I got a t-shirt in Kuching with the "head hunter" design. While wearing this t-shirt recently, I received a comment from an American who has heard of old Borneo, and is thinking of visiting Borneo. He remarked, "It is too bad that the Dayaks are now extinct."I asked where he got that piece of information, and assured him that the ("sea" and "land") Dayaks are alive and well in Sarawak. He insisted that there are no more Dayaks; he got the population make-up (for Malaysia) from the US Department of State official site.
Well ... what can I say
4 comments:
This is so like Chinese Whispers....
and the story of Alice and Frank..good and loving couple...
Nice post. Keep it up.
So you see, by just changing the name of the tribe / race from Sea Dayak to "Ibans" a whole race can be wiped off.
It could be worse, having to fill in official forms as "others"?!
Prior to James Brooke there wasn't any term as sea dayaks neither Ibans. these people simply were referred to by their local native names. the government is now making issues because it created preferential treatment to its citizens...
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