His assigned "sleeping dictionary"—the local euphemism for a native woman who tutors a colonial officer in language and, unofficially, much more—was a woman named Bulan. Her name meant "moon." She was in her late twenties, with eyes that held the patience of an eclipse and hair she kept braided with threads of indigo. She was a widow, the village elder explained, her husband lost to a fever the previous year. She had no children. She was, therefore, expendable.
Borneo, 1937. Arthur Penrose, a young, bespectacled Englishman from a damp corner of Cornwall, arrived in the village of Ulu Temburong with a steamer trunk full of liniment, blank journals, and a Colonial Office directive stamped in officious red: Document the tribal lexicon of the Penan. Do not interfere. the sleeping dictionary film
He was embarrassed. Then thrilled. This was not a dictionary he was building; it was a world. She had no children