Warriors and weavers: a study of gender relations among the Iban of Sarawak

Mashman, Valerie

essay

Warriors and weavers: a study of gender relations among the Iban of Sarawak

female and male in borneo : contributions and challenges to gender studies • 1 • Published In 1991 • Pages: 231-270

By: Mashman, Valerie.

Abstract
The male prestige system is discussed in the historical context of headhunting in order '…to determine whether it is 'exclusively male' and to analyze women's relationship to this male prestige system'…(p. 233). Further discussion focuses on the significance of weaving as a complementary index of prestige for women. Gender construction is then examined from a different perspective that may be more appropriate in the light of the more 'traditional' values indicated as part of the prestige system mentioned above. In this analysis two complementary categories derived from the organization of space in the longhouse are examined. These categories represent the RUAI or veranda, and the BILIK or family room, identified respectively with the male and female gender. Mashman concludes that while men assume dominance in formal power and public life in Iban society, they always remain on the fringe of longhouse life, for it is the women, with their ritual expertise and specialized knowledge of rice cultivation, who are central to the longhouse as a point of stability in Iban consciousness (p. 263).

Ethos

Cereal agriculture

Woven and other interworked fabrics

Dwellings

Division of labor by gender

Travel

Status, role, and prestige

HRAF PubDate