Suomen Antropologi 4/2004 35Suomen Antropologi 4/2004 29. vuosikerta, PL 59, 00014 Helsingin yliopistoJournal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 29 (4) December 2004

PO Box 59, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

“DAYAK” AND “MALAY” IN SOUTHEAST BORNEO:

Some Materials Contesting the Dichotomy

• KENNETH SILLANDER •

Introduction

In colonial and anthropological descriptions of Borneo and, to some extent, among the peo-ple who live on the island, the population is frequently divided into the two general categories of “Dayak” and “Malay”. According to this typology, the Dayaks are associated with the island’s interior, rainforest subsistence and knowledge, and various attributes of primitiveness or traditional culture, while the Malays are associated with coastal habitation, Islam, trade, cosmopolitanism, some degree of cultural sophistication, and a centralized polity. In Kali-mantan (Indonesian Borneo), the Dayaks are typically also regarded as the island’s aboriginal population, sometimes in distinction to the Malays, a view which owes much to a popular discourse on pre-history according to which the Dayaks represent an earlier wave of migra-tion from mainland Southeast Asia, and the Malays a later one.

Whichever part of Borneo is concerned, however, a closer scrutiny of the current ethno-cultural situation, or the ethnohistory, reveals a more complex picture, thus contesting what are, in fact, generalizing stereotypes. The purpose of this paper is to add to this complexity though a presentation of a number of ethnographic examples of Dayak and Malay popula-tions that in some way or another defy these stereotypes. In a concluding discussion, I will also make some general observations regarding the past and present ethno-political impor-tance of the Dayak-Malay dichotomy. My ethnographic examples all derive from “Southeast Borneo”, (see Map 1) a denomination which I take to comprise the area located between the Barito and Mahakam rivers, a cultural and to some degree natural region (see e.g. MacKinnon et al. 1996) in Indonesian Borneo which covers in its entirety the province of South Kaliman-tan, and part of those of East and Central Kalimantan. This is the part of Borneo that I am most familiar with as a result of my fi eldwork1 among Luangan Dayaks in the northern part of the Meratus range, which cuts through the interior of this region. Much of the data pre-sented is also confi rmed by personal information obtained through fi eldwork, even though they are mainly based on the published reports of other research in the region.

“Dayak” and “Malay” are, of course, very general categories. As is rather well-known, “Dayak” is an umbrella term somewhat like “Indian” in America, accommodating consider-able ethnic, cultural, as well as linguistic diversity. Locals and scholars also recognize the exist-ence of considerable ethno-cultural diversity among the Malays, some of whom are, in fact, not “true Malays”, in the sense of speaking the Malay language. In addition, a long continuing and in many places recently dramatically increasing infl ux of non-Borneans (Buginese, Java-nese, Madurese, Chinese, etc.) adds signifi cantly to this diversity: not all Borneans are, or have ever been, either Dayak or Malay.

In addition to these relatively well-known observations of diversity within the Malay and Dayak categories, there are also some that attest to a diffuseness or permeability of the inter-nal boundary between them. In fact, a great portion of the people classifi ed as “Malay” used to be non-Muslim, swidden cultivating “Dayaks” until recently. However, over the course of events, which following Leach (1950) has been regarded as typical for Borneo, they or their

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Map 1. Southeast Borneo.

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ancestors became Muslims, and thereby, in the same instance, or soon after, “entered Malay” (masuk Melayu), that is, adopted Malay identity, and the Malay language. In Borneo, becoming Muslim is indeed often synonymous with becoming Malay (although, as we will see in this article, perhaps not quite as often as has been generally assumed). In fact, even those Bornean Malays whose Malay forefathers migrated to the island in relatively recent times may ultimate-ly originate from Borneo, according to current linguistic theory which place the homeland of the “Malay language community” in Western Borneo (see e.g. Adelaar 1995; Collins 2001). On the other hand, some Dayaks may have moved to the island relatively recently, like the Tumon of Central Kalimantan who speak a Minangkabau related language and claim to have migrated from West Sumatra (Zahorka 2001; see also King 1979, 3). Yet other Dayaks, in their turn, are former Malays who have adopted a Dayak identity or at least life-style, thus reversing the usual order of events (see e.g. Rousseau 1990).

In addition to inter-ethnic traffi c, considerable inter-cultural infl uence between the people designated as “Dayak” and “Malay”, and numerous cultural anomalies among them, has also been documented. In contrast to the stereotype, the Dayaks in the past were often not inde-pendent but integrated within coastal Malay polities (typically Hindu at fi rst, later Islamized). Dayak leaders paid tribute to, and received titles from, these polities, a process which some-times contributed to the development of stratifi cation in the Dayak societies (see e.g. Tham-bun Anyang 1996; Sillander 2004a). Interior Dayaks apparently also developed centralized polities of their own (e.g. Djuweng 1999; Weinstock 1983), and the coastal polities are in many cases believed to have been founded by Dayaks or, more typically, Dayaks confederated with migrants to the island (Javanese, Sumatran Malay, Indian, etc.) (see e.g. Boyce 1986; Nüs-selein 1905; Ras 1968). In precolonial times, the culture of Bornean Malays was often only marginally different from that of the Dayaks, “becoming Malay” then not yet having received the politico-cultural signifi cance that it was to acquire under the infl uence of colonialism and reformist Islam (see e.g. Wadley and Smith 2001). My own data on Luangan Dayak and South-east Borneo Malay curing and purifi cation rituals also suggest important intercultural infl u-ence going both ways in this realm (Sillander 2004, 246-448, 323-24). Clearly, the populations labelled “Dayak” and “Malay” have had more to do with each other through history than the colonial or present use of the dichotomy would seem to imply. This is perhaps especially clear in the case of Southeast Borneo.

Formerly, in precolonial and to some degree in colonial times, Southeast Borneo was divided into several more or less autonomous sultanates, including the regionally dominant Sultanate of Banjarmasin which was located close to the mouth of the Barito, and the now re-established Kutai sultanate, located close to the mouth of the Mahakam, as well as a number of smaller east coast sultanates on which there is scant information in the literature (e.g. Pasir, Pagatan Kusan). Here some interior kingdoms are also known, including Dayak chiefdoms with Islamized leaders such as the Tunjung sultanate (see Weinstock 1989). Originally, many of the region’s coastal sultanates are believed to have been founded by Dayaks, and Dayak leaders also feature in the genealogies of several of them (e.g. in Kutai and Pasir).

As the plurality of sultanates in Southeast Borneo may suggest, a considerable degree of ethno-cultural diversity characterizes the Malays of this region who indeed are more often known by some other, more specifi c ethnonym, including “Kutai”, “Banjar”, “Pasir”, “Bekumpai”, and apparently some additional designations in the case of the little known population of the southernmost stretch of the east coast. None of these groups are either very “pure Malays” – indeed such an entity may perhaps not exist anywhere – all of them showing some degree of infl uence (cultural as well as linguistic) of non-Malay speaking populations (Javanese, Bugis, Dayak). Indeed, it is questionable if some of these groups (i.e.

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the Bekumpai, and Pasir) should be regarded as Malays at all, other than the fact that they are sometimes referred to as such in Kalimantan.

A similar, or perhaps greater diversity also characterize southeast Borneo’s Dayaks – the Luangan, Ma’anyan, Ngaju, Ot Danum, and Bukit – even though they are all, with the excep-tion of the Bukit who occupy the central part of the Meratus mountains in South Kalimantan, linguistically and culturally related, together forming the “Barito linguistic family” of Hudson (1967a), and the cultural “Barito Complex” of Sellato (1994, 11,187-189). These groups have in common a complex religious tradition including the practice of secondary mortuary rituals, and a relatively egalitarian social organization, fundamentally associated, it seems to me, with a comparatively dispersed settlement pattern. Formerly, a signifi cant portion of these Dayaks used to live downriver from where they live now, having moved to more inaccessible upriver locations in response to perceived attempts at exploitation by the sultanates or the Dutch (see e.g. Hudson 1967b; Struktur Bahasa Bawo 1989). Sellato (1994:213) also proposes that these groups all used to belong to a “Hinduized culture-area foyer”, which was possibly connected to the mythologized Negara kingdom in the Hulu Sungai area upstream from Banjarmasin (cf. Knapen 2001, 65). Hindu infl uence is asserted also by the Ngaju Dayak dominated Great Council of the Hindu-Kaharingan religion (Majelis Besar Agama Hindu Kaharingan), who has successfully fought for government recognition of the local religion as a variant of Hinduism (see e.g. Schiller 1997).

The Pahu

I will begin my discussion of Southeast Borneo Malay and Dayak groups with the Pahu of the Muara Pahu area of the lower Mahakam. This population lived in longhouses and spoke a Luangan related language up to the nineteenth century, during which they progressively became Islamized and adopted Malay identity and a dialect of Kutai Malay (see Dalton 1831; Tromp 1889, 278; Kumpulan... 1979, 253-55; Weinstock 1983a, 91). At fi rst, the degree of their cultural differentiation from neighboring Benuaq Dayaks was small, but gradually, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they adopted Malay cultural attributes. Today they are relatively pious Muslims who by and large have become assimilated into the Kutai Malays. However, in distinction to the region’s most orthodox Muslims, the Banjar Malays, who have chosen to live segregated in separate hamlets among them, the Pahu regularly perform belian sentiu, a Dayak curing ritual, which developed among the neighboring Benuaq Dayaks in the early twentieth century, but which uses the Kutai Malay language and is heavily infl uenced by a ritual tradition associated with the court of the Kutai sultanate. On the whole, the Pahu nevertheless represent a rather typical case of gradual Dayak assimilation into Malay, which provides further evidence about the heterogeneous social and historical origins of the latter category.

The Bawo

Another case of conversion to Islam which in some respects defi es Dayak and Malay stere-otypes are the Bawo. The Bawo are a dispersed category of Luangan speaking groups many of whom may not be particularly closely related internally. They mainly have in common, and derive their name from, upriver residence in hilly country (Bawo is a Luangan word for “hill” or “upland area”). They occupy the upper reaches of a number of tributaries of the Mahakam (Bongan Kiwa and Kanan), the Barito (Tabalong and Ayuh), and the Kendilo and Telakei rivers of Pasir (for some information on different Bawo groups see e.g. Knappert

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1905; Nüsselein 1905; Struktur Bahasa Bawo 1989; Weinstock 1983). Today most of these groups, who generally suffer from a reputation of being particularly primitive, have become Islamized, but they nevertheless carry on a rather traditional Dayak way of life (reportedly more so than their downriver Dayak neighbors), only not, assumingly, eating pork. The Bawo of Pasir are also known to have originated the regionally famous and performatively stark belian bawo ritual, which in Pasir is practised among both upriver and downriver Muslims (e.g. Bawos and other indigenous Pasir people). Many Islamized Bawo groups apparently also re-tain their Luangan languages, and they still often identify, at least ambiguously, as Bawo, partly, perhaps, because of the persisting identifi cation of them as such by other people in the area. Presumably the Islamized Bawo also have ambivalent – and regionally and situationally vari-able – notions of Malay and Dayak identity.

The Pasir

The Pasir are a populous and predominantly Islamized group who are spread through much of the coastal as well as interior parts of the Pasir district of East Kalimantan where also signifi cant numbers of Buginese (who originate from Sulawesi), Banjar Malays, and Bajau “sea nomad” descendants have for a long time made their living (for information on the Pasir, see Nüsselein 1905 and Weinstock 1983). It was the Pasir who developed the strongly Bugis infl uenced Pasir sultanate, a former Hindu kingdom said to have originated as the result of a Dayak-Javanese union. In spite of being Muslims, the Pasir largely retain their Luangan re-lated language, and maintain a separate identity from the regions other inhabitants. According to Weinstock (1983, 94), they nevertheless “loosely accept identifi cation as Malays”. I surmise that in so far as they do, the word Malay here primarily has the unspecifi c meaning – which is common in Southeast Borneo – of any Islamized, indigenous Bornean population (i.e. the term does not to any signifi cant extent – if at all – connote Malay cultural identity). Having retained their Dayak language and to some degree a separate ethnic identity, despite having converted to Islam, and developed centralized polity, the Pasir are a somewhat marginal Malay population. An additional factor testifying to this is that whatever Muslim infl uence that they had until recently been subjected to was exerted more by the Buginese (and Javanese) than by any Malay speaking populations.

The Bekumpai

Another case of marginal Malayness is presented by the Bekumpai of the provinces of South and Central Kalimantan (for information on the Bekumpai see e.g. Knapen 2001; Mallinck-rodt 1927; Schwaner 1854; Weinstock 1983). The Bekumpai are an indigenous Southeast Bornean population related to the Ngaju who became Islamized in the seventeenth century (1688, according to Schwaner 1853:74), but who have retained their original Ngaju-related language. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, they used to live mainly on the lower Barito around Marabahan at the strategic confl uence of the Barito and Negara rivers, acting as middlemen of the sultan (or as independent pirates), and controlling much of the trade in the area. However, following Dutch attempts at breaking their trade monopoly on the lower Barito (particularly the Bekumpai War in 1824-25), and in response to improved opportunities for forest product trade, the Bekumpai have since then migrated further and further upriver. In the process they have married local Dayaks who have become “Bekumpaized” as a result. Through this expansion into the interior they have contributed critically to the development

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of interior trade, and created for themselves a new ethno-economical niche as upriver traders (replacing their former one as downriver traders).

Today, most Muslims along the middle or upper Barito and its tributaries (and some on the Kahayan and Kapuas) are Bekumpai. However, a majority of the Bekumpai are not descend-ants of original Bekumpais but other Dayaks (Luangans, Ma’anyans, and Ot Danums) who have converted to Islam, often entire villages at a time, and thereby become Bekumpaized, both in terms of identity and language. In the middle and upper Barito region, conversion to Islam generally entails that one masuk Bekumpai (“enters Bekumpai”), rather than masuk Melayu. Interestingly, many non-genealogical Bekumpai still identify as Dayak (i.e. as Be-kumpai-Dayak), even though a majority would probably, upon inquiry, profess Malay identity. Here general life-style seems to be decisive: individuals who continue to lead a traditional Dayak way of life are more inclined to identify as Dayak, whereas those who practice a mod-ern life-style, engage actively in trade, or follow Islam relatively strictly, are more inclined to consider themselves as Malays. However, Malayness to these Dayak-speaking people seems generally to be of subordinate signifi cance to their Bekumpainess. Malayness, in the Barito region, is also to some degree specifi cally associated with the Banjar, who often look down on, and do not regard as true Malays, the Bekumpai (including the original ones).

The Bukit

Like the Bawo, the Bukit of the Meratus range of South Kalimantan are a hill-dwelling popu-lation (for information on the Bukit, see e.g. Tsing 1984, 1993; Mallinckrodt 1927). In some respects – in terms of social organization and in sharing a reputation for primitiveness – the Bukit resemble the Bawo. In some other respects, however, the Bukit differ signifi cantly from the Bawo. Most importantly, unlike the Bawo and other Dayak groups in Southeast Borneo, they speak a language closely related to Malay, more precisely, a version of Malay spoken by their downhill Banjar neighbors (who exhibit signifi cant Javanese infl uence). Despite this lin-guistic connection with the Banjar, however, most Bukits (in contrast to the Bawo) who have converted to Islam are Muslims who relatively unambiguously identify as Malay. It appears that when members of this group convert to Islam they generally lose their former ethnic identity and become Banjar.

Besides the linguistic connection between the Bukit and the Banjar, scholars have also perceived a cultural connection. As Anna Tsing (1984, 21-25) has noted, this perception, together with the Bukit’s relatively indistinct Dayak culture, lies behind the fact that observers has sometimes regarded the Bukit as “degenerate Dayaks”, and at other times as “primordial Banjar”. Some scholars have classifi ed them as a subgroup of the Ma’anyan while others have seen them as a Luangan subgroup, and yet others have regarded them as the remnants of an originally Malay speaking autochthonous population who eluded Islamization. The question of the origins of the Bukit is indeed an intriguing one (besides being related to Malay, a minor percentage of the Bukit language’s vocabulary is shared with Ma’anyan and Luangan), which has not yet been conclusively answered. What is clear is that the Bukit have had long-time social and cultural interaction with the Banjar as well as with their Dayak neighbors.

The Ma’anyan

The Bukit’s northern neighbors, the Ma’anyan, represent another Southeast Bornean Dayak group which in some important respects defi es the Dayak stereotype (for information on the Ma’anyan, see Hudson 1967b, 1972; Knapen 2001). For example, they were for a long time

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the major commercial producers of pepper which was the principal export of Banjarmasin in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the past, the Ma’anyan also used to live much further downriver and to the south of their present locations on the middle Barito. Up until the mid-seventeenth century they occupied the fertile Hulu Sungai area where they were likely subjected to much Hindu infl uence from the Negara kingdom (and we can, of course, not rule out that they did not constitute an important part of its population themselves) as suggested by their practice of mass cremation which forms part of their secondary mortuary ceremonies. Historically, the Ma’anyan were also the principal commercial shipbuilders of the Barito, building both smaller boats and larger vessels. It is also likely that they themselves went to sea at some point, which their Ngaju Dayak neighbors and the Bekumpai evidently did (see Knapen 2001). Linguistic evidence strongly suggests that the Ma’anyan, or a population closely related to them, migrated to Madagascar and originated the Austronesian population there (see e.g. Dahl 1991). Finally, the Ma’anyan can be noted to have long maintained a close relationship, and lived much intermixed, with the Banjar as well as to have been subjected to much colonial and missionary infl uence. Perhaps as a result of this, they display a relatively inconspicuous Dayak culture at the same time as they maintain a relatively unambiguous Dayak identity.

The Dayak-Malay Classifi cation in History

As Moerman (1965) observed, cultural and ethnic boundaries do not necessary coincide, nor do societal and ethnic ones, as Leach (1954) demonstrated. In Southeast Borneo, as in much of the rest of the island, the people categorized as “Dayak” and “Malay” have typically been in close and frequent interaction, and this interaction has often involved considerable inter-cultural infl uence. As I have demonstrated through my examples, being Malay or Dayak in this area has often not conformed to the stereotypes of Malayness and Dayakness, and the boundary between the two categories has typically not been as strongly emphasized as outsider usage of the terms may suggest. Considerable traffi c over the boundary has also oc-curred, and entire groups are ambiguously conceptualized in respect to the boundary (e.g. the Bekumpai, and the Bawo).

These observations call into question the assumption that Dayak identities have universally evolved towards Malayness. Even though many Dayaks who convert to Islam in Southeast Borneo adopt the Malay language and a Malay culture (e.g. the Pahu, and converted Bukits), many do not or do so only to a rather small degree (e.g. the Pasirs, many Bawo groups, and those that become Bekumpai). Language obviously does not determine identity, as indicated by the fact that some people who do not speak Malay nevertheless loosely identify as Ma-lay, including some Bekumpais and Pasirs. Not even culture is suffi cient in this respect as evidenced by the fact that many individuals (especially Bawos, Pasirs, and Bekumpais) who identify as Malay lead a stereotypical Dayak life as dispersed swidden cultivators and practice Dayak rituals. Traditional religious beliefs and ritual practices indeed seem to be a particularly persistent element of Dayak culture as they are frequently adhered to even when a Malay or Muslim identity is relatively strongly affi rmed (as in the case of the Pahu). Conversely, it is evident that an engagement in activities which are stereotypically associated with Malays does not have to lead to the adoption of Malay identity. For example, large-scale cash-crop produc-tion and maritime activities were not uncommon formerly among non-Muslim populations who today identify as Dayaks (such as the Ma’anyan). Prolonged interaction with Malays and the adoption of various aspects of Malay culture (possibly even including language in the case of the Bukit) has also not prevented some populations from maintaining an identity as

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Dayaks (including the Bukit and the Ma’anyan). All over Southeast Borneo, Dayak women don Malay dress without losing their identity as Dayaks.

The Southeast Bornean ethnic groups presented in this article illustrate Fredrik Barth’s (1968) maxim that ethnic identity is a matter of choice, not of objective characteristics. The cultural attributes of the populations designated “Dayak” and “Malay” are not intrinsically associated with their Dayak or Malay identity but are rather traits that, with some fl exibility, can be adopted independently of identity. Conversely, “Dayak” and “Malay” are symbols of identity which often can be adopted or shed without great constraint. In part, this refl ects the basic fact that “Dayak” and “Malay” are not primordial categories; they are labels which became important as sources of identifi cation in the area only in the nineteenth or twentieth century, largely as a result of colonial rule, especially in the case of the term “Dayak”. In the past, the non-Malay speaking population of the island’s interior did not think of itself as an entity. Collective identifi cation in the interior was restricted to the local, typically with a particular river or river basin, and the inhabitants usually had little sense of a more general identity (Babcock 1974; Sillander 1995).

A slightly greater degree of consciousness of kind probably existed among the diverse Islamized populations of the coastal sultanates who presumably to some extent shared, in ac-cordance with the prevailing pattern in Islamized maritime societies in the region, an identity as Malays, based on shared notions of mythology and royal descent, or adherence to other aspects of Malay culture, such as the Malay language (and Jawi script), maritime trade, and a le-gal system based on the concept of adat (cf. Reid 2001:300-301).2 However, the Malay identity of these populations was probably very weak. Primarily, they would identify as orang Banjar, orang Kutai, orang Pasir, etc., depending on from which sultanate or general area they came, and they would all be signifi cantly infl uenced by local traditions refl ecting the different popula-tions of which they were made up (who were indeed largely local, or otherwise non-Malay in origin) (cf. Babcock 1974, 193). Typically, these coastal societies would also not maintain an antagonistic relationship with the non-Muslim populations in the interior, on whose sup-ply of forest products they depended, but rather try to incorporate them into their political systems (see e.g Widjono 1991). On the middle ranges of many rivers, mixed Dayak-Malay villages often functioned as a kind of buffer and integrative mechanism between them and the upriver Dayaks (cf. Babcock 1974, 193; King 1979, 34).

There is no reason, then, to assume that the division or distinction between “Dayak” and “Malay” would have been more clear-cut in the past than it is now. On the contrary, cultural infl uence (two-way) between the populations thus designated was probably more abundant and less constrained by notions of identity than it would later become (and as we have seen, it is not always that much constrained even today). One indication of this is the intercultural infl uence that I have recorded in the fi eld of East Kalimantan curing and purifi cation ritu-als. Another is the fact that the Dayaks and Malays of Southeast Borneo several times joined forces in revolts against the Dutch abolition of sultanates in the region (see e.g. Black 1985; Lindblad 1988). Signifi cant Islamic infl uence was exhibited also by the millenarian nyuli move-ments that cropped up among the Luangan and Ma’anyan Dayaks in the Barito and Pasir areas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in response to Dutch attempts to introduce different forms of taxation or forced labor (Feuilletau de Bruyn 1934; Mallinckrodt 1974).

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The Revaluation of Dayak Ethnicity

To a signifi cant extent, the development and present-day importance of the Dayak-Malay dichotomy is a result of colonial attempts to localize and separate them (cf. Davidson 2003; Pringle 1970, 283-319). Dutch distrust of the Malays was ingrained and they often held pater-nalistic attitudes towards the Dayaks; special decrees frequently restricted Malay movement in the interior (e.g. Black 1985, 285). Similar attitudes also characterized the Brooke regime in Sarawak (see e.g. Babcock 1974). To some degree, the separation policy may of course have represented, as Babcock (1974, 197) has suggested, attempts to impose conceptual and administrative order, perceived as purposeful in their own right. However, it also represented, at least in southern Borneo, a deliberate divide-and-rule politics, combined in the 1920s and 1930s with retraditionalization and decentralization policies (e.g. codifi cation and revitaliza-tion of systems of customary law) designed to promote ethnic pluralism in the face of na-tional awakening (van Klinken 2004).

The initial spread of the Dayak concept was largely achieved by colonial administrators. However, the concept was not, as has often been suggested, only externally imposed, and it has not been regarded as only derogatory in the eyes of the Dayaks. An urban Christian elite, educated in Dutch mission schools, was largely responsible for the subsequent spread of the concept, especially through the development of political Dayak organizations (Miles 1976; van Klinken 2004). As the Dutch colonial offi cer and ethnographer Jacob Mallinckrodt (1928, 10) remarked already in the 1920s, the autonymic use of the term, exemplifi ed in names of political organizations such as Sarikat Dayak, expresses the solidarity of the Dayak population. Today, especially in the post-Suharto era, numerous Dayak organizations (e.g. the Pontianak based Institute of Dayakology, and the PDKT, or Association of East Kalimantan Dayaks) promote the use of the concept as part of an effort to create a pan-Dayakic ethnic awareness. Education and resource competition (material and political) in the colonial and postcolonial state can thus be identifi ed as principal factors in the development of Dayak ethnic consciousness. However, it needs to be recognized that Dayak ethnogenesis has also been hampered by the same factors.

The association of the concept of “Dayak” with primitiveness, with ignorance and sav-agery, in popular discourse among government offi cials and urban Indonesians in Borneo and beyond, has for a long time made many Dayaks ashamed of their ancestry and disinclined to identify as Dayak. This association explains a common tendency for the most “traditional” Dayaks to be the least inclined to manifest their identity (Sillander 1995; Tsing 1984, 32-33), and it has worked to promote conversion to Islam and Christianity by populations concerned with avoiding this stigma. This was especially the case under President Suharto’s develop-ment-oriented and centralist New Order regime (1965-1998), during which forced relocation or “guided development” of isolated communities perceived as primitive represented threats to local autonomy and a rationale for the undercommunication of Dayak identity. During this period, adopting the national language as the fi rst language also became fashionable among Dayaks who wanted to be progressive (maju). One factor that has promoted the process of masuk Melayu in Southeast Borneo has been the superior status of Malay over Dayak lan-guages as a result of its resemblance to the national language (Indonesian, which is a variant of Malay). In addition, Malay’s longstanding status as a regional lingua franca and principal medium of trade (elsewhere than on the Barito) partly explains the tendency to masuk Melayu (like Bekumpai’s similar status in the Barito region explains masuk Bekumpai there). Formerly, “becoming Malay” was motivated also by an affi liation with the “regionally prestigious net-work” that it entailed (Wadley and Smith 2001, 62). This was a particularly important consid-

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eration for Dayak leaders who wanted to bolster their authority through extra-local connec-tions (and leaders were often the fi rst, and sometimes the only ones, to convert to Islam). But also for individuals wanting to take up occupation as traders, becoming Malay (or Bekumpai) has often represented something of a prerequisite, enabling access to external trade goods and more favorable terms of trade (cf. King 1979, 33).

However, even though there has often existed certain advantages for Dayaks to adopt a Malay identity and the Malay language, these advantages have not always been important enough to persuade them to change their identity and language. In fact, as some of my exam-ples indicate, it seems that the inevitability and extent of the masuk Melayu process has gener-ally been exaggerated. And if formerly the advantages of becoming Malay often outweighed those of remaining Dayak, this is frequently no longer the case. Today, there is a trend toward an increasing retainment of Dayak identity, and we now fi nd signifi cant numbers of Dayaks who have converted to Islam – or adopted Malay (i.e. Indonesian) as a new language – with-out giving up their Dayak identity. This refl ects an increasing scarcity of lands for cultivation – occasioned by logging company claims and government sponsored transmigration – and the current Indonesian decentralization process, both of which have given rise to conditions under which it is sometimes an advantage to be Dayak. An ongoing process of revaluation of the status of “indigenous peoples” – promoted to an important extent by Indonesian NGOs – and the existence of special laws giving special tenure and other rights to societies that fol-low customary law (masyarakat adat), have contributed to a signifi cant change in the status of the Dayak concept. As an informant of Anne Schiller (2003, 8) expressed it, today “everyone wants to sell the name Dayak”.

As this article has showed, the categories of “Dayak” and “Malay” – and the relationship between them – are not immutable, and they do not possess any essential characteristics. Their signifi cance as symbols of identity is rather recent, but already during the relatively short period that they have been employed their interpretation and social relevance has varied. The stereotypical portrayal of Dayaks and Malays in colonial and older anthropological works distorts a complex and fl uid ethnographic reality in which the border lines between cultures, languages and ethnicities often do not coincide or add up to a consistent pattern. Such a portrayal also gives unwarranted emphasis to the distinction and division between “Dayak” and “Malay”, and thus creates an impression of ethnic identifi cation as having been more consequential than what has actually been the case. Finally, it unjustifi ably assumes universal evolutionary scheme of gradual assimilation of Dayaks into the Malay category.

NOTES

1 Eighteen months of fi eldwork was conducted in 1993 and 1996–1997 primarily among the Bentian and the Benuaq and Taboyan subgroups of the Luangan, in the present-day West Kutai district of East Kalimantan and the North Barito district of Central Kalimantan. However, I also met representatives of many other Luangan and non-Luangan groups (and learnt about them through my primary informants) and in that way obtained information about other Southeast Bornean ethnic groups. In addition, I have conducted interviews on the subject of ethnicity during travel in the Barito region (in 1992 and 1998). The fi eldwork was carried out under the auspices of Universitas Indonesia and Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia, in cooperation with Isabell Herrmans from the University of Helsinki. For their support in connection with the fi eldwork, I would like to thank, in particular, Bernard Sellato and Parsudi Suparlan. The fi eld research was funded by the Academy of Finland, Ella & Georg Ehrnrooths stiftelse, the Finnish Ministry of

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