Tracing the origins of the name "Lun Bawang"

Hey there, been away for a while now. Such a hectic month January is.

Anyway I would like to share on the origins of the name "Lun Bawang". Well, to be frank, searching that has been as hard as finding a needle in a haystack. For starters, there are not many literatures about Lun Bawang people in history and Lun Bawang people have no written language of their own (mainly just an oral tradition). *which is weird as to why we have the word "ngayud" which means "to write"

And to make it more complicated, the Lun Bawang people, was in the past called Murut by the outsiders, including the British colonist, who had lumped Lun Bawang people with another ethnic group which is culturally and linguistically different from the Lun Bawangs. That was unfortunate as there are relatively more historical readings (mainly writings from the British colonist) regarding the Murut people, and there is no way to tell whether they are referring to the Lun Bawang people or the Murut people (also known as Tagal people).

Anyhow, the earliest literature with the term "Lun Bawang" that I can find so far is from Sarawak Museum Journal Volume IV published in 1937. In which it says:

The author acknowledged that despite the Lun Bawang calling themselves by that name, yet they are still erroneously called "Murut" by other people. Unfortunately, Google Book does not give me full access to this literature, and the only option I have is to look for the hardcopy in libraries (wish me luck). I have tried to contact Mr. Ipoi Datan, who is the Sarawak Museum Director (coincidentally a Lun Bawang himself), to obtain this Journal for my reference; unfortunately to no avail. Will attempt again in the future. 

Nevertheless, all hope is not lost. There is a literature way back in 1860 written by an adventurer named Spencer St. John, who chronicled his boat trip upriver Trusan River into the land of the aborigines he called "Adang Muruts". How I know Adang Murut refers to Lun Bawang people, well fortunately he jotted down some words in "Adang Murut" and its translation in English, and lo and behold, most of the words are still the words used by Lun Bawang people today, as shown below.

As you can see, water is "pa" which is the same as today's "pa" or "apa"; whereas "mudan" is rain, as how we call it today. And in the midst of those translation, "bawang" is translated as "country", and hence there you go, Lun Bawang means "the people of the country".

Having established that Adang Murut are the Lun Bawangs, in this book itself, he chronicled his adventure and describe quite a good detail of the lives of the Lun Bawangs back in the olden days, giving me a short yet satisfying glimpse of the everyday lives of my ancestors. 

And as luck would have it, full copy is available in google books, in which you can refer here: Book

I have been meaning to spend one day reading this book in full since 2008, but until now, I have not accomplished that. Hope one day I will have the time to read the whole book. 

Anyway, that's it for this time around. Will write again, maybe next month :). 

"Do' malem".