THE BATTLE OF BETING MARO 1849

Source: Looking into the Past of Sarawak - Borneo

REKAYA PEMANCHA DANA BAYANG SERANG MUKAH

The story begins with James Brooke’s first mention of the Orang Kaya Pemancha Dana Bayang, “the most dreaded Saribas ‘pirate’, the man who commanded the marauding fleets,” (Pringle 1970:56) in a journal entry of 1842:

“At Sarawak I found most alarming reports of an intended invasion from the united forces of Saribas and Skrang, and received, moreover, the agreeable information that Bayang, one of the leading men of the former river, had suspended a basket on a high tree, ready to receive my head when he returned in triumph from the conquest of my country. I cared little for these idle threats, though I did not neglect taking the necessary precautions.” (Brooke, James 1848 [I]:313-14)

In the month of June the following year, Brooke mounted his first campaign against Dana Bayang at Padeh, which resulted in the first defeat of the Saribas by a foreign enemy. Captain Keppel, the Senior Officer in the Straits Settlements Naval Station in Singapore, who was enlisted by Brooke to help him ‘suppress’ the Saribas ‘pirates’, wrote of the ‘success’ of the expedition that destroyed Dana Bayang’s stockade: “For the greater part of the night, the burning of the houses made it bright as day… The country round had been laid waste. All had been desolated, together with their extensive winter stores of rice. It is a melancholy sight.” (Keppel 1862 [II]:51, 62)

Unbeknownst to Keppel, the Saribas did not truly suffer an overwhelming loss. The Iban version of events gives a very different story. Scouts would return with vital information on enemy movements, and it was de rigueur for the women and children together with all ritual paraphernalia, valuable property, and stores of food and grains to be secreted away in the deep jungle well in advance of approaching trouble. Iban warfare had always been one of guerrilla tactics, which Low seems to have alluded to when describing that “these Dyaks constantly retreat before a superior enemy into the jungles and fastness, [and] it has been found almost impossible to bring their forces either on shore or at sea to a general action.” (Low 1988:191) Interestingly, Marryat also observed the same manœuvre, writing that “Should their enemies have gained intelligence of the meditated attack, they take the precaution of sending away their women, children, and furniture, into the jungle, and place men in ambush on the banks of the river, who attack the assailants as they advance. If the attacking party is completely victorious, they finish their work of destruction by setting fire to all the houses, and cutting down all the cocoa-nut trees.” (Marryat 1848:81) What Keppel thought he had thoroughly devastated were merely empty shells of longhouses and padi fields that had been previously harvested. This was the ruse employed by the Saribas who could almost always immediately regroup and renew their resistance of Brooke. To buy time and continue the charade, on the 12th of June, 1843, Dana Bayang sent peace emissaries to Brooke who, as a result, assumed the Saribas subdued and pacified. Brooke later wrote,

“The Orang Kaya Pomancha, of Sarebas, is now with me - the dreaded and the brave, as he is termed by the natives. He is small, plain-looking and old, with his left arm disabled, and his body scarred with spear wounds. I do not dislike the look of him, and of all the chiefs of that river I believe he is the most honest, and steers his course straight enough.” (Brooke, James 1848 [II]:78)

Later, Mengan Tuai, the wife of Dana Bayang passed away. The Iban of the 19th-century had a belief that the souls of recently departed leaders and, sometimes, their wives, required a severed head so that the departed soul can be released from the realm of the living and the living can be released from mourning obligations. This Dana Bayang intended to accomplish by procuring a head from raiding the north-western coast of Borneo. In July of 1849, Dana Bayang amassed and led a formidable war fleet to raid north from the Saribas to the Rejang. He recruited the support of his allies which included the Saribas Malays, the Skrang Iban and the riverine chiefs of the Paku and Rimbas; Linggir Mali Lebu being one of these riverine chiefs and also one of Dana Bayang’s tuai kayau or war lieutenant. The British colonial administrator and naturalist Hugh Low describes Dana Bayang thus:

“All the tribes of Sarebas, though each has its particular chief, acknowledge in war the authority of the Orang Kaya Pa-mancha; but it does not appear that, excepting when his orders and instructions agree with their own wishes, the petty chiefs, who command their own boats and the people of their own villages, pay particular attention to them, but still they always look up to this old man - who has distinguished himself by his bravery - with respect, and his opinion possesses great weight in their councils, more particularly, as, from his sanguinary nature, and the long practised custom of taking heads, his store of which he is always anxious to increase, the counsels of peace are seldom those he offers to the nation.” (Low 1988:183)

Dana Bayang’s raid up the northern coast of Sarawak came to Brooke’s attention and on the 24th of July, 1849, Brooke’s forces took up positions at the mouths of the Saribas and Kalaka rivers, which are separated by a narrow point called Beting Maro, to await Dana Bayang’s return. Baring-Gould and Bampfylde give a vivid account of the battle that transpired:

“On the evening of the 31st, a rocket sent up from the Rajah Singha, the Rajah’s war prahu [canoe-like boat], announced the approach of the enemy. They came on boldly, and, perceiving the force at the entrance of the Kalaka [river], but not the more formidable one hidden by the long promontory separating the mouths of the two rivers, dashed on for the Saribas with defiant yells, to encounter in the growing darkness greater peril, and thus commenced the most famous fight in the annals of Sarawak, which brought a just retribution on these savage pirates and for ever broke their power, the battle of Beting Maru. Met with showers of grape, canister, rockets, and musketry from the Nemesis and the boats, and the savage onslaughts of the native levies mad for revenge, well led by the Rajah’s English and Malay officers, and with their retreat intercepted by the Rajah’s division, the pirates were soon thrown into confusion, and thought only of escape. But cut off in all directions, for five hours, in bright moonlight, they had to sustain a series of encounters extending over a distance of ten miles. At midnight all was over.” (Baring-Gould & Bampfylde 1909:136)

Dana Bayang escaped unharmed, though all was lost, including the captives, spoils and head trophies of the northern raid, as confirmed by Pringle’s account: “No important Saribas leaders perished in the battle, and it seems likely that the Skrang people suffered far more heavily.” (Pringle 1970:83)

Whereas in the 1843 campaign by Brooke the Saribas Iban had fought a guerrilla war and suffered minor casualties, the ambush at Beting Maro was completely unexpected, and the Saribas was not prepared for the aftermath that followed. Pringle mentioned that “On the second day after the victory, the Rajah’s forces followed it up by later destroying the homes of the ‘pirates’ on the Saribas river. A short time later the headmen of 250 Saribas Iban longhouses and the representatives of all the Saribas Malays signed an agreement promising not to raid in future.” (Pringle 1970:83) This time, the surrender was unequivocal, and the Saribas Treaty of 1849 was sealed. (St. John, 1853:337-339) All written records mention that the Saribas Treaty names Dana Bayang as signing it.

Iban ethno-historian Benedict Sandin’s account of the battle at Beting Maro astonishingly omits any mention of Dana Bayang and is silent on who led the Saribas fleet. Sandin, the great-grandson of Linggir Mali Lebu, however, understandably does mention the heroic exploits of Linggir and his men in attacking the H.M.S. Nemesis but stops short of naming him as leader of the bala (war party). This only indigenous account (Sandin 1994:183-184), which has been relied upon by many modern historians, has influenced the writing of Iban history such that no written record exists of Dana Bayang being at Beting Maro at all. In English accounts that did not rely on Sandin, only two attempts are made to identify the leaders of the ‘pirates’ of the war fleet of 1849. Baring-Gould & Bampfylde wrote of “a large piratical bala, under the command of the Datu Patinggi of Saribas and the principal Malays,” (Baring-Gould & Bampfylde 1909:136) while Runciman seems to suggest that Laksamana Amir of Paku was also present and led the ‘pirates’, (Runciman 1960:94) though Pringle states that Sandin disagreed with Runciman. (Pringle 1970:81) Sandin also erroneously names Capt. Keppel when it was actually Capt. Farquhar who supported Brooke at Beting Maro. Nevertheless, Sandin seems to have let the cat out of the bag when he states that “Duri had only a short time before been raided by the Layar Dayaks under Orang Kaya Pemancha Dana Bayang of the Padeh,” (Sandin 1994:183) and later, contradicting himself, informed Pringle that “thwarted at Sarikei, [Linggir and his allies] proceeded down the coast, planning to raid the village of Duri on the Sadong, First Division, an area which they had already plundered only a few months previously.” (Pringle 1970:81) (Italics mine.) Sandin’s further assertion that Dana Bayang “never raided the Melanaus who lived at the Rejang delta and beyond” (Sandin 1994:166) as a consequence of having dreamt as a boy of a warning by Indu Dara Insin Temaga to only raid territories south-west of the Saribas is flawed. (Sandin 1966:96-102. In Sandin’s account, he mentions the mythic heroine Kumang as the protagonist of the dream, which contradicts Saribas history which names the goddess Indu Dara Insin Temaga instead.) It was precisely because Dana Bayang wanted to test the efficacy of his dream that he chose to raid north-east, and for the first time, was defeated. Dana Bayang’s name on the Saribas Treaty incontrovertibly confirms him as the chief leader of the forces that were ambushed at Beting Maro. James Brooke would not have sealed the treaty with anyone else other than the chief enemy who led the forces to attack him. Rentap is not mentioned at Beting Maro in any written records, oral accounts or documents, though it would have been plausible that he had joined Dana Bayang’s forces and led his men from the Skrang.

The British colonial administrator and naturalist Hugh Low describes Dana Bayang thus:

“All the tribes of Sarebas, though each has its particular chief, acknowledge in war the authority of the Orang Kaya Pa-mancha; but it does not appear that, excepting when his orders and instructions agree with their own wishes, the petty chiefs, who command their own boats and the people of their own villages, pay particular attention to them, but still they always look up to this old man - who has distinguished himself by his bravery - with respect, and his opinion possesses great weight in their councils, more particularly, as, from his sanguinary nature, and the long practised custom of taking heads, his store of which he is always anxious to increase, the counsels of peace are seldom those he offers to the nation.” (Low 1988:183)

Charles Johnson Brooke, in 1853, at that time the Tuan Muda, wrote:

“We reached the mouth of Saribus, up which we proceeded for forty miles…The principal object of our visit was to persuade the population of Malays and Dyaks to make peace with the Lingga tribe. In the course of the day, the Dyak Chief, the Orang Kaya Pamancha, came aboard, and having often heard his name as being one of the most trouble-some of head hunters, I was surprised in meeting a very old, decrepit, and mutilated man, dressed in the worst habiliment. He took a seat on the deck, and remained silently looking down. His eyesight was nearly gone; and when told that the white man had come to pay him a visit, and hoped that his news was good, his only answer - which he drawled out significantly - was, “Ragus” (very good). As for making peace, he said he was too old, but that he would send some of his younger chiefs as his representatives, after farming season. He then requested to be allowed to go for heads, as, he said, his wife had lately departed this life, and he was consequently in mourning, which he wanted to ‘open’. On this being denied, he turned sullenly round and left.” (Brooke, Charles 1866 [I]:24-25) (Italics mine.)

The following year, Dana Bayang died of smallpox at his home in Padeh.