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PETALING JAYA: Google honored Sarawak-born folklorist and ethnographer Benedict Sandin on Sunday (October 18) by featuring him in his doodle on the occasion of his 102nd birthday.
Sandin served as the curator of the Sarawak Museum, Borneo’s oldest museum.
He was born in 1918, in the Kerangan Pinggai longhouse located in the Saribas Basin of Saratok.
Sandin, who is Iban, earned academic recognition as one of the world’s leading cultural experts and dedicated his life to the preservation of his native heritage.
“It was his father who first introduced him to the iban poetic language, which Sandin came to master and defend. In 1941, Sandin began working in the Sarawak civil service, and his gift for writing eventually led to an assignment. as editor of Pembrita – the first publication of news in the iban language.
“His articles attracted the attention of the Sarawak Museum curator, who recruited him to join the museum staff in a special position in 1952,” Google (https://www.google.com/doodles/benedict-sandins-102nd-birthday) he said in a note.
Sandin was later accepted into a Unesco fellowship program in New Zealand, where he studied museum techniques and anthropology.
He returned home determined to chronicle the history, culture, and language that were absorbing and recording the wisdom of local genealogists, bards, and historians.
As a testament to Sandin’s invaluable ethnographic achievements, he was appointed Curator of the Sarawak Museum and Government Ethnologist in 1966, a position he held for the better part of a decade.
Sandin passed away on August 7, 1982 at the age of 64.
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