Keeping the forests dry: Colonial prohibition and the attempts to combat indigenous population decline in British North Borneo, 2920s-1930s

Abstract

This paper examines colonial attempts to limit the production and consumption of alcohol in indigenous villages across British North Borneo in the 1920s and 1930s. It does so by arguing that longstanding colonial fears of rebellion shaped new concerns relating to indigenous population decline and poor public health. The Murut indigenous group—which had long been marginalised as backwards and disorderly in colonial tropes—became a focal point for colonial directives seeking to prohibit the production of tapai [rice wine] and other illicit liquors. For colonials, such nefarious alcohols were seen to breed violence and ill-health, whilst also contributing to rapidly declining rates of food cultivation. The North Borneo Company, ever-desiring to extend its authority across the territory’s forested hinterlands, viewed the implementation of prohibition as a fundamental way of shifting indigenous rice usage from alcohol distillation towards consumption as food. These policies also emerged alongside calls to increase the number of indigenous marriages and births, demonstrating how colonials constantly sought to heighten their control over local lives. Yet at the same time, colonial governance across North Borneo was itself pervaded by alcoholic practices. Numerous archival records, memoirs and diaries reveal how administrative dealings were often fuelled by heady brews. Ultimately, these policies reveal how colonial governance consistently sought to extend control through interfering in local lives, with prohibition providing a means for combating perceived ill-health, population decline and indigenous disorder.