Bunut

Bunut belongs to the upper Kapuas world in the interior of Borneo, within the region at that time called Kapuas Hulu Regency. The district occupies the upper drainage of the Kapuas River and reaches the border with Sarawak. Much of this land is sparsely populated and covered by forest, with numerous lakes, swamps and wetlands. River levels can submerge the lower ground for as long as six months, while many communities sit close to waterways that historically supplied the most practical means of movement and exchange.

Danau Sentarum’s connected lakes and peat swamps lie west of Putussibau, and their seasonal drawdown reveals shifting channels, fishing grounds and cultivated ground. Political authority followed those river routes but remained fragmented. Selimbau held influence from the Sultanate of Sambas during the early seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while several smaller Malay kingdoms and chieftaincies, including Suhai, Jongkong and Bunut, were scattered through the region. Dutch explorers entered in 1823, and the colonial government made a treaty recognising Selimbau’s domination over the smaller polities.

Bunut’s history therefore records a small riverine domain absorbed into wider networks of Malay rulers, forest products and colonial administration.