The Place of the Kadayan in Traditional Brunei Society

Abstract

The Kadayan have long occupied a pivotal role in Brunei, but the position of this native Malay-speaking population in the overall society has remained obscure for a number of reasons. The radical economic and social changes of the twentieth century have masked much of the character of traditional Brunei society. Until recently, studies of Brunei have suffered from inadequate attention being given to the nature of Brunei society, insufficient differentiation between the two native Malay-speaking demographic components of the ethnic category ‘Malay’ — the Kadayan and the Barunay — and underutilization of nineteenth-century observational reports, which began to appear with frequency only after the arrival of James Brooke on the Borneo scene, in 1839. Combining information drawn from these sources with the results of ethnographic study with the Kadayan allows the emergence of a much clearer picture of the economic and political importance of this group in traditional Brunei. Local publications present Barunay historical traditions concerning the Kadayan and underscore the significance of this group in the larger society. The Kadayan have also occupied an important ritual position in the country. Integrating these diverse sources of information with data on Kadayan settlement patterns yields a synthesis showing how this group has been a crucial component in the life of Brunei Darussalam.