Book
Overwhelming terror: love, fear, peace, and violence among Semai of Malaysia
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers • Lanham, Md. • Published In 2008 • Pages: xiii, 277
By: Dentan, Robert Knox.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This is a remarkable treatment of Dentan's original ethnographic material pushing its emotional content to express the subjective content of the material. Borrowing the concept of "learned helplessness" from psychological studies of abused children, Dentan applies it to the Semai culture, as a whole. He argues that the passivity of Semai culture, for which they are famously noted, is a behavioral response to the terror wrought by foreign slavers in particular and the colonial encounter in general. To support his thesis, Dentan has turned his ethnographic accounts into stories to evoke the brutality of slaving and the degradation of enslavement. He includes the story of a rare murder of a Chinese trader by a young Semai migrant factory worker.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Drives and emotions
- Adjustment processes
- Verbal arts
- Slavery
- Behavior toward non-relatives
- Informal in-group justice
- Offenses and sanctions
- Techniques of socialization
- Adolescent activities
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Semai
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2012
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Asia
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Southeast Asia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard; 2012
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1961-1992
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1874-2008
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Perak, Malaysia
- NotesAdditional notes
- Robert Knox Dentan
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 259-270) and index
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 2008030714
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Senoi (Southeast Asian people)--Psychology
- Senoi (Southeast Asian people)--Wars
- Senoi (Southeast Asian people)--Social conditions