The Iban Diaries of Monica Freeman 1949-1951: Including Ethnographic Drawings and Sketches, Paintings, Photographs and Letters.

Barton, Huw

The Iban Diaries of Monica Freeman 1949-1951: Including Ethnographic Drawings and Sketches, Paintings, Photographs and

Letters

Edited by Laura P. Appell-Warren

Borneo Research Council, Inc., 2009

Pp. Xlii + 643 (hbk).

Price: US $85

This book is an important addition to the many great ethnographic works published on the lives and peoples of Borneo. It is remarkable, and rare, to see such a richly written diary, filled with sharp observation of Iban daily life, but also unabashed to write simply on the mundane matters of living in a longhouse as an outsider. These diaries also wonderfully convey the rhythms of Iban life and of the trials and wonderment of conducting a long-term ethnographic study deep in the jungles of Sarawak. This volume, number 11 in the Borneo Research Council's Monograph Series, consists of six Diaries written between 7th June 1949 when Monica arrived in Sibu to meet her husband Derek Freeman, up to Wednesday the 4th of July 1951; her last entry written in the Gulf of Suez on their return to London.

The volume is sumptuously illustrated with 141 Figures, most of which are the excellent freehand sketches of Monica Freeman, and 41 colour plates. I first encountered Monica Freeman's drawings in the offices of the Tun Jugah Foundation in Kuching and was immediately struck by her attention to detail and the atmosphere of her pencil drawings. Many of the sketches were later annotated by Derek Freeman, but rather than rendering them thus to exist as supportive ethnographic illustrations, the labels have been removed for this publication, allowing Monica's qualities as an artist to shine. The ethnographic data have been retained in the Figure captions which also contain references to the works in which they were originally published.

A great addition to the diaries was the decision by the editor, Laura Appell-Warren, to publish Monica's letters home to her mother. These letters were written at fairly regular intervals during the year and often succinctly summarise and clarify aspects of the diary text, particular the inevitable personality clashes arising at times between the Freeman's and their Iban hosts, as well as other European personalities working on rival ethnographic projects or within Government office. Derek Freeman had been engaged by the Colonial Social Science Research Council to conduct research into the Iban for the newly appointed Colonial Office Government which ran Sarawak after the war from 1946 to 1963, when Sarawak joined the Federation of Malaya. Derek Freeman's ethnographic work conducted during the period the diaries were written was published in 1955, Iban Agriculture: A Report on the Shifting Cultivation of Hill Rice by the Iban of Sarawak. London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office. At this time Stephen Morris was engaged in his own ethnographic work with the coastal Melanau (Report on a Melanau Sago Producing Community in Sarawak. London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1953) and outwardly jealous of Freeman's luck to be given the post to study the iban, and William Geddes was working with the Bidahyu (Land Dyaks) and published his own report in 1954 and the popular volume, Nine Dayak Nights. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, in 1957.

Unfettered by the responsibility of undertaking a large ethnographic project, though Monica was certainly not free of the demands of this work, she was in a position to write freely about her interests during their time at the Iban longhouse, Rumah Nyala, of trips to other longhouses, and the farmsteads (dampa) occupied during the period of rice cultivation. Monica's observations cover every aspect of Iban life from birth to death, fanning, ritual, Iban politics, social life, subsistence, river travel, etc., and the tensions of research when embedded within a community for such a long period of time. There is an enormous quantity of good observational anthropology within these diaries and they should be essential works for any student or scholar undertaking research on the Iban or any other longhouse community in Borneo. These diaries may also provide interesting opportunities for comparative analyses between the scholarly outputs of Derek Freeman and the less focussed but no less potent observational style of Monica Freeman.

It is within the first three diaries that Monica's attention is most focussed on aspects of subsistence including the annual cycle of labour and ritual associated with rice farming. Here I noted several comments on the use of sago as a fallback food when the rice harvest fails. While Derek also notes that sago is used occasionally, Monica also records the social context of its use. For example, 'A number of men have left to get sago as a result of the gawai [harvest festival]. Every bilek [household] but one is out of rice ... Besi returned with wild pig and sago many of the bileks had this brought back now and though more than have admitted it, on[e] eating rice, there are a good number who are really feeding on sago (Thursday 24 November 1949)'. While my own research interests include the history of subsistence practices in Borneo, ! am sure that within the six diaries are similar hidden 'gems' that will illuminate current scholarship as well as providing an excellent introduction to the region, longhouse life, the lives of the Iban. The diaries are engaging, humorous, and filled with the joy and tribulations of suddenly finding oneself plunged into foreign lands associated with academic research; well illustrated in Monica's own short comic (page xiii) which attempts to recapture that moment, where she is dragged at dizzying speed through Sibu, up the Rejang River, and out into the paddy fields of Rumah Nyala, where she notes 'arriving at just the right time (7.11.49). The Iban are harvesting their rice, the new agricultural year begins in June, and with it, our serious research must also commence'.

Overall I think that this work is an excellent contribution to the discipline and of interest to scholars of the region and those simply interested in reading a good ethnographic volume of a fascinating part of the world. The illustrations significantly add to the work and a glossary of terms also increases accessibility to non-specialists. Unfortunately the monograph lacks an index which limits its use as an academic text, though it is first and foremost a personal diary, there really is enough content within to justify the time and effort to write one. This volume was clearly a labour of love for both Monica Freeman and Laura Appell-Warren, and it was definitely worth the effort involved to see these diaries into print and made widely available.

Huw Barton

University of Leicester