Rubber and the Modernisation of the Paku Iban in Betong Division, Sarawak.
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THE SARAWAK MUSEUM JOURNAL |
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Title :
Rubber and the Modernisation of the Paku Iban in Betong Division, Sarawak. |
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Author :
Stanley Bye Kadam-Kiai |
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Abstract:
Rubber is the tree of modernisation for the Paku Iban in Betong Division1 in Sarawak. The changes in the way of life of the Paku Iban in the first half of the 1900s were brought about by the wealth they obtained from planting rubber. Towards the end of the 1920s, for example, Baku Iban men were already wearing coats and ties during Gawai festivals. In the 1950s, according to Michael Hardin2 (Bato, 2003), when the price of rubber was about $2 per katie, “some families in Baku who had vast rubber gardens with hired rubber tapperswere earning as high as $200 daily”. “That made a number of natives from Betong wealthy”3, he said. With the money they had, they bought shop houses in Betong, Spaoh; along the Kuching Main Bazaar and in front of the General Post Office4. During this time, “some of the prime land in Kuching ... also belonged to Betong natives.”5 In his study of attitudes towards modernisation in the three areas in Sarawak (Baku, Lubok Antu and Kuching), Beter Mulok Kedit (1980) said that Baku Iban are more ‘future-oriented’ than the Iban from the other two areas when 74% of them put “disagree”as response to the statement ‘to live for the present’, comparedto Lubok Antu Iban (40 per cent) and Kuching Iban (68 per cent).
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| DOI: https://doi.org/10.61507/smj22-2008-44W4-13 |
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How to cite:
Stanley Bye Kadam-Kiai. (2008). Rubber and the Modernisation of the Paku Iban in Betong Division, Sarawak. The Sarawak Museum Journal, LXV (86): 315-328 |
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References
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