From Po-li to Rajah Brooke: Culture, Power and the Contest for Sarawak

  • John Henry Walker

Abstract

This article explores Sarawak’s remoter past from the emergence of an early Indianised state at Santubong until the accession as Rajah of Sarawak of James Brooke. Through an analysis of Sarawak Malay oral histories, the Negara-Kertagama, Selsilah Raja Raja Sambas and the Selsilah Raja RajaBerunai, the article confirms and extends IbLarsens’s findings, that extensive periods of Sambas’s rule over Sarawak has been overlooked by successive scholars. The article also explores the ways in which Malay oral and traditional histories can be used in western historiographic traditions to illuminate the remoter past.

Keywords:Indianisation, Sarawak, Sambas, Brunei, DatuMerpati, Sultan Tengah

Published
2017-11-16
How to Cite
Walker, J. H. (2017). From Po-li to Rajah Brooke: Culture, Power and the Contest for Sarawak. Journal of Borneo-Kalimantan, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.33736/jbk.461.2016