The children of NISING: images of headhunting and male sexuality in Iban ritual and oral literature

Davison, Julian; Sutlive, Vinson H.

essay

The children of NISING: images of headhunting and male sexuality in Iban ritual and oral literature

female and male in borneo : contributions and challenges to gender studies • 1 • Published In 1991 • Pages: 153-230

By: Davison, Julian, Sutlive, Vinson H..

Abstract
Davison and Sutlive re-examine the significance of headhunting as a male institution or prestige system, operating within the framework of traditional Iban society. The authors discuss headhunting not only as an institutionalized channel for the expression of male aggression, but also from the standpoint of a ritual activity associated with the promotion of fertility, particularly in reference to the fertility of crops and women. Although in most respects there is parity between men and women in Iban society, men have traditionally claimed center stage in public life because of the status they achieve in headhunting. In contrast, women's status has been generally marginalized or passed over in silence, with the exception of their accomplishments in weaving. Weaving, therefore constitutes an area of '…Iban social life in which the role of women is both positively valued and from which men are entirely excluded. In this respect weaving provides Iban women with a prestige system through which they too can compete for status and influence in a way comparable to male headhunters' (p. 207). Both systems are examined here.

Internal migration

Cereal agriculture

Woven and other interworked fabrics

Paint and dye manufacture

Division of labor by gender

Status, role, and prestige

HRAF PubDate