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“I Lost My Head in Borneo”

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Cultural Analysis 6 (2007): 1-29©2007 by The University of California.All rights reserved

“I Lost My Head in Borneo”:Tourism and the

Refashioning of theHeadhunting Narrative in

Sabah, Malaysia

Flory Ann Mansor GinggingIndiana University, Bloomington

USA

AbstractAlthough headhunting is generally believedto be no longer practiced in Sabah, Malay-sia, it is a phenomenon of the past that stillexists in the collective consciousness of in-digenous groups, living through the tellingand retelling of stories, not just by individu-als, but also by the tourism industry. Theheadhunting image and theme are ubiqui-tous in the tourist literature and campaigns.They are featured on postcards, brochures,and T-shirts (a particular favorite shows anorangutan head with the caption “I lost myhead in Borneo”). One popular tourist des-tination, Monsopiad Cultural Village, haseven named itself after a legendaryheadhunting warrior.

While Sabah’s headhunting past hastaken on a commercial value, I argue that ithas also taken on a cultural and political onethat seems to resonate with contemporaryneeds and sensibilities, especially among thestate’s indigenous communities. I proposethat the tongue-in-cheek invocation ofheadhunting by the tourism industry repre-sents one way in which Sabah’s indigenouspeople counter the outside world’s designa-tion of them as the Other; that is, by parody-ing their headhunting past, they demonstrate

their understanding of the joke and thusguard their indigenousness and their statusas human beings. I also argue that their useof their headhunting heritage is a means ofresponding to the threats to their identitiesposed by the Malaysian state, which, in theprocess of globalization and nation building,has interpolated them into a Malaysian iden-tity, an identity that they seem to resist infavor of their regional ones. This paper looksat what tourism’s refashioning of theheadhunting narrative might suggest abouthow Sabah’s indigenous groups respond totheir former colonization by the West andhow they imagine and negotiate their identi-ties within the constraints of membershipwithin the state of Malaysia.1

I spent a large part of my growing-upyears in Tamparuli, a small town nearthe west coast of Sabah, a Malaysian

state in northern Borneo.2 A river dividesthe town proper and the compound onwhich my family and I lived, so sojournsto the other side—to tamu (weekly mar-ket), to the shops, and to the library re-quired the use of one of two bridges. Thefirst was a suspension bridge for pedes-trians, and the other, only a few minutesaway, a concrete structure for automo-biles also used by those on foot. Of thetwo, my friends and I considered the ce-ment bridge to have the more fascinat-ing history. We were told that during itsconstruction, humans were hunted andtheir severed heads were placed withinits foundations. The reason: the build-ers, we were told, apparently believedthat the spirits of the heads would for-tify the bridge and would help to guardit from calamities.

Flory Ann Mansor Gingging

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As a child, I delighted in hearing andtelling stories about sagaii (headhunters)and took special pride in knowing thatour very own Tamparuli Bridge was partof headhunting lore. But as I becameolder, stories about headhunters and myheadhunting past became less fantastic.Despite the occasional semi-seriouswarning that a headhunter was on theloose, I, and most others around me, gen-erally believed that headhunting, aphenomenon of the past shared by manyof the state’s thirty indigenous groups,was no longer in practice.3

As I got older, I began to be aware ofthe economic and political struggles thatindigenous people in my state face. Sincebecoming part of Malaysia in 1963,Sabah, a former British colony, had neverhad a chief minister who was both in-digenous and non-Muslim. Conse-quently, when in 1984, Joseph PairinKitingan, a Dusun lawyer, became thefirst non-Muslim native to assume thisposition, being indigenous suddenlymeant something to me.4 It was alsoaround the same time that I rememberfeeling a new attraction to the macabreand exotic elements of my culture—oneof them being headhunting. Withoutquite knowing it, I was invoking thoseaspects of my culture that were poten-tially embarrassing as a way of respond-ing to the threat I felt towards my ownDusun-ness. For me, headhuntingceased being just a part of history andbecame, in the most personal way, a partof my heritage—an expression of my in-digenousness. 5

Of course I was not alone in my real-ization of the value of headhunting as amarker of indigenousness—I was in the

company of the tourism industry. Imagesof headhunting in the tourist literaturein Sabah are plentiful. They are on post-cards, in brochures, and on T-shirts, andone tourist destination, Monsopiad Cul-tural Village, which is especially popu-lar among overseas visitors, has nameditself after a legendary Kadazan warriorand headhunter, and has made explicituse of the headhunting narrative as away of organizing its offerings.6

Fig.1

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In my opinion, making headhuntingsuch a visible icon of tourism in Sabah isan example of what Michael Herzfeldcalls “cultural intimacy,” which he de-scribes as “the recognition of those as-pects of a cultural identity that are con-sidered as a source of external embarrass-ment but that nevertheless provide in-siders with the assurance of commonsociality” (Herzfeld 1997, 3). MonsopiadCultural Village is one site where I sug-gest cultural intimacy is performed. Ibelieve that the Village’s strategic asso-ciation with headhunting (and the unfa-


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vorable connotations that it might carry)is an instance of how native people inSabah have recognized that by assum-ing agency over their culture, and espe-cially by embracing their Otherness, theyfind a common ground—in the presentcase, a headhunting past—with whichto respond to outside attacks on their in-digenousness. 7

Headhunting as a response to the so-cial imagination of BorneoI have already suggested that“headhunting tourism” in Sabah mightbe seen as one way in which indigenouspeople counter the outside world’s imag-ining of themselves as the Other. In thissection, I argue that early travel accountsof Borneo have, in part, created this “Oth-erness”; that is, these accounts have con-tributed to how the island and its nativegroups are perceived. Thus, I will nowturn to a brief discussion of how earlyliterature about the region, writtenmainly by European travelers, hasplayed a role in the “invention” ofBorneo; an invention that has lived onin tourist literature, and, in my opinion,an invention to which the invocation ofheadhunting in the tourism industry inSabah is responding. Of this notion, his-torian Graham Saunders makes the fol-lowing observation:

Travellers to Borneo today arrive withcertain expectations. They carry withthem an idea or image of Borneo, animage which tourist brochures haveconveyed, authorities have culti-vated. What an image is [is] the cul-mination of a process that beganwhen the first European traveller to

Borneo’s shore recorded his impres-sions of what he had seen (Saunders1993, 271).

Saunders’ argument is clear: modern-day visitors to Borneo arrive with expec-tations that have been formed by earlyliterature about the island and its people.

It was not until the late nineteenthcentury that the British gained controlover Sabah, but the region as a whole hadreceived European visitors before thattime. They came in various capacities—as diplomats, business people, and ex-plorers—and their contacts with, andreports about Borneo not only contrib-uted to general knowledge about the is-land, but also helped to create an imageof the place and its people in the Euro-pean mind. Saunders suggests that, infact, many of the images of headhunt-ers, orangutans and long houses nowassociated with the island are productsof these early accounts (Saunders 1993,271).

The first Englishman to write abouthis travels in Borneo was DanielBeeckman, who went on business toBanjarmasin, the present capital of SouthKalimantan, in 1714. His accounts of lifein Banjarmasin were often astute; none-theless his characterization of the orang-utan as being like a human—that, in-deed, one originated from the other—hasadvanced the idea of a wild Borneo, towhich current tourism campaigns stillallude:

The monkeys, apes, and baboons areof many different sorts and shapes;but the most remarkable are thosethey call Orang-ootans, which in their


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language signifies men of the woods:these grow up to be six foot high, theywalk upright; have longer arms thanmen, tolerable good faces (hand-somer I am sure than some Hottentotsthat I have seen), large teeth, no tailsnor hair, but on those parts where itgrows on humane bodies; they arevery nimble footed and mightystrong; they throw great stones, sticks,and billets at those who offend them.The natives do really believe thatthese were formerly men, but meta-morphosed into beasts for their blas-phemy (Beeckman 1718, 37).

The notion of a Borneo that was primi-tive, where men were apparently rou-tinely transformed into apes, asBeeckman’s account above suggests,continued to be reinforced by workssuch as Elizabeth Mershon’s book, Withthe Wild Men of Borneo, which was pub-lished in 1922. In general, Mershon, thewife of a Seventh-day Adventist mission-ary posted in North Borneo, is fairly sym-pathetic in her portrayal of Sabah’s na-tive people, but her designation of themas “the wild men of Borneo” is telling ofthe impact of a centuries-long depictionof the people of Borneo as—using herterm—wild. The book begins as follows:

Borneo! What does the name suggestto your minds? The first thing prob-ably is the “wild man from Borneo.”From my childhood days until I ar-rived in Borneo, all I knew about thecountry was that was where the wildmen lived, and I always imaginedthat they spent most of their time run-ning around the island cutting offpeople’s heads. Strange to say, evento this day, many people have thesame idea. Before you finish reading

what I am going to tell you aboutBorneo and its people, I hope you willhave learned that the “wild man fromBorneo” is not such a bad fellow af-ter all (Mershon 1922, 13).

Thus, we see that while Mershon’s pur-pose for writing her book appears to benoble, her portrayal of the people ofBorneo is nevertheless rather unflatter-ing.

However, I do not think it is useful toanalyze Mershon’s and Beeckman’s re-ports in terms of their language or eventheir veracity; rather, I believe they mustbe seen as those belonging to observerswhose accounts were colored not just bytheir personal biases, but also by the in-tellectual climate within which theywrote. As Saunders states, “they inter-preted what they saw and accommo-dated what they observed to their ownprejudices, to their own cultural values,to their own intellectual world”(Saunders 1993, 285). In so doing, how-ever, they created, developed, and repro-duced an image of Borneo as a place thatis undomesticated and mysterious; aplace where wild men live as one withnature. Indeed, in a paper that anthro-pologist Victor King presented at theBorneo Research Council meetings inKota Kinabalu in 1992, he argued thatone reason why cultural tourism inBorneo is an important component in themarketing of the region as a tourist des-tination is the perception of its people as“exotic” and “unknown,” notions that hesays have purposely been encouragedamong Western audiences and which hecalls “obvious tourist assets” (King 1992,3).


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The current emphasis in Sabah oneco-tourism and the rhetoric used to pro-mote its natural offerings also contrib-ute to the notion of a wild Borneo. TheSabah Tourism Board’s most visible cam-paign is in fact titled “Eco-Treasures fromMountain High to Ocean Deep” andstrongly features two of the state’s mostwell-known “eco-treasures,” MountKinabalu, the tallest peak in SoutheastAsia, and Sipadan Island, widely recog-nized as one of the world’s top divingspots and best places to witness marinelife.8 The campaign also highlights,among others, such attractions asKinabalu Park (the park on which Mt.Kinabalu stands), the Danum ValleyConservation Area, and the Sepilok Or-ang-utan Sanctuary.

The extent to which “eco-treasures”have been identified as important tour-ist assets by the state seems to indicatethat the state subscribes to the same no-tion of Borneo expressed in early ac-counts about the island—that it is anuncultivated and timeless place. 9 At thesame time, however, as Kevin Markwellnotes in his essay “‘Borneo, Nature’sParadise’: Constructions and Represen-tations of Nature within Nature-basedTourism,” the campaign employs arhetoric that suggests a wildness that isdomesticated—in essence, a negotiablewildness. He says, “The use of a selec-tive number of animal species to repre-sent nature in a specific way (e.g. the or-ang-utan) and the relative ease withwhich the wild can be conquered indi-cate that in tourism, nature is representedas a ‘wild/tame’ dualism which appealsto most tourists” (Markwell 2001, 258).

I believe the dualism Markwell ob-

serves in literature promoting naturetourism may also be applied to“headhunting tourism” in Sabah. Toursites such as Monsopiad Cultural Villagehelp to mediate between tourists andSabah’s headhunting past. Presentedalongside displays of traditional food,drink, medicines, dance, music, andstructures, the forty-two skulls exhibitedat the Village are further divorced fromtheir initial association with murder andviolence—in essence, they lose some oftheir “savage” quality, making an en-counter with them perhaps more palat-able.

But thinking about eco-tourism and“headhunting tourism” in terms of thewild/tame dualism that Markwell pro-poses allows us to come to what I be-lieve to be a more important point: theself-conscious downplaying of an other-wise rather unsavory phenomenon ofindigenous history demonstrates an un-derstanding of the value of Othernessamong those in the tourism industry andthose in the indigenous population ingeneral. In my opinion, what seems tobe articulated in Sabah’s tourism indus-try is a response of its native groups tothe social imagining of themselves assub-human, with an existence over-whelmed by their geographies. It isthrough the headhunting narrative as itis told at Monsopiad Cultural Village andin tourism promotion that they under-stand their identities as they have beenconstructed through discourse. In re-sponse, they parody their headhuntinghistories, benefiting not just economi-cally, but as the collective histories be-come a symbol of their prowess as anindigenous people, politically as well.


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Thus their ostensible acquiescence to an“untamed” past should be seen as an actperformed expressly to counter theirdesignation as the Other, a designationthat is, in large part, the result of colo-nial presence in the region.

In the following section, I look brieflyat Sabah’s political history, in particular,the points of contention at play in its re-lationship with the Malaysian state. Inaddition, I will explore how local re-sponse to, and interpretations of, thesepoints of contention are symbolicallyenacted in tourism.

A brief look at Sabah’s political historyIn the preceding section, I have tried todemonstrate that the invocation ofheadhunting in tourism in Sabah can beseen as symbolic of an indigenous re-sponse to a hegemony that is more glo-bal in nature. In this portion of my pa-per, I argue that it is also representativeof a rejection of powers closer to home—those belonging to the Malaysian state.The tendency for Sabahans, particularlyindigenous ones, to align themselvesculturally and politically with Sabah,rather than with Malaysia, is not a newphenomenon. Indeed, there has been ahistory of contention between Sabah andthe federal government. Malaysia was,after all, created out of what CraigLockard terms “a marriage of conve-nience” when the British suggested thatSingapore, Sabah, Sarawak, and Bruneijoin the Malayan Federation; the federa-tion that had obtained independencefrom the British in 1957 and had unifiedthe territories on its peninsula as a wayof terminating colonial rule over thoseregions (Lockard 1998, 224).10

Prior to 1963, Sabah was the BritishCrown Colony of North Borneo, havingfirst come under the control of a Britishfirm in 1877. It became a protectorate in1881, and finally a Crown Colony in 1946.But it was the sultan of Sulu from whomthe British North Borneo (Chartered)Company, the trading syndicate that firstmanaged the region, had to obtain con-cessions—a fact that makes a necessaryand relevant point: historically and cul-turally, native Sabahans perhaps havemore in common with those groups intheir immediate geographical area thanwith those in West Malaysia.11

Aside from being part of a nationalconstruction in which the dominant cul-ture—Malay and Muslim—has rela-tively little in common with their own,indigenous Sabahans’ reluctance to alignthemselves with their West Malaysiancounterparts may have had economicpromptings. Many Sabahans hold thefederal government responsible for thestate’s backwardness: they blame it forusurping their wealth (Sabah is rich innatural resources) and using it to developthe federal territories and the states onthe peninsula. In a political profile ofMalaysia, Damien Kingsbury posits thatthe opposition of Sabah and Sarawak tothe notion of the Federation of Malay-sia, in 1963 and presently, was and isbased on the allocation of income (morewill be said about the formation of theFederation later in this paper).Kingsbury says that both Sabah andSarawak contribute more to the federalincome than they receive and states thatthe words “‘fairness,’ ‘justice,’ and‘equality’ were commonly used, often bythe indigenous peoples, when talking


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about their grievances against the fed-eral government” (Kingsbury 2001, 276).

There is reason to believe thatSabahans see the Malaysian state as athreat not only to their fiscal well-being,but to their indigenity—and the climateof recent and contemporary politics dem-onstrates their fear. In the early 1980s,Joseph Pairin Kitingan, a Dusun lawyer,formed Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) or theSabah United Party, an opposition partylargely made up of, and supported by,indigenous Sabahans. He led his partyto ultimately win the Sabah general elec-tions of 1984; a victory that was seen asenormous and important because sincebecoming part of Malaysia in 1963, thestate had never had a non-MuslimKadazanDusun leader.12

Although indigenous people on thepeninsula and on Borneo are designatednot only as citizens of Malaysia but alsoas bumiputera, or children of the soil, in-dicating a special status that includes theMalays in both East and West Malaysia(though not other Malaysians who havecome from non-Malayan lands such asChina and India), many of the indig-enous people in both Sabah and Sarawakview this designation with cynicism, feel-ing that the special rights and benefitsthat accompany this status apply specifi-cally to the Semenanjung Malays (theMalays on the peninsula), rather than tothemselves (Winzeler 1997, 8).13

A ban in 2004 on KadazanDusun pro-gramming on television is another ex-ample of the sort of imposition thatSabah’s indigenous groups feel from thegovernment. Bumiputera Sabahans’ re-action to this ban appears to be strong.Writing on Malaysiakini.com, an inde-

pendent news agency, Tanak Wagu (apen name meaning “young man” inKadazanDusun) remarks:

Information Minister Abdul KadirSheik Fadzi’s decision not to allowKadazanDusun programmes on tele-vision is certainly against nationalintegration and cultural develop-ment. It is also an insult to theKadazanDusuns when he said—asreported by Sabah’s Daily Express onAugust 7 [2004]—that suchprogrammes would only promoteracial segregation.(www.malaysiakini.com).

Tanak Wagu clearly feels that it is theKadazanDusun as a people—and notjust their language—that has beenslighted by the Information Minister’smove. His closing statement commentson what he sees as the bigger problem,i.e. the federal government’s general dis-regard for the culture and religion of theindigenous groups living in the EastMalaysian region.14 He says:

I also remember a recent debate onthe appointment of the prime minis-ter. One side said that a bumiputerashould hold the prime minister’spost. Well, what they actually meantwas that a Malay Muslim should holdthe post. This is becauseKadazanDusuns and Dayaks [thebiggest indigenous groups inSarawak] are bumiputera, too, but wedon’t see much hope in someone fromthese two communities holding thepost (Ibid).

Tanak Wagu’s distrust of the federal gov-ernment as it relates to the protection ofindigenous rights is, in my opinion, rep-


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resentative of local views on the matter,and it is perhaps a distrust that has mo-tivated the aptness of many a bumiputeraSabahan to associate himself or herselfwith the state of Sabah, rather than thenation.

Local Sabahans’ distrust of the Ma-laysian government has existed sincebefore the inception of the Malaysiannation. When Prime Minister TunkuAbdul Rahman announced the idea ofan expanded Malaya that would includeSingapore, Brunei, Sarawak, and BritishNorth Borneo in 1961, his propositionwas initially rejected by local leaders inBritish North Borneo, some of whomwere hoping for separate independence.When an influential local leader, DonaldStephens, who later became Sabah’s firstchief minister, remarked that joining theFederation would inevitably lead todomination by peninsular Malays, hewas, in fact, expressing a common viewamong indigenous Sabahans. However,because of the persuasive powers of theMalayan Prime Minister and Lee KuanYew, the Singapore Prime Minister,Sabah and Sarawak conceded, and whenthe Federation of Malaysia came intobeing in 1963, British North Borneo be-came a member state (Andaya andAndaya 2001, 282-287).

In his 1985 book Nation-building inMalaysia, 1946-1974, the lateKadazanDusun historian and politicianJames P. Ongkili writes that the reluc-tance of Sabah, Sarawak, and Brunei tojoin the Malaysian Federation—and theirwish for separate independence—hadbeen foreshadowed by the failure of acolonial attempt in the 1950s at unifyingthem under a Bornean federation.

Ongkili states, “The failure of theBornean federation proposals of the1950s was itself evidence that Sarawak,Brunei and Sabah were each inclined tohope and work for their own separateindependence, even if the ideal of nation-hood might take until the year 2000 orlonger to achieve” (Ongkili 1985, 161).In other words, although people in Sabahand Sarawak eventually agreed to be-come part of Malaysia (Brunei opted toback out), their earlier feelings on thematter suggest a reluctance to relinquishidentities that seemed more tied to theirindigenousness, and the region in gen-eral. It is an attitude that seems to havereappeared not just in contemporarypolitics, but in other arenas as well, suchas tourism.15

The economic, cultural, and religiousdifferences that bumiputera in Sabah feelbetween themselves and their counter-parts on the peninsula have necessarilyinformed both local and national poli-tics, and what has been dubbed“Kadazan nationalism” has, in fact, beena movement of sorts existing sinceSabahan bumiputera entered Malaysianpolitics in 1963. Stephens, who was aEurasian of partly indigenous descent,was one of the first to become an advo-cate for the Kadazan. According to an-thropologist Shamsul A. B., however, thefederal government saw Stephens’ chief-ministership from 1963 to 1965 as “anattempt to seek an unacceptable level ofautonomy,” and he was replaced byDatuk Mustafa, a Muslim Sulu chief anda leader of the Muslim Dusun (ShamsulA. B. 1998, 31).16 The mid-1980s, withthe formation of the Kadazan-dominatedPBS and the party’s subsequent ten-year


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rule, saw Kadazan nationalism playedout more emphatically (Shamsul A. B.1998, 32).17

To be sure, some of the impositionsthat the federal government has madeand continues to make may be a neces-sary part of the process of defining a na-tional culture—a dilemma that formerlycolonized places like Malaysia face innation building. Tourism, being an in-dustry inevitably implicated in such aprocess, can be a particularly useful sitefor analysis. In Malaysia, the creation ofa ministry that combines both tourismand culture is not a move that merelyseeks to find a niche in the internationaltourist market—it also has a nationalpurpose. The Ministry’s website statesits objectives as follows:

To develop the Malaysian NationalCulture in accordance with the Na-tional Culture Policy towardsstrengthening national unity, to pre-serve and control the national iden-tity as well as enrich the life of hu-manity and spirituality that is bal-anced with socio-economic develop-ment; and

To develop the tourism industry tobecome a main industry in thecountry’s economy by spurring itsgrowth based on the elements of Na-tional Culture (www.mocat.gov.my/ministry).

But the “Malaysian National Culture”promoted in a country in which ethnicdiversity is a reality (hence the officialideology, rukunegara, or harmony of thestate) must necessarily be a compositeculture, what King describes as “an ad

hoc assemblage of beliefs and practicesheld by diverse populations” (King 1993,109). However, within the context oftourism, a national culture can only ex-ist in the abstract, for the most market-able forms of cultural distinctiveness,according to Robert Wood, are, ironically,“the lifestyles and artifacts of sub-na-tional ethnic groups—which are oftenconsidered ‘backward’ by the dominantethnic majority” (Wood 1997, 6).

But the alleged backwardness ofMalaysia’s ethnic minorities is not sim-ply a tourism marketing tool; rather, mystudy suggests that in Sabah, indigenouspeople consider their “backwardness”(as implied by the invocation ofheadhunting in tourism) as an importantmarker as well as an assertion of abumiputera-ness distinct from, but equaltothe dominant culture. A similar senti-ment can be observed in Anne Schiller’saccount of her experience among theNgaju Dayak of Central Kalimantanduring a National Geographic Televisionfilming of a tiwah (death ritual) ceremony.She notes that religious activists hopedthat the filming of a ritual that recalls vio-lence and human sacrifice would attractinternational attention to the NgajuDayak culture, and as a result, furthertheir quest for political autonomy(Schiller 2001, 33). What both theKalimantan and Sabah cases suggest,then, is that the seeming willingness ofindigenous groups to be exoticized intourism and in media, both industriesthat are concerned with representation,is symbolic of their rejection of a nationalidentity, signaling, in effect, a preferencefor a local, regional one.


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Headhunting narrativesAlthough early historical accounts varyin their observations of the meaningsassociated with headhunting as it waspracticed in Borneo, it seems clear thatat least among some indigenous groupsit held a significant place in their social,cultural, religious, and economic sys-tems, perhaps explaining, in part, its con-tinued manifestations in local, everydaydiscourse. Historian James Warren(1981), for instance, tells us that the slavetrade in the Sulu Zone during the eigh-teenth and nineteenth centuries, whichinvolved the trade of persons from allover Southeast Asia, fulfilled the de-mand among certain interior groups inBorneo by providing captives—andheads—to be used in sacrifices. Hisstudy suggests that the taking of headsfor religious reasons was an importantpractice among some Bornean groups;so important, it appears, that they pro-cured humans through the slave trade.Such a demand, in essence, made head-taking not just a cultural phenomenon,but an economic one as well.

Early ethnographies by scholar-ad-ministrators during the British rule alsogive us another look at headhunting asit was practiced or conceived among theisland’s native groups. One of thesescholar administrators was Ivor H. N.Evans whose 1922 book, Among thePrimitive Peoples of Borneo, covers his briefstay in North Borneo as a cadet in 1910.18 While he observed that headhuntingamong the Dusun carried with it some“undercurrent of meaning,” that is, theybelieved human heads had the power toendow their daily lives with blessings,Evans also noted that heads were col-

lected mainly as a sign of one’s prowess(Evans 1922, 160). Such a function ofheadhunting is reflected in OwenRutter’s account of headhunting amongthe Murut in The Pagans of North Borneo(1929). According to Rutter, a districtofficer in North Borneo for five years,heads were at one time taken in order toappease the spirits so as to bring luck toor avert disaster from a community’scrops. That function had, however, givenway to the sort that Evans observed—the taking of heads in the context of waror feuds. In other words, althoughheadhunting had formerly been carriedout in order to ensure a village’s spiri-tual and agricultural well-being, it wasnow observed as a way of attaining so-cial power.

People in my family have also appar-ently had near encounters with sagaii(headhunters). Recently, my father toldme about the time his mother and olderbrother came into close contact with one.In 1941 or 1942, in their village of Tungaa,my uncle and my grandmother, who waspregnant with my father at the time,were on their way to draw water from awell located in an area fairly removedfrom the village center. On the way there,they had to walk past a sulap, or a smallbamboo hut without walls where ricefarmers could guard their paddy crop.Harvest season had come and gone,however, and the sleeping man in darkclothes my grandmother and uncle sawin the sulap did not appear to be a paddyfarmer. In fact, he did not even look likea local person. That he looked foreign,that he had a sword tied to his waist, andthat it was, in my father’s words,“headhunting season,” led my grand-


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mother to surmise that the man was aheadhunter, and that, based on past ac-counts, he was most likely from nearbySarawak and was there to collect headsto prove his bravery to his future wifeand her family.

As my grandmother and uncle wereabout to leave the well, my grandmothernoticed that the man they had seen inthe hut was walking towards them. Myfather told me that this confirmed hersuspicions that the man was, indeed, aheadhunter, as headhunters were knownto search out their victims near wells dueto their usually isolated locations. Per-ceiving the danger they were in, mygrandmother and uncle walked away asquickly as they could, cutting throughthe paddy fields. They reached theirhome without incident.

While headhunting is generally as-sumed to no longer be in practice today,rumors about headhunters still do circu-late, for example, as I have discussedearlier, when the construction of a newbridge is underway. A few years ago,for instance, local people blamed themysterious disappearance of several vil-lage boys in Sabah on a new bridge con-struction in neighboring Brunei—it wassaid that people involved in that projectwere in search of heads, which they be-lieved would guard and strengthen thebridge’s foundations.

From the accounts above, we see thatthere seems to be some degree of reluc-tance to be associated with headhunting:my grandmother, for instance, felt thatthe man she thought to be a headhunterwas not local, that he was from neigh-boring Sarawak. And those discussingthe missing boys in Sabah surmised that

their alleged captors were from Brunei.But in my observation, the “embarrass-ment” presently associated withheadhunting appears to be rather moreabstract in nature. In other words, itseems that people in Sabah do not nec-essarily feel personally embarrassed bythe idea that their forefathers huntedheads; rather, within tourism and othercontexts, they capitalize on the notionthat because a headhunting past mightbe viewed as a potential source of em-barrassment, it can provide them with aprovocative means of asserting theiruniqueness as a people.

One tourist site in Sabah which hasseemed to draw on Sabah’s headhuntinghistories is Monsopiad Cultural Village.Although it is by no means the first touse the state’s headhunting historieswithin the context of tourism, I believethe Village is the only tourist site that hasdeveloped an entire park around theheadhunting theme. Located in the vil-lage of Kuai, which is just outside Sabah’scapital city of Kota Kinabalu, the parkwas opened in 1996 and is owned andmanaged by direct descendants ofMonsopiad, a warrior and headhunterwho is said to have roamed the land onwhich the Village now stands over 250years ago.

According to the Village’s website, thestory of Monsopiad is roughly as follows:as a young man, Monsopiad vowed hewould protect his village of Kuai by find-ing every robber and beheading him. Asthe years passed, he continued with hisself-imposed mission and in time, norobber dared to approach his village. ButMonsopiad became obsessed and wouldincite fights with other men, which then


12

gave him an excuse to kill and beheadthem. The villagers became afraid of himand decided that he had to be eliminated,and he died at their hands. But gratefulfor all Monsopiad had done for theirwell-being, the villagers forgave him anderected a monument in his honor (www.monsopiad.org).

Fig. 2.

That the Village capitalizes on the pro-vocativeness of headhunting is apparent,first and foremost, in its very use of thestory of Monsopiad as a basis for thenarrative it wants to tell about theKadazanDusun people. That it does soin a manner that is rather “self-

exoticizing” is clear as well. “Learn ev-erything you always wanted to knowabout headhunting!” its website prom-ises (Ibid). And of the House of Skulls, aVillage brochure (also posted on its offi-cial website) says the following: “Visitthe legendary house that displays theforty-two skulls of Monsopiad’s victims

and a thigh bone of the giant Gantangand gain an insight into the past paganera of the Kadazan people” (Ibid). In-deed, the House of Skulls or the siou dimohoing is the highlight of a tour of theVillage. Constructed out of bamboo inthe traditional Kadazan style, it is the


13

dwelling place of forty-two humanskulls, which are hung in a row on a longpole among the rafters. These skulls,visitors are told, were heads belongingto powerful warriors before they becameMonsopiad’s conquests, hence the termthat is assigned to them now,“Monsopiad’s headhunting trophies”(Ibid).19

Fig. 3.

But while the Village is ostensibly put-ting Monsopiad’s former notoriety toample and strategic use, I think it is im-portant to note the framework withinwhich Monsopiad’s story is told, for al-though the narrative clearly centers onthe warrior and his headhunting activi-

ties, the practice of headhunting itself isportrayed as an aspect of the “past pa-gan era of the Kadazan people” (wwwmonsopiad.org). In other words, as thestory is told at the Village, Sabah’sheadhunting past is something that theKadazan people share, something thatcan potentially connect them as one ofSabah’s ethnic groups. At the Village,

then, one sees the enactment of the no-tion of “cultural intimacy” proposed byHerzfeld (1997). For while MonsopiadCultural Village, and the tourism indus-try in Sabah in general, make use of—and at times exaggerate—aspects of thestate’s cultures that are deemed poten-tially embarrassing externally (e.g.


14

headhunting), what they also seem in-terested in communicating is that it isthese very aspects which provide a com-mon ground for, and legitimacy to,Sabah’s indigenous groups. Observedin cadence with past and present politi-cal milieus, the “refashioning” of theheadhunting narrative within tourism inSabah hence seems to reflect a generalconsensus among certain of Sabah’s na-tive groups: that Otherness, strategicallyinvoked and appropriated, providesthem with an instrument for addressingexternal threats to their identities.

ConclusionIn the introduction of Headhunting andthe Social Imagination in Southeast Asia(1996), Janet Hoskins asserts that in or-der to expand the notion of headhuntingas a symbolic medium, one should con-sider the distinction between the practiceof headhunting and the trope ofheadhunting. Hoskins distinguisheseach as follows: the practice ofheadhunting is a phenomenon of history,“a form of ritual violence once wide-spread”; and the trope of taking heads isa phenomenon of the present, a meta-phor used “to imagine new historicalconditions in which heads might betaken” (Hoskins 1996a, 37). In a chapterin the same volume, in which Hoskinswrites more specifically about her ownwork on the eastern Indonesian islandof Sumba, she expands on this point andproposes that conceived as a trope,headhunting enters the realm of heritage,a realm where the literal taking of headsmight no longer exist, but where its origi-nal meanings remain somewhat intact(Hoskins 1996b, 218).

The model that Hoskins offers is auseful way of thinking about how as-pects of a culture’s history gain currencywithin the context of tourism, and recallsa similar argument that BarbaraKirshenblatt-Gimblett makes in her piece“Theorizing Heritage” (1995), in whichshe proposes that heritage is “a newmode of cultural production in thepresent that has recourse to the past”(Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1995, 369). Thefunctions that the headhunting narrativehas appeared to assume in tourism incontemporary Sabah (i.e. as a responseby indigenous people to outside imagi-nations of themselves, as well as an ex-pression of their inclination towards aregional, rather than a national, identity)can thus be seen as a demonstration ofKirshenblatt-Gimblett’s theory of heri-tage; that is, as tourism campaigns andtour destinations such as MonsopiadCultural Village endow headhuntingwith a metaphorical quality through theprocess of exhibition, they transform itfrom a thing of the past into heritage.

But it is perhaps what “thing” of thepast that is transformed into heritage thatis of more salience in the case at hand.Why headhunting? Historical recordssuggest that while headhunting was in-deed practiced in Sabah, it appears thatit was only prevalent among certaingroups, and even then, headhuntingseemed to have been a relatively rareoccurrence, not an everyday-everymanone. And it is hardly unique to Sabah’sindigenous groups. The volumeHoskins has edited, which looks at thepractice in Brunei, the Philippines, andvarious parts of Indonesia, is only oneof many that can testify to that. Yet,


15

headhunting—if one assumes that tour-ism is a quite accurate gauge of the po-litical aspirations of a people—seems toprovide, at least for some of Sabah’s in-digenous members, a sort of distinctive-ness, a measure of difference from oth-ers, or perhaps more accurately, from theOther (that is, the West) and other groupsin the region whose histories and cul-tures they perceive to be incongruentwith their own. However, to desire dif-ference necessarily implies an alliancewith a community with similar interests,and in my thinking, indigenous peoplein Sabah have used headhunting as ameans of creating and maintaining akind of imagined cohesiveness with oth-ers in the state and region as a whole forwhom headhunting is significant, liter-ally or metaphorically. In short, the tropeof headhunting functions for some ofSabah’s native communities as at once amarker of unlikeness and likeness, a rep-resentation of how they view themselvesin relation to those around them in com-plex ways.

What seems to be happening in Sabahbrings to mind Richard Handler’s dis-cussion of the nationalist movement inQuebec and his observation of an “in-vention of tradition” that is selective. Inan article Handler co-wrote with JocelynLinnekin, “Tradition, Genuine or Spuri-ous” (1984), they say the following aboutpublic folkloric presentations of Quebe-cois everyday life: “Only certain items(most often, those that can be associatedwith a ‘natural,’ pre-industrial villagelife) are chosen to represent traditionalnational culture, and other aspects of thepast are ignored or forgotten” (1984, 280).The notion that cultural symbols are

what they are by design, as demon-strated by the Quebec case, reminds oneof the concept of “selective tradition,”which Raymond Williams addresses inMarxism and Literature (1977). Peoplelook to the past, Williams argues, to“ratify the present and to indicate direc-tions for the future” (Williams 1977, 116).In other words, the transformation ofhistory into heritage, of practice intotrope, is informed by how a group per-ceives of its present realities.

The self-conscious selection of an el-ement of a culture’s history to articulatea political stance recalls an assertionPertti J. Anttonen makes about howpeople construct their identities throughsymbolic means. In Tradition throughModernity (2005), Anttonen states:

Whenever people make public pre-sentations of their identity and showallegiance through cultural represen-tations, they foreground some par-ticular aspects and background oth-ers, which makes the presentation ofself always argumentative in nature.Having a cultural identity …meansthe production of images and repre-sentations through actions that haveargumentative goals in the transfor-mation of relations. As such argu-mentative production of relations,cultural identity is fundamentallypolitical in nature, an issue of estab-lishing, controlling and fighting overthe meaning of symbols, exercisingpower, creating hierarchies and con-testing them (Anttonen 2005, 108).

In short, according to Anttonen, tochoose a symbol with which to identifyone’s personal or group identity is to alsoacknowledge and defend one’s political


16

convictions and associations. Viewed assuch, headhunting tourism in Sabah isthus argumentative because it articulateshow certain of the state’s communitiesdefine their indigenousness. It is argu-mentative because it contests existingnotions of their cultural and politicalidentities. And it is argumentative be-cause it is a response to the Malaysianstate, to the project of nationhood—inessence, it is a response to modernity.

When I asked a friend of mine, her-self an indigenous Sabahan, what shethought of the use of the headhuntingimagery and narrative in tourism pro-motion in our home state, her reply wasquick and to the point: “Embarrassingbut cool.” In a subsequent email, sheexplicated her response, saying, "It's be-yond comprehension that I have ances-tors that might have been headhunters.At the same time freakish ancestors to-tally distinguish you from the rest of theglobal population, so it's secretly thrill-ing as well. I love seeing the slightlyraised eyebrows reaction I get when I tellsomeone new I'm from Borneo.”20 Myfriend’s response to my question is, Ithink, characteristic of the ambivalencethat many bumiputera Sabahans haveabout the matter; that is, while they ap-preciate the risk of assuming a“headhunting identity,” they also recog-nize its worth as a symbol of their “cool-ness.”

As a phenomenon of history,headhunting is still invoked and valuedin complex ways among many indig-enous Sabahans, as in the form of storiesthat I heard as a child and that childrencontinue to hear today, or in the narra-tive that is the underlying unifying

theme at Monsopiad Cultural Village.But it is the trope of headhunting thathas, in my mind, appeared to be moreuseful both culturally and politically.Marginalized groups in Sabah, many ofwhom share a headhunting past, havere-written the headhunting narrative intheir favor, becoming co-authors of acause that seeks, in Hoskins’ words, “toseize an emblem of power, to terrify one’sopponents, and to transfer life from onegroup to another” (Hoskins 1996a, 38).Thus re-imagined, the headhunting nar-rative emerges as a tool useful in work-ing towards change and equality.

NotesAll pictures by Wendell Gingging, used bypermission.1 While "headhunting tourism" is the focusof this paper, it is but one aspect of culturaltourism in Sabah, which also features,among many other things, home-stays, vis-its to tamu (weekly market), and attendanceat various festivals. Additionally, it shouldbe noted that eco-tourism in the state is assignificant—if not, more significant—an in-dustry.2 Malaysia consists of two parts: West Ma-laysia on the Malay peninsula and East Ma-laysia on the island of Borneo, on whichBrunei and Indonesia's Kalimantan are alsolocated. West Malaysia holds eleven of thenation's thirteen states, as well as its capital,Kuala Lumpur, and its administrative cen-tre, Putrajaya. East Malaysia, which is sepa-rated from peninsular Malaysia by about 400miles of the South China Sea, includes thestates of Sabah and Sarawak.3 The multi-ethnicity that typifies Malaysiaas a whole—its population is made up ofMalays, Chinese, Indians, and indigenouspeoples—is also true of the indigenous com-


17

munities in Sabah. They comprise more thanthirty ethnic groups speaking over fifty lan-guages and eighty dialects. TheKadazanDusun, the largest indigenousgroup, live primarily on the west coast andthe interior portions of the state. Othergroups include the Rungus, Murut, Bajau,Orang Sungei, and the Muslim Bisaya(Tongkul 2000, 6).4 In this piece, I use the labels Kadazan,Dusun, and KadazanDusun somewhat in-terchangeably. Although the Kadazan andDusun are closely-related ethnic groups,many who belong to them tend to identifythemselves as one or the other. Since becom-ing an officially-recognized designation inthe 1990s, however, the term KadazanDusunhas come into general use.5 Additional research on the other indig-enous communities in Sabah, some of whichare listed in note 3, will enrich and perhapscomplicate the analysis offered here on thebasis of my experience among the Kadazan/Dusun.6 See note 4.

7 Additional research on the other indig-enous communities in Sabah, some of whichare listed in note 3, will enrich and perhapscomplicate the analysis offered here on thebasis of my experience among the Kadazan/Dusun.8 The Sabah Tourism Board is a semi-privateagency working under the aegis of the state'sMinistry of Tourism, Culture, and Environ-ment.9 In his welcome address to visitors of hisMinistry's official website, Sabah's formerMinister of Tourism, Tan Sri Chong Kah Kiat,identifies eco-tourism in the state as playingan important role in rebuilding the nation'seconomy, especially in the wake of the Asianeconomic crisis of 1997. He states: "Withthe…economic crisis…tourism has becomean important economic sector for Malaysia.

The tourism industry was identified as aleading sector to assist in the national eco-nomic recovery. Sabah, with its many natu-ral assets and tourism icons such as MountKinabalu, its beautiful beaches and islands,its unique flora and fauna, its pristinerainforest and renowned wildlife conserva-tion centres, has all the ingredients to becomea major tourism destination in this region"(www.sabah.gov.my/mocet/ministry-objective.htm).10 Singapore joined the Federation but pulledout in 1965 due to political differences andbecame an independent nation. As forBrunei, the sultan felt he was being asked toconcede too much power and declined theinvitation to become part of the new Malay-sia.11 According to recent reports, the currentSultan of Sulu has renewed his territorialclaim over Sabah and is asking that Malay-sia hand over the state. The Sultan has alsosaid that he will bring Manila to the Interna-tional Court of Justice to settle the matter. In1962, when preparation for the new Federa-tion was underway, President Macapagal ofthe Philippines opposed it (the Federation)on the grounds that the inclusion of NorthBorneo (Sabah) could not be legally upheld.According to the Philippine claim, the 1878transfer of the territory of North Borneo fromthe sultanate of Sulu (now part of the Phil-ippines) to the British was in the form of alease rather than a sale (Andaya and Andaya2001:, 86).12 See note 4.13 It is important to note also that the appli-cability of the bumiputera designation to theOrang Asli, an indigenous people living inthe interiors of the Malayan peninsula, seemsto be ambiguous because while the Malay-sian government sometimes seeks to includethem in this category, according to Winzeler,it does not offer them the special economicand educational benefits of the Malays as


18

well as the native groups in the East Malay-sian states (Winzeler 1997, 8).14 Unlike their counterparts on the peninsula,many bumiputera in both Sabah and Sarawakpractice Christianity, not Islam. It should benoted, however, that the Bajau, one of themain ethnic groups in Sabah, are tradition-ally Muslim.15 Another point of contention between thefederal and Sabah governments has to dowith the Twenty-Point Agreement, a list ofguarantees to which Sabah and Sarawakwere entitled when they joined the Malay-sian Federation in 1963. Over the years,those advocating for Sabah's autonomy havecited the federal government's failure tohonor Sabah's rights under the Agreement,for instance, in matters relating to immigra-tion; the special position of indigenousgroups; tariffs and finance; as well as theBorneonisation of public service positions(i.e. appointing East Malaysians to govern-ment jobs).16 Donald Stephens served as Sabah's chiefminister twice, from 1963 to 1965 and for afew months in 1976. His second tenure wascut short by his death in a plane crash.Donald Stephens was also known asMohammed Fuad Stephens, a name he tookafter embracing Islam in 1971.17 It might be worth noting at this point thatin Malaysia, anyone who adheres to Islam,speaks the Malay language, and observesMalay culture is considered to be Malay, re-gardless of ethnicity.18 The complete title reads: Among PrimitivePeoples in Borneo: A Description of the Lives,Habits & Customs of the Piratical Headhuntersof North Borneo, with an Account of InterestingObjects of Pre-historic Antiquity Discovered inthe Island. After its publication in 1922, Evanscontinued to study and write about theDusun, producing in 1953 an ethnographyentitled The Religion of the Tempassuk Dusunsof North Borneo.

19 Besides the House of Skulls, Monsopiad'slegacy is also displayed in one of its mostvisible attractions, the gintutun do mohoingor the stone monolith. Standing at fourmeters, this massive stone is an imposingpresence in the middle of the compound. Itis said to have been placed in its position byvillagers with the help of bobohizan orKadazan high priestesses and other un-known forces in the spirit world after beingcommanded by Monsopiad to build a monu-ment in his own honor.That the Village sees itself as just as muchabout skulls and headhunting as it is aboutKadazan culture seems apparent from itsother offerings and its stated goals. Accord-ing to its website, the Village perceives itsprincipal purpose as follows: "The missionand objective of the Cultural Village is tobecome a living museum, a showcase ofKadazanDusun culture, and a unique attrac-tion for travelers to Sabah, be they interna-tional [visitors] or Malaysians" (Ibid). To thisend, visitors who go to the kotos di Monsopiador Monsopiad Main House, for instance, cansee exhibits featuring implements one wouldexpect to find in a traditional home, such asjars of rice wine, rice sifters, as well as localfruits and medicines. Enacters are also onhand within the Main House (and at theother structures as well) to demonstrate thecarrying on of daily work within a typicalKadazanDusun household, such as thepreparation of rice and other traditionalfoods, the making of lihing (the local ricewine), as well as handicrafts. Aside from liveenactments of KadazanDusun daily life, atour of the Village includes the chance toparticipate in the dancing, a taste of lihing,as well as a go at blow-pipe shooting andbetel-nut chewing.20 Charmaine Siagian, email message to au-thor, March 20, 2005.


19

Works CitedA. B., Shamsul. 1998. Debating about

Identity in Malaysia: A DiscourseAnalysis. In Cultural Contesta-tions: Mediating Identities in aChanging Malaysian Society.Zawawi Ibrahim, ed. London:ASEAN Academic Press.

Andaya, Barbara Watson and LeonardY. Andaya. 2001. A History of Ma-laysia. 2nd ed. Honolulu: Univer-sity of Hawai’i Press.

Anttonen, Pertti J. 2005. Tradition throughModernity: Postmodernism and theNation-State in Folklore Scholar-ship. Helsinki: Finnish LiteratureSociety.

Evans, Ivor H. N. 1922. Among Primi-tive Peoples in Borneo: A Descrip-tion of the Lives, Habits, and Cus-toms of the Primitive Headhuntersof North Borneo, with an Accountof Interesting Objects of PrehistoricAntiquity Discovered in the Island.London: Seeley, Service & Co.Limited.

Handler, Richard and Jocelyn Linnekin.1984. Tradition, Genuine or Spu-rious. Journal of American Folklore(97) 385:273-290.

Herzfeld, Michael. 1997. Cultural Inti-macy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. New York: Routledge.

Hoskins, Janet. 1996a. Introduction. InHeadhunting and the Social Imagi-nation in Southeast Asia. JanetHoskins, ed. Stanford, CA:Stanford University Press.

___. 1996b. The Heritage ofHeadhunting: History, Ideology,and Violence on Sumba, 1890-1990. Ibid.

King, Victor T. 1993. Tourism and Cul-ture in Malaysia. In Tourism inSouth-East Asia. MichaelHitchcock, Victor T. King, andMichael J. G. Parnwell, eds. Lon-don: Routledge.

___. 1992. Tourism in Borneo: GeneralIssues. In Tourism in Borneo: Pa-pers from the Second InternationalConference, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah,Malaysia, July 1992. Victor T.King, ed. Borneo ResearchCouncil Proceedings Series, Pro-ceedings Number Four.

Kingsbury, Damien. 2001. South-EastAsia. South Melbourne, Austra-lia: Oxford University Press.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1995.Theorizing Heritage. Ethno-musicology (39) 3:367-380.

Lockard, Craig. 1998. Popular Musics andPolitics in Southeast Asia. Hono-lulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Markwell, Kevin. 2001. ‘Borneo,Nature’s Paradise’: Construc-tions and Representations ofNature within Nature-basedTourism. In InterconnectedWorlds: Tourism in Southeast Asia.Peggy Teo, T. C. Chang and K.C. Ho, eds. Amsterdam; NewYork: Pergamon.

Mershon, Elizabeth. 1999. With the WildMen of Borneo. Kota Kinabalu,Sabah: Natural History Publica-tions (Borneo) Sdn. Bhd. Firstpublished by the Pacific PressPublishing Association, USA, in1922.

Ongkili, James P. 1985. Nation-buildingin Malaysia, 1946-1974.Singapore, New York: OxfordUniversity Press.


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Rutter, Owen. 1929. The Pagans of NorthBorneo. London: Hutchinson &Co. Publishers Ltd.

Saunders, Graham. 1993. Early Travel-lers in Borneo, In Tourism inSouth-East Asia. MichaelHitchcock, Victor T. King, andMichael J. G. Parnwell, eds. Lon-don: Routledge.

Schiller, Anne. 2001. Talking Heads:Capturing Dayak Deathways onFilm. American Ethnologist28(1):32-55.

Tongkul, Felix. 2000. Traditional Systemsof Indigenous Peoples in Sabah, Ma-laysia: Wisdom AccumulatedThrough Generations.Penampang, Sabah: PACOS(Partners for CommunityOrganisation, Sabah).

Warren, James Francis. 1981. The SuluZone, 1768-1898: The Dynamics ofExternal Trade, Slavery, andEthnicity in the Transformation ofa Southeast Asian Maritime State.Singapore: Singapore UniversityPress.

Williams, Raymond. 1977. Marxism andLiterature. Oxford: Oxford Uni-versity Press.

Winzeler, Robert. 1997. Introduction. InIndigenous Peoples and the State:Politics, Land, and Ethnicity in theMalayan Peninsula and Borneo.Robert L. Winzeler, ed. NewHaven, CT: Yale UniversitySoutheast Asia Studies.

Wood, Robert E. 1997. Tourism and theState: Ethnic Options and Con-structions of Otherness. In Tour-ism, Ethnicity, and the State in

Asian and Pacific Societies, MichelPicard and Robert E. Wood, eds.Honolulu: University of Hawai’iPress.

WebsitesBeeckman, Daniel. 1718. A Voyage to andfrom the Island of Borneo. London, printedfor T. Warner and J. Batley. Accessedthrough Eighteenth Century Collec-tions Online.(http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/ECCO?c=1&stp=Author&ste=11&af=BN&ae=T144361&tiPG=1&dd=0&dc=flc&docNum=CW102199228&vrsn=1.0&srchtp=a&d4=0.33&n=10&SU=0LRH&locID=iuclassb). Accessed 7 April2005.

www.malaysiakini.com. Accessed 10December 2004.

www.mocat.gov.my/ministry. Accessed11 April 2005.

www.monsopiad.com. Accessed 10 De-cember 2004.

www.sabah.gov.my/mocet/ministry-objective.htm. Accessed 11 April 2005.


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Responses

Beth A. ConklinVanderbilt University,

USAEmbarrassing But Cool

As I write this, I’ve recently re-turned home from Oxford andthe Pitt-Rivers Museum’s gala

opening for its new modern wing. Thefeatured speaker, Michael Palin (ofMonty Python fame, now a television-explorer and major patron of the mu-seum), praised the “wonderful eclecticdisplays” and the “spirit of discovery”they inspire. As I listened to Palin, I wasstanding two cases away from themuseum’s most popular attraction, theexhibit of tsantsa, shrunken enemy headsmade by the Shuar and other Jivaroanpeoples of western Amazonia.

The shrunken heads are a magnet forvisitors to the Pitt-Rivers; an encounterwith them seems to occupy a charmedplace in many a British memory ofchildhood’s spirit of discovery. So it wasnot surprising that controversy flared lastspring when a (false) rumor spread thatthe Pitt-Rivers might take the heads offdisplay. Critics derided what they la-beled as arrogant political correctness in-terfering with an institution that is “a na-tional treasure” (see French 2007 andblog comments).

Sensitivities about human remains inmuseums and research collections areold hat in the U.S., where NAGPRA (theNative American Graves Protection andRepatriation Act of 1990) and otherchanges in curatorial policies have ledto widespread de-accessioning and dis-appearance of indigenous body elements

from public displays. The issue has sur-faced with less urgency and under dif-ferent circumstances in Britain and else-where in Europe. Flory Ann MansorGingging’s account of the MonsopiadCultural Village in Sabah, Malaysia addsa fascinating case to the panoply of cross-cultural differences. Pair this with SteveRubenstein’s (2004) insightful account oftaking Shuar friends to see tsantsa on dis-play at New York City’s American Mu-seum of Natural History and you havematerial for a marvelous teaching mo-ment.

These shifting cultural-historical re-lations to displays of indigenous headsrecall the tropes of disappearing nativebodies and assertions of native agencythrough headhunting that run throughthe film Bontoc Eulogy, Marlon Fuentes’(1996) provocative exploration of Fili-pino-American identity, historical“truth” and representation (see Homiak2000). Fuentes traces colonial powerdynamics through a story of his Igorotwarrior grandfather’s journey from atribal village to perform at the St. LouisExposition of 1904. The fictional jour-ney ends with the film maker standingin front of a glass case at the Smithsonianthat contains preserved Igorot brains.

The celebration of headhunter iden-tity in Sabah is a striking contrast to othertrends in indigenous cultural politics andpost-colonial criticism. Body-mutilatingand life-taking practices such as canni-balism, infanticide, and headhuntingpose thorny challenges to ethnographersand indigenous intellectuals: how to ac-knowledge native practices of which out-siders disapprove without contributingto more negative “othering?”


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The two common responses are toemphasize the flimsy factual basis forclaims about unsavory non-westernpractices and/or to sanitize accounts ofthem. Cannibalism is a perennial favor-ite target for ethnicity-cleansing. In-spired by William Aren’s (1979) sugges-tion that people-eating may never havebeen a socially accepted practice but justracist propaganda, the extreme versionof the impulse to erase the stigma of can-nibalism from non-western cultures cul-minated in the academic proposal toerase cannibalism itself from the recordof human behavior by claiming that noone ever really did it. (See Gardner 1999for a dissection of the cannibalism-denialposition.) As Arens (1998) notes, thisclaim was embraced more enthusiasti-cally in 1980s-90s literary and culturalstudies than in anthropology. In a reviewof recent cannibalism studies, ShirleyLindenbaum (2004:475) suggests thatscholarship has matured to a point wherewe might finally be ready shed the eth-nocentric baggage that has burdenedboth colonial mentalities and the post-colonial critics who assume that canni-balism must be savage and thereforeunreal.

Most ethnographers, myself included(Conklin 1995, 2001), who have writtenabout anthropophagy as a social prac-tice have tended toward the relativizingapproach that Frank Lestringant(1997:12) calls “culturalist,” which tends“to idealize the violent act of eating, toshift the noise of teeth and lips towardsthe domain of language.” Like the ex-planatory labels that surround the Pitt-Rivers’ shrunken heads, ethnographicrepresentations mute violence and

trauma by emphasizing their ritual con-text and religious and symbolic mean-ings.

Gingging’s account suggests thatsome native activists see other alterna-tives. By embracing images of violentagency as a mark of their autonomy fromthe dominant culture, theKadazanDusun of Sabah assert their in-dependence from state control and fromthe homogenizing bumiputera national-ist identity that includes Muslim Malays.As Gingging acknowledges, this worksonly from the safe distance that locatessuch practices in an ancestral past dis-tant from contemporary Sabah self-iden-tity. The idea that a pagan headhuntingpast may be common ground aroundwhich diverse non-Muslim groups canrally resonates with a point that AlcidaRamos (1998) and others have empha-sized in pan-indigenous movements:that native activists’ self-representationsare directed not only to non-indigenouspublics, but also to establish solidaritywith other indigenous people.

This is a fascinating variation on aglobal theme. As native people grapplewith the need to make “room” for them-selves in a crowded world (Turner1992:14; Clifford 2000), they try to carveout spaces for innovative, indigenousways of being modern by mobilizingdiscourses that are (at least partially) in-dependent of state control, yet consistentwith the need to enhance native accessto economic resources and political sup-port. To do so, they employ diverse dis-courses, ranging from the universalistclaims of human rights and environmen-talism, to assertions of localized ties toland, culture-specific spirituality, and


23

mystical knowledge beyond the ken ofscience as well as the state (Conklin2002).

These are positive images. But Sabahuse of the headhunting warrior as theirlogo (www.monsopiad.com) and originnarrative recalls other indigenous experi-ments with more aggressive stereotypes.In Brazil, belligerent warrior stancesworked well at times for Xavante andKayapo activists, especially under themilitary dictatorship when the indig-enous causes were one of the only “safe”issues around which citizens could ar-ticulate criticism of the government(Ramos 1998). In more democratic con-texts when support from image-sensitiveNGOs became a major resource, aggres-sive imagery has tended to backfire, slip-ping too easily into old stereotypes ofsavagery, backwardness, or irrelevantbuffoonery (Conklin and Graham 1995).

Gingging acknowledges that thereare risks in the Monsopiad gambit, butone wishes for more ethnographic in-sight into what these risks might be.How do people negotiate the pressuresto perform “tradition” in some contextsand “modernity” in others? Does thelone Sabah individual quoted in this ar-ticle represent the views of all when shecharacterizes ancestral headhunting as“embarrassing but cool?” And what ex-actly does “cool” mean here?

Then there are the skulls themselves,forty-two enemy heads strung up fortourists to photograph. Are the peoplewhose kin inhabited those skulls con-cerned with their present treatment ornot? Gingging’s account suggests thetantalizing possibility that some yearsfrom now when the centers of empire

(the Smithsonian, museums of naturalhistory, perhaps even the venerable Pitt-Rivers) may have purged themselves ofindigenous remains, indigenous muse-ums like those of the Shuar and Sabahwill find that in the competition for spacein ethnic cultural politics, capitalizing onthe display of such remains is still a time-honored way to get ahead.

Works CitedArens, William. 1979. The Man-Eating

Myth. New York: Oxford Univer-sity Press.

_____. 1998. Rethinking Anthropophagy.In Cannibalism and the ColonialWorld. Edited by Francis Barker,Peter Hulme, and MargaretIversen. New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Clifford, James. 2000. Taking Identity Poli-tics Seriously: the Contradictory,Stony Ground. In Without Guar-antees: Essays in Honour of StuartHall. Edited by Paul Gilroy,Lawrence Grossberg, and An-gela McRobbie. London: VersoPress.

Conklin, Beth A. 1995. “Thus Are OurBodies, Thus Was Our Custom:”Mortuary Cannibalism in anAmazonian Society. AmericanEthnologist 22(1):76-102.

_____. 2001. Consuming Grief: Compas-sionate Cannibalism in an Amazo-nian Society. Austin, TX: Univer-sity of Texas Press.

_____. 2002. Shamans Versus Pirates inthe Amazonian Treasure-Chest.American Anthropologist 104:1050-1061.


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_____ and Laura R. Graham. 1995. TheShifting Middle Ground: Ama-zonian Indians and Eco-Politics.American Anthropologist97(4):695-710.

French, Andrew. 2007. Should ShrunkenHeads Stay in Museum? OxfordTimes Online, 14 February 2007.http://www.theoxfordtimes.netdisplay.var.1191233.0.should_shrunken_heads_stay_in_museum.php

Fuentes, Marlon. 1996. Bontoc Eulogy[video]. Produced by Indepen-dent Television Service (ITVS).

Gardner, Don. 1999. Anthropophagy,Myth, and the Subtle Ways ofEthnocentrism. In The Anthropol-ogy of Cannibalism. Edited byLawrence R. Goldman.Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.

Homiak, John P. 2000. The Body in theArchives: A Review of BontocEulogy. American Anthropologist102:887-891.

Lestringant, Frank. 1997. Cannibals: TheDiscovery and Representation of theCannibal From Columbus to JulesVerne. Tranlated by RosemaryMorris. Berkeley, CA: Universityof California Press.

Lindenbaum, Shirley. 2004. ThinkingAbout Cannibalism. Annual Re-view of Anthropology 33:475-498.

Ramos, Alcida Rita. 1998. Indigenism:Ethnic Politics in Brazil. Madison,WI: University of WisconsinPress.

Rubenstein, Steven. 2004. Shuar Mi-grants and Shrunken Heads Faceto Face in a New York Museum.Anthropology Today 20(3):15-19.

Turner, Terence. 1992. Defiant Images:The Kayapo Appropriation ofVideo. Anthropology Today 8(6):5-16.


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Cristina BacchilegaUniversity of Hawai'i-Manoa

USA

I know nothing about Borneo, except forwhat this essay by Flory Ann MansorGingging has taught me. "'I Lost My

Head in Borneo': Tourism and the Re-fashioning of the Headhunting Narrativein Sabah, Malaysia" argues that, intoday's tourism industry in Malaysia,KadazanDusuns, the most prominentindigenous group in the state of Sabahin Borneo, put their headhunting past ondisplay parodically to overturn their co-lonial relegation to a subhuman categoryand also to assert their distinctiveness—and possibly their right to indepen-dence—from a Malaysian national iden-tity. The essay foregrounds theKadazanDusuns' agency in their "refash-ioning" of headhunting for the benefitnot so much of tourists, but of the indig-enous people themselves: theMonsopiad Cultural Village is a "touristdestination" but one where the tourist'svisit can "contribute directly to the con-servation of one of Malaysia's rich cul-tural heritages and traditions"(www.monsopiad.com/Welcome.html).I was so ignorant that even theheadhunting association with Borneohad not readily been accessible to me.What does "learning" from this essaythen mean? What kind of a positionshould or can I take in responding pro-fessionally—as a folklorist and culturalcritic—to the essay? How to respond toit without putting into play a differentkind of ignorance?

One section of Gingging's essaybriefly discusses "how early literature

about the region, written primarily byEuropean travelers, has played a role inthe 'invention' of Borneo; an inventionthat has lived on in tourist literature, and. . . an invention to which the invocationof headhunting in the tourism industryin Sabah is responding." Here Ginggingaddresses a type of colonial and coloniz-ing cultural production that I am famil-iar with from my research about Hawai'i,where I live as a settler-teacher andscholar. In writing about the early 20th-century beginnings of Hawai'i's touris-tic representation as "tropical paradise,"I identify "legendary Hawai'i" as animaginary space "constructed for non-Hawaiians (and especially Americans) toexperience, via Hawaiian legends, aHawai'i that is exotic and primitive whilebeautiful and welcoming" (5). That thispromotion of "legendary Hawai'i" wasbuilt on early Euro-American travel-ogues to the islands, and took placeshortly after the forced annexation ofHawai'i to the United States in 1898, so-lidifies its legacy in the western socialimaginary. Furthermore, it does so spe-cifically at the expense of Native Hawai-ians, who have, however, then and now,produced counter-narratives of Hawai'ias an indigenous, "storied place."

I gather that the "invention" of Borneoby European travelers produced a kindof primitivism that is different from the"soft primitivism" associated with Ha-waiians (Desmond and Smith), but inboth cases the narratives of "wild men"and "hospitable women" respectively,have been replicated by the tourist in-dustry to produce in Westerners the de-sire to visit faraway islands. Neverthe-less, even about Hawaiians who, as Na-


26

tive scholar and activist Haunani-KayTrask has noted, are consistently imag-ined as sexually inviting, feminized, andsmiling "natives," literary tourists, suchas Mark Twan, would pose the questionof cannibalism. As with headhunting inBorneo or South-East Asia more broadly,"cannibalism" in Oceania brings excite-ment—the frisson of fear—to the tourist'sencounter with the exotic, as long as thathostility is safely confined to an histori-cal or imagined past.

In his book American Pacificism:Oceania in the U.S. Imagination, PaulLyons convincingly draws a line of con-tinuity between travel writing and tour-ism in ways that foreground their com-plicity as histouricism—where indig-enous history is misrecognized for thesake of an exoticism that serves Euro-American economic and ideological in-terests. Particularly resonant in relationto Gingging's argument is Lyons's dis-cussion of cannibalism in literary tour-ism (as still practiced by, for instance,Paul Theroux) and of "cannibal tours,"whereby tourists are taken "to placeswhere the Islanders are supposed to haveuntil yesterday, by native admission (orpractical joking), practiced a fantasmal'cannibalism' (generally in the next vil-lage over)" (129-130). Lyons alsoinsightfully analyzes literary"antitourism"—"an alternative mode ofseeing, always concerned with the ma-terialist conditions obscured by Pacificistwriting" (22)—in the works of AlbertWendt, Sia Figiel, Teresia Teaiwa, andmany other Oceanian writers who docu-ment contemporary indigenous resis-tance to Euro-American takeover, a re-sistance that politically and culturally has

a long history in the region and inHawai'i (Silva).

But it is Lyons's careful reading of thiscolonial archive that I am thinking aboutthe most in forming my response toGingging's essay, partly because likeLyons, I am a settler whose position isnecessarily different from Gingging's,who is writing as a member—be it adiasporic one—of the KadasanDusunpeople. Lyons shows the scope ofhistouricism, as it includes Charles War-ren Stoddard, Jack London, Fred O'Brien,Margaret Mead, and Annie Dillard. Theresult is chilling: "Most of the canonicalU.S. writers about Oceania were literallytourist boosters, and, especially in thetwentieth century, were constituted asnative informants to metropolitan read-ers in part by writing directly for the tour-ist industry" (Lyons 20). The authority ofthese widely circulated narratives sus-tains a "willed and stunning ignorance/ignoring of Oceanian priorities" (2) spe-cifically in American cultural produc-tions of Oceania, an active "ignoring ofOceanian epistemologies, political insti-tutions and forms of cultural and intel-lectual tradition and performance" (8-9).It is this authority, as Charles Briggs hasshown, that some anthropologists haveunwittingly defended by denouncingindigenous "invention" of traditions.

National, touristic, and even aca-demic interests have a deep investmentin this kind of ignoring because, as weknow, it is the grounds on which the ex-pert subject builds her/his authority. Mylack of knowledge about Borneo's his-tory and diverse ethnic groups does notmean that I am not to some extent impli-cated in the Western "invention of


27

Borneo"; nor does it excuse me from atleast attempting to refrain from repro-ducing this kind of ignorance in myscholarly but not "expert" response. It isone thing as an outsider and settler forme to write about "legendary Hawai'i"in an effort to re-orient myself, and oth-ers, towards recognizing our collectiveignoring of the epistemologies and his-tories that I would not pretend to "know,"but that I am actively trying to learnabout and from. And it is another for meto respond to Gingging's assertion of anindigenous response that subverts the"invention" of Borneo's "wild men."

I did find Gingging's discussion ofindigenous agency at work in theMonsopiad Cultural Village in Sabah tobe informative and significant. I alsofound her discussion of the tension be-tween Malaysian national identity andthe KadazanDusun indigenous self-identification very interesting, especiallyas it is played out in relation to moder-nity. The Monsopiad Cultural Village isowned and run by Monsopiad's descen-dants and has no support from the na-tional government. I learned a lot fromthe essay, and I know I will draw on it toquestion touristic representations ofBorneo's headhunting narratives whenI encounter them. That, in itself, is ameaningful step away from ignorance,not only of Borneo but of an indigenousperspective on Borneo.

I do have a lot more questions. Someof them stem from my experience with adifferent kind of colonial history, an ex-perience in a different region and place.The kind of tourism I am more familiarwith in Hawai'i is large-scaletransnational corporate tourism, of the

kind that Haunani-Kay Trask condemnsfor prostituting Hawaiian culture; GayeChan and Andrea Feeser blame for turn-ing Waikiki, a previously self-sustainingcommunity, into a haven of capitalistdevelopment and exploitation; and JohnZuern de-romanticizes by focusing onworkers' lives in the hotel industry. Atthe same time, I would not be alone inrejecting the proposition that there is noagency for Hawaiians putting their heri-tage on display, for instance, throughhula: well-respected halau perform in arange of settings, and maintain controlover what to share or not with differentaudiences; irony and parody have a long-term role in the history of hula perfor-mance (Diamond; Imada). Thinkingabout Monsopiad Cultural Village fromHawai'i, where the Polynesian CulturalCenter is a foremost tourist attraction, Iwant to ask for more information aboutthe Village in relation to what Ginggingidentifies as the more developed indus-try of (eco)tourism in Malaysia. How arethe two economies connected? Howmany hotels sponsor the tour to theMonsopiad Cultural Village? What per-centage and kind of tourist will go to theVillage? Who has designed their websiteand packages?

The Monsopiad Cultural Village in-corporates headhunting legend andmaterial displays into what the websiterefers to as a "living museum," the pur-pose of which is to educate visitors and"to document, revive, and keep alive theculture and traditions" of the Kadazanpeople. In Global Villages: The Globaliza-tion of Ethnic Display, a documentaryvideo produced by Tamar Gordon andBruce Caron, several "ethnic theme


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parks" in China and Japan are viewed ascontributing to a "global genre . . . runby governments and corporations politi-cally intent on shaping public narrativesof ethnic minorities and foreign nation-als in the context of the nation-state." Oneof these parks is explicitly modeled onthe Polynesian Cultural Center inHawai'i. One aim of the documentary isto show how the performances and ac-tivities of ethnic minorities, such as theWa, are mediated in Chinese ethnic parksby market considerations and tourists'expectations of "spectacle." Gordon statesthat these parks are "controlled fantasyenvironments" where "tourists and per-formers participate in the production ofheritage" and of the "unity of the nation-state." When Gordon and Caron docu-ment the representation in the YunanPark of the Mosuo, a matrilineal group,as spectators we see how verbal state-ments by the male spokesperson and thesilent behavior of the women do not nec-essarily match: another form of media-tion that seeks to mask gender tensionswithin the group itself. The other side tothis observation is that Gordon, who hasno connection with the ethnic groupsdisplaying their heritage at the Yunan orthe "Windows of the World" parks, con-ducts much of her research by relying ontranslators when interviewing perform-ers. Whether that gets her to some "au-thenticity" or even to a response that isnot staged is questionable—especiallygiven the transparency of translation inthe documentary—but a range of views,for instance among Wa performers indifferent parks, is represented.

I'd like to know more about tourists'engagement in the Monsopiad CulturalVillage experience. I'd like to know if

everyone in the Village—including thewomen—identifies with "headhunting"as a form of "cultural intimacy." I'd liketo know how the decision was made tobuild this Village around the "House ofSkulls," which the website tells us was"already a prominent tourist attractionsince 1979." But part of the point of theKadazanDusun people "refashioning theheadhunting narrative" is that it is up tothem to establish what the parametersfor "front" and "back" of their display are,for asking questions, rather than answer-ing them. In addition to working withdifferent media, Gordon's andGingging's projects as well as their posi-tions as researchers are different.Gingging's focus is on the re-visionistperspective and parodic practice of herown people, especially what it means tothem. If I want to learn from her andthem, I must also be aware of how myquestions may not be of interest to, oreven in the interest of, Gingging and herpeople. I've posed questions, but have Iearned the right to have them answered?In writing this response, I've consideredmore this kind of problem and others likeit. When I ask to know more about theKadazanDusun people and theMonsopiad Cultural Village, howeverworthy my intentions may be, which "ig-norance" is at work? How can this "willto know" not carry out a colonizingscholarly agenda if my "homework" iselsewhere? And can ignorance of and theignoring of non-Western priorities oper-ate in complete separation from one an-other? This is one of the mind-turningreflections with which I was left as partof the process of engaging withGingging's indigenous troping of the"headhunting narrative."


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NotesThough their views do not necessarilymatch mine, I'd like to thank DawnMorais, who is working on life writingand Malaysian national identity, andNadia Inserra, who is writing about thecultural translation of Southern Italianfolk dance in the US, for conversationsthat helped me shape this response.

Works CitedBacchilega, Cristina. 2007. Legendary

Hawai'i and the Politics of Place:Tradition, Translation, and Tourism.Philadelphia: University ofPennsylvania Press.

Briggs, Charles L. 1996. The Politics ofDiscursive Authority in Researchon the 'Invention of Tradition.'Cultural Anthropology 11(4): 435–469.

Chan, Gaye and Andrea Feeser. 2006.Waikiki: A History of Forgettingand Remembering. Honolulu:University of Hawai'i Press.

Desmond, Jane C. 1999. Staging Tourism:Bodies on Display from Waikiki toSea World Chicago: University ofChicago Press.

Diamond, Heather. 2008 (forthcoming).American Aloha: Cultural Tourismand the Negotiation of Tradition.Honolulu: University of Hawai'iPress.

Gordon, Tamar. 2005. Global Villages.Documentary video. TouristGaze Productions.

Imada, Andria L. 2004. Hawaiians onTour: Hula Circuits through theAmerican Empire. AmericanQuarterly 56(1): 111–149.

Lyons, Paul. 2005. American Pacificism.New York: Routledge.

Silva, Noenoe. 2004. Aloha Betrayed: Na-tive Hawaiian Resistance to Ameri-can Colonialism. Durham, N.C.:Duke University Press.

Smith, Bernard. 1985. European Vision andthe South Pacific: A Study in theHistory of Ideas. New Haven,Conn.: Yale University Press.

Trask, Haunani-Kay. 1993. 'Lovely HulaHands': Corporate Tourism andthe Prostitution of HawaiianCulture. In From a Native Daugh-ter: Colonialism and Sovereignty inHawai'i. Revised ed. Honolulu:University of Hawai'i Press, 136-147.

www.monsopiad.com. Accessed 6 De-cember 2007.

Zuern, John. 2005. Ask Me for theMoon.http://www.uiowa.edu/~iareview/mainpages/new/aug05/images/zorn.gif

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