Interior Architecture
The principal internal division of the longhouse is produced by the ‘dog wall’ (dinding ukoi).[27] This is attached to the tiang pemuns and, extending down the centre of the house, divides the biliks from the ruai. Each bilik is entered through a door (pintu) in this wall from a common passageway, the tempuan ruai, that runs from one end of the longhouse to the other (Figure 2). The ‘dog wall’ itself bisects the intermediating tempuan zone into bilik and ruai sections. From each end of the tempuan ruai an entry ladder (tangga’ rumah) typically descends to the ground. A low side-wall, usually containing an opening through which neighbours may converse or pass objects, separates adjoining biliks. Beyond the tempuan ruai, the main gallery extends to the opposite eaves of the house. In contrast to the bilik the gallery constitutes the primary setting for public gatherings and rituals and is the centre of longhouse, as opposed to family, sociability. Here visitors are received and entertained, and in the evenings, as families return from their fields, the area becomes a common work place where mats and baskets are woven and tools repaired, and where families exchange news.
The ruai contains an ‘upper’ (atas) and ‘lower’ (baroh) zone, each defined by the location of pillars (Figure 3). An identical division applies to the bilik.[28] Considered together, the bilik is conceptually ‘lower’ than the ruai, while the upper gallery is the ‘highest’ of these zones and the central tempuan the ‘lowest’. Thus the arrangement of upper and lower zones cross-cuts the upriver and downriver divisions of the longhouse. Like the house’s ‘stem’ and ‘tips’, these zones are bilaterally oriented, the inner mid-zone being ‘lower’ and the opposed outer zones, ‘upper’.[29] The uppermost section of the gallery is called the panggau (or pantar – the raised floor) and is usually covered by a raised platform further emphasizing its elevation (Figure 3). Here male visitors are seated (see photograph on p.64) and at night the area traditionally served as the sleeping place of unmarried men.[30] While the upper gallery represents the ‘highest’ point within the longhouse interior, the open-air veranda (tanju’) is described as being ‘above’ (ke-atas) the upper gallery. It is reached at each family section by a doorway from the gallery-side of the house and in terms of its cardinal orientation, ideally faces eastward.[31] Furthering the botanic imagery of the longhouse, the point at which the gallery and veranda meet is known as the pugu’ tanju’, the ‘rootstock of the veranda’.
The longhouse interior is marked by vertical as well as horizontal gradients. In addition to the conceptual gradients arrayed across the house, the bilik itself is divided between an upper and a lower region, the family apartment and a loft (sadau) which is built above it and is reached by an entry ladder from the tempuan passageway (today more commonly from the interior of the bilik) (see Figure 3). Here the family stores its harvested rice in large bark-bin granaries (tibang). These granaries are above the family’s hearth; thus smoke from the family’s dapur, filtering through the centre of the loft, is said to warm the rice. While domestic life tends to centre on the bilik and public affairs on the ruai (see Sutlive 1978:55), the distinction between the apartment and the loft above it is associated with a woman’s ordinary domestic tasks and with female prestige and fecundity. Sexual segregation is notably lacking in Iban society and women, like men, compete for status and renown. The loft, in particular, is identified with the activities by which women distinguish themselves; namely, weaving and rice agriculture. Women set up their looms, spin thread, dye and weave cloth in the loft, and here the senior women of the family store the bilik’s seed-rice, including the seeds of its sacred padi pun. In addition, the loft was traditionally the sleeping place of women of marriageable age. Here, at night, they received suitors and conducted amours.
Finally, the two major zones of the longhouse interior, set apart by the ‘dog wall’, are associated with different levels of social integration. The bilik side marks both the individual bilik as an entity and the longhouse as a totality having individual biliks as its constituents; the gallery side marks both the longhouse as a unit and the larger riverine society as a totality having individual longhouses as its constituents. Hence the gallery side of the longhouse is unpartitioned, while the bilik side is divided (by secondary walls) into separate, but conjoined apartments. The point of conjunction that joins all of these divisions is formed by the central tiang pemun and by the row of secondary tiang pemuns that extends bilaterally from it, upriver and downriver.
The principal internal division of the longhouse is produced by the ‘dog wall’ (dinding ukoi).[27] This is attached to the tiang pemuns and, extending down the centre of the house, divides the biliks from the ruai. Each bilik is entered through a door (pintu) in this wall from a common passageway, the tempuan ruai, that runs from one end of the longhouse to the other (Figure 2). The ‘dog wall’ itself bisects the intermediating tempuan zone into bilik and ruai sections. From each end of the tempuan ruai an entry ladder (tangga’ rumah) typically descends to the ground. A low side-wall, usually containing an opening through which neighbours may converse or pass objects, separates adjoining biliks. Beyond the tempuan ruai, the main gallery extends to the opposite eaves of the house. In contrast to the bilik the gallery constitutes the primary setting for public gatherings and rituals and is the centre of longhouse, as opposed to family, sociability. Here visitors are received and entertained, and in the evenings, as families return from their fields, the area becomes a common work place where mats and baskets are woven and tools repaired, and where families exchange news.
The ruai contains an ‘upper’ (atas) and ‘lower’ (baroh) zone, each defined by the location of pillars (Figure 3). An identical division applies to the bilik.[28] Considered together, the bilik is conceptually ‘lower’ than the ruai, while the upper gallery is the ‘highest’ of these zones and the central tempuan the ‘lowest’. Thus the arrangement of upper and lower zones cross-cuts the upriver and downriver divisions of the longhouse. Like the house’s ‘stem’ and ‘tips’, these zones are bilaterally oriented, the inner mid-zone being ‘lower’ and the opposed outer zones, ‘upper’.[29] The uppermost section of the gallery is called the panggau (or pantar – the raised floor) and is usually covered by a raised platform further emphasizing its elevation (Figure 3). Here male visitors are seated (see photograph on p.64) and at night the area traditionally served as the sleeping place of unmarried men.[30] While the upper gallery represents the ‘highest’ point within the longhouse interior, the open-air veranda (tanju’) is described as being ‘above’ (ke-atas) the upper gallery. It is reached at each family section by a doorway from the gallery-side of the house and in terms of its cardinal orientation, ideally faces eastward.[31] Furthering the botanic imagery of the longhouse, the point at which the gallery and veranda meet is known as the pugu’ tanju’, the ‘rootstock of the veranda’.
The longhouse interior is marked by vertical as well as horizontal gradients. In addition to the conceptual gradients arrayed across the house, the bilik itself is divided between an upper and a lower region, the family apartment and a loft (sadau) which is built above it and is reached by an entry ladder from the tempuan passageway (today more commonly from the interior of the bilik) (see Figure 3). Here the family stores its harvested rice in large bark-bin granaries (tibang). These granaries are above the family’s hearth; thus smoke from the family’s dapur, filtering through the centre of the loft, is said to warm the rice. While domestic life tends to centre on the bilik and public affairs on the ruai (see Sutlive 1978:55), the distinction between the apartment and the loft above it is associated with a woman’s ordinary domestic tasks and with female prestige and fecundity. Sexual segregation is notably lacking in Iban society and women, like men, compete for status and renown. The loft, in particular, is identified with the activities by which women distinguish themselves; namely, weaving and rice agriculture. Women set up their looms, spin thread, dye and weave cloth in the loft, and here the senior women of the family store the bilik’s seed-rice, including the seeds of its sacred padi pun. In addition, the loft was traditionally the sleeping place of women of marriageable age. Here, at night, they received suitors and conducted amours.
Finally, the two major zones of the longhouse interior, set apart by the ‘dog wall’, are associated with different levels of social integration. The bilik side marks both the individual bilik as an entity and the longhouse as a totality having individual biliks as its constituents; the gallery side marks both the longhouse as a unit and the larger riverine society as a totality having individual longhouses as its constituents. Hence the gallery side of the longhouse is unpartitioned, while the bilik side is divided (by secondary walls) into separate, but conjoined apartments. The point of conjunction that joins all of these divisions is formed by the central tiang pemun and by the row of secondary tiang pemuns that extends bilaterally from it, upriver and downriver.
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