Title: Nomads of the Borneo rainforest : the economics, politics,and ideology of settling down /
Authors: Sellato, Bernard
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press,
Year: 1994
Subjects: Punan (Bornean people) Social conditions.; Punan (Bornean people) Economic conditions.; Punan (Bornean people) Agriculture.; Nomads Borneo Sedentarisation.; Shifting cultivation Borneo.; Social change Borneo.; Nomads Sedentarization Borneo.
Abstract: The Punan societies of Borneo, traditionally nomadic rainforest hunters and gatherers, have undergone a transformation over the past centuries. As downriver farming peoples expanded upstream and their cultures and technologies diffused, the Punan gradually abandoned their nomadic existence for a more sedentary life of trade-related activities and subsistence agriculture. But the culture that has emerged from these changes is still based on the enduring ideological premises of nomadism. This study, historical in perspective, examines the many factors - ecological, economic, commercial, political, social, cultural, and ideological - that have played a part in this continuing transformation.
Contents: Foreword / Georges Condominas -- pt. 1. Punan Histories: Data and Methodology. Ch. 1. Land and People. Ch. 2. The Bukat. Ch. 3. The Kereho of the Busang River -- pt. 2. Traditions and Changes: Origins of the Punan. Ch. 4. Traditional Nomad Culture. Ch. 5. Processes of Change. Ch. 6. Summary and Conclusion.