Table of Contents

Introduction: the problem: ethnicity and community; Part I. Longhouses: 1. Longhouses; 2. Longhouse communities; 3. The coming of the Brooke Raj; Part II. Longhouses and Leaders: 4. Aban Jau's career; 5. Aban Jau's successors; Part III. Longhouses and Trade: 6. The sultan's fence; 7. Pre-modern upriver trade; Part IV. Longhouse Populations: 8. The linguistic data; 9. Disease, slavery, assimilation, annihilation; Part V. Longhouses and Ritual: 10. The ritual consensus; 11. The ritual operator; 12. The impresarios of the ancestors; Part VI. Longhouses and the State: 13. Longhouses during the Raj; 14. Longhouses after the Raj; Conclusion: the general and the particular.

Promotional Information

The remarkable longhouses of Borneo remain mysterious. This book describes life within them, and puts them in their historical and ethnographic context.

About the Author

Peter Metcalf is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Virginia. His research in Borneo spans thirty years, and he is the author of many books and articles.