Ep. 278 | The Hakka Kongsis of Borneo (Part 1)
The China History Podcast
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The Gongseow of Westborneo
Gongses were chinese emigrants who built a world for themselves and left behind a legacy that some arguably call the first functioning democracy in asia. These gunges in westborneo were akin to brotherhoods or associations, operating as these joint stock companies. The indigenous people often caricatured in the west as these native head hunters of wild borneo, were known as the dyak people. This is just the malate word that means either savages or the original people of this land,. It's a catch all term to describe the hundred or so different tribes of people who lived in the interior of bearo.
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