What is it about?
This contributes an ethnographic on-the-ground perspective of gawai rituals in their crucial twilight phase among the Iban in the Kapit district of Malaysia. It reveals the processes and actors involved in these ceremonies and explores the reasons for the decline in frequency of these events.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
A rich and detailed perspective was gathered through accompanying a lemambang (Iban religious leader), when he officiated at these rituals. This access was enormously important for revealing the subtleties of the various rituals and allowed for the understanding of the active and inactive components of the gawai to be revealed and explored.
Perspectives
It updates the perspective of the 1970s when gawai culture was flourishing in Iban rural life, and further explains the categories of the gawai in a fresh and expanded light. By exploring what was regarded as a disappearing culture, this article captures the continuing practice of these rituals and their significance in the social life of the Iban.
Goro Hasegawa
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH CENTRE FOR INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Iban gawai rituals in their twilight in Kapit, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Malay World, May 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/13639811.2018.1446420.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
