First, my apologies for various typos in my previous missives, especially my mis-spelling of the legendary Tun Jugah anak Barieng€™s first name. Very embarrassing I€™m afraid €“I do have some problems even though I know the correct spelling €“old age and bad eyesight unfortunately! I trust readers will forgive these infirmities.
However, it should be noted that with regard to Iban words and phrases spelling may vary. This is because there is the earlier English spelling based on received pronunciation, and the current standard Malaysian spelling.

Your original request was for information on Bornean martial arts but with regard to the Iban, all I can do is to reiterate that in the not-so-distant past, the original Iban martial art consisted primarily of combat with the short Iban sword (parang ilang) and wooden shield (terabai). Training was through dance, often referred to as €˜ajat€™ or €˜ngajat€™, but this term simply means €˜dance€™ or €˜to dance€™ and was not originally a specific kind of dance. The €˜fighting€™ or €˜war€™ dance was distinct from other dances, and judging from the tourist performances I saw on my last trip to Sarawak, the proper steps have long been forgotten.

Is there anyone still alive who knows how to perform an Iban war-dance convincingly? Probably not on the Malaysian side of the border, but possibly among the Ibanic peoples on the Indonesian side of the border (Kalimantan), such as the Maloh, some knowledge may still remain. The Bahau of the Mahakam River still perform ritual combat with stick and sheild which I imagine must be very similar to the kind of fighting practiced by the Iban with their parang and terabai. Alas, I can only imagine, I do not know. I do have a copy of a very old film showing Dyaks (Iban?) practicing their skills with sword and shield, but tantalisingly, this is only a few seconds long.

As Steve correctly recounts, in the days of massive Iban raiding during the 19th Century, warriors often had the use of brass or iron cannon €“some locally cast, though by whom it is difficult to say, in various sizes. These however, were rare and highly-prized items. Muskets were also available on a very limited scale. Steve omits to mention the throwing-spears (sankoh?) sometimes called €˜javelins€™ in English accounts. They were very much part of the Iban warrior€™s €˜kit€™ in battle. The €˜sumpitan€™ or blowpipe with spear-blade attachment, as Steve attests, was indeed a deadly weapon of stealth in the gloom of the rain forest, but not so good on a windy day in open spaces! However, there are 19th Century accounts (see Greenwood J, 1865) which mention a range of 100 yards in calm air.

I know very little of Kuntau or Penchak, but suspect they are a comparatively recent innovation. I may be wrong of course. The whole of S E Asia is an incredible mix of cultural diversity, including Chinese and Indian influence of course, and there is considerable interchange of terminology, ideas, artefacts and everything imaginable, so it is very difficult to say who has borrowed what from whom!

What greatly interests me are the old blades on the Iban swords. As has been stated, they are often pierced, inlaid with brass, or fret-worked on the non-cutting edges with intricate designs. As one might expect among a people who were formerly warriors of great distinction, the Iban have a number of names for their swords. The parang ilang is sometimes called a €˜duku amat€™ (as is the nyabur) €“a term which translates roughly as €˜true€™ or €˜real€™ knife.

Also €˜duku ilang€™ is used to describe weapons which, at least to my inexperienced non-Iban eyes, appear very similar. Steve€™s reference to the long curved sabre-like sword as the €˜nyabor€™ (or €˜nyabur€™) coincides with my understanding, but I have also heard the term used to describe a weapon of similar length to the parang ilang, but in some ways more resembling a machete, slightly more curved and weightier towards the point than the parang ilang. Michael Heppell (2006: 122-131) notes some other names for swords as used by the Iban:

€¢ €˜pedang€™ €“a long curved sword like a sabre and similar to the tulwar. It is this which I tend to think of as the nyabur.
€¢ €˜jimpul€™ €“a medium-length curved sword somewhere between a parang ilang and tulwar in length, but with typical €˜horse€™s-head€™ handle.
€¢ €˜langgai tinggang€™ €“a heavier-than-usual curved sword with traditional (horse€™s head) handle, similar to some types of nyabur.

I suspect some swords are simply given a name that the owner fancies, as €˜duku amat€™ seems to have been applied to both the parang ilang and the nyabur. Or, at least that has been my experience. I don€™t know whether or not praise names are given to Iban swords. It€™s possible of course, and I wonder if writers have confused the first part of a praise name with more general terms. Perhaps someone could put me right.

€˜Parang€™ is a term used for a large heavy knife, or cleaver, throughout the Malaysian/Indonesian archipelago. €˜Parang ilang€™, I have been told, refers to the Bornean combination of a large €˜knife€™ (sword or cutlass) with a small long-handled short-bladed knife (lungga) carried in the scabbard of the parang.

Back in 1963/4 in the upper Rejang near Kapit, an Iban male without his parang ilang close to hand was like a Samurai warrior without his katana. Usually the weapon was carried at the waist, the owner being quite prepared to use it to avenge any threat or insult, as well using it for all manner of general purposes. Woe indeed to anyone inclined to take a liberty with any Iban male or female. Some may recall that pre-Christian longhouse Iban females of past eras and during the late 50€™s and early 60€™s, thought it quite improper to wear anything above the waist €“the mark of a prostitute, I was told. In an incident which occurred near Kuching, of which I have personal knowledge, a Malay soldier made a disparaging remark to an Iban woman and then touched her inappropriately. Her enraged shouts promptly brought the Tuai Rumah (Longhouse Head) who immediately drew his parang and slashed the soldier from collar-bone to lower ribs. His second blow would have undoubtedly severed the soldier€™s head had not other tuai (elders) physically restrained him.

There€™s a lot of nonsense written about Iban swords, so be careful! I€™ve already commented on the curious claim that the parang ilang cannot be used €˜backhand€™, whatever that is supposed to mean. I am still baffled by this totally confusing misapprehension, which to my surprise has been repeatedly expressed in the literature. Let me quote:

€˜The Iban find the ilang deficient in battle, as you cannot slash backhand with it.€™ (Heppell M, 2006:130.)
Furthermore, as previously mentioned (30/611) with reference to what he calls the €˜duku ilang€™ (which from his illustrations appears identical to the parang ilang) Sutlive writes:

€˜The Iban do not like them as weapons or tools, because, they say, they cannot be used backhand like the nyabur.€™ (Sutlive V & Sutlive J, 2001:791.)
Both Heppell and Sutlive seem to have derived their rather odd views about the parang ilang from Anthony Richard€™s Iban Dictionary (1981:114). Unfortunately I have no idea where Richards obtained his information.

If the parang ilang is deficient as weapon or tool, one wonders why they are so frequently used as both. Charles Hose writing in 1926, with over 20 years experience among the interior peoples of Sarawak, in his Chapter on €˜War€™, states that: €˜The principle weapon is the sword known as the parang ilang€¦€™ (Hose C, 1988 [orig.1926]:131). He is writing about the Kayan, but notes that the weapons used by other Dyaks (presumably including the Iban) are €˜very similar€™ (ibid), as indeed they are.

It€™s difficult to imagine the Kayan using a weapon supposedly discounted by their traditional enemy, the Iban, as €˜deficient€™. Against the Iban, the Kayan were more than capable of holding their own and proved a most formidable adversary. Combined with their organisational and fighting skills they possessed a strong sense of revenge, and were never a foe to be treated lightly.

Since it is often claimed that the Kayan invented the parang ilang, and the Iban were more than keen to obtain and copy such weapons, I cannot accept the view that the Iban found the parang ilang deficient in combat. As I strongly suspect that it is a hell of a long time since any Iban engaged in face-to-face hand-to hand fighting with sword and shield for real (I doubt if any has taken place since the 1920€™s, although I€™m open to correction), I would tend to regard the supposed deficiencies of the parang ilang in combat with some scepticism. Even more confusing than dubious claims about the parang€™s limitations as weapon or tool, is Sutlive€™s statement regarding the nyabur. This, we are told, is €˜€¦longer and straighter than the duku amat€™ (Sutlive V & Sutlive J, 2001:1294). Here €˜duku amat€™ seems to refer to the parang ilang. As the parang ilang is relatively straight, I confess even more bafflement with this observation. He then contradicts his claim by quoting an Iban verse stating: €˜Nyabur cudur pengundur antu bala nyerang€¦€™ which in translation refers to a sword with a curved blade routing the enemy hordes.

The Kayan certainly do make superb and beautiful parang ilang, so do the Kenyah (I have one), and the Iban undoubtedly traded or obtained these weapons from other Borneo societies on many occasions. But it should not be forgotten that the Iban have also long forged their own very fine parang ilangs as well.
The Kayan are usually given the credit, but whoever first fashioned this most remarkable and unique of hand-held weapons must have been a swordsmith of exquisite skill. It is not quite so easy to lop off a human head as some might imagine. There are gruesome accounts of Japanese officers in World War II making a horrible hash of executing prisoners with their Samurai swords, yet with the parang ilang decapitation of victims and enemies by the various head-hunting peoples of Borneo (Iban, Kayan, Bidayuh etc.) seems to have posed little difficulty. In fact when I was there, the SAS and other British troops were decidedly impressed by the speed and efficiency of the Iban in performing this task whenever they got the opportunity. In the 19th Century there were tales of steel musket-barrels being sliced through by Borneo tribesmen wielding the parang (see Muller K 1990: 34).

Carl Bock (1881) who travelled extensively through S E Borneo in what is now Kalimantan in 1879 (or thereabouts), illustrated and described the €˜mandau€™ as he calls it, used by the various Dyak groups of the interior. I was unsure, in my earlier missive, which language €˜mandau€™ is from. It appears to be Kayan, as might be expected. What seems remarkable is the speed with which this weapon and the techniques of forging it, spread throughout Borneo, possibly from the 18th Century onwards, or even earlier, since all Borneo societies skilled in working iron, like the Kayan and Iban, have the parang ilang or mandau. Perhaps there was a Kayan equivalent of Samuel Colt or Henry Ford, who having capitalised on the brilliance of his invention, produced parangs on a relatively grand scale, before passing on his skills to others!
Perhaps the Iban blacksmith deity Selempandai was really the apprentice of a Kayan blacksmith (perish the blasphemous thought!), who equalled his master and forged parangs of superb quality, enabling all his people to farm rice and protect themselves and their property, hence his association with forging human beings.

Let me leave you with a final comment from Hugh Low, 1848, on Iban skills in forging weapons: €˜Iron being necessary in the formation of their weapons of war, they have studied, and brought to greater perfection its workmanship than others of the mechanical arts€™ (Low E B, 1848:209). Such people would seem to be quite as capable of producing their own parangs as the Kayan and Kenyah, and certainly there is incontrovertible evidence that the Iban (then known as Sea Dyaks) were using the parang ilang in warfare at the time when Low was writing. Low credits both the Iban and Kayan working iron well before European contact, and Derek Freeman was convinced the Iban €˜€¦were in possession of iron before their arrival in Borneo€™ (Freeman J D, 1970:175) €“which is equally true of the Kayan.

References
Bock, Carl, The Headhunters of Borneo, Oxford University Press, Singapore, 1985 [1881].
Freeman, J Derek, Report on the Iban, Athlone Press, UK, 1970.
Heppell, Michael, et al, Iban Art: Sexual Selection and Severed Heads, Kit Publishers, Amsterdam, 2006.
Hose, Charles, Natural Man, Oxford University Press, Singapore, 1988 [1926].
Muller, Kal, Indonesian Borneo, Kalimantan, Periplus Editions, USA, 1990.
Low, Hugh B, Sarawak, GB, 1848.
Sutlive V & Sutlive J, The Encyclopedia of Iban Studies, Tun Jugah Foundation, Sarawak, Malaysia, 2001.

All the best,

Black Jake.

The Iban certainly did use cannon -often beautifully cast often with ornate designs ,for their ”piracy’ as the British, referred to it, or ‘bejalai’ (lit. taking a walk) as they termed it, and beautiful war-boats called ‘bangkong’ which were used on the rivers like the mighty Rejang. They also ranged far and wide all over the South China Seas, including Singapore.

I have seen Iban children as young as three practicing with the parang ilang, and they certainly develop considerable skills as they grow (or used to, since I know very little of modern Ibans today). My comments regarding the cutting direction of the parang ilang resulted from comments in Sutlive & Sutlive (2002) which I happen to disagree with. As stated, all that’s needed to cut in both directions is a very simple and swift movement of the wrist. The existence of a double-edged parang which you report is very interesting, as you intimate, such weapons are very unusual.

I’m out of time so I’ll keep further comment for another day.

All the best,

Black Jake

Cheers.

steve.

On the self defense arts though, my understanding is that Kuntau is a Chinese martial art. I know there’s a significant Chinese population in Borneo, and certainly the Iban mixed with the Chinese (evident in the goods they traded). However I would have thought the Iban with their much older history would have had their own martial art at some point.

Penchak sounds to me like Pencak from “Pencak Silat”, the Indonesian fighting arts. I could much better imagine the Iban using something that came to be known as “Penchak” or Pencak Silat since that is an indigenous Indonesian art, but I would think an Iban fighting style would have predated that, especially when you consider the long history of tribes in Borneo.

In any case, it does seem that the indigenous Iban fighting styles have unfortunately been lost for the most part.

Regarding Jake’s comment about the Parang not being able to cut in both directions…I’ve seen a couple of Parangs where the back ~6 inches or so were sharpened so they could cut in both directions, but they seem to be rare. I wonder how common this was in older Parangs, as it is a very effective design.

I concurred with the above writer that mandau is not the term used to describe the Dayak-Iban weapon.

The Iban arts of self-defence are called Kuntau and Penchak.

(1) Kuntau is used for hand to hand fighting. Its movement is very fast normally targetting the lower parts of the opponent body like vital organ such the groin and the abdomen and upper part targetted the jaw and the eyes. Swipe away the leg and push the body backward to make the opponent off-balance.
(2) Penchak is an art of self-defence using stick combat for attacking and defending the opponent’s attack. Rotan is preferred to stick because its lighter, stronger and flexible. The movement of this Penchak is clearly to fend off enemies blow by using shield in battle. Rotan is only used during practice or training.

TQ. steve.

As I know nothing about the ginunting I’ll take your word for it vis-a-vis the parang ilang. I must admit the ginunting appears to be a formidable weapon.

I see in my previous comment I’ve written ‘main’ instead of ‘maim’. Silly me! Slightly dislexic, I’m afraid.

My last visit to Kapit in Malaysian Borneo was around 1997. I was sadddened to find the Iban I encountered had forgotten almosr all their history, traditions and headhunting rituals -or perhaps they were just tired of fat old Westerners asking embarrassing questions about heir warlike past. All they seemed to know was a load of old cobblers (Cockney rhyming-slang) from the internet, the inaccuracy of which would have appalled the grizzled old warriors of my young days like the famous Temenggong Jagah Anak Barieng, who was truly ‘raja brani’ (rich and brave), and who was kind enought to let me ask him questions on several occasions.

I read a curious comment that the Iban do not like the parang as a weapon or tool because it ‘…cannot be used backhand like the nyabur’ (Sutlive & Sutlive 2001: 791). I say ‘curious’ because I have heard the Iban refer to two different types of weapon as the ‘nyabur’ -one looking very like the parang illang, and the other resembling the Indian tulwar. What is meant by ‘used backhand’ I haven’t the foggiest, because to cut in either direction one merely swivels the wrist, and this is much faster with a short cutlass kind of weapon than with a long curved sword like the tulwar. I never saw Iban warriors with anything but the parang illang, except on some ceremonial occasions. None of the weapons mentioned will cut on the back of the weapon, of course, and I really don’t know what the writer in question is talking about.

Many of the older parangs are perforated with holes, have brass-inlaid designs, and the blunt side of the blade is often cut into intricate designs.

As I expect you know, headhunting, besides being trophy-gathering on a grand scale (mostly during the 19th century), formed part of a religious complex associated with the fertility of rice and the weaving of pua kumbu (large blanket-sized ceremonial textiles), and of course the parang (with sheild) was the No.1 weapon. It mostly involved wanton and indiscriminate killing, but on other occasions opposing warriors would clash and man-to-man combat ensue. Shields were often painted with dazzling and fearsome designs to overawe and distract.