The highlands of the Apo Kayan and the Kayan Mentarang, the Krayan plateau, and the coast from Sebatik and Nunukan through Tarakan and Tanjung Selor to Berau and Cape Mangkalihat.
The highland peoples are later known as Kayan, Kenyah and Lun Dayeh, the coast people as Tidung and others. The sultanates of Bulungan and Berau are of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and are not shown. The Kenyah movement down from the Apo Kayan into the Mahakam and Baram valleys is of later centuries, as we recall.
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
- Highland river villages
- The Kayan river and the Sesayap
- The coast landings
- Cape Mangkalihat
Allies and rivals
Each village group deals with its neighbours by marriage, trade, feud and raid; nothing above them is shown.
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
Forest goods, gold, rattan, damar; 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
- Tanjung Selor: Kayan river mouth (a later name).
- Tarakan: Island on the coast (a later name).
- Nunukan: Island on the Sabah border (a later name).
- Tanjung Redeb: Berau river town (a later name).
- Cape Mangkalihat: The cape where the sea road turns.
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.
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.
Sources and studies
- Background knowledge of Southeast Asian history (Wolters; Hall; Bellwood; Scott; Junker; Reid), recalled and not re-read in this pass
- The OMNIA board (September 2026) note for this place: a lead only, not a source
- The isa regional brief (ISA_BRIEF.md) and assignment ise.txt
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.