Annual report on Sarawak.

Date:
[1959]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on Sarawak. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    217/282 (page 183)
    IV SCIENCE AND THE ARTS KNOWLEDGE of Sarawak’s human and natural sciences advanced considerably during the year, especially in the fields of archaeology (already mentioned), entomology and ornithology. Special efforts were made during the year—and will be con¬ tinued—to encourage and preserve native arts and crafts and to record folklore and customs before these disappear. It is something of a losing struggle, however. Borneo has its own very vital arts and crafts. Inevitably these are threatened by the greatly accelerated and sometimes uncontrolled impact of Western civilisation. In particular, the influence of Government education and of Mission activities has very generally been to create with extreme rapidity a new set of values the significance of which is often imperfectly under¬ stood by the native peoples most affected. Ten years ago every young Kenyah, Kayan or Kelabit was proud of his leopard teeth ear-rings (if he was fortunate enough to possess them) and his tattoos. Today these fashions are in many areas being replaced by short hair, short trousers and skin clear of any design except vaccination. The traditional systems of independent craftsmanship, of embroidered bark-jackets, fine beads, carved bone hairpins, ornate symbolic figures in wood, and decorated pipes, are threatened with early extinction. The old Ming jar and the Sung celadon plate, heirlooms of yesterday, are now shadowed by the refri¬ gerator, the bicycle and the gramophone. It is against this background that the thoughtful have to teach in the aesthetic field. There is nothing they can teach of carving, metal-working, design and weaving. The people do—or did—know it all uniquely. The young people no longer want it; better to buy cloth than make it, to use a $2.00 parang knife