Monica Janowski. The Forest, Source of Life: The Kelabit of Sarawak.

Monica Janowski. The Forest, Source of Life: the Kelabit of Sarawak. London: British Museum Occasional Paper No 143, November 2003; hbk; 154pp; 25.00 [pounds sterling].

The Forest, Source of Life is a beautiful book that deserves a place on the coffee table where it can be appreciated for its exquisite photographs, fine line drawings, and informative text. The author states that the main aim of this book is to "contextualize and provide an exegesis for the items in two collections of artifacts" (p. 1), assembled by the author in 1986-1988 and now located in the British Museum and the Sarawak Museum. However the book accomplishes much more than providing a catalogue, offering rich documentation on an entire way of life in a remote longhouse community.

The text of this book is composed of ten short chapters that provide, in sixty pages, a concise, yet comprehensive, overview of the Kelabit people--mainly focused on the people of Pa' Dalih in the southern Kelabit Highlands. The opening chapter provides a general overview of the Kelabit, including a discussion of their close relationships to people from across the frontier in Indonesia and highlighting the significance of the local SIB church today. The main focus of the book, however, is the relationship between the Kelabit and the natural environment.

The text documents the details of many aspects of Kelabit life, covering objects of material culture, the social life of the longhouse, farming practices, and religion. It begins with descriptions of many of the objects and stylistic features of Kelabit culture, covering everything from clothing, hair styles, beadwork and earrings, to tools, knives and cooking pots, throughout offering details about construction, use, and ornamentation. The text also describes the layout and structure of the longhouse, the important social features that characterize Kelabit life, and details of rice farming. All of these aspects of Kelabit life are illustrated with drawings and cross-referenced with the photographs--presented in a separate section of the book. Considerable attention is also devoted throughout to the use of wild foods and materials from the forest--including plants, animals and items used in craft production--and the techniques and beliefs associated with gathering, hunting, fishing, and collecting items in the forest. There is also some discussion of religious rituals and beliefs, including contemporary practices that have emerged with conversion to Christianity, as well as former practices of headhunting and beliefs relating to bird omens.

In the most theoretically provocative part of the book, Janowski offers an analysis of the gendered dimensions of Kelabit life and discussion of local notions of status and prestige. She describes, in rather structuralist terms, how women are associated with the cultivation of rice and the hearth, whereas men are associated with the provisioning of meat, hunting, the forest, and the "wild." In support of her argument, Janowski provides details from traditional epic tales illustrating these particular aspects of Kelabit life. She also posits that some deeply held beliefs, particularly those relating to the Kelabit conceptions of lalud ('wild life force') and ulun ('proper human life'), have been incorporated into the contemporary Christian beliefs of the Kelabit (p. 56).

While the text does an excellent job of contextualizing Kelabit life, ultimately, the numerous black and white photographs, as well as line drawing by Claire Thome, make this book well worth owning. The book also has a high quality fold-out map of the Kelabit Highlands--one of the most useful maps I have seen--showing the main settlements on both sides of the international border, the approximate areas of wet-rice cultivation, and the location of footpaths and passes. The photographic plates comprise forty-eight pages, approximately a third of the book, and cover the breadth of Kelabit culture--including examples of basketwork, woven mats, knives, fishnets, pottery, boats, tools, clothing, megaliths, and decorative items. The photographs are organized in a very informative manner that, essentially, paints a picture of life in Pa' Dalih in the late 1980s. The author and her husband took most of these photographs, and there are other photographs of historical interest included as well, mainly from the collection of the Sarawak Museum.

Finally--and probably of minimal interest to most readers--a significant portion of the book is devoted to cataloging the collections of Kelabit items that Janowski assembled for the British Museum and the Sarawak Museum--who collaborated in publishing this book. The catalogue itself, one of five appendices, offers descriptions and curatorial information on 161 items in the British Museum and 104 items in the Sarawak Museum. The remaining appendices include a glossary of Kelabit words, an overview of techniques and raw materials used in the production of Kelabit craftwork, a summary of the botanical names of plants used by the Kelabit, and a brief list of items of possible Kelabit origin that are in other museums throughout the UK.

While the main focus of this work is to document aspects of traditional culture, as well as showing how these "artifacts reflect the relationship which the makers have with the raw materials they use as well as the use to which they are put" (p. 1), there is also commentary throughout the book on social change among the Kelabit. Janowski is careful to include discussion of the many new objects that have come into the longhouse community from town areas, such as building materials, chainsaws, rice mills, clocks and watches, cooking pots, containers and utensils, and many cheap and lightweight items made of plastic and nylon. Although such aspects of material culture are not visually documented in the book, it is unlikely that the reader will fail to note the numerous and significant changes that have impacted this seemingly remote part of Borneo.

In sum, this book introduces non-specialists to the intimate details of rural Kelabit life, as well as contextualizing and cataloguing the two museum collections. While there are a number of analytical discussions throughout the text that may be of interest and, perhaps, lead to debate among anthropologists, the book will also appeal to virtually anyone interested in the finer details of life in the forests of Borneo. (Matthew H. Amster, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA, USA)