Brunei Darussalam sits on the North West coast of the island of Borneo.
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Listed - not at all exhaustive - below are the peoples that populate the island,
... and so on.
Relations between these different groups throughout history has been marked by periods of co-operation, conflict and isolation. In this day and age relations are now more amenable... but this wasn't always the case. Old prejudices and historical injuries (real/perceived) amongst some of the peoples of the island are still kept very much alive... unfortunately.
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My mother - a native of Kuala Belait - has often recounted tales of our family's mixed heritage. We have in our bloodline ties to the Middle East, China... and more locally... to the Kayan of Borneo. It is from these peoples - the Kayan - that my mother use to tell stories of. Stories of their traditions and practices.
Relations between the Malays of Kuala Belait and Kayan were not always amenable. And as such intermittent skirmishes were often fought between them. This - as I am told by my mother - went on for some time until a truce was made between them.
The Kayan are a fearsome people, who - like the Iban - practiced headhunting. Headhunting is an age old tradition amongst the tribes found in Borneo. Although to be fair, not all the tribes pursued it actively. Some did... and of the tribes that are known - documented in history and made a study of by anthropologists - to have pursued headhunting actively, the Iban and the Kayan were the most vicious.
The practice of headhunting was pursued for a number of reasons,
- vendetta... in retaliation for a previous headhunting incursion by a rival longhouse,
- an offering to be made to a bride to prove a warriors worth, and
- the establishment of a new long house.
The raiding parties or war bands that carried out this practice were indiscriminate in their targets. Men, women and children were fair game.
So it was against this background... against this very real threat of attacks... that the Malay people's of Borneo (incl. Brunei) practiced their martial arts.
My wife made an interesting comment whilst I was writing this entry: the Silat that she has been exposed to whilst in school was the aesthetic presentations of the art, usually shown at weddings and other public functions. With the lack of formal schools and syllabuses, these aesthetic presentation were taken as a 'fact'. Such that the public's take away from these chance encounters with Silat was that it was predominantly for show, and had no functional/real applications.
Silat and Kuntao have always been functional arts. The 'edge' has been dulled a bit due to the lack of any real threat of attack on a day-to-day basis, but the key elements and techniques are there. It is for the modern day practitioner to try and 'clear the cobwebs' and present the arts for what they once were.
To revive Silat and Kuntao, the modern practitioner needs to look at the arts in the historical context from whence it was developed. A time and place where the practitioners needed viable means of protecting their families from roving hostile war bands. A context that also included their environments: the jungle, the waterways, the perahus (boats) and the weapons they had in hand.
Only then can the practitioner/teacher look at the modern context within which these arts can be adapted to.
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