Chapter 11 Insular Southeast Asia 419War II, though there are still occasional bizarre instances and sentimental nos-
talgia surrounding the topic.
Head-hunting was once extremely widespread across Southeast Asia, from
Assam in eastern India to Taiwan off the coast of China and extending through
the outer islands of Indonesia, including Borneo, Sulawesi, and the Philippine
islands (Andaya 2004). Andaya tells us:
Heads were taken for numerous and often overlapping reasons: to enhance
community status, to end a period of mourning, to vitalize a new long-
house, to initiate manhood, to assert territorial claims, to affirm a chief ’s
prestige, to challenge rival tribes, to ensure the fertility of crops, or to gain
revenge. (2004:14)It meant different things in different places. Since there was no single meaning
across that vast space, to understand head-hunting, its meaning in particular
local cultures has to be understood. And even though it can no longer be
observed in practice, head-hunting continues to be part of the social imagina-
tion in many types of ceremonies, in mythology and songs, and in attitudes
toward vitality and masculinity.
In the 1970s, anthropologist Peter Metcalf settled into a longhouse of 32
doors called Long Teru in northern central Borneo among a people who call
themselves Berawan (unrelated to the more famous Dayak). Like the Iban,
they live in longhouses and practice swidden agriculture. Other Berawan long-
house communities had been converting to Christianity, but Long Teru main-
tained its traditional religion.
The focus of Metcalf ’s (1991) research was mortuary rites. At the end of
lengthy, multiyear ceremonies, the final culmination is (or was) sending out a
head-hunting war party to take the head(s) that would release mourners from
all remaining food and sex taboos, especially the onerous seclusion of the
spouse. These death rites involve everyone living in the longhouse, the most
important of all communal rituals. Wakes go on night after night for eight to
ten days, and everyone must be involved. They appear to be a lot of fun, with
constant drinking, gambling, and hilarity, and in the openness of the long-
house, it would hardly be possible to stay away in any case.
The mortuary rite consists of three stages: the initial treatment of the dead
body; followed by a period of not less than a year in which the body is stored in
a wooden coffin or a large jar in a cemetery at a distance from the village; fol-
lowed by recovery of the remains of the dead, hopefully now reduced to dry
bones, to be brought home again for final ritual treatment, concluding with the
head-hunting events. This latter stage is often called secondary burial, or second-
ary treatment of the dead, variations on which are commonly practiced in much
of Southeast Asia (see chapter 10 on the death rites of King Bhumibol Adulyadej
of Thailand). The Berawan do not always go on to the final secondary rites, but
frequently do so, especially for persons of high importance in the community.
As soon as the deceased has breathed his or her last, women begin a for-
malized wailing, and the deep booms of a gong ring out over the longhouse