Looted objects, Badeng histories and Brooke peacemaking

THE SARAWAK MUSEUM JOURNAL
VOL LXXXI NO.102 DECEMBER 2019

Title :
Looted objects, Badeng histories and Brooke peacemaking

Author :
Valerie Mashman

Abstract:

This paper explores the meaning of objects that were looted from the Badeng and were subsequently donated by a Brooke administrator to the Sarawak Museum, as a trigger to examining Badeng responses to Brooke rule. The official histories of Sarawak express the satisfaction of the Brooke officers with their efforts at state-making through punitive expeditions, but these are underpinned by local oral histories of arson, violence and devastation. Through intermediaries, the Badeng succumbed to Brooke rule and are portrayed as being happy with the efforts of peace-making, yet they eventually migrated away from the Brooke domain. As such, these looted objects provide an opportunity to include Badeng historical narratives which convey agency, cunning, resistance and independence in the face of Brooke rule. At the same time, the reconstruction of the history of the Badeng through oral narratives makes a potentially rich contribution towards the popular history of the nation. This leads to the wider issue of the need for a methodology to retell these histories without reopening old grievances and enmities in order that history can be told and understood within a plural society.

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61507/smj22-2019-5XJK-06

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How to cite:
Valerie Mashman (2019). Looted objects, Badeng histories and Brooke peacemaking. Sarawak Museum Journal, LXXXI (102) : 225-260. https://doi.org/10.61507/smj22-2019-5XJK-06

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