Baram and northern hills

Who holds it

Title

No overall chief: village or longhouse headmen, elders and war leaders, each answering for their own people

Since

not pinned

Born

not known

Family

not known

Confidence

low

Nothing is written about the rulers or headmen of this country for 1200. The structure is read from geography and from ethnography of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

What it holds

• The camphor forests of the Usun Apau
• The headwater passes to the Rajang, the Limbang and the Kalimantan side
• The Niah cave chambers
• The Kelabit salt and rice country (later ethnography)

Allies and rivals

The Baram and hill heads (Baram and hill heads) hold the forests; Po-ni lies to the north-east.

How things stand that morning

Not described for 1200; the villages are presumed to be farming, fishing and selling what the rivers and forests give.

Wealth

Camphor, gaharu, wax, rattan; no figures.

Military

Not known; boats, spears, shields and blowpipes in the later record. No numbers.

Threats

• Feuds and raiding between villages
• Flood, drought or fire
• A change in the trade that comes by sea

Places of note

• Marudi: Middle Baram (a later name).
• Bario: Kelabit highlands (a later name).
• Mulu: Mountain and cave country.
• Usun Apau: Camphor plateau.
• Niah caves: Limestone caves on the coastal strip.
• Miri: Coast town (a later name).

Where the sources disagree

• The ethnic names used here (Dayak, Kayan, Kenyah, Iban, Ngaju, Banjar and the rest) are later outsiders' or ethnographic names; the ethnic map of 1200 is not known and differs from the modern one.
• The Limbang and Lawas coast belongs to the Po-ni realm record; this outline stops short of it but includes the Lawas hills.

Evidence: Geography and later ethnography only; no text of the period describes this country.

On the map: A rough outline of the people's country; the real extent of any village group in 1200 is not known, and nothing here is a border.