Monica Janowski. The Forest, Source of Life: The Kelabit of Sarawak.

Monica Janowski. The Forest, Source of Life: The Kelabit of Sarawak. Monica Janowski. The Forest, Source of Life: the Kelabit ofSarawak. London: British Museum British Museum,the national repository in London for treasures in science and art. Located in the Bloomsbury section of the city, it has departments of antiquities, prints and drawings, coins and medals, and ethnography. Occasional Paper No 143, November 2003;hbk; 154pp; 25.00 [pounds sterling]. The Forest, Source of Life is a beautiful book that deserves aplace on the coffee table where it can be appreciated for its exquisitephotographs, fine line drawings, and informative text. The author statesthat the main aim of this book is to "contextualize con��tex��tu��al��ize?tr.v. con��tex��tu��al��ized, con��tex��tu��al��iz��ing, con��tex��tu��al��iz��esTo place (a word or idea, for example) in a particular context. and provide anexegesis exegesisScholarly interpretation of religious texts, using linguistic, historical, and other methods. In Judaism and Christianity, it has been used extensively in the study of the Bible. Textual criticism tries to establish the accuracy of biblical texts. for the items in two collections of artifacts artifactssee specimen artifacts. " (p. 1),assembled by the author in 1986-1988 and now located in the BritishMuseum and the Sarawak Museum The Sarawak Museum is the oldest museum in Borneo. It was established in 1888 and opened in 1891 in a purpose-built building in Kuching, Sarawak. Sponsored by Charles Brooke, the second White Rajah of Sarawak, the establishment of the museum was strongly encouraged by Alfred Russel . However the book accomplishes much morethan providing a catalogue, offering rich documentation on an entire wayof life in a remote longhouse longhouseTraditional communal dwelling of the Iroquois Indians until the 19th century. The longhouse was a rectangular box built out of poles, with doors at each end and saplings stretched over the top to form the roof, the whole structure being covered with bark. community. The text of this book is composed of ten short chapters thatprovide, in sixty pages, a concise, yet comprehensive, overview of theKelabit people--mainly focused on the people of Pa' Dalih in thesouthern Kelabit Highlands The Kelabit Highlands are a mountain range located in the northernmost part of Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. The highest mountains in this range are Mount Murud at 2,423 m (7,946 ft), Bukit Batu Buli at 2,082 m (6,831 ft), and Bukit Batu Lawi at 2,046 m (6,713 ft). . The opening chapter provides a generaloverview of the Kelabit, including a discussion of their closerelationships to people from across the frontier in Indonesia andhighlighting the significance of the local SIB sib:see clan. church today. The mainfocus of the book, however, is the relationship between the Kelabit andthe natural environment. The text documents the details of many aspects of Kelabit life,covering objects of material culture, the social life of the longhouse,farming practices, and religion. It begins with descriptions of many ofthe objects and stylistic features of Kelabit culture, coveringeverything from clothing, hair styles, beadwork beadworkOrnamental work in beads. In the Middle Ages beads were used to embellish embroidery work. In Renaissance and Elizabethan England, clothing, purses, fancy boxes, and small pictures were adorned with beads. and earrings, to tools,knives and cooking pots, throughout offering details about construction,use, and ornamentation ornamentationIn music, the addition of notes for expressive and aesthetic purposes. For example, a long note may be ornamented by repetition or by alternation with a neighboring note (“trill”); a skip to a nonadjacent note can be filled in with the intervening . The text also describes the layout and structureof the longhouse, the important social features that characterizeKelabit life, and details of rice farming. All of these aspects ofKelabit life are illustrated with drawings and cross-referenced with thephotographs--presented in a separate section of the book. Considerableattention is also devoted throughout to the use of wild foods andmaterials from the forest--including plants, animals and items used incraft production--and the techniques and beliefs associated withgathering, hunting, fishing, and collecting items in the forest. Thereis also some discussion of religious rituals and beliefs, includingcontemporary practices that have emerged with conversion toChristianity Conversion to Christianity is the religious conversion of a previously non-Christian person to some form of Christianity. The exact understanding of what it means to attain salvation varies somewhat among denominations. , as well as former practices of headhunting headhuntingPractice of removing, displaying, and in some cases preserving human heads. Headhunting arises in some cultures from a belief in the existence of a more or less material soul that resides in the head. and beliefsrelating to bird omens. In the most theoretically provocative part of the book, Janowskioffers an analysis of the gendered dimensions of Kelabit life anddiscussion of local notions of status and prestige. She describes, inrather structuralist terms, how women are associated with thecultivation of rice and the hearth, whereas men are associated with theprovisioning of meat, hunting, the forest, and the "wild." Insupport of her argument, Janowski provides details from traditional epictales illustrating these particular aspects of Kelabit life. She alsoposits that some deeply held beliefs, particularly those relating to theKelabit conceptions of lalud ('wild life force') and ulun('proper human life'), have been incorporated into thecontemporary Christian beliefs of the Kelabit (p. 56). While the text does an excellent job of contextualizing Kelabitlife, ultimately, the numerous black and white photographs, as well asline drawing by Claire Thome, make this book well worth owning. The bookalso has a high quality fold-out map of the Kelabit Highlands--one ofthe most useful maps I have seen--showing the main settlements on bothsides of the international border, the approximate areas of wet-ricecultivation, and the location of footpaths and passes. The photographicplates comprise forty-eight pages, approximately a third of the book,and cover the breadth of Kelabit culture--including examples ofbasketwork bas��ket��work?n.See basketry.basketworkNounsame as wickerworkbasketworkn → cester��a, woven mats, knives, fishnets, pottery, boats, tools,clothing, megaliths For the record label, see .A megalith is a large stone which has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. Megalithic , and decorative items. The photographs are organizedin a very informative manner that, essentially, paints a picture of lifein Pa' Dalih in the late 1980s. The author and her husband tookmost of these photographs, and there are other photographs of historicalinterest included as well, mainly from the collection of the SarawakMuseum. Finally--and probably of minimal interest to most readers--asignificant portion of the book is devoted to cataloging the collectionsof Kelabit items that Janowski assembled for the British Museum and theSarawak Museum--who collaborated in publishing this book. The catalogueitself, one of five appendices, offers descriptions and curatorialinformation on 161 items in the British Museum and 104 items in theSarawak Museum. The remaining appendices include a glossary of Kelabitwords, an overview of techniques and raw materials used in theproduction of Kelabit craftwork craft��work?n.Work made or done by craftspeople.craftworker n. , a summary of the botanical names ofplants used by the Kelabit, and a brief list of items of possibleKelabit origin that are in other museums throughout the UK. While the main focus of this work is to document aspects oftraditional culture, as well as showing how these "artifactsreflect the relationship which the makers have with the raw materialsthey use as well as the use to which they are put" (p. 1), there isalso commentary throughout the book on social change among the Kelabit.Janowski is careful to include discussion of the many new objects thathave come into the longhouse community from town areas, such as buildingmaterials, chainsaws, rice mills, clocks and watches, cooking pots,containers and utensils, and many cheap and lightweight items made ofplastic and nylon. Although such aspects of material culture are notvisually documented in the book, it is unlikely that the reader willfail to note the numerous and significant changes that have impactedthis seemingly remote part of Borneo. In sum, this book introduces non-specialists to the intimatedetails of rural Kelabit life, as well as contextualizing andcataloguing the two museum collections. While there are a number ofanalytical discussions throughout the text that may be of interest and,perhaps, lead to debate among anthropologists, the book will also appealto virtually anyone interested in the finer details of life in theforests of Borneo. (Matthew H. Amster, Department of Sociology Noun 1. department of sociology - the academic department responsible for teaching and research in sociologysociology departmentacademic department - a division of a school that is responsible for a given subject andAnthropology, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA, USA)