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The Syair Saribas project.

Article Excerpt
An old Malay text has recently come to light which may prove to be one of the most important sources for the history, genealogy and folkways of the Sarawak Malays. It may also reveal a good deal of information about the Malays' relations with the indigenous Seru, and with the invading Iban, who were migrating to the Saribas from the Kapuas valley from the late sixteenth century. It was in the Saribas area that the Malays and the Iban forged close trading and raiding relations and where significant intermarriage and sharing of traditions took place. Their close political relations also produced some of the toughest resistance to Brooke rule, which was crushed in July 1849 by the combined forces of James Brooke and the Royal Navy at the "battle" of Betong Marau.

The Syair Saribas, to give it a more convenient title than the manuscript's original introduction, is a substantial jawi text, probably dating in its original physical form from 1946 or 1947 when it was written down in pencil, possibly from a recitation from the oral tradition by an old Malay woman storyteller, in the Spaoh area of the Batang Saribas. The Syair Saribas is an orally communicated text (or texts, since it incorporates many discrete stories) whose origins probably go back at least to the early seventeenth century. It relates, amongst other things, the arrival at Kuala Saribas of the aristocratic Temenggong Kadir in self-exile from Brunei, to be joined there by the celebrated Dato' Godam (also known as Abang Gudam) from Pagar Royong, Minangkabau, in Sumatra who ultimately rescues Kadir's daughter, the beautiful Dayang Chi', from the Sultan of Brunei's harem, marries her and establishes a dynasty. For the most part, however, it is a closely detailed genealogical and geographical mapping of Malay settlement of the Saribas. At times it has the character of the Old Testament's Book of Genesis, but without the literary quality.

The manuscript consists of just over 400 pages of jawi script and almost 2,000 quatrains of verse, which makes it about ten times longer than Brunei's Syair Rakis. Like other Bornean syair and hikayat such as the Syair Awang Semaon, Syair Rakis and Hikayat Datu Merpati, the Syair Saribas is a mixture of folk stories, history and genealogy. It is the most authentic and substantial source for the...