The life of the longhouse
Subtitle: an archaeology of ethnicity
By: Peter Metcalf.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9780521110983
Subjects: Longhouses -- Borneo -- History; Ethnicity -- Borneo -- History; Community life -- Borneo -- History; Borneo -- Social life and customs; Borneo -- Antiquities; Borneo -- Politics and government; Borneo -- Commerce -- Social aspects -- History; Borneo -- Commerce -- China; China -- Commerce -- Borneo; Brunei -- Commerce -- History
Description: "For two centuries, travellers were amazed at the massive buildings found along the rivers that flow from the mountainous interior of Borneo. They concentrated hundreds of people under one roof, in the middle of empty rainforests. There was no practical necessity for this arrangement, and it remains a mystery. Peter Metcalf provides an answer by showing the historical context, using both oral histories and colonial records. The key factor was a pre-modern trading system that funneled rare and exotic jungle products to China via the ancient coastal city of Brunei. Meanwhile the elite manufactured goods traded upriver shaped the political and religious institutions of longhouse society. However, the apparent permanence of longhouses was an illusion. In historical terms, longhouse communities were both mobile and labile, and the patterns of ethnicity they created more closely resemble the contemporary world than any stereotype of 'tribal' societies"--Provided by publisher.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The problem : ethnicity and community; title: pt. 1. Longhouses; title: Longhouse communities; title: The coming of the Brooke Raj; title: pt. 2. Longhouses and leaders; title: Aban Jau's career; title: Aban Jau's successors; title: pt. 3. Longhouses and trade; title: The sultan's fence; title: Pre-modern upriver trade; title: pt. 4. Longhouse populations; title: The linguistic data; title: Disease, slavery, assimilation, annihilation; title: pt. 5. Longhouses and ritual; title: The ritual operator; title: The impresarios of the ancestors; title: pt. 6. Longhouses and the state; title: Longhouses during the Raj; title: Longhouses after the Raj; title: Conclusion: The general and the particular.