A Naming, Identity, and Ethnography: The Tatau Community in Sarawak’s Tatau District
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33736/jbk.9570.2025Keywords:
Tatau identity, Punan communities, Ibanisation, Ethnic classification, Sarawak ethnohistoryAbstract
This paper re-examines the historical identity of the Tatau people in Sarawak, Borneo, challenging persistent misconceptions in both academic discourse and local narratives. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, genealogical records, and archival sources, it demonstrates that the Tatau constitute an indigenous Punan community with longstanding roots in the Tatau River basin. The analysis critiques the prevailing conflation of Tatau identity with the Rumah Jalong longhouse, revealing this association as a product of mid-twentieth-century Ibanisation and colonial-era administrative categorisation. By reconstructing territorial affiliations, kinship linkages, and migration histories, the paper argues that Tatau identity historically encompassed a broader network of settlements — including Murung Tuguong, Murung Data, and Murung Muput — extending beyond the demographic and symbolic reach of Rumah Jalong. It also foregrounds the region’s multi-ethnic interactions, including longstanding relations with Melanau, Kanowit, Tanjong, and Berawan groups, thereby problematising assumptions of Iban cultural dominance. The study advocates for a more historically attuned and genealogically informed approach to the study of indigenous identity in Sarawak — one that accounts for the fluidity of ethnic categories, the politics of memory, and the contingent nature of community claims over time.
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