T he history from the Iban is dedicated to memory and recorded inside a system of writing on boards (papan turai ) from the initiated shamans (lemambang ). Elaborate genealogies go to 15 generations or even more having a surprising degree of accuracy. Some genealogies are so long as 25 generations and can also still be connected with actual places and incidents. A genealogy (tusut ) normally begins with the foremost remote ancestor and it is a listing of who married and begat whom. Sometimes, the ancestors are characterised briefly descriptions. Other songs contain historical information also, for instance the pengap, a ritual chant sung during each major festival, that recounts deities and also the deeds from the ancestors. According to oral histories, the Iban arrived in western Sarawak from Indonesia about 1675. After an initial phase of colonising and settling the river valleys, displacing or absorbing the local populations of Bukitans and Serus, a phase of internecine warfar...