Bernard Sellato

Material Culture Studies and Ethnocultural Identity

This chapter briefly exposes the changing focuses of material culture studies through the twentieth century. It then assesses the available corpus of studies in Borneo’s material culture, proposing a rough periodisation of the types of publications and describing in broad categories the material productions examined in these publications. Finally, using some examples, it endeavours to shed light on the linkages between material culture, on the one hand, and social relations and ethnocultural identity, on the other.

The languages and peoples of the Müller Mountains

The Muller and northern Schwaner mountain ranges are home to a handful of tiny, isolated groups (Aoheng, Hovongan, Kereho, Semukung, Seputan), altogether totaling about 5,000 persons, which are believed to have been forest hunter-gatherers in a distant or recent past. Linguistic data were collected among these groups and other neighbouring groups between 1975 and 2010, leading to the delineation of two distinct clusters of languages of nomadic or formerly nomadic groups, which are called MSP (Muller-Schwaner Punan) and BBL (Bukat-Beketan-Lisum) clusters. These languages also display lexical affinity to the languages of various major Bornean settled farming groups (Kayan, Ot Danum). Following brief regional and particular historical sketches, their phonological systems and some key features are described and compared within the wider local linguistic setting, which is expected to contribute to an elucidation of the ultimate origins of these people and their languages.

Rituel, politique, organisation sociale et ethnogenèse : les Aoheng de Bornéo

Ritual, Politics, Social Organisation and Ethnogenesis: the Aoheng of Borneo ; by Bernard Sellato ; Through a study the history of the Aoheng of Borneo, this paper attempts first to elucidate the connection between ritual - or, rather, traditional religion as expressed in ritual - and ethnic identity. It shows that ritual, the basis for the emergence of the Aoheng as a new composite ethnic entity, is a major factor in ethnogenesis. Through a study of social organization, it shows how a major ritual, pengosang, has been utilized by an ethnic fraction of the Aoheng as a political tool to counterbalance the formal political prominence achieved by another ethnic fraction through social stratification and maintain control of all aspects of the villages political life, in domestic affairs as well as in foreign relations.