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Response to Iban Chief, Sabah, 1974

from Paul Ashton (prashton@focalplane.com)
Shawn - you asked, here is my "official" text behind the photograph:

The indigenous Iban people of Sabah still lived in communal longhouses in 1974. Well, a few did, as we found out when we asked directions to one. If one still exists today it is probably in a museum.

The concept of a longhouse community is an early indication of society forming amidst the harshest of environments. I profess to be neither anthropologist nor ecologist, but the simple life of the Iban longhouse community had much to commend it. The head of the village lived in the center of the longhouse, with families occupying rooms to right and left. I assume that the most junior families lived at each end. Each family room opened onto the communal veranda where the village society held sway. Crude ladders carved out of logs served as the entry way up and down from the structure.

In retrospect I feel honored to have stepped up the ladder and visited a vanishing culture - already the trappings of western culture were taking over.

Sitting on the veranda with a bemused expression, the Iban elder barely acknowledged our presence in his community. In times past he would have provided for his people. He would no doubt have fought off trespassers and might even have hunted the heads of other tribes. But now he sat listless on the veranda, still wearing his traditional headdress but with western style trousers and t-shirt. Look into those eyes and you see some of the mysticism that was Borneo

(posted 8802 days ago)

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