Research Catalog
The life of the longhouse : an archaeology of ethnicity
- Title
- The life of the longhouse : an archaeology of ethnicity / Peter Metcalf.
- Author
- Metcalf, Peter.
- Publication
- New York : Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 10-1253 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- xi, 345 p. : ill., maps; 24 cm.
- 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. 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.
- Subjects
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
- 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.
- Call Number
- JFE 10-1253
- ISBN
- 9780521110983 (hbk.)
- 052111098X (hbk.)
- LCCN
- 2009037297
- OCLC
- YBP 2009037297
- Author
- Metcalf, Peter.
- Title
- The life of the longhouse : an archaeology of ethnicity / Peter Metcalf.
- Imprint
- New York : Cambridge University Press, 2010.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
- Research Call Number
- JFE 10-1253