KUCHING: The homeland of the Punan people can be positively identified as being in the upper Rajang area and its upper tributaries, said Alex Smith, a Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore.
He said based on the distribution of Punan and Melanau languages compared to Iban and to a lesser extent Kayan, suggested that the encroachment of outside populations had displaced the original Punan population from their homeland.
“Documented examples of language shift from Seru show that at least one Punan speaking group underwent language shift to Iban during this time (encroachment of outside populations).
“Oral histories from groups in Kalimantan point to the upper Rajang as a homeland, and also suggested that they were pushed out of the area due to outside forces,” he said.
Meanwhile, the “refugee” hypothesis provides perhaps the strongest motivation for the abandonment of settled agricultural life for nomadism, and does not agree with the idea that nomadic people in Borneo are descendants or an original population.
Smith, who has extensive research experience on the indigenous languages of Borneo, with a focus on comparative and historical linguistic research, was speaking at the “Linguistic Approaches to Reconstructing Human History and the Historical Exodus of Punan from Sarawak” talk held via Zoom yesterday.
However, he said, there were also debates on the Punan origins where numerous competing theories on the origin of “hunter-gatherer” populations in Borneo have been proposed.
Citing the Original Population (Brosius 1988 and Sellato 1988), he said, the theory suggested that hunter-gatherers in Borneo, comprised mainly of Punan groups in Kalimantan and Penan groups in Sarawak, are remnants of an original population that were present on the island long before the arrival of present-day agriculturalists.
According to the former agriculturalists (Hortman 983) theory, it stated that the Penan and Punan were once Dayak agriculturalists, just like any other group, but had to abandon agriculture and take on a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle for unknown reasons.
“One proposed explanation is that nomads in Borneo left established communities due to issues with community relationships
“Another explanation for the abandonment of settled agricultural life is warfare where settled populations may be forced from their homes and have no choice but to rely on nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles due to conflict (Blust 2015),” he said.
By analysing the areas of greatest linguistic diversity within the Central Sarawak group, he said, it could be stated with a high degree of certainty that the Punan originate from the Rajang River area.
He said Central Sarawak was a large subgroup of Melanau, Kajang, Punan, and the so-called “Muller-Schwaner” languages, which he referred to as Penihing-Hovongan-Kereho.
Meanwhile, the Punan (languages) can be linguistically defined as a group (of people) whose language is mutually intelligible to other Punan and contains the specific linguistic innovations that are found only in Punan languages.
He also opined Punan seems to share several innovations with languages in the Rajang River area, suggesting a close genetic relationship.
