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How To Know If You Could Write Tribal.

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You have a story that excites you, one that keeps you awake at night. But the story is based in your culture and you do not feel native enough to write it. Why? Because your family migrated out of the village when you were little or before you were born. You only got to experience village life during the holidays. 

Or maybe you were sent to a boarding school, and you did so well that you just kept being placed in one school after another, taking you farther and farther away from your village.


I Found a Magical World

In my case, I grew up in town with holiday visits to the longhouse or my grandparents' farm. Town life was dull, but my grandparents' life was magical. I love that magic. I wanted to capture it in my story.

In the beginning, imagining the story I wanted to tell was fun. But as I started to get more and more serious about putting it down in writing, I began to wonder if I was good enough to write an Iban story. You see, I am no scholarly expert, or activist, or journalist of the Iban culture. I studied Commerce and Economics in university, not Iban sociology. All I had was my love for stories.

I wanted to write about Iban life, but I felt that there were too many missing pieces from my past. Those of us growing up in a Malaysian town in the seventies and eighties were not taught the traditional song or dance. Our sacred rituals involving sports and games were turned into gambling opportunities. Our custom of giving a young woman the right to choose her own life partner was scorned and used to degrade her character. Tattoos that were once symbols of skill and courage became signs of backwardness and unreliability. One misunderstanding after another led to more and more erosion of the Iban culture inside me.

However, I was lucky because I found my way back. Even though I was brought up to aspire to be part of a mainstream culture, there were other scholars, storytellers, and tribal leaders who tried to keep the traditions alive. I am glad that their stubbornness had prevailed, because they are the reason that Iban pride survived in Sarawak. They are the reason why people like me have a means to return back to our roots.

Do you also feel separated from your roots? How would you know that you can still represent your people accurately in your writing? Maybe the following 3 pointers can help you decide.


1. Reference Materials Help Confirm What You Already Know

If you are reading materials to learn something new then you are not ready to write. The folklore should remind you of your people's life philosophy. The papers and journals should help you understand something that you had experienced before.

For example, when I was little, we had lots of good fun watching the circus show on tv in town. Until one day when my grandmother visited and watched with us. She was horrified. Since then I have learned that if you laugh at an animal, there will be a terrible thunderstorm and you will turn to stone. Luckily, no one turned to stone that night. This taboo is told in so many Iban folklore that it is accepted as fact. So, when I write I always make a point not to make my characters laugh or scoff at an animal no matter how ridiculous the animal happens to be. Laughing with other animals, however, is okay.

Formal research materials can also be used to confirm or explain things you have experienced. There were many things my grandparents tried to explain to me in the past, but I was too young to understand what they meant. Take the rice for example. My grandparents always insisted that we finish every grain of rice on our plate. One time some rice grains were spilled onto the ground below, and my grandfather rushed down under the house to collect them. His behaviour was extremely curious to me because back in town, nobody would have bothered. Years later, when I came across papers on the concept of the rice-soul, I began to understand. His behaviour made sense then.

So, the question you should ask yourself here: Is your research teaching you something new or is it explaining what you have experienced?


2. You Can Tell If An Opinion About Your Culture Is True

You are able to use your personal experience and memory to sift through misinformation and disinformation. For example, I had to rely a lot on missionary journals and articles because they were a good source of information for daily Iban life in the late 19th and early 20th century. However, they also contained a lot of opinions and interpretations that were written from a Christian perspective. I only collected the physical details of what the writers saw with their own eyes or the narrative details of what they heard from the natives. The whole time, I also needed to keep in mind that some of the details could have been exaggerated.

It is not always the visitor's fault. Iban people are proud. Each time we get a visitor, we put up our best front. That is quite normal for most culture, I think. Just because you eat good food from the best dishes in the longhouse, it does not mean that this is how we live daily.

I am able to tell the difference because I have lived in the longhouse before, even though it was not frequent. 


3. You Know What Lines You Must Not Cross

You must know enough about your tribal folklore to recognise what line you must not cross. There is quite a bit of artistic freedom in the Iban culture. We more often than not believe that creativity is a divine gift, in cloth weaving especially. Other than the songs for sacred rites, gods and goddesses also appear in stories and poetry that are meant for entertainment. This means that I can have the sacred characters in my fantasy stories. However, I must be aware of how these characters are used for entertainment purposes. This is important because I do not want to offend anyone. It is also a safe way to stay clear of taboos. Cultures with a strong story-telling past is filled with criss-crossing plots and sub-plots which may be related in one way or another to the customary laws. Remember: the origin of laws is from myths. So, if you are ever tempted to twist the myth for your story, just be aware that you might be messing with a native law.

For example, in Greek mythology, Zeus is promiscuous and has children with many women. Because of that there is a number of old and modern stories associated with his heroic offspring. In Iban folklore, Keling is said to be wayward but I have yet to come across a folklore that name his children with other women. So even if it were natural for me to create a character who is Keling's love child, it will not be in line with Iban belief. Maybe the reason why he has no love-child in Iban folklore is because a child whose father cannot be named is considered a curse by us. This is just my opinion, by the way. I have not come across any paper or lecture that explains it this way.


The Guilt Will Never Go Away

The guilt will always be there. In fact, I would be worried if my guilt goes away, because it means that I have stopped caring about my ancestors’ stories.

I did not start writing Iban Dream for a long time because I felt that I was not qualified to write it. When I started putting the words down, however, bits and pieces of impressions and memories began to come back. I soon realised that those memories would have been lost to me forever if I had not started on the manuscript.

So even if you feel that you don’t know enough about your tribal culture to write a book based on it, just give it a go. You might be surprised by how much you actually know. I started writing one book, and ended up with three novels and two children’s books. Now I am writing books in English specifically targeting local readers. My hope, is that the stories will pique the curiosity of a few town-raised Ibans and bring them back to their roots.

Start writing. Keep writing. Good luck.

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