands and lowlands as well, as the arrival of munitions mutated the balance of power between divergent groups, elevating the strand at the expense of the interior. There are few examples of mountain peoples who withstood these status and technology transformations intact, instead of becoming increasingly subject to the economic and political pull of the coasts. One vety important example of such resistance does exist, however, among the Ga' ai and Kenyah groups living in the far interior of the island. By the 1830s competition between the Bugis and Taosug for the acquisition of certain jungle products had become intense: accommodations and understandings existed for the collection of many of these items, but birds' nests were definitely not among them. Chinese epicures paid too much for the tiny edible baskets for there to be any amicable arrangement, so both Muslim groups penetrated further and further into the highlands in search of fresh caves of supply. The Ga' ai and Kenyah, already accomplished long-distance raiders, responded to these incursions by organizing large head-hunting expeditions, with the twin goals in mind of protecting their own ecological resources and taking back heads for their own local rituals. 19 Both peoples needed fresh infusions of 18 Roxas-Lim 1987:51-4. Goods such as porcelain, gongs and certain types of beads immediately conferred distinction, the items acting collectively as symbols of a foreign, unknown world capable of producing imperishable, manufactured goods. Owners of such pieces were highly respected. 19 For a very good account of the importance of headhunting in Central Bornean rituals, see B. Harrisson 1959:130. This was a very different kind of resistance than armed attempts elsewhere in the Archipelago, see Kartodirdjo 1973, for descriptions of resistance elsewhere in the

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skulls for the maintenance of religious rites, but the protection of birds' nests deposits was an immediate concern as well, as these items brought in cloth, salt and knives for everyday use. Within a very short period of time these raids became legendary, forcing both Taosug and Bugis to construct trading forts in the interior. Hunt (1837:56) described one of these structures: Not marked on any chart, it is the grand port of the Sulo on Borneo called Sabahan, situated upon a small river of considerable length five days pull up the negri. The chief here is Datu Sapindin, a nephew to the present Sultan of Sulu. There are 1000 Islams, 800 Orang Idan and Kaffir, and a fort of piles mounting 45 large guns.

The Ga' ai eventually became dreaded throughout large stretches of Borneo, raiding as far away as the headwaters of the Kinabatangan. Their response to the ecological infiltration of the center of the island was only natural: faced with both economic strangulation and with the encroachment of their territory, they responded with increased raiding to try to fend off the coasts. The lowlands, however, literally were moving, as the influence of the strand - and the vast China market which rested behind it - closed in on the peoples of the interior. The power dynamics of geography, once egalitarian or very nearly so before the sixteenth century, had shifted decisively in Borneo by the mid 1800s. These dynamics would not shift back. 20

The lure of jungle products The extraordinarily high value placed by the Chinese on certain rainforest goods contributed to these transvaluations in substantial ways. Some ecological products were grown in Borneo, and then shipped off to China as a regular export crop; pepper is a good example here, with exact records still existing of its transit to Macao around the turn of the nineteenth century. 21 Other forest commodities which fetched good prices in China needed to be collected more haphazardly, such as beeswax, or certain kinds of useful woods (such as eaglewood (Aquilaria malaccensis) or Malayan banyan (Ficus retusa), used in the Chinese pharmacopoeia). 22 Finally, there were animals Archipelago at this time. Bernard Sellato, on the basis of oral history interviews conducted in the interior, feels that the Ga'ai and Kenyah were not reacting to incursions so much as they were increasing raiding of their own accord (Bernard Sellato, personal communication). It is difficult to discern the sequence of stimulus and reaction in this case; what is beyond doubt is that raiding by interior peoples did increase at this time. 20 For an interesting analog to these hulu/hilir power processes in Sulawesi, see George 1991. 21 See the specifics supplied for nine journeys between 1796 and 1820, transiting between Macao and Brunei, in Manguin 1987:18. 22 Manguin 1987:18; Blair and Robertson 1973:185; Wade 1987:3; Wee Yeow Chin and Hsuan Keng 1990:26-7, 84.

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which needed to be physically caught, so that they could be killed and then partitioned, with the valuable parts of the carcass sent on for export. The beaks of various species of hornbill were included in this China trade category, as was the horn of the (increasingly rare) local rhinoceros (both used for carving). Parts of the civet were also exported, primarily for use in Chinese medicines.23 Yet we can perhaps see the legacy of the China trade, and its influence not only on local Bornean ecologies, but also on local culture as well, by concentrating our analysis on one or two specific goods. Camphor, for example, the transparent crystals secreted in the aged trunks of the Dryobalamops aromatica tree (Han Wan Toon 1985:1), was used by the Chinese as an analgesic (and possibly as an aphrodisiac as well) from very early times. Brunei was legendary to the medieval China as the primary source for the crystals, which were not actually 'true camphor' (Blumea balsamifera or Cinnamonum camphora) but a separate species altogether (Nicholl 1979:52-5). Notices survive from as early as the T'ang and Sung dynasties of Borneo's fame in this highly-specialized trade, with Chau Ju Kua describing four varieties as specifically Bornean ('plum flower', 'gold foot', 'rice camphor' and mi-nau), and legends swirling about their efficacious properties.24 Arab traders also circulated these tales, and pronounced the crystals to be the 'most expensive item the Chinese Emperors buy', with the provenance of the commodities hidden in the 'unknown camphor mountains' (Nicholl 1980:220). By the early sixteenth century Europeans were beginning to show a marked interest in such stories as well, with De Albuquerque conjecturing that: Camphor that comes from Borneo (Brunei) does not belong to the King, but to another ruler who lives in the island, and is Lord by himself. He is Heathen whereas the King of Borneo is a Moro (Muslim) and the people of his land are Moros also. These Kaffirs cultivate the camphor, and exchange it with the people of (Brunei) for cotton cloth. (Guy 1986:36.)

Other Western travelers of this time period also took an interest in camphor, among them Tome Pires, Pigafetta and early Dutch sojourners to the region.25 The various species of hornbill include the white-crowned hornbill (Berenicornis comatus), the bushy-crusted hornbill (Anorhinus galeritus), the wrinkled hornbill (Rhitceros corrugatus), the wreathed hornbill (Rhyticeros undulatus), the black hornbill (Anthracoceros malayanus), the oriental pied hornbill (Anthracocerus albirostris) and the rhinoceros hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros) (Davison and Chew 1996:69-72). The rhinoceros species is the Asiatic two-horned rhinoceros (Didermocerus sumatrensis), while the civet species concerned includes animals of both the genus Paradoxurus Cuvier and the genus Arctogalidia Merriam (Medway 1977:135-7, 143-5). 24 Han Wai Toon 1985:17. The daughter of the prominent Sung General Keng Hsieh was taken as a concubine by the Emperor in 943 CE: she showed him how to liquify camphor with rose water, made him drink it and apparently became pregnant soon after. 25 Cortesao 1944:123; Blair and Robertson 1973:211; Van Noort 1758a:33. 23

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The mid-nineteenth century saw seasoned travelers like the Englishman J. Hunt finding out about the dynamics of the trade at the source, writing that the camphor descended from the mountains by way of traders plying the great rivers. By this time its price was eighty times that of 'ordinary' camphor, according to market reports from Canton. 26 Such profit, superstition and fame in the China circuit caused inland Bornean peoples to search for camphor wherever they could find it. The fact that its collection was so labor intensive - often taking gathering parties away from their home villages for weeks, or even months - reveals how thoroughly the influence of the China trade had pervaded the heart of the forest. The aromatica trees grew to be over two hundred feet tall, often in dense and difficult to reach terrain. When a suitable collection of specimens had been found, the members of the troop set up easily discernible signs - frayed poles or sticks - as symbols that the trees were now considered to be their own property (Nicholl 1979:56). The upright trunks were then felled, using indigenously wrought native blades that were rarely more than six inches long. The tree was sectioned off into equi-distant portions, each participant receiving a division, and if crystals were found inside they were collected into bundles to be carried back to the village. Only one-tenth of all camphor trees possessed the minute internal crystals. For all this work and uncertainty, however, inlanders received salt from the lowland Taosug in the ratio of one bamboo tube-full for a similar amount of camphor (Warren 1981:80). Perhaps because the hunt for crystals was so statistically unlikely to succeed (and so profitable if it did, at the same time), an entire collection of rituals developed around the expeditions. Here, again, we see the China trade mutating local systems, through both altered modes of production and instigated cultural practice. Kayan setting out on camphor searches frequently enlisted the service of Punan as their guides, as the latter were considered to 'feel' the presence of crystals better than any other peoples in the interior (Nicholl 1979: 57). No one in the party would speak to outsiders before, during or immediately after the expedition, and speech that did occur between fellow members was conducted only in a special 'camphor' language. Most important of all, however, was the injunction against staying too long at a specific site, as the consequences of exposure to the trees could be devastating: It is of interest to note that prolonged working of camphor in the jungle is said to produce impotence and that, in order to avoid this, the workers make frequent breaks, and will not prolong a camphor-gathering expedition beyond a limited period. For impotence is regarded by a young Kayan as a very great calamity. (Hose and McDougall 1912:152.)

26

Hunt 1837:28; also Dalrymple 1769:76-82; Forrest 1779:405; St John 1862:152.

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41

In all of these ways the China trade changed local customs, delineating the

need for extra manpower in the economic sphere while spawning complicated systems of ritual and belief in the parallel sphere of religion. Yet camphor was not the only product of the forest in high demand back in China. Edible birds' nests, which Chinese ate in soups as a stimulant or tonic, also became a part of the continuum of trade. Though researchers have not been able to find mention of such nests in annals before the Ming, 27 excavations conducted by Tom Harrisson at the great Niah caves suggest that the commerce may be as old as the T'ang or even earlier (T. Harrisson 1954:1-8.) In either case, by the Ming Dynasty the Chinese had their own ideas on the provenance of Bornean birds' nests: At the breeding season, these birds fly in large flocks and settle on rocks in the sea where they eat a certain mollusk. On the back of the mollusk are two fine tendons, very strong and very white, comparable to the threads of the silkworm or bee. These filaments possess tonic, strengthening and anti-tuberculosis properties. The swallows feeding on these mollusks take in the filaments but cannot digest them, and vomit them with saliva to construct their nests against the boulders. Subsequently, the birds fly away with their young, and the people come to collect the nests. (Quate 1952:159.)

These Ming Dynasty accounts turned out to be wrong; birds' nests have since been studied pharmacologically, and have been found to contain only low levels of nutritive glyco-proteins (Wang 1921:429-39). The 'tonic' which the Chinese valued so highly may be nothing more than trace quantities of arsenic (Banks 1986). Even the method of this chemical buildup - feasting on clams - has been shown to be a different process altogether: the collection of glandular fluids, which are then secreted into spindles, at the time of yearly nest-building. Yet the Ming account does give one accurate piece of information. Many of these nests - of the tiny swift Collocalia fuciphaga, specifically - are distributed along coasts from the Nicobars to Vietnam (Medway 1963: 38). Only in Borneo, Sumatra and small parts of Java are the nests found far inland. The gathering of these nests as a direct result of the China trade, which was commented upon at great length by period European travelers in Borneo, 28 greatly affected indigenous systems of ritual and exchange. We have already seen how the protection of local nesting caves was at least one major reason why the Kenyah and Ga' ai were spurred into increased runs Quate 1952:159; for an overview of the trade in this commodity, Blusse 1991:317-35. For example, Earl 1837:114-5; Dalrymple 1769:76-82; Forrest 1779:405. Manguin 1987:18 gives cargo manifests on ships bearing birds nests between Brunei and Macao from 1796 to 1820.

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of headhunting in the mid-nineteenth century. 29 In less extreme situations, commercial and land tenure systems were also constructed to get fresh nests to market. This happened in Sandakan Bay in the late 1870s, when Sulu' s power had waned enough to enable new power-sharing arrangements over the items. As opposed to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, by this decade only one-quarter of the nests were going to the sultan, onequarter to the local datu, while fully half remained in possession of various indigenous procurers (T. Harrisson and B. Harrisson 1971:229-36). Legends and stories about birds' nests also started to permeate local societies, most probably in proportion to their growing importance in village economic life. One forest ranger in the 1930s near Sandakan was told a long tale about the origins of nests bound for China's luxury market: the local peoples had originally taken them for fungi, and had no use for them except as fodder for pigs. But when outsiders started appearing in earnest, competitively bartering for their acquisition, a warrior was sent out to find the reason for their importance. He eventually traveled to Jolo, where the sultan (ostensibly) did not know the answer either. After convening a table of twelve wise men - all foreigners from different countries - to hear their opinions, only the Chinese sage knew the answer. He told all assembled that his people, very simply, had been eating them since 'time immemorial' (Orolfo 1961:270-3), The warrior returned to Sandakan and began selling them to the Chinese. The story confirms in legend (perhaps a bit fancifully, and with embellishments) the bare truth of the situation: a product that had been previously useless to local inhabitants - a simple part of the local ecology- gradually became very important to various outsiders. An explanation and history was needed for this transvaluation, so the forest peoples constructed one. In ways such as this the China trade not only changed societies from the outside, re-routing the focus and economic drive of entire economies, but also changed them from within. This centurieslong commerce allowed Borneans to reinterpret their pasts, with the meanings of the trade in ecological products now firmly placed inside.

Late mutations - ecology and the age of capital, 1846-1900 In the second half of the nineteenth century, large parts of northwest Borneo started to come under European colonial administration. 30 Up until this time Chinese traders in Borneo had been more or less independent actors, 29

For an interesting appraisal of the economic causes of headhunting in Borneo, see Vayda

1969:211-24.

30 British colonial involvement with Borneo started in earnest in the 1840s; in 1846, after several years of intrigue, the offshore island of Labuan became a British Crown colony.

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funneling the ecological produce of the island off to South China as one among many commercial groups involved in this trade. The arrival of the British and Dutch in concerted numbers around mid-century altered these dynamics, however. Though many Chinese were seen as potential allies (or servants) in European attempts to control the economy of Borneo, other local Chinese were seen as dangerously independent. The famous Chinese goldmining kongsi of West Borneo were one of these groups; by mid-century, they had mostly been rendered militarily non-threatening by the Dutch, and were starting to be incorporated into Batavia's political and economic authority. 31 The Bau War of 1857 accomplished similar objectives for the Brookes in Sarawak, as rural, predominantly Hakka Chinese in the goldfields were also brought into Kuching's orbit.32 Chinese 'piracy', too, which had been a serious concern of both the British and the Dutch even into the 1850s in Borneo's waters, now started to be curbed as well, as European navies began to better control the coasts. Chinese could still live outside of European authority by mid-century, but the pursuit of economic enterprise was now starting to be proscribed in Borneo, at least in areas closest to the outposts of these regimes. 33 These changes pushed many Chinese traders interested in the ecological products of the island further and further up Borneo's rivers (see Sellato, this volume). Chinese commerce, though split between many different dialect groups, was particularly strong among Hokkien and Teochew communities, and each of these sent representatives upriver in large, complex networks of trade. In low.land river ports and coastal communities, Chinese taukeh (large merchants) often funded these journeys, supplying credit, merchandise and supplies so that forest products could be brought down to the towns (Chew 1990:66-7, 91, 130-1). Upland peoples bought their knives, salt, beads and textiles from these small-scale itinerant Chinese merchants, in exchange for the traditional China trade goods which then found their way (through a series 31 A vast literature exists about these semi-independent mining organizations; the Dutch, especially, saw their independence as something dangerous, particularly because of Chinese 'secret society' links across the frontier to Sarawak; ANRI, WBR no. 2/8, Politiek Verslag der Residentie Borneo West 1870; ANRI, WBR no. 5/17, Algemeen Administratieve Verslag der Residentie Borneo West 1886; De Groot 1885 and Adriani 1898. The best contemporary analysis of events can be found in Heidhues 1993; also Yuan 2000. 32 Chew 1990:37-42 especially. 'Smuggling' between Chinese in Sarawak and West Borneo was thought to be a dangerous problem by both European regimes; for Dutch discussions on this, and eventual cooperation agreements worked out with the Brookes on this issue, see ARA, MvK, MR 1889 no. 38, 593, 620, 683; ANRI, WBR no. 2/ 10, Politiek Verslag der Residentie Borneo West 1872 and ANRI WBR no. 5/20, Algemeen Administratieve Verslag der Residentie Borneo West 1889. 33 Lapian 1974:143-54; for Dutch views on these matters, see Tagliacozzo 2000 and Laboean 1849:66-83. Zhou (1987) has argued that these changes on the ground caused important new policy decisions to be exercised by Europeans toward the Chinese, especially by the Dutch.

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of intermediaries) out into the wider world. Kuching, Marudi and other towns became busy collection centers for upriver produce, places where goods could be watched and taxed by the new English regime (Chew 1990: 122). Yet in the inland areas of Borneo, high up on the different river systems, many of the old arrangements of collection and cultural contact remained the same as in previous decades. Chinese traders intermarried frequently with Dayak women; these unions helped to insure some level of honesty in economic dealings, as it was more difficult to cheat kin.34 Chinese temples were also erected in many of these upland locales, documenting the passage of these merchants through plaques and burial markers, often hundreds of miles upriver from the coasts.35 Yet the continuing value of the ecological products trade also meant that Chinese traders were frequently the object of robbery and violence, as other regional actors tried to plunder them of their valuable cargoes. This seems to have happened frequently in the 1850s and 1860s, as Chinese merchants were repeatedly ambushed and killed by Malays and Bajaus, who then stole their accumulated carry-baskets of forest products. The Governor of Labuan in 1856 knew this to be a potentially disastrous situation, as the wealth from the China trade now fueled the growth of towns and commerce in all of British Borneo. 'The Chinese in their persevering endeavors after gain are the best pioneers of trade', he wrote, 'they are fortunately not easily deterred'.36 The Admiralty agreed, and promised the Colonial Office in London that they would do their best to protect Chinese merchants in Borneo's waters.3 7 Yet it was the passage of these traders upriver that presented the biggest problems of shepherding and control, as here they were often out of reach of the arms of British government. Chinese forest-products merchants continued to be killed in the 1860s, and the British continued to take depositions from area Malays, Chinese and Than as to the grizzly circumstances of their murders. 38 Indonesian scholars in particular have been very interested in the dynamics of Chinese/ pribumi interactions in various local settings of the Archipelago; see Interaksi antarsuku 1989; Thung 1985; M. Tan 1979. 35 The key source for researching the dispersion of Chinese through British Borneo is Franke and Chen's monumental Chinese epigraphic materials in Malaysia (Francke and Chen 1982:7). This charts the spread of Chinese through both urban and rural Sabah and Sarawak, using a wide variety of epigraphic sources: stone slabs, brass plates, tombstones, wooden tablets, memorial stelae, censers, ceremonial boards, wooden alters, ancestral tablets and deity tablets. 36 CO no. 144/13, Governor of Labuan to H. Labouchere, 9 October 1856. The Governor was referring to several murders of Chinese merchants which had recently been perpetrated on the Borneo mainland. 37 CO no. 144/ 13, Admiralty to CO, 31 December 1856 no. 11261. 38 CO no. 144/ 13; see therein depositions by Hussein of Pontianak (21 July 1856), So Ock, a Chinese trader (7 August 1856) and Serif Akul of Benoni (14 August 1856). These men describe the murder of Chinese merchant Baba Go Chun, who was killed by two plundering Bajaus with a trident through the neck. 34

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Yet it was only in the 1870s, when British government finally started to be able to better influence local chiefs, that the frequency of these killings stopped. In 1871, for the first time in recorded memory, a Brunei datu was executed by his sultan for one of these murders. This imposition of justice suggests how much the Chinese traditional-products trade had come to mean to the local British economy. Labuan' s governor wrote that the sentence would never have been carried out without considerable British pressure on the sultan.39 By the turn of the twentieth century, this importance could be well-documented in reams of statistics, both for Sarawak and British North Borneo. Chinese involvement in the traditional China products trade was crucial and pervasive in Sarawak; the 1902 export statistics of the Brooke dominions include thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of these items (including beeswax, birds' nests, camphor, dammar and horns), most of them funneled downstream by Chinese traders. 4 From the Baram district alone in 1901 more than$ 65,000 worth of guttah and rattan were being readied for export, primarily collected by Chinese and their agents. 41 In British North Borneo, this involvement in the ecological products trade was equally vigorous; the lists of items being readied for transport to South China is reminiscent of T'ang Dynasty records a thousand years previously. Pearls, fins, trepang and tortoise shell were all exported in bulk in 1897, alongside the familiar products of the interior which we have already tabulated. 42 Chinese dominated the timber-cutting trade, and most of the local import and export trade of the territory (outside of large-scale mining and agriculture) was in Chinese hands (Report 1898 1899:19; Report 1905 1906:1). By the turn of the century, one-tenth of British North Borneo's population was Chinese: though the majority of these were not, in fact, involved in the China products trade, almost all of this trade itself was in Chinese hands. 43 The late nineteenth century brought new wrinkles to the idea of the China trade itself, however; no longer would the transit of resins, wax and nests form the majority of this commerce. The main axis of trade with China shifted to bring another crucial 'commodity' to Borneo, which also greatly affected the island's ecology: Chinese labor. Chinese coolies came (and were

°

39 CO 144/26, Acting Governor Hugh Low to CO, 25 October 1867 no. 37; CO 144/34, Governor of Labuan to CO, 10 August 1871 no. 29. This kind of violence against Chinese traders was also fairly common across the border in the Dutch dominions; see for the 1830s, lets over de Daijakkers 1831:40; for a later period, ANRI, WBR no. 5/21, Algemeen Administratieve Verslag der Residentie Borneo West 1890. 40 In 1902, Sarawak exported$ 18,048 worth of beeswax, $ 47,525 of birds' nests, $ 3,209 of camphor and $ 28,186 of dammar, among many other items; Report 1902 1903:5-7. 41 CO no. 802/1, Sarawak Gazette, 1May1901. 42 See the tables provided in Views of British North Borneo 1899:23. 43 There were almost 20,000 Chinese in British North Borneo in 1899, out of a total population nearing 200,000; Views of British North Borneo 1899:17.

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brought) by the thousands in the years around the turn of the twentieth century, to work in Borneo's mines and on her plantations, both of which changed local landscapes significantly. In Sarawak, loans were advanced by the Brooke Raj of up to$ 10,000 'for the purpose of introducing Chinese immigrants to the Rejang District', one of the areas of greatest promise. 44 The sex ratios on these Chinese arrivals were overwhelmingly male; women comprised only about 5% of immigrants to all of Sarawak in 1904, indicating that the purpose in attracting Chinese was primarily a demand for hard labor. 45 In North Borneo, as in many other places in the world at this time, 46 the laborers came en masse, and they were quickly farmed out to various European enterprises which clamored for their diligence and sweat. Conditions of their transit and labor were appalling; North Borneo soon acquired a reputation as a graveyard for coolies, a whisper which reached all the way back to South China. 47 Despite this, however, more and more Chinese laborers did come, and were co-opted into the giant corporate production regime which covered the northern part of the island. The ecological changes which accompanied these large-scale movements of Chinese to Borneo were significant and widespread. In the mining sector, Chinese labor was crucial to the operation of many different kinds of mineral extraction, including gold, precious stones and especially large veins of coal. The mines and processing fields needed for these kinds of operations began to dot the Bornean landscape in the late nineteenth century, spreading through the forest as European capital penetrated the island's interior. 48 Local British authorities worked hand in hand with the North Borneo Company to get Chinese labor for these mining ventures, pointing out to London the important advantages which would accrue if more and more workers could be brought. These included not only heightened production quotas on minCO no. 802/1, Sarawak Report and Statement of the Treasury Department for 1900. CO no. 802/ 1, Sarawak Report and Statement of the Post, Shipping and Customs Department for 1904. The Dutch, who received their own massive influx of Chinese labor, worried about the ramifications of so many Chinese in 'Outer Islands' like Borneo (De Groot 1856:351-4). 46 Chinese were also en route to California, Australia, Cuba, Peru, the West Indies and many other places (CO no. 882/8, Mr Churchill's Memorandum, 26October1906). For the local Bornean situation, see CO no. 874/118, British North Borneo Co. to Commissioner of Chinese Immigration, 15 August 1883. 47 Chinese coolies in Hong Kong were taken aside by Chinese representatives in the Hong Kong Registrar's Office and told, 'Do you know that you are going to a country from which very few ever return?' (CO no. 531/3, Resident Sandakan to Acting Governor, British North Borneo, 28 September 1911). 48 The following discussion centers on mining in the British dominions, but many of the above changes also held true across the evolving border in Dutch Borneo. For several good descriptions of the effects of mining in Southeast and West Kalimantan in the mid- to late nineteenth century, see ANRI, Zuid-Oost Borneo Archive no. 4/2, Politiek Verslag der Residentie Borneo Zuid-Oost 1872; Ritter 1840:595-632; Goudgraverijen 1847:385-98. 44

45

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erals, but also the secondary effects of a more numerous Chinese presence, such as increases in the profits of the local revenue farms. 49 The conditions under which many of these Chinese miners worked, however, were terrible: fires were endemic in the mines in Sarawak, for example, as was violence between individual miners, often along dialect lines.50 The ecological effect of this comparatively late aspect of the China trade was also significant: more and more land was cleared for mining operations, and the chemical run-off from operations often tainted local water resources. A larger ecological impact was perhaps felt from a final offshoot of the China trade, however, and this was the growth of corporate plantations, through large parts of the northwestern part of the island. By the late nineteenth century, an extensive plantation periphery existed in British Borneo, funneling crops for export out into world markets. Many of the laborers of these agricultural enterprises came from China, men who either were brought via various kinds of recruitment schemes, or who came of their own accord to work the sprawling plantations of the island. 51 In Sarawak, Chinese planters were responsible for the explosion of pepper production by the turn of the century, insuring the expansion of the plant across scattered sections of the territory (Report 1902 1903:3). Such men were also heavily involved in the cultivation of rice, with Fuzhou sending thousands of men to work this crop in the areas around Sibu.52 North Borneo's ecology and topography changed even more than Sarawak's, however, as a result of Chinese agricultural labor in the second half of the nineteenth century. Huge expanses of the Company's dominions were converted into tobacco, pepper, gambier and coffee estates, literally changing the face of the landscape in a matter of a few decades.53 Chinese agricultural laborers were omnipresent in these settlements; they formed a large percentage of the laboring population in nearly every production locality, from the lands of the Tobacco Estates Syndicate to the North Borneo Trading Company, the Ramie Fibre Company to the Borneo Coffee Company's estates (View of British North Borneo 1899: 53). Conditions, however, as in Borneo's mines, were often appalling; local London also tried to keep an eye on North Borneo's plantations and mines because of the colony's grim reputation, but this surveillance produced only limited results (CO no. 144/ 48, Governor of Labuan to CO, 24 July 1877). 50 For example, see the different incidents reported in CO no. 802/1, Sarawak Gazette, 1 April 1901; these were only a few incidents among many reported over the years. 5l There was also a considerable 'free' Chinese farming presence on the island: men (and a few women) who came as settlers, rather than under the corporate regime. 52 CO no. 802/1, Sarawak Gazette, 1April1901. 53 In Sandakan and its environs in 1890, there were 131 Europeans, 337 'Sulus, Malays, Javanese, and others', and 3,627 Chinese: 'The Chinese form a large part of every settlement, and up until now [are] the most valuable laborers in the tobacco estates' (Report 1890 1891:2; also Report 1886 1887:3; Fortier 1957:571-80).

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testimonials even to 1920 show this with little doubt.S4 This late agricultural dimension of the China trade continuum also managed to heavily influence the ecological history of the region. By the turn of the twentieth century, the traditional forest and marine products of this commerce had been overwhelmed by export crops and minerals, as the Chinese trade link with the island shifted in new directions.SS This pattern would continue into the early 1900s, as more Chinese laborers came to Borneo and these workers were increasingly subsumed into the ecological and extraction regimes of large British capital.

Conclusion Economic interchange between China and northwest Borneo significantly altered the ecological history of the latter between 900 and 1900 CE. Initially sporadic and difficult to sustain, contacts became more and more regular by the ascension of the Sung Dynasty at the turn of the millennium. Borneo's forest and marine products traveled north, altering the pharmacies and religious accouterments of Chinese society, while manufactured goods made their way south, entering indigenous life ways and ritual. The vast majority of these early transactions were carried out by Asian shippers themselves, with Arabs, Persians, Malays and Chinese each gaining an ascendancy in the passing of the centuries. Only at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Europeans entered this commercial and political world for the first time, did older patterns of tribute and laissez-faire free trade begin to give way to a new calculus of armed competition. This new face of the ecological products trade would increasingly characterize the passage of these commodities north over the next several centuries. The rise of the internationalized 'China market' in Canton was a principal mover in this change. Westerners became desperate to find goods the Chinese actually wanted, as porcelain and tea streamed out of China in astronomical quantities. The ecological products of places like Borneo - trepang and pearls, birds' nests and camphor - turned out to be exactly the desired items See the statements by Mr Turner (15 September 1919), Mr De la Mothe (20 August 1919) and Dr Williams (1 October 1919), all in Secretary of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society to CO, 29 October 1919 no. 1, in Correspondence 1920. De la Mothe said the local Chinese were held in 'virtual slavery', and Dr Williams described beatings inflicted by overseers until workers were a 'mass of subcutaneous bruises from shoulders down to thighs'. 55 This was so both by absolute monetary value, and by weight, for the products concerned. Both Sarawak and British North Borneo became massive exporters of minerals and agricultural products by the early twentieth century; though traditional China trade items remained lucrative in commerce, these mass-produced commodities, often mined or tilled by Chinese labor, eventually far outstripped them. 54

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to begin redressing this perceived 'imbalance' in free trade. Regional and indeed international interest focused on northwest Borneo as never before, as Europeans and an assortment of Southeast Asians all scrambled for these goods. Borneo became a crossroads for the interface of societies, matching unlikely groups in the middle of the forest. Taosug and Bugis, Dutchman and Dayak all found themselves face to face, usually at the headwaters of turbid rivers. The ecological market demands of the China trade prompted these meetings, as an increasingly large spectrum of actors competed for products which were becoming more and more difficult to find. The result of these fluctuations on the peoples of northwest Borneo were lasting and diffuse. Small urban complexes began to emerge along stretches of bare coast, adopting the trappings and style of other metropolitan centers elsewhere in the region. These towns cleared local forests for building purposes, and mined local gems and ores for commerce and defense. The seminomadic and sedentary sea-peoples of the strand were also affected, as they were inexorably drawn into the orbit of other, more powerful outside groups. The Taosug of nearby Sulu, especially, emerged as tyrants in this milieu: they enslaved some coastal Borneans as collectors of sea-produce, while organizing others into slave-procurement raiders. In either scenario, the end motivation was the same: to assemble more manpower, as manpower signified more bodies ready to ship Borneo's ecological products into the pulsing vein of the China trade. This indigenous regime of highly efficient collection and control foreshadowed similar systems of the evolving global political economy, as more and more of the world's 'periphery' became geared toward export in the nineteenth century.56 In the most remote reaches of Borneo's interior, far from the coasts where the majority of this activity was taking place, the reverberations of this commerce did not go unheard. Forest peoples reacted to these distant changes in different manners, incorporating themselves into the evolving ecological markets in a variety of ways. Some groups, like the Kenyah and Ga' ai, took a very active role in this interface, headhunting and protecting their birds' nest caves to maintain their independence from encroaching lowlanders. Other groups chose a less aggressive involvement, organizing their own local labor to exploit the environment - for beeswax and camphor, as examples - also destined for markets in China. By the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the sheer numbers of Chinese workers and settlers in Borneo had mutated this commerce in different directions. Though the traditional ecological products trade to China still survived, and even expanded, Chinese serving under the umbrella of expanding Western capitalism began to effect For three excellent (and often non-compatible) visions of the functioning of these processes over the longue duree, see Frank 1998; Wallerstein 1976; and Pomeranz 1999.

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Borneo's environment in new ways. The phenomenal growth of mining and plantation enterprises, supervised by British overseers but staffed by Chinese labor, radically altered the ecological face of large stretches of the island. This new cadence of the China trade, centuries old by 1900 but now effecting local ecologies in more industrial, systemic ways, would become the dominant paradigm of this commerce around the turn of the twentieth century. After more than a millennium, trans-oceanic contact with China continued to change the culture, economies and environment of northwest Borneo in vigorous and important ways. References Adriani, P. 1898

Herinneringen uit en aan de Chineesche districten der Wester-Afdeeling van Borneo 1879-1882; Schetsen en indrukken. Amsterdam: Campagne. Banks, Edward 1986 'A note on edible birds' nests', Brunei Museum Journal 6-2:209-10. Bellwood, Peter and Matussin bin Omar 1980 'Trade patterns and political developments in Brunei and adjacent areas, AD 700-1500', Brunei Museum Journal 4-4:5-180. Blair, Emma Helen and James Alexander Robertson 1973 The Philippine islands 1493-1898; Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts [... ]. Mandaluyong, Rizal: Cacho Hermanos. [First edition 1903.] Blusse, Leonard 1991 'In praise of commodities; An essay on the cross-cultural trade in edible bird's nests', in: Roderich Ptak and Dietmar Rothermund (eds}, Emporia, commodities, and entrepreneurs in Asian maritime trade, c. 1400-1700, pp. 317-35. Stuttgart: Steiner. [Beitrage zur Sildasienforschung 141.] Braudel, Fernand 1972 The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II, Vol. 1. New York: Harper and Row. Two vols. Broeze, Frank 1989 'Introduction; Brides of the sea', in: Frank Broeze (ed.), Brides of the sea; Port cities of Asia from the 16-20th centuries, pp. 1-28. Kensington: New South Wales University Press. [Comparative Studies in Asian History and Society.] Brown, Carrie 1972 'An early account of Brunei by Sung Lien', Brunei Museum Journal 2-4: 219-31. 1978 'The eastern ocean in the Yung-lo ta tien', Brunei Museum Journal 4-2: 46-58.

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Bums, Robert 1849 'The Kayans of the northwest of Borneo', Journal of the Indian Archipelago and East Asia 3:140-52. Carroll, John 1985 'Aganduru Moriz' account of the Magellan expedition at Brunei (1521)', Brunei Museum Journal 6-1:54-61. 1986 'An anonymous account of Francisco de Sande's invasion of Brunei; 1578', Brunei Museum Journal 6-2:47-71. Cheng Te-kun 1972 'The study of ceramic wares in Southeast Asia', Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies 5-2:295-338. Chew, Daniel 1990 Chinese pioneers on the Sarawak frontier, 1841-1941. Singapore: Oxford University Press. [South-East Asian Historical Monographs.] Chin, John 1981 The Sarawak Chinese. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. [Oxford in Asia Paperbacks.] Chin, Lucas 1977 'Trade pottery discovered in Sarawak from 1948 to 1976', Sarawak Museum Journal 25-46:1-8. Christie, Jan Wisseman 1985 'On Po-ni; The Santubong sites of Sarawak', Sarawak Museum Journal 34-55:77-90. Correspondence 1920 Corr~spondence on the allegations against the administration of the British North Borneo Co. Presented to Parliament by Command of His Majesty. [Pamphlet.] Cortesao, A. 1944 The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires; An account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, written in Malacca and India 1512-1515 [... ]. London: Hakluyt Society. Two vols. [Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society, Second Series 89, 90.] Dalrymple, Alexander 1769 A plan for extending the commerce of this kingdom, and of the East India Company. London: Nourse. 1770 Historical collection of several voyages and discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean. London: n.n. Davison, G.W.H. and Chew Yen Fook 1996 A photographic guide to birds of Borneo. London: New Holland. Dunn, F.L. 1975 Rainforest collectors and traders; A study of resource utilization in modern and ancient Malaya. Kuala Lumpur: Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. [Monographs 5.] Earl, George Windsor 1837 The eastern seas, or voyages and adventures in the Indian Archipelago, in 1832-33-34, comprising a tour of the island of Java, visits to Borneo [... ]also

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an account of the present state of Singapore, with observations on the commercial resources of the Archipelago. London: Allen. Evans, Ivor H.N. 1922 Among primitive people in Borneo; A description of the lives, habits and customs of the piratical headhunters of North Borneo; With an account of interesting objects of prehistoric antiquity discovered in the island. London: Seeley and Service. 1970 Studies on religion, folklore, and custom in British North Borneo and the Malay Peninsula. Second edition. London: Cass. [First edition 1923.] Feng Xiaruning 1981 'Appendix 8; On exports of Chinese porcelains prior to the Yuan dynasty', in: Final report; Workshop on ceramics of East and Southeast Asia, Malaysia, May 18-26, 1981, appendix. [Kuching]: SEAMEO Project in Archeology and Fine Arts. Forrest, Thomas 1779 A voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas from Balambangan; Including an account of Magindanao, Sooloo, and other islands. London: Scott. Fortier, David 1957 'The Chinese in British North Borneo; Ecological factors in cultural change', Transactions of the New York Academy of Science 19-6:571-80. Frank, Andre Gunder 1998 ReOrient; Global economy in the Asian age. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Franke, Wolfgang and Ch' en T'ien-fan 1973 'A Chinese tomb inscription of AD 1264 recently discovered in Brunei', Brunei Museum Journal 3-1:91-6. 1982-87 Chinese epigraphic materials in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press. Two vols. George, Kenneth 1991 'Headhunting, history, and exchange in upland Sulawesi', Journal of Asian Studies 50:536-64. Goudgraverijen 1847 'Over de goudgraverijen in de Afdeeling Sambas', Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indie (TNI) 9-2:385-98. Gowing, Peter Muslim Filipinos; Heritage and horizon. Quezon City: New Day. 1979 Groot, J.J.M de 1856 'Heeft bezorgheid voor overgrooten toevloed van Chinezen naar onze kolonien recht van bestaan?', Handelingen en Geschriften van het Indisch Genootschap 3:351-4. 1885 Het kongsiwezen van Borneo; Eene verhandelingen over den gronslag en den aard der Chineesche politieke vereenigingen in de kolonien, met eene Chineesche geschiedenis van de kongsi Lanfong. 's-Gravenhage: Nijhoff. Guy, John 1986 Oriental trade ceramics in South-East Asia; 9th-16th centuries; With a catalogue of Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai wares in Australian collections. Singapore: Oxford University Press. [Oxford in Asia Studies in Ceramics.]

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Han Sin Fong 1975 The Chinese in Sabah, East Malaysia. Taipei: Orient Cultural Service. [Asian Folklore and Social Life Monographs 67.] Han Wai Toon 1985 'Notes on Bornean camphor imported into China', Brunei Museum Journal 6-1:1-32. Harrisson, Barbara 1959 'Near to Ngadju; Rhinish missionaries in south Borneo 1836-1913', Sarawak Museum Journal 9-13/14:121-31. 1986 Pusaka; Heirloom jars of Borneo. Singapore: Oxford University Press. [Oxford in Asia Studies in Ceramics.] Harrisson, Tom 1954 'New archaeological and ethnological results from the Niah caves', Man 1:1-8. 1959 'A fine wine pot (for Brunei)', Sarawak Museum Journal 9-13/14:132-3. 1961 'The Borneo finds', Asian Perspectives 5:253-5. 1967 'Recent archaeological discoveries in east Malaysia and Brunei', Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 40:140-8. 1973 'The Bajaus; Their origins and wide importance', Sabah Society Journal 6-1:38-49. Harrisson, Tom and Barbara Harrisson 1971 The prehistory of Sabah. Kota Kinabalu, Sabah: The Sabah Society. [Sabah Society Journal 4.] Heidhues, Mary Somers 1993 'Chinese organizations in West Borneo and Bangka; Kongsis and hui', in: Mary Somers Heidhues (ed.), 'Secret societies' reconsidered; Perspectives on the social history of modern China and Southeast Asia, pp. 68-88. Armonk, NY: Sharpe. Heijting, H.G. 1887 'De Chineezen kwestie', Tijdschrift voor het Binnenlandsch Bestuur 15: 175-94. Hirth, Frederick and W.W. Rockhill 1967 Chau Ju Kua; His work on the Chinese and Arab trade in the 12th and 13th centuries entitled Chu1an-chi. Amsterdam: Oriental. [First edition 1911.] Hose, J. and P. McDougall 1912 The pagan tribes of Borneo; A description of their physical, moral, intellectual condition with some discussion of their ethnic relations, Vol. 1. London: Macmillan. Hunt, J. 'Sketch of the island of Borneo or Pulau Kalimantan', Tijdschrift voor 1837 Nederlandsch Indie (TNI) 1-1:38-49. I Putu Gede Suwitha see Suwitha, I Putu Gede lets over de Daijakkers 1831 'lets over de Daijakkers', Tijdschrift voor Neerlandsch Indie (TN!) 1:40-7.

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BERNARD SELLATO

Forests for food, forests for trade - between sustainability and extractivism The economic pragmatism of traditional peoples and the trade history of northern East Kalimantan

Traditional peoples' practices of management of natural resources are relevant to patterns of environmental change in Borneo. These peoples display contrasted behaviours (and related management practices) vis-a-vis subsistence resources, on the one hand, and trade resources, on the other hand. This contrast is useful to better understand how internal, behavioural factors have been instrumental, along with external, more global, economic factors, in shaping environmental change patterns in the last few centuries. The focus is on the crucial, though seldom pondered, distinction between forest resources of local subsistence value and those of long-distance trade value in Borneo's traditional peoples' conceptions of and practices in their exploitation of their natural environment. Features of the history of exploitation, for both subsistence and trade, of the tropical forest by rice swiddeners, as well as by nomads and former nomads, suggest that these peoples often display sound and sustainable practices of management of subsistence resources, and that local concepts of estates and of their ownership or guardianship, linked to genealogical and residential continuity, play an important role in generating and maintaining these practices. 1 Conversely, in their management of wild forest resources with long-distance trade value but no or little local use, the same peoples generally show little concern for sustainability. Indeed, they have practiced, even in a remote past, and they still practice today severe forms of extractivism, brought about by downright economic opportunistic behaviours: careful economic appraisals of given situations, leading to deliberate decisions to collect the Eghenter 1997; Eghenter and Sellato 1999; Eghenter et al. 2003.

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products with the most profitable return on labour, and to frequent switches from one product to another following the whims of regional or global market demands. Such practices aimed at certain high-demand products, past or present, have led to the depletion or near-extinction of particular animal and plant species, from the Sumatran rhinoceros to the eaglewood tree or the edible-nest swiftlet. One tendency in the environmental and development discourse has been to envision traditional peoples worldwide as a rather homogeneous, 'generic' category. Moreover, we have witnessed a strategic shift from the notion that traditional peoples (again, viewed as 'generic') are a threat to their environment to the notion that they are the 'keepers' of that environment (for example, Poffenberger 1990; Colfer et al. 1997). Borneo's traditional peoples, when economic concerns are put forth, do not seem to hold one single, holistic conception of their natural environment, and they should be viewed as, by essence, neither conservation-oriented nor destructive. Rather, the operative concept is their economic pragmatism. Whereas subsistence resources must be exploited in a sustainable way for the benefit of future generations of users, trade resources may be freely disposed of. This dual conception of and resulting attitude toward forest resources, for subsistence and for trade, constitute a strongly resilient feature among Borneo's traditional groups, a feature that has persisted with but little alterations throughout the region's historical episodes - pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial, and even post-Rio. This paper focuses, geographically, on the northern part of East Kalimantan and, historically, on the last 400 years. It submits a reconstruction of the history of extractivism - here defined as the systematic extraction of certain products for trade - within that geographic and historical scope.

Subsistence resources Much has been written already on this subject. Subsistence resources include food (wild food resources), materials (timber for building houses and canoes, rattans and palms for tools and crafts), medicines, and so on. They also include land and water bodies: farming land, collecting areas, hunting grounds, fishing areas. 2 Each traditional community has control over a given territory, a tract of forest around the settlement. It is not necessary to go here into the detail of how a territory is acquired, or what forms this collective control takes. For example Kedit 1982; Chin 1985; Strickland 1986; Mubyarto et al. 1991; Saccheri and Walker 1991; Se11ato 1994b; Asung et al. 2001; TAD 1981. 2

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Members of the community possess an in-depth knowledge of the inventory of extant resources within the territory. The community is equipped with rules and regulations (part of what is called adat), which govern patterns of access to and exploitation of the forested environment for subsistence resources (for the region under consideration, see Eghenter and Sellato 1999; Eghenter et al. 2003). In the case of stratified societies, which are the dominant type in this region, 3 adat distinguishes between lands under collective control, accessible to all community members, and private estates, exclusively controlled by elite social groupings within the community (Devung 1997; Devung and Rudy 1998). Traditional management of subsistence resources has been described as generally sound and sustainable, as it is meant for long-term use over the generations: for example, long fallow after swiddening, restriction on fishing with poison (tuba), and so on. This derives from a sense of ownership, which can be collective (farming land, fishing areas, and so on), familial (private estates), or individual (timber trees or wild fruit trees, which, once marked, are privately owned; Eghenter and Sellato 1999; Eghenter et al. 2003). Certain factors have been found to lead to unsustainable management of subsistence resources. One obvious, 'traditional' case is that of a high population density creating pressure on land (for example, in the Apo Kayan; see Jessup 1981) and leading to shorter fallow, land exhaustion, and eventual out-migration. In a modern context, the establishment of outside companies (or other parties), encroaching on traditional tribal territories (for example, Malinau River), has led locally to land shortage - especially of farming and hunting grounds - and to unsustainable management of the remaining lands (Sellato 2001). Another factor is a low level of residential continuity, which may derive from either particular features of social organization (for example, mercurial community membership governed by ego-centred networks of personal relations rather than by stricter kinship or residential bonds) or particular socioeconomic features (as in the case of pioneer communities endlessly moving on to new forested areas), and may lead to a weakened sense of ownership and, thus, a more 'predatory' attitude towards resources, including land. That same sense of ownership is also found to be weakened among any given local community, regarding resources viewed as non-local. Wild pigs, migrating through a territory (that is, coming from elsewhere and eventually moving on to elsewhere), are not perceived as resources belonging to the territory. Moreover, pigs are known to always return in the next season. Therefore, if they are not killed hie et nunc, they will be killed by others, later, 3 On the ethnic groups of this area, and particularly the Kenyah, see Tehupeiorij 1906; Jongejans 1922; Elshout 1926; Tillema 1938; Whittier 1973; Rousseau 1990.

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elsewhere, and people often massacre pigs by the dozens, well beyond their needs for food (Sellato 1999). In the case of recent 'pioneer' regions (for example Tunjung Plateau, middle Mahakam), 'wild' slash-and-burn farming by Dayak (and others) commonly takes place along new timber-company roads. Land, here, is viewed as 'open', free for all to grab. As they view it as not owned, collectively or privately, those farmers feel no need to exploit it in a sustainable way. They simply exhaust it and move on farther along the road to new, fresh lands. Nomadic hunter-gatherers (the Punan) also exploit a territory, in circular movements with cyclical re-use of wild resources (sago palm groves). Although this territory often formally belongs to one or another group of swiddeners (generally stratified groups), to which the nomadic group is economically and politically affiliated, the nomads practice a sustainable exploitation of the territory's wild food resources (including in the form of the socalled 'stewardship' of sago groves). Punan groups, less territorially bound than farmers, often range far away beyond its borders (Sellato 1994a). Conflicts over subsistence resources occur among farming groups, because of population pressure and need for fresh farming land. When its territory is precisely bounded by its neighbours', which is the case among stratified groups, a community finding itself with insufficient land would try to conquer new lands (in the past) or, at least, to oppose encroaching intruders (a common case today). Among nomads, occurrences have been reported, in situations of insecurity leading to local overpopulation, of skirmishes over sago-palm groves (for example, Mendalam-Sibau area, West Kalimantan, circa 1920; see Bouman 1924; Sellato 1994a). As the number of nomads relying on wild food resources is very low (and dwindling), such occurrences of competition for food have been very rare.

Trade resources These resources comprise any sort of wild product that can be bartered or traded off to neighbours or downstream markets in exchange for other, generally manufactured goods. 4 Three categories of products may be distinguished (see Figure 1). Local-scale trade resources (between interior groups) are mostly the same as subsistence resources, except for the fact that surpluses are collected for the purpose of trade: for example, palms, gums (ketipai, for machete handles), 4 On non-timber forest products, see Peluso 1983; Jessup and Peluso 1986; De Beer and McDermott 1989; Brosius 1995; Van Valkenburg 1997; Wollenberg and Asung Uluk 1998; Wollenberg and Ingles 1998; on timber products, see Potter 1988; Kaur 1998.

Year

Gaharu

Jelutung

2000

Gutta

Kehpai

Damar Rattans

lllipe

Cinnam.

Nests

Wax

~

- 90 - 80 I

- 70

r

-60 1950 -40 -30 -20 - 10 1900 -90

?

-80 -70 -60 1850

Figure 1. Non-timber forest product trade in Bulungan, 1850-20005 A coarse preliminary chart was elaborated, to give a rather impressionistic view of the relative weight of the trade in ten non-timber forest p rod ucts (NTFPs) in Bulungan from 1850 to

5

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resins (damar, for canoe caulking and lamps), hornbill feathers (for dancing), relish leaves (bekkai, see Devung 1997), deer antlers (for tool handles), and so on. Sometimes, resources are processed into manufactured goods: for example, salt bars (Kerayan; see Schneeberger 1979), iron machetes and tools (Apo Kayan), clay pots (Pujungan), fishing nets (upper Mahakam; see Sellato 1986), or all sorts of mats, hats, and baskets. This local trade's rules and prices are independent of outside markets. Regional-trade resources (between interior and coastal groups) include items used by the coastal peoples, both items that are also used among the interior peoples (for example, rattans or honey) and others that are not (for example, beeswax; De Vries 1992). It is the downstream markets' demand that determines the types and prices of products. Long-distance (inter-island maritime) trade items include both products used by the interior peoples themselves for their subsistence (wild rattans, damar, ketipai) and products for which the interior peoples have no use, or not even a knowledge of their uses (certain natural rubbers, eaglewood, birds' nest). The emergence of such products in the international trade may be very ancient (almost two millennia, for example, camphor; Nicholl 1979) or quite recent (the turn of the twentieth century, for example, the jelutung latex). 6 The distant markets' demands dictate the types of products, volumes, and prices present. Details concerning the products under consideration can be found in Sellato 2000. The chart clearly reflects the bias produced by the periods for which records have been used (particularly the 1920-1940 period). The width of each black line reflects the relative importance through time of volumes traded for a given product, but it is not proportional to the actual volumes traded, either for each given product along the time line or for different products across the table (synchronically). This rough outline only allows to discern large trends: first, through time, in the varying fortunes of the selected NTFPs; and second, decade after decade, in the types of products most in demand. The international trade in eaglewood, rattans, and wax predates 1850 and, to some extent, the advent of the industrialized world had little impact on it before the 1920s. Other products, with a mainly local trade (ketipai, damar), suddenly found new technical uses, which led to a steep increase in trade in the 1920s and 1930s. After these new uses became obsolete due to the West's further technological advances, the trade in these products resumed its local scale. The trade in gutta-percha and jelutung seem to have been created ex nihilo for modern technological uses, the former circa 1850 and the latter circa 1900. Thus, after the West's need for them ebbed, these products just disappeared from the trade. In the case of the birds' nest trade, going back over a millennium, utterly unreliable figures only can suggest a steady global decline throughout the twentieth century - this decline had probably already started in the nineteenth century - despite a revival in the 1980s and 1990s. Due to a sudden surge in international demand, which led to the discovery of many new caves, this revival, though very powerful, is most probably bound to be brief, as overexploitation today seems the most common practice. 6 On economic history in relation to forest products, see Hunt 1837; Marryat 1848; Broersma 1927; Lindblad 1988; Reid 1988-93; Magenda 1991; Cleary 1996; Knapen 2001; Boomgaard 1998; Sellato 2002.

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- which echo, through a string of middlemen, to the far interior groups. The coastal groups (petty trading kingdoms; Sellato 2001) acted as traders and middlemen, and formed the interface between the maritime trade networks and the 'producers' inland from them. As their goal was to make 'their' hinterland yield as much produce as possible, they struck deals with the headmen of major neighbouring tribal groups in order to gain access to products from territories farther upstream. They were later displaced by 'foreign' traders, who used the very same strategies.7 Among tribal farming groups, especially stratified groups, trade was brokered by headmen (for example, Rousseau 1990). These chiefs and aristocratic families owned or controlled private estates within the group's territory, which contained trade resources, and they had their commoners collect the products for them. (At some point in the past, they used imported slave labour, purchased from coastal kingdoms, for that purpose.) Dominant groups' headmen also often acted as middlemen, gathering products collected by vassal farming groups. Moreover, these headmen also controlled bands of nomads ('their' Punan), who made a living on wild sago in the territory (Sellato 1994a). Beside being used as watchdogs on the territory's borders, the Punan were made to collect for these chiefs and were rewarded in manufactured goods: salt, iron, tobacco, cloth, and so on. (Nowadays, the Punan often bypass the farming chiefs to trade directly downstream; Kaskija 1998, 2002.) Thus, market demands were relayed from the coast to the far interior, even to regions only occasionally ranged by nomadic groups. Conflicts over trade resources were far more common than over subsistence resources. Farming groups, in order to keep their monopoly over trade resources within their territory, simply killed outside collectors (for example, the Kenyah Uma' Alim and Leppo' Ma'ut killed 'Melayu' collectors from Bulungan in the first decade of the twentieth century). 8 Such deterring actions were also often carried out by proxy: Nomads hunted down and killed outside professional collectors, or nomadic bands affiliated to different farming groups skirmished over trade resources in border areas, all by order of their masters and trade partners. This was an opportunity to procure fresh heads - another forest product. 9 Interior tribal groups (for example, the Kenyah) collected NTFPs themselves, by small instalments during leisure periods of the farming cycle, On histories of foreign traders, see Sellato 2001; Bertling 1925. See, particularly, Fischer and Gramberg 1910; on the early-twentieth-century situation in this region, see Van Walcheren 1907; NA, MvK, MvO by AM. Sierevelt 1927, KIT 1066; MvO by P.C.J. Scheffelaar 1931, KIT 1070; MvO by Anonymous [Dorn?] 1932, KIT 1071; MvO by W.P. Roodenburg 1935, KIT 1076. 9 Sellato 1994a; Headley 1981; Maxwell 1996. 7

8

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Bernard Sellato

and their chiefs also gathered products collected by their nomads and other groups. Then, one large trade expedition was staged annually to downstream markets (Sellato 2001). Contrary to non-stratified societies elsewhere,10 few among stratified interior societies were dedicated collectors, and only exceptionally were there 'professional' collectors (one reported lone Kenyah rhinoceros hunter, living 'as a Punan'). Altogether, only relatively small volumes of NTFPs were traded. Also, whatever of the market's demands, the tribal groups' emphasis remained on high value-to-bulk ratio (bezoar, rhinoceros parts, camphor), due to transport constraints. Nevertheless, these practices have resulted, in 'traditional' times (before the major post-World War II NTFP boom) and with traditional tools (blowpipe and spear), in resource depletion (for example, the langur monkey, provider of bezoar) or extinction (for example, the rhinoceros). Indeed, interior tribal groups have had, and still have, no sense that such resources should be managed in a sustainable way for continued use by future generations, since these resources are not needed at the subsistence level. No long-term strategy is attached to them, as the market's demands are known to go through booms and busts and periodically switch from one product to another. The collectors simply respond to the demand, and select the most profitable products. Moreover, no religious anchoring of forms of exploitation of the natural environment, nor a religion-based 'bond' to nature has been documented, even among the nomads.

Economic pragmatism That people take better care of things that they own than they do of things that do not belong to them should not be surprising. That they feel a stronger sense of ownership over subsistence resources, on which their daily life has depended for centuries, than over trade resources, for which demand changed, rose and sank, in the course of time, should not either. People worldwide, and not just tribal people, behave in the same way. For a long time, forest products seemed inexhaustible. After World War II, and more definitely after 1970, the realization came that they were not. Yet, far from changing their attitude vis-a-vis 'their' NTFPs, traditional groups, finding themselves in competition with increasing numbers of outsiders, enthusiastically participated in a general expansion of extractivist practices. Economic pragmatism (a very down-to-earth approach to procuring maximal return to labour) and opportunism (a flexible posture toward seizIO For example, among the !ban, a significant proportion of the young men often spent extended periods on bejalai expeditions in the forest (Kedit 1987).

Forests for food, forests for trade

69

ing opportunities) seem here to be the rule, and the sustainable management of subsistence resources an exception to the rule, due to the special status of the primary food needs and the special sense of ownership and continuity developed in relation to them. As a clear example of pragmatism, one could mention the felling of illipe-nut trees circa 1970 (Sellato 2001): As the timber boom had just started and the nuts (used for their tallow) were not in demand at that time, the trees were simply felled for timber. Extractivist practices are also exemplified for' semi-domesticated' resources, like birds' nest and, in certain cases, rattan. As opposed to other NTFPs that are scattered at unknown places over immense tracts of forest, those are concentrated in a few known locations, either because they were created by man (rattan is locally exploited as 'gardens', planted or at least transformed from natural groves) 11 or because they have been exploited by man over long periods (birds nests caves; Sellato 2001). Planted resources, subject to distinct forms of ownership and management, should in fact remain outside the scope of this paper focused on wild resources. At least in interior regions, these 'semi-domesticated' resources appear to have been exploited in a sustainable way for some time, through booms and busts, but this remained true only for as long as they remained under the tight control of chiefly families, who owned them, and in rather isolated areas. For those resources, there was, indeed, a sense of ownership and a desire for long-term sustainability. Strict, unchallenged ownership certainly allowed for sustainabl.e exploitation. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, aggressive Dayak groups staged regular raiding expeditions to neighbouring groups' territories to pillage their NTFP resources, particularly birds' nest (a product concentrated in known locations; Sellato 2001). More recently, in the 1990s and onward, gangs armed with submachine guns, likely connected to. the Indonesian military and locally called ninja, did exactly the same. Today, like back then, the communities (or rather, the cave owners) organized themselves to defend the caves. Nowadays, with an increased opening up of the traditional territory (roads) and society (ethnic mixing), a frontier situation has been created, in which members of the local communities and outsiders compete in a race to get at the products first (Kaskija 2002). This unsustainable harvesting of nests has entailed a drastic drop in the bird population, and a subsequent drop in production (locally down by 75% or more). In the Malinau area, rights on rich birds nests caves that formerly were the property of one chief were split among several heirs at that chief's death and, after a decade of competition and 11 Particularly for rattan, see Stockdale 1992 and Sirait 1999; more generally on this question, see Dixon et al. 1991; De Jong 1993; Lawrence et al. 1995; Dove and Kammen 1997.

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overexploitation, production has dropped to next to nothing (Sellato 2001). Similar problems of competition with outside collectors have been noted for rattan gardens (rotan segah, Calamus caesius). There have been even cases of fruit trees being felled for the sole purpose of gathering the fruit, when that particular fruit became a trade item overnight (Puri 1998). These cases exemplify the sweeping preference for short-term economic strategies among Punan groups and, to a lesser extent, swiddening groups as well. Moreover, with the decay of traditional social organization, exclusive rights over resources formerly held by chiefs have been questioned. Former aristocratic estates have been turned into community-controlled estates. With traditional adat regulations falling into disregard and with individualistic behaviour becoming increasingly dominant, illegal tampering by individual community members with collectively-owned trade resources (for example, rattan gardens) has become common. All this indicates that, while unchallenged ownership and tenure, whether collective or individual, of a resource allows for some degree of sustainability in the exploitation of that resource, outside threats to ownership and tenure and open competition in the procurement of that resource - which is the case for most wild resources - inevitably leads to unsustainable practices, which price booms only tend to intensify. Even in situations where a resource's collective tenure is not challenged, competition between members of the community may lead to unsustainable management of that resource. In other words, when sustainability is concerned, it is not so much the fluctuations in the market that matter here than the security of tenure.

History of trade and extractivist practices The pages below were derived from and summarize a study of the social and economic history of Bulungan, undertaken in 1998, and to which the reader is referred (Sellato 2001). To make sense of any given tribal group's history, it proved necessary to view it not just as a history of migrations, internecine feuds, and intertribal wars, but also as part and parcel of, and interdependent with, a wider regional history extending well beyond the boundaries of ethnic territories and even, for that matter, the island's coastline.12 Two important points that emerged are the crucial role of trade in the 12 On the history and social organization of Borneo's coastal polities, see Cense 1928; Ras 1968; Brown 1970; Sather 1971; Wortmann 1971; Sejarah Kalimantan 1990; Lampiran keputusan 1991; Sejarah Bulungan 1993; on the relationship between interior tribes and coastal polities, see Healey 1985; Rousseau 1989; Hall 1995; on the interference of colonial powers with local polities and ethnic groups, see Irwin 1955; Warren 1981, 1996; Black 1984, 1985; Lindblad 1988; Potter 1988; Knapen 2001.

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