Leadership, justice and politics at the grassroots

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^^C^TRIBUTIONS TO SOUTHEASt ASIAN ETHNOGRAPHY Number Twelve, July 2004

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LEADERSHIP, JUSTICE AND POLITICS AT THE GRASSROOTS Edited by Anthony R. Walker

The Completion of a Cycle: Editorial Comments

1

Anarchy Without Chaos: Judicial Process in an Atomistic Society — The Lisu of North Thailand

15

ALAIN Y. DESSAINT

Women and Men in Local Leadership among ±e Lahu Na Shehleh in North Thailand

35

J ACQUETTA HILL

Traditional Village-level Political Organization and its Transformations among the Lancang Lahu

^5

DU SHANSHAN

Leadership in a Resettlement Village of the Orang Asli in Kedah, Malaysia

95

SHUICHI NAGATA

Keeping the Peace in an Island World; Sama Dilaut Ways of Managing Conflict CLIFFORD SATHER

127

Contents

Local Leadership among Brunei’s Dusun PUDARNO BINCHIN

Leadership among the Penan of Belaga District in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo JAYL LANGUB

Balatindak: Banggai War-Dance in a Modem Context at Pulau Timpaus, Central Sulawesi HARALD BEYER BROCH

Traditional Village Leadership Patterns among the Hoga Sara of Flores in Eastern: Indonesia ANDREA K, MOLNAR

Indices for Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography Numbers 1-12

Author and Editor Index

277

Ethnic Group Index Geographic Index

Map Index Photographic Index

279 281 283 286

Line Drawing Index Subject Index

295 297

Contents of Previous Numbers

301

THE COMPLETION OF A CYCLE: EDITORIAL COMMENTS ANTHONY R. WALKER

I This number of Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography is special. It represents the end of our first twelve-number cycle. It would have been pleasant had I been able to announce this issue as being also our twelfth anniversary number. Unfortunately, for several years, we have been quite unable to produce this journal on an annual basis; indeed, it is seven years since the last number of Contributions was published in 1997, and it is not twelve but closer to twenty-four years since we launched the journal in Singapore, in 1982. Our commitment to a thematic approach, such that each number of Contributions bears closer resemblance to a multi-authored book than to a regular journal issue (typically a collection of papers on a wide range of different subjects), together with the lack, for several years now, of any regular source of financial support, has precluded our achieving for Contributions the status of a regular journal. Nonetheless, we derive much satisfaction from the fact that Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography has survived for over twenty years and are content that it should remain, as it is, a truly “irregular” publication. Launching an academic journal, especially without firm institutional support, is doubtless always a gamble, and it is a nice touch that a gamblers’ organization - The Singapore Turf Club - made possible the launch of Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography. The club’s generous donation got us going, with an issue on “Ethnic Minority Peoples in the Southeast Asian region, while two subsequent grants from the same source supported issues on “Ethnicity and Local Politics in Malaysia” {Contributions No. 3) and “Studies in Resource Utilization” (No. 4). A very different source of funding. The Institute for the Study of Religion and Society, in Singapore, allowed us to put out a special issue on “Chinese Folk Religion in Singapore and Malaysia” (No. 2). When, in 1986,1 moved from the National University of Singapore to The Ohio

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Slate University, I received a letter of commitment to support the journal from the then Head of OSU’s Department of Anthropology; this enabled us to produce two issues on “Religion and World Views” (Nos. 5 & 7), one on “Urban Anthropology” in Southeast Asia (No, 6), one on “Sacred Elites (No. 8), and one on “Chinese Religious Expression in Southeast Asia (No. 9). Unfortunately, support for Contributions was summarily withdrawn when a new chair was appointed to OSU’s Anthropology Department, so that we have had to depend entirely on the proceeds from sales to meet the costs of the past three numbers. We managed to keep the journal afloat only by moving the printing operation from Singapore to India, where costs are considerably lower (but with much longer postal delays as the tradeoff). The financial gamble aside, the launching and sustaining of Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography has not been free of intellectual challenge. The past couple of decades — the journal’s entire lifetime — can scarcely be dubbed halcyon days, either for ethnography or for its publication. In declaring itself committed to the publication solely of works deemed to contribute to the ethnographic knowledge of the Southeast Asian region, Contributions has consistently butted conventional wisdom. First, we have had to contend with a widespread perception among those involved in the disciplines of social and cultural anthropology (the prime source of our potential contributors) that “mere ethnography” is somehow less significant to the discipline than is the work that makes use of ethnographic materials solely to support a particular author’s theoretical stance. But, from the beginning, we have stated our.positive rejection of the latter genre of writing, which may best be submitted to general anthropological journals. We have had to contend also with those in the anthropological community who maintain, as Sir Edmund Leach once wrote, that “other people’s ethnography bores” them. (Personally, I think Sir Edmund’s words were written in a not-uncharacteristic tongue-in-cheek style. Several years before his death, Leach wrote me in Singapore that I might offer him a counter-prestation” [his words] for xeroxing services rendered by him in a Cambridge library, by sending some “local ethnographic reading materials . I immediately wrote back offering to dispatch those copies of Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography then available, for which the erudite professorial knight expressed himself “delighted”!).

Editorial Comments

3

Only a little more recently, we have had to face the so-called post­ modernist” charge that the kind of ethnographic reportage we champion is irredeemably marred by authors’ unwritten personal biases, sociological, emotional and political. But, from our perspective the personal likes and dislikes, emotional responses, political biases, etc of North American or European students of Southeast Asia constitute materials whose publication we do not wish to entertain. ■With our first cycle of issues completed and with more than two decades passed by, we are quietly content with our achievements thus far for Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography. We gave oursdves a specific charter. We would contribute finely-textured works based on auSiors’ first-hand field materials, to the published literature on Southeast Asian ethnography; we would happily leave theoretical issues to be debated in the pages of other journals. We would actively promote the publication of material that, in our view, is too often rejectedby disciplinary or even regionally-focused journals for being over detailed

(which often translates as “too expensive to publish , and/or covering too small a population” and,consequently,being “of insufficient gener interest” to merit publication). By contrast, we would positively seek out materials such as long vernacular texts and accounts of the mmut a of ritual (or for that matter secular) performances. We would also encourage the publication of visual documentation, whenever this complemented an author's written text - promising to include as many relevant maps, figures, diagrams and photographic plates as .cou possibly be accommodated (provided, of course, such materials had been. accorded the same meticulous scholarly attention as the written text). The results of our twenty-two years of work are eighty-four ethnographic papers and twelve editorial introductions, the work ot seventy-one different authors and five editors, totalling over2d00 printed pages, and supported by 462 photographic plates, 82 locational maps and 118 figures (many of them finely-wrought Ime drawings of ritual

objects, farming tools, etc.) . . •We have specifically defined Southeast Asia on the basis of socio­ cultural, historical and pre-historical criteria, rather than ori modern political boundaries. Modem political Southeast Asia (Burma, Thailand Laos,Cambodia,Vietnam,Malaysia,Singapore,Brunei,Indonesia Eas Timor and the Philippines) to be sure, still constitutes our core t^ge area (though we exclude the great majority of the peoples of the Indonesian province of West Papua, or Irian Jaya, who belong to the

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Melanesian world of the South Pacific rather than to that of Southeast Asia). Within this core Southeast Asian area, we include within our purview both indigenous and immigrant (overwhelmingly Chinese and Indian) peoples. We are concerned also with communities of the Southeast Asian diaspora in Europe and the Americas. Finally, we include peoples of countries around the peripheries of Southeast Asia, whose prehistoric, historic, linguistic and socio-cultural characteristics link them to presentday indigenous Southeast Asian peoples. These “peoples of the peripheries” include (from west to east) the Austronesian-speaking peoples of Madagascar, off the eastern coast of Africa, the indigenous peoples of the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal, the Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic-speaking peoples of eastern India and of northern and eastern Bangladesh, many of the Tibeto-Burman-. Austroasiatic- and Miao-Yao -speaking peoples of southwest China, and the Austronesian-speaking aboriginal peoples of the island of Taiwan. Seventy-six, or 90%, of the eighty-four papers we have published treat with aspects of the socio-cultural lives of peoples (indigenous and immigrant) within, or originally from, this core region and seven (8%), with related peoples from its peripheries.’ Sixty-six papers (78%) in Contributions 1 to 12 concern indigenous peoples (loosely defined to include hill peoples with less than a couple of centuries of residence outside of China) and nineteen (22%) deal with immigrant peoples (again, loosely interpreted to include some Chinese and Indian populations who have been living for longer in Southeast Asia than have many of the lu Mien/Yao, Lahu, Lisu and Akha communities that we have included among the indigenous peoples). Two papers (2.5%) deal with indigenous Southeast Asian peoples now resident in North America (the USA and Canada respectively), seventeen (20%) treat with Chinese peoples in Southeast Asia and two (2.5%) with Indians. It is not possible, in every instance, to categorize a paper as being essentially njjral- or urban-based, but twenty-two of the eighty-four articles (26%) are indisputably contributions to the urban anthropology of Southeast Asia.

' The editors of Contributions offered Issue Number 8 to guest editors Tong Chee Kiong and Anne L. Schiller as a venue for the publication of papers presented under their auspices at the 1987 Association for Asian Studies meeting at Boston (MA). All the contributors but one addressed Southeast Asian topics; the exception was a paper on the Ryuyku islands, which is the only specifically non-Southeast Asian paper Contributions has ever published.

Editorial Comments

5

In soliciting papers.for Contributions we have endeavoured (not always successfully) to give similar coverage to the two major subregions: Mainland Southeast Asia and Island Southeast Asia, as well as to ethnic majority peoples and ethnic minority peoples. As with the region itself, we define the sub-regions, Mainland and Island Southeast Asia, in socio-cultural terms; there is no exact correspondence here with the geo-political divide. Thus the Muslim Malay peoples of southern Thailand, peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, due to overwhelmingly important linguistic, socio-cultural and religious links with the peoples of Island Southeast Asia, are considered as insular Southeast Asian peoples rather than as mainlanders. But the Austroasiaticspeaking Orang Asli groups of peninsular Malaysia have much stronger socio-cultural links with the mainland than they do with the island world and, as such, are indeed reckoned as Mainland Southeast Asian people. Of our forty-nine papers dealing with indigenous Southeast Asians in these twelve issues of Contributions, twenty-nine (59%) treat with Island Southeast Asian peoples and twenty-four (41%) with Mainland Southeast Asians. As for the majority-minority divide, in Mainland Southeast Asia this corresponds closely (but not absolutely) to the division between lowland­ dwelling, politically-centralized, predominantly Buddhist, irrigated rice farming peoples on the one hand and upland-dwelling, politically acephalous, predominantly non-Buddhist, swidden farming peoples on the other. Unfortunately (doubtless because of the chief editor’s professional specialty) we have had far more contributions (twenty-one of twenty-three) on the latter than on the former. It is evident that if this journal is to continue into a second cycle, we need more actively to solicit papers on Burman, Thai, Lao, Khmer and Vietnamese socio­ cultural institutions. In Island Southeast Asia the divide between majority and minority cultures is also linked to ecological considerations, but not in so simple a fashion. Here the principal division is between inner and outer island peoples and, among the former, between, on the one hand, coastal and, especially, estuarine-dwelling peoples, who are overwhelmingly Muslim by religion (except in the Philippines where Christian lowlanders predominate) and who have a long history of sea-borne intra-regional and extra-regional trading relations; and, on the other hand, interior­ dwelling, non-Muslim and non-Christian peoples, whose trading with

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the outside world was mostly achieved through the mediation of coastal­ dwelling peoples, whose leaders the interior peoples, sometimes, accepted as their nominal overlords. Of our twenty-nine papers on Island Southeast Asian peoples, nine (30%) treat with coastal Muslim peoples of the inner islands and the Malay peninsula, while twenty (70%) concern inland or outer-island peoples (some of the latter also Muslims). Again, although not as flagrantly as in our Mainland coverage, minority traditions are over-represented. Again, a second cycle of publications must canvass for more papers on the coastal peoples of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi, Mindanao, Cebu and Luzon, so as to ensure a satisfactory coverage of the island world as a whole. Besides seeking as wide an ethnographic coverage as possible of the social and cultural traditions of the Southeast Asian region, another basic principle of Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography is that, so far as possible, each number of the journal (with a single editor in charge) should have a more-or-less precise socio-cultural theme. When these two principles come together, we have our ideal issue: a selection of papers from all over the region, but devoted to one clearly-defined theme and, as such, a real aid to those who teach and research about Southeast Asia as an intermingling tapestry of related cultural traditions, rather than as eleven sovereign nation states, each one of which is to be treated as distinct from all the others. • One of the better examples of what we are striving to achieve is the issue Studies in Urban Anthropology edited by John Clammer, with contributions on urban life in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and among Southeast Asian migrants in Toronto, Canada. Another is the issue that I edited, entitled Studies in Resource Utilization, which has papers on upland North Thailand, aboriginal Malaysia, upland Mindoro (Philippines), coastal Sabah (North Borneo), coastal Sarawak (also on Borneo island) and outer-island Indonesia. Then there is the issue guestedited by Tong Chee Kiong and Anne Schiller, Between Worlds: Studies of Sacred Elites, with contributions on the Dayak people of Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), on the Balinese, the Kedah Malays, Chinese Singaporeans, and on Indian Singaporeans (and the odd-paper out — see above, n 1, for the reason — on the Ryuku Islanders). The second of the two issues devoted to religions and world views that I edited is another good example. It includes papers on the Lisu and on the Lahu of north Thailand, on a Miao group in southwest China, the Jorai of central Vietnam, the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Garo of Bangladesh and the Iban

Editorial Comments

7

of Sarawak. My edited issue Rice in Southeast Asian Myth and Ritual, with its contributions on mainland Southeast Asia in general, on North Thailand, southwest China, Sarawak and eastern Indonesia is another good example, as is Tan Chee Beng’s edited volume. Sociocultural Change, Development and Indigenous Peoples, this time with papers on Orang Asli in peninsular Malaysia; on the people of Nias, off the western coast of Sumatra; on the Rungus Dusun of Sabah; on the Iban of Sarawak; on the people of Yamdena island in the far east of the Indonesian archipelago; and on three Taiwanese aboriginal groups. Finally, there is this very number of Contributions: Leadership, Justice and Politics at the Grassroots, for which I am also responsible. I shall comment on its specific contents below; let me mention here only that, once again, the papers range up and down the Southeast Asian region and culturally related areas, from Southwest China, through Thailand to peninsular Malaysia, on to Borneo, then to an island off Sulewesi and, finally, to eastern Indonesia. I could scarcely hope for a better coverage, though I was compelled to wait almost seven years before being able, confidently, to close the issue and ready it for publication. Three volumes that I edited: Studies of Ethnic Minority Peoples, Studies of Religions and World Views and Further Studies of Religions and World Views are less than fully tight with regard to their themes, especially the first title. But, of course, the tighter the binding theme, the greater the difficulty in assembling a set of authors to contribute to it, which translates, once again, into greater delay between issues (and more and more correspondence from dealers who demand to know what has happened to the next number!) Two issues of Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography have gone against the general trend towards having each number contain materials representative of a large part of the Southeast Asia region. These are Studies in Chinese Folk Religion in Singapore and Malaysia and Ethnicity and Local Politics in Malaysia, In part these numbers represent the special professional interests of their respective editors, John Clammer and Tan Chee Beng; there were also some compelling reasons for having Contributions publish them in this form (for example, a grant for the issue on Chinese Folk Rel igion from the earlier-mentioned Singaporean Institute for the Study of Religion and Society; and the ready availability of the Malaysian papers at just the time when we had funds available for the publication of a new number of Contributions). But single country issues are not the preferred format for our journal,

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despite their tendency to achieve better sales than issues ™ the entire Southeast Asian region. CThere seems little , ]on~, or to his or her peh^ ro"pa_assistant, to summon the spirits to the sponsoring household’s bo pa. Here the officiating specialist offers the spirits three pairs of small tea cups containing cooked rice, three pairs with cooked pork and one

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pair filled with tea. These offerings are set around a bed of puffed rice laid on the floor of the bo pa. Finally, seven pairs of beeswax candles, intertwined to form one large taper, are set upon the bed of puffed rice (Pl. 6). Before the officiant formally presents these offerings, someone from the sponsoring household (usually the senior woman) pours a stream of water from a kettle onto his hands. As a male member of the sponsoring household plays a naw_(the gourd-and-bamboo pipes, Pl. 7), the officiant lights the candles, prays, and then moves the offerings inside the ho pa. Next, the keh^ lon~ — or assistant — leans through the open door of the bo pa, prays again, and then brings the offerings outside once more, where the candles are snuffed out and the contents of the tea cups dumped onto a hpuihk'aW' [hpui~hk'awJ] or woven-bamboo table, onto which the women of the house have al­ ready heaped a serving of rice. The officiating specialist may now eat, inviting others to join in. All the guests are invited to hk'a bvuh. ca'' [hk’a bu. ca^], “eat until satisfied”. The next phase of the sha~ gu ve ceremony, the calling for „i . r c • . . good fortune, bePlate 6. Senior priestess arranging beeswax candles at . , . , her spirit comer gins around eight in the evening. A senior member of the sponsoring family carries to the keh^ }on~’s home a small wovenbamboo basket filled with puffed rice and the family’s treasure (silver bracelets and necklaces) and seven pairs of entwined beeswax can­ dles. A ritual now ensues at the keh. Ion "’s altar. It starts in the same manner as the earlier rite at the sponsoring household’s bo pa. The kehv Ion-chants a prayer over lighted candles set inside the closet

Local Leadership among Lahu Na Shehleh

49

altar, during which the chief spirit, G’uiv sha, is called into the can­ dle flame. Following the prayer, the candles are taken from the bo pa and, still burn­ ing, set onto the rim of the small basket with puf­ fed rice and silver ornaments. The kehv lon~ now chants a prayer 1. over the basket (Pl. 9), which is then handed over to the waiting ' 's' representative of the sponsoring household who, carefully but hur­ riedly, steps out of the kehy^lon "’s Plate 7. Playing gourd pipe house onto the veranda and down the notched ladder (cf. Pl. 10), proceeding to the dance circle, where the basket with its lighted candles is set on a woven mat that has been placed on the flat-topped teh pfuh in the centre of the dance circle. The spirit G’ui. sha is thought to travel in the flame of the candle from the keh^ lon~'s altar to the teh pfuh in the dance circle. Once the basket has been set on the teh pfuh, the carrier, an essential gourd-pipe player and other attendees squat on their haunches, doff their headgear and, holding their head cloths in clasped hands to their foreheads, bow their heads while shaking their head gear in the direction of the teh pfuh, where the basket and burning candle now rest. Next, the party (usually together with young women from the sponsoring household) dance around the teh pfuh. The women form an inner circle, dancing with intricate small steps close to the ground. The men, following the gourd-pipe player, form a line, and hand-in-hand dance around the perimeter of the circle of light cast by the candle on the teh pfuh. In marked contrast to the women, they dance with robust footsteps that pound against the hard ground of the dance circle. The dancers move

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Plaie 8. Bringing G'ui, sha flame to bo pa at New Year

only counter-clockwise until, several hours later, the male dancers formally end the performance by making several clockwise circuits of the central mound. The dance ends with the removal of the basket and burning candle from the teh pfuh, a small entourage accompanying it back to the keh^ }on~'s house. Here the keh^ /on’retums the lighted candle to the bo pa (Pl. 8) before removing it once more and then snuffing out the flame on the household hearth. The entwined candles must have remained burn­ ing from the time they left the keh^ lon~' 3 bo pa until they are returned there at the end of the dance. G'ui. sha comes into the flame at the keh.. Ion ~’s altar, rides it to the dancing place, and returns in it to the keh>. Ion ““s bo pa, from where, finally, the spirit returns to the sky. The sha'gu ve rituals demonstrate, inter alia, the significance of a Lahu Na Shehleh village’s sacred geography, as well as the pivotal sig­ nificance of the office of keh^ Ion “. The flame produced by the entwined lighted candles constitutes the vehicle for tapping the flow of potent energy from its cosmic source, conveying it to the dance circle and be­

Local Leadership among Lahu Na Shehleh

stowing its beneficence on the household that sponsors a sha~ gu ve performance. The source of potency is lapped twice: first at the sponsoring house­ hold’s own altar and then again at that of the keh-^ lon~, from where potency is taken to the dance place, there to ra­ diate outward to all who participate in the dance. Both partici­ pants and sponsors are recipients of G’uiv sha’s beneficence, and it is noteworthy that the female dancers are those closest to the sa­ cred flame, as well as those who most fre­ quently renew the can­ dles that keep it alight. This is powerful dem­ onstration of female in­ volvement with and propinquity to cosmic force.

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Plate 9. Keh. /on"pa.chanting prayer

6 . V I L L A G E SCHISMS AND REPLACING A SENIOR VILLAGE PRIEST

The foregoing discus­ Plate 10. Carrying G’ui.sha flame to dancing place sions, hopefully, have

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Jacquetta Hill

Plate 11. G’uiv sha flame on mound at centre of dancing place

demonstrated the pivotal role of the keh^lon~ leadership in the life of a Lahu Na Shehleh village community. The keh^ }on~ mediates the cru­ cial transfer of beneficence from its cosmic source in G’ui- sha to the individual Lahu Na Shehleh household. It is little wonder then diat the selection of an appropriately qualified kehv lon~ is of primary concern to these Lahu villagers. If the personal relations between any particular household (or households) and that of the keh^ lon~are not of a good and harmonious nature, the transfer of beneficence is endangered. Once a new keh^ Ion"pa.and keh.lon"nia have been selected by a near-unani­ mous voice vote, the manner in which the couple conduct their personal lives and ritual duties is closely observed over a three-ye^ period. Only if their performance is deemed satisfactory, will the couple be regarded as permanent occupants of the office. But “permanent” does not connote life­ long occupancy of these priestly roles. At any time, if an officiating Aehv /on"couple or individual fails to meet the villagers’ expectations, the indi­ vidual households that collectively form the village community may sepa­ rately or together cease to patronize the unsatisfactory priests (or priest) by not making use of their altar and associated dance circle for the rites that link them to the source of cosmic well-being. In earlier times, when households wished to abandon their irehv lon~, they could either join another village community with a more

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desirable keh^ lon~, or else establish a new village at a distance and make their own priestly appointment. Separated villages were located at a sufficient distance from one another to minimize embarrassing encounters between formerly hostile parties. But in modern-day Thailand, the representatives of the Thai state have forbidden village movement. Consequently, present-day fissions generally involve no more than a reshuffling of households on the same residential site and, as such, are not so easily discernible to the unknowing eye. But an additional dance circle indicates the coming into being of a new “village”; three dance circles equate to three villages, even though all are located on one site and appear to constitute a single mu baan (Thai for “village”) in the eyes of the government authorities. In this way, time-honoured processes of leadership change and village fission continue as they used to, before shifting agriculture and migration to new sites were interdicted by Thai government agencies.

7. HK'A-SHEH: THE POLITICAL LEADER

The “rule of law” in a Lahu Na Shehleh village (mostly involving the arbitration of disputes and the imposition and distribution of fines) has traditionally been enforced by an informal assembly of village elders (often women as well as men) led by a hk’a^sheh, the political leader or village chief. Judgements articulated by this village chief are often thought to have the backing of supernatural sanction, with wrongdoers believed to be risking withdrawal of the protection and security provided by benevolent spirits. Intra-village disputes, conflicts, assaults, adultery, divorce, rape and some extra-marital pregnancies are typically subject to fines that are imposed by the hk’a'' sheh, who receives a percentage of the money collected. At Paia, physical assault is considered among the most heinous of offences and, if flight is not self-initiated, may result in the guilty party being banished from the village. (In some other Lahu Na Shehleh villages, I have encountered less severe reactions to physical assault, except when it occurs during especially sacred periods, such as New Year time, when social harmony is seen to be of paramount importance.) Violence between spouses is swiftly condemned, the dispute that led to it adjudicated, and fines levied. Ritual restitution for offending the spirits may also be required, given that marital conflict is believed to place the entire community at risk of supernatural retribution. The fines that are to

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be levied by the village chief are often stated in terms of a fixed amount; in practice, however, they are almost always subject to challenge, argument, and negotiation. Moreover, the procedure for determining and extracting such fines is not simply a matter of an audience with the hk’a" sbeh. This is only the first stage in the proceedings. When parties other than the principals (plaintiff and accused) are involved in a dispute, a village meeting is usually called to debate the issues involved, to settle the amount of the fine and to determine how it is to be allocated. It is common at such meetings for many villagers to join in the debate, not simply to argue who did what to whom, but also to discuss the underlying principles that are involved. Unfortunately for the outside observer, speakers feel no constraint to speak in turn. It is usual, therefore, for several people to be speaking simultaneously and for men and women, including young adults of both genders, to enter the verbal fray. Slowly the differing points of view become more obvious; the purpose of the discussions that ensue is not merely to argue positions, but to suggest resolutions as well. Cooler heads — village elders, female and male — guide the debate towards a resolution and, as this begins to emerge, their voices predominate. The religious leader, the keh.lon~, usually does not speak until late in the discussions, when with the characteristic honesty, wisdom

Plate 12. Village headman negotiating with Thai visitors

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and balanced perspective that are among the principal requirements of the office, he or she will comment on the matter at hand from the perspective of the “ways of the elders” or “ways of the Lahu”, while simultaneously speaking to the most acceptable and appropriate resolution of the matter under the current circumstances. Finally, when the shape of a judgement becomes clear, with fair compensation, and an acceptable resolution that satisfies the majority and draws no further verbal opposition, it is the duty of the hk'a''sheh to articulate what is by now obvious to all. The principal role of the village headman, as Jones (1967:78) also points out, is to build consensus, not to make arbitrary judgements of his own. When a dispute involves a member or members of another community, whether Lahu or non-Lahu, a formal, village-wide, meeting is seldom called. Instead, interested parties and spectators crowd into the hk’a'' sheNs house. If the case involves a complaint against an uxorilocally-resident husband from another village, only the wife’s parents — frequently just her mother — approach the headman, and the audience during the arbitration process is commonly quite small. The hk’a''sheh, besides being consensus builder and, symbolically at least, principal arbitrator of conflicts, has another one that is becoming increasingly important. He is the principal manager of the community’s relations with the external (and powerful) entities that represent the enveloping authority of the Thai state. He (and in this case it is only the male village chief) is required to represent his village at official meetings at tambon (commune, or sub-district) and amphoe (district) levels. Indeed, Lahu Na Shehleh village chiefs now find themselves with the responsibility of dealing with a proliferation of forces emanating from the centralized state bureaucracy. They must take account of the legal and economic changes that are demanded by the Thai state and facilitate development projects and the intrusion into village life of external institutions, such as schools. The increasingly important role of the hk’a'' sheh as mediator between the village and the outside world contrasts, ever more starkly, with that of the senior priest, who concerns himself or herself only with internal matters. But we must take care not to allow this dichotomy of roles to blind us to the very real adjustments of which Lahu village leadership is capable. For example, in one cluster of two Lahu villages that I know, the keh. Ion "has demonstrated such superior talent in making announcements over the newly-installed electronic

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public address system that he has taken over this daily activity, with all the political implications thereof, from the hk’a^ sheh. As with the office of keb^ lon~or senior village priest, for which I have recorded the Lahu Na Shehleh preference that it be jointly occupied by a married couple, so too I believe that it is warranted to speak of the collaborative character of the office of hk'a'' sheh. The hk^a'' sheh ma, wife of the village chief, has much to contribute to the success of her husband’s leadership. She is the one principally responsible for providing a setting and the goods of hospitality: a shaded place to rest and talk, water to quench the thirst, tea for stimulating conversation, and other amenities. If guests stay for long, they need, minimally, a place to sleep and food to eat; preferably, some entertainment should be offered as well. When a couple assume the office of hk’a'' sheh, it is understood that their house will be this centre of hospitality on behalf of the entire community and that the household members’ own businesses and interests will henceforth take second place to these all-important obligations. In return, village leaders receive from all the other households in the village a specified number of days of labour in their fields. The lack of any very rigid division of labour on the basis of gender in Lahu Na Shehleh society facilitates a household’s ability to adjust to the demands of office made on the keh. Ion~and hk'a^ sheh. It is true that, by convention, women alone sew clothes and only men make baskets and wield axes to open up new swiddens; but otherwise, almost all tasks, from heavy labour and carrying for agricultural activities, to child care, cooking and house cleaning, are discharged by either sex, and with equal pride in skilled performance. In a young two-generational household, the man cheerfully and gratefully takes his turn to stay at home to look after the children, mill rice, prepare meals and perform other household chores, while his wife takes care of the work in the fields. In learning the essentials of running a household, young boys and girls develop skills in the same tasks, and the period of bride-service that young Lahu Na Shehleh men must perform represents a period of intense joint apprenticeship in all the duties, procedures and essential knowledge necessary for establishing an independent household, including how to manage a spirit altar and thus establish a proper working relationship with the spirits.

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8. PEH. TO- PA . AND CA .. LI': PRAYER. CHANTER AND BLACKSMITH The peh. to~ pa. (sometimes also called maw-pa.) are religious practitioners who chant prayers, make votive objects and offerings, diagnose ailments and misfortunes and prescribe appropriate curative procedures.This is no small repertoire of knowledge and there are usually several of these practitioners in a normal-size village, representing quite a spread of expertise in diagnostics, chanting and ritual performance. Some individuals demonstrate greater skill than others in the performance of their duties, but the requisite knowledge is not secret; rather, it is widely distributed in the village population. The difference between a novice-and a master lies in the relative completeness of the necessary knowledge and the success of its practical application. Households that seek the services of such a specialist usually will have given prior thought to the level of expertise of their favoured candidate. Lahu Na Shehleh specialists perform ritual services for a well-informed clientele. This collection of ritual virtuosi also provides a pool of potential candidates and training experience for the village’s two most important offices, those of ke/iv /on“and hk’a"sheb. Among the Lahu Na Shehleh, as in other Lahu divisions, the village blacksmith is called ca. Ir. The ca^ Ir’s skill at turning pieces of old iron purchased in lowland markets into effective agricultural tools is considerable and is critical to the effectiveness of the community’s agricultural endeavours. During the time of intensive field labour in June, there is more or less constant work at the blacksmith’s forge, sharpening and repairing the vital farming implements. Consequently, blacksmithing allows a man to enter the ranks of the village leadership.

9. OTHER VILLAGE LEADERSHIP ROLES The female and male co-heads of the households that make up the village community constitute a loose “village council”, though it is often only the elder household co-heads who meet to conduct village business of one kind or another. This “village council” is not formalized by having a special name, nor is it recompensed for its services through labour offered by other villagers, as is the situation for all the other village officials thus far discussed. If the business to be discussed relates to village custom, for example, when exactly to celebrate the New Year, the council will likely comprise only elder household heads, predominantly male, though

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seldom entirely so. The primary conveyor of the decision made at such a meeting will be the keh. lon~OT senior priest. Other positions of expertise in a Lahu village — musician, singer, hunter, herbalist, basket maker, seam­ stress, for example — might also, from a broad perspective, be included among the community’s leadership. Many vil­ lagers have some level of skill in all these specialties, but there are always certain indi­ viduals who distinguish themselves in one or another specialty and whose skills are sought after and rewarded in cash or kind. It is noteworthy, however, that there is no special position of midwife in a Lahu Na Shehleh village. Peh^ to-pa'' and keh^ Ion - are called upon to perform ritual activities associated with Plate 13a and 13b. Village blacksmith at work childbirth, but assistance at birthing itself is provided for inexperienced couples by parents, or if the couple is experienced, by the husband. Couples pride themselves in their ability to prepare for and carry through a successful birth, tasks which are seen as an extension of child care and, as such, to be shouldered by both men and women. (But today, most births occur in clinics and

Local Leadership among Lahu Na Shehleh

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hospitals, modem institutions that these Lahu now freely patronize.)

CONCLUSION

To report on Lahu Na Shehleh village leadership patterns, it has been necessary to make a clear, empirically-based, case for a society that is highly democratic, especially in its gender relations. Women may — and occasionally do — occupy alone the most powerful position of moral leadership in Lahu Na Shehleh villages, that of village priest, though mostly they function in partnership with a spouse. It is not only married ,4 basket-maker pairs, however, but entire households that support leadership positions. Consequently, it is necessary to incorporate the household into any discussion of how leadership functions in a Lahu Na Shehleh village. Previous discussions of Lahu leadership — excepting Walker’s (e.g. 1981:671 ;1986:75) explicit references to Lahu Nyi women’s participation in religious leadership and to the headman’s wife as “mistress of the village” — either ignore the role of women in leadership activities, or else deny them (cf.Jones 1967:75,76; Nevue 1993:23; Spielmann 1969:329). Neveu (p. 22) explicitly discounts the possibility of female participation in bo pa rituals, claiming that women do not have the right of access to household altars, which he claims is restricted to male household heads and their sons. By contrast, in several of his many publications on the Lahu Plate 15. Expert seamstress Nyi, Walker notes the overlapping

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leadership roles of Lahu Nyi women and their spouses. For example, in one discussion of religious leadership in Lahu Nyi villages — after describing the officials and the procedures of their selection — Walker (1986:75) notes: There is a simple ordination rite for each temple official — and their wives are viewed as partaking in the respective offices [emphasis added]. In my study village, I should note, although all offices were filled, only the to bo pa^&nd his wife, and the la shaw_ ma (wife of the la sbaw.pa^) seemed to take really active roles in village ritual.

In describing the Lahu Nyi propitiation of the Lightning spirit, Walker (1977:211) notes that Lahu Nyi village communities usually have at least one and frequently several specialists who are men"... and occasionally women too”, who propitiate and exorcise spirits and are addressed by the Thai title inaw~ commonly translated as “doctor” and hence “spirit doctor”. Lahu^^yi ritual positions differ in several respects from their Lahu Na Shehleh counterparts; but the point that is to be emphasized is that, in both Lahu divisions, women participate in these offices alongside men. Moreover, Chinese anthropologist Du Shanshan’s recently presented Ph.D. dissertation “Chopsticks only Come in Pairs: Gender and Gender Equality among the Lahu of Southwest China” (1999) on the Lahu Na in Yunnan (as also her contribution to this number of Contributions) specifically emphasizes the dual, paired nature of married couples’ occupation of all leadership positions, thus substantially adding to the evidence of gender equality among the Lahu peoples. My studies of Lahu Na Shehleh in North Thailand, Walker’s of Lahu Nyi in the same country and Du’s studies of Lahu Na and Lahu Shi in China, all point to an exceptionally egalitarian organization of gender in Lahu leadership patterns. And this trait receives support from their bilateral kinship organization in which the household, as much as the individual, is the kernel node in a network of extended “siblingship”? Thirty-five years ago, American anthropologist Lauriston Sharp German ethnologist Hans J. Spielmann claims that Lahu Na Shehleh village communities are segmented in the ritual domain into patrilineally-based spirit-propitiation groups, by which phrase he refers to the households that share the bo pa, or spirit altar, of a “main house”. Although a topic more suitable to a paper in itself. I should briefly note here two points. First, the Lahu Na Shehleh communities I studied follow a typically bilateral kinship system, though somewhat influenced by a preference for uxorilocal (cont. next page)

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(1965:86) characterized the Lahu Na and Lahu Nyi kinship system as “unusual” and his observations certainly tally with the data I have assembled in my Lahu Na Shehleh study villages over a fifteen-year period. Sharp reported having “heard constantly” among the Christian Lahu Na residents of Hweitad village the statement “We are all awviawnyi, older and younger siblings, together.” And Sharp (pp. 86-7) goes on to say: The term for “older and younger brother or sister’’, awvi-awnyi, is a contraction and combination of the specific terms awvipa and awvima which have primary reference to older brother and older sister, and awnyipa and awnyima, younger brother and younger sister. But these terms themselves, as well as the shortened and combined form, are extended in their application to an extraordinary degree: bilaterally to distant cousins in Ego’s own generation; vertically and bilaterally to parents’ siblings and parents’ cousins in the generation above Ego; and to the children of Ego’s siblings and cousins in the generation below; and finally to the spouses of many of these kin. Each individual villager must thus consider a very large proportion of his neighbors as actual siblings. The very real sense of mutual obligation obtaining between close brothers and sisters is inevitably extended, although in attenuated form, to more distant kin included in this embracing category. Eventually the extension is made even to non­ kin, to older and younger neighbors with whom no relationship need be traced, by the use of a social fiction which permits a village-wide application of an already widely extended kinship usage. The final effect turns the village community into a network throughout which brotherly and sisterly patterns of kinship behavior are ideally supposed to obtain....

The argument for Lahu egalitarianism, hopefully, has now been made. But does this really translate into gender equality in leadership roles? Much of the extant ethnographic record is either non-committal or opposed to such a reading of the Lahu data. But then, much of that record has come from the pens of male observers who have failed to report female participation in social organization with the same post-marital residence. Second, in terms of the particular composition of a bo pa-sharing group, the conjoined principles of bilaterality and uxorilocality favour a group that comprises a senior couple’s household and the households of their married daughters. But kinship and affinity are not the only considerations. More important, perhaps, is a negative consideration. A person or couple deemed to possess greater “potency” than the co-heads of a house with its own bo pa will not be permitted to make use of that shrine.

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intensity as they have that of males. As long ago as 1973, in his well-known publication Feasting and Social Oscillation, American anthropologist A. Thomas Kirsch lamented the lack of attention to the role and activities of women in the upland societies of northern Southeast Asia, affirming (p. 24) that “It is clear that women are as vitally concerned with achievement of status within these groups as are men.” Studies of gender in the highlands were, as Kirsch suggested, nearly non-existent. From the time of Kirsch’s lament, another fifteen years would have to pass before an anthology on gender systems in highland societies (Eberhardt 1988) made its appearance. The Eberhardt anthology offers new insights into conceptualizing gender relations in highland societies. Less emphasis is placed on the identification of the relative status of roles, identities, labels and indices of power, prestige and authority, and more on understanding the processes and strategies by which gender systems are created, sustained, manipulated and changed. Such emphasis on process has been the principal concern of this paper on Lahu Na Shehleh leadership patterns and the significant roles of women therein.

REFERENCES Bradley, David 1979 Lahu Dialects. The Australian National University. (= Faculty of Asian Studies, Oriental Monograph no. 23.) Du Shanshan 1999 Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs: Gender Unity and Gender Equality among the Lahu of Southwest China. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Eberhardt, Nancy, editor 1988 Gender, Power, and the Construction of the Moral Order: Studies from the Thai Periphery. Madison: University of Wisconsin (= Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Monograph no. 4.)

Jones, Deimos J. 1967 Cultural Variation among Six Lahu Villages, Northern Thailand. Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University.

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Kirsch, A. Thomas 1973

Feasting and Social Oscillation: A Working Paper on Religion and Society in Upland Southeast Asia. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University. (= Dept, of Asian Studies, Southeast Asia Program, Data Paper no. 92.)

Neveu,Jean-Claude 1993 Les Lahus Sheleh du nord de la Thailande. Peninsule 14(2):9-64.

Plath, David, producer 1992 Candles for New Years. Videofilm. Champaign (IL): University of Illinois, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, Asian Education Media Service. S AREECHAROONSAiTT, Tasanee 1983 Lahu Na Shehleh: A Preliminary Report on Linguistic Fieldwork, Summer 1982. Champaign (IL): University of Illinois. (Dept, of Educational Psychology, Comparative Ethnography of Functional Uses of Literacy Project. Working Paper no. 2.)

Sharp, Lauriston 1965 Philadelphia among the Lahu. In Ethnographic Notes on Northern Thailand, Lucian M. Hanks, Jane R. Hanks, and Lauriston Sharp, editors. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University (= Dept, of Asian Studies, Southeast Asia Program, Data Paper no. 58.) Pp. 84-91. Spielmann, Hans J. 1969 A Note on the Literature on the Lahu Shehleh and Lahu Na of Northern Thailand. Journal of the Siam Society 57(2):321-32. Walker, Anthony R. 1977 The Propitiation of the Lightning Spirit in a Lahu Nyi (Red Lahu) Village Community in North Thailand: Four Lahu Texts with an Ethnographic Introduction. Acta Orientalia (Copenhagen) 38:20929.

1981

Shi~ Nyi'. Merit Days among the Lahu Nyi (Red Lahu), North Thailand. Anthropos 76:665-706.

1982

Lahu Nyi (Red Lahu) Village Officials and their Ordination Ceremonies. Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography 1:10225. (Reprinted with minor additions and additional photographic illustrations in The Highland Heritage: Collected Essays on Upland North Thailand, Anthony R. Walker, editor. Singapore: Suvarnabhumi Books, 1992. Pp. 265-92.)

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Transformations of Buddhism in the Religious Ideas and Practices of a Non-Buddhist Hill People: The Lahu Nyi of the Northern Thai Uplands. Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography 5:65-91. (Reprinted in The Highland Heritage: Collected Essays on Upland North Thailand, Anthony R. Walker, editor. Singapore: Suvarnabhumi Books, 1992. Pp. 383-409.)

Young, O. Gordon 1962 The Hill Tribes ofThailand: A Socio-ethnological Report. Bangkok: The Siam Society.

PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS

Plates 1-15, Jacquetta Hill and David W. Plath

TRADITIONAL VILLAGE-LEVEL POLITICAL ORGANIZATION AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS AMONG THE LANCANG LAHU

DU SHANSHAN

*

CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Indigenous Organization and State Administration 3. The Revival of Indigenous Institutions in Fulqhat 4. Conclusion

1. INTRODUCTION The Lahu are a highland ethnic group, whose language belongs to the Lolo (Yi) branch of the Lolo-Burmese subgroup of the Tibeto-Burmese family (Chang 1986:1; Matisoff 1988:11).' They are divided into several subgroups, speaking a number of mutually intelligible dialects and having slightly different sub­ cultures (Walker 1974). These include, principally, Lahu Na, Lahu Shi, Lahu Nyi and Lahu Shehleh. The Lahu population is located along the border areas of China, Burma, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. According to the 1990 census, their number in China was 411,476 (Mackerras 1994:239), representing about two thirds of the total for the entire ethnic group (Walker 1995:7). In 1990 nearly half of the Lahu in China (46.7%) resided in Lancang Lahu * Ph.D. (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign); assistant professor. Department of Anthropology, Tulane University. ' This paper is based on eighteen months of fieldwork among the Lahu of China and Northern Thailand. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies. I would like to thank Anthony Walker, Beining Zhang and April Middeljans for their comments.

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o

A n th o n y R . W a lk e r. 2001

Autonomous County (Zhang et. al. 1996:105), the highest-level political unit in the People’s Republic of China that is named solely for the Lahu people. The purpose of this paper is to examine the consequences on the village-level political organization of Lancang’s Lahu of the intensification of administrative control by the Chinese state, a process initiated in Imperial times and continuing through the Republican and Communist eras.

Map 1. Lahu settlement areas in Southwest China

Village-level Political Organization among Lancang Lahu 2, INDIGENOUS ORGANIZATION ADMINISTRATION: AN OVERVIEW

AND

67

STATE

Over the past two hundred years, the history of the Lahu in China has been characterized by complex interactions between themselves and the Chinese state, especially between the Lahu’s indigenous political organization and Chinese state administrative structures. But despite long-term encounters with state administration, indigenous Lahu organization in Lancang, at both village and village-cluster levels, managed, until 1949, to maintain a high degree of autonomy. In this section, I will first discuss some general features of the indigenous organization of the Lahu village and village cluster, as they are manifested in the people’s pre-1949 memories, as well as in some of the revived practices of the post-Mao era. Then I will outline how the local administration of the Chinese state has developed and completed its control over the Lancang Lahu at both village and village-cluster levels. 2a. Indigenous Village Organization

The indigenous social organization of the Lancang Lahu comprises three basic levels: household, village and village cluster. But before examining Lahu village organization beyond the household level, it is necessary to emphasize the significance of the Lahu household. As among the Lahu in Thailand (cf.Hill 1985,Walker 1983:233-234), so too among the Lahu of Lancang, households traditionally constitute the fundamental units of economic, ritual and political organization. Except during the period of collectivization in China (1959-84), when agricultural production and consumption were led by village cadres, major household decisions typically have been jointly made, as they still are, by the household’s male and female co-heads (yiel shiefphad and yiel shief ma), normally the senior couple of the household.^ Standard Lahu (based on the Lahu Na dialect) has 24 consonants. 9 vowels and 7 tones. The orthography used in this paper was devised by Chinese linguists in the 1950s and is now standard in the People’s Republic of China for writing the Lahu language. The most likely source of confusion to those unfamiliar with the Chinese orthography is its representation of Lahu tones. This is accomplished by using a consonant letter (never to be sounded) that follows the vowel of the syllable. The following consonant letters are used; d (high falling tone), q (high rising). 1 Qow falling), f (low level), t (high stopped) and r (low stopped). The mid level lone is unmarked. [Editor]

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A group of houses located close to one another on the same side of a terraced mountain constitutes the residential nucleus of a typical Lahu village {qhat}. During the first half of the twentieth century, the number of houses or households in a typical Lahu village ranged from twenty to forty, but in the 1990s there was close to a doubling of the population and of households in many Lancang Lahu villages. A village has its own farming territory, whose boundaries are usually marked by natural features, especially streams. Several villages located on the same mountainside often constitute a village cluster, whose residents share a common identity that is oriented towards the earliest-established village in that particular area. Typically, most (or all) of the other villages have segmented from the oldest village, which remains the political and ritual centre of the village cluster. Since the farm land is typically beyond the residential areas of a village cluster, the distance between two households within a village cluster is usually less than that between a household and its farm land. Villages and village clusters are often named after certain natural features, special events, or the names of a founder. When Lahu villagers refer to a village cluster, they usually mention just its proper name; when they speak of a particular village within the cluster, however, they will likely use the name of its headman. Thus, for example, a particular village in the cluster known (by both resident and non-resident Lahu) as “Qhawqhat”, may be called “Abo Qhat” (Abo’s village) ? In general, the indigenous village organization of the Lancang Lahu has traditionally been characterized by gender-inclusiveness and ethnic­ exclusiveness. The gender-inclusiveness (or gender unity) of Lahu village organization is manifested by the ideal (nowadays cherished mainly by older Lahu) that all leadership posts be co-headed by married couples (Du 2000:17-18). The realization of this ideal in practice varies from place to place, but certainly, prior to 1949, many indigenous posts in a Lahu village (especially the headship) were jointly held by a married couple, rather than by an individual male, with the death of one of the spouses requiring a new election for the village headship. With the revival of customary practice since the 1980s, the traditional situation has begun to re-appear among some Lancang Lahu communities. In contrast to the extreme gender-inclusiveness of traditional Lahu leadership positions, a strict ethnic-exclusiveness has been applied, fostered it would seem by I use fictitious names for persons and places beneath the county level.

! 1 i i '

j i t J ■

t i

Village-level Political Organization among Lancang Lahu

69

the typically high degree of ethnic homogeneity in Lahu villages, as well as by the Lahu custom that village headship be held by descendants of the village founder. At the village level, indigenous political institutions are oriented towards village-headship, typically held by a village head couple {qhat shie'), and several assistants (zi yad). The office of village head is partially elective and partially hereditary. Although village heads are elected (and may also be removed from the office) by the heads of households and other village elders, the candidates for the offices are customarily selected from the village founder’s offspring, often close relatives of previous village heads. The administrative duties of village heads typically include organizing public activities, implementing customary laws, resolving disputes, and serving as the representative of the village in interactions with outsiders. Prior to 1949, village heads were responsible also for granting permission to newcomers who wished to settle in the village. Lahu village heads typically enjoy such a high degree of trust and authority that, in many common sayings, they are likened to parents, as for example in the saying ''qhat shie tawd yo ve, awl pa awl-e khad shuiq yol [village heads consider (the interests of the villagers) in the same way as parents (do for their children)]”, or in that which goes '‘qhat shie khawd na, awl pal aw-e khawd na [(one should) listen to the words of village heads and listen to the words of parents]”. The headship constitutes only one part of Lahu village organization, which also has a strong religious orientation. Sharing a focus on Xeul Sha [G’uiv sha in most Western writings on the Lahu], a parental deity (Du 1996:58-65, Du and Hu 1996), the religious practices of the Lahu differ from region to region, or from one subgroup to another, according to the degree of integration with other religious traditions, notably those of Buddhism and Christianity (e.g.,Du 1996:71-72, Walker 1986). Typically, a religious specialist is in charge of the village temple, performing rituals and organizing village activities to please both the village guardian spirit {sha sheor) and the supreme god Xeul Sha. In many Lahu Na areas, this specialist is called fill quad, a borrowed Mandarin term meaning “the one who is in charge of the Buddhist (temple)”. In several Lahu Na villages where, prior to the 1950s, Buddhist organization was influential, this position was subordinate to that of the/h/ yiel (Buddhist monks), who, in most cases, were celibate males. In addition, a village also has an office of cal lieq (Lahu Na dialect, cal liq in Lahu Shi), which translates as “leading blacksmith”. This office holder is responsible for rituals concerning tools and agricultural production. Major decisions regarding a village are usually

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made by the consensus of village heads, religious leaders and some of the village elders. At the level of village cluster, the political organization of the Lancang I^u appears to be an extension of the village-head system. Typically, the head couple from the founder’s village within the cluster is simultaneously head of the entire cluster. The head couple of an individual village and of the village cluster as a whole are often called by the same term, namely o/izir head”), although, when it is necessary to distinguish between me individual village and village cluster leadership, the terms qhatshieyied ( small village heads”) and qhat shie luq (“big village heads”) may be applied. The major responsibilities of the heads of viUage clusters include adminisurating the area under their jurisdiction and representing the village cluster in its interactions with neighbouring village clusters, and with outsiders. In the 1940s, most of the heads of village clusters were also in charge of a defensive militia. In several areas, the Lahu headship system at the cluster level is complemented by a corresponding Buddhist or Christian organization. The Lancang Lahu traditionally have lacked a permanent indigenous pohtical organization at levels higher than that of village cluster. Nevertheless, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, several influential Buddhist temples (popularly known by the Mandarin [hereafter M] term wufu[ Five Buddhist Centres”]), occasionally served political and military mnctions for the Lahu, allowing them to cooperate at a wider political level. Such cooperation usually involved short-term offensive or defensive military effort that were typically organized by charismatic Buddhist monks. Chinese scholars usually refer to this wufu organization as the Lahu “ghost-head” system (M. guizhu zhidu}, which they characterize as representing “the unification of politics and religion” (M^.zh^ngjiao heyi) (cf. Chen 1986:35). In bnef, the indigenous political organization of a Lahu village is oriented towards its headship, which is complemented to vaiying degrees by religious institutions. Since the significance and solidarity of indigenous Lahu institutions diminishes as one moves from lower to upper levels, I consider Lahu social organization as a “bottom-up” system. 2b. The Development of State Administration: rrom Imperial to Guomindang (KMT) Regime

yie Lahu people were first recorded in Chinese imperial documents as a distinctive ethnic group during the eighteenth century (mid-Qing dynasty).

Village-level Political Organization among iMncang Lahu

71

Nevertheless, throughout the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), those Lahu who lived to the west of the Lancang (Mekong) river (especially in what are now Lancang and Menglian counties) enjoyed a large degree of autonomy from imperial Chinese control. Geographic barriers, climatic extremes and malaria — combined with military and cultural resistance of the indigenous peoples themselves — prevented the imperial administration from quickly or effectively exercising direct administrative control over the Lahu villages. Indeed, the Lahu are especially well-known in the area for having, on more than twenty occasions since the end of the nineteenth century, rebelled against state control (cf. Chen and Li 1986:29-40, Wang 1983:242-247). Consequently, the state was able to maintain no more than an indirect control over Lahu villagers, which it achieved by means of the tusi system, wherein appointed indigenous officials (both Lahu and Dai) held officially-sanctioned jurisdiction down to the sub-county level, This, of course, still left village clusters and villages with a very considerable degree of political autonomy, to which the imperial state administration imposed little, if.any, challenge. The village administrative autonomy of the Lancang Lahu began to be weakened during the Guomindang regime (1911-49). In 1932, the Guomindang government enforced the nationwide lu-lin administrative system, which was designed to strengthen state control at village level. In 1940 this lu-lin system, in turn, was replaced by the similar bao-jia system (Zhang et al. 1996:468). In the Lancang area, the lu and the bao, as administrative units, resembled the “village cluster”, while Un and jia resembled the “village” (see Figure 1). The implementation of the lu-lin and, subsequently, bao-jia system in Lancang greatly undermined traditional Lahu political structures at the village cluster level. In some cases, the state appointed traditional Lahu village­ cluster heads as the heads of the lu (or bao). Alternatively, the Lahu village­ cluster heads retained their traditional post, which now paralleled that of lu (or bao) head, the latter appointed from above, the office holder typically chosen from among those Lahu villagers who demonstrated fluency in Mandarin and who had previous relationships with higher officials. These heads of the lu (or bao) came to hold increasing responsibilities vis-a-vis the state, with their duties focused on taxation, military recruitment and census-taking. In contrast to the thorough manner in which the Guomindang implemented the lu or bao administration among the Lahu at the village cluster level, it failed to implement the lu-lin or bao-jia system at the grass­ roots single village level. Consequently, the lu-lin and subsequent bao-jia

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system brought relatively little change to Lahu political organization at the village level, where indigenous leadership still held centre-stage. Nevertheless, beyond fulfilling their traditional administrative and judicial duties, Lahu village heads did begin to be increasingly involved in tasks assigned from higher officials, mediated by the heads of village clusters or by the baozhang.

Unit (used by author)

Lahu Organization

State Organization

village

“village” {qhat}, or “small village” {qhatyied}

lin (1932-40), or jia (1940-49)

“village” {qhat\ or “big village” {qhat luq}

Z« (1932-40), or bao (1940-49)

village cluster

Figure 1. Village political organization of the Lancang Lahu (1932-49)

2c. The Completion of State Administration: The CCP Regime At the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the political' organization of the Lancang Lahu at the levels of village and village cluster was immediately replaced by the Chinese Communist Party’s cadre system (cadres are those appointed to official positions in either the government or party apparatus). Since 1949, with the removal of all Guomindang-appointed baozhang from their offices and the substitution of cadres, Lahu village political organization in China has become completely integrated into state administration. Under the new political system, some male Lahu village heads were recognized and appointed to serve as local cadres of their villages. But following the Land Reform campaign in 1956, almost all the traditional Lahu heads of villages and village clusters were categorized as "landlord” (a negative class label) and were removed from their offices in the state cadre system. Moreover, during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), most indigenous Lahu leaders — both political and religious — underwent severe persecution and were completely deprived of their power and authority in Lahu villages. During the post-Mao era, especially since the 1980s, more lenient state policies have led to the revival of Lahu religions, and a few

Village-level Political Organization among Lancang Lahn

73

restored Christian churches and Buddhist temples have again begun to play an important role in village politics. Nevertheless, even within the villages where Lahu tradition has been revived to a great extent, the overall political structure is still fully integrated into the state administration. In order better to demonstrate the operation of state administration at the village level under the CCP regime, I will first discuss upper levels of local government. Under the unitary rule of its central government, the Chinese state has four basic levels of local bureaucratic administration: provinces {sheng}, prefectures (diqu), counties (xian), and communes (gongshe) or townships {xiang} (see Figure 2). Based on the CCP s minority policies, the local administration of certain minorities can be designated as “autonomous” (zizhi) at all four levels; these levels are therefore labelled as “autonomous regions”, (equivalent to “provinces”), “autonomous prefectures,” “autonomous counties,” and “autonomous townships”. Lancang Lahu Autonomous County is one of the 2,143 counties in China (at the end of 1995) and is the only autonomous county that is named for the Lahu people (Wang 1983:259, Zhang et al. 1996:470).

Central Government

Local Bureaucratic Administration Province (sheng) II Prefecture (_diqu) II County (x/nn) II District (gu), Commune (gongshe), or Township (xiang}

Figure 2: Administrative hierarchy of The People’s Republic of China

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Du Shanshan

e central government and from all four levels of local administration are called "national cadres” {guojia ganbu) and are salaried government employees. In ethnic autonomous areas, affirmative action is implemented and offices are expected to be held by a certain proportion of ethnic minority members. Although in China as a whole the Lahu are politically marginalized in comparison to the majority Han as well as to many other ethnic minorities (Du 1999), Lahu cadres within the Lancang Lahu Autonomous County are of great significance at least in number. Nevertheless, most Lahu villagers tend to consider all national cadres as “[those from the] above” (L awl na. or M. shangmian de), with whom they rarely have direct contact, and with whom they identify very little, even when these cadres are themselves Lahu. The political organization of the village cluster and the village IS beneath the lowest level of the formal administrative units of the state (township or commune), yet it constitutes an integral and significant part of state politics. Officers of village clusters and villages constitute part of the cadre system, although the state distinguishes them from higher-level officials by designating them as local cadres” (difang ganbu). Like “national cadres ” local cadres are typically CCP members, either directly appointed by higher officials or elected from an officiallyapproved slate.-* Nevertheless, in contrast to “national cadres” who receive a salary from the government, “local cadres” are expected to earn part of their living by farming while receiving wages and in-kind payment from village coffers (cf. Oi 1989'5) .V'llage political organization in the People’s Republic of ina has been greatly influenced by state policies, as can be r.u aT d'-astically different economic policies of the Mao and post-Mao eras. During both these periods, village organization has been structured at two basic levels Corresponding basically to what I term “village” and “village ‘“ worthwhile noting .hat the tenns “cadre" and “national cadre” are sometimes used broader sense to mean all those who work for the Chinese government and

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cluster,” these two levels were called “production team” and “production brigade” under the commune system (1958-79), whereas, since the dissolution of communes — a process that started in 1979 and was completed nationwide in 1984 — they have been known as “village small group” and “administrative village”. Lancang Lahu Autonomous County was communized in 1959, while its communes were completely dissolved only in 1984 (Zhang etal. 1996:195,199). Lahu village organization in Lancang Lahu Autonomous County (Figure 3) now resembles that found elsewhere in rural China, with the two levels that I have identified as “village” and “village cluster” (as just mentioned) basically corresponding to the production team and production brigade of the commune period, and to the village small group and administrative village since the dissolution of the communes.

State organization

Units (used by author)

1959-84

1984-present

village

production team {shengshan xiaodui)

village small group {cun xiaozu), or natural village {ziran cun)

village cluster

production brigade {shengchan dadui, also called xiang during certain periods)

village {cun) or administrative village {xingzheng cun)

Figure 3. Village political organization of the Lancang Lahu (1958-present)

During the communized period, the production team was the most significant economic and political institution for villagers in China (cf. Oi 1989). As elsewhere in China, the officers of a production team among the Lahu in Lancang typically consisted of a team leader (M.xiao duizhang, or L. qhat shie), a team deputy leader (M.fii duizhang), an accountant (M. kuaij[),an6 a militia leader (M. minbing duizhang) (cf. Crook 1975). Since

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the team officers were selected from the village, they were almost exclusively Lahu in most Lahu-concentrated afeas. 'he means of production "’"''‘ng economic decisions on behalf

of^thP^^-n'^

praduction activities, calculating svstem h ‘"“"’n- As implementor of the commune y 'em, the production team appropriated a large proportion of the Xon ib'"' "a hou'’seh"old'co-heads. In L

-U®

irln , , administrative roles of Xer^/ma l“ * m ""’""g lawTand accordmg to state policies rather than Lahu customary laws) and organizing public activities at the village level. The production brigade, as a political institution, comprised a managenient committee (or revolutionaiy committee) (M. guar,\weihui Zr 7'^"'^ “'‘"CCP branch committee (M.dangzhibu) (Crook 1975)’ respectively headed by a brigade leader (M. dndmz/iang) and a party secretary (M. zhishu). In addition to the brigade leader and the part^ secretary the most significant officers in a Lahu brigade were usually the recording secretary (M. wenshu) and the militia leader (M wiiPtm) In areas of Lahu concentration, a brigade leader was typically a Lahu rom the corresponding village cluster, for whom the villagers used the Lahu term gha, sMe (village head), or gha, shie lug (large vin^e head) and brigade.especially those of party fecretaiy nd mihtia leader, were commonly held by members of other ethnic groups, espr^ially Han. Thus, at the village-cluster level, the cadrTsystam

ka"derZ

'

'’’P ethnic-exclusiveness of indigenous Lahu

nmdnci??'’""'”" and several pi^uction teams receiving “state plan targets, compulsory state procurement fe“wJwnTo'T 1 1“ g^'bn taxes”; it was responsible for ™tking out plans with Its teams to achieve these targets” (Crook 197539), as well as for coordinating its subordinate pioducdon teams in such a tivities as the construction and maintenance of roads and reseXoirs

M weS ® '‘““h stations stoTfM iT/ state-managed supply and marketing branch d »ute^h!r T P“’’'’" "“"‘i'y ""d ‘•esolved * P“ 7 ? ‘‘‘''“'''“d members of more than one production team I he dissolution of communes during the post-Mao era (only fully implemented in Ltancang in 1984), has brough^bout major XgeTin

Village-level Political Organization among Lancang Lahu

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village political organization, especially as the “production team” and “production brigade” have now been replaced by the “village small group” and the “administrative village.” In 1988, there were 143 administrative villages and 2,758 village small groups in Lancang County (Zhang et al. 1996: 45). Following the dismantling of the commune system, the role of the formal village organization in managing the village economy has been drastically reduced (cf. Crook 1986; Oi 1989:214-216). Most importantly, production teams have been transformed from basic production units into economic cooperatives, which parcel out farmland to individual households and negotiate with them a proportional return of crops for collective expenses (Crook 1986). As a consequence of this new “household contractual system”, households have again become basic production units in rural China. Accordingly, Lahu households, to a considerable degree, have been able to regain their traditional economic autonomy. Specifically, Lahu household heads, rather than the team leaders, now have final responsibility for the management of their own household’s labour and production. Despite the radical economic transformations of the post-Mao era, however, the basic framework of village organization and of governance in China has been retained. In other words, the “village small group” and the “administrative village” serve similar administrative functions as the former “production team” and “production brigade.” In addition, in most Lahu villages, the core leaders of the previous system —especially the production brigade — have retained their positions during the economic transformation. Accordingly, at the time that I was conducting my doctoral fieldwork in Lancang (1995-96), most Lahu villagers were still using the old terms “production team” (M. xiaodui) or “village” (L. qhat), to refer to the “village small group” (M. cunxiaozu zhang')', and “team leader” (M. duizhang) or “village-head” (L. qhat shie), for its head. Within the overall continuity of rural politics in China, however, the open policies of the CCP during the post-Mao era have brought about certain changes in village political organization. Thus, while agricultural reform has empowered the households, it has also undermined the power of statesponsored village institutions at village and village-cluster level (cf. Oi 1989:215). In addition, the villagers play an increasingly important role in choosing their leaders, especially at the village level (cf. Chan et al. 1984:318). In many Lahu villages, I have noticed that several former production team leaders have been replaced by those who are more popular

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among villagers, many of whom are relatives of the traditional pre-1950 Lahu village heads. Most interestingly, due to the CCP’s more lenient policy towards religion since the 1980s, the traditional institutions of Lahu villages have been revived in a few village clusters, and now operate as a parallel system to that of the official rural cadres. The case of Fulqhat, as I will discuss in the next section, provides an outstanding example of such a revival.

3. THE REVIVAL OF INDIGENOUS INSTITUTIONS IN FULQHAT

Fulqhat is a Lahu Shi village cluster located on the outer margins of Chinese territory, some of its farmland being adjacent to that belonging to Burmese villagers.^ Fulquat’s political organization resembles that found elsewhere in Lancang, or, forthat matter, in the People’s Republic of China, as discussed above. Moreover, from the mid- 1950s, the holders

Plate I. Fulquat: a Lahu Shi village in Lancang County

of indigenous offices were removed from their posts and, during the Cultural Revolution, many were subjected to varying degrees of persecution. But Fulqhat’s village organization is also very special, due to the considerable restoration of traditional Lahu village structures that has occurred here since 1982. 5

Many of lhe data in this section are derived from my recently-published book (Du 2002.).

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Fulqhat (Pl. I), the founders’ village from which other villages in the cluster have sprung, is the centre both of the traditional village cluster and of Fulqhat administrative village (M. Fulqhat Cun Gongsuo). But these administrative institutions — indigenous and state — are symbolically separated by a “gate” (L. tag meal, a borrowing from Mandarin) that is made from wooden poles (Pl. 2). A traditional Lahu village is symbolically bounded by several such gates, one at each entrance to the village, thus drawing a visible boundary around the settlement. Only those who reside within the village gates are considered members of the village. The spiritual significance of village gates is manifested in village exorcism rituals, in which the villagers are strictly required to remain within the gates, while entry is prohibited to outsiders. Although the two spaces, traditional village and government headquarters, are only a few metres apart, Fulqhat villagers consider the residents on either side of the gate as being ruled by different principles. According to some Fulqhat villagers, those who live within the gates (called “incense burners”) are expected to obey Lahu principles (awl lid) and are spiritually protected by the village guardian spirits and by Xeul Sha. In contrast, those who live outside the village gates (including

Plate 2. The village gate separating village and outside spheres of activity

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the families of all local cadres of Fulqhat administrative village, together with the owners of the several private shops and a video renter) abide only by “the principles of the state” {guojia ve awl lid, a mixed Mandarin and Lahu phrase). The separation between these “outsiders” (many of them are in fact from the village) and all ±e other villagers seems to symbolize the hope that, should the former’s scepticism and behaviour offend the spirits at any level, this would not bring disaster upon the incense burners. 3a. Indigenous Leadership Posts and Duties

The revival of the indigenous village institutions in Fulqhat constitutes a restoration of “Lahu principle” in village organization, including the principle that “everything comes in pairs”: the restored Fulqhat traditional offices are all held by married couples. According to Fulqhat elders, if any of the offices of traditional Lahu leadership was to be occupied by a single person, it would bling harm to the well-being of the village and village cluster. The rationale for such a belief is that a village or a village cluster is like a household, which is only manageable when “s/ize phad shie ma qha dr qawr kuad xad [a pair of male-female masters rule together]”. During my latest fieldwork (1995-96), I observed how Fulqhat’s traditional institutions, at both village and village cluster levels, structured the daily lives of the villagers, as I shall detail below.

i. Village (qhat, or qhatyied} At the village level, three functionaries manage the social and spiritual life of the community; qhat shie (village head), cawl po/(leading spiritual specialist) and cal lieq (leading blacksmith, called cal liq in the Lahu Na dialect). Since the Lahu language does not distinguish grammatically between singular and plural nouns, the term for each village post refers either to the head couple, or to just one of them, depending on the context. When a clear distinction is necessary, a suffix will be used to specify each individual post holder: qhat shie paf or qhat shie ma (male village head or female village head), cawlpalpaf or cawlpal ma (male leading spiritual specialist or female leading spiritual specialist) and cal lieq paf or cal lieq ma (male leading blacksmith or female leading blacksmith). The three pairs of village leaders are in charge of different domains of village life. The village head couple are mainly responsible for maintaining social order, especially the enforcement of customary laws, both within and beyond the village. The head spiritual specialist couple

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are, in essence, leaders of the indigenous Lahu religion within the village and village cluster; they focus on rituals of the shear yiel, which is the temple of the village guardian spirit(s). The leading blacksmith couple perform special rituals that assure spiritual security for a village’s agricultural production, symbolized by the blacksmith’s tool-making specialty. The specific duties of these three posts are as follows: The duties of the village head couple focus on the legal and social relations among the households of the village, as well as between the village and the neighbouring villages. If a village member offends people of other villages and is unable to pay the fine levied for such an offence, the village head couple are obliged to pay for him/her in order to rescue the village from disgrace and themselves from being perceived as stingy. In addition, assisted by other village leaders, the village head couple are responsible for organizing village activities, such as public works (e.g. road and bridge building) and festivals. At the Lahu New Year, the village head couple are expected to host a feast for all the villagers, to which each household contributes only one bowl of rice. In addition to managing intra- and inter-village relations, the village head couple represent their village in interactions with state officials and negotiate the implementation of state policies. Prior to the 1950s, the village cluster heads also had the authority to grant permission to outsiders to settle in the village and farm its lands. The village head couple receive a certain amount of compensation for their services. Typically, they receive approximately one tenth of the processing fees and fines, using the remainder to compensate the offended, to perform purificatory rituals and, sometimes, to host feasts for the village households. When a household slaughters a pig, it is expected to offer a slice of pork from the pig’s neck to the village head couple as a symbolic honor. In addition, village cluster heads have the right to receive two to three free labour-days per year from each household of the village to work on their land, which is considered compensation for the time the village heads have spent in public service. In general, the direct or indirect payments function principally to generate ritual reciprocity in the village, especially during the Lahu New Year celebrations. The leading spiritual specialists mostly represent the village when communicating with the spiritual world, particularly the village guardian spirits, whose temple (shear yiel) is located to the east of, and higher

i

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than, the houses in the village, a sign of spiritual authority. During Lahu festivals, the spiritual leaders perform rituals and make offerings to village guardian spirits, both at the temple and in the village cluster, and distribute the blessed offerings, which households later use at their own altars. The spirit leaders also play the most significant roles in organizing ritual dances at sacred locations such as the village dancing ground (Pl. 3).

Plate 3. The village dancing-ground

The leading spiritual specialists also perform rituals to propitiate the guardian spirits when the entire village suffers misfortune, such as an epidemic, death of livestock, droughts and crop problems. In addition, they perform rituals to propitiate the village guardian spirits at the temple on behalf of individual households suffering adversity — especially illness — when the ministrations of lower-level ritual spiritualists have failed to bring relief. Typically, a household in need is expected to offer the leading spiritual specialists a bowl of rice and the materials to be used for the ritual performance: four pairs of beeswax candles and fifty sticks of incense. In the case of severe illness, the number of beeswax candles and incense sticks must be doubled. There are two types of spiritual specialists below the cawlpal the village spiritual leaders. These are the moq pafand shiefpaf. A sick villager often

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first seeks a moq paf, who diagnoses the spiritual causes through divination and then performs rituals, after which he prescribes herbal medicines. If the sick person fails to recover, he or she will seek the help of a shiefpaf, who performs rituals to “catch” t he afflicting spirit in tangible form, by kneading or biting the painful body part. Depending on the object caught, the shief pa/performs additional rituals to propitiate the particular spirit or spirits diagnosed to be the source of the sickness. Both moq pa/and shief paf acquire their knowledge mainly through personal observation and by receiving instruction from a same-sex parent or grandparent. (In this respect, it must be noted that Fulqhat practice contrasts sharply to that of most Lahu communities in Lancang, where moq paf and shiefpaf are always males.) A village may have several male blacksmiths, all called by the same professional name, caZ lieq . But only one of them, together with his wife, is elected to hold the post of leading blacksmith. In reality, some leading blacksmiths do not really practice blacksmithy themselves. For instance, the leading blacksmith couple who held office in Fulqhat from 1982 to 1993 did not practice as blacksmiths. As a leading blacksmith, the male is responsible for selling homemade tools at reasonable prices and repairing them free of charge. More importantly, the leading blacksmith pair have to obey many taboos (failure to do so resulted in the dismissal of Fulqhat’s leading blacksmith pair in 1993) and perform certain rituals to assure spiritual security for agricultural production. The most important ritual duty is to make offerings of newlyharvested rice to Xeul Sha at their own household altar during the Tasting of the New Rice Festival, on which occasion each household offers them a bowl of rice and two sticks of incense. In return for their services, the blacksmiths have the right to claim three labour days per year from each household, although they sometimes decline to exercise their prerogative due to the high cost of feeding the labourers. When a couple has held the post for three years, they are obliged to slaughter a large pig to host a feast for the entire village. While each leading couple has its own specified public duties, all of them are expected to cooperatively organize major village rituals and activities. In this sense, these three positions constitute a trinity in village life, and the three pairs of post holders are equally respected, at least symbolically. For instance, during the Lahu New Year festival, villagers play gourd-pipes and dance for the households of all three pairs of leaders, offering two pairs of beeswax candles, two bundles of incense and one pair of sticky rice cakes at each pair’s personal household altar.

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ii. Village cluster {qhat, or qhat luq} with the traditional village-level offices, those at the level of the village cluster are also held by married couples. The locus of the power structure of the village cluster is in the founders ’ village, from which other villages have segmented over several generations. The founders’ village, like all the other settlements in the cluster, has a tripartite leadership structure as just described. But, in contrast to the power structure of a subordinate village, the founders’ village possesses two additional posts: head of the village cluster and Buddhist monk couples, who serve not only the founders’ village but the entire village cluster as well. Typically, as is the case of Fulqhat, the posts of village-cluster head and head of the founders’ village are held by the same couple. The duty of the head couple of the village cluster focuses on legal and social relations between the villages and neighbouring village clusters. Those who are unsatisfied with a dispute settlement at the village level may appeal to the heads of the village cluster, especially when those involved are members of different villages. In such cases, the heads of the village cluster arbitrate in the presence of the involved parties and the respective village heads of each side. In addition, the village-cluster heads are responsible for organizing social activities at the village cluster level. Many of the decisions they make follow discussions with other leaders in the founders’ village and with other village heads of the village cluster. The qhat shie luq or indigenous village cluster head also represents the village cluster when negotiating the implementation of state policies with the cun zhang (the state-assigned village cluster head) and with higher-level cadres. The Buddhist monk couple of a village cluster is called/mZ yiel, a borrowing from Mandarin meaning “Buddhist monk who is a senior male’’ (ful means “Buddha” or “Buddhist”, while yiel means “grandfather” and is typically used as a respectful form of address for an older man). This gender-specific term originally referred to a single, celibate male. Ironically, however, this Han term is used by the Fulqhat Lahu Shi to refer either to the married couple who hold the post, or to either individual partner, just like die gender-neutral terms that they use for other village-cluster posts. Modified by gendered suffixes, this term can also be transformed into two gender-specific terms, viz. ful yielpaf (male Buddhist monk) and/wZ yiel ma (female Buddhist monk), in order to specify the individuals in the post, when such distinction is necessary. The most significant duty of a Fulqhat monk-couple is to represent the entire village cluster when worshipping and making offerings to Xeul

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Sha particularly at Buddhist temples. (Intro­ duced in the eighteenth century from Dali, the Mahayana Buddhism practised by the Lahu is characterized by its mix of Han-derived Buddhist ideas and practices with those of the Lahu them­ selves, especially belief in Xeul Sha and in animism [cf. Du 1996:71-72; Walker 1986]). There are. two Buddhist temples in Fulqhat, which are situated in front of the temple for village guardian spirits. The large one is called hawq yiel and is considered to be female, while the small one 'is called ful yiel and is regarded as male. There are neither Buddhist images nor scriptures in these Buddhist temples, a situation that allows for greater expression of indigenous Lahu religious notions and practices. The Fulqhat Buddhist tradition is different from the traditional Buddhist practice in many other Lahu areas of Lancang, where a village cluster has only one temple and the chief monk is expected to be a celibate male. The Fulqhat monk-couple (principally the male partner) represents the village cluster when burning incense, lighting beeswax candles, and offering prayers in the temples during the full moon (hapa tawL) and the new moon (hapa chef) of each month, as well as during festivals. On these occasions, incense is burnt at all the household altars,®and work in the fields is taboo. Unlike the Lahu Na custom of each household having its own altar at which to worship the guardian spirits of the household and Xeul Sha, several related households among these Lahu Shi share a single altar. In this respect, their practice is very similar to that of the Lahu Shehleh in North Thailand, as I was able to observe during my brief fieldwork in that country, and as Jacquetta Hill (1985:519) has reported.

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By correlating auspicious days and the phases of the moon, the monk-couple also decides (with the consensus of other leaders in the village) the date for the beginning of the Lahu New Year, which either falls at the same time as that of the Han, or else corresponds very closely with it. During the Lahu New Year Festival, and at some other important festivals, people from different villages come to dance, burn incense and, led by the monk-couple, make offerings at the Buddhist temples (Pl. 5).

Plate 5. Paired Buddhist temples

In addition, the monk-couple represents the village cluster when performing rituals to propitiate'Xeul Sha, should illnesses or disasters have failed to respond to the ministrations of the spiritual specialists and village leaders. Typically, a household that requires the services of the village cluster monk-couple must provide a bowl of rice, eight pairs of beeswax candles and two hundred sticks of incense. Indicating the superior ritual position of the monk-couple in the religious hierarchy, this number ofcandles and incense sticks is twice that needed to have the leading spirit-specialists of the village make offerings at the local guardian spirit temple. In addition to these temple offerings, villagers requesting the services of the monk couple must offer a bowl of rice for the specialists themselves. As in the case of the paired leaders of a village, those of a village cluster also-operate cooperatively in major village-cluster activities, particularly ritual activities. For instance at the beginning of the Lahu

Village-level Political Organization among Lancang Lahu

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New Year, all the leaders of the founders’ village (jointly representing the village cluster), followed by many ordinary villagers, climb to the top of the mountain to dance and make offerings at a sacred site (yal meo} so as to invite Xeul Sha to the village cluster. Then the group stops at the dance place at the centre of the village to make offerings and to permit Xeul Sha to take a rest. After that, with music and dance, they bring Xeul Sha to stay in the Buddhist temples, assuming that Xeul Sha will stay here during the entire fifteen-day festival. At the end of the Lahu New Year, the same ritual is held, although in a reverse direction, to send Xeul Sha back to the top of the mountain.

Plate 6. Leading couple of spirit specialists handling ritual artefacts

The occupation of each position by both a male and a female leader is believed to be so crucial to the well-being of the village or village cluster that the death of one partner strictly requires the surviving spouse to resign from the position. Even if the surviving spouse quickly remarries, he or she may no longer hold onto the office, because the new couple may nofreplace the original pair of leaders. Thus, following the death of the previous male monk at Fulqhat village in 1990, a re-election was immediately held so that a new couple might legitimately assume office. By the same token, if one partner becomes too old or sick to function in office, the pair must resign

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and a new couple be appointed to their position. Moral misconduct or neglect of duty on the part of one of the partners to an office typically results in the impeachment of both leaders. For instance, in a village cluster neighbouring Fulqhat, the head couple of a village was removed from the post when the male co-head was found to be involved in an extra-marital relationship. It is worthwhile noticing that the indigenous village officers — especially those at the village level — are characterized mainly by the services they render, rather than by personal power and self-interest. In fact, selfishness, competitiveness and aggressiveness are among the major characteristics that rule out certain candidates for leadership positions. Nonetheless, the leaders’ households in Fulqhat are typically better off than those of other villagers. This is because Lahu ideology links the well-being of the entire community to that of its leaders, with the consequence that only relatively well-off people are chosen for the offices in the first place. Moreover, once chosen for office, the leaders are held responsible when some natural disaster strikes, or when harvests are poor. Consequently, far fi-om being guaranteed prestige, the office holders nsk loss of respect if their performance in office is judged unsatisfactory. When the community elders are dissatisfied with their elected leaders, they will demand that a new election be held, a situation that occurs most frequently in the cases of the spiritual leader and leading blacksmith pair, the most likely officials to be blamed, respectively, for natural disasters and poor harvests. It is hardly surprising that leadership positions among the Fulquat Lahu are not necessarily seen to be very desirable. But once elected, leaders must accept the responsibilities of office, regardless of personal feelings. Zhang Bao, the current leading blacksmith in Fulqhat, is a good example. Soon after he was elected in 1993, he left the village cluster to live with his relatives, intending his departure as a message of his unwillingness to hold office. But just as soon as he and his wife returned to Fulquat, social pressure compelled the couple to resume their official responsibilities. 3b. Interactions between Cadres and Indigenous Leaders

Symbolically separated by the village gate, the indigenous institutions and stete administration of Fulqhat constantly interact with each other at the village-cluster level. Interaction between the two systems occurs mostly through the communications of the state-appointed head of

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Fulqhat administrative village, Cal Th id (himself a Fulquat Lahu) and the traditional male co-head of Fulqhat village cluster, Cal Lawd. At the time of my most recent fieldwork in 1996, both Cal Thid and Cal Lawd had held their respective positions for over a decade. Cal Thid often turns only to Cal Lawd to inform and mobilize villagers with respect to the implementation of state policies. On his part, Cal Lawd submits the matters for deliberation to the traditional co-leaders of the village cluster. In most cases, Lahu traditional leaders have little room to negotiate administrative orders (like compulsory submission of grain to the state) that are handed down to the administrative village from upper-level administrative units. On such occasions, the traditional leaders at the village-cluster level often feel obliged to assist Cal Thid by informing the leaders (especially the heads) of the subordinate villages of the policies received. These village leaders, in turn, explain the policies and how they are to be implemented to their fellow villagers. On ceitain occasions, when the traditional Lahu leaders believe particular plans (such as building a new primary school or establishing the Gourd Festival as the national festival of the Lahu) will benefit their communities, they can be very enthusiastic with their offers of support (Du 1999). When I discussed the issue with Cal Thid, he acknowledged that it was much easier for him to accomplish the tasks assigned to him by upper levels of the administration and to implement state policies when he received the support of the “nationality [ethnic minority] headmen” (M. minzu touren). Csi Thid’s opinion is shared by many officials beyond Fulqhat village cluster, mostly national cadres from the township or county who have had direct encounters with Fulqhat for specific tasks. The following story told by Cal Kheu, who served as an epidemic prevention officer in the county seat, provides a good example. [In the early 1980s], there was an outbreak of cholera cases in Burma. I was sent to Fulqhat to lead epidemic prevention, because a major crossborder road passes through Fulqhat.. .’Iheld meetings with the cadres of Fulqhat village. I explained to them epidemic prevention methods. As we did with other villages that were adjacent to Burma, I suggested that they

■’Burmese villagers often come to Fulqhat to exchange goods for Chinese currency, with which they purchase commodities such as batteries, cloth, and rubber shoes from the state-managed supply and marketing branch store that is located in the government section of the settlement.

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Du Shanshan send militia to guard the road, explain the situation to the Burmese villagers and prevent them from coming to this side. The problem was that young guards from Fulqhat had to be sent every day to keep watch on the road because they [Burmese] kept coming. During one of my meetings with the village cadres, Cal Thid suggested that I ask the nationality headmen to help me with the matter. Then I visited Cal Lawd and explained to him the epidemic and the importance of preventing the Burmese from crossing the borders until it was safe for them to do so. It was really amazing) The next day, not a single Burmese tried to cross the border; we did not need to send anybody to guard the border anymore. I heard later that Cal Thawd had prepared some tea and salt® and had asked a villager to send them to the village heads of the [neighbouring] Burmese villages, explain the situation, and request their cooperation. After the epidemic was over. I directly contacted Cal Lawd [rather than the official village head, Cal Thid]. Again, he asked somebody to send some tea and salt to the other side ... Immediately [the following day], the border rules were restored and the Burmese began to show up in the local market.

Just as support from the traditional village leaders greatly enhances the success of tasks assigned from higher administrative levels, so the lack of such support may result in the failure of tasks that are not backed by administrative force. A good example is a project that was promoted by the county agricultural department for almost a decade. In 1986, the agricultural department of Lancang County, through administrative channels, began to promote the cultivation of hybrid rice. As usual, responsibility for grassroots implementation of this policy was passed from the state-appointed village head. Cal Thid, to Cal Lawd and the team of traditional leaders. But the traditional leaders declined to use the new seed. Cal Thid reported the situation to'upper-level cadres, and an agricultural specialist was sent from the township to mobilize the villagers by persuading the male co-head Cal Lawd, explaining to him in detail the benefits of the hybrid seed. But the traditional village leaders remained doubtful about the change. They decided that they would inform the villagers of the cadres’ instructions, but would not promote them. Unable to persuade the villagers, Cal Thid experimented in part of his ’ Tea and salt symbolize peace and friendliness in Lahu negotiations.

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own field. When I stayed in Fulqhat in 1995, another visiting township agricultural cadre was urging Cal Thid to mobilize the villagers to use the new seeds. The results of his efforts were still unclear when it was time for me to leave the village in -1996. As mentioned above, Fulqhat village organization is very atypical among the Lahu in Lancang and elsewhere in China. What distinguishes it from most Lahu villages is that, in this post-Mao era, a revived indigenous system that is tolerated by the Chinese state co-exists with the state cadre system.

4. CONCLUSION Over the last two centuries, the village political organization of the Lancang Lahu has been greatly shaped by the interactions between indigenous institutions (a bottom-up system that combines politics with religion) and local administration that is subordinate to the central Chinese government. Direct state control drastically increased under the Guomindang regime and was completed in the 1950s, soon after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, when indigenous Lahu political institutions were abolished. However, since the 1980s, indigenous Lahu village organization has been revived in a few village clusters. Co-existing with the state administration at village level, the revived indigenous Lahu system of village administration plays a significant role in village life.

REFERENCES Chan, Anita, Richard Madsen and Jonathan Unger 1984 Chen Village Under Mao and Deng. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Chang Hong-En,ed. 1986 Lahu Yu Jian Zhi [Concise Annals of the Lahu Language]. Beijing: Minzu Chubanshe. Chen Jong-Guang and Li Guang-hua, eds. 1986 Lahuzu Jienshi [A Concise History of the Lahu]. Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe.

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Crook, Frederick W. 1975 The Commune System in the People’s Republic of China, 1963-74. In China: A Reassessment of the Economy. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office. (= A compendium of papers submitted to the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States.) 1986 The Reform of the Commune System and the Rise of the TownshipCollective-Household System. In China’s Economy Looks Toward the Year 2000. Vol. 1. The Four Modernizations. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office. (= Selected papers submitted to the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States).

Du Shanshan 1996 Cosmic and Social Exchanges: Blessings among the Lahu of Southwest China and the Feast-of-Merit Complex in Highland Southeast Asia. In Merit and Blessing in Mainland Southeast Asia, Cornelia Ann Kammerer and Nicola Tannenbaum, eds. New Haven: Yale University Press (= Southeast Asia Monograph Series no. 4). Pp.52-78. 1999 The Birth of a “Festival of Nationality” (Minzu Jieri}-. The Gourd Festival of the Lancang Lahu Autonomous County. Paper presented at the Midwest Seminar on China Studies. Urbana, Illinois (April 1999).

2000 Husband and Wife Do it Together: Sex/Gender Allocation of Labor among the Quawquat Lahu of Lancang, Southwest China. American Anthropologist 102(3):l-18. 2002 Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs: Gender Unity and Gender Equality among the Lahu of Southwest China. New York: Columbia University Press.

Du Shanshan and Hu Zakeu 1996 Xeulsha Yu Calnu Calpie de Guanxi: Lahu Zhi Shang She de Zhangzi Zhang Nu [The Relationship between Xeulsha and Calnu Calpei: The Senior Daughter and Son of the Lahu Supreme Parental God], MinzuDiaocha Yenjiu [The Journal for Ethnographic Research] 12: 69r75. Hill, Jacquetta 1985 The Household as the Center of Life among the Lahu Shehleh of Northern Thailand. In Family and Community Changes in East Asia. K. Aoi, K. Morioka, and J. Suginohara, eds. Tokyo: Japan Sociological Society. Pp. 504-525.

Mackerras, Colin 1994 China's-Minorities: Integration and Modernization in the Twentieth Century. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.

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93.

Matisoff, James A. 1988 77ie Dictionary of Lahu. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Oi.JeanC. 1989 State and Peasant in Contemporary China: The Political Economy of Village Government. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Walker, Anthony R. 1974 The Divisions of the Lahu People. Journal ofthe Siam Society 62(1): 1-26. 1983 The Lahu People: An Introduction. In Highlanders of Thailand, John McKinnon and WanatBhruksasri.eds.Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Pp. 227-37.

1986 Transformations of Buddhism in the Religious Ideas and Practices of a Non-Buddhist Hill People: The Lahu Nyi of the Northern Thai Uplands. Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography 5:65-91. (Reprinted in The Highland Heritage: Collected Essays on Upland North Thailand, Anthony R. Walker, editor. Singapore; Suvarnabhumi Books, 1992. Pp. 383-409.)

1995

Editor. Mvuh Hpa Mi Hpa-. Creating Heaven, Creating Earth: An Epic Myth of the Lahu People in Yunnan. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.

Wang Jun 1983 Lahu Zu [The Lahu Nationality].In Yunnan Shaoshu Minzu [Minority Nationalities in Yunnnan]. Du Yuting.ed. Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe. Pp. 239-63. Zhang Qilong, Yue Faxing and Zhang Xiaoga, eds. 1996 Lancang Lahuzhu Zizhixian Zhi [Annals of the Lancang Lahu Autonomous County]. Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe.

PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS Plates 1 -6 Du Shanshan

LEADERSHIP IN A RESETTLEMENT VILLAGE OF THE ORANG ASLI IN KEDAH, MALAYSIA SHUICHI NAGATA CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. “Leaders” at Kampung Lubuk Legong 3. The Assumption of Leadership 4. Leadership in Action 5. Dealing with Troubles in the Village 6. Competition for Forma! Leadership 7. Village Leadership, Government and “Community” 8. Conclusion

1. INTRODUCTION

It is widely acknowledged in anthropological literature that the egalitarianism of hunting and gathering peoples does not allow the development of a stable leadership position unless it is imposed by external authority (Woodbum 1982:444, n.l2).' Leaders that emerge in the camps of these people possess no power of coercion, but depend on their skills of persuasion; otherwise camp members, dissatisfied with the leaders, are free to move out of their camps to join others. The leaders remain in position only at the pleasure of the people and do not enjoy special privileges or prerogatives. A number of reasons have been advanced to explain this situation: (a) the small size of the local camp group, (b) a constantly changing group membership, (c) the autonomy Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; emeritus professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto.

The research on which this paper is based was conducted during 1986-87 and again during 1991-92 with the permission of the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli, Malaysia (JHEOA) and the Socio-Economic Research Unit (SERU) of the Prime Minister’s Department, Government of Malaysia, and was supported financially by the Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada (grant numbers: 410-86-0842 and 410-91-0060) and by Research Leave Grants from the University ofToronto. I am greatly indebted to the villagers of Kampung LebukLegong and other local residents who tolerated my presence during my two research seasons. Judith Nagata’s help in editing the first draft of this paper is also gratefully acknowledged. All errors and interpretations in the current version are, hpwever, mine alone.

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Map. Kampung Liibuk Legong

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of the individual and of the individual family, and (d) nomadism. While all these phenomena militate against any attempt to institute a stable leadership position, one may wonder what might happen once such people are compelled to abandon their nomadic way of life and adopt a sedentary residential pattern in government-created settlements, a fate that in recent decades has befallen numerous hunter-gatherer communities around the world (cf., for Africa, Kent 1989, Woodburn 1979; and for Southeast Asia, Endicott 1999:277). In this paper I wish to explore this question through the example of one such resettlement community: the village of Lubuk Legong in Kedah, northwest Malaysia (Map 1)?

2. “LEADERS” AT KAMPUNG LUBUK LEGONG In 1967 the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (hereafter JOA) or Department of Aboriginal Affairs of the Government of Malaysia built about twenty wooden houses on a clearing at the western edge of a 450-acre area of Orang Asli reserve land that had been gazetted in 1960. This new settlement was to accommodate a number of Western Semang huntingand-gathering families from two groups of Kensiu and from one Kintak group (Carey 1970:151, 1976:119; Ezanee 1972; Nagata 1990). According to Ezanee (1972:2), who conducted a brief study of Kampung Lubuk Legong in 1972, and my own visit then, the new settlement of twenty-three families was “protected” (Malay, jaga} by a JOA field assistant of Temiar (another and major Orang Asli group) ethnicity, who lived in the settlement, working as a medical orderly and wireless operator. At that time there was also apenghulu or government-appointed headman. This man was a halak or shaman. Ezanee (1972:14) tells us ■ that many of the Orang Asli themselves simply ignored their officiallyappointed leader, while outsiders would bypass him, going straight to the individual Orang Asli with whom they wished to deal (cf. Carey 1970:149, 152; 1976:121, 123). When the Lubuk Legong villagers collected rattan — a major economic activity (cf. Nagata 1997:23-5) — two men acted as intermediaries between the workers and the rattan traders. These men were called kepala (literally “head” in Malay). As Ezanee (1972:14) describes the situation, a kepala would receive contracts from traders, which he fulfilled by calling “a meeting of his workers For further introductory materials on this community, see my previous contribution to

this journal (Nagata 1997).

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... [at which] the manner of collecting rattan and [the] question of food are discussed”. The kepala then “sees to it that rattan is collected in the amount wanted and is responsible ... [for] handing the rattan to the dealers. For his work done, the dealer pays him on commission for every rattan pole gathered.” Ezanee (ibid.) terms these kepala “trader-appointed leaders” and reports (pp. 15-16) that: His leadership position does not end here. The almost daily, face-to-face relationship and working with his men makes him a respected and influential person. And because of his position, he can play an important role in community affairs. According to the people here, one of the two leaders has been able to influence a number of people here to boycott government projects and not to practise agriculture.

Plate 1. A section of Kampung Lubuk Legong (November, 2000) looking towards the surau (prayer hall) and the main road (left)

During my two seasons of field work (1986-87 and 1991-92) I observed a pattern of village leadership similar to that described by Ezanee twenty years earlier. During my residence at Kampung Lubuk Legong there -were two positions of what I shall term “village leadership”:

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Plate 2. The access road to Kampung Lubuk Legong (right)

one was that of penghulu or government-appointed headman, the holder receiving a monthly allowance; the other was that of JOA field assistant, whom some villagers referred to as the pengarah (a title not recognized by the JOA itself)The distinction between penghalu and pengarah more or less follows the dichotomy between "headman” and “leader” reported by Benjamin (1968) for the Temiar. 1 can also report that formal leadership at Kampung Lubuk Legong has tended to assume greater significance as a consequence of the people’s increasing adoption of a sedentary way of life.

3. THE ASSUMPTION OF LEADERSHIP 3a. Informal Leadership i. Bidog or Elders Ahenyal^ or household, comprising a nuclear family, is the basic unit of village life and the married couple cooperate (following a genderThis same word is used to refer to a house, a bamboo hut, or windscreen in a forest

camp.

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based division of labour) in its daily management. The household budget r ■!?' ugenerated by e male head of the household, is frequently shared between the married

“«P°*“i'’le for making whatever purchases are needed for runmng the household (see Nagata 1999 for details) Less

1"” cash-generating activities. Overall It IS difficult to say just who is the “leader” of a household since “^genient decisions are often taken on the basis of consensus between husband and wife. (Divorce, it may be noted in passing, is frequent and may be initiated by either husband or wife.) Some villagers speak of toruga, a category of relative whose living ascendants are siblings and who occupy several households at Kampung Lubuk Legong. These tofuga assist one another in providing accommodation or food. A toruga group is frequently identified by reference to one of its older male relatives who has a large family of his own At first sight, the toruga appears similar to the Temiar’s “household cluster as identified by Benjamin (1968:28-9), but it does not share a dwelling nor engage in communal activities. Moreover, the elder who

leadership role in the grouping. ■ Leaders tend to emerge somewhat more clearly within the context when hunting with blowpipes exception, not the rule. Indeed, even when blowpipe-hunting, they usually form groups of two to three men, especially when a hunt takes them some distance om the settlement. The much-more-frequent rattan-collecting work in nearby forests is organized by Malay or Chinese middlemen who engage large numbers of men - occasionally also some women *^.P“n’^e-On rare occasions the villagers undertake rattan-

nf W ^ng People express fear of working alone away from the village, not only in collecting rattan but also when hunting land turtles and collecting the edible pods cal ed peta, (Parkia speciosa). When the work at hand calls for setting up a camp at the edge of the forest for a week or more, several families cooperate and carry along with them all the necessary household utensils. When a Chinese or Malay middleman organizes a work group

notebook both the cash advances he makes to the workers and the

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amount of rattan that each collects. These data will be used later when finalizing payments. But this man is more scribe than leader; certainly he does not act as foreman during actual work in the forest. The workers search for rattan in small groups and, on such occasions, a man of experience, usually middleaged, will lead the party to appropriate spots, after which each man (or woman) works alone in cutting and Plate 3. Kampung Lubuk Legong’s assembling the rattan. Men penghulu, or government-appointed more knowledgeable than headman, posing in front of his house, their peers may also emerge November, 2000 in the forest camps themselves. Before setting off for a day’s work, a small group of men will discuss where they should go to collect rattan. At this time, one of their number may offer special advice that is accepted by the group as a whole. While trekking through the forest, this “expert” usually takes the rear position in the file of workers. Kampung Lubuk Legong’s penghulu, who also participates in forest collecting, always takes up the rear in a line of trekkers. If the man in front has any doubt as to which direction he should follow, he will stop and call out to the penghulu for advice. But the advice proffered does not amount to an order. In the film Nomads of the Jungle that was produced in 1948 (see Naim 1987a, b for details) there is a sequence in which a group of Orang Asli, their headman in front, walk down a trail through the forest on their way to a Malay-operated trading post. The Orang Asli in the film are Lanoh who, though not agriculturists, have long led a sedentary life-style in settlements close to Grik in Ulu Perak. The contrast between the Lanoh’s headman at the head ofhis people and Kampung Lubuk Legong’s penghulu taking up the rear in a forest expedition is instructive. The latter heads a community that has been settled for far less time than have the Lanoh; as such, he takes the initiative only when asked to do so, never of his own accord.

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Leadership among the the Kampung Lubuk Legong people may be assumed by anyone who happens to have the competence to meet the needs of a particular circumstance. In a single work enterprise, like collecting rattan, the man who directs the other workers in the forest may not be the same person who deals with the middleman. The former, because of his long experience, meets the need for locating good rattan­ collecting areas; the latter meets the need to have somebody with fluemcy in the Malay language. In short, leadership — if it may be so called — among the Kampung Lubuk Legong people is fluid and not restricted to particular individuals. Competence and knowledge that come of experience and age are what counts in this community, and no special status or prestige is attached to the position of a leader. A few old men of the village are well known for just such qualities and, as I shall describe later, people seek out their advice for medical treatment and, on rare occasions, in order to resolve their personal troubles. All these men are long-time residents of the village and have comparatively large families. Although people refer to them simply as bidog “old person” or “elder”, they too may be considered among the informal leaders of the community.

ii. Cao Neges or Ritual Leaders Penlonj qy ritual singing is led by a cao neges or “singing master” (from cao, head”, and eges, “to sing”), who is said to have acquired his knowledge and the ability to sing from the cenoi qy sky spirits. At present there are only two men (no woman) at Kampung Lubuk Legong who possess such skills. Acao neges opens a ritual singing session by praying to the spirits and then, as he leads the song, line by line, he is followed by a chorus of singers who are accompanied by the beating'bf bamboo instruments. A ritual song session may only take place after nightfall, as the spirits are said to be afraid of light, and it continues throughout the night, ending, almost abruptly, just before daybreak. Any Kensiu, but not Kintak or Jahai (other Semang groups resident at Kampung Lubuk Legong), who is lucky enough to receive a song from the cenoi in a dream and who is sufficiently motivated to practise the art of singing may become a cao neges. Usually a cao neges has a small number of apprentices, called senuntin, who are yet to receive songs of their own, but who aspire later to become cao. During a ritual

Leadership in an Orang Asli Resettlement Village

song session, a cao neges may practise healing. But this does not mean that he is a halak or shaman, who is a ritual specialist believed to have the power to call on a tiger spirit-helper during a seance. At present there is no halak at Kampung Lubuk Legong. Because the position of cao neges is not one that is recognized by the JOA, or even by other Semang groups living in the village, there is some disagreement among the residents of Kampung Lubuk Plate 4. Cao neges blowing his breath Legong as to just who among to sky spirits before the sing begins them is a cao neges. There is unanimity only in the case of one practitioner; the situation with regard to the second man, who is older than the first, is in dispute, even though he has been leading ritual song sessions since 1991. At any rate, the leadership of the cao neges is strictly limited to ritual song sessions; it has no relevance in-the non-ritual contexts of village life. Moreover, even the singing sessions are organized on the initiative of other villagers, who then ask one of the cao neges to lead the singing. Seldom does a cao neges take the initiative in proposing a

session.

ni. Penghulu and Pengarah: Village-level Leaders The only position of village leadership that is formally recognized both internally and externally is that of the penghulu, the government-appointed headman. The position of penghulu was initiated by the JOA during the early days of the Department’s administration of the Orang Asli peoples of peninsular Malaysia. I was informed by a JOA field assistant of Malay ethnicity that the former custom was to have a penghulu’s son succeed his father to the office, but that now it is the choice of the people themselves.

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Certainly KampungLubukLegong ’s presentpenghulu is norelation of Pinang anak Kepayang, who was his predecessor (Carey 1970:143). The present penghulu seems to be one of the men whom Ezanee, in the early 1970s, termed a “trader-appointed leader”. This man’s father was also a penghulu, though prior to the time that Pinang anak Kepayang held this position. Thus at Kampung Lubuk Legong, the position of penghulu has indeed been passed from father to son, but with a break of a few years, during which time Pinang, the shaman, held that office. It is still unclear to me just why the present penghulu was chosen to succeed Pinang, the shaman. I was informed that some villagers were less than keen on having him as their penghulu, because he was always moving about from one place to another and seldom stayed very long in the village itself. It may be that he was appointed penghulu because he was already known to the government authorities.'* It may also be that other men with informally-recognized leadership roles were passed over because none of them was a Kensiu from the original settlement area, Siong. Among the Batek, a foraging people of Kelantan, Endicott (1974:246) observed that residence within the territory of one’s own dialect group is a precondition of penghulu-ship. It may be of some import that one of the daughters of Kampung Lubuk Legong’s present penghulu is married to the eldest son of the late penghulu of Bukit Asu, a Kintak settlement in Upper Perak. The couple resides at Kampung Lubuk Legong, and although the husband once told me that he would assume the position of penghulu in his late father’s settlement, in fact another man, unrelated to his father, eventually took that position after a lapse of a few years. It seems therefore that, at the present time , there is no more than an incipient tendency for the penghuluship to be concentrated in a particular family. Moreover; it is certain that the Kampung Lubuk Legong folk do not subscribe to a father-son succession as reported for the Batek in Kelantan (Endicott 1974:246). On the other hand, several of the required qualifications for penghuluship that have been reported among other Orang Asli groups are certainly also applicable at Kampung Lubuk Legong, namely fluency jn Malay (reported by Endicott [1974:246] for the Batek, Dentan [1964:180] for the Semai and Benjamin [1968:314] for the Temiar), being married with children (reported by Endicott [ibid.]), and being not too old to be economically active (reported by Endicott [ibid.] and Benjamin 4 For examples of the JOA coopting individuals compliant with its policy, see below; also see Dentan et al. (1997:152).

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[1968:35]). As among the Temiar (cf. Benjamin 1968:35), there is no necessity for the Kampung Lubuk Lcgong penghulu to be a ritual

specialist, though this can happen. Do men at Kampung Lubuk Legong compete with one another to be appointed penghulul As 1 shall discuss later, there has been competition in this village for the headmanship; on the other hand, I was told that the present incumbent achieved his position because nobody else was willing to accept it. Moreover, when 1 suggested to one young man the possibility that he would one day become the penghulu, he replied, cmphatically?‘6\v