Protective power: The nabau or water dragon among the Iban of Sarawak

THE SARAWAK MUSEUM JOURNAL
VOL LXXXI NO.102 DECEMBER 2019

Title :
Protective power: The nabau or water dragon among the Iban of Sarawak

Author :
Monica Janowski

Abstract:

This article discusses the origin, nature and significance of the nabau, which I gloss in English as ‘water dragon’. I show how there are clear indications that the nabau is regarded by the Iban as protective. The nabau has been woven into pua cloths, skirts and strips of cloth called labong Bungai Nuing. The nabau on labong Bungai Nuing are regarded as manifestations of a culture hero from the parallel semi-spirit world of Panggau Libau, Bungai Nuing, and they are used as protective amulets. This is the clearest demonstration of the protective nature of the nabau. I suggest that the significance of the nabau should be understood in the context of its association with water and with beliefs about the flow of cosmic power and fertility through water. The use of the figure of Bungai Nuing hints, I suggest, at the nature of beliefs about the flow of cosmic power, kuasa, and the ways in which humans engage with this.

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61507/smj22-2019-7TZA-03

Download Abstract

How to cite:
Janowski M. (2019). Protective power: The nabau or water dragon among the Iban of Sarawak. Sarawak Museum Journal, LXXXI (102): 115-152 https://doi.org/10.61507/smj22-2019-7TZA-03

References

Anderson, B. 1972 “Power”. In Culture and Politics in Indonesia. R. Benedict, C. Holt, O.G. Anderson, and J. Siegel (eds), pp. 1–69. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Atkinson, J.M., and S. Errington (eds) 1990 Power and Difference. Gender in Island Southeast Asia. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Barnes, Robert H. 1973 “The rainbow in the representations of the inhabitants of the Flores area of Indonesia”. Anthropos 68: 611–613.
Carlson, John E. 2006 “The double-headed dragon and the sky: a pervasive cosmologicalsymbol”. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 385(1): 135–163.
Chai, Elena 2018 “The veneration of Dayak Latok among Chinese in Singkawang, West Kalimantan”. In Transnational Comparative Studies on the Earth God Belief: History, Ethnicity, Festival and Cultural Heritage, pp. 297–323. H.L. Chang, ed. Taiwan: Laureate Book Co. Ltd.
Cozad, Laurie 2004 Sacred Snakes: Orthodox Images of Indian Snake Worship. Aurora, Colorado: Davies Group Publishers.
Davis, Richard B. 1984 Muang Metaphysics. Bangkok: Pandora. Flügel, Peter and Gustaaf Houtmann, eds2010 Ascetism and Power in South and Southeast Asia. London: Routledge.
Freeman, J.D. 1981 Some reflections on the nature of Iban society. Occasional Paper of the Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University.
Gavin, Traude 1996 The Women's Warpath: Iban Ritual Fabrics from Borneo. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
2003 Iban ritual textiles. Leiden: KITLV.
Hanks, L.M. 1962 “Merit and Power in the Thai Social Order”. American Anthropologist 64: 1247–1261.
Heppell, Michael 2014 The Seductive Warp Thread: An Evolutionary History of Ibanic Weaving. Williamsburg: Borneo Research Council.
Hooykaas, Jacoba 1956 “The rainbow in ancient Indonesian religion”. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 112: 291–322.
Janowski, Monica 2012 “Imagining the forces of life and the cosmos in the Kelabit Highlands, Sarawak”. In T. Ingold and M. Janowski (eds), Imagining Landscapes, Past, Present and Future, pp. 143–164. London: Ashgate.
2018 “The shape of water: the story of Nooh Dawa”. Paper presented at the Borneo Research Council Conference in Kuching, Sarawak, 6–8 August 2018.
Kedit, Vernon 2009 “Restoring Panggau Libau: a reassessment of engkeramba’ in Saribas ritual textiles”. Borneo Research Bulletin 40: 221–248.
2013 “Entries on Iban textiles, forming part of chapter on Borneo: the island, its peoples”. In S. Alpert (ed.), Eyes of the Ancestors: The Arts of Island Southeast Asia at the Dallas Museum of Art, pp. 117–172. Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art.
Kieven, Lydia 2013 Following the Cap-Figure in Majapahit Temple Reliefs: A New Look at the Religious Function of East Javanese Temples, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
Linggi, Datin Amar Margaret 2001 Ties that Bind. Iban Ikat Weaving. Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia: The Tun Jugah Foundation in cooperation with the Borneo Research Council.
Masing, James Jemut 1997 The Coming of the Gods. Vol. 1 – Description and Analysis. Vol. II – Text and Translation. Canberra: Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.
Mead, Margaret 1940 “The mountain Arapesh II: supernaturalism”. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 37(3): 317–451.
Ngaosrivathana, Mayoury and Pheuiphanh 2009 The Enduring Sacred Landscape of the Naga. Bangkok: Mekong Press.
Pankenier, David W. 2013 Astrology and Cosmology in early China: Conforming Earth to Heaven. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, Anthony 1981 An Iban-English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rufinus, Albert and Asriady Alexander n.d. ‘Mitologi tenun ikat Dayak di Kabupaten Sintang.’
Sather, Clifford 2001 Seeds of Play, Words of Power. An Ethnographic Study of Iban Shamanic Chants. Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia: The Tun Jugah Foundation in cooperation with the Borneo Research Council.
Schafer, Edward H. 1973 The Divine Woman. Dragon Ladies and Rain Maidens in T'ang Literature. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.
Strang, Veronica 2010 “The summoning of dragons: ancestral serpents and indigenous water rights in Australia and New Zealand”. Anthropology News Special Issue: The Meaning of Water: 5–7.
Strang, Veronica 2015 “Reflecting nature: water beings in history and imagination.” In K. Hastrupand F. Hastrup (eds), Waterworlds: Anthropology in Fluid Environments, pp. 247–278. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books.
Strathern, A. and Pamela J. Stewart 2000 The Python’s Back: Pathways of Comparison between Indonesia and Melanesia. Westport, Connecticut and London: Bergin and Garvey.
Tambiah, S.J. 1985 “The galactic polity in Southeast Asia”. In Culture, Thought and Action: An Anthropological Perspective, S.J. Tambiah (ed.), pp. 3–31. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tannenbaum, Nicola 1989 “Power and its Shan transformations”. In S.D. Russell (ed.), Ritual, Power and Economy: Upland-Lowland Contrasts in Mainland South East Asia, pp. 67–88. Northern Illinois University Center for South East Asian Studies.
Terwiel, B. J. 1985 The rotating Naga: a comparative study of an excerpt from the oldest Tai literature.’ ASEMI (Asie du sud-est et monde insulindien) XVI (1–4): 221–245.
Tun Jugah Foundation 2001 The Encyclopaedia of Iban Studies (4 volumes). Kuching: Tun Jugah Foundation.
Viaro, Alain, and Arlette Ziegler 1999 “Stones of power. Statuary and megalithism in Nias.” In J.-P. Barbier (ed.), Messages in Stone. Statues and sculptures from tribal Indonesia in the collections of the Barbier-Mueller museum, pp. 35–77. Milan: Barbier-Mueller Museum and Skira.
Visser, M.W. de 1913 The Dragon in China and Japan. Amsterdam: Johannes Muller.
Vogel, Jean Philippe 1926 Indian Serpent-Lore: or, the Nagas in Hindu Legend and Art. Asian Educational Services.
Wolters, Oliver W. 1974 “Northwestern Cambodia in the seventh century.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (London) 37(2): 370–84.
Zai, Jenia Meng 2015 Taoism and Science: Cosmology, Evolution, Morality, Health and more. Brisbane: Ultravisum.