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In Sarawak, Brunei and West Kalimantan, the state sets the terms on which an Iban headman is appointed, a longhouse keeps its office or a community is recognised; revising them requires knowing what has changed and whom residents recognise. Of 26 records that assess change, nine read loss, 15 adaptation or change, and two continuity; none compares the three jurisdictions. This critical narrative review examines 34 records, from searches in three languages and citation chaining. It asks what baseline records are used, what changes to the six rules and offices they report, and how the state's part in the headship differs, judging change only against an earlier form documented in place. Three records treat the state's part as recent, yet mid-century ethnography rested the headman's legal authority on colonial government, and appointed headmen date from the late nineteenth century. Of 29 reported changes, 11, all in Sarawak, can be judged: four lapses of rules on farming and collecting and seven rearrangements on land, fruit trees and the headman's mandate. Six of the 11 rest on one study whose interviewees, mostly chiefs, disagreed. In the records obtained, and for the headship, Sarawak's present rules act chiefly on the headman, Brunei's on the office and its members, and West Kalimantan's on the customary community, so each state defines what it can count as lost. None of the 24 contemporary records reports whether residents give more weight to a headman they elect or to one the state appoints; future studies should ask them, record each rule's earlier form and return findings to the longhouse.
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