The Iban diaries of Monica Freeman 1949-1951

LAURA P. APPELL-WARREN (ed.)

The Iban diaries of Monica Freeman 1949-1951 including ethnographic drawings, sketches, paintings, photographs and letters

Phillips ME: Borneo Research Council Inc., 2009

xlii, 643pp., ISBN 1-929900-13-9, US$85

Reviewed by V.T. King

University of Leeds

For those of us interested in Borneo Studies Monica Freeman is best known for her exquisite drawings and paintings of Iban life and culture produced when she accompanied her husband Derek to undertake field research among the upriver Iban of Sarawak in 1949-1951. Monica’s skills as an artist were presented to the wider world in illustrations in various of her husband’s publications and much later in The Encyclopedia of Iban Studies: Iban History, Society and Culture (2001).

With the publication of the diaries (six in number written between 7 June 1949 and 4 July 1951) and her letters to her mother in England, Monica establishes herself as a field researcher in her own right in her perceptive and engaging observations of Dayak everyday life in longhouses, farm-houses, swidden fields, and forests. She also tells us much about the ways in which a husband and wife couple conduct fieldwork and the trials and tribulations of living in a remote upriver settlement in intense and constant contact with people of another culture.  Laura Warren-Appell who edited the diaries says in her Preface that Monica’s ‘was an extraordinary voyage for a young woman during the post World War II era [she was 27 when she first set foot in Sarawak], and she met with opposition, adventure and hardship as she travelled and worked with her husband’ (p. xii).  More than this the editor affirms that the publication is ‘a tribute to a young woman who had to be tough as nails, resilient, flexible, cheerful and adventurous’ (p. xii).

Anthropological diaries can do many things; apart from providing a regular record of everyday life, custom and ritual in another culture,  they may reveal and frequently do reveal something of the personality and the likes and dislikes of the diarist; their views; their opinions of those with whom they interact; as well as the process of the field research itself.  Indeed, the editor notes that, as a personal record, Monica’s diaries and letters were never meant to be published. Yet the author has introduced them into the public domain, which might suggest that there was little if anything in them, particularly references to others, that could be considered personally harmful or contentious. And to a large extent this is true although the references to fellow anthropologists engaged in the Colonial Social Science Research Council’s socio-economic surveys among various communities in Sarawak suggest a not altogether collegial atmosphere. Stephen Morris is described as a ‘rival’ of Derek’s (during his visit ‘Argued with Stephen and went to bed tired’, ‘slight hostility in atmosphere’, ‘He [Morris] and Derek have a bad effect on one another’, ‘The visit was not a success’ pp. 51, 54) and Bill Geddes was not merely a ‘rival’ but Derek’s deadly rival’ (p. 573).

Interestingly in such substantial diaries Monica rarely reveals her innermost thoughts, feelings and opinions, and, in my view, little of her character comes through. Certainly there is a very clearly identified ‘sensitivity’ towards the way of life and habits of those she lived with and an ‘honesty’ in describing what she experienced and observed. Of course she does report on personalities and tensions, gossip and quarrels, but generally her record of the daily round in Rumah Nyala is very positive and uncomplaining. Despite the adversities and the understandably frequent bouts of illness (including, towards the end of her stay, a life-threatening bout of paratyphoid when she was hospitalised, though on balance she seemed to remain much healthier than her husband) her whole experience there is described in overwhelmingly engaged and engaging terms. As she says in summary it was all ‘utterly fascinating’ (p. xvii). In the first entry on her arrival at Rumah Nyala  we have such words as ‘delightful’, ‘beautiful’, ‘attractive’ and ‘perfection’ (p. 2), and in the first letter to her mother written on 15 June 1949,  she says ‘It is perfectly beautiful here…’ and her house ‘exceedingly attractive…I don’t think I’ve ever been so completely absolutely happy before.  I feel I should like to live always here like this…’ (p. 7). And this is not merely the first flush of excitement, delight and fascination in experiencing something completely new in a dramatically different cultural and environmental setting; her enthusiasm remains largely undiminished throughout the diaries, though there were obviously some low points.

In the division of anthropological labour, Monica was the artist and the diary-writer (her diary was ‘written solely for Derek and myself’ [p. xvii] in which she uses their childhood nicknames ‘Moc’ and ‘Bec’). In her passion for drawing everything around her ‘Derek was surprised and delighted with my abilities and enthusiasm and set me to work doing ethnographic illustrations’ (p. xviii). ‘My job was sketching…’ ‘Derek requires large numbers of people and objects drawn…’ (pp. 33,  47). She also studied Iban ikat weaving.

Though there is much in the diaries about her fieldwork life with Derek, there isn’t a great deal that we can glean from them about the personal character of her early married life with him.  She gave up her career as a radiographer in London to join him in Sarawak. She had met him briefly in 1947 when she was with her then fiancé, and then again by chance it seems the following summer whilst leaving from Victoria Station bound for a vacation in Switzerland.  It was something of a whirlwind romance during a brief encounter at Lake Como: then three months later they were married and in December 1948 Derek Freeman left for Sarawak. It took some time for permission to be granted for Monica to join him, which she did in June 1949 after a six months separation. She was ‘overjoyed’ to see him waiting for her at the wharf at Sibu (p. xvii). 

It was obviously a devoted and supportive marriage; there are many signs of affection, intimacies and companionship; but the overall impression is one of a business-like partnership in the field. Laura Appell-Warren refers to ‘episodes of disagreement and “feuds” with her spouse’ (p. xii), but I did not see much of this other than occasional references to her husband’s irritability, moods and tendency to lecture his wife and become ‘aggravated by my lack of attention paid to ceremony’ (p. 258). (‘Bec withdrawn and depressed with the cares of our work’ (p. 119); ‘Bec suffering from malaise’ (p. 219, etc.). The overwhelming impression is one of a dutiful and loving wife, and a devotion which was returned by Derek when Monica was ill and in need of his attention and care.

Derek Freeman was one of the most outstanding anthropologists of his generation, and it is clear from the diaries that he and Monica were enormously hard-working and disciplined; even ill health did not always stand in the way of data collection. Typical entries are ‘Bec up early and took notes furiously all day’ (p. 27)…’Went to bed while Bec did fierce preparations for the morrow’ (p. 66)… ‘Bec photographed and measured everything in sight…’ (p. 99). I suppose some of us who have had professional contact with Derek Freeman might be looking for some personal insights into the fieldworker.  The overall impression is one of an overpowering single-mindedness for the task in hand and an enormous capacity for hard work, as well as ample evidence of his skills, commitment and organization as a fieldworker. Perhaps what one does capture in their relationship and its focus and direction during their two years together is Monica’s cartoon which depicts her arrival in Sibu, being dragged around by her husband at apparent speed on a town tour, whisked at full throttle along the Rejang River and then left in the longhouse surrounded by her belongings whilst Derek charges to the paddy fields (p. xiii).

Laura Appell-Warren has done an excellent job in editing the diaries along with the chronological integration of Monica’s letters to her mother and illustrating them with many of her drawings. Not only do we get in concentrated mode detailed ethnographic illustrations (of items of material culture, religious paraphernalia, everyday objects, domestic utensils, textile and tattoo patterns) but also sympathetic portraits of Iban individuals who played an important part in the lives of the Freemans during their sojourn in the Baleh; my favourites are the exquisite, sensuous, androgynous portrait of the Iban youth, Sirai, the boisterous, lively painting of ‘Young Iban boys bathing’, the drawing of the handsome and composed Adin, and the powerful sketch of Gering, the Freeman’s female house help.  The volume also contains numerous black-and-white photographs, (most of them taken by Derek Freeman). There are 141 illustrations (or figures), about half of them Monica’s drawings and paintings and the other half photographs.  There are then 41 colour plates which replicate various of the black-and-white illustrations. It would have helped to have had a separate listing of Monica’s drawing and paintings and then the photographs (with more details of time and place), but this is a minor quibble. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the Borneo Research Council for undertaking the task of publishing this valuable and engaging record of Iban culture at a time when it was still robustly traditional and to Monica Freeman for allowing us to read her vivid personal experiences of her early married life in a Sarawak longhouse.