author
Edwin Herbert Gomes
1862–1944
A missionary writer in Sarawak, he turned years of close contact with the Sea Dyaks of Borneo into lively books for general readers and young audiences. His work offers a vivid early-20th-century window into life, customs, and childhood in Borneo as he observed them.
2 Audiobooks
Seventeen Years Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo A Record of Intimate Association with the Natives of the Bornean Jungles
by Edwin Herbert Gomes
Children of Borneo
by Edwin Herbert Gomes
About the author
Edwin Herbert Gomes (1862–1944) is known for books about Borneo drawn from his long experience among the Sea Dyaks, or Iban, in Sarawak. Reliable catalog and library sources connect him with works including The Sea-Dyaks of Borneo, Seventeen Years Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo, and Children of Borneo.
His best-known writing is descriptive and experience-based, especially Seventeen Years Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo, which presents customs, beliefs, and daily life as he understood them during his years of missionary work. Children of Borneo adapts that world for younger readers, focusing on everyday scenes and storytelling rather than dry summary.
Today, Gomes is mainly read for the historical picture his books preserve. Modern readers may notice the limits of a colonial-era missionary viewpoint, but his work still remains a useful and often engaging record of how one early observer described the people and culture of Borneo.