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

By:

Metcalf, Peter

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: New York : Cambridge University Press, 2010.Description: 1 online resource (xi, 345 pages) : illustrations, mapsContent type:

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9780511658341
0511658346
9780521110983
052111098X
9780511657467
0511657463

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

Additional physical formats: Print version:: Life of the longhouse.DDC classification:

305.89009598/3 22

LOC classification:

DS646.3 .M47 2010eb

Online resources:

Click here to access online

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.

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.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Materials specified	Status	Date due	Barcode
Electronic-Books	OPJGU Sonepat- Campus	E-Books EBSCO			Available

"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.