Benedict Sandin, 1918-1982: A Biographical Memoir.
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THE SARAWAK MUSEUM JOURNAL |
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Title :
Benedict Sandin, 1918-1982: A Biographical Memoir. |
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Author :
Clifford Sather |
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Abstract:
After more than a year of seriously declining health, Benedict Sandin died peacefully, surrounded by family and friends, on the 7th ofAugust, 1982. He was buried in the ancient Iban cemetery at Batu Anchau, just below his longhouse on the Baku tributary of the Saribas River, on the 12th of August, following a five-night vigil (rabat). His funeral was conducted according to a complex custom of ceremonial honour previously accorded only once before in the history of the Baku,more than a century earlier, to his great grandfather, the famous 19th-century war chief, linggir “Mali Lebu”. Of all the honours he received during his lifetime,none would have given Benedict Sandin greater pleasure than this, for Linggir symbolized to Benedict,more than any other historical figure, the heritage he devoted the greater part of his life to preserve in writing. In life, Benedict Sandin was, as Robert Bringle (1970: xiii)has described him, “the foremost authority on the history and culture of his people”. His knowledge of the Iban was encyclopedic. His prolific writings, which touch on virtually every facet of Iban life, constitute a unique, and increasingly irretrievable record of a traditional culture and its formative history far richer and more detailed than we possess for any other Bornean people.
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| DOI: XXXX |
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How to cite:
Sather, C. (1981). Benedict Sandin, 1918-1982: A Biographical Memoir. The Sarawak Museum Journal, XXIX (50): 101-136 |
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References
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