Page 43 - The Guide To Sarawak

THE GUIDE TO SARAWAK
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Neolithic coffin-boat burial with hematite drawings of the journey to the afterlife, Painted Cave, Niah.
onwards. Brunei’s ascent was further accelerated
by the capture of Malacca by the Portuguese in 1511, scattering Muslim merchants and traders throughout the region. During the reign of the 5th Sultan, Bolkiah, who ruled from 1485 to his death in 1534, Brunei became the first Muslim superpower in the Malay Archipelago, its territories extending from Manila in the Philippines
to Johor on the Malay Peninsula. Antonio Pigafetta, arriving in Brunei in 1521 as part of Magellan’s historic expedition, described a city of great size and amazing wealth.
Brunei slipped into an extended decline following Bolkiah’s death, largely
due to European colonial expansion in the region. However, the territories
that make up modern-day Sarawak remained under Bruneian control well into the 19th Century, valued as a source of taxes, trade goods and agricultural produce,
as well as gold, iron and the strategic metal antimony.
rose in East Kalimantan between 350 and 400
CE. Its territory, however, did not extend to modern day Sarawak. From the
7th Century onward, the Hindu kingdom of Brunei became a major regional power, controlling most
of the northern coastal Borneo (including modern Sarawak) and the southern Philippines. Brunei was strong enough to maintain its independence from
the regional superpower,
Srivijaya, until the early 13th Century, but it was unable to resist the rise of the Javanese Majapahit Empire in the early 14th Century, and Brunei itself, as well
as Malano (modern-day Mukah) and Sedu (near modern-day Kuching) became Majapahit outposts.
The coming of Islam to Southeast Asia spelt the death knell of Majapahit and the restoration of Brunei, now led by a Muslim Sultan, from the mid-15th Century
Remnant of a Nandi or bull god sculpture, usually placed as guardian outside a Siva temple: an indication of the early presence of Hinduism, found near Kuching in the 1840’s.
The tomb of Sultan Tengah, Sarawak’s first Sultan, who died and was buried in Santubong in 1641. He was appointed by Sultan Jalilul Akbar of Brunei in 1598.