65849807X     

9658498078                        

---

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

Cambridge [u.a.] : Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010

XI, 345 S. : Ill., Kt.

Englisch

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

Erscheint auch als: (Druck-Ausgabe)

978-0-511-65746-7

978-0-521-11098-3 (ISBN der Printausgabe)

OCoLC: 967420924     

Elektronische Ressource: Zugang über Resolving-System (Lizenzangabe: Lizenzpflichtig)

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1017/CBO9780511657467

DS646.3

305.89009598 ; 305.89009598/3     Ähnliche Literatur

LOC-SH: 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 ; Ethnicity -- Borneo -- History ; Longhouses -- Borneo -- History

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

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

---

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