The life of the longhouse : an archaeology of ethnicity / Peter Metcalf.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Metcalf, Peter, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Longhouses--Borneo--History.

Longhouses.

Ethnicity--Borneo--History.

Ethnicity.

Community life--Borneo--History.

Community life.

Borneo--Social life and customs.

Borneo.

Borneo--Antiquities.

Borneo--Politics and government.

Borneo--Commerce--Social aspects--History.

Borneo--Commerce--China.

China--Commerce--Borneo.

China.

Brunei--Commerce--History.

Brunei.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 345 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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. In this book 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.

Contents:

The problem : ethnicity and community

pt. 1. Longhouses. Longhouses

Longhouse communities

The coming of the Brooke Raj

pt. 2. Longhouses and leaders. Aban Jau's career

Aban Jau's successors

pt. 3. Longhouse and trade. The sultan's fence

Premodern upriver trade

pt. 4. Longhouse populations. The linguistic data

Disease, slavery, assimilation, annihilation

pt. 5. Longhouses and ritual. The ritual consensus

The ritual operator

The impresarios of the ancestors

pt. 6. Longhouses and the state. Longhouses during the Raj

Longhouses after the Raj

Conclusion: The general and the particular.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-107-20264-7

0-511-70045-8

1-107-40756-7

1-282-40251-X

0-511-65779-X

9786612402517

0-511-65834-6

0-511-65648-3

0-511-65563-0

0-511-65703-X

OCLC:

609850346