Iban folklorist and ethnographer Benedict Sandin honoured with Google doodle

The life of Benedict Sandin, a Sarawak-born folklorist and ethnographer is celebrated in today’s Google doodle in conjunction with his 102nd birthday.

The cultural activist had served as curator in one of Borneo’s oldest museum; the Sarawak Museum and had dedicated his life to preserving the Iban culture, his native ethnic group.

Named ‘Sandin anak Attat’ at birth, he was first introduced to the poetic Iban language by his father and went on to master and champion it.

Sandin was born in Kerangan Pinggai in 1918 in a longhouse on the Paku river in the Saribas basin of the Saratok division.

In 1941, Sandin begun work in the Sarawak civil service. His love for writing eventually led to an assignment as the editor in the first Iban language news publication, Pembrita.

His articles attracted the attention of the Sarawak Museum’s curator, who recruited him to join the museum’s staff in a special post in 1952.

Sandin was accepted to a Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) fellowship programme in New Zealand, where he studied museum techniques and anthropology.

He returned home determined to chronicle the Iban history, culture, and language by recording the wisdom of local genealogists, bards, and historians.

Sandin was named the Curator of the Sarawak Museum and Government Ethnologist in 1966 as a testament to his invaluable achievements in preserving Indigenous tradition and heritage for generations to come.

The doodle features Sandin in a suit and sunglasses with a dark stubble surrounded by Sarawakian artefacts.

Sandin died on Aug 7, 1982 at the age of 64. He was buried in an ancient Iban cemetery in Batu Anchau, downstream from the Paku river, 2km from his birthplace.

Other Malaysian legends whose life was celebrated in the form of Google Doodles in the past on their birthdays were filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad with a doodle on January 7, 2014, footballer Datuk Mokhtar Dahari or SuperMokh on November 13, 2014, freedom fighter Sybil Kathigasu on September 3, 2016, actor Tan Sri P. Ramlee on March 22, 2017, and Malaysian singer Sudirman Arshad on May 25, 2019.