Sources and Elders
Every Iban longhouse is identified, in the first instance, with a menoa rumah, or territorial domain.[2] Here, within this territory, individual bilik- families clear their annual farms, grow rice and other food crops, and observe a common body of normative rules (adat) and ritual interdictions (penti-pemali) which are enforced by the longhouse and express its status as the jural and ritual centre of its domain. The continued existence of the longhouse is thought to depend upon its members behaving as these rules and interdictions require (Heppell 1975:303–304; Sather 1980:xxviii-xxxi). Thus breaches of adat and disturbances of the ritual order are said to render a longhouse ‘hot’ (angat), leaving its inhabitants open to infertility, sickness, death and other calamities.
Until the imposition of Brooke rule,[3] beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, ‘elders’ (tuai) were acknowledged at the level of both the longhouse and the wider river region. Regional leaders, called tuai menoa, were drawn mainly from the raja berani, literally the ‘rich and brave’, and were self-made men with a reputation for military prowess, resourcefulness and judgment; they acted primarily as peacekeepers, go-betweens and charismatic war chiefs (tau’ serang or tau’ kayau), mobilizing regional followings for raiding and the territorial defence of the river. With Brooke rule, this former pattern of competitive regional leadership was superseded by the creation of formal administrative districts under officially appointed Penghulu, or ‘native chiefs’, and today the Penghulu act, together with the longhouse headmen, as the principal intermediaries between the local community and the state (see Freeman 1981:15–24; Sather 1980:xiv-xxviii, n.d.).
Responsibility for safeguarding the normative order that, for the Iban, centres in each longhouse domain, rests chiefly with the longhouse headman (tuai rumah) and other community elders (tuai-tuai). The most important of the latter are the tuai bilik (family heads). Thus, in matters of adat, longhouse and bilik elders are said to have ‘authority’ (kuasa) over or ‘to speak for’ (bejako ka) other longhouse or apartment residents.
Complementing the role of the tuai (elders) in matters of adat is the role of the sources (pun) in matters of ritual and the custodianship of group sacra. When a longhouse is first built, its ‘longhouse source’ (pun rumah) supervises the rites of house construction. In doing so, he confirms his status as caretaker of its central ‘source post’ (tiang pemun). This post centres the house both ritually and in terms of the internal orientation of its parts. Every longhouse is believed to be susceptible to the intrusion of malevolent spirits and other injurious forces, and to disruptions of its ritual order from within. The task of the pun rumah as custodian of the ‘source post’ and its associated sacra, is to ward off these dangers and, should its ritual well-being be threatened, to perform rites of ‘cooling’ (nganyelap) on behalf of the community as a whole, by which the longhouse and its domain are restored to a ‘cool’ (chelap) or benign state.[4]
Figure 4.3. Figure 3. Longhouse section and plan
Each family, too, has a ‘source’ (pun bilik). The pun bilik, or family source, is the custodian of the bilik’s heritable estate, including ritual sacra that symbolize the continuing life of the family, notably its ritual whetstones (batu umai) and sacred strains of rice (padi pun and padi sangking). The family is ideally an enduring group and the pun bilik personifies its continuity (tampong). As the senior-most family member and the principal heir through whom family wealth and sacra are transmitted, the pun bilik represents the family’s living ancestor, the chief link between its present and past generations and the source through whom all family rights devolve.
Hearths and Posts
Every bilik apartment contains, at its front upriver corner, a tiang pemun, literally a ‘source, foundation post’ (Figure 3). These posts or pillars are the first to be erected during house construction and, when the longhouse is completed, extend down its central axis to separate the bilik apartments from the unpartitioned gallery. Each family’s tiang pemun is under the care of its pun bilik (family source).
However, there is also a central tiang pemun which, together with its caretaker, the pun rumah, takes ritual priority over all the others. This central tiang pemun is the first post to be raised during house construction and is not only the ‘source post’ of the pun rumah bilik, but represents the primary ‘foundation pillar’ for the longhouse as a whole. It is through the rites of ‘erecting’ (ngentak) this post that the longhouse is established as the ritual centre of its domain and the pun rumah is confirmed as its living ‘source’.
As custodian of the central tiang pemun, the pun rumah is said to ‘own’ (empu) the adat genselan, the ritual rules and offerings associated with the post. These rules preserve the longhouse in a state of ritual well-being and include procedures, such as sacrifice and blood lustration (enselan) meant to repair disturbances of its ritual harmony, performed particularly at the central tiang pemun, but also at other parts of the longhouse, especially at its entry ladders and the tempuan passageway. The pun rumah is also entitled to collect fines (tunggu) from those whose actions break ritual interdictions or in other ways endanger the community’s state of ritual well-being. Thus, for example, if a longhouse member dies while outside the house, before his or her body — now a source of ‘heat’ — can be carried inside, the members of the bereaved family must first sacrifice a pig (or two chickens). This is done under the direction of the pun rumah at the base of the longhouse entry ladder (kaki tangga’ rumah). The pun rumah then lustrates the tiang pemun with the blood, which is also smeared on the earth at the foot of the house ladder, and on the bottoms of the feet of those who carry the body into the house. In addition, the family must pay a genselan fine to the pun rumah. Many other acts such as adultery, quarrelling, cursing, threatening others (nyakat or nyakap) or drawing a weapon in anger, when committed inside the longhouse, require sacrifice, offerings and the blood lustration of the central tiang pemun. Among the most important of these genselan rules, however, are those which sanction the adat dapur (family hearth rules). These rules unite the longhouse ritually and preserve its family hearths, in contrast to the tiang pemuns, in an antithetical state of ‘heatedness’ (pengangat).
The ritual priority of the central tiang pemun is thus established at the start of house construction. The rites that initiate construction of a longhouse are called ngentak tiang rumah, literally ‘to fix’ or ‘drive in the pole’.[5] During ngentak tiang rumah the main tiang pemuns are ‘driven into’ (ngentak) the earth. This is the sole ‘work’ (pengawa’) undertaken during ngentak rumah and is performed by a ceremonial work party comprising longhouse men and male guests from neighbouring longhouse. The work is overseen by the pun rumah whose central tiang pemun is the first post to be ‘driven in’. It is also the main focus of the ngentak rites.
Ngentak rumah begins with the ritual bathing (mandi’) of the central tiang pemun by a group of senior women. This act closely parallels the ritual bathing of a new-born infant to mark its entry into the longhouse community (Sather 1988). Bathing is said to ‘cool’ the post. Later, to mark the completion of house construction, the entire structure is ritually ‘bathed’ (mandi’ rumah). After the central tiang pemun has been bathed, it is scattered with popped rice, oiled and, beginning at its base, smeared with the blood of a chicken. The gods are then invoked, notably the gods of the earth, Simpulang Gana and Raja Samarugah, and the antu dapur, the tutelary hearth spirits. To affirm his ownership of the adat genselan, the pun rumah sacrifices a pig. Its blood and severed head, together with other ritual objects,[6] are placed in the hole into which the central tiang pemun is then driven. After this has been raised, the tiang pemun of each of the individual biliks is erected in sequential order, moving outward from the central tiang pemun, first downriver and then upriver, ending with the final tiang pemun at the upriver end of the house. For a small house, the entire ritual may be completed in one day. For a larger house, the first day is generally spent raising the downriver posts; the second day, the upriver posts.
As caretaker of the central tiang pemun, the pun rumah personifies the living ancestor of the longhouse, just as the pun bilik embodies the living ancestor of the bilik-family. Ideally the original pun rumah and his successors should be able to trace their genealogical connections to the pioneer founders (tuai mungkal menoa) of the community, also known as pun (which denotes original migration leader), who first cleared its domain of primary forest, through an unbroken line (or lines) of ascent. The pun rumah’s genealogy (tusut) should thus serve, ideally, as the main line or batang tusut (‘trunk genealogy’) by which other longhouse members trace their connections to the community’s ancestors.[7]
While the relationship between the pun rumah and pun bilik is established through the ritual priority of the central tiang pemun, the relationship between the tuai rumah and tuai bilik is expressed most clearly in the ritual rules that surround the installation and use of the family hearths.
An Iban hearth (dapur) consists of an earth-filled firebox (entilang), supported in a frame (para’) whose posts extend through the house floor directly into the earth below. Above the hearth is a rack for storing and drying firewood and for keeping the family’s salt stores (telak garam). Traditionally the hearth was constructed immediately behind the front wall of the bilik, inside an area of the family apartment called the tempuan bilik (Figure 3). (Today most hearths are built at the rear of the bilik in a separate cooking area.) Being made of earth, the dapur is said to belong to Simpulang Gana, the Iban god of agriculture who has absolute authority over the earth we live on. In Paku myths, Simpulang Gana acquired dominion over the earth by inheriting the dapur of his father Raja Jembu after the other gods, in his absence, had divided the family’s magical sacra among themselves, leaving Simpulang Gana without a share except for the hearth (Harrisson and Sandin 1966:261–262; Sandin 1967a; Sather 1985:34). The hearth is also associated with the antu dapur, the tutelary hearth spirits. All of those who make use of the same hearth are said to come under the authority of the tuai bilik, including visitors and temporary guests residing in the family apartment. Within the longhouse, the hearths represent the principal link between the bilik-family and the longhouse’s menoa. This link is signified by the earth from which the dapur is made and by the hierarchy of authority that extends as a result of its use from bilik elders, through the headman, to the god Simpulang Gana, the earth’s ‘owner’.
This hierarchy of authority is established in respect of the hearths through the rites of house construction. As soon as the new longhouse is completed a ceremonial ‘moving in’ (pindah) takes place. This is followed by the ‘bathing of the house’ (mandi’ rumah) and, in the past at least, by a ritual ‘striking of posts’ (gawai pangkong tiang). The latter accompanies the setting in place of the ridge-capping (perabong) along the top of the longhouse roof. This capping ‘completes’ the structure. ‘Moving in’ precedes the ‘striking of posts’ and is initiated by a ritual installation of the family hearths. During pindah each family carries its possessions into the longhouse in a prescribed order, beginning with mats (tikai) and ending with trophy heads (antu pala’) and weaving-looms (tumpoh) (see Richards 1981:312). The entry of each family is in order of the precedence established during ngentak rumah when each family’s tiang pemun was erected.[8] This order determines, in Iban terms, relative relations of ‘who went first’ (orang ke-dulu). Possessions are carried into the house by both the upriver and downriver entrances, so that ideally they are never carried past the central tiang pemun nor past one another in violation of their upriver–downriver order, that is to say, ‘across’, or ‘in front of’ (meraka) those who ‘went first’ (orang ke-dulu)[9] in erecting their ‘source post’.
Before pindah begins, the members of each bilik-family collect earth (tanah) from the longhouse menoa and mix it with earth taken from the family’s previous hearth to make the new dapur. At the start of pindah, the earthen firebox is carried into the longhouse and installed by the tuai bilik in the newly constructed hearth frame. After all families have installed their hearths, the first fire is lit by the tuai rumah.[10] The other families then take their first fires from the headman’s dapur, thereby establishing the latter’s priority.
The installation of the hearths binds the separate bilik-families together into a single ritual and adat community. From the time the hearths are installed in the house until the structure is dismantled and replaced by a new one, they must not be allowed to grow ‘cold’ (chelap). A ‘cold’ hearth signifies an unoccupied apartment, indicating, in turn, the family’s withdrawal from the community (neju’ ka rumah). To prevent the hearth from growing ‘cold’, a fire must be lit and rice cooked on the dapur at least twice each lunar month: at new moon (anak bulan) and during full moon (bulan purnama). A ‘stand-in’ (pengari) may be employed to cook rice on the hearth not more than once each lunar cycle.[11] Should a family fail to keep its hearth ‘warm’, the family ‘elder’ must pay adat genselan and make offerings to the central tiang pemun. Observance of the hearth rules prevents the permanent dispersal of longhouse families and so keeps them from leaving the community without first paying compensation for the ritual damage their departure causes. Following the installation of its hearth, should a family subsequently break the ritual unity of the community by moving to another, its members must pay both genselan and adat fines. In addition they must also make offerings to the central tiang pemun and perform a ritual ‘throwing away of the hearth’ (muai dapur). This ‘throwing away of the hearth’ marks their formal withdrawal and restores the ritual solidarity of the remaining community. Only by maintaining a bilik hearth may a family exercise membership in the longhouse community and cultivate land within its menoa.
As a final ritual act, the community may perform a ‘striking of the post’ festival. Once house construction is completed, the tiang pemun, as corner posts, are typically enclosed behind bilik walls, so that on public occasions their place is usually taken by the exposed pillar at the edge of the tempuan passageway between adjacent biliks (Figure 3). During the ‘striking of the post’ ritual (mangkong tiang), the base of each of these pillars is wrapped in pua’ kumbu’ cloth to form a series of bilik altar-places (pandong) around which the bards circle as they sing the gawai chants. At the pillar representing the central post, a man conceals himself inside the cloth enclosure. Here he speaks the part of the principal tiang pemun as the pillar is struck (pangkong) by a bamboo tube containing cooked rice, promising wealth and spiritual well-being to the members of the house. The festival thus highlights the ritual significance of the tiang pemun in safeguarding community well-being and the relation of precedence that exists between the central longhouse post and the individual source posts of each family.
Every Iban longhouse is identified, in the first instance, with a menoa rumah, or territorial domain.[2] Here, within this territory, individual bilik- families clear their annual farms, grow rice and other food crops, and observe a common body of normative rules (adat) and ritual interdictions (penti-pemali) which are enforced by the longhouse and express its status as the jural and ritual centre of its domain. The continued existence of the longhouse is thought to depend upon its members behaving as these rules and interdictions require (Heppell 1975:303–304; Sather 1980:xxviii-xxxi). Thus breaches of adat and disturbances of the ritual order are said to render a longhouse ‘hot’ (angat), leaving its inhabitants open to infertility, sickness, death and other calamities.
Until the imposition of Brooke rule,[3] beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, ‘elders’ (tuai) were acknowledged at the level of both the longhouse and the wider river region. Regional leaders, called tuai menoa, were drawn mainly from the raja berani, literally the ‘rich and brave’, and were self-made men with a reputation for military prowess, resourcefulness and judgment; they acted primarily as peacekeepers, go-betweens and charismatic war chiefs (tau’ serang or tau’ kayau), mobilizing regional followings for raiding and the territorial defence of the river. With Brooke rule, this former pattern of competitive regional leadership was superseded by the creation of formal administrative districts under officially appointed Penghulu, or ‘native chiefs’, and today the Penghulu act, together with the longhouse headmen, as the principal intermediaries between the local community and the state (see Freeman 1981:15–24; Sather 1980:xiv-xxviii, n.d.).
Responsibility for safeguarding the normative order that, for the Iban, centres in each longhouse domain, rests chiefly with the longhouse headman (tuai rumah) and other community elders (tuai-tuai). The most important of the latter are the tuai bilik (family heads). Thus, in matters of adat, longhouse and bilik elders are said to have ‘authority’ (kuasa) over or ‘to speak for’ (bejako ka) other longhouse or apartment residents.
Complementing the role of the tuai (elders) in matters of adat is the role of the sources (pun) in matters of ritual and the custodianship of group sacra. When a longhouse is first built, its ‘longhouse source’ (pun rumah) supervises the rites of house construction. In doing so, he confirms his status as caretaker of its central ‘source post’ (tiang pemun). This post centres the house both ritually and in terms of the internal orientation of its parts. Every longhouse is believed to be susceptible to the intrusion of malevolent spirits and other injurious forces, and to disruptions of its ritual order from within. The task of the pun rumah as custodian of the ‘source post’ and its associated sacra, is to ward off these dangers and, should its ritual well-being be threatened, to perform rites of ‘cooling’ (nganyelap) on behalf of the community as a whole, by which the longhouse and its domain are restored to a ‘cool’ (chelap) or benign state.[4]
Figure 4.3. Figure 3. Longhouse section and plan
Each family, too, has a ‘source’ (pun bilik). The pun bilik, or family source, is the custodian of the bilik’s heritable estate, including ritual sacra that symbolize the continuing life of the family, notably its ritual whetstones (batu umai) and sacred strains of rice (padi pun and padi sangking). The family is ideally an enduring group and the pun bilik personifies its continuity (tampong). As the senior-most family member and the principal heir through whom family wealth and sacra are transmitted, the pun bilik represents the family’s living ancestor, the chief link between its present and past generations and the source through whom all family rights devolve.
Hearths and Posts
Every bilik apartment contains, at its front upriver corner, a tiang pemun, literally a ‘source, foundation post’ (Figure 3). These posts or pillars are the first to be erected during house construction and, when the longhouse is completed, extend down its central axis to separate the bilik apartments from the unpartitioned gallery. Each family’s tiang pemun is under the care of its pun bilik (family source).
However, there is also a central tiang pemun which, together with its caretaker, the pun rumah, takes ritual priority over all the others. This central tiang pemun is the first post to be raised during house construction and is not only the ‘source post’ of the pun rumah bilik, but represents the primary ‘foundation pillar’ for the longhouse as a whole. It is through the rites of ‘erecting’ (ngentak) this post that the longhouse is established as the ritual centre of its domain and the pun rumah is confirmed as its living ‘source’.
As custodian of the central tiang pemun, the pun rumah is said to ‘own’ (empu) the adat genselan, the ritual rules and offerings associated with the post. These rules preserve the longhouse in a state of ritual well-being and include procedures, such as sacrifice and blood lustration (enselan) meant to repair disturbances of its ritual harmony, performed particularly at the central tiang pemun, but also at other parts of the longhouse, especially at its entry ladders and the tempuan passageway. The pun rumah is also entitled to collect fines (tunggu) from those whose actions break ritual interdictions or in other ways endanger the community’s state of ritual well-being. Thus, for example, if a longhouse member dies while outside the house, before his or her body — now a source of ‘heat’ — can be carried inside, the members of the bereaved family must first sacrifice a pig (or two chickens). This is done under the direction of the pun rumah at the base of the longhouse entry ladder (kaki tangga’ rumah). The pun rumah then lustrates the tiang pemun with the blood, which is also smeared on the earth at the foot of the house ladder, and on the bottoms of the feet of those who carry the body into the house. In addition, the family must pay a genselan fine to the pun rumah. Many other acts such as adultery, quarrelling, cursing, threatening others (nyakat or nyakap) or drawing a weapon in anger, when committed inside the longhouse, require sacrifice, offerings and the blood lustration of the central tiang pemun. Among the most important of these genselan rules, however, are those which sanction the adat dapur (family hearth rules). These rules unite the longhouse ritually and preserve its family hearths, in contrast to the tiang pemuns, in an antithetical state of ‘heatedness’ (pengangat).
The ritual priority of the central tiang pemun is thus established at the start of house construction. The rites that initiate construction of a longhouse are called ngentak tiang rumah, literally ‘to fix’ or ‘drive in the pole’.[5] During ngentak tiang rumah the main tiang pemuns are ‘driven into’ (ngentak) the earth. This is the sole ‘work’ (pengawa’) undertaken during ngentak rumah and is performed by a ceremonial work party comprising longhouse men and male guests from neighbouring longhouse. The work is overseen by the pun rumah whose central tiang pemun is the first post to be ‘driven in’. It is also the main focus of the ngentak rites.
Ngentak rumah begins with the ritual bathing (mandi’) of the central tiang pemun by a group of senior women. This act closely parallels the ritual bathing of a new-born infant to mark its entry into the longhouse community (Sather 1988). Bathing is said to ‘cool’ the post. Later, to mark the completion of house construction, the entire structure is ritually ‘bathed’ (mandi’ rumah). After the central tiang pemun has been bathed, it is scattered with popped rice, oiled and, beginning at its base, smeared with the blood of a chicken. The gods are then invoked, notably the gods of the earth, Simpulang Gana and Raja Samarugah, and the antu dapur, the tutelary hearth spirits. To affirm his ownership of the adat genselan, the pun rumah sacrifices a pig. Its blood and severed head, together with other ritual objects,[6] are placed in the hole into which the central tiang pemun is then driven. After this has been raised, the tiang pemun of each of the individual biliks is erected in sequential order, moving outward from the central tiang pemun, first downriver and then upriver, ending with the final tiang pemun at the upriver end of the house. For a small house, the entire ritual may be completed in one day. For a larger house, the first day is generally spent raising the downriver posts; the second day, the upriver posts.
As caretaker of the central tiang pemun, the pun rumah personifies the living ancestor of the longhouse, just as the pun bilik embodies the living ancestor of the bilik-family. Ideally the original pun rumah and his successors should be able to trace their genealogical connections to the pioneer founders (tuai mungkal menoa) of the community, also known as pun (which denotes original migration leader), who first cleared its domain of primary forest, through an unbroken line (or lines) of ascent. The pun rumah’s genealogy (tusut) should thus serve, ideally, as the main line or batang tusut (‘trunk genealogy’) by which other longhouse members trace their connections to the community’s ancestors.[7]
While the relationship between the pun rumah and pun bilik is established through the ritual priority of the central tiang pemun, the relationship between the tuai rumah and tuai bilik is expressed most clearly in the ritual rules that surround the installation and use of the family hearths.
An Iban hearth (dapur) consists of an earth-filled firebox (entilang), supported in a frame (para’) whose posts extend through the house floor directly into the earth below. Above the hearth is a rack for storing and drying firewood and for keeping the family’s salt stores (telak garam). Traditionally the hearth was constructed immediately behind the front wall of the bilik, inside an area of the family apartment called the tempuan bilik (Figure 3). (Today most hearths are built at the rear of the bilik in a separate cooking area.) Being made of earth, the dapur is said to belong to Simpulang Gana, the Iban god of agriculture who has absolute authority over the earth we live on. In Paku myths, Simpulang Gana acquired dominion over the earth by inheriting the dapur of his father Raja Jembu after the other gods, in his absence, had divided the family’s magical sacra among themselves, leaving Simpulang Gana without a share except for the hearth (Harrisson and Sandin 1966:261–262; Sandin 1967a; Sather 1985:34). The hearth is also associated with the antu dapur, the tutelary hearth spirits. All of those who make use of the same hearth are said to come under the authority of the tuai bilik, including visitors and temporary guests residing in the family apartment. Within the longhouse, the hearths represent the principal link between the bilik-family and the longhouse’s menoa. This link is signified by the earth from which the dapur is made and by the hierarchy of authority that extends as a result of its use from bilik elders, through the headman, to the god Simpulang Gana, the earth’s ‘owner’.
This hierarchy of authority is established in respect of the hearths through the rites of house construction. As soon as the new longhouse is completed a ceremonial ‘moving in’ (pindah) takes place. This is followed by the ‘bathing of the house’ (mandi’ rumah) and, in the past at least, by a ritual ‘striking of posts’ (gawai pangkong tiang). The latter accompanies the setting in place of the ridge-capping (perabong) along the top of the longhouse roof. This capping ‘completes’ the structure. ‘Moving in’ precedes the ‘striking of posts’ and is initiated by a ritual installation of the family hearths. During pindah each family carries its possessions into the longhouse in a prescribed order, beginning with mats (tikai) and ending with trophy heads (antu pala’) and weaving-looms (tumpoh) (see Richards 1981:312). The entry of each family is in order of the precedence established during ngentak rumah when each family’s tiang pemun was erected.[8] This order determines, in Iban terms, relative relations of ‘who went first’ (orang ke-dulu). Possessions are carried into the house by both the upriver and downriver entrances, so that ideally they are never carried past the central tiang pemun nor past one another in violation of their upriver–downriver order, that is to say, ‘across’, or ‘in front of’ (meraka) those who ‘went first’ (orang ke-dulu)[9] in erecting their ‘source post’.
Before pindah begins, the members of each bilik-family collect earth (tanah) from the longhouse menoa and mix it with earth taken from the family’s previous hearth to make the new dapur. At the start of pindah, the earthen firebox is carried into the longhouse and installed by the tuai bilik in the newly constructed hearth frame. After all families have installed their hearths, the first fire is lit by the tuai rumah.[10] The other families then take their first fires from the headman’s dapur, thereby establishing the latter’s priority.
The installation of the hearths binds the separate bilik-families together into a single ritual and adat community. From the time the hearths are installed in the house until the structure is dismantled and replaced by a new one, they must not be allowed to grow ‘cold’ (chelap). A ‘cold’ hearth signifies an unoccupied apartment, indicating, in turn, the family’s withdrawal from the community (neju’ ka rumah). To prevent the hearth from growing ‘cold’, a fire must be lit and rice cooked on the dapur at least twice each lunar month: at new moon (anak bulan) and during full moon (bulan purnama). A ‘stand-in’ (pengari) may be employed to cook rice on the hearth not more than once each lunar cycle.[11] Should a family fail to keep its hearth ‘warm’, the family ‘elder’ must pay adat genselan and make offerings to the central tiang pemun. Observance of the hearth rules prevents the permanent dispersal of longhouse families and so keeps them from leaving the community without first paying compensation for the ritual damage their departure causes. Following the installation of its hearth, should a family subsequently break the ritual unity of the community by moving to another, its members must pay both genselan and adat fines. In addition they must also make offerings to the central tiang pemun and perform a ritual ‘throwing away of the hearth’ (muai dapur). This ‘throwing away of the hearth’ marks their formal withdrawal and restores the ritual solidarity of the remaining community. Only by maintaining a bilik hearth may a family exercise membership in the longhouse community and cultivate land within its menoa.
As a final ritual act, the community may perform a ‘striking of the post’ festival. Once house construction is completed, the tiang pemun, as corner posts, are typically enclosed behind bilik walls, so that on public occasions their place is usually taken by the exposed pillar at the edge of the tempuan passageway between adjacent biliks (Figure 3). During the ‘striking of the post’ ritual (mangkong tiang), the base of each of these pillars is wrapped in pua’ kumbu’ cloth to form a series of bilik altar-places (pandong) around which the bards circle as they sing the gawai chants. At the pillar representing the central post, a man conceals himself inside the cloth enclosure. Here he speaks the part of the principal tiang pemun as the pillar is struck (pangkong) by a bamboo tube containing cooked rice, promising wealth and spiritual well-being to the members of the house. The festival thus highlights the ritual significance of the tiang pemun in safeguarding community well-being and the relation of precedence that exists between the central longhouse post and the individual source posts of each family.
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