PR Museum Returns Badeng Sunhat to the Kenyah Badeng Community

On Monday, 4 November, the Pitt Rivers Museum hosted a ceremony to mark the return of a Badeng sunhat to the Kenyah Badeng community.

The sunhat, acquired in 1923 after the closure of Chesterton House Museum, was previously in the Sarawak Museum, having been donated by Charles Agar Bampfylde in 1903. It was taken during punitive expeditions in 1895-1896 in Sarawak, now part of Malaysia, that targeted the indigenous Kenyah Badeng people, referred to then as “Madangs”. These war expeditions, which took place under an independent monarchy led by the British Brooke family known as the ‘White Rajahs’, caused hundreds of deaths and the permanent displacement of the Kenyah Badeng from their homeland.

Woven from bamboo with human figure designs, the sunhat provided physical and spiritual protection for mothers and infants. It was part of six looted objects donated to the Sarawak Museum, all of which were of a domestic nature and illustrate the complete destruction of village life by such expeditions.

The ceremony marked the transfer of ownership to the Kenyah Badeng Association (Kebana). The sunhat will be exhibited at the Borneo Cultures Museum. This return is especially significant because it is the first repatriation of a cultural object from the Pitt Rivers Museum, as opposed to ancestral remains.

Prof. Dr Laura Van Broekhoven, Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum said: “I am pleased the sunhat will be returning home to the care of the Museum in Sarawak and the Badeng people, from whom it was so violently taken. At the heart of our work lies caring for objects and people. Given the history of parts of our collections and their entanglements in military violence and oppression, this work of redress is a crucial part of the work we want and need to do, as it helps to restore trust and understanding and builds hope for a future of peace through partnership.”