Heritage Snippets of Sarawak
By Heidi Munan
WHY do people wear the clothes they do? I’ve recently spent quite a lot of time poring over old photos, trying to pinpoint when, why, how new trends seeped in, went mainstream, and then became old-fashioned in turn. And how anything that’s beyond ‘old-fashioned’ eventually becomes ‘traditional’.
Clothes tell a lot about their wearers. They identify social status, economic standing, work. But I discovered one common feature in all those faded photos: everybody in Sarawak had to dress for the climate!
There are a few shots of indigenous people working on their rice farms—burning off, planting—dressed in just loin cloths or short skirts. But the more common ‘farming’ pictures show the workers well bundled up. A female harvester might wear a long-sleeved top (her husband’s old police uniform shirt?), floppy long pants, a slightly shorter sarong, a wide hat, and another sarong or a light towel thrown over the hat. These farmers dressed to keep the sun off, and many still do!
The Hakka women who worked in the pineapple fields along Batu Kawa Road used to wear a distinctive headgear—a wide-brimmed hat with a black cloth curtain all around the edge to provide extra shade.
Large straw or bamboo hats were worn by many people who worked in the open air—rickshaw pullers, bullock cart drivers, wharfies, fishermen.
Scrutinize an old photo of the street scene in town, you’ll notice that practically every man wears something on his head. The ‘coolie hat’ denotes that the wearer does manual work. A felt hat indicates slightly higher status— clerk, shopkeeper, messenger.
A solar topee was worn by a government officer, though it eventually slid down the social scale.
A songkok or head-cloth indicates that the wearer is probably Muslim. A turban towering above the general population pinpoints a Sikh policeman on the beat. The local dandy sported a boater with a coloured hat band. In a public place, almost every man wore a hat of some sort, until the hatless era commenced after World War II.
Men wore hats, presumably to keep the sun out. But women did not, yet one would expect women to be especially conscious of preserving their complexion? The old photos show comparatively few female pedestrians in the streets, and those who ventured out carried umbrellas.
Wealthy ladies were transported around in rickshaws, well protected by canvas hoods.
The villages women who sold ‘jungle vegetables’ in the Sunday market draped a cloth over their heads for a little shade. Many also set up umbrellas as they still do today.
Indoors, the only cooling available was air. Many old houses in Kuching still feature floor-level windows, the lower part secured by railings, which allowed such breeze as there was to circulate inside the house. Affluent people who didn’t spend their day working could sit quietly near an open window and cool their faces with a palm leaf or paper fan. The matriarch of a rich family might have a slave girl to fan her when required. Some traditional wedding parties included two or more maids whose duty it was to fan the bridal couple, seated in ceremonious immobility, dressed in gorgeous, heavy clothes.
Lavishly embroidered silk gowns and robes were worn for ceremonial occasions only; everyday clothing was mostly cotton or very light silk.
These robes must have been incredibly hot, especially if they were used in the daytime. In some cases, a special ‘cooling’ vest was worn under the thick fabric. This was a network of short thin bamboo stem segments, threaded rather like beadwork. Worn between a plain under-shirt of some sort and the gorgeous ceremonial garment, this vest helped to lift the layers of heavy satin away from the wearer’s skin. She still felt extremely hot, but maybe just a little less sweaty!
Electricity became available in Sarawak’s main towns from the 1920s onward. People who could afford to ‘electrify’ their homes got light bulbs installed—and fans! The standing or tabletop fans came first, but it didn’t take long before ceiling fans were available, and very popular. Soon table fans were almost obligatory wedding presents. A coffee shop without a few ceiling fans risked losing business to the neighboring establishment which provided the cooling amenity.
At long last we’ve beaten the heat!
Did more colourful, more form-fitting clothing come with the fans, or is that just coincidence? Coats and waistcoats for men became more popular in the years between the wars, as did colourful cheong-sam type gowns for the ladies. This is what we see in snapshots of social gatherings anyway, and thanks to the Box Kodak quite a lot of such amateur photos have survived. Studio photos of weddings provide another lot of information—not how people dressed when they were enjoying themselves, but how they dressed when there was a serious matter in hand. The studio was provided with fans, of course!
Fast forward to 2023. Today we almost smile at the idea of keeping cool with a fan, or keeping the little side window of a car open to get a bit of breeze while driving (we did broil while stopping at a traffic light though!). The modern car is airconditioned, the home is airconditioned, shops are airconditioned, schools are airconditioned. Local tourists have been heard to complain that Niah Cave should be equipped with airconditioning too, as well as escalators…
I have seen nurses on night duty wearing thickly quilted anoraks over their uniforms. Woolly shawls and cardigans are a common sight in offices. A person who works full-time in an airconditioned climate needs warm clothing.
Believe me: we may have come along way, but in one respect we are just like our ancestors. We still have to dress for the climate, even if it’s an artificial climate engineered by ourselves!
Heidi (Adelheid) Munan was educated in Switzerland and New Zealand. She has been studying the material culture of Sarawak for over 50 years. In her capacity as a private researcher and Hon. Curator of Beads at the Sarawak Museum she has had ample opportunity to study and learn from indigenous experts and foreign scholars in this and related fields. Besides an active involvement in tourism and handicrafts promotion, she has published books, articles and papers on various topics related to the history and material culture of Sarawak and Borneo. For a lot more information about who wore what, why, and how, read her latest book, THE SARTORIAL HERITAGE OF SARAWAK. Contact mucowbookscompany@gmail.com, tel 011 1605 3616.
“Heritage Snippets of Sarawak” is a fortnightly column.
— DayakDaily
