PART 2
GENDER IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS

4
Knowledge, Power, and Personal Misfortune

'Ala'u'd-din [the Sultan of Melaka from about 1477 to 1488] died in the prime of life, probably before the age of thirty, and it was soon rumoured among his subjects that he had been poisoned. This was the normal assumption in the Malay world when a man died young. The pious might say that an allotted span in the Book of Life had been rubbed out, but the common man tended to be more concerned with the instrument of fate, and in the absence of keris or spear, could only assume poison.
Paul Wheatley, Impressions of the Malay Peninsula in Ancient Times (1964)

A person entering a Malay house is generally presented with a green cocoa-nut and a little coarse sugar.... The young cocoa-nut is opened with the ever ready parang , always in the presence of the person to whom it is offered, to ensure its juice not having been poisoned or charmed.
T. J. Newbold, Political and Statistical Accounts of the British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca (1839)

A Kedah lady the other day, eulogising the advantage of possessing a familiar spirit [pelisit ], ... said that amongst other things it gave her absolute control over her husband and the power of annoying people who offended her... . One is not surprised to hear that everyone in Kedah, who is anybody, keeps a pel[i]sit .
Sir Frank Swettenham, Malay Sketches (1895)

The native of the [Malay] Peninsula believes that an esoteric knowledge of the origin of any being gives the possessor of that knowledge an extraordinary power. A sorcerer who wishes to force some man or woman to do his will has only to refer to the mysterious elements which go to make up the human embryo; if he wishes to control a demon, he alludes to the theory of its generation from the placenta and other concomitants of childbirth.... [More generally,] special forms of knowledge give supernatural power.... Knowledge is in itself a power since it enables man to avail himself of the forces of nature or of the unseen world.
R. J. Wilkinson, Malay Beliefs (1906)

Ilmu is a central concept in Malay culture that refers to knowledge, especially esoteric or systematic knowledge, science, higher education, and intelligence. The term is most commonly used to denote esoteric religious knowledge concerning the manipulation of spirits and the unseen forces of the natural world. This chapter deals with the distribution of ilmu in local society, its acquisition, the uses to which it is put, and some of the ways one goes about counteracting the ilmu of those bent on causing one harm. The larger issues include: the gendered dimensions of ilmu ; the relationship in local culture between knowledge and power; how knowledge and power figure in accounts of personal misfortune; and recent historical changes in the sources and meanings of marginality, uncertainty, and danger, particularly as they relate to gender. The case studies presented in the latter sections of the chapter also help illustrate my more general arguments that femininity and masculinity can only be understood if they are viewed in relation to one another; that cultural knowledge is contextually grounded and deeply perspectival; and that our ethnographic descriptions and interpretations must therefore attend both to polyvocality and to the political economy of contested symbols and meanings.

Knowledge and Power

The possession of ilmu is a virtue (though it is sometimes used in unvirtuous ways), and can in fact be seen as a sort of summarizing virtue or "metavirtue" in the system of moral evaluation as a whole. As might be expected, ilmu is concentrated among ritual specialists and religious teachers, but it is also widely distributed throughout society. In its concentrated forms, it occurs most commonly among men, for the majority of ritual experts (e.g., healers and shamanic specialists)—and all local and itinerant Islamic teachers—are men. In Bogang, for example, there were ten male healers and shamanic specialists in 1980, but only one woman. That a woman became a healer, and a very successful one at that, is not so much a violation of a largely implicit conceptual linkage between males and ilmu (and the strong semangat , or "life force," with which both are associated), as testimony to her having "beaten the odds," to borrow the phrase Atkinson (1990:83) employs to describe a similar situation among the Wana of eastern Indonesia.

I have noted that ilmu is also widely distributed throughout local society. Indeed, most men and women over sixty years of age seem to know a bit of ilmu , which they have acquired either through study or medita-

tion with a knowledgeable elder, or through dreaming, illness, or trance. This broad relatively ungendered distribution of elementary forms of ilmu serves to deemphasize the conceptual link between ilmu and maleness (and strong semangat ). So, too, does the fact that men and women alike deploy ilmu against both same-sex and cross-sex individuals toward whom they harbor envy, jealousy, or malice.

The deployment of ilmu outside of—and even within—healing rituals is not an easy subject to investigate, for villagers tend not to talk openly or casually about ilmu (to do so is, among other things, not only dangerous but also a sign that one does not really have [much of] it). And villagers are understandably sensitive to the charges of extralocal reformers that many local forms of ilmu are not grounded in the Koran or other religious texts and are therefore "survivals of pre-Islamic days of ignorance"^[1] —the traffic in which is gravely sinful. There are, moreover, deep-rooted and pervasive concerns that those who possess ilmu can and frequently do use it not only in socially acceptable ways (to cure illness, to find lost or stolen money or other objects, to help mend strained relations), but also in socially unacceptable ways (to cause illness or death, to make money or other valuables disappear, to engender alienation between spouses and others). As I discuss later on, many of these ambivalences about ilmu are, at base, ambivalences about human nature and the local system of social relations. Social constraints on the public airing of such ambivalent sentiments serve as a further constraint on the open or casual discussion of ilmu .

In private conversations, people in Bogang are quick to point to kinsmen, neighbors, and other community residents who use ilmu to gain control of the affections and loyalties of—or otherwise influence—fellow villagers; but direct accusations of the use of ilmu in socially unacceptable ways are extremely rare (and, as I discuss in a moment, villagers do not usually acknowledge that they themselves have ever used ilmu in non-therapeutic settings, let alone socially unacceptable ways). A few examples of the use of ilmu in non-therapeutic contexts will be useful here, particularly since they will help convey a sense of the local social landscape.

Haji Baharuddin, a wealthy pensioner (former school teacher and headmaster) who is widely despised, has run up enormous debts throughout the village and beyond. Though he is not a ritual specialist, he is widely assumed to use ilmu to get people to lend him money and/or extend his credit, and to keep his creditors at bay. That he is always in need of pocket money is also partly a function of ilmu , for, as I was told on many occasions, his wife (not a ritual specialist) relied on ilmu to help make sure

that he turned over his monthly pension to her as soon as it arrived at the local post office. (She also accompanied him to the post office to help guarantee that her will prevailed.)

Lebai Ismail, another male elder, is an extremely successful entrepreneur and a local "big man" (orang besar ) in the dual sense of being able to "get things done" and enjoying many followers who will do his political and other bidding for him. He is the de facto leader of the opposition party (PAS), and also heads the lineage (perut tengah ) which has been at odds with the wealthiest and most prestigious lineage in the village (perut darat ) for quite some time. His successes in attracting and retaining loyal followers are due to his being pandai cakap , literally, "clever at talking/ speaking," which, in turn, is a function of his knowledge and deployment of ilmu .

Datuk (Haji) Latiff was, until his death in 1981, one of Bogang's oldest and most feared dukun . He was widely believed to be responsible for the mystically induced death of Kakak Z's young child. He caused the child's death, it was said, because he was incensed that his request for some of the bananas that one of the child's male relatives carried by his house one day was rejected or simply ignored.

Mak Shamsiah and Maimunah have been subject to spirit possession for decades now. Possession by spirits is due, in Mak Shamsiah's case (at least in the official household and lineage version of her illness) to the ilmu of an amorous dukun whose advances to her she quickly rebuffed; it is due in Maimunah's case to the use of ilmu on the part of a man (not a ritual specialist) she ran out on in the midst of their wedding. Maimunah's mother, for her part, relies on ilmu "all the time" to help find a mate for Maimunah, and most certainly did so (so I was told) as part of her overall strategy to get me to marry her (see chap. 1).

Though most villagers disavow the use of ilmu in non-therapeutic settings, some villagers do acknowledge the deployment of ilmu in such contexts. Thus Mak Lang told me that she used ilmu on her husband to help make sure that he would always find her attractive and remain faithful to her. And she confided that she brought ilmu to bear on her grandson to help ensure that he would study diligently and do well in school. (In the former instance she was successful; not so in the latter.) Such admissions, though rare, are significant, for men and women alike contend that women are more inclined than men to use ilmu pengasih , which is often translated as "love magic" but is more appropriately glossed "affection magic." Women's greater reliance on such magic may be due to their greater insecurity in conjugal and other relationships, though as Lambek

(1988:725) has argued for the somewhat similar situation in Mayotte (Comoro Islands), it is more likely a function of their more pronounced concerns with "maintaining peace and order" within their households and kin groups, "articulating social relations," and "looking after reproduction in both the social and biological senses."

Fears and anxieties relating to being victimized by ilmu , and by poisoning and spirit possession more generally, seem to be more or less equally distributed among men and women (though this is difficult to gauge with any degree of precision). So, too, are real and imagined illnesses brought about by manipulation of ilmu . These points merit emphasis since much of the recent literature concerning mystical attacks among Malays (e.g., Kessler 1977; Ong 1987, 1988, 1990a) focuses on the prevalence of women as victims of highly dramatic forms of spirit possession and effectively glosses over or ignores the prevalence of men as victims of poisoning and sorcery that do not involve possession by spirits taking control of their hosts in dramatic episodes of hysteria. This focus on women's afflictions to the relative exclusion of men's leads to an unjustifiably dichotomized treatment of the roles and meanings of male and female both in "traditional" Malay culture and in the rapidly changing world of contemporary Malaysia. When one examines the major varieties of mystical attack, and not just spirit possession, one gets a more complete picture of Malay understandings and representations of gender, and of marginality, uncertainty, and danger, one that differs in important ways from those in the literature. I will return to this point later on.

Just as men and women are affected by the malevolent uses of ilmu in different ways—with men more likely to experience slow wasting away, and women highly dramatic forms of spirit possession—so, too, is there gender-based variation both in modes of acquisition of ilmu , and in its deployment in healing rituals. This will be clear from a brief comparison between Pak Daud, my father, and Mak Ijah, Bogang's only female healer.

Pak Daud and Mak Ijah

Pak Daud is a renowned healer specializing in treating victims of poisoning and sorcery who was fifty-six years old when I first met him (1978). He began curing people around 1946, which is when he moved to Bogang and took up residence with his new bride (a cross-cousin, to whom he is still married), and he served as the village headman (ketua kampung ) from 1962 to 1987. Pak Daud treated victims of poisoning and sorcery—the majority of whom were male—on almost every night of the more

than sixteen months that I spent in Bogang during my first period of research, and I had the good fortune of being able to observe many of the healing rituals he performed.

I have commented on Pak Daud's curing sessions elsewhere (Peletz 1988a, 1993a [see also below]), and will simply note here that they are rather matter-of-fact and thoroughly undramatic; for example, unlike Mak Ijah, he does not light candles or burn incense, don special attire, or go into trance during the rites he performs. The ilmu Pak Daud deploys in such sessions derives in large part from his father and his father-in-law, both of whom were ritual specialists in their own right. More generally, Pak Daud's apprenticeship entailed lengthy periods of fasting and prayer, submission to numerous food and other prohibitions, and battling with spirits over whom he was learning to gain a measure of control. In the course of his apprenticeship, Pak Daud refined his powers of concentration and prayer, and otherwise developed control over his inner self, the latter being a goal of all dukun , and to a lesser extent of all other Malays as well (cf. Anderson 1972:8–13).

Compared to most other villagers, Pak Daud spends a good deal of time in the forest—hunting game animals of various kinds and harvesting petai and other forest products—and is thus associated in many villagers' eyes both with the forest (and the malevolent spirits who live there) and with the forest-dwelling aborigines, who are believed to have extremely dangerous (partly because non-Islamic) forms of ilmu . This conceptual link enhances villagers' views of his ilmu , as does the fact that Pak Daud was forcibly taken to Thailand by the Japanese during their occupation of the Peninsula from 1942 to 1945, and is believed by some villagers to have acquired at least some of his ilmu from his journeys among Thais and others living north of the Malaysian-Thai border.

The majority of Pak Daud's patients are from other villages (as are most of Mak Ijah's), but this is a common pattern both in Bogang and elsewhere in Negeri Sembilan (Swift 1965:164), and among Javanese (Geertz 1960:90) and others. As Obeyesekere (1969:180) suggests, it is probably related to the fact that it "facilitates the performance of the priest role by creating a social distance between priest and audience."

Pak Daud is an extremely charismatic individual, but he seldom speaks and is in this regard quintessentially male. Partly because of his taciturn nature, I was less successful than I would have liked in getting him to talk about ilmu and healing rituals, and about most other things. Some of his reluctance to talk about ilmu and healing rituals was no doubt related to his concern that I might share his secrets with others, for as another of

Bogang's dukun once told me, "This ilmu is my capital (modal ), and I can't afford to spread it around and lose it." Perhaps more relevant, though, is that to talk casually or excessively about ilmu —either one's own or someone else's—is a sign that one lacks ilmu . More generally, in many contexts talking indexes a lack of rationality (akal ), and since most men, particularly the ritual specialists among them, go to great lengths to assert their rationality (though obviously not always successfully), they do not usually talk much about ilmu —or anything else of substance.

In this connection, Siegel's (1978:20–21) observations concerning the culturally similar Acehnese are especially interesting:

Men seldom speak. This is not because they value silence, but because they think they should speak only when they have something of significance to say. Their speech expresses their rationality; it must therefore be substantive. The result is that it is usually portentous in tone but banal or absurd in content. Limiting oneself to saying only what is so limits one to the obvious or nearly obvious. Conversations with men tend to be confined to subjects such as what bus passed by, prices of various commodities, and other matters of fact. When they speak to their wives men are freed from the constraints of experience, which does nothing to lighten their tone but rather allows them to utter an order for duck for dinner or to have a child washed up and make it sound highly important.

Women, on the other hand, chatter continuously. Their activities are always filled with sounds,' illustrating the [Malay-] Indonesian concept of ramai —or noise-making activity. What they say is occasionally outrageous, but they feel, nonetheless, that they can say anything. Unlike men, they feel no constraint to be rational, but neither do they conceive of themselves as irrational. Rather their speech to them has authority which comes from a different source. In their struggle with their husbands they win not simply by subverting men's belief in themselves as rational, but by feeling no hesitation to speak. It is my contention that they find a source analogous to the Koran for the resultant authoritative tone in curing rites and dreams.

The situation described (and clearly oversimplified) for Aceh differs in some important ways from that of Negeri Sembilan—for example, in Aceh all healers are women, whereas in Negeri Sembilan and among Malays generally, most are men; and Acehnese women's culturally elaborated concerns with dreaming have no Malay counterpart. Even so, Siegel's observations help us understand some of the differences between Pak Daud and Mak Ijah (aged sixty-seven), who is Bogang's only female healer, and between (Malay) men and women generally.^[2]

Mak Ijah is the granddaughter of a Chinese woman who was born in Singapore and adopted while quite young by the nineteenth-century Hill

lineage luminary who became Undang . Mak Ijah has been married five times and lives in a house set off from all others in the village. Her parents and collateral ascendants are all dead, and she has neither siblings nor any natural children. For these and other reasons, Mak Ijah views herself as having no kin either within the village or outside. In this regard she is extremely atypical; all the more so since she adopted a former neighbor's daughter and reared her as her own for a number of years.

Unlike Pak Daud, Mak Ijah is ver-y expressive and dramatic, extremely high-strung, and quite marginal in the community. And although she is a very successful dukun who is able to cure, as she put it, "everything from injured bones to spirit possession except diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease," she is viewed with considerable ambivalence and skepticism by many members of the community. There are at least three reasons for this. First, unlike most (if not all) other healers in Bogang, Mak Ijah goes into trance (terun-menerun ) in the course of her healing rituals. Trance states brought about by spirit possession were long regarded—and to some extent still are—as legitimate sources of authority, much like dreams; but like dreams, they have come to be increasingly delegitimized as authoritative sources for speech and other behavior due to religious and other (e.g., political) changes of the past century that have encouraged the rationalization of village religion, and in particular the demise of most forms of shamanism and spirit cults. All things—and people—associated with trance states, shamanism, and spirit cults are thus viewed by villagers with ever increasing ambivalence and skepticism.

Second, Mak Ijah financed her pilgrimage to Mecca with money obtained from patients, whom she is widely believed to have exploited. Though concerns that dukun exploit their patients are widespread, they are especially pronounced when dukun appear to profit handsomely from the ritual services they provide (as Mak Ijah has done).

The third reason Mak Ijah is viewed with much ambivalence and skepticism is that she is anomalous since, as a female, she beat the odds by becoming a dukun . The anomaly lies not so much in the fact that females are not supposed to be ritual specialists or repositories of ilmu . For until quite recently, midwives, the vast majority of whom were female, drew upon ilmu in the course of delivering babies and providing both prenatal and postnatal care, and otherwise plied their trade widely.^[3] (One of Bogang's last shamanic specialists [pawang ], moreover, was a female.) Rather it is that to become a dukun or a "big person" (orang besar ) of any sort presupposes the development and refinement of qualities such as rationality, which are most commonly realized in inner tranquillity/se-

renity and outward restraint, and which are more strongly associated (at least in official discourse) with males than with females. There is, moreover, the issue of leadership and dependency relations. Traditional leaders' efficacy and spiritual potency were gauged in no small measure by the number of supporters or retainers they could muster, and this is true of contemporary leaders as well. Those who have benefited from a dukun 's services are his/her anak ubat (literally, "medicine children," children through curing"), and in theory at least they are forever indebted to the dukun for restoring their health. The hierarchical/asymmetric component of this relationship is not particularly problematic when the leaders are men; but when they are women and have many male supporters, they are in certain respects out of keeping with the usual state of affairs. This is all the more true now that there are no more traditional midwives and no more female (or male) pawang .

Just as Mak Ijah is viewed with more ambivalence and skepticism than Pak Daud, so, too, did she acquire her ilmu in more dramatic fashion: she was chanting and fighting off delirium-inducing fever (and perhaps death itself) brought about by her adoptive daughter's attempt to murder her and her husband through sorcery. Mak Ijah's highly charged, near hysterical account of the circumstances leading up to this attack, and of the attack itself—which entailed the mystical injection of needles and stones into their bodies—and its outcome, would easily fill a book. Suffice it to say that her adoptive daughter was furious with her because Mak Ijah refused to agree to transfer some of her land to her, or simply enter the adoptive daughter's name on the back of the land grant so that the land would pass to her when Mak Ijah died. The incensed woman thus contacted both a locally resident Javanese man who (like all other Javanese) is believed to have dangerous forms of ilmu ("he has tattoos all over his arms," Mak Ijah confided in me) and local aborigines in the hope that they could provide her with ilmu to kill Mak Ijah and her husband. The fee for this service, Mak Ijah told me on a number of occasions, was well over M$700! "How could she do this to me when I raised her as my own for so many years?"

Mak Ijah is far more talkative than other dukun , and is in many respects a caricature of female styles of speech and comportment. She talked continuously, and at a feverish pitch; and much of what she said struck me—and my (male) research assistant—as outrageous.^[4] She was, nonetheless, an excellent informant, for in our conversations she seemed altogether indifferent to status considerations and to whether or not she appeared rational. Moreover, both she and her husband (who was often

present when I spoke with her) were in my experience uncharacteristically forthcoming about the quality of social relations in the village and among Malays in general. In their view, fellow villagers (and most other Malays) know very little about Islam and are consumed by passions of greed, envy, and malice; these, along with obsessive concerns with face and honor, are responsible for the "treachery" (khianat ) that suffuses local social relations. Not surprisingly, Mak Ijah's husband would rather have his two acres of rubber trees go untapped than have them worked by someone who might possibly cheat him of his rightful share (50% of the tapper's yield), even though this results in the land lying unworked and hence in a substantially reduced household income. Summing up his experience with tenant tappers in metaphors of food and eating, he said "the [tenant] tapper gets all of the meat, while the owner is left with the sauce" (orang potong dapat daging, orang punya dapat kwa saja ). On another occasion he characterized his overall experiences with local reciprocity by saying "you give flowers and get shit in return" (kasih bungga, balas tahi ).

These sentiments, shared by Mak Ijah, highlight profound ambivalences concerning human nature and social relations. They also illustrate some of the ways in which breaches of the social order are cast in the imagery of food and eating. When speaking of adultery and of men involved in the offense of sororal polygyny, for example, villagers use expressions indicating that the offender "was given one but ate two" (diberi satu, makan dua ). Similarly, villagers liken the crime of incest to cannibalism insofar as they sometimes compare the behavior of individuals involved in incestuous unions with the habits of domesticated chickens who consume scraps of cooked food thrown to them at the end of meals, including the flesh/meat of other chickens with whom they share biogenetic substance (macam ayam makan daging sendiri ). We have seen, too, that in local mythology the primordial act of brother-sister incest was followed both by the brother lapping up the discharge that flowed from his sister's vagina as she gave birth, and by brother and sister alike being transformed into pelisit , which, as noted earlier, thrive off the blood they suck from pregnant and postpartum women as well as newborn children. Interestingly, the most detailed version of this myth that I encountered in the field came from Mak Ijah. Of perhaps greater interest is that the concerns realized in the myth (the inversion of proper kin relations, failed biological and social reproduction) are highly congruent with the themes accorded primacy in Mak Ijah's account of her relationship with her adoptive daughter and her acquisition of ilmu more generally.

A brief summary of some of the similarities and differences between Pak Daud and Mak Ijah may be useful here. First the similarities: Pak Daud and Mak Ijah are about the same age, and are associated (albeit in different ways: Pak Daud through marriage, Mak Ijah through adoption and satellite status) both with the same gentry clan (Lelahmaharaja) and with its wealthiest and most powerful and prestigious lineage (perut darat ). They treat many of the same forms of illness, and both of them acquired their ilmu as a result of association with same-sex kin.

As for the differences: Pak Daud acquired his ilmu through prayer, observance of food and other prohibitions, and meditation and study with elder kinsmen—all of which required active mastery of Koranic texts (the Word of God) as well as studied control and refinement of his various senses and inner being. Mak Ijah, in contrast, obtained her ilmu as a result of near fatal illness (including delirium-inducing fever), trance, and spirit possession brought on by a younger kinswomen's (her adoptive daughter's) attempt to murder her through sorcery—all of which entailed loss of control and lack of agency. Mak Ijah thus calls upon different sources to lend authority to her speech and comportment (trance, possession by spirits, rather than Koranic texts), invokes different intergenerational links in her account of how she acquired ilmu (links with the descending, rather than ascending, generation), and is, more generally, more attuned to the future (social and biological reproduction) than the past.

Differences in the quality of—and degree of elaboration concerning—the social relations directly or indirectly implicated in the acquisition of ilmu in the two cases are also quite striking: Pak Daud obviously had a high degree of rapport with the male elders from whom he acquired his ilmu , though, significantly, he did not comment on this; Mak Ijah's relation with her adoptive daughter, on the other hand, was both treacherous and the subject of extremely detailed, near hysterical elaboration. Some broad inferences can be drawn from these latter differences, but it would be erroneous to conclude that women's relationships are problematic whereas men's are not. The more accurate generalization is that, compared to men, women are more concerned with the tenor of social relations (e.g., maintaining peace and order) within their households and kin groups, and with looking after social and biological reproduction. (Men's moral concerns complement those of women and are, in any event, realized in different contexts. Note, for example, that Pak Daud is able to articulate his moral concerns in his roles as village headman and member of the various village councils that nowadays constitute the principal or-

gans of local government and administration.) Case studies presented in subsequent sections of the chapter illustrate how these concerns are realized in spirit possession and other forms of mystical attack.

Finally, a few comments concerning Mak Ijah and spirit possession among women generally. Mak Ijah's first experience with possession occurred when she was about thirty-five years of age. In this respect (as with many other features of her life) she is highly unusual, for most women who are subject to possession by spirits have their first experience with possession during their late teens or early twenties. This pattern seems always to have obtained. So, too, does the general principle that once a woman is possessed she tends to have recurring bouts of possession throughout her life: "Once possessed, always possessed," as Boddy (1989:177) puts it writing about possession among women in the Sudan. It is difficult to say with certainty why possession should first afflict women during their late teens or early twenties, but I suspect it is because this is when their sexuality and fertility are activated and publicly marked. These developments involve profoundly important psychological and social transformations which serve to impress upon young women both how central they are with respect to the honor, prestige, and reproduction of their households, kin groups, and society at large, and how threatening their activated sexualities, along with their bodily fluids and orifices, can be to themselves and others. The fact that the spirits that possess females are drawn to fertile women, and to their activated sexualities, bodily fluids, and orifices in particular, is also relevant here, as is the fact that many of these spirits are believed to be sent by male suitors, who as a group are altogether uninterested in prepubescent (and postmenopausal) females.^[5]

The case studies presented below provide a closer look at spirit possession in Bogang. They suggest, among other things, that possession provides women with a morally authoritative source to express and dramatize their most pressing social concerns, and thus serves some of the same purposes as women's curing rites and dreaming among the Acehnese.

Spirit Possession Observed: The Case of Maimunah

It was a Friday (February 1979), shortly before noon, and I was participating in a small feast at Mak Rahmah's home. Just after the start of the meal there was a blood-curdling scream from next door. Everyone present seemed to recognize the scream as coming from Mak Rahmah's sister's daughter, Maimunah, who was about twenty-eight years old and worked as a secretary/clerk in a Chinese-run bus company whose offices were

located in a small town about eight miles from Bogang. From the very start, Mak Rahmah's son and Maimunah's elder (and only) brother—who had returned home on one of his rare visits—knew that Maimunah was experiencing kena hantu (spirit possession). Mak Rahmah and her sister (Maimunah's mother) rushed over to the house, as did most of the others. A few moments later I followed suit.

When I arrived, Maimunah was slouching in a chair in the front room, being restrained by her brother and Mak Rahmah's son. She was struggling with all of her might to be free of their hold, but to little avail; her eyes were glassy and her stare vacant, and she was sweating profusely and weeping as if in great pain. Amidst her sobs Maimunah told Mak Rahmah—whom she dislikes intensely—that she (Mak Rahmah) was sombong (arrogant, haughty, conceited, unresponsive to social expectations); Maimunah leveled a similar charge at her elder sister, who was also present. She went on to make a disparaging remark about Mak Rahmah having made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and complained about not having received some cakes she had wanted, which ended up going to someone else close at hand. Neither Mak Rahmah nor the sister seemed upset by these insulting remarks; they claimed it was not Maimunah speaking but the spirit (pelisit, hantu ) who had temporarily taken control of her.

While Maimunah continued groaning, weeping, and screaming, she was brought into the central room of the house by those who had come to her aid. The latter placed themselves around her and someone fetched some water to be used as the base of a home remedy. Small bits of chili, pepper, and red onion were mixed in with the water, which was then rubbed on her head, arms, feet, chest and legs. Incense was lit and the fumes were blown over her face. Maimunah's sister gathered some of the smoke in her cupped hands and placed her hands firmly over Maimunah's mouth, during which time Maimunah screamed and tried to escape with all her force. Mak Rahmah began reciting Koranic passages and blowing them over Maimunah's body as she rubbed the medicine she had prepared on Maimunah's temple and face, and on other parts of her body.

At this point and for the next ten or fifteen minutes, those present addressed the spirit and asked it how long it had been bothering Maimunah and why it was disturbing her. They screamed at the spirit and commanded it to return whence it had come, adding that it had no right to bother people there, that no one had disturbed it, and so on. This was met with a response, said to be from the spirit, that it had been there "for more than a month." Those present continued to shout at and insult the spirit, calling it stupid (bodoh ) and stubborn (degil ) for not leaving Mai-

munah alone. Maimunah, for her part, complained that her stomach and head hurt, and lapsed into fits of wailing and mournful crying; she was still sweating profusely and looking quite anguished. The reciting of Koranic passages continued for another ten or so minutes, during which time the others laughed at some of Maimunah's (the spirit's) comments, screamed at the spirit to leave Maimunah alone, and made small talk.

It was about this time that someone either asked Maimunah if she wanted the help of a dukun , or simply mentioned the name of Pak Daud. I am not certain what was said, but Maimunah (or the spirit) replied that she (it) was frightened of Pak Daud. It was then decided that someone should call Pak Daud to help her through the attack. Pak Daud, who was praying at the mosque, was summoned and soon appeared on the scene.

Pak Daud's arrival was greeted with little ceremony or exchange of information. This is partly because Pak Daud is closely related to Maimunah (he is her adoptive father and mother's sister's husband), and has treated Maimunah for spirit possession on many occasions. Pak Daud was informed that Maimunah was not conscious (tak sedar ), and he proceeded to recite largely inaudible incantations over a glass of water, which he gave Maimunah to drink. Maimunah drank the water without much difficulty and was later instructed not to eat meat of any variety. Since spirits of the sort afflicting her are thought to like meat, she could encourage the spirit's departure from her body by refraining from consuming its favorite foods.

Pak Daud's other major tack involved the use of a small, thin section of bamboo, about six or eight inches in length, which had a closed safety pin fastened at one end of it. Pak Daud placed the stick between Maimunah's fingers, near where they joined the palm of the hand. With a good deal of force, he then squeezed her fingers together, thus evoking cries of pain from Maimunah (the spirit). This went on for five or ten minutes and was done in the belief that spirits of the sort afflicting Maimunah frequently reside in (or simply linger about) these areas of the body, or in the neck or groin area. The idea is to place strong pressure on such spots so as to make the spirit uncomfortable and therefore much more likely to leave the body of its host.

Pak Daud left Maimunah's house before she regained consciousness, but he did so with the knowledge that the worst of the attack was over. At the same time, he knew that such attacks would most likely recur, partly because Maimunah is notoriously uncooperative when it comes to following his advice concerning food prohibitions and other restrictions. Despite Pak Daud's admonitions not to eat meat, for example, Maimunah

proceeded to eat meat the very next day (which she later denied to Pak Daud). Maimunah also refused to have anything to do with the amulet (tangkal ) that Pak Daud (or another dukun ) had previously prepared for her, the wearing of which is thought to speed recovery and/or to induce the offending spirit to leave and stay away. More important, though, is that Maimunah is believed to have an especially weak semangat and is thus held to be particularly susceptible to spirit possession and emotional breakdown. Owing to her weak semangat —this being a condition that is said to prevail to one degree or another among all women (and thus to work against, though not preclude, their attainment of ilmu )—Maimunah should not have attended the funeral feast held for her adoptive brother's father-in-law, who died a few days before the attack. She went ahead and attended the feast, however, although (to no one's surprise) she was forced to leave early due to the severity of her headaches, dizziness, and weakness.

Interestingly, Maimunah complained of these same symptoms a few hours before the attack described above, and was taken to one of the local clinics or hospitals for treatment both immediately before the onset of the attack and on the following day. On the latter occasion she was given tranquilizers or sleeping pills and was instructed "not to worry so much." On that same day Maimunah told me that it is "bad" if she gets overly worked up (emotionally). Her mother reiterated the theme when she explained to me that Maimunah's older brother—of whom Maimunah was very fond—had recently returned home on one of his rare visits, and that Maimunah often got very upset on such occasions, since he had never brought his wife (of many years) home to meet his family, and in other ways generally refused to acknowledge his familial ties and obligations. The brother's behavior was a source of considerable pain and embarrassment for Maimunah and other members of her household. So, too, was the fact that shortly after her wedding (which occurred some years before my fieldwork), Maimunah decided that she did not want to have anything to do with the husband who had been chosen for her. Inter alia, this rejection brought great embarrassment and shame to the husband (and his kin), and may well have led him to contemplate or actually engage in sorcery. It is significant, in any case, that the spirit that had repeatedly attacked Maimunah was widely held to be doing the bidding of a rejected suitor, whom no one felt inclined to name.

Before turning to a brief discussion of this case, a few comments of a "follow up" nature may be in order. I saw Maimunah on many occasions in the months following the attack described here, although when Ellen

arrived in the village (June 1979) my relationships with Maimunah and other members of her household deteriorated (see chap. 1). (By the time I returned to the field with Ellen, Maimunah had in fact moved out of the village, though she frequently returned for short visits.) In March 1980 Maimunah married a young man (Hamzah) who worked as a warden in the prison in the state capital. Some scandal surrounded the wedding, for before they had gotten married Maimunah and Hamzah had apparently spent some time together unchaperoned, and were thus guilty of khalwat . Though not formally regarded as a "shotgun wedding" (bidan terjun ), Maimunah and Hamzah's wedding was perforce a rather hastily arranged and anxiety laden affair.

When I returned to the field in 1987, I assumed that Maimunah and her husband would have at least two or three children, but this was not their fate, for they experienced fertility problems and had also been unsuccessful in their attempts to adopt a child (see chap. 5). Maimunah, who bore her ill fate rather well, was nonetheless widely pitied on account of her childlessness. She also continued to be plagued by spirits of the sort described above.

Discussion

Viewed from a cross-cultural perspective, the healing ritual outlined here is of interest both for its constituent elements and for what it did not include. Despite the initial, ultimately rather cursory, efforts made to ascertain the identity of the spirit afflicting Maimunah, for example, there was, overall, relatively little interest in identifying the spirit (or its master), or finding out why it had attacked Maimunah. Similarly, no one mentioned any possible transgressions that Maimunah or other members of her household or lineage might have committed in the distant or recent past; and there was little if any stated concern with relationships among her relatives that might have been strained, alienated, or otherwise problematic. And no one paid much attention to the words or other sounds that issued forth from Maimunah (or the spirit); for example, no one seemed to take such words or sounds as signs of how best to deal with Maimunah or the spirit either during the episode of possession or in the future.

Nor, for that matter, was there much concern with Pak Daud's incantations. Recall here that Pak Daud's chanting was barely audible and was altogether unintelligible to everyone present, though it was presumed to derive from or at least to include incantations from the Koran. As I have

discussed elsewhere (Peletz 1988a, 1993a), circumstances such as these render analyses of the sort provided by Lévi-Strauss (1963) in his classic study of Cuna Indian cures altogether untenable. Lévi-Strauss argues that the statements made by healers provide a (verbal) language in the form of a myth whose enactment enables the afflicted individual (and others present) to make sense of otherwise meaningless and existentially intolerable illness. This is not the case in Bogang. Rather, in Bogang—and in many other societies, like Tengger (Hefner 1985) and Wana (Atkinson 1987, 1990)—healers typically confirm what patients already know through consultation with relatives and others, though they do of course ritually validate their self-diagnoses and thus vest them with a broader legitimacy and simultaneously help reconstitute and reinvigorate the patients' senses of self, social life, and the cosmos.

In terms of what the ritual did include, it is significant that, prior to Pak Daud's arrival, the females present (Maimunah's sister, mother, and mother's sister) played a far more active role in Maimunah's treatment than did the males present (Maimunah's brother, and her mother's sister's husband and son). This changed dramatically once Pak Daud appeared on the scene, for he is a specialist in the treatment of spirit possession, and everyone present, except of course Maimunah and the spirit afflicting her, deferred to him once he arrived. Indeed, when he arrived he "stole the show," effectively denying or at least eclipsing the role of the women who had been managing Maimunah and her illness before he showed up. In this regard Pak Daud's activities constitute a structural parallel to the roles of titled men who formally officiate at engagements and weddings; for while women do most of the work in arranging and maintaining marriage and affinal relations, it is titled men who monopolize the ritual validation of such ceremonies, thus denying or eclipsing the role of women (and of untitled males) in marriage and affinal relations and in social reproduction as a whole.

The comments made by Maimunah (the spirit) during the episode of possession seem not to have been regarded as particularly significant by those present, but they are of analytic interest nonetheless. Recall that they included criticism of Maimunah's sister and her sister's mother for being sombong , as well as disparaging remarks about Mak Rahmah having made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and complaints about not getting a cake that most likely went to another female relative. These remarks might be seen as evidence of status rivalries and competition among female members of the lineage—and among women generally. They might be seen instead—or in addition—as a form of protest against Maimunah's subor-

dinate status vis-à-vis her (female) elders (both her sister and her mother's sister); or, more broadly, as protest against a social system in which elders and males are accorded greater prestige and status than their juniors and females, respectively. In a similar vein, one could perhaps suggest that the struggle between Maimunah (the spirit) and Pak Daud entailed a symbolic protest against Pak Daud—who is not only a renowned healer and the village headman, but also Maimunah's adoptive father and uncle (mother's sister's husband)—and against males overall.

Interpretations along these lines have a long history in the literature on spirit possession (see Lewis [1971] for the locus classicus of such interpretations; see also Lambek [1981:56–69] and Boddy [1989:139–45, 278–79] for well-argued critiques of these views). However plausible they may appear at first glance, they seem to me to be wide of the mark. My understanding of Maimunah's afflictions—and of women's predominance in spirit possession more generally—builds primarily on Siegel's previously cited (1978) work on Aceh, and on recent research on spirit possession in Africa (e.g., Lambek 1981, 1988; Boddy 1989) which suggests that possession is a means of asserting household and kin group identity and one's own relevance in its ongoing reproduction (see also Ong 1987, 1988, 1990a [discussed below]). As Lambek (1988:725–26) argues for Mayotte (Comoro Islands) and beyond, spirit possession "gives women greater scope and authority in activities in which they have always taken an interest: ... maintaining peace and order" and otherwise "articulating social relations" within their households and kin groups, and "looking after reproduction in both the social and biological senses"; more broadly, through spirit possession women not only "positively articulate kinship ties," but also "exercise their general moral concerns."

Bear in mind here that Maimunah's possession occurred very shortly after two profoundly disconcerting events, both of which served to foreground moral/existential dilemmas inherent in social reproduction and all social relations. The first of these events was the death of her adoptive brother's father-in-law, an event which was very disturbing to Maimunah and other members of her kin group and neighborhood, partly because (like all deaths) it made it painfully clear that one's abilities to control one's own life and others—in short, one's autonomy and social control—are ultimately quite limited. (Recall also that Maimunah had been instructed not to attend the funeral.) More generally, this death (like all others) served as a distressing reminder that total control over others is never really assured since everyone (each and every other) is endowed with some measure of autonomy and ultimately dies, and that there is,

therefore, an inherent threat of danger and rejection in all social relations (cf. Weiner 1976).

The second disconcerting event was the apparently unexpected ("surprise") return home of Maimunah's elder brother, who had "married badly," had never introduced his wife and children to his parents or siblings, and, to make matters worse, rarely visited his parents or other relatives. The brother's return home highlighted the fragility of social (most notably familial) relations, particularly since it could not help but focus attention on his inappropriately long absences from his natal household and village which, along with the rest of his behavior, clearly entailed an inversion of the behavior expected of him as a son, brother, and kinsmen more generally. (It might have also sparked remembrance of Maimunah's abortive marriage.) Maimunah's possession might be seen in part as the lodging of a moral claim on her brother, who should have been her moral guardian but obviously abandoned her, especially since, as Maimunah's mother told me (and as her brother undoubtedly knows), "Maimunah gets possessed when she gets extremely upset, and she gets upset whenever her brother comes home." At the same time, whatever the factors "motivating" Maimunah's episode, her possession distracted attention away from her brother's return home, and from his inappropriate behavior as a whole, and thus served both to maintain peace and order within, and to unite (if only temporarily) her household and kin group. If only on this latter account, Maimunah's possession enabled her to assert her relevance with respect to the positive articulation of kinship ties.

Let us now reconsider the comments made by Maimunah (the spirit) during the episode of possession. Rather than view them as evidence of status rivalries among female kin (or women generally), or as a protest against Maimunah's subordinate status vis-à-vis elders and men, I would suggest that they should be interpreted as ritual dramatization of moral concerns with the tenor of social relations within households and lineages, and, more specifically, with the importance within those relations of equality and reciprocity. Maimunah and her mother's sister, of course, belong to the same lineage, and they are next door neighbors linked through co-heirship since the land on which their houses are located was originally a single plot owned by the woman who was the mother both of Maimunah's mother and the latter's sister. Despite the equality and reciprocity that should prevail among members (particularly same-sex individuals) of the same lineage, especially those linked through co-heirship, there are marked disjunctions between the economic and prestige standing of the two households; to wit, Mak Rahmah's household is extremely

wealthy and prestigious by any local criteria, whereas Maimunah's is quite poor and enjoys very little prestige. Maimunah and other members of her household have long felt slighted by Mak Rahmah and others of her household, and have felt, more generally, that they are not treated as equals. The critical remarks made by Maimunah (the spirit) during the episode of possession may thus be seen as the lodging of a moral claim on Mak Rahmah's household to toe the line in this regard; and, more broadly, as a moral reminder that Maimunah and her mother (Mak Rahmah's sister) are of the same lineage as Mak Rahmah, and thus share lineage identity. Maimunah's (the spirit's) remark about her elder sister being sombong may be interpreted in similar terms; for while they are sisters and therefore equal in many respects, Maimunah's sister is older and consequently enjoys many prerogatives not extended to Maimunah.

Themes of reciprocity and failed reproduction are also evident in the implicit understanding that Maimunah's spirit master is a rejected suitor, which, in turn, can be read as a clear symbolic—and counter-hegemonic—statement that suitors/spouses, and men especially, sow dissension among natal kin, particularly women, despite their obviously being necessary for reproduction in all senses of the term. Such themes also appear both in the beliefs that the type of spirit afflicting Maimunah (the pelisit ) was born of a primordial incestuous union between brother and sister that entailed a form of cannibalism and failed reproduction (the child born of the union would never have been able to marry or have [legitimate] children), and in the belief that such spirits feed off the blood of, and thus pose potentially fatal threats to, both pregnant and postpartum women as well as newborn children. Similar themes dominate Mak Ijah's narrative of the circumstances leading to her acquisition of ilmu (and her comments on local sociality); they also suffuse the contrasting accounts of Mak Shamsiah's illness and misfortune, which I discuss below.

This is not to suggest that only women attend to these matters. Men are involved with such themes as well, though the arenas (and idioms) in which they express them differ. Men are allowed and expected to display their moral concerns in the more universalistic arenas provided by Islam and formal politics, both of which have become increasingly disassociated from spirit possession (cf. Lambek 1988:725–26). Men also exercise such concerns in illness brought about by poisoning and forms of sorcery that do not usually involve dramatic possession of the sort described here, but rather slow wasting away. That men's moral interests are displayed in this way, rather than through possession by spirits which suddenly take control of, talk through, and otherwise merge and identify with them, is

undoubtedly related to the fact that gradual wasting away is far less of a threat to their masculinity than is the dramatic loss of control entailed in spirit possession. Also relevant is that the socialization process leaves men with ego and body boundaries that are more rigid and less flexible and permeable than those of women (cf. Chodorow 1978:169). Though villagers do not employ (psychoanalytic) terminology of this sort when discussing gender differences (or anything else), their interpretations of why men are less prone to spirit possession than women do resonate with psychoanalytic perspectives insofar as they place considerable emphasis on the fact that, compared to women, men are less easily "poked," "pierced," "invaded," and "taken over" by spirits; and that they "worry far less" and are "far less easily upset/traumatized" by death, poverty, and other (especially domestic) hardship. The death and household hardship to which villagers refer in these interpretations are not abstractions but actual death and hardship within one's own household, particularly the death of one's own children. This is to say that men are viewed in local culture as (self-)identifying less with their children and with others in their social universe, and with social and biological reproduction as a whole.

Interestingly, these views of the differences between men and women also find expression in villagers' interpretations of latah —a behavioral complex involving echolalia, echopraxia, and other forms of "pathomimetic" behavior which is extremely widespread in the Malay-Indonesian world, and which is a cultural elaboration of the startle reflex found among all humans. There is a vast (and rather clichéd) literature on latah which need not concern us here.^[6] Suffice it to say that latah is very common in Bogang and usually involves middle-aged and elderly women who are rather poor, destitute, and marginalized; that it often entails scatological humor that is harnessed to counter-hegemonic critiques of the social order; and that it bears a family resemblance to spirit possession inasmuch as it provides women a means through which they can articulate and dramatize their moral concerns. Most relevant in the present context is that when villagers are queried on the subject of why latah occurs primarily among women, they respond that it does so because women are more easily startled, have weaker semangat , and are, more generally, more inclined to lose control (give in to their fears and anxieties, indulge their "passions") than men. They also cite circumstances of poverty or the loss of a child as factors which induce latah in otherwise non-latah women, such as Mak Zuraini, who was never subject to latah until she experienced the deaths of two of her children. As my mother put it: "Sometimes latah

occurs as a result of keturunan (one's ancestry), but sometimes it is because of susah (worry). Women worry more than men, are more anxious, or at least are quicker to verbalize their worries and anxieties." To help illustrate the broader point about male-female differences, she gave the telling example of her son's upcoming wedding, commenting that while she was extremely anxious about it, her husband wasn't really worried at all. He had confidence that they would have enough money to "pull it off," and that "everything would work out."

Some observers have suggested that latah might well have originated during the early years of Malays' experiences of European domination and colonial rule, for the earliest written accounts of the complex come from Europeans who employed Malay servants in their homes and observed the complex among them. Michael Kenny (1990), however, argues convincingly that in all likelihood the latah complex is of much greater antiquity. So, too, does Leonard Andaya, who has made the important observation that in various parts of the pre-modern Malay world, latah was attributed to possession by spirits (Leonard Andaya, personal communication, 1991; see also Kenny 1990: 132–33). The fact that latah is no longer viewed in relation to the world of spirits or anything else bearing on the realm of the sacred is yet another manifestation of the secularization and rationalization process discussed in this and earlier chapters (see also Peletz 1988a, 1988b, 1993a, 1993b).

Many of the themes taken up in the preceding pages are addressed (albeit from different perspectives) in the case studies of Mak Shamsiah and Rashid presented below, which also highlight the fundamental point that we need to attend to female and male afflictions if we hope to understand gender among Malays in Negeri Sembilan or other parts of the Peninsula. These case studies are in some ways richer than that of Maimunah, however, for I encountered contrasting interpretations of the illnesses and misfortunes at issue. These contrasting accounts indicate that cultural knowledge is deeply perspectival; that cultural phenomena lend themselves to many different readings; and that, as such, our ethnographic descriptions and interpretations need to make full provision for polyvocality and the political economy of contested symbols and meanings.

Mak Shamsiah and her Demons

Mak Shamsiah was born in Bogang in about 1935 and was thus about forty-three when I first met her in 1978. The youngest of six children,

she belongs to one of the village's gentry clans (Lelahmaharaja), and is, like Maimunah, a member of the clan's wealthiest and most prestigious and powerful lineage (perut darat , the "upland lineage"). Unlike Maimunah, however, Mak Shamsiah's immediate kin include the former governor of a neighboring state (her mother's brother, now deceased) as well as a highly placed national-level politician (her older brother). Another of Mak Shamsiah's brothers holds the title of clan subchief (buapak ), and is thus the highest ranking adat figure in the village. Mak Shamsiah's sisters, I might add, are also quite wealthy, and both of them have made the pilgrimage to Mecca (one went twice). Mak Shamsiah and her husband, who are very well off as well, were scheduled to make the pilgrimage in 1980, but due to the severity of Mak Shamsiah's illness, her husband felt it best to postpone the trip. They finally went to Mecca in 1985.

During my first fieldwork I saw Mak Shamsiah on many occasions since she lived in the house next door, but I didn't get to know her all that well because she was severely depressed and often seemed extremely disoriented and altogether incapable of any form of verbal communication. One of my main recollections of her from the first fieldwork was seeing her sitting in the corner of her sister's kitchen, looking anxiously about, while a group of lineage sisters and other women prepared food for a feast. I remember, too, being warned by women and others present not to walk or stand behind her lest she get startled and "have an attack." I did get to know her husband, however, who discussed many of his domestic and other concerns with me, including his wife's illness. And I had a number of conversations with Mak Shamsiah's widowed mother (Wan), who lived with Mak Shamsiah and her husband and young son. I also spent a fair amount of time with Mak Shamsiah's nine-year-old son, Hassan, who was my companion and buddy until I got married (at which point he became "too shy" to hang around the house) and her nineteen-year-old son, Kadir (described briefly in the discussion of pondan in chap. 3), who had moved to Kuala Lumpur but frequently visited Bogang on weekends. I did, moreover, spend a good deal of time with Mak Shamsiah's brother and two sisters (and their families). During the first fieldwork, then, most of what I knew of Mak Shamsiah came from her relatives and neighbors, and not from Mak Shamsiah herself.

In 1952, when Mak Shamsiah was about seventeen years old, she married a cross-cousin (Pakcik Hamid) from a neighboring village, who was chosen for her by her relatives. Pakcik Hamid worked as a policeman in the predominantly Chinese city of Singapore, and shortly after the marriage Mak Shamsiah joined him there, where they took up residence in

the local police barracks. In the years that followed her move to Singapore, Mak Shamsiah gave birth to six children (three boys, three girls), one of whom (a boy) was severely deformed and died shortly after being born. She knew during her pregnancy with this child that something was wrong, for she felt unusually sick, not just dizzy or tired, and her belly quickly grew very large. When the baby was born it made one small noise and just stopped breathing. It had no cranium and its arms and legs were curved inwards at strange angles and could not be straightened out. When the imam came to read prayers (baca doa ) and prepare for the funeral, he told Mak Shamsiah and her husband that they were fortunate that the baby was taken back by God so quickly. Otherwise, he said, life for the family would have been very difficult, as the child never would have had a normal life. He comforted them with words to this effect, reassuring them it was better this way.

After moving to Singapore, Mak Shamsiah became quite ill, though it is not clear when her illness began. By her own account, the onset of her illness dated from shortly after her move to Singapore, though before she had any children, hence sometime around 1953. This was before her husband settled down to the idea of marriage and stopped staying out late at night. He had been very handsome as a young man, Mak Shamsiah told me, and was "dark and good looking, like a Hindustani." He had a roving eye, however, and before their marriage he had seriously considered marrying a Chinese woman, a plan which was foiled by the latter's relatives, who refused to entertain the idea of her converting to Islam. In any event, during my first period of research from 1978 to 1980, Mak Shamsiah was still debilitated, though living back in Bogang with her husband and children. In 1987 she seemed much better, though I was informed that she still experienced bouts of severe illness.

Mak Shamsiah's illness and misfortune have manifested themselves in various ways: the previously noted birth of a deformed child who died immediately after being born; a lack of interest in caring for one of her other children when it was born; her refusal to greet people and perform basic chores and responsibilities seen as central to her role as a married woman (such as cooking rice and washing clothes); and her dancing at night by herself. During the first period of fieldwork, Mak Shamsiah seemed to spend much of the time sleeping, and her husband and mother took over many of her chores. When she did appear outside the house, she seemed extremely disoriented and depressed.

The first and seemingly most widespread account of Mak Shamsiah's problems (the "official" household and lineage version) refers back to the

Figure 15.
Mak Shamsiah with Pakcik Hamid

time when she and her husband lived in Singapore. One day while Mak Shamsiah's husband was away at work, a Malay dukun from Negeri Sembilan who Mak Shamsiah or her husband had sought out on a previous occasion came to the house and proclaimed his romantic interest in her. Mak Shamsiah reportedly attacked him with a broom and/or slammed the door in his face. The amorous dukun was gravely incensed by this rejec-

tion, and he cast a spell on her, which affects her to this day: Whenever he thinks of her, for example, she thinks of him; she also hears voices (including the dukun 's?) that tell her to dance, not to work or cook rice, and so on.

The second explanation of Mak Shamsiah's personal misfortune comes from Mak Rahmah, a relatively wealthy cousin who belongs to Mak Shamsiah's "lineage branch" (pangkal ), and who is also one of her immediate neighbors. Though Mak Rahmah knows and apparently believes the story of Mak Shamsiah's encounter with the amorous dukun in Singapore, she also holds that Mak Shamsiah's illness is at least partly a result of Mak Shamsiah's throwing her trash over her fence into the vacant lot next door. This disturbs and insults the spirits (jinn ) residing there, and they have taken their vengeance on her either by helping bring about her illness in the first place or by prolonging it. Mak Rahmah also told me that because Mak Shamsiah does not pray much, she has not gotten better, although she (Mak Rahmah) also realizes that the illness is responsible for her lack of prayer.

The third explanation of Mak Shamsiah's illness comes from Mak Zaini, a relatively poor clan sister who lives on the other side of the village and who belongs to a lineage with which Mak Shamsiah's lineage has been at odds for quite some time. Interestingly, two of the principal actors in the feud involving the two lineages are Mak Shamsiah's older brother—the highest ranked adat figure in the village—and Mak Zaini's older brother, who has also held clan titles in the past and is, independently of his titles, a local "big man" with a reputation for "getting things done" and for using ilmu to attract followers and supporters and enhance his prestige. The details of the feud need not concern us. What is important here is that Mak Zaini's explanation of Mak Shamsiah's illness focuses on a grave offense against "ancestral property" (harta pesaka ) and the traditions of the ancestors that was committed, she says, by Mak Shamsiah's mother's brother, Datuk Abdul Ghani. The offense involved a gold keris and other gold jewelry or ornaments that one of Mak Zaini's relatives had asked Datuk Abdul Ghani to store in his house for safekeeping. Mak Zaini's ancestors owned this ancestral property, but they were poor and lived in a dilapidated, bamboo-slat house, and they thought it wise to have someone else keep it for them. Datuk Abdul Ghani's crime is that he later turned around and sold it, and kept the proceeds. And this offense is what caused Mak Shamsiah's illness. It was wrong (and dangerous) because the property did not belong to Datuk Abdul Ghani (he had no right to sell it) and because ancestral property like this should

not be sold (or mortgaged) since it is sacred and reminds villagers of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. Mak Zaini reassured me that she would never have the courage to sell any such property, even if adat allowed her to. She added that those who sell ancestral property are likely to become gila (crazy, insane) and even die. It is thus "natural," "only to be expected," Mak Zaini told me in 1980, that Mak Shamsiah cannot get out of bed, sleeps much of the day, and is otherwise unable to function. If Datuk Abdul Ghani escaped unharmed or somehow avoided the repercussions of his actions, his children and other descendants would surely suffer one way or the other.

The fourth explanation of Mak Shamsiah's illness comes from her son, Kadir, who works and lives in the largely Chinese city of Kuala Lumpur, where he has spent most of his time since leaving school. Kadir and I spoke about his mother's situation in 1979, when Kadir was about nineteen years old. He told me that he did not accept the conventional wisdom concerning his mother's disorders, which holds that her problems stem from the amorous dukun casting a spell on her. He believes that his mother is simply a very anxious person; she worries too much about her children, Kadir explained, and she fears they will consort with drug addicts and other types of "bad people" (orang jehat ) in the city. She probably worries that he has a girlfriend, Kadir added, and that the girlfriend is not the "right type." (On this count some of her fears seem well grounded, for as Kadir pointed out, he does have a girlfriend, and she is half-Indian and half-Chinese; the girlfriend enjoys going to discos, as does Kadir, spending money, and having a good time; on top of all this, she doesn't have any interest in cooking and other household chores.) Putting his comments in a larger context, Kadir went on to say that he doesn't believe in ghosts and spirits, and that he views the village's sacred shrines (keramat ) and the various rituals associated with them—along with ritual feasts at the graveyard—as against the teachings of Islam. All such things are tied up with "superstition," and reflect a lack of formal education and a relatively shallow understanding of Islam.

These, then, are the four different interpretations of Mak Shamsiah's illness that I encountered in Bogang. Despite the underlying structural similarities in these accounts (about which more in a moment) there are important differences. Contrasting features of the four accounts include, most obviously, the types of relationships held to be at the heart of the problem (which involve suitors, spirits, clansmen, and children); the types of emotions assumed to have engendered Mak Shamsiah's illness (unrequited love, feelings of rejection, loss of face); proprietary anger and be-

trayal (on the part of local spirits and clansmen alike); and parental anxiety.

Other contrasts involve the issue of mystical agency. In the first account, mystical agency manipulated through the ilmu of a rejected suitor cum dukun is responsible for Mak Shamsiah's afflictions. In the second account, mystical agency is realized in the actions of spirits, who are held to be at least partly responsible for these afflictions. The third account makes reference to mystical agency as well, but does not specify the medium or channel through which this agency comes into play. And in the fourth account there is no reference to mystical agency.

The fourth account, it will be recalled, comes from Mak Shamsiah's son, Kadir, who works and lives in Kuala Lumpur, and is in many ways far less "traditional" than the majority of Bogang's full-time residents. We could perhaps generalize here and conclude that Kadir's disinclination to invoke mystical agency and any type of human malevolence in his account of his mother's illness reflects the experiences and perspectives of Malays in urban areas, and of "modern" Malays in general. There are no solid grounds for this conclusion, however, even though some of Kadir's experiences and comments obviously resonate with the more cosmopolitan orientations found among many urban and "modern" Malays. In fact, as Provencher (1979:48) discovered on the basis of his research among Malays in the Kuala Lumpur area, "most urban Malays who become ill suspect that they have been poisoned"; more importantly, as I discuss below, "the fear of [poisoning and] sorcery is greater ... in urban communities than in rural villages" (emphasis added).

As for the underlying structural similarities, all four accounts interpret Mak Shamsiah's illness both relationally (in terms of Mak Shamsiah's social relations with others) and in a moral framework. These generalizations hold even for Kadir's interpretation of Mak Shamsiah's illness, which focuses on her anxiety concerning her children, the urban, primarily non-Malay, social fields in which they find themselves, and their prospective spouses and mates. In addition, all four accounts speak to social relations that are strained, alienated, or otherwise disordered, and that are fraught with ambivalent and/or contradictory sentiments and behavior (e.g., the suitor who turns on and harms the object of his affection, the normally quiescent spirit who attacks). Other similarities include actual or potential breakdown or failure in reciprocity, reproduction, or both; and loss of autonomy and social control due to actions of people (suitors, relatives, or others) or spirits (or both) who (mis)appropriate power for their own individualistic and otherwise socially divisive ends.

Seven Years Later

During my second period of fieldwork I spent a great deal of time with Mak Shamsiah, for by this time her illness had abated somewhat and she was quite outgoing and communicative, though still very moody and given to episodes of screaming and occasional frenzy. The house we lived in during the second fieldwork was next door to Mak Shamsiah's (as the first had been), and its location was highly conducive to our interaction with her since, unlike our first house, it was not separated from Mak Shamsiah's by a small ravine and wire fences. It wasn't simply the location of our house, however, that led us to seek out Mak Shamsiah (and vice versa); for she was extremely friendly and warm to us (e.g., she took an instant liking to Zachary, and was forever treating him to sweet cakes, fruits, and other local delicacies), and we thoroughly enjoyed her company. Because Mak Shamsiah and Kak Suzaini (the woman who cooked for us and became one of our dearest friends) were so close, we had additional reason to spend time with her.

Though she now was "much better," both she and her husband told me (as did others) that she was not altogether cured. As she put it on one occasion when I asked her if we could discuss various aspects of gender, "Why do you want to ask me all sorts of questions when my mind [still] isn't right?" I do not have any detailed information about the timing of Mak Shamsiah's partial recovery; the only explanation I heard was that the amorous dukun in Singapore had died, and that, being dead, he could no longer exert any control over Mak Shamsiah. (I would have liked to know more about the timing of the onset of Mak Shamsiah's mother's senility; e.g., if it helped "jar" her into good health, or, alternatively, served to prolong her illness, but I have no accurate information on this.)

I never asked Mak Shamsiah about the cause(s) of her misfortune(s), for it seemed too delicate a subject, especially since she still experienced bouts of severe illness, and I feared that questions on the topic might conjure up unpleasant and painful associations and thus "set her off." She brought up the subject on a few occasions, however, remarking, for example, that the onset of her illness began before her husband had settled down to the idea of marriage. She mentioned as well that during the early part of her marriage he frequently berated (and sometimes struck) her, and that there were many pantang (taboos) that she failed to observe. She also recounted that earlier in her marriage she "worried a lot" about Pakcik Hamid and Kak Suzaini. Kak Suzaini had a habit of coming to the house in the evening with her children, ostensibly to watch television, but

she was frequently wearing makeup, along with sleeveless and rather low-cut, revealing blouses. Pakcik Hamid and Kak Suzaini would laugh and laugh until late in the evening—long after Mak Shamsiah had gone to bed—and though she brought her children with her, they often fell asleep on the verandah and thus could not serve as chaperones or obstacles to any form of intimate behavior. Mak Shamsiah informed Pakcik Hamid she didn't like this type of behavior, and he stopped. She also told him, half-jokingly, that while she wouldn't mind if he took another wife after she died (she was convinced that he would outlive her), she would "slit his throat" if he did so while she was still alive.

In other conversations, which focused largely on gender, Mak Shamsiah told me that women are more susceptible to spirit possession than men because, compared to men, women have "less" or "weaker" semangat . Similarly, women are more prone to latah because they "worry" (susah hati ) more than men and are more easily "startled" (runsing ). More generally, whereas women and men have the same "rationality" (akal ), women's "passion" (nafsu ) is stronger than men's. God made them this way; and this is why they have a stronger sense of "shame" (malu ). If they didn't have stronger "shame," their "passion" would be even more obvious than it already is, and they would be more "ferocious" and "wild" (ganas ) than men are. She mentioned, too, that women are often more "fierce" (garang ) than their husbands.

While in previous years Mak Shamsiah had obviously been quite anxious about her relationship with her husband—and perhaps especially concerned that difficulties in their marriage could lead to its dissolution and thus call into question her own relevance to the ongoing reproduction of her household and lineage—she was no longer. In fact, one of the more unusual things about her during the second period of fieldwork was how communicative she was about her husband, her positive feelings for him, and her apparent security in the relationship. I remember seeing her wearing her husband's sarong on various occasions, and when I asked her if it was his she replied yes and then explained that she "missed him" when he spent much of the day out of the village at his garden (kebun ), and that wearing the sarong helped remind her of him. Such admissions of positive affection and intimacy between husband and wife are, in my experience, relatively unusual. Moreover, she sometimes commented on what a "good man" he was, how kind he had been to her during all the years that she was ill, and that he could have abandoned her, as many of his friends and relatives apparently told him to do, especially since he had

a salary/pension, an automobile, and was otherwise highly desirable and thus could have easily found another wife.

Mak Shamsiah's relationship with her husband was no longer a major source of anxiety or concern, but she was very much preoccupied with the circumstances and relational dilemmas of other members of her household, such as her son Kadir, who, as noted earlier, had a non-Malay, "mixed-race" and (by local standards) otherwise extremely inappropriate girlfriend, and expressed no interest in getting married. Her main problem, though, was her eighty-six-year-old mother, Wan, who had become quite senile, and was subject to recurring hallucinations and nightmares. Wan, who was exceedingly thin and commonly refused to eat, spent much of her time hunched over in the compound, picking weeds (and occasionally eating rotten fruit that had fallen from rambutan and other fruit trees), but she was also given to wandering around the village in a daze, especially in the late afternoon and early evening hours. During these forays Wan often invited relatives and neighbors to imagined feasts, thus recalling both the grandeur of her healthier days and the time when her husband was still alive. These invitations were received good-naturedly, and Wan was in fact humored in many situations. For the most part, however, Wan was regarded as a terrible nuisance, and was the object of much ridicule and scorn. Some of her closest relatives locked their doors and the gates surrounding their wells when she appeared in their compounds, drove her away, and otherwise treated her "like dirt." This upset Mak Shamsiah tremendously, particularly since, as Mak Shamsiah pointed out to me on numerous occasions, many of these same people had frequently partaken of Wan's generosity when she was still healthy. In some ways more distressing, though, was Mak Shamsiah's fear/premonition that Wan would get run over and killed by the train which passed through the village. Mak Shamsiah had forbade Wan to cross the railroad tracks, but Wan didn't listen—or simply forgot—particularly since she needed to cross the tracks to get to the kedai one of her daughters operated, and to attend the mosque.

Wan's behavior created problems in Mak Shamsiah's relationship with her husband. Her hallucinations and nightmares made it extremely difficult for Mak Shamsiah and her husband to get a good night's sleep. And Wan claimed that Pakcik Hamid was "always hitting her" and "wanted to kill her." This was most likely an exaggeration, though on one occasion, when Wan was tearing down clean laundry that had just been hung out to dry, I did see him strike her with a long bamboo pole. More generally,

both Mak Shamsiah and her husband mentioned that their lives were not at all "their own" since they had to watch Wan all of the time. They couldn't even go to Singapore to visit their daughter and grandchildren, particularly since doing so would require taking Wan with them (an impossibility) or leaving her behind (also impossible, because "there was no one to care for her" [even though three of her other children lived in the village]).

Wan's behavior also exacerbated tensions in Mak Shamsiah's relations with her brothers and sisters (though the fact that Wan was alive also kept some of these tensions in check [see below]). This was because Mak Shamsiah shouldered virtually all of the responsibility for looking after Wan, even though she was one of six children. When Wan could still cook and work, everyone used to welcome and love her; now that she had "lost her mind" and "reverted to childhood," she couldn't do any of these things anymore, and no one wanted to look after her. To make matters worse, Wan wouldn't let anyone else take care of (even bathe) her, even though she spoke fondly of her son Haji H., claiming (falsely) that he gave her money and other presents, and was otherwise very good to her. But Haji H. wouldn't even come to "look at her face" or visit her, even though he came to this part of the village (e.g., to talk with the anthropologist) now and then. Mak Shamsiah's two sisters (Wan's other daughters), for that matter, didn't do anything except help give her a bath once in a while. Mak Shamsiah went on to say that she didn't want to speak ill of her brothers and sisters (literally: cause them to stink or rot [busukkan saudara ]), but they just didn't do anything for Wan, even though she was mother to all of them.

Mak Shamsiah frequently told me—and anyone else who cared to listen—that she didn't know what she was going to do if Wan "lives to be one hundred." The problems would only get worse, she lamented, with much frustration—and desperation—in her voice.

Wan's advanced senility, which in many respects (e.g., its debilitating effects) paralleled the earlier (more severe) forms of Mak Shamsiah's illness, brought into painfully sharp focus what many villagers saw as the uncertainties and dangers inherent in aging and social reproduction. To wit, that once they ceased to be (re)productive and thus of value to their kin and society at large, they would be cast aside and otherwise mistreated and abused, and would thus experience rather severe (if not complete) loss of autonomy and social control. Such treatment entailed the most heinous violation of norms informing relationships between children and their parents, yet it was a common theme in the everyday discourse of villagers,

particularly women. So, too, was the theme of ambivalence, alienation, and tension among siblings, which also figured into Mak Shamsiah's account of her dilemmas with Wan. Interestingly, however, while Mak Shamsiah cited the problems Wan's behavior created with her (Mak Shamsiah's) siblings, she made no reference to the fact that the problems would most likely become far more pronounced after Wan's death. Such a scenario was highly probable since Wan would no longer be around to mediate petty disputes and everyday tensions and antagonisms—and otherwise articulate social relations—among her children. Nor would she be able to serve as a palpable symbol of their common interests and identities. There was, moreover, the issue of the land and other property owned by Wan that would have to be divided among her children after she died. This was potentially a source of great tension and strain, even though the land (especially residential and rice land) has relatively little monetary value in today's economy.

The concerns—with articulating social relations, preserving peace and order within the family, and looking after reproduction in both the social and biological senses of the term—that surface in Mak Shamsiah's account of her problems with Wan resonate deeply with the common themes underlying the various interpretations of Mak Shamsiah's illness that I discussed earlier. Such concerns are, to reiterate my earlier point, quintessentially (though by no means exclusively) female. Men's concerns with the articulation of social relations, peace, order, and reproduction are in many respects both parallel and complementary to those of women, though they tend to be cast in terms of more expansive social units (lineage, clan, village, religious community, and ethnic/racial grouping) and in different idioms (political, religious, ethnic/racial). They are, moreover, frequently expressed in different, more public arenas (village councils, local political party organizations and activities, prayer houses and mosques) that have long been associated with maleness.

It would be a mistake to overvalorize these contrasts, however. For men no less than women are susceptible to, and victimized by, mystical attack (though this is commonly glossed over in the literature). And while the forms of mystical attack vary (with women being more subject to dramatic episodes of possession by spirits, and men more likely to be afflicted by slow wasting away), the attacks on men and women alike are experienced—and interpreted by others—as testimony to the dilemmas inherent in reciprocity and reproduction. The following case study will serve to illustrate the point.

The Case of Rashid

Rashid was born in Bogang in about 1957. He is a member of the same clan (Lelahmaharaja) and lineage (darat ) as Mak Shamsiah, and is her sister's son. Rashid's household is without question the wealthiest household in the village. This is largely because of the economic successes of his late father, Haji Yahya, who died in December 1986. Despite his lack of formal education, Haji Yahya was a very clever and resourceful businessman who engaged in various sorts of entrepreneurial activities. He had a hand in the financing and construction of the village mosque, and was involved in other construction both locally and in other states. Perhaps most important, though, is the lumber company he set up and operated, apparently with the help of his wife's brother (a high ranking official in the Ministry of Forests) and some Chinese businessmen. His sons, including Rashid, are involved in the family business and are all doing extremely well financially.

Rashid fell sick about a month after his father died. The first time I saw him during my second period of research was when I encountered him at the local provision shop (kedai ) that his mother runs. I expected the worst from the stories I had heard, but still was not prepared for what I saw. Rashid was lying in a chaise lounge that had been covered with a blanket and was propped up behind one of the tables placed in the front of the kedai . His head appeared freakishly large since the rest of his body was emaciated and withered. He looked all skin and bones, and his feet were covered with flaking skin and a red substance that I initially mistook for blood (it turned out to be medicine). Rashid greeted me by saying that I looked well and fat, and that he was sick and thin. He had been very ill, he explained; this was his fate (nasib ), so what could be done? He claimed that he was much better now (at least now he had an appetite and could sleep) and not nearly as thin as before. For the longest time he had no appetite, and could only sleep an hour or so a night; and any wind or clothes that touched his skin caused excruciating pain. Though he still could not walk, he was no longer paralyzed and had feeling in his legs, for which he was extremely thankful.

The first account of Rashid's illness comes from Mak Zaini, the relatively poor woman I referred to earlier as having provided one of the accounts (the third) of Mak Shamsiah's misfortune. Her story of Rashid's illness is basically the same as her account of Mak Shamsiah's afflictions: that it reflects mystical retribution for offenses against "ancestral" property that were committed by Datuk Abdul Ghani, the man who was

both Mak Shamsiah's mother's brother and Rashid's mother's mother's brother.

The second account of Rashid's illness comes from Datuk Hamzah, who at eighty-nine years of age was one of the oldest residents of Bogang. Datuk Hamzah was sitting at the kedai when I spoke with Rashid, and he said that non-Muslim aborigines (orang asli ) were responsible for Rashid's afflictions. It was not clear if Datuk Hamzah felt that the orang asli did this to Rashid "on purpose" or "accidentally." But he implied that it might not have been done with Rashid in mind. On this point Rashid disagreed (see below). According to Datuk Hamzah, the poison entered Rashid's body through his feet, having been spat on the ground by one or more orang asli . He explained to me that the saliva or spit of orang asli is poisonous (bisa ) and that any area spat upon by orang asli will become poisonous, even if the spit has long since dried up. Hence you can't step or walk on such spots, or on orang asli graves. Datuk Hamzah added that Rashid worked with a lumber firm, was always going into the forest, and might have tread on areas, long since overgrown, that had once been spat upon by orang asli . This type of work carried certain dangers.

The third account of Rashid's illness comes from Rashid himself and was recounted in bits and fragments as we sat at the kedai . Rashid told me that his sickness began about a month after his father died. He was living on the east coast of the Peninsula at the time, working for his family's lumber company. Someone made him ill, he said, and it was intentional. He was fairly certain that it was one of his business friends or associates (kawan ), someone he worked with, though he didn't know for sure which one. He attributed it to envy (dengki ) but did not elaborate on any of these points. Rashid also said that he had gone to "forty or fifty" dukun for a cure and had undergone all sorts of tests and treatments, but to no avail. He had tried Malay dukun , Chinese healers and acupuncturists, Thai ritual specialists, and Western-oriented medical experts, but with no results. At least one dukun told Rashid that his illness "isn't in his [the dukun 's] book," hence he could not treat him. At the time of our conversation, Rashid's case was in the hands of a Thai healer, who, as Rashid told me, was not a Muslim. But that's okay, he reassured me, adding that he had also spent about two weeks sleeping in a Chinese temple in the Kuantan area, in hopes that that would help cure him.

The three accounts of Rashid's illness that I encountered bear certain similarities, but they also diverge in important respects. The similarities include both the relational interpretations of Rashid's illness, and the belief that Rashid's problems stem ultimately from human malevolence—

or the automatic activation of mystical agency—triggered by Rashid's or his mother's mother's brother's violation of unspoken codes of propriety (concerning the integrity of ancestral property, territorial domains, and relative equality, respectively).

The contrasts are in some ways more significant. One contrast turns on the nature of the agency believed to have caused Rashid's illness: Mak Zaini's account refers to the automatic activation of mystical agency; Datuk Hamzah's account refers to mystical agency controlled by non-Muslim aborigines, which is automatically activated once a taboo (pantang ) has been violated, and which may cause harm somewhat indiscriminately; Rashid's account makes no reference to notions of taboo, but refers simply to human envy and malevolence, which were focused on Rashid and intentionally caused him harm. Another salient difference involves the source and meaning of danger and the context in which it occurred. In Mak Zaini's account, the source of danger is not clearly specified though the context is without question the handling, transfer, and safekeeping of ancestral property; in Datuk Hamzah's account, the source of danger is the forest and the non-Muslim aborigines who reside there and have long controlled its resources, power, and secrets; the context of danger is also the forest (or an area once cleared that has long since overgrown). In Rashid's account, on the other hand, the danger emanates from his business friends and associates, their social relations with him, and the envy that suffuses these relations owing (presumably) to Rashid's relative economic success. The context of danger, in turn, is the lumber industry and the highly competitive world of modern capitalist business and trade relations, Rashid's involvement in which enabled him to live exceedingly well for a while, but also nearly cost him his life.

Before turning to a discussion of Rashid's case in relation to the illnesses and misfortunes experienced by Mak Shamsiah, Maimunah, and others in Bogang and beyond, I would like to reiterate that Rashid is but one of dozens of men in Bogang who believe themselves (and are thought by others) to have been poisoned or sorcerized. Facts such as these are of considerable significance for, as noted earlier, some of the most insightful and frequently cited literature on Malaysia focuses on women in highly dramatic episodes of spirit possession, and makes little if any mention of the prevalence of men as victims of poisoning and sorcery that involve gradual wasting away as opposed to dramatic possession by spirits. The more general point is that data from Bogang—and elsewhere in Malaysia—indicate that men are just as likely as women to experience mystical attack.^[7] I will return to this theme in due course.

Commentary

The case material and other data presented here testify to the prevalence of the ambivalence, alienation, and tension that exist in Bogang and in other Malay communities in Malaysia. The ambivalence, alienation, and tension to which I refer emerge clearly from the comments of dukun such as Mak Ijah, who insists that she was sorcerized by her adopted daughter, and who (along with her husband) has decidedly negative views of human nature and local social relations, especially the role of reciprocity in those relations. Her husband, it will be recalled, summed up his experiences and views concerning reciprocity in social relations in the pithy phrase "you give flowers and get shit in return." These ambivalences and tensions surface in other contexts, as well: for example, in villagers' views of Datuk Latiff, who is believed to use his ilmu not only to cure people and mend broken or strained relationships, but also to cause illness, other forms of suffering, and death. There is also the amorous dukun in Singapore who is widely held to be responsible for the illness and misfortune that have plagued Mak Shamsiah for more than thirty years.

These ambivalences are but one manifestation and condensed expression of the more general and diffuse ambivalence with which villagers view and approach all social ties, including—indeed, especially—those with neighbors and kin. Most relationships in the community are cast in idioms of kinship (particularly siblingship), which continue to have heavy moral and economic entailments, and even when such relationships are not conceptualized in terms of kinship, they come with potentially burdensome moral obligations. The expectations associated with these obligations can be extremely difficult to fulfill; and in many cases, even when they are fulfilled, they are not reciprocated. Further aggravating problems such as these is villagers' heavy reliance on cash-cropping, and their incorporation into the world market economy more generally, which have resulted not only in the erosion and demise of many traditional, reciprocity-based relations of production and proprietorship, but also in the proliferation of individualistic behavior, non-redistributive institutions, and various forms of inequality and socioeconomic stratification. These and other changes have created new (and intensified preexisting) uncertainties and dangers in villages like Bogang, and are partly responsible for the fact that most relationships in the community are conducive to the realization of ambivalence.

This ambivalence is fueled by villagers' suspicions that fellow Malays are frequently motivated by greed, envy, and malice, and are forever try-

ing to get the better of one another through displays of status and prestige, and by attempting to gain control over one another's resources, loyalties, and affections. These suspicions are not expressed openly, however; nor are personal desires and individual intentions (cf. Weiner 1976:213; Dentan 1988:859, 869). The formal rules of social interaction prohibit such behavior, just as they proscribe many forms of direct speech that could possibly enable people to better read what is on the minds of others. Villagers are quick to point out that one's inner spirit or soul (batin, roh ) is invisible, concealed beneath the physical body (badan ), and that one's real intentions, motivations, likes, and dislikes are similarly shielded from view, and typically unknown. Outward behavior is no indication of what is on someone's mind or "in one's liver" (dalam hati ), for outward behavior is not only constrained by generally restricted speech codes, in which most utterances are "pressed into service to affirm the social order" (Douglas 1970:22); it also intentionally disguises inner realities. These themes are highlighted in various local expressions, such as ya mogun , which refers to a "yes" that really means "no"; janji Melayu ("a Malay promise"), which is sometimes used to convey similar meaning; cakap manis, tapi hati lain , which can be translated as "sweet words or talk, but a different [not-so-sweet] liver"; and mulut manis, tapi hati busuk , which refers to "a sweet mouth but a stinking, rotten liver."

This is the ideal climate for ilmu and is, in the local view, where ilmu comes into the picture: Villagers assume—and fear—that many people in their social universe rely on ilmu to achieve what they are prevented by the formal rules of social interaction from accomplishing (or even setting out to accomplish). These and attendant assumptions help explain why the institution of dukun continues to flourish despite the decline of traditional midwifery and most forms of shamanism and spirit cults. In sum, although certain dukun (e.g., Mak Ijah, Datuk Latiff) are suspected of trafficking in evil spirits, engaging in sorcery, and otherwise misappropriating the power of the Word, and although the entire institution has come under increasingly heavy fire from Islamic resurgents (orang dakwa ) and critics of disparate persuasion, dukun are still very much needed to protect villagers (and their urban counterparts) from the dangers in their social universe, including, in particular, the veiled aggression of fellow Malays.

Fellow Malays are not the only source of uncertainty and danger, however. We have seen that non-Muslim aborigines are perceived to be especially threatening. So, too, are various types of spirits in the demonological system, only some of which are controlled by human agency. Of particular interest in this connection are "epidemics" of spirit possession

("mass hysteria") among young Malay women working in factories in Negeri Sembilan, Selangor, Melaka, Singapore, and elsewhere, which is a recent, much publicized phenomenon that has attracted the attention of anthropologists, among others. Ong (1987, 1988) notes that such cases typically involve spirits that are "wild" or "untamed," as opposed to "domesticated" or "tamed" by human masters. She also demonstrates that epidemics of spirit possession among female factory workers, and "the intensified social and bodily vigilance" with which they are associated, reflect heightened moral concerns and anxieties about the Malay social order, about the dangers of stepping outside it, and about the more encompassing body politic (Ong 1988:32). The contexts in which these epidemics occur—the shop floors of modern factories, especially multinationals in "free trade zones"—provide clear evidence of new (and incipient shifts in) sources of marginality, uncertainty, danger, and power. More generally, such cases (along with material presented earlier) indicate that Malays see themselves as threatened, if not marginalized and victimized, not only by their own neighbors and kin, but also by largely Western-oriented state policies and institutions, and by the state-sponsored nexus of capitalism introduced during the British colonial period, which continues to undermine and otherwise transform rural culture and social relations (cf. Taussig 1980; Zelenietz and Lindenbaum 1981). Evidence of these same shifts appears in the data from Bogang, even though most dangers and tensions still have a decidedly local face; for example, Rashid attributing his illness to the envy and sorcery of a "business friend" from the east coast whom he encountered in the course of his work for a modern capitalist enterprise (as opposed to the sorcery of forest-dwelling non-Muslim aborigines); and Kadir's account of his mother's illness, which focuses on her anxiety concerning her children mixing with, and perhaps mating with and marrying, the "wrong types" in the predominantly Chinese city of Kuala Lumpur (as opposed to sorcery, spirits, or other mystical agency). These cases indicate, among other things, that processes involving the "disenchantment of the world," which Weber analyzed so incisively at times, are far less automatic, mechanical, and uniform than is widely assumed (see Peletz 1988a, 1993a, 1993b).

It is no small irony that the very same historical forces which have exacerbated rural and urban Malays' moral concerns, fears, and anxieties pertaining to poisoning, sorcery, and spirit possession—and which have thus ensured continued demand for certain services of dukun —have also rendered superfluous many of the traditional services dukun once provided (dealing with fractured and broken bones, other simple physical

complaints) and have, at the same time, helped undermine the legitimacy of the institution in its entirety. Most of Bogang's dukun are in their sixties or seventies, and to the best of my knowledge there are no young people in the village or outside of it who have expressed strong interest in learning their ilmu and replacing them when they retire or die. These and other forms of local knowledge and power obtained through illness, dreams, chanting, trancing, and possession by spirits may thus be lost forever, despite the locally experienced and culturally elaborated need for their deployment. Such a loss may well engender feelings of disempowerment throughout Malay society, even among those who, like Kadir, appear to put relatively little stock in ilmu and mystical agency and have yet to experience serious illness or other personal misfortune.

These feelings of loss and disempowerment may well be felt most strongly by women. This is not only because women are increasingly less likely to have other avenues of knowledge and power available to them both in rural and urban contexts (e.g., modern secular education and religious instruction, meaningful on-the-job training and employment opportunities), but also because women have long been more susceptible to spirit possession (which is apparently less responsive to Western medical treatment than other forms of mystical attack), and likewise more dependent on (or at least more inclined to use) ilmu to help ensure the affections and loyalties of spouses and children. As growing numbers of village youth turn their backs on the prospective marriage partners their mothers and other female relatives have chosen for them in favor of spouses of their own choosing—which behavior is often taken as a sign of their being under the influence of the latter's ilmu —their mothers and other female kin will feel ever more powerless to realize the quintessentially female role of articulating social relations and looking after reproduction in both the social and biological senses. Moreover, as Islamic resurgents, national politicians, and others in largely extralocal quarters place greater emphasis and restrictions on women's attire, sexuality, and bodily functions in their projects to reinvigorate and reconstitute Malay society, rural women will come under intensifying pressure to conform to gender roles of others' choosing. Developments such as these—coupled as they are with the decline of subsistence agriculture (long a female domain) and female labor exchange in the agricultural sector, and various state-sponsored changes in land tenure and inheritance that have undermined many of women's "traditional" prerogatives—will undoubtedly witness the further erosion of women's autonomy and social control, just as they will entail the heightened segregation and dichotomization of male and female spheres.

The most likely result: Women will become increasingly identified with and, to a lesser extent, confined to, the ever more atomized, isolated, and isolating domains of hearth and household, yet will be ritually ill-equipped (except as victims of increasingly delegitimized spirit possession and latah ) to deal with the vicissitudes of their relational dilemmas and to exercise their more general moral concerns.

Spirits of Resistance Revisited

The analyses presented here build on Aihwa Ong's extremely insightful (1987, 1988, 1990a) work on spirit possession in contemporary Malaysia, but they do so rather selectively. In the interest of encouraging further research and debate on the issues at hand, it may be useful to make explicit some of our areas of disagreement, though I hasten to add that this is not the place to provide an extended discussion of Ong's important contributions to the literature.

Ong argues that prior to the 1970s, spirit possession among Malay women entailed (though is not reducible to) symbolic protest against women's subordinate status vis-à-vis men as well as ritual dramatization of the stresses women experienced in their roles as wives, mothers, and divorcées. With urbanization and industrialization beginning in the 1970s, however, there was a dramatic shift in the locus of possession. In Ong's (1988:29) words: "Before the current wave of industrial employment for young single women, spirit possession was mainly manifested by married women, given the particular stresses of being wives, mothers, widows, and divorcées .... With urbanization and industrialization, spirit possession became overnight the affliction of young unmarried women placed in modern organizations " (emphasis added). Possession in contemporary contexts such as these, in Ong's view, is best interpreted as both a protest against, and a form of resistance to, capitalist "labor discipline and male control in the modern industrial situation" (Ong 1987:207).

There are, in my view, three problems with these arguments. First, the way in which Ong portrays the purportedly dramatic shift in the locus of possession (at least or especially in her 1987 monograph) makes little provision for the multitudes of rural and urban Malay women—married and unmarried, old and young alike—who have no direct or indirect experience in the modern factory settings on which Ong focuses her discussion, yet who are still subject to possession by spirits.^[8] More generally, while possession certainly does occur among some, but by no means the majority of, female factory workers, and, as widely reported both in the

media and in the literature, among female dormitory residents and rural-dwelling schoolgirls involved in sports meets, drama programs, and public-sector work projects (Ackerman 1988:218), there is no evidence to suggest—and no reason to believe—that possession is more common among factory workers than among those who have no work experience in factory settings. Thus, it strikes me as rather misleading for Ong to state that possession became "overnight" the affliction of "young unmarried women ... in modern organizations"—the larger issue being that there are few solid grounds (and not all that many data) on which to base assertions that possession in these or other contexts informed by urban or industrial influences is best interpreted as a protest against, and a form of resistance to, "[capitalist] labor discipline and male control in the modern industrial situation." I certainly agree with Ong, however, that the demise of reciprocity and redistribution brought about in part by transnational capitalism is conducive to the intensification of moral concerns, fears, and anxieties of the sort realized in possession, though I would add that they are likewise conducive to the amplification of moral concerns, fears, and anxieties realized in other (i.e., "male") forms of mystical attack. More broadly, while I concur with Ong that the symbols, idioms, and overall language of spirit possession in capitalist contexts can and frequently do entail critiques of new ways of being for women and men alike, I would attach somewhat more importance to the fact that possession and other mystically induced forms of misfortune in more "traditional" settings are equally likely to embody critiques of prevailing or emergent social arrangements and institutions (gendered and otherwise), and, in this sense, have always had strong counter-hegemonic potential.

Second, the purported age shift in the locus of possession to which Ong refers (from "wives, mothers, widows, and divorcées" to "young unmarried women") is more apparent than real, insofar as it is a function of the rise in age at first marriage. Prior to the 1930s, for example, females in Bogang were, on average, about fifteen years old (though in some specific cases much younger) at the time of their first marriage (see also Newbold 1839 I:244; Reid 1988:158–59, 160). Note, however, that the mean age at first marriage for females had increased to about nineteen by the end of the 1960s, and was about twenty-one to twenty-two (or slightly higher) by the end of the 1970s (see Peletz 1988:233, table 15). Similar increases in age at first marriage have been reported for other parts of the Peninsula, including Selangor, where Ong worked (see, e.g., Jones 1980, 1981; Hirschmann 1986). Hence it is not necessarily the case that possession is afflicting younger women. The difference is simply that, due to the rise

in mean age at first marriage, when women first experience possession they are much less likely to be married (or widowed or divorced) than in times past.

And third, Ong's discussions of mystical affliction focus almost entirely on spirit possession, and effectively ignore those forms of mystical attack (such as poisoning and forms of sorcery that do not involve dramatic episodes of hysteria in which spirits take control of, and otherwise possess, their victims) that predominate among males. This focus follows from the main—and very important—question to which Ong directed her research (how to account for spirit possession among female factory workers), and, as such, is thoroughly justifiable. On the other hand, it gives the erroneous impression that women are far more susceptible to mystical affliction than men, and otherwise entails an unjustifiably dichotomized treatment of the roles and meanings of male and female in both "traditional" and contemporary culture. It also leaves unanswered some very significant questions: Why has poisoning and sorcery since the late 1400s been the "normal assumption in the Malay world when a man [or woman?] died young" (Wheatley 1964:151; cf. Reid 1988:56–57)? And why do fears and anxieties about being poisoned, sorcerized, or otherwise mystically attacked appear to be more or less evenly distributed among men and women?

The analytic framework developed in this chapter is, I believe, more appropriate to the data than Ong's, though I should perhaps reiterate that various commonalities underlie our different perspectives, and that, in any case, many questions and lines of inquiry remain to be pursued. Suffice it to restate my most general position that spirit possession is but one form of mystical attack, and that mystical attack is most profitably approached from a broad perspective which not only deals squarely with femininity and masculinity, but which is also attuned to long-term historical developments (e.g., the gendered skewing of ritual activities and women's spiritual disempowerment) over the course of the past few centuries.

In the latter connection we might recall the previously noted point that during the early part of the period 1450–1680, women were extremely active in communal rituals throughout much of Southeast Asia due to the fact that their reproductive and regenerative capacities gave them "magical and ritual powers which it was difficult for men to match" (Reid 1988:146; Andaya and Ishii 1992). This had changed by the latter part of this period, however, owing to the development in Southeast Asia of Islam and other Great Religions (especially Buddhism and Christianity), which provide no textual legitimacy for women's active participation in the high-

est or most prestigious rituals of the land. Specifically, during the latter part of the period in question, the most prestigious ritual positions in societies under the influence of Great Religious—ulama , magistrates, and mosque officials in the case of Islamic societies—came to be reserved for males, who thus found themselves in the historically unprecedented position of presiding over communal rituals. Women's public ritual roles became progressively less apparent, and they were increasingly relegated to shamanism, spirit propitiation, and the like, which, along with latah , came to be disassociated from the more universalistic arenas defined in terms of the Great Religions, formal politics, and men (Andaya and Ishii 1992). In the process, the status of shaman (both female and transvestite) declined, and women became the principal practitioners of ritual activities keyed to relatively parochial concerns, such as localized ancestral spirits and healing.

Clear evidence of this gendered encompassment exists in nineteenth-and twentieth-century Malay society. In the late nineteenth century, as Swettenham ([1895] 1984:194) pointed out, the "native doctors" responsible for treating "convulsions, unconsciousness, and delirium" were typically women , "usually ... ancient female[s]."^[9] Note, though, that the "native doctor's" diagnosis was typically "confirmed by some independent person[s] of authority," namely pawang "skilled in dealing with wizards," who were "usually men " (Swettenham [1895] 1984:194–95; Skeat [1900] 1967:322–23). Since Swettenham's time, there has been a progressive restriction in women's ritual roles. The eleven healers practicing in Bogang during the period-1978–80, for example, included only one woman (Mak Ijah), and, in a parallel development, the roles of female midwives have been rendered more or less superfluous by male obstetricians. When Mak Ijah dies, the gendered skewing of ritual roles and activities and of professional concentrations of virtues such as ilmu may well be complete, assuming, as seems to be justified, that no females step forward to replace her. The more general point is twofold. First, women will find themselves with increasingly delegitimized forms of spirit possession and latah as the primary if not sole ritual contexts to dramatize their most basic and pressing moral concerns. And second, the ritual articulation of these concerns will necessarily further reinforce the official/hegemonic view that women have weaker "life force" or semangat as well as less "reason" and more "passion" than men. To put the latter point differently, even when women's ritual dramatization of their most basic and pressing moral concerns embodies counter-hegemonic critiques of prevail-

ing social arrangements and institutions, their articulation in the context of possession and latah will necessarily have ironic and unintended consequences. To wit, they will bolster the hegemony which legitimizes the gendered distribution of power and prestige in its entirety, and which also defines women as lacking in the moral qualities or virtues that are associated both with maleness and with humanity as a whole.

5
The Person and the Body
Reason, Passion, and Shame

This chapter focuses on cultural constructions of the person and the body, dealing in particular with "reason," "passion," and "shame," which are core (or key) symbolic constructs in many spheres of Malay society and culture in Negeri Sembilan and throughout the Peninsula. The first section of the chapter provides a largely ungendered overview of local ideas about and representations of the person and the body, partly by analyzing the relational nature of personhood (or self) characteristic of Malay culture, along with the relational views informing images of the body and its most significant constituent elements (e.g., the hati , or liver, which is the "seat of emotion," and the semangat , or animating "life force"). In the second section of the chapter, these issues are pursued through a discussion of gender-specific constructs bearing on conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. The analysis is expanded in the third and fourth sections of the chapter by examining the contextually variable symbols and meanings of "reason," "passion," and "shame," and by assessing the implications of these data for Ortner's seminal but controversial (1974) argument that women in all societies are held to be "closer to nature" and "further from culture" than men. In reevaluating and reworking basic features of this argument, I contend that while it makes inadequate provision for contradictory representations of gender (and has various other limitations), its central logic helps bring into sharp focus critically important aspects of gender, and of society and culture generally, both in Negeri Sembilan and elsewhere in the Peninsula as well.

The Person and the Body: An Introductory Sketch

Malay concepts of the person or self (diri ), like those reported for other parts of Southeast Asia and much of the rest of the non-Western world, portray the person in relational terms. This is quite different from what one finds in the West, where the person is conceptualized as a "bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, a

dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgment, and action organized into a distinctive whole and set contrastively against other such wholes and against a social and natural background" (Geertz 1983:59). In Malay culture the person is most fully realized in social relationships, not autonomously or in privacy or isolation, as occurs in Western societies; this basic fact receives expression in various forms of kinship terminology and linguistic etiquette, and in myriad other ways as well.

In many contexts, for example, there is an assiduous avoidance of the term for "I" (den, aku, saya ), which is thoroughly nonrelational insofar as it makes no provision for the specific relationship(s) between the speaker and the listener(s). In its place, villagers use terms indicating their relationship to their primary audience. Thus, a woman speaking to her child would never say "I would like you to do such and such," but rather "Mother (or Your mother ) would like you to do such and such." A boy speaking to his elder brother would likewise refer to himself as adik (younger sibling of unspecified gender), rather than by a term for "I" (or by his name); similarly, he would refer to his elder brother by a term indicating either "elder brother" (abang ) or the elder brother's place in his (and the speaker's) sibling set (see below).

The use of birth-order names and teknonyms further reinforces the relational sense of self characteristic of Malay culture. Birth-order names, which refer to the person's place in his or her sibling set, are quite commonly employed, often with a term indicating relative generation: "elder brother, first born" (bang lung ), "elder sister, third born" (kak ngah ), and so on. More often than not, however, especially when speaking to someone of the same relative generation or to an elder, the generational marker is dropped. These conventions have the effect of emphasizing the siblingship tie that obtains between the person spoken to on the one hand, and his or her siblings on the other, and relational orientations more generally. Similarly, teknonymous terms (e.g., "mother [or father] of so and so") are frequently used by married individuals with children when they address and refer to one another. Such terms also promote a relational orientation, though they obviously differ from birth-order names insofar as they emphasize vertical (parent-child) as opposed to horizontal (siblingship) links.^[1]

Kinship terminology, like linguistic etiquette as a whole, encodes a variety of mostly implicit moral expectations and constraints. These expectations and constraints tend to be defined relationally, rather than in terms of categorical, absolute standards of behavior or ethics.^[2] Indeed, as Read (1955:260, 263) has put it with reference to an otherwise quite different

society, moral judgments do not generally "operate from the fixed perspective of universal obligation," since for the most part there are no "common measures of ethical content" relevant to moral agents in all situations in which they find themselves. Moral judgments tend instead to be dependent on, and vary with, social role and position. This is particularly evident in ("traditional") reactions to and sanctions for sumbang , which, as noted in chapter 3, refers to incest, related improprieties, and other forms of aesthetically offensive behavior. Sumbang involving individuals of the same lineage was a capital offense, but sumbang involving distantly related matrikin, though still a crime, was not nearly as reprehensible, punishable by confiscation of the offenders property and their banishment from the village (if not from the district).^[3]

More generally, the person is not construed as "standing apart from and above the world of social relationships and institutions" (Read 1955:250), but as both thoroughly grounded in, and in a very basic sense defined by, the relationships and institutions in which he or she participates. Clan and lineage affiliation figure prominently in the person's identity and sense of self, as do place of birth and current residence. (Most of these variables are encompassed within the concept of asal [asal-usul ], or "origin point," which is central to one's social personality and destiny.) Significant, too, for the person's sense of self and identity are relational roles such as husband and wife. This became especially clear to me in the context of formal interviewing, for when I asked people to talk about the temperaments and personalities of "males" and "females," they almost always responded with answers framed in terms of "husbands" and "wives" (the implications of which are explored in chapters 6 and 7).

Social roles are thus an intrinsic constituent of each person's identity. Indeed, the individual and social role are not clearly separable, which is to say that there is no real dichotomy (though there is a fair degree of diffuse tension) between the individual and society, and that social identity is more important than idiosyncratic individuality. Individuality (and indulgence) of most varieties is in fact strongly discouraged, and the individualist risks criticism that he or she is "different" (lain ). Discouraged, too, is voicing speculations about other people's motivations, which may be one of the reasons why the vocabulary of emotion (and of social criticism) is relatively undeveloped (cf. Karim 1990).^[4]

Local views of the person are grounded in (though by no means derive from) understandings of the human body, for the person is quite literally physically embodied, though constituted of nonphysical (e.g., "psychic") essences such as the "life force" as well. The body is viewed relationally,

and is held to be made up of the four basic elements that exist in the universe: earth, wind, fire, and water. Within the body these elements are, ideally, both of "equal weight" (sama berat ) and in a state of balance and equilibrium. At times, though, one or another predominates. When this occurs, there are telltale signs and potentially serious problems. Such problems may necessitate treatment by a healer (dukun ), whose primary objectives in the course of treatment include restoration of the appropriate balance among the body's constituent elements and, in some cases, the mediation of relationships between the realms of spirits and nature on the one hand, and that of humans on the other.

Each of the elements of the body is symbolically associated with a particular sensory organ (earth is linked with the mouth, wind with ears, fire with eyes, and water with nose). Each sensory organ is associated, in turn, with one of the four archangels (Mikail, Jabrail, Israfil, Azrail), one of the four spirits that watches over us after we die (Chadi, Wadi, Mani, Manikam), and one of the four Caliphs (Omar, Ali, Osman, Abubakar). Each of these archangels, spirits, and Caliphs is also symbolically keyed to one of the four corners of the world, which is conceptualized as a square plane surrounded by water. There is, in short, a single set of associations which symbolically link the four elements of the human body with human sensory organs, archangels, spirits, and Caliphs, as well as the four corners of the world (cf. Endicott 1970:42–45, 122–24; Laderman 1983).

The parallels between the human body and the universe are also evident in the ways Malays conceptualize human nature, as is the foregoing emphasis on balance and equilibrium. Humans, like other animals, have bodily passions and desires (nafsu ), but they differ from other members of the animal kingdom in that they have been endowed by God with reason, rationality, and intelligence (akal ). Within all humans, elements of "passion" and "reason" are forever struggling against one another, as are the forces of good and evil, and those of life and death. The point is often made that an individual's proper actions testify to the dominance, however temporary, of "rationality" over "passion," and that improper actions bespeak an inability or lack of concern to control the baser impulses. Behavior seen as contravening social codes is not merely aesthetically offensive (tak sedap ), coarse, crass (kasar ), and unrefined (kurang halus ), but is also held to reflect faulty or incomplete socialization. Hence, individuals whose comportment is held to be seriously improper are sometimes referred to (out of earshot, never to their faces, for this is a very serious charge) as "less than fully taught" (kurang ajar ), such that they are accorded an intermediate standing between the world of animals and

nature—where moral codes do not exist and thus need not be learned—and the rule-governed realm of humanity. Interestingly, while the term kasar is frequently used in criticism of other people's conduct (albeit not to their faces), the positive reciprocal of kasar , namely halus (smooth, polite, refined) is rarely employed with reference to other people's—or one's own—behavior. Villagers do not seem to think that there is all that much halus behavior, or that there are all that many halus people, in their social universe(s) or in the world at large. This is in rather sharp contrast to culturally similar societies such as Java, where both poles of the halus /kasar axis seem to be frequently invoked in people's remarks about themselves and one another (Geertz 1960).

Malays commonly underscore that it is humans' possession of "reason" that separates them from other animals, but they also point out that "reason" and hati (liver, the seat of the emotions) "work together" within all humans. Some Malays refer to the liver as the "ruler" (raja ) of the human body and note that it "governs" or "regulates" (merintah ) the rest of the body, much like a ruler or commander governs his army. In other contexts it is said that iman (faith, strong belief or trust in God, sincerity, resoluteness) is the "ruler" or "magistrate" (hakim ) within us, and that one's iman "cooperates" with "reason" to "kill" "passion" or at least "keep it in check." Such views and expressions are of interest in light of their emphasis both on cooperation, struggle, and killing, and on the roles of ruler, commander, and magistrate. In particular, they suggest that society and the body politic provide a ready store of symbols and idioms through which to conceptualize and express ideas about the composition of the human body as well as human nature.^[5] They suggest, in addition, that the human body is regarded much like a ruler's realm or territory, and that the health and illness of the body are conceptualized in much the same terms as sociopolitical order and disorder. Thus the individual experiences well-being when cooperation and balance prevail among the elements making up his or her body, a sign that the "ruler" of the body is in control of its realm. Conversely, the individual experiences illness when cooperation and balance no longer prevail among the constituent elements of his or her body, an indication that the ruler has lost control of its realm. These and related points concerning control and sovereignty should be kept in mind throughout the ensuing discussion.

While the person is constituted in part by, and literally embodied within, a physical body, it is also constituted by a "psychic factor." I refer to the animating semangat , which resides in the body but which may leave the body on occasion (e.g., during dreams, spirit possession, and

various forms of illness) through the fontanelle. Semangat , which have been described by Laderman (1983) as "gatekeepers" of the person or self, are spoken of in terms of their relative "strength" or "weakness," with strong semangat clearly being the most desirable. A strong semangat reduces the likelihood of illness, spirit possession, and the like. Conversely, a weak semangat leaves one open to various forms of illness and attacks by spirits. One way of strengthening (or simply preserving the strength of) one's semangat is to pray diligently and otherwise behave as a good Muslim. (Others include the wearing of amulets and talismans which, among other things, are thought to help keep evil spirits at bay.) Although women (as we have seen) are invariably believed to have weaker semangat than men and thus to be more prone to spirit possession and latah , there is no evidence to indicate that women pray (or wear amulets or talismans) more diligently or more often than men, or are otherwise concerned with being "better Muslims."^[6]

Various (corporeal) body parts and waste products are also viewed as essential parts of the person. For example, the liver, which, as noted earlier, is viewed as the seat of emotion, is an essential part of the person that must be safeguarded through prayer and other forms of pious and socially valued behavior. Similarly, exuviae, effluvia, and waste products such as excrement, though not accorded the same primacy in discussions of the person as semangat or hati , should be disposed of properly, lest someone manipulate them (and the person) through sorcery or witchcraft. This is not simply a belief in "contagious magic," but should be viewed instead as an indication of the degree to which an individual's self is seen to reside in various parts or products of his or her body.^[7] It is of interest here that when a group of villagers asked me if I would forget them and the rest of the community after I returned to the United States, one wealthy hajjah (a woman who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca) remarked drolly that I "couldn't possibly forget" them all, since, as she put it, I had "shit [t]here so many times."

Villagers are relatively comfortable elaborating on the essences of the person and various features of the body, but are rather taciturn when it comes to discussing standards of physical beauty, which, in my experience, are largely implicit and relatively unelaborated. This is even, or especially, true of the ideal physical attributes of prospective spouses. Zainal, the well known bridal attendant (mak andam ) discussed in chapter 3, mentioned that it would be extremely ill-advised, especially from the point of view of one's "face" or "honor," "to go around saying 'I want a husband or wife with this and that physical quality'—a tall and handsome

husband, for example—since what would happen if you didn't get one like that and ended up with a short, fat one?" I heard similar comments from other villagers, some of whom chastised me for the comments I made on one occasion that a particular (male) villager was rather unattractive.^[8]

What "really counts" in the marriage market is a prospective spouse's character (budi bahasa, sopan santun ), knowledge (ilmu ), descent/ancestry (keturunan ), wealth (kekayaan ), and prestige (pangkat ). It is nonetheless true that, all things being equal, it is more desirable to find a spouse who has smooth, unfreckled, light skin (as opposed to coarse, freckled, dark skin), and straight or curly/wavy hair (as opposed to coarse, frizzy hair). And no one would want a husband or wife who is "too fat," or as another woman put it, someone who is "missing a nose or something." Pronounced splotching or discoloration of the skin, along with other forms of serious skin disease (e.g., kudis ), are also high on the list of undesirable physical traits, and villagers afflicted with such disorders do in fact have a difficult time finding spouses. One reason for this is that skin afflictions such as these have long been viewed as divine (or other mystical) retribution for violations of incest prohibitions on the part of ancestors. It is of interest, in any case, that one of the two male villagers past the age of thirty who has never been married is afflicted with disfiguring skin disease. (The other is seriously retarded.)

Just as being "incomplete" is an aesthetic (and in some cases a social) liability in local culture, so, too, is being "overcomplete" in the sense of having body parts that are considered "too large." Women with exceptionally large breasts ("bigger than coconuts," as one woman put it) sometimes seek out traditional healers or other medical specialists in the hope that something can be done to reduce their size. And one of the reasons I heard for performing minor clitoridectal surgery on young girls is so that "it won't grow." Aesthetic considerations such as these also figure into the practice of male circumcision (though the fact that such circumcision is seen by Malays as obligatory for all Muslims is obviously important as well).^[9]

I have made very little mention thus far of the ways in which local views of the person and the body are refracted in terms of gender. The relatively ungendered discussion is consistent with the fact that many of the basic characteristics of persons and bodies that we have been considering here are relatively unmarked by gender. Subsequent sections of the chapter focusing on conception, pregnancy, and childbirth, and on "reason," "Passion," and "shame," will serve to flesh out the material presented here by illustrating the ways in which persons and bodies are con-

strued in gendered terms. Before turning to such topics, however, it will be useful to examine various aspects of local beliefs and practices bearing on death, most of which are ungendered.

Death

At death, the person ceases to exist in the sense of having a distinctive personality, but this does not necessarily mean that it is no longer endowed with agency (the capacity to influence the world of the living). Immediately after an individual dies, the spirit (roh ) departs the body, though it remains in the vicinity of ("hovers around") the corpse and the house of the deceased for about seven days. It then journeys from the house to the gate of the residential compound. Thereafter it travels to the cemetery (where the body is taken within twenty-four hours of death), though it may journey back and forth between the cemetery and the house of the deceased for about fourteen days. After one hundred days the spirit travels to Medina. It tends to remain there until Judgment Day (at which point God directs it to Heaven or Hell), though it typically returns to the home of the deceased three times a year (on the twentieth day of the fasting month [Ramadan], at the end of Ramadan, and during the festivities commemorating the annual pilgrimage to Mecca [Hari Raya Haji ]).

Some of the rituals immediately following an individual's death reflect villagers' concerns to sever the emotional ties between the living and the deceased, or at least to minimize the negative impact of death upon the deceased's immediate survivors and help ensure that the spirit of the deceased will not be bothered by the grieving of his or her surviving kin. For example, shortly before the shrouded body of the deceased is taken out of the residential compound, it is held high in the air so that close relatives may walk under it two or three times and thus symbolically break their ties with the deceased and minimize the disturbance created by his or her death and social loss. The burning of incense at the various ritual feasts following death (on the seventh, fourteenth, one hundredth day, etc.) is likewise geared toward pleasing the spirit of the deceased.

Local perceptions of and attitudes toward heaven (surga ) (and hell [neraka ]) seem somewhat contradictory, though this may reflect the fact that my data on the subject are not as complete as I would like. On the one hand, heaven is viewed as a place where human "passion" does not exist; on the other hand, it is said that in heaven human "passion" is both easily and thoroughly satisfied (cf. Siegel 1969, 1979). The occasional likening

of being in heaven to the situation of "an infant being at the feet of its mother" (surga anak tepak ibu ) resonates with the latter view of heaven, for what is implied in this expression is that heaven is a place where the person is both thoroughly safe and sated. Interestingly, when children encounter their parents in heaven, they first extend their arms to their mothers so as to help their mothers climb up to and otherwise overcome any obstacles to their reaching their final destination(s). Only after they have aided their mothers in this fashion do they extend such assistance to their fathers. These gendered views of heaven exist elsewhere in Southeast Asia as well, though they are clearly less pronounced than what one finds in Aceh, where, in women's imagery of heaven, men as husbands and fathers are altogether absent (Siegel 1969:177).

Rituals known as kekah are geared toward providing children with the transportation they will need when they are in heaven. The kekah ritual involves the slaughter of an animal in the name(s) of the child(ren) thus honored, and the holding of a feast to which large numbers of relatives and neighbors are invited.^[10] The type of animal slaughtered determines the type of heavenly transportation that will be available to the deceased child(ren) in whose name(s) the kekah is performed. A water buffalo, for example, will ensure that seven horses are waiting for the deceased. Sheep and goats may also be slaughtered, as can a two-year-old male chicken, but the sacrifice of such animals is less desirable since the transportation thus guaranteed to the deceased will be less substantial, perhaps a single horse.

Hell (neraka ), which is the ultimate destination for the souls of persons whose actions are, on balance, sinful, is portrayed as a place of intense heat (fire), suffering, and pain. One male elder mentioned to me that women's souls are more likely to go to hell than men's, though he added that much depends on their comportment while they are living. If they behave "properly," that is, if they aren't consumed by their "passion," their souls aren't necessarily more likely than men's to end up in hell. I never heard this view from other men, or from women, but it is consistent both with the hegemonic (though not uncontested) view that women have more "passion" than men, and with the thoroughly hegemonic (and uncontested) association between "passion" on the one hand, and sin, the devil, and hell on the other. The point to note in any case is that there are no separate resting places for the souls of men and women.

All villagers contend that the actions of the living can either ameliorate or augment the suffering of deceased persons' spirits, but for the most part only elders believe that the spirits of the dead can aid and punish the

living. The validity and legitimacy of such beliefs are denied by the younger, educated, and more cosmopolitan members of the community, who view them as contrary to the teachings of Islam. It merits remark, however, that, in sharp contrast to places such as Java and Bali (Geertz 1960, 1973, 1983), there is very little public discussion of contrasting views of this nature; nor, in my experience, is there all that much speculation about the fate of the dead, the Afterlife, or death generally.

In times past, elaborate and highly syncretic funerary ceremonies geared toward honoring the dead were held at various points in the Islamic ritual calendar. At present, however, such rituals are highly attenuated, and in some cases they are no longer performed at all. Many elders regard such ritual shifts and declines—and the underlying cosmological and social changes—with marked disdain, lamenting that village ancestors and guardian spirits have been neglected by the current generation of villagers, much like elders have been neglected and abandoned by their younger, especially urban-dwelling, relatives (see Peletz 1988b). Their more encompassing concern is that the bonds of reciprocity that link both the ancestors and their living descendants, as well as seniors and their junior kin, are no longer ritually or otherwise appropriately acknowledged; and that such failure is not only directly responsible for declining rice yields and other immediate threats to established moral and material orders, but also bodes ill for both the short- and the long-term reproduction of society and culture.

A detailed treatment of the ritual and social changes alluded to here is beyond the scope of the present discussion (see Peletz 1988a, 1988b, 1993a, 1993b; McAllister 1987), but it is noteworthy that these changes have witnessed an incipient cultural shift toward a nonrelational or decontextualized individualism, the social realization of which may not be far behind. Perhaps the best evidence of this incipient shift is that a variety of heinous moral offenses once considered treasonous (such as acts of poisoning, the harboring of vampire-like spirits, and various types of incest) are no longer commonly subsumed under the broadly social rubric of "taboo" (pantang [larang ]), as used to be the case (Parr and Mackray 1910:79, 110, 111). At present, such acts are usually classified as "sins" (dosa ) and tend not to be discussed in terms of taboo (or treason). This shift is significant in light of villagers' comments that while such transgressions (and all others of a sinful nature) may cause direct harm to specific individuals or groups of people (the objects of poisoning, spirit attack, etc.), they are ultimately of concern to (and best punished by) God alone, and need not concern—or have any mystical effect on —the com-

munity at large. This is very different from transgressions entailing taboo, which are of broad community concern if only because their mystical effects (which are automatically triggered by violation of taboo, albeit with the sanction and occasional intercession of offended spirits and perhaps God as well) are likely to be visited upon the entire community. Put differently, the "supernatural" consequences of sinful actions tend to be far more narrowly construed than the "supernatural" consequences of actions entailing violation of taboo insofar as they tend to affect only (or primarily) the sinner, rather than the much broader range of people (an entire kin group or community) likely to be affected by violation of taboo. I see in such changes an incipient recasting of personhood and morality; specifically, a tendency to construe the person as less enmeshed in—and certainly less affected by—his or her immediate social universe (household, kin group, community, etc.) and, conversely, as more directly implicated in (responsible for) whatever "supernatural" punishment he or she experiences.

Conception, Pregnancy, and Childbirth

Conception and Pregnancy

Local views of conception vary somewhat from individual to individual but there is general agreement on many of the basic issues. Some villagers told me that conception is an act of God that occurs in a man's head, and that, after conceiving, a man is pregnant (hamil, bunting ) for nine days (or longer)—telltale signs of which are "a certain look in the eye," the desire for new or different foods, and so on. If a man in such a condition has sexual intercourse with a fertile woman, the woman will then be pregnant for a period of roughly nine months. These beliefs concerning conception and pregnancy exist among Malays elsewhere in the Peninsula (Laderman 1983:75–76; see also Strange 1981:68–78) and in other Malay-Indonesian societies (Atkinson 1990). Especially significant is that they posit the identity, not simply the complementarity, of male and female in reproduction (see Atkinson 1990).^[11]

Other villagers mentioned only that "the seed" (beneh ) starts off in a man's head, descends through his body to his penis, and comes out when he ejaculates. Still others made no mention of the seed originating in the man's head, and said only that a man's seed, which comes out through the penis, is necessary (but not sufficient) for conception.

There is broad agreement, in any event, that if ejaculation occurs (even once) in the vagina of a fertile woman, conception and pregnancy may

result. There is general agreement as well that if a married woman who is presumed to have had sexual relations for more than a few months does not conceive, there is most likely something wrong with her, not with her husband. Thus, when Maimunah (who was twenty-nine when she married) failed to conceive after many months, and finally years, of marriage, it was widely assumed that she, rather than her husband, "had a problem (or disease)." Maimunah and her mother sought out a variety of healers and modern doctors (one of whom reportedly concluded that she had a tipped uterus), but none of their counsel or medicine proved helpful. When her husband was finally asked to submit to examinations or tests, he refused, citing in his defense that he would be embarrassed or ashamed (malu ) to do so. Some older women with whom I discussed the matter viewed the husband's recalcitrance as unfortunate, but they were pleased in any case that he had remained with Maimunah despite her apparent inability to conceive.

A woman's failure to conceive is commonly regarded as legitimate grounds for her husband to divorce her, or to take a second wife, but villagers, especially women, also express marked ambivalence about such things. This became particularly clear to me when, shortly before leaving the field in May 1980, a number of village women approached Ellen and told her, more or less out of the blue, that they hoped I would never abandon her, and that they had prayed to God so that this would never happen. One woman (my mother) assured Ellen that she would "kill me in her dreams" if I ever left her for another woman. And, as if to impress upon Ellen the nature of the punishment that awaited me in such circumstances, she jumped up and grabbed a large (4 ft. long) machete from its place on the kitchen wall and demonstrated with great dramatic flair and excruciating detail how she would slash and hack me into little pieces. This demonstration was later repeated for my benefit, by which time Ellen and I figured out why village women had been approaching her on the topic: Some ten or eleven months had passed since our wedding and Ellen exhibited no signs of pregnancy. Ergo, Ellen could not conceive and if these problems persisted I would sooner or later abandon her in search of a fertile woman.

Medicines and other aids (e.g., charms, amulets) to encourage conception are viewed in a positive light and are undoubtedly widespread, though I have little concrete information about their specific nature or the extent of their distribution or deployment.^[12] So, too, are "love charms" geared toward ensuring that husbands continue to find their wives attractive and sexually desirable (and vice versa). Herbal concoctions and other

aids that inhibit or prevent conception, on the other hand, are viewed in negative terms, even though it is widely recognized that frequent pregnancies can endanger some women's health, and that large numbers of children can seriously strain a household's material resources. Generally speaking, contraception is viewed as illogical because it is incompatible with the supremely valued goal of having large numbers of children. It is also seen as sinful (forbidden by God), and as a politically suicidal strategy for Malays, who are ever fearful of being outnumbered by non-Malays, especially Chinese. Villagers assume that non-Malays tend not to practice contraception of any kind, and are otherwise intent on increasing their numbers. On this count alone they feel it is ill-advised to experiment with any forms of contraception, or to engage in any other form of activity (e.g., abortion) that would limit their numbers.^[13]

The circumstances of the sexual act, which is said always to occur with "the man on top" (ventral to ventral), may determine both the sex of the child and other features of his or her physical appearance, personality, and fate. Various steps can be taken so as to increase the likelihood that the child will be a particular gender, but according to Pak Zainuddin, a sixty-year-old man with whom I discussed such matters at length, these steps are not widely known.

Pak Zainuddin was clearly embarrassed talking about matters related to sex but he did tell me that if a man thrusts to his right during the act of intercourse, about the time of orgasm in particular, a boy will be conceived. (Thrusting to the left will help produce a girl.) It also helps if a woman pushes to the right (left for a girl) at such a moment. Similarly if a woman sleeps on her right side (left for a girl) after having sex this will enhance the likelihood of conceiving a boy. Men with "much experience" know all about such things, but many men, even old ones, do not.^[14]

Pak Zainuddin went on to explain that it is both inadvisable and sinful for a woman to sleep face down after having sex, since "the seed will run out." Overall, however, there seems to be relatively little cultural concern with the amount of (male) seed in a woman's womb—for example, that a single act of intercourse might not be sufficient for conception. Similarly, Pak Zainuddin did not think that the frequency of sex after conception had any bearing on the health of the fetus or the mother. Such things are really up to the woman: If her desire increases, then her husband should respond accordingly; if it decreases or declines, he should also act accordingly.

Datuk Osman, another male elder with whom I discussed such matters, told me that a child's fate (nasib ) can be affected by the emotional state of

one or another of the parents during intercourse. Thus, if one of the parents is worried or upset, the child might turn out "stupid," might not do well in school, or might otherwise have a less than desirable fate. Similarly, if either of the parents has sinned, the parent's seed "won't be good." The example he used to illustrate the latter point involved money obtained in a religiously unacceptable way (i.e., money that wasn't halal ). If one of the parents has obtained money from the proceeds of petai that have been gathered in the forest, but has not paid the government fee that is required to collect petai , then the child may have a "bad fate." Ultimately, however, all of this is in the hands of God, as are conception and pregnancy in the first place.

If a woman expresses anger toward someone or otherwise loses control of her emotions during her pregnancy, the child may take on the physical appearance of the object of the woman's anger or emotional outburst. More generally, the emphasis on women controlling themselves, which informs women's behavior in most contexts, is even more pronounced during pregnancy. One woman explained, for example, that her twenty-year-old daughter had facial features that were widely regarded as "Chinese" because during her pregnancy she (the mother) had often gotten extremely angry at the Chinese conductor on the local bus. Another woman told me that her son was distressingly similar in appearance to the village idiot since she had frequently been angry with the idiot's father during her pregnancy.

Overall, however, villagers feel that, in terms of physical appearance, a child is more likely to resemble its father than its mother.^[15] This is because a child receives most of its biogenetic substance from its father and, more generally, because men's biogenetic contributions ("seed" and "blood") are "stronger" (lebih kuat ) than the contributions of women ("flesh," "milk," and "bones"). Agricultural metaphors are sometimes invoked to explain this (e.g., the type of crop that grows in a field is determined largely by the nature of the seed planted there).

The semangat of a young child, on the other hand, is more likely to resemble the semangat of its mother. This, I was told, is because the mother is "with the child from infancy" and is the "primary caretaker." Presumably relevant as well, though never mentioned to me (or Ellen) in this context, is that the individual's semangat develops in utero, during the fourth or fifth month of pregnancy, and is indissolubly linked with that of its mother, much like the developing fetus's "breath" (nyawa ). I do not have any information on the development of a child's semangat subsequent to infancy, but presumably the similarities between the sem-

angat of a male child and that of his mother are held to decrease as the young boy matures and is involved in activities that entail his progressive distancing from the influence of his mother and other females. This would begin with formal religious instruction in the Koran, which is under the supervision of the village imam , and which begins when children are about five to six years of age, and certainly by the time of circumcision (ten to twelve years of age), which in theory coincides with the completion of Koranic studies.

Pregnancy, which is believed to last nine months, or nine months and two to ten days, is seen as a relatively dangerous time both for the mother and the developing fetus, and is ritually marked off by various food restrictions and other prohibitions. Proper balance of the humors is particularly important at this time and involves (among other things) maintaining and acquiring heat, and avoiding the consumption of "cool" or "cooling" (sejuk ) foods.^[16] So, too, is protection from the ravenous blood-sucking spirits (pelisit, langsuir , etc.) that are attracted by the fragrant, sweet blood of the pregnant woman and the fetus growing inside her. Since these spirits dwell in the forest, women are encouraged to avoid the forest throughout their pregnancies. Pregnant women are likewise enjoined to avoid looking at anything strange or freakish (lest they give birth to a strange or freakish child), and to steer clear of funerals (lest they experience dizziness, nausea, shock, and so on). They are also encouraged to refrain from strenuous labor on the grounds that such labor might entail physical harm to them or their fetuses.

Women do not usually formally notify their close kin or intimate friends that they are pregnant, though they are not shy about acknowledging the state of pregnancy when asked about it by close kin or others. Such topics are not talked about in advance, and women are told little if anything about menstruation, which is ritually unmarked, prior to the onset of their first menses. Village girls and women are thus pretty much in the dark about these basic biological processes (as are boys and men). The same is true for sex generally, which is one of the reasons bridal attendants are sometimes asked by brides and grooms about sexual (and related) matters.

The initial signs of pregnancy include a quickening of the pulse, feelings of dizziness (mabuk ), nausea, fatigue or lethargy, strong desires for new or different foods, or simply missing one's period. Women who are especially irritable during their pregnancies are likened to pregnant tigers (bunting harimau ).^[17]

If a woman is particularly sick or irritable, it is believed that she is

pregnant with a boy. One of my neighbors told me that when she was pregnant with her sons, she could not get along with people and was mad at everyone all of the time, especially people who were bising (noisy, too talkative). When she was pregnant with her daughter, on the other hand, she got along with everyone. A great deal of movement in the womb (e.g., a fetus that "kicks hard" and "feels strong inside") also suggests a boy. So, too, does a fetus that lies or is positioned on the woman's right side. It merits note as well that giving birth to a male child is felt to be more difficult than giving birth to a female.

Sex during pregnancy is believed improper by some (but not all) villagers. One male elder told me that it is wrong to have sex with a pregnant woman, for the man's penis might "poke" the child and/or "ruin its eyes." The larger theme—that inappropriate sex leads to blindness—occurs both in Indic and Greek mythology, and in many other mythic systems as well (Doniger 1991).

Among the more important rituals traditionally performed during a woman's pregnancy was the "swaying of the abdomen" (melenggang perut ), which nowadays, if it is done at all, tends to be performed only with the first child (see Lewis 1962:144–45). This ritual occurs during the seventh month of pregnancy and is the occasion for a small feast. The focal point of the ritual is the bathing of the pregnant woman, and the wrapping of her abdomen with seven lengths of white cloth. This is done by a midwife, who recites Yasin (the thirty-sixth sura of the Koran [according to the traditional sequence of sura ]) and gently massages and "sways" the pregnant woman's abdomen to help "open up" the uterus and otherwise facilitate an easy delivery.

Such rituals were, and in many cases still are, overseen by village midwives, known as bidan (or "village bidan ," to distinguish them from "government bidan "), the majority of whom are female. Many of their services are still highly regarded, but state restrictions on their activities, coupled with the availability and affordability of modern health care, have seriously undermined their role in village society (see Laderman 1983).

Childbirth

In earlier times, women gave birth in their homes and were attended by village midwives and other female kin who provided medical and ritual assistance as well as emotional support. Men were not usually present at the births of their children; those among them who expressed interest in observing the birth process were told to "go away." According to women

in Bogang, most births occurred either in the woman's kitchen or in one of the interior rooms of the house. Midwives oversaw the delivery (which usually occurred with the pregnant woman lying on her back), thus ensuring, among other things, that the appropriate prayers and spells were recited, that the umbilical cord was properly cut, and the afterbirth fully expelled. One of the first things the midwife did after getting the baby out was wash it, put its hands in proper prayer position, and hand it to the mother. Other services provided by midwives during the immediate postpartum period included bathing the mother in water, rubbing her with oil, and tying up her abdomen with a restrictive corset-like garment (barut ). The fees for such services were between M$10 and 30, though proper compensation also included betel, rice, and other items of food and drink.

At present, however, all children are born in hospitals, and Western-trained doctors assume the role traditionally performed by village midwives, though the latter (or their modern counterparts, "government midwives") frequently attend and assist such births. The first resident of Bogang who was born in a hospital ward is now in his mid-thirties. Because his nickname is Wad—which is a phonetic rendering of the Malay pronunciation of the term "ward"—he is a literal embodiment and ever-present reminder of the timing of the transition to hospital births, as well as the beginnings of the decline of traditional midwifery. And since most doctors are male, Wad also constitutes a clear reminder that the shift to hospital births and the attendant decline of traditional midwifery represent yet another example of women's ritual roles being usurped by men.

Hospital births do not necessarily preclude the performance of traditional postpartum rituals, especially since most hospital stays for childbirth are of relatively short duration. Western-oriented doctors, moreover, frequently encourage women to observe many (but not all) of the traditional restrictions, particularly those related to diet and humoral balance. Doctors are rather ambivalent about the value of some postpartum rituals, however, such as the pan-Southeast Asian practice of "roasting the mother." This ritual (berselai, salaian ) involves building a small fire and having the postpartum mother stand over it for a few hours each day (for a period of forty-four days) so as to help her restore her heat and "bind up her insides." This practice is still seen by most Malays as highly valued if not indispensable. As one woman put it, if women don't observe this and attendant rituals and restrictions, "their uteruses/wombs will fall, their stomachs will protrude, their faces will look old, and their bones—

along with the rest of their bodies—will start to ache and will feel cold for the remainder of their lives."^[18]

One of the most important postpartum rituals performed for the benefit of the newborn child is the "burial (or planting) of the afterbirth" (taman temuni ), which I have discussed elsewhere (Peletz 1988b:50–51, 53, 348 n.6; cf. Lewis 1962; McKinley 1975). This ritual highlights the social and cultural significance of siblingship (and the relational sense of self generally) by focusing attention on the individual's grounding in his or her sibling set, and on the extent to which the individual's destiny or fate is keyed to that of his or her siblings. The afterbirth (temuni ) is regarded as the newborn's mystical "elder sibling" ("elder brother" in the case of a male fetus, "elder sister" in the case of a female) since it derives from the placenta, which nourished and protected the fetus in the womb, much like an elder sibling ideally helps sustain and protect his or her younger sibling throughout the latter's life. As such, it must be shown proper respect and otherwise be dealt with in a ceremonial fashion.

In order to properly dispose of the afterbirth, the midwife must first clean it with salt, lime, tamarind, and water, and then bury it in a small hole about two feet deep. Before placing the afterbirth in the hole, the midwife wraps it in silk or other fine cloth, all the while reciting Koranic chants or other incantations. The afterbirth is sometimes wrapped up with pencils and notebooks (in the case of a boy), or sewing needles, cloth, and the like (in the case of a girl). This helps ensure that the child will later attain the requisite skills associated with his or her gender. Other gendered dimensions of this ritual include the location of the hole into which the afterbirth is placed. In the case of a male child, the hole is dug beneath the verandah or out in the garden area; in the case of a female, the hole is beneath the interior of the house. This reinforces the culturally elaborated links between females and interiority on the one hand, and males and exteriority on the other. It also entails both the spatial aggregation of same-sex siblings, and the spatial dispersal of opposite-sex siblings.

Failure to dispose of an afterbirth in this fashion is believed to result in dire consequences for the newborn child. The same is true for failure to light a fire over the hole and keep it burning for a period of forty-four days, this being the period of time that mother and newborn are subject to the most stringent taboos.

The proper disposal of the afterbirth is rendered difficult (though not impossible) when children are born in hospitals. The main reason for this is that doctors and other hospital employees tend to treat afterbirths as

"waste products" or "garbage," and to dispose of them in the trash. Hence, villagers must request that the afterbirths be saved, and must also make arrangements to have them brought back to the village for proper burial. The first time I observed the ritual burial of the afterbirth was shortly after I ran into Abang Hamid (an employee at the nearest hospital) coming home from town. I asked him, as villagers are inclined to do, what he had purchased in town, and more specifically, what he had in the clear plastic bag that he was carrying over one arm. His nonchalant reply, "Rokiah's afterbirth," left me feeling that I had intruded where I did not belong and, as such, was somewhat of a conversation stopper (at least temporarily). As we continued walking toward the village, I asked him what he was going to do with it, and upon hearing that he was going to give it to a midwife for burial, I expressed interest in observing the ceremony. He told me that I was welcome at the ceremony (as did the midwife and the others I checked with later on).

I should note, too, that both women and men express a preference for female children. Such preferences do not reflect concerns with the perpetuation of clan or lineage, though social continuity in the form of domestic reproduction—the fact that daughters rather than sons typically inherit and thus maintain houses and house plots—is sometimes mentioned in this regard. Rather, these preferences testify to deeply entrenched convictions (held by women and men alike) that daughters are much more likely than sons to take good care of their parents in their old age and during periods of infirmity and are, more generally, far more responsive to the moral and material obligations associated with kinship and social relations on the whole (even when inducements of inheritance do not figure into the picture). As one female elder put it, "a daughter may have only a bit of anchovy, but she will still give some to her parents; a son, though, may have an entire water buffalo and might not even give them a taste" (cf. Ong 1987:104–5). In light of sentiments such as these, it should come as no surprise to find that while parents and other close kin are extremely distressed at the death of any infant, their sense of grief and loss seems more pronounced in the case of a death involving a female infant. This, at least, is the impression I received from conversations with and observations of women. I have no data from men on this subject, but for reasons noted above I suspect they feel similarly.

The preference for female children does not necessarily translate into longer periods of nursing for female infants, or their being given better (or more) food or medical care. Nor, more generally, are little girls indulged to a greater degree than little boys. On the contrary, male children

are treated far more indulgently than female children. Male children are both allowed and expected to play more roughly—and to roam more widely in their play—than female children, and to ignore their parents' and elder siblings' admonitions and requests for assistance with household chores. Behavior such as this is consistent with the widely held view that little boys have more "passion" (and less "shame") than little girls, but is simultaneously out of keeping with the equally pervasive view that, overall, males are less "passionate" than females. The inconsistency in these views is more apparent than real and raises two important issues: First, there is an important developmental dynamic that needs to be considered when assessing local views of male and female (such views are not static over the life cycle). And second, contrasting views of gender keyed to different stages of the life cycle are not equally valorized. These and related matters are the subject of the remainder of the chapter.

The Concepts of "Reason," "Passion," and "Shame"

The Concept of Nafsu ("Passion")

Nafsu is an Arabic-origin term (nafs in Arabic) that is widely used both among Malays and other Muslims in the Malay-Indonesian archipelago (e.g., Acehnese, Minangkabau, Javanese) and among Muslims (Moroccans, Yemeni, Turks, Bedouin, etc.) elsewhere in the world.^[19] It is translated in contemporary Malay dictionaries as "passion," "desire," "lust," "want," "longing," which is in keeping with its uses both in Bogang and in other Muslim communities. In many and perhaps all Muslim communities, the term nafsu (hereafter "passion") frequently carries derogatory connotations, especially when it is applied to humans.^[20] In many (but not all) Muslim communities, moreover, one finds an entrenched, highly elaborated belief that "passion" is more pronounced among women (and females generally) than among men (males).^[21] The latter point will be addressed below. First, however, we need to contextualize such beliefs by examining villagers' basic understandings and representations of "passion" and the ways they relate to local understandings and representations of "reason" (akal ) and "shame" (malu ). As will be apparent in due course, "passion" and "reason" (and "shame") are not simply symbols "of" or "about" gender. They also inform village thought about the essence and dynamics of human nature, social relations, and the world at large, all of which is to say that they are central to the local ontology.

In the Malay view of things, God created the universe and all of its features and inhabitants. In accordance with God's will, "passion" is pres-

ent in humans and other animals, spirits, and all other living creatures. The presence of "passion" in humans, and in the universe generally, dates from the time of Adam, who, after seeing two doves, asked God to make him a companion or mate. God obliged Adam, and made Hawah (Eve) from one of Adam's ribs. God proceeded to instruct Adam and Hawah not to eat the fruit of a certain tree (a pomegranate tree in some local variants of the myth, an unspecified tree in others). But Adam and Hawah were tempted by the devil to eat the fruit, and they did so, which action resulted in their being driven from Heaven. A piece of the fruit lodged in Adam's throat, and to this day men have "Adam's apples" (halkum ), which serve as embodied reminders of Adam's transgression. Portions of the apple appeared as breasts (dada, buah dada ) in Hawah, and to this day women have prominent breasts, which, like men's "Adam's apples," signify both Adam and Hawah's sins and humankind's "passion" (cf. Laderman 1983:74).

The moral of this myth of genesis is not only that those who disobey God receive divine punishment, but also—and more relevant here—that sensual and other gratification necessarily entails both the indulgence of desire and ipso facto the absence of restraint. Restraint and control of the inner self are strongly marked moral virtues, the attainment of which brings prestige. Conversely, the absence of restraint indexes a lack of virtue and gives rise to stigma.

This system of moral evaluation helps explain villagers' marked ambivalence about the satisfaction of basic (biophysiological) human requirements. On the one hand, villagers do of course recognize that human beings require food, drink, air, shelter, and the like, if they are to survive and thrive; and they are well aware that sexual activity is necessary for procreation, and for the reproduction of society and culture. On the other hand, villagers view the satisfaction of these basic human requirements with marked ambivalence since their satisfaction is associated with the absence of restraint. People look down upon individuals who are felt to be overly concerned with food, eating, and drinking, although this is one of two domains in which relative indulgence is permitted, even enjoined (the other is illness, real or imagined). (Individuals who fail to fast during the month of Ramadan are especially stigmatized and are liable to criminal prosecution if they break the fast in public.) And they talk about such behavior in terms of the preponderance, if only temporary or context specific, of "passion" relative to "reason," which is seen as unsightly, unbecoming, morally offensive, and, at least in some contexts, as seriously sinful (cf. Newbold 1839 II:353).

More generally, when villagers speak of gossiping, desiring material possessions, being especially (or overly) interested in sex, they often mention "passion"; they are, moreover, quick to link "passion" with the devil and evil spirits and demons of various kinds who tempt them with sinful behavior. As a male elder put it when we were discussing the origins of the universe and related matters: "This 'passion,' it's the devil. You want to eat a lot, drink a lot, that's all the devil, satan. You want to buy clothes, buy a house, make your house all beautiful, that's the same: satan, the devil. These are worldly matters; in the Afterlife they don't exist."

Negative attitudes toward the absence of restraint are well illustrated in widely held views concerning food prohibitions and ethnic groups who appear (to villagers) not to observe any such prohibitions, such as the semi-nomadic non-Muslim aborigines (orang asli; literally, "original people") living in the hilly, forested regions behind the village. The aborigines eat the meat of wild boar, which, like all other pork, is forbidden to Muslims, and which is highest on the list of prohibited foods as far as Malays are concerned. The consumption of pork is in fact seen by Malays as thoroughly revolting, far more so than the consumption of snake, dog, lizard, and cockroach, which the aborigines are also said to enjoy.^[22] Of greater importance is that because the aborigines eat wild boar, they are assumed not to have any food prohibitions. And because of the perceived lack of food prohibitions, they are thought to "have no religion, only beliefs and superstitions" (tak ada agama, kepercayaan saja ). More broadly, since the aborigines have no religion, they have no culture (sopan, kesoponan; budaya, kebudayaan ), which, in the local view, is what distinguishes human beings (manusia ) from "mere animals" (binatang saja ). Indeed, when villagers speak of aborigines, they frequently comment that the aborigines are "like animals" (macam binatang ). Some carry this association even further, suggesting that the aborigines are not simply "like animals," but that they really are animals, created from "grime" (daki ) (cf. Newbold 1839 II:106).

The idea that the aborigines exercise no restraint when it comes to eating pork and are for this reason uncultured and subhuman resonates both with villagers' negative views on other "races" (Chinese, Indians, and "white people" [orang putih ]), whose behavior—especially with respect to eating, drinking, gambling, and sex—is seen as relatively unrestrained, and with their views of fellow Malays whose behavior is deemed inappropriate and/or aesthetically offensive. The exercise (or absence) of restraint thus serves as an important ethnic/racial marker, which is heavily, albeit never explicitly, gendered (other "races," after all, are accorded

the relative lack of restraint that official discourse attributes to and defines as a key feature of [Malay] womanhood), as well as an index of virtue (or its absence) within Malay communities. In cases of seriously offensive behavior on the part of Malays, the offender is sometimes said to be "less than fully taught"—a very serious charge. Violations of incest prohibitions certainly fall into this category, and are sometimes likened to "chickens eating their own flesh" (macam ayam makan daging sendiri ), which draws a parallel between individuals who mate with their own kind (e.g., members of the same lineage or clan), and domesticated chickens that consume the scraps of cooked food thrown out for them, which frequently include the flesh/meat of their own relatives. The explicit metaphoric link between incest and cannibalism—both of which are construed as quintessentially subhuman—would have certainly delighted Freud ([1913] 1950).^[23]

Persons whose comportment is seriously offensive are thus said to be improperly socialized and therefore standing somewhere between the rule-governed realm of humans, where socialization presumes the learning and internalization of moral codes; and the world of animals, which is governed by "passion," not by moral codes or rules. Socialization is in fact seen as a process entailing the gradual curtailment or control of "passion" through the imposition of man-made (but ultimately divinely inspired) codes and rules embodied in Islam and adat . The socialization process, and culture generally, thus "work on" the raw material of "passion," which, as noted above, is directly and inextricably associated with the world of animals and nature, and with the relatively if not altogether uncultured ("natural" and in certain respects feminine) behavior of other "races."

Before proceeding to a discussion of "reason," I should stress that there are some crucial differences between Malay understandings and representations of "passion" on the one hand, and those reported for culturally similar groups such as the Acehnese and Javanese on the other. We have already seen that in Malay culture "passion" is experienced and construed in predominantly negative terms, as indexing a lack of restraint, hence weakness, animality, and so on. This is true for Acehnese as well, though Acehnese sometimes remark that "passion," properly guided by "reason," can be and ideally is channeled into Islamic prayer and chanting as well as other forms of pious and morally virtuous behavior (Siegel 1969). I never encountered remarks or views of the latter sort among Malays, even though there are certain contexts (e.g., weddings and funerary rituals) in which Malays, like Acehnese, engage in Sufistic chanting which sometimes eventuates in a kind of frenzied ecstasy. That Acehnese but not

Malays operate with a concept of "passion" that makes explicit provision for the utilization of "passion" in the fulfillment of religious objectives may reflect the fact that, due to the variegated historical development of Islam in Southeast Asia, Acehnese Islam is more thoroughly infused with Sufistic elements than is Malayan Islam. In any event, the more general point about the absence among Malays of Acehnese/Sufistic constructions of the sort at issue here has also been noted by Malay anthropologists such as Wazir Jahan Karim (1990:36), who recently offered the following (understated) observation: "Sufi thinking that passion can be harnessed to a love for religion and ecstasy over God does not permeate Malay thinking, at least amongst the masses."

I might emphasize, too, that, at least in my experience, the conceptual apparatus in terms of which Malays understand and talk about "passion" is less complex and less elaborated than that reported for societies such as Java. Woodward (1989:190–91) notes, for example, that the Javanese he came to know in and around the Sultanate of Yogyakarta commonly speak of there being four different types of "passion" (nepsu in Javanese): (1) aluhama , or greed, "symbolized by the color black, represented as an animal, and located in the blood"; (2) amarah , or anger, "symbolized by the color red, represented as a spirit, [and] located in muscle tissue"; (3) mutmainah , or desire for tranquility, "symbolized by the color white, represented as a fish, [and] located in the breath"; and (4) supiyah , or the desire to destroy evil, "symbolized by the color yellow, represented as a bird, [and] present in bone marrow." I am not aware of any data suggesting that Malays in Negeri Sembilan or elsewhere view "passion" in terms of this explicit typology, or that they make any of the aforementioned symbolic associations, about which Javanese are, according to Woodward (1989:190), in "nearly universal agreement."^[24] Also absent from the Malay landscape, as mentioned earlier, is the idea (found also in Aceh) that certain types of "passion" (mutmainah and supiyah in the Javanese case) are "the forces directing the individual toward the performance of normative Islamic rituals and the cultivation of the state of kramat " (being holy, having the mystical powers of saints [Woodward 1989:191–92, 299]).^[25]

The Concepts of Akal ("Reason") and Malu ("Shame")

Akal is an Arabic-origin concept ('aql in Arabic) that is of central importance among Malays and other Muslims in Southeast Asia and beyond. The term denotes "reason," "intelligence," and "rationality," the ability

to evaluate alternative courses of action (e.g., display perspective and view things from afar) and render informed judgments, and is widely used in Malay culture in connection with "passion" and "shame." As mentioned earlier, it is often said that akal (hereafter "reason") distinguishes humans from the rest of the animal world and is our special gift from God; and that "reason" "cooperates" or "works together" both with the hati (or liver, the seat of emotions) and with iman (faith, strong belief or trust in God, resoluteness, sincerity) to guide the individual along the proper path(s). Villagers also contend that "reason" and "passion" forever struggle against one another within the individual, and that "good behavior" (budi baik ) is evidence of the preponderance, however temporary or qualified, of "reason" over "passion," just as "bad behavior" (budi jahat ) reflects the dominance, however short-lived or partial, of "passion" over "reason." "Shame" (malu ) is relevant here as well, for it, too, acts as a "brake" on "passion" and its expression or realization in social action.

While ("normal," "healthy") human beings are born with the capacity to develop "reason," they do not display or possess "reason" at birth. Rather, in the usual course of things, "reason" "develops" or "expands" (kembang ) over time, as a consequence of socialization and religious instruction in particular, and is typically manifested in one or another form when a child is seven or eight years old (though this is highly variable), or, as some people put it, when the child begins instruction in the recitation of the Koran (mengaji ). (Children normally begin such instruction at about the time they commence secular education in the national school system, i.e., when they are about six or seven years old.) It is also true that young children and adolescents are often characterized as lacking "reason," but the point of reference here is adults, not (nonhuman) animals.

Diligent observance of Muslim prayer procedure and other religious strictures is one way to help develop one's "reason." Conversely, the cultivation of "reason" through concentration and various types of mental and spiritual exercises entailing studied restraint facilitates proper prayer and other forms of religiously valued and morally virtuous behavior. Compared to children and adolescents, adults tend to take more seriously their (and to have more extensive) obligations as Muslims. This is one reason why adults are typically regarded as having more "reason" than children and adolescents. Other reasons include their superior abilities (relative to children and adolescents) to make informed judgments based on experience in the world; their demonstrated capacities to perform the myriad tasks and activities associated with domestic maintenance, produc-

tion, and the like; and, more generally, their greater control over their "passions" and their more systematic internalization of and behavioral adherence to the moral norms of Malay culture; hence (given the explicit link between being Malay and being human), their stronger commitment to being human.

Just as the acquisition or development of "reason" is a gradual process, so, too, in many cases at least, is the dissolution or loss of "reason" in the course of debilitating illness or old age. Individuals afflicted with senility are often said to have "lost" their "reason" and to have reverted to a childlike state in which "reason" is poorly developed or only sporadically manifest. In some instances, senescence seems to be regarded as a "natural" process that is inherent in biological aging, though in others it is attributed to possession by evil spirits harbored by malevolent (human) others.

Various types of severe emotional, psychological, and spiritual disorders (including senility) are sometimes attributed to or regarded as involving debilitated "reason," but for the most part disorders of this sort are conceptualized in terms of livers and/or "life forces" (semangat ), not "reason." Thus, a person who exhibits what we might take to be symptoms of extreme anxiety, depression, or obsessive behavior is not usually viewed as having something wrong with his or her "reason" or brain (otak ), but rather to be suffering an affliction of the liver or "life force." Similarly, an individual who is "girl (or boy) crazy" (gila perimpuan [gila laki-laki ]) is commonly believed to be the victim of human malevolence that "worked on" his or her liver or "life force." (Mental retardation and insanity, on the other hand, are seen as disorders of the brain, mind, or "reason.") It is nonetheless true that disturbances of the liver or "life force" can interfere with one's ability to "reason." In this sense, and in many others discussed earlier, Malays view body and mind as integrally related parts of a single and unified whole, and do not operate with a dualistic mind/body dichotomy of the sort informing Western medicine and Western thought generally.

A final point to stress in this brief overview of local understandings and representations of "reason" is that discourses on "reason" are often framed in terms of heavily value-laden spatial metaphors. Thus, certain individuals and classes of people (adult males) are accorded "long," "broad," "high," or "deep" "reason," just as others (adult females, and children and adolescents of both sexes) are held to be endowed with "reason" that is "short," "narrow," "low," or "shallow." Having "reason"

that is "long," "broad," and "high" is clearly more valued than having "reason" that is "short," "narrow," and "low"; and the person with "long," "broad" "reason" is accorded more virtue in the hierarchy of prestige (and stigma)—all of which is to say that the allocation of "reason" serves to legitimize the distribution of virtue in the prestige hierarchy, and that "reason" is central to the system of moral evaluation as a whole. I will return to these themes later.

Malu , for its part, is an Austronesian-origin term that is used by Malays to denote feelings or states of "shame" (being "ashamed"), "shyness" (being "shy"), as well as being "self-conscious" and "uncomfortable." Malu (hereafter "shame") is, like "reason," a quality or set of qualities that children are believed to be able to acquire, though this, too, requires active intervention on the part of parents, elder siblings, and others. Thus, young children, especially young boys, are frequently taught by negative example that the highly valued state of being "ashamed" and modest necessitates hiding their genitals from view. A favorite pastime of male elders is to ask young boys of toddler age to reveal their genitals. If the young boy turns or moves away shyly or with embarrassment, as typically happens, he is pestered and teased until he pulls down his pants and exposes his genitals. When this occurs there are howls of laughter from onlookers (men and women alike), and squealing on the part of the young boy, who is promptly scolded for having no malu! This type of teasing, which was frequently inflicted on my son Zachary (much to his dismay), is not visited upon little girls, who, in any case, are taught and expected to have a "stronger" or "more developed" sense of "shame" than boys of the same age. More generally, as I discuss later, men and women alike contend not only that females have a stronger and more developed sense of "shame" than males, but also that, if they did not, they would be "like wild animals" and the world would be in chaos.

One of the terms for genitals is kemaluan , which builds on the root malu , and which may be translated literally as a "thing or object of shame or embarrassment." The term is not gender-specific; hence if villagers want to specify male as opposed to female genitals (or vice versa) they simply add the term for male or female (kemaluan perimpuan, kemaluan laki-laki [female genitals, male genitals]). The term kemaluan is sometimes used inadvertently, especially by villagers who lack formal education and who are trying to speak "lettered" Malay. A stock joke of school teachers and other relatively lettered folk concerns the (male) villager who, giving a speech in a large public setting or on the radio, prefaces his comments with a remark to the effect that he is deeply honored and hum-

bled by the opportunity to speak; specifically, he refers to his deep embarrassment or shame, or to being deeply humbled, as "my large kemaluan " (kemaluan besar ), which is typically taken to mean that he has a large penis.

There are other terms for genitals, some of which are gender specific. The penis, for example, is sometimes referred to by a term which also denotes a small bird (pipit ); alternatively, the term for mosquito (nyamuk ) is used. Men occasionally make jokes about their "birds biting" or their "mosquitoes stinging." The latter are especially common when men appear at local provision shops to buy mosquito coils, which are referred to as ubat nyamuk , a term which can also mean "medicine for a mosquito." "Is your mosquito sick?" "Does it hurt?" "Is it biting a lot?" The fact that testes are referred to by a term (telor ) that also means "eggs" invites similar types of jokes.

The clitoris is referred to as kelintit , which also denotes a cockel, a type of shrub, and a type of creeping, climbing plant. Kelintit is said to be a term of abuse that is sometimes used among women, though I never encountered it in this context (neither did Ellen). The related term puki , which is an extremely vulgar term similar to the English term "cunt," is rarely used in polite conversation (though I have heard grandmothers use the term in joking references to their infant granddaughters' genitals). The expression puki mak kau ("your mother's cunt") is perhaps the most offensive insult that can be hurled at anyone, partly because it entails cursing one's origins but also because it highlights the theme of animality (discussed below).

Breasts, for their part, are referred to as buah dada (literally, "chest fruit" or "fruit of the chest"). Like the genitals of people past the age of five or six, the breasts of females over five or six years of age should always be covered (even during bathing). Men's torsos are likewise "good to cover"; indeed, it is thoroughly inappropriate for men to venture beyond their own residential compounds without shirts or a towel (or some such) covering their chests, though exceptions are often made for men performing manual labor, who sometimes strip to the waist when digging ditches or engaging in other arduous physical labor in the heat of the day.

In order to behave in accordance with the moral imperatives of "shame," one must certainly cover one's genitals (even, as noted earlier, while bathing by oneself) and much of the rest of one's body. However, a proper sense of shame also presupposes vigilance in many other social contexts, only some of which entail the spectre of potential cross-sex im-

propriety. This will be clear from an (edited) excerpt from my field notes and the brief commentary that follows.

The other day (February 1979), while walking through the village with two (male) friends who were visiting from Kuala Lumpur, I saw Chegu Rokiah, a thirty-eight-year-old school teacher, sitting with her mother and another village woman just outside their kitchen. Chegu Rokiah, who had apparently seen me (us) coming, quickly disappeared into the house as I (we) approached, for she is still an anak dara , an unmarried female, maiden, virgin.^[26] As she told me later, "It is important to guard one's reputation; it's not that I don't like you; it's just that people would talk a lot and my standing in the community might suffer if I was overly friendly with you, or interacted too freely with any other male [married or single]." She went on to explain that when her brother-in-law comes home, she doesn't talk with him much and generally eschews interacting with him altogether. Particularly if he has brought male friends to the house, she serves them coffee or tea and then disappears into the kitchen. On many such occasions she instructs one of the children of the house to bring them food and drinks, thereby avoiding all contact with them.

Chegu Rokiah explained that this is adat , a way of showing respect, and went on to discuss her ideas of friendship, intimacy, social distance, and the like. As a rule, she does not visit fellow villagers unless she has an errand or some business that requires her to go to their home(s). It would be different, of course, if she was married (but even then I suspect she would stick pretty much to her own house and compound, as many married women do, unless subsistence, exchange, or religious activities call for their presence elsewhere in the village or beyond).

Similarly, when she walks through the village on her way to or home from work she usually avoids eye contact with people. More broadly, she seeks to maintain a good deal of distance from everyone in the village. It is important that such distance be maintained, she told me, lest others "lose their respect" for you. She thus implied a positive relationship between social distance and respect, such that the greater the social distance (and formality), the greater the respect. Significantly, she also made an explicit reference to "fear," and to the necessity, or at least the desirability, of having people fear her, so that they would be reluctant to "bother" (kacau, menggangu ) her.

This particular strategy has earned Chegu Rokiah the reputation of being sombong (arrogant, haughty, unresponsive to social expectation) and extremely garang ("fierce"). Some younger adult men and women (e.g., her cousins) are indeed afraid of her, though such fear might also reflect their recognition that Chegu Rokiah has a well deserved reputation for having a very sharp tongue and a "bad mouth" (mulut jehat ).

Though I do not recall Chegu Rokiah making any explicit references to "shame" in her explanation of why she disappeared into the house as I

approached, or why she behaves as she does more generally, the gist of her explanation of her behavior fits well with local understandings of "shame." I might note, too, that on previous occasions (e.g., shortly after I first arrived in the village in 1978), she arranged for children to bring me snacks and other food as well as pamphlets on local culture and history, and explained that she couldn't bring me such gifts herself since, if she did so, people would say she had no "shame."^[27]

A related and broader point is that behavior in accordance with the moral imperatives of "shame"—and of "reason," "refinement," "style," and "grace"—is not motivated solely or even primarily by concerns that one's conduct be, or appear to others to be, aesthetically pleasing or morally virtuous. Such conduct is also motivated by concerns that might be termed "defensive" inasmuch as the conduct is intended to serve as a defense against being "bothered" or "disturbed" (as the local euphemisms put it) by potentially malevolent others (relatives, neighbors, etc.)—any one of whom may be offended by behavior that hints at impropriety or entails real or imagined threats to one's status, honor or name, and may, as a result, seek retaliation through sorcery or otherwise.^[28] That such behavioral strategies can also have "offensive" qualities insofar as they can be geared toward striking fear into the hearts (or livers) of others, is also apparent from some of Chegu Rokiah's remarks. All such strategies are essential to survival in a social and cultural environment in which it is taken for granted that people are motivated by greed, envy, and malice, and are forever trying to get the better of one another through displays of status and prestige, and by attempts to gain control over other people's loyalties, affections, and resources.

These latter points are significant for a variety of reasons, one of which bears on the previously noted theme that women (and females on the whole) are universally believed to be more modest and "ashamed" than men (males). Modest behavior is not merely a constraint imposed on women; it is also a resource that women can and do deploy in the pursuit of their (culturally defined) interests. The same generalizations pertain both to (male and female) children, who are expected to be "ashamed" in the presence of their elders (kinsmen and others), and to subordinates of other varieties, including the (male and female) subjects of "traditional" and modern political as well as religious leaders (see Scott 1985). In sum, deferential and circumspect behavior in accordance with the moral imperatives of "shame" is in many instances a calculated strategy deployed by women, children, political subordinates, and others (e.g., men addressing

audiences comprised primarily of status equals and dependents), and thus entails the active exercise of agency, albeit in an environment redolent with real and imagined threats.

Finally, a brief comment on the relationship between "reason" and "shame": To be "ashamed" is, as mentioned earlier, an indication that one is endowed with at least a modicum of "reason," and that one thus stands "above" the world of animals (who know neither "shame" nor "reason" and are governed entirely by "passion"). We have also seen that "reason" and "shame" (along with the liver) "cooperate" and "work together" to "kill," or at least act as brakes on, the expression or realization of "passion" in social action. In the local view of things, however, it does not follow from these points that the most modest individuals are also the most "reasonable." Thus, while women are invariably viewed as having more "shame" than men, they are not for this reason (or on any account) held to be more "reasonable" or less "passionate" than men (at least in official discourse). Rather, it is precisely because women have less "reason" and more "passion" than men that they are—and fully need to be—more "ashamed."

Nature, Culture, and Gender Revisited

The concepts of "passion," "reason," and "shame" shed important light on local experiences, understandings, and representations of human nature and sociality. They are of further significance since they are critical markers of contrasts between males and females in a social and cultural environment that places relatively little emphasis on gender or gender difference(s). In this connection we might recall that in most contexts of society and culture there is relatively little concern with gender or gender difference(s); and that compared to many (perhaps most) other societies studied by anthropologists, gender does not constitute an important marker of social activities, spatial domains, or cultural knowledge. There is, for example, a relative deemphasis of gender in forms of address and other features of kinship terminology (which emphasize bilaterality, relative generation, and age); in the sexual division of labor (which emphasizes reciprocity, complementarity, and the interchangeability of men and women); and in most ritual activities. And there are no men's houses, menstrual huts, or other extreme forms of gender seclusion or segregation, though it is true that mosques, prayer houses, and, to a lesser extent, coffee shops are sometimes regarded as essentially male domains. Particularly significant as well, in many contexts villagers contend that males

Figure 16.
Women at mosque

Figure 17.
Indok Jaliah and niece

and females are essentially the same (sama ) in terms of their personalities, temperaments, and emotions, and of equal status (pangkat, taraff ), despite their different, though complementary, roles.

At the same time, there are various contexts in which villagers assert that males and females differ in certain fundamental respects and are of

dissimilar status. Recall, for example, that the predominance among women of spirit possession and latah is typically explained in terms of females having "weaker" semangat or "life force" than men, and being more prone than men to worrying, anxiety, and emotional trauma, such as that associated with poverty or the death of a child. More generally, women are widely held by men and women alike to have less "reason" than men and less status and prestige (though not necessarily less power, or kuasa [see below]). And although there is less agreement on this point (as we will see in due course), women tend to be portrayed, particularly in official representations of gender and kinship, as having more "passion" than men, even though villagers are quick to point out that both "passion" and "reason" are present to one degree or another in all humans.

Official interpretations of women having less "reason" and more "passion" than men often focus on the perception (which, like most other local perceptions, is typically stated as "a fact") that women are less controlled and restrained than men insofar as they are more prone to gossiping and desiring material possessions, and are otherwise more closely tied to the "baser" things in life. The arena of sexual relations is the quintessential context, at least (or especially) for men, in which women's stronger "passion" is displayed, for, as some male elders told me, in sexual relations (hubungan seks ) women "still want more" even after their husbands are thoroughly satisfied (have attained orgasm). The latter point, which may well reflect men's (and women's) limited understandings of the anatomy and physiology of female orgasm, was never conceded (indeed, never came up) in the conversations that I—or Ellen—had with women. Nor did the point made by another male elder, that "women in hotels," by which he meant prostitutes, can have sex ten or twenty times in an evening, or even "all night long," none of which would be possible for a man. I should emphasize, though, that many women do espouse the position that women's "passion" is more pronounced than men's. Virtually all women, moreover, hold that women "need to"—and do in fact—have a stronger sense of "shame" than men; significantly, more than a few women (and many men) told me that if they did not, they would be "like wild animals" (macam haiwan ) and chaos would reign throughout the world.

The extent to which men's views of women's insatiable sexuality are an index of men's sexual anxiety is both exceedingly difficult to gauge and altogether beyond the scope of the present discussion. I would only note that similar types of views have been documented for Malays in the

state of Kelantan, and that the "husband's feelings that he cannot handle his wife's demanding sexual expectations" are given (if only by male informants) as one of the major causes of divorce (Nash 1974:38, cited in Spiro 1977:287 n.16). Findings such as these (see also Ong 1990b:273) are not reported for most other societies in Southeast Asia (e.g., Java, Thailand, Burma), and have led Spiro (1977:241 n.14) to comment that while "sexual anxiety is of course widespread in South and Southeast Asia [his main frame of reference],... Malay men may represent the extreme case."

Local views of the differences between men and women are of broad comparative and theoretical significance. They are quite similar to the views found among Malays elsewhere in the Peninsula; among Acehnese, Javanese, and other Muslims in Southeast Asia; and among Muslims in other parts of the Islamic world (though there are some important differences as well, which are keyed to variations in systems of production, exchange, prestige, and personhood). Among Malays in Trengganu, for example, "reason" is more strongly associated with men, just as "passion" is more strongly associated with women (Laderman 1982:91, 1983:76). Reports from Pahang indicate, similarly, that "reason" is "a quality that men are supposed to be more generously endowed with" (Massard 1985:72). In Kedah, Selangor, and elsewhere in the Peninsula we see much the same thing (Banks 1983:86–87; Ong 1987:87, 192–93, 1988:31, 1990a:388–90, 1990b:261).

Accounts from other Muslim settings—such as Aceh, Java, Morocco, Yemen, and Egypt—are generally consistent with reports from Malay societies (though there are, as noted earlier, some important contrasts). One of the most comprehensive treatments of such gender imagery comes from Morocco and indicates not only that there is a developmental dynamic that needs to be considered when assessing Moroccan views of males and females (such views are not static over the life cycle), but also, that in what might be termed "private" or "backstage" contexts, some Moroccan women contest certain official representations concerning both their secondary status and the differences between males and females generally (Dwyer 1978). These caveats are relevant to Negeri Sembilan as well. In some respects far more interesting, however, are the ways in which gender imagery in Negeri Sembilan differs from what has been reported for Morocco, other North African societies such as Egyptian Bedouins (Abu-Lughod 1986), and most other societies, including Malays outside of Negeri Sembilan. For in Negeri Sembilan there is a highly elaborated alterna-

Figure 18.
Razak

tive discourse, which is in many respects an inversion of the official/hegemonic discourse that I have outlined here, and which clearly transcends "private," "domestic," and "female-dominated" contexts. In short, key features of this very public albeit contextually specific discourse are shared by men and women alike (as discussed further along).

Negeri Sembilan (and other Muslim) gender imagery is of particular theoretical significance in light of Ortner's now classic (1974) argument that women are everywhere held to be "closer to nature" and "further from culture" than men, and that this conceptual linkage explains their universal secondary status (see also Ardener 1972). This incisive and provocative thesis, which builds on the insights of Simone de Beauvoir (1949), Claude Lévi-Strauss (1949), and David Schneider (1968), generated a great deal of additional research, though it did of course meet with much criticism as well (see, e.g., Dwyer 1978; MacCormack and Strathern 1980; Bloch 1987). Many scholars (I am not one of them) tend to regard such criticism as the "final word" on the nature/culture thesis. In the past few years, however, there has been renewed interest in the nature/culture thesis on the part of Southeast Asianists and others (see, e.g., Valeri 1990; Hoskins 1990; see also Shore 1981; Abu-Lughod 1986, chap. 4), some of whom have argued compellingly that much of the initial criticism of the thesis was misguided (and that some of it was in fact spurious), and that key features of the thesis are of considerable analytic value for specific ethnographic cases (such as the Huaulu and Kodi of Eastern Indonesia). I concur with this perspective, as will be apparent in due course.^[29]

Key features of Ortner's arguments do hold for Negeri Sembilan Malays, and for other Malays, as well as Acehnese and Moroccans, though the latter groups are not my primary concern here. They do so, however, only so long as we (1) limit ourselves to a consideration of official discourse, and (2) specify more precisely than Ortner does which meanings of the polyvalent concept of "nature" are primary both with respect to Malays' understandings and representations of females, and in terms of the world view of the analyst and of Western culture on the whole. In official discourse, as we have seen, women (and females generally) are portrayed as having more "passion" and less "reason" than men (males). We have also seen that there are explicit, culturally elaborated links between "passion" on the one hand, and animality on the other; and that local understandings and representations of animality are encompassed within a larger framework—"the world of nature"—which both governs and is explicitly manifest in (1) internal processes of the human and non-human body (instincts, reproductive processes, etc.), (2) pre-social states, and (3) the ways of "primitives" (see Bloch and Bloch 1980:27–31). The first two manifestations of "nature" constitute the primary meanings of the term for Malays (though the third is by no means irrelevant), which is to say that "nature" is characterized first and foremost by activities and processes that occur "without the agency, or without the voluntary and

intentional agency, of humankind" (Mill 1874:8, cf. 12, cited in Valeri 1990:266). This latter sense is, to reiterate, primary in most contexts in which Malays make direct or indirect reference to "nature" (and to women's "passion" and affinities with the world of animals and nature), though it is certainly true that there are other meanings of "nature" as well (some of which are encompassed within Malay variations on the theme of "natural law"; e.g., that numerous aspects of adat are consistent with the "laws of nature," such as the downhill flow of water). My culturally informed understanding of "nature" likewise focuses on this meaning of the term (though I sometimes use the term to convey other meanings). I would suggest, more generally, that in most contexts of contemporary Western culture this is the primary referent of the term (though there are obviously many others, some of which are contradictory with respect to that primary referent).

In sum, in the specific sense referred to here, Malay women are held to be "closer to nature" than men. In the local view of things this necessarily means that women are also "further from culture" than men, for their greater "passion" indexes their lesser "reason," the latter being the specific quality or capacity, which, more than any other, separates humankind from the world of animals and nature.

Official discourse couched in terms of "reason" and "passion"—and, by implication, "culture" and "nature"—does, moreover, serve to legitimize women's exclusion from, or marginal participation in, various domains of privilege and prestige to which they might otherwise have access (e.g., positions of political and religious leadership), and in this sense clearly serves to hinder their prestige standing (and overall "status") vis-à-vis men. It is important to underscore, though, that many Malays view these and most other aspects of gender roles in terms of complementarity, not asymmetry or hierarchy.

None of this, however, should be taken to suggest that all women buy into all facets of the legitimating discourse, or that there is no counter-hegemonic or other alternative discourse. Dwyer (1978), for example, falsely attributes to Ortner the view that the existence of a hegemony necessarily means that the hegemony is thoroughly dominant and absolutely controlling. Nor, as I said earlier, should any of this be taken to suggest that the meanings of "male" and "female" are static over the course of the life cycle.

In Negeri Sembilan (as in Morocco, Aceh, and many, perhaps most, other societies) there is an important developmental dynamic that informs imagery of gender. Earlier on I made brief mention of Negeri Sembilan

Figure 19.
Boys at mosque

views that when a woman is pregnant with a boy, the fetus "kicks harder" and is "more difficult to carry," and that, overall, it is "more difficult" to give birth to a boy than to a girl. Such views are consistent with local contentions that young boys are both naughtier (lebih nakal ) and more of a problem to discipline than young girls, and, more broadly, that they have "more" (or "stronger") "passion," hence less ("weaker") "reason."

Such views pertain only to pre-adolescent children. The attainment of adolescence is believed to entail major changes in the person, the most notable of which are the awakening of sexuality in males and females alike, and the attainment of heightened "reason" on the part of males, which is associated with their circumcision. Sexual awakening has dissimilar implications for males and females insofar as male and female sexualities differ significantly, albeit primarily in terms of their "quantity" or "strength"; for example, male sexuality is inherently "weaker" in the sense of being easier to control and satisfy than the sexuality of females. (Recall that the views discussed here are part of official/hegemonic discourse, and are in some cases inverted in the alternative discourse examined in detail further along.) More specifically, with the awakening of sexuality at adolescence, male and female youth are no longer accorded the proportions of "reason" and "passion" said to characterize their temperaments, personalities, and behavior prior to adolescence. Henceforth,

Figure 20.
Koranic lessons

Figure 21.
Zachary and friends

though partly because of the changes symbolically associated with their circumcision, males are believed to exhibit more "reason" and less "passion" than females.

Boys are usually circumcised (sunnat, bersunnat ) when they are about twelve years old, the age at which they have ideally completed their les-

Figure 22.
Girls in rice field

sons in Koranic recitation (mengaji ). In times past, the circumcision ceremony served as the occasion for a large feast and was overseen by a ritual specialist known as a modin , who was responsible for the surgical removal of the boy's foreskin. At present, however, circumcision is performed by doctors in hospitals, and the services of modin are no longer needed,

though feasts are still held. Prior to the advent of hospital circumcision, boys about to undergo the operation immersed themselves for a few hours in the cold waters of a river or well. The purpose of this (waist-deep) immersion, I was told, was to anesthetize the young boys so that they would feel less pain. But since water has purifying properties and is widely used in healing, exorcism, and life-crisis rituals (birth, marriage, death), it probably served to purify the initiate as well. So, too (albeit in a different way), did (does) the shedding of penile/genital blood in the course of the actual surgery. This blood, along with the removal of the foreskin, symbolizes both the initiate's formal separation from the carefree, "passion"-governed world of childhood, and his formal entry into the more regulated, "reason"-governed world of (male) adolescence and adulthood. Symbolic statements along these lines used to be more emphatic, for in earlier times, prior to the ritual surgery, the initiate had his hands and feet stained with henna and was, more generally, dressed and treated like a bridegroom (e.g., carried about in a sedan chair in a circumambulatory procession). Even at present, the initiate's ritual passage is further dramatized by a series of food prohibitions and other restrictions, which, as many informants emphasized, are very similar to those observed by postpartum women (cf. Laderman 1983:66). More generally, as soon as his wound has healed and he has completed the period of ritual restrictions, he is no longer a "mere child." Now, though still an adolescent, he is conceptually linked with the world of adult men, and with all of the qualities that serve to distinguish them from adult females, such as their greater knowledge of Islam and their stronger "reason" and weaker "passion" (cf. Woodward 1989:161–63).

There is certainly much more that could be said about circumcision, but I will confine my comments to a few basic (and speculative) points, particularly since I was unable to witness what turned out to be the last (village) circumcision in Bogang (I was called away to, and detained at, a wedding in a neighboring community), and thus have rather sketchy information on the subject. Even when performed in hospitals, circumcision might be seen as a symbolic means of inhibiting, restricting, or otherwise controlling young boys' "passion," especially insofar as pre-adolescent boys are viewed as more "passionate" than their female counterparts, but are nonetheless expected to develop into "reasonable" and responsible adult men. This interpretation is broadly compatible with the views of Malays in the neighboring state of Pahang, that circumcision is a prerequisite and otherwise helps prepare males for marriage and sexual experience, and likewise enhances their virility (Wilder 1970). At the same time,

since circumcision rituals obviously entail genital bleeding, which occurs naturally among women and is a sign of women's fertility and capacity to give birth, such rituals might also be seen as a symbolic means of transcending or at least minimizing the most salient biological distinction between males and females (see Bettelheim 1962). The previously noted belief that conception occurs in a man's head and that after conception a man is pregnant for nine days (or longer) further strengthens this line of argument. So, too, does the fact that some men are said to experience nausea and other forms of "morning sickness" during their wives' pregnancies. Further speculation along these lines, though potentially fruitful, is beyond the scope of the present discussion, for my main concern here is not with circumcision per se, but rather with the changes that are symbolically associated with this ritual.

Data relevant to circumcision, and to pre-adolescent children generally, are significant for two reasons. First, they demonstrate that from conception to adolescence males and females are on different and opposed developmental trajectories: The male trajectory entails movement or passage from "passion" to "reason" (and "nature" to "culture"), whereas the female trajectory involves movement or passage in the opposite direction, from "reason" to "passion" (and "culture" to "nature"). And second, they indicate that even if we confine ourselves to a consideration of official discourse, Negeri Sembilan gender imagery is far more complex and contradictory than suggested by Ortner's original formulations. The extent to which such data constitute a serious challenge let alone a fatal blow to Ortner's thesis, however, is another matter. Dwyer (1978), for example, invokes Moroccan life-cycle data (which are in many respects quite similar to Negeri Sembilan data) to support her claim that she has refuted the central tenets of Ortner's thesis. In my view, this claim is greatly overblown. Indeed, I would argue that life-cycle data of the sort at issue here are more appropriately seen as confirming many features of Ortner's overall position.

It is obviously important to make provision for contrasting representations of gender (which Dwyer does), but we also need to consider the degree to which such contrasting representations are equally valorized in the culture(s) at hand (which Dwyer does not). In Negeri Sembilan, local understandings and representations bearing on pre-adolescent children do not inform official/hegemonic (or other) understandings and representations of "male" and "female" to any significant degree. The latter understandings and representations are informed primarily by images of fully social adults, and, more specifically, by images relevant to adult men and

women in the culturally salient kinship roles of husband/father and brother, and wife/mother and sister. The same is true both for Acehnese, for whom there is extensive data on the subject (see Siegel 1969, 1978; Jayawardena 1977a, 1977b), and for Moroccans (as evidenced by Dwyer's data and material presented by Geertz 1979; Rosen 1984; Mernissi 1987). Indeed, I think it is fair to assume that gender imagery in all societies is informed primarily by images of fully social adults. Adults, after all, constitute the category of persons most heavily implicated in social and cultural reproduction, and it stands to reason that representations bearing on this category of persons would be hegemonic with respect to representations of gender generally.

In sum, the proportions of "reason" and "passion" said to obtain among adult males and females in Negeri Sembilan, Aceh, and Morocco are hegemonic with respect to overall understandings and representations of "male" and "female." So, too, albeit less directly, are cultural constructions of "culture" and "nature" of the sort addressed in the original formulation of the nature/culture thesis. In the latter regard, it is significant that while Dwyer views her work as a frontal attack on the entire thesis, she nowhere suggests that there are major distortions entailed in viewing Moroccan notions of "reason" and "passion" as metaphoric transformations of Western notions of "culture" and "nature" (or vice versa). It may never have occurred to Dwyer to raise this more radical critique, though this is unlikely. Rather, I think Dwyer chose not to raise the issue because she recognized that these sets of terms share important semantic commonalities.

In this connection it is worth noting that while some scholars, such as Strathern (1980), have suggested that the nature/culture thesis is based on a particularly modern, Western view of things, others, like Valeri (1990:442 n.13), have argued that cultural propositions of the sort analyzed by Ortner predate the modern European period (from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries onwards), and extend back to at least late premodern times. Such debates are beyond the scope of the present discussion, but it is important to bear in mind that the Malay and other cultures considered here are all Islamic, and that while the key symbols with which we are concerned ("reason" and "passion") are of Arabic (indeed, pre-Islamic) origin, they clearly partake of the early Greek and Christian (i.e., neo-Platonic and more specifically Aristotelian) influences that informed the development of both premodern European and Islamic thought and cosmology.^[30] Bear in mind, too, that all of the cultures at issue here have been subject to profoundly transforming imperatives and

constraints associated with the imposition of European colonialism and state-sponsored capitalism, and have, in these and other ways, undergone broadly homogenizing experiences associated with "modernization" and various forms of institutional and cultural rationalization in particular. In short, it is at least conceivable that the semantic commonalities between "reason" and "passion" on the one hand, and "culture" and "nature" on the other reflect a common intellectual heritage mediated by broadly comparable historical experiences, as opposed to, say, a universal grid, conscious or otherwise, of the sort proposed by Ortner.

The latter discussion has taken us rather far afield from my earlier point concerning the importance of examining the valorization of specific cultural beliefs and practices bearing on gender. I would like to return to this point and its relevance for an understanding of ritual impurity, particularly since the nature/culture argument makes reference to such impurity. Much of what follows thus relates to ritual impurity in Negeri Sembilan, though for reasons to be explained in due course I am especially concerned with some of the conceptual links between menstruation and death.

In Negeri Sembilan, menstrual blood and semen are among the body products capable of causing ritual impurity and pollution (hadas, najis ). Others include spittle, sweat, urine, fecal matter, hair, and nail clippings, all of which must be handled and disposed of carefully. Failure to dispose of such items properly is extremely dangerous, partly because individuals intent on harming a person can work potentially fatal magic on these (their) body products, or even on a piece of cloth that has their sweat or other bodily grime on it (or on a photograph that contains their image). Dead bodies are also polluting, as is death generally, as will be discussed further along.

Arabic-origin terms for menstruation and menstrual blood (e.g., haid ) tend not be used much by villagers, though they are common in formal religious and legal discourse—for example, in the Islamic courts and in pamphlets published by religious authorities to instruct young girls on the proper ways to pray. In village discourse, references to menstruation and menstrual blood are usually couched in euphemistic terms. Menstrual blood is said by women and men alike to be "unclean" and "dirty" (tak suci, kotor ) and is sometimes glossed "dirty blood" (darah kotor ). Similarly, women sometimes refer to their menstruation as the "arrival of the moon" (kedatangan bulan ) and, presumably if the menstrual flow is thick, as a "flood" (banjir ). Since dirt or dirty blood, following Douglas (1966), may be viewed as matter out of place, the conceptual links between

Figure 23.
Village maidens

menstruation, lunar cycles, and flooding argue rather strongly for the association of women with nature and natural threats to established orders.

In Malay culture there is no heavy abhorrence of menstruation or menstrual blood (or women's genitals) such as one finds in many societies in South Asia, Melanesia, and the Amazon. However, these phenomena are clearly devalued and various restrictions surrounding menstruation and menstruating women (and women's genitals) do exist. Women who are menstruating should not touch the Koran, pray, fast, or enter a prayer house, mosque, or graveyard; and they should refrain from having sex (though not all of them do). Sexual relations while menstruating (like sex with a menstruating women) is not simply seen as inappropriate; it is also regarded by some (but not all) villagers as sinful, and is in fact explicitly marked off in Islamic texts, though not in local culture, as "illicit fornication," or zina .

To my (and Ellen's) knowledge, however, there are no restrictions on the preparation or other handling of food by menstruating women. Nor are there any prohibitions pertaining to productive labor on the part of such women (e.g., proscriptions barring them from toiling in the rice fields or engaging in other work). Similarly, there is no evidence to indicate that menstrual blood is held to be a powerful substance, ^[31] though such a view is clearly implied in some of the restrictions cited here (cf. Laderman 1983:74, 242 n.1). And, as noted earlier, there are no menstrual

huts or extreme forms of seclusion of the sort one frequently finds in parts of Melanesia, the Amazon, and elsewhere in the world.

Semen (mani , or "mani water" [ayer mani ]) is also polluting, and men should not pray (or touch the Koran?) or enter a prayer house or mosque (or a graveyard?) if they have just had sex with a women or ejaculated, unless they have cleansed themselves first. Men, like women, are thus capable of causing pollution and must also be kept separate from the sacred on certain occasions. It is important to emphasize, however, that the pollution associated with menstruating women is in a very basic sense "deeper" or "more profound" than that associated with men who have recently had sex or ejaculated. Men can literally "wash off" their pollution and proceed to enter a mosque and/or pray. But this is not possible for women, for the simple reason that menstrual pollution cannot be "washed off." The issue of agency merits note as well: Ejaculation is a relatively voluntary act over which a man can exert a measure of control, whereas menstruation is an involuntary act or process over which women have no control. More importantly, there is much greater cultural elaboration of restrictions pertaining to menstruation than to ejaculation, and the former loom much larger in the consciousness of men and women alike than do the latter. Indeed, when discussing the issue of menstruation and menstrual blood pollution, I frequently asked if there were any comparable forms of pollution or restrictions pertaining to males. Most people (men and women alike) typically said no and left it at that. It was only when I brought up the issue of semen that villagers of either sex went on to acknowledge the existence of restrictions bearing on men who had recently ejaculated or had sex. This is in sharp contrast to the situation with menstruation, which men and women alike frequently brought up in discussion without any mention of the subject on my part.

The latter points are significant in light of debates in the literature about menstrual blood and women's capacities to pollute, some of which bear directly on the nature/culture thesis. Various scholars, including those who have worked in other Muslim societies, such as Morocco (e.g., Dwyer 1978), have criticized earlier studies of pollution and gender—many of which were carried out by, or informed by the work or research agendas of, male anthropologists—on the grounds that they (1) focus heavily (if not exclusively) on menstrual blood; and (2) fail to consider the larger category of polluting substances and states, thus providing a partial and ultimately distorted view of cultural constructions of gender and women. I agree with this general critique of earlier work on pollution and gender. And I concur with Dwyer on the specific point that Ortner's

essay on "nature and culture" overprivileges the importance of essentially negative symbolic constructs pertaining to women that bear on the polluting or defiling features of menstrual blood, insofar as it fails to consider the larger category of polluting and defiling substances, which, in Islamic cultures, certainly includes semen. I disagree with Dwyer (and Ortner),^[32] however, on the analytic importance to be attached to the mere presence or absence of beliefs or symbolic statements pertaining to polluting agents or states.

The key issue, in my view, is how such beliefs and statements are valorized in the specific culture(s) at hand. In the Malay case, and in Morocco and other Islamic societies, beliefs and implicit cultural statements that both men and women are able to pollute and thus must be kept from the sacred on certain occasions do exist, but they are not equally valorized: Beliefs and associated cultural statements pertaining to the polluting and defiling capacities of women are the subject of much greater social and cultural elaboration than those pertaining to men; and they certainly loom more largely in people's thinking about women (and femininity) than those bearing on men (and masculinity). More generally, the importance Ortner attaches to female ritual impurity in her analysis does hold for Negeri Sembilan (and other Islamic societies). So, too, as we have seen, do many other features of her argument.

An important question remains: Why is menstruation negatively marked in Malay and other Islamic cultures, and in so many other contexts throughout the world? Dwyer never addresses the issue and thus leaves the reader wondering what lies "beneath" or "at the root of" Moroccans' heavy devaluation of menstruation (despite the fact that the Moroccan data she presents on the subject are not terribly difficult to decipher). Douglas (1966), Meigs (1978), and many others would have us believe that it is because menstrual blood is simultaneously part of and not part of the human (female) body, and that it thus defies categorization in relation to the body. As such, it is anomalous and calls into question the boundaries that mark off the body from the world beyond, thereby threatening some of the most basic categories through which the world is understood, experienced, and represented. There is some merit to this argument, but as Valeri (1990) and others point out, it begs the question of why menstrual blood is more negatively marked than other bodily products that pose the same conceptual problem(s), such as semen, feces, spittle, sweat, and so on.

I would suggest that menstrual blood is devalued in Malay culture for three interrelated reasons, and that factors such as these also figure into

the devaluation of menstrual blood (and menstruation) in Morocco and many other cultures. First, it highlights the cultural ambivalences associated both with women's capacities to give birth (create life) and with the negative antithesis of birth, namely death. Second, it issues from the uterus/womb, which, in Malay culture, is the quintessential symbol both of woman's "passionate" and uncontrollable nature, and of the fundamentally animalistic nature of all humankind (male and female alike). And third, it is a type of blood whose release or letting is not under male control and is thus anomalous and (for these and other reasons) viewed ambivalently. I will address each of these issues in turn.

Menstruation and menstrual blood highlight the cultural ambivalences associated both with women's capacities to give birth (create life) and with the negative antithesis of birth, namely death. Conception, pregnancy, and giving birth, like fertility (the capacity to reproduce) generally, are essential for social and cultural reproduction, and are, on these and other accounts, accorded value in local culture. But they are invariably fraught with risks and threats to established orders insofar as they always carry the possibility of failure: failure to conceive, to become pregnant, to carry a pregnancy to term, and to give birth to a healthy child (failed reproduction). Cross-culturally, one common way of dealing with such risks and threats is to surround them with various cultural prescriptions and prohibitions, to ritually mark them off so as to better regulate them and thus minimize their potentially negative (and disastrous) consequences. This need not entail cultural devaluation: In some societies, such as the Rungus of Sarawak (East Malaysia) and the Mbuti of Zaire, menstruation, which symbolizes (among other things) women's capacities to give birth, is marked in relatively positive cultural terms, as are many other features of the Rungus and Mbuti sex/gender systems (see Appell 1988; Turnbull 1961, respectively). In Malay and most other Southeast Asian and Islamic societies, however, the risks and threats entailed in women's capacities to give birth that are symbolized in menstruation are ritually marked in predominantly negative terms. This is partly because of the devaluation in such societies of sexuality—which informs thinking about menstruation, and which is necessary for conception, pregnancy, and birth—and of all things associated with the "baser," uncontrollable side of things. In Malay society in particular, menstruation is a sign of women's awakened sexuality, and of the sexuality and "passion" in all humans, a theme to which I will return.

Just as women's primacy in birth and the creation of life is strongly marked in Malay culture, so, too, is the association between women and

death. Bloch (1982), among others, has observed that in a good many societies in the world women are accorded key roles in funerary rituals of various kinds, and are in many cases required to engage in heavily ritualized wailing, corpse washing, and the like. To greatly oversimplify, the major part of the reason for this is that women are squarely linked with birth (the creation of life), and that the ritual equating and collapsing of the distinction between birth and its negative antithesis (death), which is achieved through the symbolic vehicles of women and femininity, help symbolically deny and thus overcome death and all that it implies, and simultaneously reaffirm the continuity of established and enduring social and cultural orders. In Negeri Sembilan, women's role in death, though important, is not as pronounced as what one finds in groups such as the Merina (studied by Bloch) or, say, in South Asian or Melanesian societies. However, women in Negeri Sembilan are more centrally involved in the ritual washing of corpses (even though the imam oversees the washing of male corpses); and it is generally expected that women, but not men, will wail uncontrollably during funerals (even though all such outpourings of emotion are frowned upon), and that women (and children), but not men, will walk under the shrouded corpse as it is lifted high in the air before being taken out of the deceased's residential compound.

Noteworthy as well are various prohibitions pertaining to women entering the graveyard that are couched in terms of menstruation and female genitalia: for example, women should not enter the graveyard because (a) they may be menstruating and would thus offend the spirits of the dead, and (b) they tend not to wear undergarments and thus inadvertently expose their genitals to and offend the spirits. (No such prohibitions pertain to men.) And although "death pollution" of the sort discussed by Bloch is relatively unelaborated in Malay culture, women attending funerals are much more likely than men to be incapacitated by dizziness and nausea. More generally, women are far more inclined than men to experience the death of others as a threat to their psychological, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Similar types of conceptual linkages between women, menstruation, and menstrual blood on the one hand, and death on the other, are highlighted in the beliefs and practices associated with the myriad elves, fairies, goblins, vampires, were-tigers, and witches that make up the Malay demonological system. In many respects the demonological system is not heavily marked in terms of gender. For example, people's comments about spirits do not usually incorporate references to the gender of the spirits, their gendered preferences, and so on. However, if the anthropologist

raises issues of gender, it turns out that a good many of the spirits are construed as female (e.g., pontianak, langsuir, nenek kebayan ),^[33] while all of the others can assume either male or female form (orang bunyian, hantu raya, hantu orang mati bunuh, hantu bandan ).^[34] Significantly, there are (to my knowledge) hardly any spirits in the demonological system that are invariably male (though of course God, who created the demon world, clearly is, as are His Prophet Mohammad, the primary guardian spirit of the village, Datuk Gelembong, and the spirits of deceased male ancestors). And while many of the malevolent spirits prey on males and females alike, the majority of them—and the most dreaded, the pelisit —are more inclined to attack women. They are, moreover, most inclined to prey upon women who are pregnant or postparturient. In the local view of things, such spirits are irresistibly drawn to pregnant and postparturient women by the "fragrant," "sweet" smell of the women's blood, which is their main source of sustenance, and which they consume through sucking, thus draining such women and making them seriously ill, even causing their death (see also Newbold 1839 II:191–93).

In this connection we might recall the mythic origins of the dreaded, vampirish pelisit , which frequently assume the form of grasshopper-like creatures with sharp, bloody teeth, and which are the quintessential bloodsuckers. These spirits originated as a result of a primordial act of incest cum cannibalism involving a brother and sister. It was not the act of incest itself, however, that gave direct rise to pelisit . Rather, pelisit did not come into being (i.e., the brother and sister were not transformed into pelisit ) until after (1) the sister became pregnant and gave birth, and (2) the offending brother went beneath the house and began lapping up the discharge that flowed from his sister's vagina during the delivery. In this myth, evil and death as represented by the pelisit are clearly "of woman born," though they are equally clearly the result of heinous impropriety involving a female and a male. The brother's behavior was unequivocally more heinous insofar as he not only engaged in incest, which is metaphorically linked with cannibalism, but also engaged in a more literal form of cannibalism by lapping up his sister's vaginal discharge. What we see in this myth, among other things, is that women's life-sustaining blood and capacities to give birth and ensure social reproduction simultaneously attract and threaten men, and can also entail both their own death (and nonreproduction), and that of intimate others as well.

The conceptual link between dangerous and violent, death-dealing spirits on the one hand, and menstrual blood on the other, is also highlighted in cases of spirit possession that involve young Malay women working on

the shop floors of modern factories in "free-trade zones" and elsewhere. Some of the nightmarish visions reported by women involved in epidemics of spirit possession ("mass hysteria") include grisly images of spirits feasting on soiled menstrual pads (Ong 1988, 1990a). Note, too, that the bathrooms of such shops are sometimes littered with used sanitary napkins and are otherwise regarded as extremely dangerous, even life threatening. Ong (1988, 1990a) demonstrates that the recent spate of spirit possession among such women testifies to heightened anxieties concerning bodily vigilance (and the boundaries of one's body in particular), as well as increased tensions and anxieties associated with the integrity of the Malay social body, the dangers of stepping outside traditional moral communities, and the stability of the Malaysian body politic. She also emphasizes the more general theme that concerns about moral borders and boundaries clearly fall more heavily on women than on men.

That women are more heavily implicated in threats to sanctified boundaries is readily apparent from their strong association with embodied and disembodied spirits, which mark such boundaries and throw in sharp relief the consequences of their transgression. Many of the spirits in the demonological system are guardians of boundaries in the two-fold sense that (1) their favored habitats and activities straddle boundaries between village and forest, field and stream, night and day; and (2) they attack people who knowingly or unknowingly transgress such boundaries. And while some such spirits—for example, the flying, bloody head with entrails attached that feasts on human blood and laughs uncontrollably in the graveyard at night—are clearly inverted images of appropriate female (and male) behavior, others relate more directly to the way females really are , at least as represented in official discourse. Thus female spirits (pontianak, langsuir ) that lure men into the forest, cry out for their affection, and then seduce, disorient, and kill them are less an inversion of official discourse than a highly condensed and symbolically exaggerated replication thereof.

The general lines of argument developed here are strengthened both by research among Malays elsewhere in the Peninsula, and by Negeri Sembilan data bearing on women and the mosque on the one hand, and appropriate female attire on the other. Based on research among Malays in Trengganu, Laderman (1983:76) reports that, in the Malay view of things, the womb symbolizes "the dark matrix of our animal nature." Malays in Negeri Sembilan never conveyed this point to me (or Ellen) in explicit terms, but it is certainly both highly consistent with and directly entailed in conceptual linkages of the sort discussed in the preceding

pages. In any case, it would seem to follow from this (and from other data presented earlier) that women's genital secretions, including menstrual blood, also represent the "dark matrix" of humankind's animality. As we have seen, this animality is present in all human beings, though official discourse has it that it is more pronounced among women. I would thus suggest that the devaluation of menstrual blood is a function of ambivalences and anxieties not only about women's animality but also about the animality that lurks in all of us (male and female alike). The heavy devaluation of all things sexual, like the marked ambivalences associated with the satisfaction of other basic (biophysiological) human needs, is keyed to these very basic ambivalences and anxieties, especially since their gratification (the indulgence of desire, "passion") is an index of the absence of restraint and "reason," which are quintessentially human but, in the normal course of things, both imperfectly and intermittently realized (fleeting and ephemeral).

Further strengthening this interpretation are the answers some male villagers provided to my questions concerning why women should not go into the mosque while men are praying, and if they do (as often occurs during evening prayers), why they should sit in a segregated area off by themselves, ideally separated from the male congregation by a wall or at least an opaque screen. Rather than being phrased in terms of pollution or the like, these answers focused on the theme that women, if not segregated from men and thus more or less out of their view, would "distract" the men, "ruining" their concentration, prayers, and single-mindedness in the pursuit of religious knowledge and spiritual enlightenment. Similar types of comments were offered in explanation of why women should dress more modestly than men, and why they should ideally wear veils and head gear of various kinds, and otherwise ensure that the only part of their bodies exposed to the view of men (other than husbands, brothers, sons, etc.) is "the portion of the face that is illuminated when the sun shines down"; to wit, that women's beauty, if not covered, will "provoke" men. These types of comments provide compelling evidence of men's views of their own frailties—particularly with respect to the dominant and legitimizing discourse of "reason" and "passion"—when faced by or simply in the company of women, even in extremely public settings.

Menstrual blood is further devalued because it is the product of a process (menstruation) that is anomalous insofar as it involves a regular or routine form of bloodletting that is not under male control (cf. Rosaldo and Atkinson 1975; Buckley and Gottlieb 1988:27). Other forms of routine or ritual bloodletting are effectively monopolized by males: the killing

of wild animals, the sacrificial butchering of domestic animals, the circumcision of young boys, and modern warfare. Menstruation is indeed the only form of routine bloodletting that is not controlled by men. (Female circumcision in Negeri Sembilan and other parts of the Peninsula is not controlled by men either, but it is not as routine or regular as menstruation.) The fact that such fundamental processes associated with biological and social reproduction elude men's control, and do so in an environment in which all forms of social control are in theory in the hands of men, cannot help but raise serious questions and doubts about men's basic standing in the world, and their theoretically superordinate status vis-à-nvis women in particular. That menstrual blood issues from and clearly symbolizes the wombs of women—"the dark matrix of our animal nature"—renders these questions and doubts all the more serious.

Implicit in much of the discussion in the preceding pages is that menstruation highlights women's conceptual intermediacy between "nature" and "culture." So, too, do the symbols and meanings associated with women's genitals and sexuality, their capacities to give birth, and their central involvement in child rearing and socialization (which is clearly viewed as a transformative, "civilizing" process that works on the raw material of nature). Women's mediating functions are in many respects the ultimate source of the ambiguities and ambivalences associated with local (official) representations of "woman," much as Ortner suggests in her thesis on "nature and culture" (see also March 1984).

As I said before, my main concern here has been to reassess the validity and rework key features of Ortner's nature/culture argument in light of data from Negeri Sembilan (and to a lesser extent other Islamic societies). I have not considered all features of the argument, but I have demonstrated that, if properly reformulated, much of it holds for the specific case(s) at hand. Broadly similar arguments—that the nature/culture thesis, if carefully modified (through greater specificity or otherwise), is relevant to particular ethnographic settings—have been advanced in different ways by Shore (1981), Valeri (1990) and others, who caution against "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" à la Dwyer (1978) and MacCormack and Strathern (1980) simply because the thesis does not appear to fit certain bodies of data. The more moderate and constructive position thus adopted is that appropriately modified variants of the thesis are of considerable value in illuminating some ethnographic cases, even though they may not have universal applicability.

It should be recalled, however, that I registered important caveats toward the beginning of this section, one of which is that central features of

the original argument hold only so long as one limits oneself to a consideration of official/hegemonic discourse. In chapters 6 and 7, I focus more squarely on practical discourse, many features of which not only constitute an inversion of the official/hegemonic discourse outlined here but are also shared by men and women alike. In that discussion we will see that practical representations of gender portray men as having more (not less) "passion" than women, and as being less reasonable and responsible. This is an inversion of the central signs of the hegemonic framework ("reason" and "passion" [and "nature" and "culture"]), not a challenge to the framework itself, and it thus reaffirms rather than undermines the hegemony. To the extent that such representations focus on men in their roles as husbands and fathers, however, they do pose a rather serious problem for one of the a priori, unargued assumptions informing both the nature/culture argument, Ortner's more recent work (e.g., Ortner and Whitehead 1981a), and the work of Simone de Beauvoir (1949), Nancy Chodorow (1978, 1989), and many others. I refer to the assumption that whereas women in all societies are defined "relationally" (e.g., as wife, mother, sister), men in all societies tend to be defined "positionally" (e.g., as chiefs, warriors, and the like, which is to say, by their roles in the public domain or political economy), and not in relational terms of the sort ostensibly reserved for women. This assumption is not borne out either by data concerning Malays in Negeri Sembilan or other parts of the Peninsula, or by data from Aceh (among other societies), but I leave such matters for subsequent discussions.

There are, finally, five broader themes to bear in mind in connection with the data and arguments presented in this chapter, especially those marshalled to support my position that in many respects "reason" is to "passion" as "culture" is to "nature." First, the symbols and idioms associated with the former set of terms in particular are central both to the system of prestige and stigma, and to the system of moral evaluation as a whole. Second, there are a variety of axes along which actors—especially gendered actors—are commonly ranked: the virtues and vices such as "reason" and "passion"; the extent (if any) of the mystical or spiritual knowledge or power (ilmu ) they have acquired through experience with texts, trance, and/or spirit possession; and the relative strength of their "life force" (semangat ). Third, generally speaking, the psychological, interactional, and other behavioral or social qualities that are prestigious or stigmatizing with respect to any one of these axes resonate deeply with the qualities that are prestigious or stigmatizing with respect to the others. Fourth, gender is not itself an organizing principle in the most encom-

passing system of prestige/stigma that is composed of the various axes in terms of which actors are commonly ranked, though it is clearly shaped by its place within that system. The fifth and most general point, which follows directly from the others and which is addressed in more detail in chapter 7, is that our long-range objectives should be to develop comparative and theoretical understandings of expansive systems such as prestige/stigma, rather than of gender "per se."

6
Contrasting Representations of Gender

My husband is good at cruising around, but lazy when it comes to working. When he goes here and there, I don't get angry. If he wants to work, okay; if not, that's okay too.... Men aren't as responsible as women.
Mak Nisah, a female elder from Bogang

Women are more straight forward/honest, they aren't hot-tempered and they don't lie [as much as men].... Men are responsible for most of the problems in marriage and are at fault in most cases of divorce. The basic problem is that too many men like "the good life" and basically expect to "eat for free."
Pak Haji Adam, a male elder from Bogang

Men, they all lie; you can only believe about one out of ten of them. That's what you see all the time at the kadi's office.
Mak Su, a female elder from Bogang

Chapter 5 focused on the symbols and meanings of "reason," "passion," and "shame," and the ways they figure into official/hegemonic discourse on gender. This chapter examines official/hegemonic discourse as well, but is more concerned with the fissures, contradictions, and silences in the hegemony, and the ways in which these and other factors have allowed for the development of an alternative (practical) discourse, many features of which constitute an explicitly subversive challenge to (inversion of) the official discourse, and are therefore appropriately characterized as counter-hegemonic.

This chapter is composed primarily of (edited) material obtained from twenty open-ended interviews that were designed to elicit local understandings and representations of similarities and differences between males and females. The interviews were devised and conducted toward the end of the second period of research, after I had already spent some two years in the field. I mention the timing of the interviews partly to underscore that most of the interview questions were framed in terms of concepts and categories that I had long since identified as culturally salient:

"reason," "passion," "shame," livers, and "life forces," or semangat . Many of the questions took the following form: "Overall, are males and females basically the same or different with respect to their livers, personalities, and temperaments?" "What about 'reason,' 'passion,' and 'shame'?" "Are these commonalities and contrasts the result of 'natural endowment' or child rearing/socialization?" I also asked about similarities and differences in the roles, responsibilities, and overall statuses of males and females, as well as about various aspects of kinship, social organization, and religion (especially ritual prerogatives and restrictions). Some of these lines of inquiry yielded little of value and, as such, are not pursued here. Others met with looks of bewilderment or the shrugs that often accompanied rejoinders such as "Who knows? That's just the way it is; that's the way it should be according to adat and Islam." I should emphasize, in any event, that most of the material presented here is at the level of explicit consciousness, and does not tap into implicit, subconscious, or unconscious meanings or associations. Even so—and despite all the potential problems associated with collecting data via the rather artificial medium of the interview (see, e.g., Femia 1975:44–47; Willis 1977:122; Barth 1987; and Martin 1987:5–9)—the material obtained from interviews is of considerable significance. It not only provides the reader with a sense of the nature of "local voices" (though the questions and underlying research interests were of course mine); it also sheds valuable light on some of the paradoxical and contradictory ways in which particular individuals experience, understand, and represent masculinity and femininity.

The first section of the chapter presents data gathered from the ten men I interviewed. The second presents material collected from ten women. The third section analyzes some of the similarities and differences between men's and women's perspectives on gender(ed) difference and sameness, though my primary concerns are the scope, force, and reproduction of practical representations of masculinity; issues of class; and the variables that have constrained the elaboration of oppositional discourses as a whole. We will see that with respect to a good many issues the men and women interviewed are in strong agreement as to the basic commonalities and differences between males and females, and that the women interviewed appear to accept as accurate and valid much of the official/hegemonic view of gender, including many features of the hegemony that depict women (and females generally) in predominantly negative terms. We will also see that some men espouse various features of the practical discourse that tends to portray all men in largely negative terms; that this discourse reveals some of the ways in which local perspectives on class are

more or less unmarked in discourse concerning gender and social relations; and that the articulation of variables of gender and class has long been informed by state policies as well as nationalist and transnational discourse bearing on the Malay social body and the Malaysian body politic. In sum, gender ideologies are not intelligible as isolates, and are in fact best understood in light of theoretical perspectives which are conducive to describing and analyzing gender in relation to other forms of difference and inequality as well as everyday social process and the broader realities of prestige, political economy, and historical change.

Male Perspectives on Gender(ed) Difference and Sameness

The first five interviews presented here provide good examples of the official/hegemonic view that men have more "reason" and less "passion" and "shame" than women. They also illustrate that males and females (masculinity and femininity) alike are conceptualized in relational terms, and that the most salient components of men's and women's identities are husband and father, and wife and mother. At the same time, these interviews indicate quite clearly that men do not agree among themselves on all aspects of gender. That men do not speak with a single voice on matters related to gender (or anything else) will be even more clear when we examine the remaining five interviews conducted with men.

(1) Kamaruddin

Twenty-five years of age; single (never married); taps rubber and assisted me in my research while waiting for the results of an examination taken upon his completion of two years of training at a technical college in Kuala Lumpur;^[1] comes from one of the poorer households in the village.

"The livers of males and females are more or less the same, but the behavior of males and females is quite different." Women are gentler (more lembut ); males display greater aggressiveness, "like when they hand something to someone, they do it much less subtly." And women are more likely than men to resolve the differences that crop up between them. This may be because they depend on one another more and cannot let this interdependence be undermined by misunderstandings. Women's livers are like kerak nasi , the hard, crusty rice that forms on the bottom of the pot that rice is cooked in: "When it comes into contact with water, it immediately softens up. In other words, though women's livers may at times be tough, hard, or brittle, they become soft and melt when they hit

water, all of which is to say that women are more easily influenced and more flexible than men."

As for "reason": Males have "broader" (more luas ) "reason" than females. This is because of training (socialization) as well as natural character (semula jadi ). Both males and females are born with "reason" and this is among the most important features that distinguish them from the other animal species. It develops as they grow up. To illustrate, Kamaruddin spoke of a mother teaching her daughter not to ask so many questions of her older brother; for example, about where he is going when he leaves the house. He seemed to be saying that mothers (and other socializing agents) constrain young girls, and that this constraint results in their having less "reason" than would otherwise be the case.

As for "passion": "Females have more; for example, they are much more eager than men to become models, singers, and film stars; to wear nice clothes; and to be seen by lots of people [e.g., an audience]. They also have more 'shame.' 'Shame' is what keeps 'passion' in check."

When I asked Kamaruddin how these latter views squared with the local perception that men are more likely than women to squander money and gamble—which behavior might be taken as a sign of their having more "passion" than women—he responded that women, if given the chance, would perhaps be at least as likely as men to spend money, though they would use the money to purchase refrigerators, gas stoves, washing machines, and the like. He didn't make the point (though it did occur to me) that these items would be of benefit to the whole household, whereas this is not necessarily the case with men spending money at coffee shops or in gambling.

As for why women can't become (Islamic) magistrates or mosque officials: Islam gives leadership positions to men; this is because of their natural characteristics, the natural differences between men and women. In response to my questions about menstruation and the restrictions imposed on menstrual women (e.g., why they shouldn't go into the graveyard and so on), Kamaruddin laughed nervously, made a passing, oblique reference to highly syncretic, largely pre-Islamic rituals such as bayar niat ("the repayment of vows"), and said that he really didn't know why these rules and taboos exist. He also informed me that people are not supposed to think about or question such things, and that was the end of that.

Kamaruddin went on to remark that children are fonder of and closer to their mothers because mothers are willing to make greater sacrifices for them than are fathers. In response to my question on the subject, he

said that he wasn't sure if this is why children are more inclined to give money to their mothers than their fathers. In fact, he wasn't even sure if this is a pattern. (It is.) If it is, it may be because fathers don't need the money as much; perhaps mothers need it more because "they don't work."

I asked Kamaruddin about the origins of the universe, telling him that I had heard the story of Adam and Hawah but forgot the details and wanted him to fill me in. His version was much as others have described it, with God creating Adam and then fashioning Hawah from one of Adam's ribs. They were in heaven, ate the forbidden fruit, and were then sent down to earth for their transgression(s). The forbidden fruit appears as the Adam's apple of men, and as the breasts of women. Kamaruddin also said, in response to my question on the subject, that in one version of the Genesis story Hawah tempted Adam to eat the forbidden fruit; he went on to make clear that he didn't believe this particular version of the story.

On a more general note, Kamaruddin feels that the roles of men and women are equal, though clearly different. He does not feel that these contrasting roles translate into or entail differences in status. They are simply different.

(2) Dato Suleiman

Fifty to fifty-five years of age; married; recently elected to a high-ranking post in the indigenous clan-based polity; served in the armed services for about twenty years (beginning in 1956), much of it in an administrative capacity; currently lives in Lubok Cina (about thirty miles from Bogang) and is probably one of the wealthiest (or at least wealthier) members of that community.

Men certainly have more "reason" than women. They are better at making firm—and correct—decisions, and they are more patient. Women have less "reason"—they vacillate, change their minds, and worry more—and they have more "passion" and "shame." Women are never satisfied, Dato explained, referring to nice dishes and clothes, household conveniences, and the like. And they are all the time insisting that their husbands buy this and that. Husbands are often under tremendous pressure to purchase what their wives and mothers-in-law demand of them, and it is this pressure, stemming from women's "passion," that leads men into corruption. Dato was very firm on this point and reiterated it a few times. He implied as well that petty comparisons and status and prestige games

among women are a large part of the problem; for example, "a woman sees her relatives or neighbors with something nice, like an automobile, and she wants her husband to get one, even though he might have barely enough money for a bicycle or a motorcycle. This is 'passion,' and it creates all sorts of problems."

Dato added, in response to my question about "passion" of a sexual nature, that while women also have stronger sexual "passion," they keep it under wraps most of the time because they have more "shame." "When do women approach men and ask them for sex?" he asked rhetorically. "Of course it is men who ask the women, who sometimes whistle at women, not vice versa. If women didn't have more shame,' they would be like dogs, and the world would come to an end [habis dunia ]."

As for the causes of divorce, a major problem is interference from in-laws. It is not the fathers-in-law, however; the problem is mothers-in-law. This is why he advises his junior kin (anak buah ) to go off and live by themselves when they get married. The recent trend involving couples living on their own has contributed to the decline in the divorce rate because it eliminates some of the problems in marriage. "Not that problems don't arise, but if they do come up, they don't necessarily get much worse, as happens when in-laws begin getting involved." Government servants are less likely to have difficulties on this account since they often live in Kuala Lumpur or elsewhere, away from meddling kin.

We also spoke about managing money and other household resources. In his household, he handles, or, as he put it, "administers" the money, but in most households it is the wife who does so. This is partly because men don't want to be "bothered" all the time with women's requests for money for this or that expense, so they just turn their money over to their wives. I raised the issue of "queen control" (kwin kontrol ),^[2] which refers to women who either dominate their husbands or exert undue influence over them. According to Dato, "queen control" prevails in 20 to 30 percent of all households and typically involves women forcing their husbands to go out and buy things they can't really afford. "This is wrong in terms of Islam. Islam says—indeed, it is stated in the Koran—that men are supposed to be the leaders of the household."

(3) Pakcik Alias

Fifty-five years old; married (never divorced or widowed); has held a clan title since childhood; served in the army for about five years; and currently taps rubber. In terms of income and overall socioeconomic stand-

ing, his household is far above the village median^[3] and quite wealthy by local standards.

The personalities of males and females "are different, not the same." When men get mad, they really get mad; but with women, the anger doesn't "reach their livers" (sampai hati ). Men are "harder" (lebih keras ), more stubborn. And their livers are like stones, whereas women's livers are like the hard crust of rice which forms on the bottom of the cooking pot (kerak nasi ), but which dissolves when it comes into contact with water. Women's livers, moreover, are cool, while men's are hot. These differences are mainly the result of natural endowment, though the teachings of parents are also relevant.

Men have a bit more "reason" than women; in other words, "if men have ninety, then women have about eighty-five." Women can't calculate as well as men, but, on the other hand, men can't concentrate as well as women. This, too, is because of natural endowment, though teaching is also relevant.

As for "passion": Women have more than men, though of course women feel and say that men have more. The ratio of women's to men's "passion" is "seven to three." Pakcik Alias explained that he was referring not only to sex (sexual "passion"), but also to "passion" in the broadest sense: desires for food, clothes, comfort, and the like. As for women having more sexual "passion" than men: "A woman can have sex with five or six men in one evening; a man could never do that."

Women also have more "shame" than men. "If they didn't, then we men wouldn't be able to walk around; they'd be grabbing us all the time. It is only because of 'shame' and 'laws' that this does not happen." One's "passion" does recede with age, however. In the case of women, it is with menopause. "But if they are still healthy at seventy, then they still like it once or twice a week, and they'll still give in to their husbands if their husbands want it."

On the subject of female roles and responsibilities, Pakcik Alias referred to women as Ministers of the Interior (Menteri Dalam ), though he clearly meant women in their roles as wives. They are responsible for preparing things brought into the house by the father/husband; for example, taking uncooked rice and turning it into rice that is ready to be eaten. To give a sense of their more general responsibilities, Pakcik Alias recited a perbilangan: The mother instills values, teaches right from wrong, the father gives ilmu /knowledge (Buruk baik peribadi anak, tanggung jawab ibu; tinggi rendah pelajaran anak, tanggung jawab bapak ).

Men, in contrast, are the Ministers of Foreign Affairs (Menteri Luar ).

Their job (by which he meant the job of men in their roles as husbands/fathers) is to find things that aren't in the house, and to help and support their wives and children. Men are stronger and have "higher thoughts" (tinggi pikiran ), which is why this particular division of labor exists. It is nonetheless true that women usually look after the money of the household (jaga duit ). But this doesn't necessarily mean "queen control." It is wrong to jump to the conclusion of "queen control" simply because women keep the money. "There are very good reasons for this: Men burn up money quickly; in the morning they might have M$10 or M$100 in their pocket, and by the end of the day it will be spent if they have gone out. And sometimes men buy things that look interesting or attractive, and then get back to the house and realize that what they bought has no use or value. So it makes sense to let women keep the money at home."

Despite his earlier remarks emphasizing the complementarity, as opposed to the asymmetry, of male and female (kinship) roles, Pakcik Alias underscored that men have more or higher status (pangkat ) than women. For example, men get food and drink first, only then do women eat. And women must follow what men say, assuming it's true or appropriate, though, granted, there are two women who serve as ministers in the national government and more than a few women serving as local representatives in parliament (wakil rayat ). "Overall, women are not satisfied with their status or situation in society; but what can they do?"

I asked Pakcik Alias whether male-female differences of the sort at issue here have always existed, and his response was "Yes, ever since Adam and Hawah, who was made from one of Adam's left ribs." This led into a discussion of the story of Adam and Hawah: for example, their having been told not to eat the buah kheldi in heaven, their consumption of the fruit, the subsequent emergence of sexual "passion," and their being thrown out of heaven. When I raised the issue of Adam seeing the two doves and wanting to have a companion or mate, who later became Hawah, he (Pakcik Alias) said that this wasn't for sex, just for companionship. The "passion" didn't come until after they'd eaten the forbidden fruit.

We also spoke of menstruation and the restrictions imposed on menstruating women. The latter, according to Pakcik Alias, exist because menstruating women are dirty. "Are there similar restrictions bearing on men?" I asked. "No, men can clean themselves." A bit later Pakcik Alias remarked that the wearing of headgear such as kain tedung and other clothes that "cover women up" serve to protect them from kidnap and rape. Women's beauty should only be known to their family.

As for women being in the mosque: "They shouldn't really be allowed in the mosque at all. This is wrong, and if they are let in, then they should be separated from men by walls, not just by the cloth that separates them from men in our village mosque. In Bogang, women are let into the mosque because of the limited space [the interior of the mosque isn't large enough to accommodate a partitioning wall]." Such provisions bearing on women's presence in the mosque exist because of fear of fitnah (slander, libel, scandal).

(4) Zaharuddin

Twenty-six years old; single (never married); currently taps rubber and does other odd jobs; comes from one of the poorer households in the village.

The personalities and livers of males and females are basically the same. However, women are more responsible in the performance of their roles/duties (tugas ), and they are better able to endure life's problems (masalah hidup ) and make do in difficult life circumstances, such as being married to someone who is poor. These similarities and differences between males and females exist largely because of natural endowment, but one's surroundings and overall environment can be influential as well. Women are more easily influenced by their surroundings.

As for "reason" and "passion": Much depends on one's faith, resoluteness, sincerity (keimanan ). Women are better at viewing complicated things; men simply make decisions. Overall, though, women have more "passion," men more "reason." Such being the case, though also because of religious law, women are not allowed to serve as Islamic magistrates or mosque officials. More generally, the roles, responsibilities, and overall statuses of men and women are "more or less the same, even though men and women differ in their approaches to life."

(5) Zainal

Forty-two years old; married (never divorced or widowed?); perhaps best known in Bogang for being a bridal attendant and gender crosser (mak andam and pondan , respectively [see chap. 3]); works in a government office in the state capital and is, by village standards, very well off.

Men's and women's personalities are different, very different: "Women are gentle [lembah lembut ], loving and quiet; men anger more easily and are more ferocious [garang ]." These differences exist because of natural endowment. "Boys are rougher, coarser, they jump here and

there, and shout. Girls listen. But mothers have more morning sickness with girls, at least this was how it was with my wife."

Concerning "reason" and "passion": Women have more "passion" than men, at least potentially, but it isn't shown or displayed in daily behavior. In day-to-day behavior, men's is more pronounced than women's. And women are much more clever than men when it comes to placing importance on the household. "Women watch over and guard [jaga ] the money of the household, whereas men squander money, especially if they have high status [pangkat besar ], for then they have to spend a lot on friends. Despite this, and despite the fact that women think ahead more, men have more 'reason.' All of this is natural endowment, God's will."

Women are also more full of shame, less confident, and of lower status then men. "If women didn't have more 'shame' than men, there would be no peace and families would suffer. They would be out until all hours of the night, walking around like men." God made women weak (lemah ) and ashamed, hence even if they have lots of education, they can't surpass men.

It is women not men who are possessed by spirits (kena hantu ) because women have weak natures (sifat ), unlike men, who are strong, brave, and fearless (kuat, berani, tak takut ). The fact that it is also women who experience latah shows that women are more easily startled, which is a weakness.

The interview material presented thus far suggests that there are many key issues about which men are in basic agreement; most obviously, that men have more "reason" and less "passion" (and "shame") than women. Note, however, that some of the men who espouse these views (e.g., Pakcik Alias, Zaharuddin) also feel that men are quicker to anger than women or, generally speaking, are less responsible than women (especially about managing money and other household resources), or both. Recall, also, Zainal's remark to the effect that while women's "passion" is "innately" stronger than men's "passion," it is less evident than men's on a daily basis. These negative representations of men are particularly noteworthy insofar as they are in many respects out of keeping with official/hegemonic representations of "reason" and "passion" (and masculinity and femininity), but are nonetheless encompassed within or segregated from the hegemonic framework of "reason" and "passion" in such a way as to

fail to call it into question. Other evidence of such patterns appears both in the remaining interviews conducted with men, each of which is anomalous with regard to official representations of "reason" and "passion," and in some of the interview material obtained from women, which we will examine in the second section of the chapter.

(6) Pakcik Hamid

Sixty years old; married (never divorced or widowed); served as a member of the Singapore police force for some twenty-five years and currently lives off a moderate pension and income from the rubber land he owns, which is worked (sharecropped) by a fellow villager; belongs to one of the wealthiest households in the community.

Males and females do not really have similar personalities. Women are soft, gentle, not coarse or crass (lembah, lembut, tak kasar ). "Women's capital is the mouth; this is how they operate and get by, whereas men think before they talk. Also, women like possessions, comfort, conveniences, gold and other jewelry more than men; men are only interested in food and clothes."

Males and females also differ in terms of their livers: Women's livers are gentle, whereas men's are hard/coarse (keras ). Women can't overcome (mengatasi ) men; their strength, their semangat , is weaker, and they are more easily swayed by sweet talk, kind/refined words (cakapan baik/halus ), and good manners (budi bahasa ). Sweet talk is more effective with women, especially as regards inducing them to relinquish their anger.

These differences between males and females are inborn. They don't exist due to external influence. "Women can't surpass/overcome men from any angle; that is why women are underneath when people have sex. Their place is really in the home, but nowadays they compete with men.... They also cry more easily, which is a sign of their weakness."

As for "reason" and "passion": Males and females have about the same amount of "reason," there is no real difference here. For instance, there are some things, like sewing, that females just do better than males. This shows that they must have "reason" as well. But females have more "passion," even though men's behavior—their cruising around and spending money—suggests that they have more. Pakcik Hamid had difficulty giving me an example of females' stronger "passion," but finally after I assured him that he needn't be embarrassed, he said, "Okay, like a woman might want to make love two or three times in a single evening, whereas

men would only want to once." In general, females also have more "shame." God made it that way. "If they didn't have more 'shame' than men, maybe they'd be like wild animals [haiwan ]."

The role of females, particularly as wives, is to care for the household and the children, take care of the food, drinks, and clothes, and be the husband's sexual partner. Pakcik Hamid conceded that women often plant rice, but he said, "This is different; this has to do with 'finding food,' making a living." In any case, the husband's role is heavier (lebih berat ), because he is the one who has to find money, and teach the children, especially religion. Pakcik Hamid acknowledged that, in reality, women do much of the teaching, though he added that ultimately, for example when it comes to religious instruction, it is the father's responsibility.

We also spoke of women wearing veils and other headgear, and I asked Pakcik Hamid why they do. His response: "Some women do, some don't; it's just habit. Actually all women should cover themselves up this way, but many don't. According to Islam, men need only cover themselves from roughly the knees to the navel, but local custom dictates that men should wear shirts if they go out of their compounds. Otherwise, people will think they have no self-respect." He added that the point of covering women up is so that men's "passion" won't be provoked, so that women will be protected from rape. If women are covered up, men won't know if they are attractive or ugly and will thus be less likely to "bother" them.

The subject of men being able to have as many as four wives came up, as did the fact that women can have only one husband. Pakcik Hamid's comment: "Think of the problems that would exist if women could have more than one husband, of how the first husband might react: He might slit his wife's throat. However, if a woman finds out her husband has taken a second wife, she's just mad, 'noisy' [bising ]."

(7) Pakcik Rashid

Fifty years old; married (never divorced or widowed?); currently works as a security guard in Kuala Lumpur and typically returns home only on weekends and holidays. Pakcik Rashid's household is one of the wealthiest in the village. I might add that Pakcik Rashid is very articulate, clearly enjoys conversation, and is, overall, an excellent informant, especially since, compared to most other Malays, he isn't bashful talking about sexual matters.

In terms of personality, men and women are different. Women are gentle; they are more affectionate and loving toward their children. The

way women move, the way they close their eyes, is milder, gentler. Men are tougher, stronger, taller/higher (tinggi ). Their livers are also different: Women are more sensitive and more easily have their feelings hurt (singgung, merajjung ).

As for "reason" and "passion": Sometimes twelve-year-old girls have more "reason," more mature "reason," than boys of the same age. In general, however, males and females have the same amount or type of "reason," though much depends on school and "mixing." Women's "passion," however, is "much stronger than men's," in a ratio of "nine to one." (Pakcik Rashid didn't explain where this particular ratio came from, but he was insistent on these numbers.) "Women in hotels [prostitutes], for example, can have sex ten or twenty times in a single night; men could never do this. Even women who aren't in hotels want more sex than their husbands." Pakcik Rashid acknowledged, in response to my question on the subject, that perhaps their husbands don't know how to satisfy them. He went on to say, though, that if you are clever, your wife will be satisfied.

It is because of women's much stronger "passion" that they have much more "shame." "This is written in the Koran. If women didn't have more 'shame' than men, they'd [all] be in hotels, like wild animals."

On female roles and responsibilities: One is to serve their husbands food and drink; the other is sexual intercourse (hubungan seks ). In theory, if the husband can afford it, he should hire someone to do all of the other work around the house. A wife should get her husband's permission every time she goes out of the house, even if it is to defecate. "I don't make my wife ask my permission each time she goes out, however, for when we got married I told her that she was free to go out whenever she had a legitimate reason to do so; that is, I gave her blanket permission, a 'permanent pass.'" Pakcik Rashid proceeded to recite a short legend, much of which was lost on me, about a woman with a very sick father. The father went to heaven after he died because his daughter had been obedient to her husband.

Pakcik Rashid's comments on female roles and responsibilities centered on the roles and responsibilities of married women. In much the same fashion, his comments on male roles and responsibilities focused on married men: The man's responsibility is to satisfy the basic subsistence and related needs of his wife and family—food, drink, sex, housing, and clothes—and to teach them about religion, the world, and the Afterlife.

On the status (pangkat ) of men and women: From the point of view of religion, women can't become leaders of men. God made them a little

lower in terms of their pangkat or martabak (rung on ladder, grade in a scale of rank).

As for why women can't pray, among other ritual restrictions, when they are menstruating: This is because they are dirty (kotor ), in a state of ritual impurity (berjunub ). There are corresponding restrictions on men, Pakcik Rashid explained, in response to my bringing up the subject and asking about ejaculation. "If you ejaculate and know that you have done so, you must bathe before praying. And if the head of the penis penetrates fully during the sex act, then ablutions are necessary before prayer, even if no ejaculation occurs."

With respect to women wearing veils and other headgear: In theory women should be completely covered up except for the face and the palms of the hands. Men only need to be covered up from just below the knees to the navel. Women must be (more) covered up "because they are like flowers, are a source of maksiat " (sin; perhaps temptation in this context). If they aren't covered up, they will arouse men's "passion." To help me understand what he was getting at, Pakcik Rashid pointed with his forefinger to his eyes, and proceeded to gesture from his eyes, to the back of his head, and down his trunk; he then flipped his hand around such that the forefinger stuck straight out, thus indicating an erect penis.

As an aside, I might mention an earlier conversation in which Pakcik Rashid confided to me that most divorce occurs because men masturbate too much prior to marriage; as a result of such activities, their penises become flaccid ("don't work anymore"), and they are thus unable to satisfy their wives' sexual desires. (He also indicated that excessive masturbation changes the hormonal makeup and leads some men to become mak nyah , or transvestites.) This explanation of why divorce occurs constitutes a minority view, but it resonates deeply with men's frequently voiced contention that women are insatiable both with respect to sexual gratification and in terms of needs and desires of a nonsexual nature (e.g., creature comforts, consumer goods, and other emblems of modernity and prestige).

(8) Pak Haji Adam

Sixty-six years old; married (never divorced or widowed); has held the highest ranking clan title in the village for over twenty years; has made the pilgrimage to Mecca twice; worked for twenty-five years as a clerk in the local Islamic court and currently lives off his pension and earnings

from a number of highly lucrative business ventures with Chinese entrepreneurs; and belongs to one of the wealthiest households in the community.

Men's and women's livers are "different, not the same." Women are "shameful" (his word), weak, have weak thoughts ( pikiran lemah ), and, in response to my question on the subject, are weak with respect to physical strength, as well. If women weren't more "shameful" than men, "that would be the end for men, and this world, I just don't know ... [habis kaum laki-laki, ini dunia, tak tahu ... ]." Women's "reason," moreover, is not as "broad" as men's; this is probably because of education and "mixing," as opposed to inborn differences.

At the same time, women are more lurus (straightforward, honest), aren't hot tempered, and don't lie (as much as men). And, while there are many different kinds of "passion," women's "passion" isn't as bad or evil (jehat ) as men's. Men are "itchier" (more gatal ) and more flirtatious.

The subject of money came up and Pak Haji mentioned that his wife helped save money and didn't make all sorts of difficult financial demands on him. I used this as an opportunity to ask him if it is usually men or women who "administer" household money; he said that it depends, but that usually it is women. Sometimes men don't even know where in their houses their wives hide the money.

These differences between males and females are due to natural endowment. Men and women are born this way. The differences don't reflect the way they are taught or brought up, although habits can and sometimes do change. The Koran says this.

I should add that in earlier conversations about marriage and divorce, Pak Haji voiced the view that men (as husbands) are not only responsible for most of the problems that couples experience in marriage, but are also at fault in most cases of divorce. The basic problem is that too many men like "the good life," enjoy gambling and alcohol, and basically expect to "eat for free." Pak Haji's views on such matters come from the twenty-five years he spent working as a clerk in the office of the Islamic magistrate, a point to which I will return.

(9) Pakcik Othman

About sixty-seven years old; married (previously divorced?); taps rubber and belongs to one of the poorer households in the village.

Men's and women's livers are different: Women can't assume respon-

sibility, they're weak, not strong, and their husbands take care of them. It is wrong to do otherwise. Indeed, it is forbidden in religion for a man to stay at home and let his wife go out and "find money" (cari duit ), unless of course he is disabled or sick, or too old to work. This is definitely forbidden from the perspective of religious law.

These differences are due to natural endowment; they are given. And they are already present when the child is in the mother's womb. For example, males (male fetuses) are rougher in the womb, and if a woman is pregnant with a boy, she will always work (sentiasa kerja ). If she is pregnant with a female, she will want to sleep more and will have less strength.

With respect to "reason" and "passion": Men have more "reason," but they also have more "passion" and can't cover it up, whereas women can conceal theirs. "Passion" doesn't really appear until the age of twelve. It is actually there before that, but it is not born (lahir ). Women's "passion" recedes with menopause, but there is no such trend with men.

As for "shame": Women have more, and this is because of natural endowment. "If women didn't have more shame, the world would be destroyed [dunia hangus ]. They would do whatever they want, like water buffalo, wild animals. They'd grab this and grab that; like animals, they would just eat and mate."

We also spoke of the ritual restrictions pertaining to menstruating women and Pakcik Othman mentioned, in response to my question on the subject, that there are similar types of restrictions pertaining to men after they have had sex and/or ejaculated. He noted, too, that men do not have sex with ("eat") their wives while they are menstruating because if they do, their children will be born with "ruined eyes." He related this point partly because I had brought up the issue of sexual restrictions, but also as a warning, a bit of friendly advice, since he wasn't sure if I knew about such things, "being of a different religion and all."

(10) Mustapha

About thirty-two years old; married (never divorced or widowed); works as an electrician in the state capital (and plies his trade in the village as well), and is relatively well off by local standards. Mustapha is also extremely garrulous and has an excellent sense of humor. He speaks on many matters quite freely, and does so with much dramatic flair and intensity. Compared to most other villagers, Mustapha also has a more developed awareness of the dynamics and tensions in local society and cul-

ture. For these and other reasons, the interview with Mustapha was very broad ranging and is presented here in some detail.

Toward the very beginning of the interview, Mustapha launched into a discussion of how difficult it is to be married to a Negeri Sembilan, especially a Rembau, woman. My response: "So why did you marry someone from Rembau?" His answer was that he hadn't intended to but that his mother effectively forced him to. He had been engaged to someone from another state and had planned to marry her. But when his mother heard about his plan, she informed him that she didn't want him to bring the girl to the house to meet her, and then hurried down to Rembau (perhaps Bogang specifically) to make arrangements for him to marry a local girl. Mustapha couldn't go against his mother's wishes, for this, according to Islam, would be treason (derhaka ). He added, in response to my question on the subject, that it is usually women who do the matchmaking and attend to most of the other arrangements for marriage. That his mother did so in this case had nothing to do with the fact that his father had died some years earlier. Even if his father had been alive, he assured me, it would have been his mother who would have made the arrangements. In any case, once the negotiations and preparations had been taken care of, he couldn't go against his mother's wishes; so now he is married to a Rembau woman.

Mustapha expressed intense disdain for local adat and said that men lose (rugi ), they get no property. "What would happen if my wife and I were to argue? Where would I go?" he asked rhetorically. "Back to your sister's house," I suggested. "Hah, but she's married and her husband isn't going to want me there. I could sleep at the mosque for a while, but after a month or so people would want me out. And then what? This is why men married to Rembau women lose out."

In expanding on these views, Mustapha maintained that a great many men here have been made "stupid" (bodoh ), "like slaves" (macam hambah ) by their wives. Women do this through ilmu , a point he underscored by blowing and chanting like someone practicing sorcery. (These comments were similar to those he made on a previous occasion, when he recounted the story of one of his friends who had tried to hang himself from a coconut tree because of his distressing domestic situation.) Mustapha continued with the following elaboration:

It is especially bad in Sepri [a parish a few miles away]: All the men who have married there have been rendered stupid and have been made into slaves. Like cows with rings through their noses, they are led here and there by their wives. In some ways it is not so bad when you are young

and able to work, but once you get old, don't have a regular job, or get sick, then you are treated just like trash, kicked about, pushed aside, and made to feel worthless. I've seen this happen many times.

This is why it is important to save up your money and build a house for your family to live in. But it is unwise to build a house on your wife's property, even though many women try to convince their husbands to do so. Because what happens if you get in a quarrel? Then what? Where are you going to go?

This is why I bought a house in Kuala Lumpur for M$30,000. I saved up all my money and put the house in my name. I plan to move there within a few months; then, if my wife and I quarrel, she will be the one who will have to move. At this point I am in the process of discussing all this with my wife; my mother-in-law doesn't know about it yet. Once my wife and I have talked it over and decided that we are going to move, then we will let my mother-in-law know our plans. And if she wants to come visit her grandchildren, that's fine, but it will be on my grounds. And if she has a problem, she can just go back home.

It was about this time that we began discussing divorce. In response to my question on the subject, Mustapha opined that the primary cause of divorce is that "men don't have enough money," and that their wives and mothers-in-law are dissatisfied on that account. He added that the interference of in-laws (especially mothers-in-law) is also a critical factor:

It is always the mother-in-law [who interferes], and rarely the father-in-law, who, in any case, is always a stranger here, having moved in from another village and so on. All of this goes back to the fact that women have more kuasa [authority/power] in local affairs to begin with.

Things are backwards here, the reverse of what they should be; for according to Islam, men should be the ones to rule, the ones with the kuasa . But here it's not that way. In my own house, my wife has more kuasa . [In this connection he referred to the ownership/control of the house, property, etc., and his marginal standing as in-marrying male.] I know many people would be angry with me if they heard me talking this way, but this is the way it is, and I am simply speaking frankly. All of this adat rigmarole; what's it for anyway? It is for the women; they are the ones who make everyone do it; the dodol [special cakes], being carried around in sedan chairs, circling the house four times, the menyelang . This is all a big waste of time, and a big waste of money.

Mustapha implied that if it comes down to it, he will be forced to give his wife an ultimatum: "Do you want your property here or do you want me?" "Do you want your mother or me?" These were phrased as two different (though related) sets of ultimatums (they came up at two different points in the conversation), but they are keyed to the same sets of

issues: the choice he may force upon his wife, if he feels it necessary to do so, due to the unbearable pressures and tensions within his household.

On the subject of "reason" and "passion," Mustapha made the point that women have more "reason," an example of which is their having a greater capacity to look at things from afar, to be objective. But don't get them upset, he warned. Here he seemed to have in mind the different sorts of ilmu that women use against men when men have jilted them, or tricked, cheated, or otherwise upset them.

He went on to say, in response to my question, that women also have more "passion" and "shame" than men. If they didn't have more "shame" than men, this world would be all over, destroyed (habis, hancur ini dunia ). Men are lazier, though, or at least potentially so, he said. This is why they aren't given property; for they would be even lazier and would waste it, mortgage it, sell it, who knows. In fact, according to Mustapha, men used to get all the property, but since they were so wasteful and squandered it, the ancestors changed the rules and said from now on women get the property.

The down side, Mustapha complained, is that his own son won't be able to enjoy the yield (makan hasil ) of the "ancestral" land planted in fruit trees that is or will be put in his sister's name. He himself can do so, but even here there are problems, because his sister's husband wants to keep it all for himself and his own wife and children, and doesn't want Mustapha around. People look askance at him for going back and eating the fruit, and once he is dead there is no way they will tolerate his son going there.

We also spoke of marriage payments and why most such payments are made by grooms rather than brides. The reason is that men pay for/buy (beli ) this, he explained, pointing to and then grabbing his crotch but referring to vaginas. Mustapha went on to say that much of the expenses for weddings are to impress people, to convey how much money you have spent to marry off your child, but all of this is forbidden in Islam. All that is really necessary is that you pay the mas kawin , do the akad nikah , and so forth. The rest is for status and prestige and is basically a waste of time.

In much the same fashion, Mustapha complained about the difficulties of having to deal with all of one's neighbors and in-laws, and how upset people get if you don't follow adat . "People undoubtedly think I am stubborn and no good for not wanting to put up with all this adat and ceremony, but that's not really my concern." In Kuala Lumpur, people mind their own business. "I'm me and you're you, what you do is your business," was the way he put it. This is a real plus, because Malays spend too

much time and energy worrying about what other people are doing and saying. It is less of a problem in Kuala Lumpur, though he also acknowledged that in Kuala Lumpur you can't rely on your neighbors the way you can in the village.

Commentary on Male Perspectives

The material contained in interviews 6–10 is anomalous with respect to hegemonic discourse on "reason" and "passion," many features of which appear in interviews 1–5. The anomalies relate either to the contentions that males and females have about the same amount of "reason" (or that women have more) or to those that represent men as having more "passion" than women. The reasons cited for these types of contentions merit brief note. Pakcik Hamid, who feels that women have about the same amount of "reason" as men, cited in support of his position only that women can do some things better than men. Mustapha, who claims that women have more "reason" than men, made mention of the fact that, compared to men, women have greater capacity to look at things from afar, to be objective. This point surfaced in earlier interviews as well (e.g., Zaharuddin, no. 4), but in such cases it was not valorized to the same degree.

What, then, of the bases for the view that men have more "passion" than women, which is espoused by two of the men interviewed? In Pak Haji Adam's case, this view is based on the belief that, compared to women, men are more flirtatious ("itchier"), which is in keeping with his position that men are responsible for most of the troubles that arise in marriage, and for divorce generally. For Pakcik Othman, on the other hand, this view is based on the perception that men's "passion" doesn't recede with age, as occurs with (menopausal or postmenopausal) women. Interestingly, Pak Haji Adam's point was emphasized by some of the other men interviewed (e.g., Pakcik Alias, no. 3) and by many other men I encountered during the course of my fieldwork, even though the majority of such men still maintain that, in the final analysis, men have less "passion" than women. I return to this point further along.

The overall patterns that emerge from the ten interviews with men are as follows. Seventy percent of men feel that men have more "reason" than women, 20 percent claim that men and women have about the same amount of "reason," and lo percent say that women have more. Eighty percent feel that men have less "passion" than women, whereas 20 percent

contend that men have more. All men agree that women have more "shame" than men, and more than a few of them made the point that if they did not, they would be like wild animals and chaos would reign throughout the world. Similarly, although most of the interview material presented here does not address the issue, all men maintain that women have weaker semangat than men.

There is of course much more that could be said of male perspectives on gender(ed) difference and sameness. I will address many of the relevant issues in due course. Before doing so, however, I would like to proceed to a consideration of the material obtained from interviews with women.

Female Perspectives on Gender(ed) Difference and Sameness

(1) Kamariah

Twenty-four years old; marital status unknown; works in town at the Islamic court as the "women's official" (pegawai wanita ) and de facto assistant to the Islamic magistrate (kadi ); has completed some postsecondary education; currently lives about twenty miles from Bogang, and is quite well off by village standards.

Men have more "reason" than women. Women don't think about their decisions as much as men do, which shows that they have less "reason." Women also have more "passion," and they have more "shame" as well. If women didn't have as much "shame," they would go around saying all sorts of things, and of course some women do just that. To illustrate the point, Kamariah cited the example of a woman who had recently come to the magistrate's office and had spoken very inappropriately (kurang elok ) in the kadi 's chambers, in the presence of the kadi .

Kamariah added that all of this is natural endowment, and is in the Koran, in religion. She also emphasized that because they have different proportions of "reason" and "passion," men and women complement one another, and "go together."

Note: Kamariah's position on the proportions of "reason" and "passion" among men and women are the most "orthodox" or "conventional" of any of the women I interviewed, and are in fact quite consistent with the general male view. This despite her contention that many (if not the majority) of marital problems that come before the kadi 's office are due to men falling short in their duties as husbands and fathers.

(2) Rokiah

About thirty-nine years old; never married; born in a village near Bogang but currently lives in Kuala Lumpur where she is employed as a high-level administrator, educator, and counselor. Rokiah has a bachelor's degree from the University of Malaya and went on to earn a master's degree in the U.S. She speaks fluent English and is among the most articulate and cosmopolitan Malays that I encountered during my research in Malaysia. Rokiah is also very wealthy, which is one of the reasons she has never married.

Although Rokiah was extremely articulate and insightful on most subjects (kinship, local history, religion, adat ), she was not terribly cooperative or forthcoming when we spoke about gender, and didn't give the questions the attention I would have liked. On the other hand, I'm not sure her comments would have been any more detailed or revealing if she had given my questions more thought (since, for the most part, Malays simply don't think all that much about, or in terms of, gender).

Male and female personalities are different because males and females do different things. For example, men do the physically harder work. Women are, by nature, softer; they use their livers or hearts more than their heads, and are more willing than men to show their emotions. They are more demonstrative, for example, at funerals and weddings, and are more likely to cry. Women don't use their "reason" as much as men; their emotions govern their actions. Men, on the other hand, try to control their emotions more than women; they "go for" "reason." These differences are due primarily to the way parents teach their children, as opposed to natural endowment.

As for "passion": "I don't know if men or women have stronger 'passion'; probably about the same amounts. But men's 'passion' is more uncontrollable than women's. For example, most rapists are men. There has never been a woman caught and convicted of rape. And if I don't wear a scarf [over my head], men will make lewd remarks, even though they may be standing in front of me scantily clad, like with shorts on. Men's 'passion' isn't necessarily stronger, but it is more difficult to tame."

Even so, women have more "shame" than men. If they didn't have as much "shame," you'd have women walking around with little or no clothes on.

We also spoke briefly about status: "Overall, men have higher status; for example, [in jobs] men get promoted first. Men's status isn't necessarily higher in religion, however; it's just that in religion men's role is to

protect and lead women. Religion says that men should never be led by women, hence women can't become Islamic magistrates or mosque officials. Actually, women can become imam , but only for other women, not for men. They can't lead prayers for men. Women shouldn't have that much more responsibility than they already have [e.g., in terms of raising children, taking care of a husband, a household, etc.], so they can't become imam [for men]."

(3) Mak Shamsiah

Fifty-three years old; married (never divorced or widowed); spent much of her married life in Singapore (where her husband Pakcik Hamid [see male interview no. 6] worked as a policeman), but is now living permanently in Bogang; has been subject to possession by spirits for some thirty years but is now relatively healthy (see chap. 4); belongs to one of the wealthiest households in the community.

Our discussion of gender extended over a number of conversations. During a conversation which dealt with marriage and related matters, I asked Mak Shamsiah how her comments on men squared with the local view that women have more or stronger "passion" than men. Her response was that women certainly do have more "passion" than men, that God made them that way; this is why they have a stronger sense of "shame." If they weren't socialized to be shameful, their greater "passion" would be more obvious than it already is.

Men's and women's personalities are the same, as are their livers, although "I am quicker to anger than my husband. Men's and women's 'reason' is also the same. But women's 'passion' is stronger, though they don't show it because they have more 'shame.' God made it this way." Almost as an afterthought, Mak Shamsiah added that she and her husband were "more or less the same."

Women are often more ferocious (garang ) than their husbands. By way of elaborating, Mak Shamsiah made a loud comment about Abah Ali—the old man who was sweeping up and burning leaves not far from where we were talking—not having had sex with his wife for some seventeen or eighteen years. "Right?" she yelled in his direction. "Yeah, since Azizah was born." I asked Mak Shamsiah why, and she said simply that his wife "won't let him, even though he wants to." Abah Ali then appeared to qualify his story somewhat, by explaining that his wife "won't let me near her when she is menstruating, because it is a sin to have sex then." Mak Shamsiah retorted that this was very different from not hav-

ing any sex for seventeen or eighteen years. Abah Ali laughed but made no further comment on the subject.

Men, though, have higher status (pangkat ). Here, as an illustration, Mak Shamsiah mentioned that "men have more power [kuasa ]; wives are supposed to ask them for permission to go out of the house, and not vice versa. Of course not every time you go out of the house," she added, "but if you go out of the village, get on a bus, for example, then certainly you should ask your husband."

We also spoke of women's predominance in spirit possession and latah . "This is because women have less/weaker semangat . But women aren't the only ones who are latah , though it is true that they are more susceptible. Women get more upset and worry more [susah hati ] than men; they are also more easily startled. But there are always specific reasons. Take Mak Zuraini: She wasn't always latah ; but after two of her children died, she became latah ."

On why women can't become Islamic magistrates and mosque officials: "The holy book [kitab ] says no, but now you see some women who have become judges and lawyers and even drive cars." As for why menstruating women can't touch the Koran: "I don't know, this is just the way it is."

We also talked of her husband (Pakcik Hamid). Mak Shamsiah reiterated what a good husband he is and how he stood by her all the years when she was sick. "Many men would have taken another wife or simply divorced me," she emphasized matter of factly, "and any number of his friends apparently told him to do just that. But he has stayed with me, through all of my difficulties. And he used to have a car, remember? And he could go all around. But still he didn't leave me. He has told me that if anything happens to me, he will get married again, within a month or two at the most, and that is okay. But if he were to take another wife while we were still married, then I would take a parang to him and slit his throat!"

(4) Mak Nisah

Seventy-four years old; married (never divorced or widowed); used to plant rice, but is no longer involved in agricultural labor; weaves mats from mengkuang (some of which may be sold), but most of the household income derives from her husband's work as a tenant tapper; belongs to one of the poorest households in Bogang.

Mak Nisah misunderstood my question concerning similarities and dif-

ferences in the personalities and livers of men and women, for she began telling me that she never fights with or gets mad at her husband (Pak Husin). Pak Husin is "good at cruising around, but lazy when it comes to working [jalan rajin, kerja malas ]. When he goes here and there, I don't get angry. If he wants to work, okay; if not, that's okay too. My mother, though, used to get mad at him all the time because she didn't think he worked hard enough, and one time she even threw all of his clothes and belongings out of the house."

When I asked Mak Nisah about men's and women's livers, she responded that they are basically the same, and reiterated that she never gets mad at her husband, as other women do. She referred to one of her neighbors always screaming at her husband, adding, "Some women tell their husbands to do this and that, to buy this, to buy that; but I don't."

In terms of "reason," "men and women are also the same, but men aren't as responsible as women. Sometimes, if a child shits, the father won't do anything about it; he will just get up and walk away." With respect to "passion," Mak Nisah first claimed that men and women are "the same," though later, in the context of a brief discussion of divorce and marital problems, she revised her position, saying "without a doubt" women have more "passion" than men.

Women's "passion" is stronger than men's in the sense that women are always wanting to buy things. This is why there is lots of divorce in Negeri Sembilan. Men can't stand women's "passion." Women want a pretty house, this and that; women have all kinds of "passion," and they have more of it.

Husbands don't want to fight with their wives so they end up running up debts here and there. One of my sons left his wife because he couldn't take it anymore. She was always telling him to buy this, buy that, but he didn't make much money, so how could he put up with it?

We also spoke of spirit possession and latah , and why it is that women are more likely than men to experience these afflictions:

Women are the ones who are usually subject to spirit possession because their livers are weak. When I was younger, I would sometimes pound padi late at night. My head would get dizzy [kapala pining ] and I would hear strange, high pitched noises; then I would get possessed. Men have hard livers; they are brave; this is why they aren't usually possessed. These differences are because of natural endowment.

Women are more susceptible than men to latah because they worry and always get startled. I became latah when I almost stepped on a huge python that had just shed its skin.

Mak Nisah then recounted the death (some years later) of her seven-month-old baby, who was the last (eighth) born, and how upset she had been when the child died. "Women worry more, like when their children are getting married; they worry more about there being enough money for the wedding." She added that sometimes she doesn't go out of the house because people are always teasing her, trying to startle her and thus get her going into a latah loop.

Toward the end of the interview Mak Nisah began telling me about her daughter and former son-in-law. The son-in-law was very jealous, and he wouldn't let his wife open the windows of the house for fear that other men would see her and that, as a result, "something would start up." He also beat her, and on at least one occasion he threw her things out on the street. So she went to the kadi 's office and filed a petition for a divorce. The husband went as well (though this may have been because he was summoned to do so) but he did not want to divorce his wife. The kadi eventually encouraged (more or less forced) him to repudiate her.

I asked Mak Nisah about the major cause(s) of divorce. Her two-word answer, jantan jehat , which may be translated as "males are bad, evil," is of particular interest since the term jantan is the numeral classifier for male animals, and is never used in polite conversation with reference to males of the human species. To this she added salah lelaki , which refers to "male wrongs" (or faults).

Men can have up to four wives because they are bad, evil [jehat ]. They see a pretty woman here, a pretty woman there, and they want to get married, even though there isn't enough food for the first wife or family. How can this be?

Divorced or widowed women, on the other hand, often don't want to remarry because of all the work involved [in being married]. But with men, it is different. If they don't remarry, who is going to care for them? It isn't really a question of "passion"; it is more a concern with who will take care of them if they are sick. Who will give them medicine? Who will wipe their ass? Who will clean up? Being taken care of by children isn't the same as being taken care of by a wife.

Mak Nisah laughed when I brought up the subject of "queen control" and said that sometimes husbands do the cooking, washing, and go back and forth to the kedai to get provisions. "It is a sin for men to do women's work, however, so you can't tell your husband to do it." Even so, she has seen lots of "queen control."

(5) Emak (my mother)

Sixty years old; married (never divorced or widowed); used to plant rice but is no longer involved in agricultural work; most of the household income derives from the rubber acreage owned and tapped by her husband (the former village headman), though some comes from his services as a healer (dukun ); belongs to one of the wealthiest households in the village.

"Male and female personalities and livers aren't very different; my husband and I, for example, are much the same. Women, however, are quick to anger, though quick to get over their anger as well. Not so with men: They are impatient [kurang sabar ], they stay mad longer, and they are more likely to hit their children."

As for whether these similarities and differences reflect natural endowment or teaching: "I don't know. Sometimes it is the way they are taught. This teaching is the mother's responsibility, not really the father's. What do fathers ever teach their children?

"The father's main job is to get the money. Women's roles and responsibilities are much heavier than men's: washing, cooking, taking care of the household, teaching the children, and watching them; and this is why women age more quickly than men."

Concerning "reason" and "passion": Males and females differ in these regards. Men have "long reason" (panjang akal ), women don't. Men also have more "passion." For example, women often don't want to remarry after their husbands die, but this is not the case with men. "Take Haji Baharuddin [the sixty-year-old widower whose house Ellen and I were renting]: He wants to remarry, but divorced/widowed women his age don't. I wouldn't remarry if my husband died, but my husband would probably remarry if I died. I don't mind; let him, I would feel sorry for him."

A bit later in our conversation Emak expressed uncertainty about some of her earlier comments. On the subject of males' "passion": "Yes, they have more 'passion,' but this is mainly among the young. It may be that older men are more inclined [than older women] to remarry not because they have more 'passion,' but because they want to eat, to have someone cook for them, do their clothes, laundry, and so on."

Women are more likely than men to be possessed by spirits because they have "weak semangat , unlike men's, which is rough/hard [keras ]. Women also worry more and get upset more easily; they have weak livers and sweeter blood; spirits like to bother them more. Women are also more susceptible to latah: sometimes it is descent/ancestry [keturunan ]; some-

times it is because they worry [susah ]. Women worry more than men, and are more anxious, or at least quicker to verbalize their worries and anxieties."

The status of men and women is the "same; there's no difference," although she later added that men have "more, a bit more." As regards why women can't become kadi or mosque officials: "I don't know. Where are there any women who are kadi? Women get pesaka [in this context, houses and land]; men don't. This [the privilege of holding offices such as that of kadi ] is what men get."

On why women face ritual restrictions when they are menstruating: "I don't know; it is forbidden, sinful; they're unclean, dirty. God made it that way."

(6) Mak Zuraini

Fifty-seven years old; widowed; used to plant rice and work as a midwife. Her main source of income at present comes from the sale of roots, herbs, and other local medicines. She belongs to one of the poorest households in Bogang.

The personalities of males and females are different: "Women are soft; men are more clever at speaking [bijak, lebih pandai perkataan ]. Their livers are also different: Women are gentle, their semangat is low, gentle; men are more courageous 'talking high,' and their livers are hard. These differences exist because of natural endowment."

In terms of "reason" and "passion," men and women differ as well. "Reason" depends on the person; there are some women with more "reason" than men, some with less. But in general men have higher "reason." Men also have more "passion." Men's "passion" is more coarse or crass; women's is weak. Even when they are very old, men have crass "passion," but this is not true with women, even after they have had five or six children.

As for "shame": "This, too, depends on the person. Some people don't have any at all. Women tend to have more, though; for example, if they meet someone who is big, they are reluctant to speak [segan cakap ]. But if they are already married and work, then they aren't as reluctant. These are inborn differences."

With respect to women not being able to become mosque officials and the like: "This is because men have high status [darjat tinggi ]. Even in the Afterlife, women can't become headmen [penghulu ]. In Islam, men are the leaders. They have higher status."

Concerning why women can't pray, enter the mosque, and so on when they are menstruating: "because the blood isn't good; it's dirty [cicir, nails ]. It is also a sin to have sex while you are menstruating, but some people don't care."

On the issue of divorce, Mak Zuraini explained that many divorces occur because of impatience. "The husband talks roughly [keras ], the wife gets hot, and vice versa. They may disagree and fight because the woman can't bear children, or because the husband has little income and his mother-in-law wants him to be wealthy and hopes to get rich fast." Mak Zuraini also emphasized, in response to my bringing up the issue, that men aren't necessarily the ones who bring on (cause) divorce; there are lots of women with "evil mouths" (mulut jehat ). "Husbands are sometimes driven away by their wives because the wives are crass, talk too much—and too loudly—and don't know how to take care of them." She elaborated on the importance of speaking nicely to one's husband, smiling sweetly, not embarrassing him in front of other people, knowing one's place, guarding one's reputation, and so on. "Don't blame all divorce on men."

We also discussed remarriage. Mak Zuraini maintained that while men are more likely to remarry than women, this is not because of (their) "passion." The main reason for this is that men don't know how to cook, take care of clothes, do laundry, and so on. Women know how to do everything. As for why she isn't inclined to remarry: "Why bother? Who needs all the extra work? I would have to cook, prepare drinks [tea, coffee], take care of the clothes, ask permission to go here and there, and so on. As it is now, I go where I want and have greater freedom."

(7 and 8) Hajjah Siah and Indok Jaliah

These women, who are very good friends and were interviewed together, are seventy-two and forty-nine years old, respectively. Hajjah Siah, who is widowed, used to plant rice but is no longer involved in agricultural labor. Though she made the pilgrimage to Mecca (in 1976?), her current household income situates her among the poor of the village. Indok Jaliah, who is married (never widowed or divorced) and taps rubber, is also among the village poor.

As with most of the other interviews, my first question concerned whether they felt that the livers of males and females were basically the same or different. They did not understand the question as stated, so I rephrased it and explained with a comment that had been made to me on

previous occasions that "men have hard livers, whereas women's are soft." While this may have biased their initial reaction, they went on to say that yes, the livers of males and females are quite different. In response to my question about the origins of these differences, they said that they were inborn, not the result of the ways males and females are socialized. They added that males (male fetuses) kick harder in the womb, that giving birth to a male is much more difficult than giving birth to a female, and that boys play more roughly than girls—all of which is the result of inborn difference.

On the subject of "reason" and "passion": Men (and males in general) have more "reason" than women (females). Males, however, also have more "passion" than females, as evidenced by the fact that men are allowed to marry up to four wives. "Why else would this provision exist if men didn't have more 'passion'?" Hajjah Siah added that men go around "marrying here, marrying there," and then mentioned our landlord, Haji Baharuddin, whose wife died a short while earlier and who is now "looking for a (new) wife." Both Indok Jaliah and Hajjah Siah felt that in general males are "itchier" (more gatal ).

As to why there are more restrictions on girls' movements and activities, as compared with those on boys: "This is for their protection, to protect them from evil in the form of boys and men who might want to take advantage of them." Hajjah Siah and Indok Jaliah went on to say that if a girl or woman has a brother, even a younger brother, people will be much less likely to bother her because brothers protect their sisters. Indok Jaliah also explained that a younger brother has higher status than his older sister, despite the age difference. Since the issue of status was up for discussion, I asked why it is that women cannot become mosque officials. Their answer: "Because of religion; this is how Prophet Mohammad set things up." They seemed to have no feelings that this was inequitable or somehow unjustified. They did add, though, that if, for whatever reason, the community happened to be all female, then women could officiate in the mosque. This caveat came up in numerous conversations about the exclusion of women (under normal circumstances) from serving as mosque officials, as did the somewhat related point that women may ritually slaughter animals so long as the meat of the animals is eaten entirely by females.

When I asked them if they were concerned or upset about women being accorded a lower status with respect to some of these matters, they replied, "Not at all, things have always been this way." They also made

the point that these differences are manifest in religion, but not necessarily elsewhere. The clear implication here is that if one looks at all aspects of social life, women's overall situation is quite good. By way of elaborating they underscored that men have more difficult lives, mainly because of their responsibilities to go out and earn money.

Why can't women go into the graveyard for funerals, and why did they use to go? "Women are not supposed to enter the graveyard because sometimes they don't wear underwear, and this is wrong, sinful. Women used to go in because they were stupid [bodoh ], because they didn't know that they shouldn't go in." When I asked, "Well, what if they wear underwear?" they said, "Well, then it's okay." The point, though, is that most women don't wear underwear and even if they do, they might be menstruating, and then they couldn't go in no matter what. They added that women should wear underwear into the mosque, and wherever they pray, but that it didn't matter if men wore underwear. And they explained that menstruating women are dirty (kotor ), no matter how thoroughly they wash themselves with soap. Men, on the other hand, are not like this.

We talked of other matters, such as children giving money to their mothers rather than their fathers, and men paying or not paying child support. As regards the difficulty of getting support from men who are "simply villagers"—that is, no one can "cut [garnish] their wages" (potong gaji ) because they do not earn wages—Hajjah Siah said "Yealah, well, just cut their necks!" (Yealah, potong leherlah ). In this connection, Indok Jaliah mentioned that it is good that women can earn wages now, because this gives them a more equal footing with their husbands. (Not coincidentally, her soon-to-be-married daughter works full time for the Motorola factory in Seremban, for which she gets about M$300 a month.)

A few weeks after the interview recounted here, I had another conversation with Indok Jaliah during which I asked her why people say that women's semangat is weaker than men's. Her answer, "Who knows! I don't know," was not terribly helpful, but she did go on to indicate her agreement with local views that women have weaker semangat and that it is usually women who are subject to spirit possession. I asked her why this was so and why some women experience possession whereas other women do not. Her response was that "Women don't think of him/them [the devil, evil spirits], don't pay him/them sufficient respect," and are, in any case, "less able to struggle with ghosts/evil spirits [lawan dengan hantu ]." She also mentioned that she had been possessed for about three days just before my most recent trip to Kuala Lumpur, but that she didn't

remember anything about it since she wasn't conscious. (Pak Daud tried to cure her but I don't know if he was successful or not, i.e., whether she tried another healer as well.) I asked if the spirit was "wild"/"untamed" (liar ) or sent by someone (i.e., domesticated, controlled by a human master). She responded evasively that it was a spirit which resides in a certain (unspecified) place, but which can roam around and "bother" people.

(9) Kak Suzaini

Thirty-seven years old; divorced (three times); rears goats and receives public assistance; worked briefly in a lumber factory in a nearby town, and helped us with cooking and chores during the second period of fieldwork; comes from one of the very poorest households in the community and lives in what is probably the most dilapidated house in the entire village.

The personalities of males and females are more or less the same. But women's livers are a bit weak (lemah sikit ), whereas men's are a bit hard (keras sikit ) and they (men) are much quicker to anger, "to get hot." These differences exist because of the way males and females are taught, as opposed to natural endowment.

In terms of "reason" and "passion": Women's "reason" is a bit less when compared with men's; men's is long, high (panjang, tinggi ). Men also have more "passion," and here Kak Suzaini emphasized that she disagreed with Mak Shamsiah next door, who a week or two earlier had stated in her (Kak Suzaini's) presence that women have more "passion." As an example of men having more "passion," Kak Suzaini said "like marrying two or three [wives]; one's not enough."

Females also have more "shame"; this is because of the way they are taught by their parents. But natural endowment is also relevant. Kak Suzaini couldn't answer my question on what would happen, what the world would be like, if women didn't have more "shame" than men; and she said she had no idea why women can't pray when they are menstruating.

I should perhaps note that Kak Suzaini had a hard time elaborating on her answers to my questions; many of her answers were in fact phrased as questions (e.g., "Women have more, right?") or were heavily qualified. Thus when Kak Suzaini spoke of status, she first said, "Men and women have the same; how could it be otherwise?" But she quickly added, "Well, the same, probably/perhaps [sama, mungkin ]."

Women are more susceptible than men to spirit possession because of their weak semangat ; they are fearful. And maybe they become latah because they have evil mouths (mulut jehat ). As for why women can't

become mosque officials: "What is the use of women doing this when there are men who can do it? Women don't want to."

This brief conversation was followed by another, during which Kak Suzaini elaborated on her view that men have more "passion" than women, explaining that men are "itchier" than women. When making the point she said, "Look, even old men like Haji Baharuddin want to remarry if they are widowed or divorced." I responded that perhaps in cases like that of Haji Baharuddin it is simply, or mainly, a question of these men wanting to have someone cook for them, do their laundry, and so on, since more than a few people (including some women) have suggested that this is a crucial factor in their wanting to get remarried. No way, she sneered. Haji Baharuddin has a daughter to do these things for him; what more does he need? "Besides, look at the way he takes off his haji cap when he rides around on the bus. He does this so he looks younger [more attractive], though he claims it is because he is hot; this shows how 'itchy' he is." Kak Suzaini added somewhat smugly that such strategies don't help much, because no one wants him; for that matter, his daughter won't let him remarry.

Women, in contrast, don't necessarily want to remarry. "My own mother, for example, has received many proposals since my father's death [in 1981]. But she has no interest in any of these proposals. This is very common with previously married women."

Kak Suzaini also spoke at length about her delinquent husbands, especially the second (?) one, who fathered Posah and Lailah. She recounted how they met, and how he had deceived her prior to their (forced) marriage. He had presented himself to her as a widower and had even showed her what he claimed was his wife's death certificate. (It turned out to be his mother's death certificate.) Kak Suzaini had secretly followed him when she figured out that he had lied to her about his marital status, and she later confronted him about the situation. He was eventually forced to admit the truth to her in the face of incontrovertible evidence.

Kak Suzaini's desire to go to the kadi 's office in Rembau also came up, as it had on numerous other occasions when we spoke. She really wants to go there to lodge another complaint against her former husband, but she is embarrassed to do so since she has been there several times in the past and would thus have to see all of the clerks again. She said something about going to the kadi 's office in Seremban instead, because this way she wouldn't have to interact with the staff at the Rembau office once again.

Interestingly, Kak Suzaini talks very frankly about how terrible Posah and Lailah's father is, even when Lailah is right there and listening. She

also goes into detail about how much the father likes Posah but doesn't seem to care at all about Lailah. But she does not generalize any of these statements to other men, let alone men as a group.

Note: Kak Suzaini has the most checkered marital history in the entire village and is widely regarded as something of a floozy. All three of her marriages were in fact shotgun marriages, and in the second and third instances she was the second wife (the husbands were already married).

(10) Mak Su

Sixty-seven years old; married (never divorced or widowed); used to plant rice but is no longer involved in any agricultural work. Most of her household income derives from remittances from urban-dwelling children. She belongs to one of the poorest households in the village.

Mak Su spoke for the first fifteen minutes or so about the possibility of her youngest daughter (age thirty-one) getting married in the next month or two. She implied that it would be a tremendous relief since the daughter in question is the only one of her children who isn't (has never been) married, and is also getting on in years.

On the subject of personality:

Men and women are different. Men's mouths and livers are different; their mouths say one thing, but their livers aren't truthful to what they say [mulut lain, hati lain; mulut cakap, tapi hati tak betul ]. Women can be trusted more; if they care about or love [sayang ] someone or something, then they really do care.

Where are there any truthful men? [Mana ada laki betul? ] Take my former son-in-law: He left Kakak Z. [Mak Su's eldest daughter] when she was five months pregnant. He took up with and married another woman without even telling Kakak Z. Then, after he had been sick and away, he came home to ask Kakak Z. for some money to spend on his new wife, though he didn't say that this was what the money was for. When Kakak Z. confronted him about what he had done, he denied it, so she refused to stay with him.... Men, they all lie; you can only believe about one out of ten of them. That's what you see all the time at the kadi 's office.

With respect to the issue of men's and women's livers, Mak Su reiterated her contention that women are more affectionate/caring/loving and more straightforward, honest (lurus ), and that men lie more. "Look at the way Kak Suzaini's husband lied to her, telling her that he wasn't married, when in fact he already had a wife and children." Mak Su added, in response to my question about "faults" in divorce, that it is almost always

("nine times out of ten") the men who are to blame. Their livers are hard; women's are soft.

As for "reason" and "passion": Women's "reason" is less, weak. Men's "passion" is rough compared with women's; and they have more of it. This is stated in the book, in religion (kitab, agama ). "How do you know this is really true?" I asked.

Hey, I've lived a long time. But if men are taught well by their parents their "passion" will be a bit less. For example, my son-in-law Hamzah [Maimunah's husband] is very kind, considerate, and gentle with Maimunah; and has promised his mother that he won't look for another wife in order to have children. His mother apparently took him aside and said that it was unfortunate she didn't have any grandchildren, but added that he better not leave Maimunah just because she seems unable to get pregnant. "I promise, I promise I won't," he told her. And when he gets paid, he turns all his money over to Maimunah.

On the issue of "shame": At first Mak Su seemed to misunderstand my question. She insisted that men have more "shame," but I think she meant that they have more to be ashamed about. And she brought up the kadi 's office again, and the types of cases one frequently sees there, claiming that if men have lots of money, they quickly lose interest in their wives. Later in the interview, Mak Su said that women have more "shame." "If they didn't, men would be inclined to say all sorts of things to them, and they would be like men; the world wouldn't be right."

My questions about similarities and differences in men's and women's status(es) didn't get very far, partly because Mak Su launched into a long tangent before I could explain what I was asking her. She said that nowadays lots of women have high status and look at men like they are trash. "Rokiah is an example of a woman with high status. [See interview no. 2 in this section.] Most men would be afraid of marrying someone like her; and she would probably only be satisfied with a minister. It used to be the case that men always had more status than women. But at present some women go around looking for men; they've become men; things are upside down."

We also discussed spirit possession and latah: "Women are more likely to be possessed by spirits because they are weak. Men, on the other hand, have high semangat , and they're stubborn, crass, and coarse. Ghosts don't like them as much."

Women become latah because they worry. "Like a child dies, then they get startled [terplanjat ]. Virtually every day I think of my [dead] grand-

son [Kakak Z.'s first-born], who was run over by a car when he was about four and a half years old. I thought of him a lot when Kassim [her sister's son] got married, because he and Kassim were just seventeen days apart. Men, in contrast, have coarse, crass livers; so they're not likely to go latah ."

As to why women can't become kadi: This is because they have low status (darjat rendah ); they can only provide assistance, like the "women's official" (pegawai wanita ) at the kadi 's office. And as for the reasons menstruating women can't enter the mosque, pray, or fast: "When the bad stuff arrives/appears [benda kotor datang ], it is wrong, impure [najis ]. The angels [malaikat ] don't allow it." Are there any corresponding restrictions for men? "No. Even if they don't bathe, it is okay if they go into the mosque. They aren't dirty, they don't menstruate."

Commentary: Practical Representations of Masculinity, Class, and Oppositional Discourses

The Scope, Force, and Reproduction of Practical Representations of Masculinity

The material presented here (and in earlier chapters) indicates that with respect to a wide variety of issues women and men are in general agreement as to the basic similarities and differences between males and females. Particularly noteworthy is that women appear to accept as valid much of the official discourse on gender, including numerous features of the discourse that portray women (and females generally) in culturally devalued terms. Most women, for example, contend that females have less "reason" than males. And virtually all of them claim that women "need to" (and do in fact) have more "shame" than men since, if they did not, they would be "like animals" and the world would be in chaos. Similarly, women invariably view themselves as having weaker semangat than men (and thus more likely to be afflicted by spirit possession and latah ). Noteworthy as well, just as all of the women (and men) with whom I discussed the issue maintained that women are more likely than men to be ritually "dirty" and impure, all of them accepted as appropriate that (under normal circumstances) women not be allowed to serve as mosque officials or religious magistrates, or in other positions of leadership. More broadly, those women who feel that females are accorded secondary status in relation to males (not all of them do) do not seem to feel that this is "unfair" or otherwise inappropriate; nor do any men.

There is less agreement between men and women with regard to the hegemonic view that women have more "passion" than men. The interview material presented here indicates that while most men (8/10 of those interviewed) espouse this view, only about a third (3/10) of the women do. Nearly two-thirds (6/10) claim that men have more "passion" than women, typically citing as evidence that men tend to perform poorly in their roles as husbands and fathers (such that most of the problems in marriage stem from the faults of men); and, more generally, that it is men's greater "passion" that explains why they are far less responsible than women when it comes to taking care of their spouses and children and honoring kinship and other social and moral obligations.

Interestingly, many of the men I spoke with over the course of more than two and a half years of fieldwork also espouse the view of men as irresponsible and at fault in most cases of divorce, even though they still maintain that men are less "passionate" than women. A major difference that emerges from a comparison of these aspects of women's and men's views, then, is that in the case of women—about two-thirds of them at any rate—the theme of men's irresponsibility is used to stand the hegemonic view of "passion" (and "reason" and masculinity) on its head. In the case of men, however, this theme does not usually raise serious questions about the legitimacy of the hegemony. This is either because the theme is encompassed within the hegemony in a way that effectively defines it as a nonissue, or because it is segregated from the hegemony in a way that renders it largely irrelevant thereto (and vice versa).

The limited scope of this discussion precludes analysis of many important issues raised by the interview material presented above, but it is, I think, essential to examine some of the structural factors that have motivated the reproduction of practical representations of masculinity. Such representations—which, as we have seen, include propositions that men are "lazy" and "expect to eat for free," are "at fault" in most cases of divorce, and are, overall, less responsible than women in honoring kinship and other social obligations—are most usefully viewed in relation to colonial and other state strategies which, since the late nineteenth century, have encouraged the development of rural capitalism. These strategies included policies that induced men to acquire commercially valued land (suitable for the cultivation of coffee, rubber, etc.) in their own names, independently of their wives, sisters, and other female kin. They also involved the introduction of strongly individualistic forms of proprietorship and inheritance that contributed to the transformation and demise of

many components of the precolonial system of property and social relations. Particularly relevant for our purposes is that these changes undermined the material and moral dimensions of brothers' ties with their sisters and, in the course of doing so, helped shift the burden of (adult male) support for women and children from brothers to husbands. Responsibilities for the creation and accumulation of property, wealth, and prestige for local kin groups thus came to fall ever more heavily on husbands and in-marrying males as a whole (a point to which I will return in due course). More generally, the period since the late 1800s has witnessed spiralling household dependence on male cash-cropping; sharp declines in the predominantly female domain of subsistence rice production; the decreased viability of traditional economic institutions in their entirety; and the emergence of a significant degree of class differentiation and stratification grounded largely in differential access to commercially valued land planted in rubber or other cash crops.

Two ways in which state-sponsored changes motivated the reproduction of practical representations of masculinity merit special emphasis. First, these changes entailed the highly inequitable distribution of land and other productive resources, and are perforce directly implicated in the pronounced disparities that obtain with respect to men's abilities to meet the expectations and demands of their wives and affines. Relatively wealthy men, who constitute a small minority of the adult male population, can rather easily satisfy these expectations and demands, but the overwhelming majority of adult men cannot. This discrepancy both animates and sustains the view that most men are lazy and irresponsible.

A second way in which state-sponsored capitalism contributed to the reproduction of practical representations of masculinity has to do with the historic restructuring of male roles such as brother and husband. I mentioned earlier that since the late 1800s male responsibility for taking care of women and children shifted from brothers to husbands. I noted as well that this shift did not dilute the "elder brother" norms that have long if not always shaped the husband role (i.e., that husbands should support and protect their wives, and otherwise behave toward them much like elder brothers behave toward younger siblings). In point of fact, these norms seem to have become not only more central to the definition of the husband role, but also increasingly idealized (partly because many of the moral and material imperatives of brotherhood are no longer put to the test on a regular basis). Worthy of remark as well is that the quotidian behavior of men in their roles as husbands is evaluated not with reference to standards developed on the basis of the actual behavior of elder brothers

but, rather, in terms of a deeply mythologized set of ideals which constitute the fantasy of the perfect elder brother. If only, or especially, in light of these idealized standards, there are good reasons to take seriously Al-thusser's (1969) contention that ideology "expresses a will, a hope, or a nostalgia , rather than describing a reality" (cited in Eagleton 1991:19; emphasis added).

I have also suggested that married men have an exceedingly difficult time living up to the "elder brother" ideals coloring the husband role. This is due in no small measure to the fact that married men have quite substantial—and in some ways mutually incompatible—moral and material obligations to their relatives, especially the females among them (e.g., their mothers and sisters on the one hand, and their wives and female affines on the other). Heavy affinal demands on married men's labor power and productivity can make married life very trying for men (especially men with little or no productive land) and frequently exacerbate tensions in marriage and affinal relations. Married men who are unable to deal satisfactorily with expectations and pressures from their wives and affines commonly divorce or simply desert their wives, along with any children they might have. Such behavior reinforces practical views that husbands and fathers cannot be counted on, and it shapes practical views of masculinity as a whole. These latter, practical views serve simultaneously to offset and vitiate official views of males, and to promote practical views of females.

It is of comparative interest that the various discourses on gender in Negeri Sembilan that have been described here and in previous chapters are in many respects highly congruent with those that exist among ("bilateral") Malays from other parts of the Peninsula, especially in terms of content. Equally significant in the present context is a point of contrast related to the fact that the scope and force of counter-hegemonic representation of masculinity (and femininity) are far more elaborated in Negeri Sembilan than in other areas of the Peninsula.^[4]

The latter contrast is keyed to differences in the ways in which husband (and brother) roles are structured in Negeri Sembilan as compared with other regions. More specifically, the scope and force of the counter-hegemonic representations of masculinity (and femininity) one finds in Negeri Sembilan are far more elaborated than their counterparts outside of Negeri Sembilan because husband roles in Negeri Sembilan are in a very important sense harder to live up to, or at least are seen as such compared with the corresponding roles outside of Negeri Sembilan. This is partly because the competing demands on men in their roles as husbands and

fathers on the one hand, and brothers and mothers' brothers on the other, have long been much more intense in Negeri Sembilan. Also contributing to the differences at issue here is the variable relevance of the fantasy of the perfect (elder) brother—generally speaking, men in Negeri Sembilan have long played a more central role in the affairs and reproduction of the households of their sisters and their sisters' children than have men outside of Negeri Sembilan—which clearly sets the standards for Negeri Sembilan men in their roles as husbands, but which is much less relevant and less mythologized (though by no means insignificant or unencumbered by mythic accretions) outside of Negeri Sembilan. Germane as well is the more pronounced tendency toward uxorilocality in Negeri Sembilan,^[5] and the related fact that, all things being equal, married men living there not only have to contend with a much larger range of their wives' kin than do married men from outside of Negeri Sembilan but also have to deal with their affines on a far more regular basis. Even if such dealings no longer entail the political asymmetries or the full range of prestige-driven economic expectations that they once did, the fact remains that in Negeri Sembilan married men's affinal loyalties, neighborliness, and myriad social and economic skills are clearly scrutinized and put to the test by their in-laws on a much more frequent basis, and—if only for this reason—are rather more likely to be found wanting.

The more general point in all of this is that masculinity or maleness in Negeri Sembilan (and other parts of the Peninsula) is by no means a singular, undifferentiated, or homogeneous cultural phenomenon; it is, in fact, composed of a number of contradictory representations, many of which are intricately tied up with constructions of adult men's kinship roles. More broadly, data from Negeri Sembilan (and elsewhere in the Peninsula) indicate that in the contexts of everyday life, certain male relational roles—husband/father, elder brother—may well dominate the category of "male," and may also shape the meanings of all other male relational (and "positional") roles.^[6] These data reveal, in addition, that it is not merely the meanings of "female" or the social standing of women that may be pulled down by the cultural elaboration of relational roles and their relative hegemony in discourses on gender. This can occur as well in the case of males, even though males may still come out on top in official ideology, and with respect to the overall distribution of power, prestige, and virtue.

The broad comparative and theoretical significance of these data are addressed in chapter 7. We need only note here that such data call into question the validity of an enduring theme which is developed in the work

of de Beauvoir (1949) and Chodorow (1974, 1989), and which informs the work of Ortner (1974), Ortner and Whitehead (1981a), and many others who have made important contributions to our understanding of women and gender. To wit, that whereas females in all societies are defined "relationally," men in all societies tend to be defined in "positional" (allegedly "nonrelational") terms. As discussed further along, data from Negeri Sembilan (and Aceh and other societies) suggest that this dichotomy is seriously problematic and has in fact led to a skewed understanding of cross-cultural differences and similarities in structural definitions of males and females.

Masculinity and Class

To summarize and advance the argument one step further, I maintain that Negeri Sembilan masculinity needs to be deconstructed and examined in terms of its component features and their interrelations, and that the data produced by these analytic processes call into question the validity of the "arelational" notion of masculinity that is a central point of reference in the comparative and theoretical literature on gender. It remains to emphasize that in Negeri Sembilan practical representations of masculinity exemplify some of the ways in which perspectives on class are realized and distorted in the context of everyday life; and that the nexus of variables bearing on gender and class has long been shaped both by state policies and by nationalist and transnational discourse concerning the Malay social body and the national body politic.

To appreciate the class dimensions of practical views of masculinity, it is helpful to bear in mind that while divorce is quite common in Negeri Sembilan, it is by no means equally distributed throughout all segments of society. Specifically, divorce is rampant among the poor and relatively rare among the wealthy (see Peletz 1988b, chap. 7). Thus, when villagers speak of the prevalence of divorce, and of the fact that much of divorce is the fault of "lazy," "irresponsible" men, they are referring, albeit usually unwittingly, to householders, and to the behavior of men in particular, at the bottom rungs of the local class hierarchy. These are the men who are least likely to be able to meet the expectations and demands of their wives and affines, and therefore most apt to experience tensions and other problems of the sort that are aired before the local Islamic magistrate or kadi , whose primary job is to try to effect reconciliation and/or ensure that women and children receive adequate support from "recalcitrant" husbands.

Further strengthening this interpretation is the fact that the male villager (Pak Haji Adam) who most emphatically expressed the view that the majority of problems in marriage are due to the faults (lying, irresponsibility, etc.) of husbands had served for some twenty-five years as a clerk for the local kadi . His experiences in the kadi 's office have clearly shaped his views of men. So, too, undoubtedly, has his enviable position in the local prestige hierarchy insofar as he implicitly exempted himself from his generalizations about men being lazy and irresponsible and was thus making a statement of distinction between most men—"the rabble"—and wealthy, responsible men like himself. Also noteworthy is Mak Su's remark that "Men ... all lie.... That's what you see all the time at the kadi 's office." Here, too, we see a blanket generalization pertaining to all men which, though not acknowledged as such, is squarely grounded in perceptions that focus on the actions of men at the bottom of the local class hierarchy.

While stereotypes bearing on the behavior of impoverished men-most notably, their "poor showing" as husbands and fathers—provide most of the raw material for (and are unwittingly pressed into service to support) the view that all men are lazy, expect to eat for free, and so on, the comportment of other men, including, especially, that of wealthy men, does on occasion fuel practical representations of masculinity as well. For example, my wealthy (recently widowed) landlord, Haji Baharuddin—a retired school teacher and headmaster who draws a handsome pension and undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca in the mid-1970s—was frequently mentioned by women (e.g., Emak, Kak Suzaini) when they were discussing the nature of masculinity and casting about for an example to help illustrate their contentions that men have more "passion" than women. A number of women remarked emphatically and somewhat disdainfully that whereas most divorced or widowed women have little interest in remarrying, "even old men like Haji Baharuddin are keen to remarry if they find themselves divorced or widowed." Some of these women went on to disparage his (unsuccessful) attempts to find a new wife, claiming that his flirtatious and "itchy" (gatal ) behavior is highly unbecoming. Perhaps most damning in the eyes of women (and men), however, are the tremendous debts he has incurred both in the village and beyond.^[7] Haji Baharuddin's debts are viewed as a consequence of his being both consistently irresponsible with money (his own and other people's as well) and overly concerned with splurging at local coffee shops and otherwise attempting to impress upon friends and acquaintances that he is a "man of means." The fact that he has made the haj renders these indiscretions and excesses

all the more offensive, especially since those who have journeyed to Mecca are expected to behave in a more pious and virtuous fashion than those who have not been fortunate enough to do so.

Class variables impinge upon representations of masculinity in other ways as well, for in terms of the female segment of Bogang's population, practical views of men are most prevalent among the poor (e.g., Kak Suzaini, Mak Su) and least pronounced among the wealthy (e.g., Mak Shamsiah, Emak). This is not all that surprising, for all things being equal, poor women are much more likely to experience divorce or desertion than wealthy women, and thus have more first-hand experience with "irresponsible men" than do women in wealthy households. Thus, Kak Suzaini, who is one of the most impoverished and marginalized of all village women, has extremely uncharitable views of men, which reflect (among other things) her disheartening and overwhelmingly negative experiences in three different marriages, each of which began "inauspiciously" (under scandalous circumstances), was short-lived, and ended in divorce. The fact that Kak Suzaini has been largely unsuccessful in her repeated court-assisted attempts to obtain financial assistance from the fathers of her (three) children further pains and angers her—and further motivates her animosity toward men—the more so since her third ex-husband is a man of some standing who recently made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Mak Su, who also comes from a very poor household, likewise has very negative views of men, as indicated by her previously noted contention that all men (or at least ninety percent of them) lie. Though she herself has never experienced divorce, divorce is by no means a stranger to her household. Her daughter, recall, was deserted by her husband when she was five months pregnant. Making matters worse, he took another (younger) wife without even informing her and proceeded to lie to her about his new relationship when she later confronted him with (circumstantial) evidence of its existence.

Constraints on the Elaboration of Oppositional Discourses

Many practical representations of masculinity are explicitly oppositional and counter-hegemonic in that they constitute subversive challenges to their official (hegemonic) counterparts. To say that practical views of masculinity are most pronounced among poor women and least prevalent among wealthy women is thus to point out that wealthy women tend to "buy into" many official/hegemonic representations of gender in a major way, even though a good number of the latter representations portray all

women (and much of femininity in its entirety) in culturally devalued terms.^[8] For example, Emak and Mak Shamsiah, who are two of the wealthiest and (in terms of lineage and clan affiliation) highest ranking women in the community—and clearly the wealthiest and highest ranked of all village women interviewed—espouse official views of gender to a much greater degree than any of the other village women I spoke with, even though, as just noted, these views depict them (and females on the whole) in largely negative terms. Neither of these women has been divorced (and neither has any divorced children), and they feel that their husbands do highly commendable jobs supporting them and their children and otherwise providing for their households and ensuring domestic reproduction. Compared to other village women, they have relatively little reason (are not strongly "motivated") to question the official discourse on masculinity (and gender generally), particularly since the alternative/practical discourse on masculinity, grounded as it is in images of men's poor performance in their roles as husbands (and fathers), does not resonate with their own marital experiences or "lived relations to the world." Women such as Emak and Mak Shamsiah also have more at stake in expressing (at least tacit or pragmatic) acceptance of the official discourse, or at least rejecting the practical discourse. This is because their overt acceptance, to say nothing of their public articulation, of practical views of masculinity (the only locally available alternative to official views) would effectively align both them and their husbands and households with the women, men, and households associated with the poorest and least prestigious segments of the community. Concerns with validating and ideally enhancing the enviable prestige standing that they and their households enjoy thus militate against their articulation of practical representations of gender and, in the process, help guarantee that with respect to many aspects of gender, village women do not speak in a single voice.

In this connection we might also recall that the first two women interviewed (Kamariah and Rokiah) do not reside in the village and are in fact members of the new urban middle class. Their views on gender are in many respects congruent with the views of women belonging to the wealthiest and most prestigious segment of the village population, and are, more generally, highly resonant with official Islamic discourse on gender. (Not surprisingly, this is especially so in the case of Kamariah, the "women's official" and de facto assistant to the magistrate at the local Islamic court.) These women are clearly the most highly educated of all women interviewed, and are, in addition, the women most strongly identified with the Islamic resurgence. This suggests (among other things)

that, all things being equal, women associated with the resurgence are less likely than other women to espouse oppositional discourses on gender. Ong (1990b) reaches much the same conclusion in her recent study of the contrasting discourses on gender promoted by agents and policies of the (Malaysian) state on the one hand, and (Malaysian) Islamic resurgents on the other. She also makes the more general point that social movements with radical political and religious agendas (e.g., the dakwa movement) are often suffused with highly conservative ideologies bearing on sexuality and gender. Marty (1993) takes the argument even further, maintaining that to his knowledge all "fundamentalisms" (his term) entail strongly conservative ideologies of sex and gender.

Circumstances such as these raise important comparative and theoretical issues concerning the myriad moral and material variables that constrain—or, alternatively, promote—the development and elaboration of oppositional discourses and strategies of resistance. Since I cannot do justice to all such issues, I will simply offer some very general (and ultimately rather cursory) observations relevant to the theme of resistance, and then proceed with a brief discussion of three sets of variables that have served to constrain the development and elaboration of oppositional discourses within the context(s) of village society and culture.

In light of the material presented earlier, one would expect to find women's oppositional stances and strategies of resistance to be most pronounced among the poorest segments of the female population. This, indeed, is what one finds. In most social and cultural contexts, however, there is very little of what might be termed resistance, let alone actual rebellion. Women occasionally mock and criticize their husbands (and sons-in-law) behind their backs and to their faces, though not men in other kinship or social roles. Such mocking and criticism is usually done in a relatively good-natured way, though it is often peppered with biting sarcasm and black humor. And women sometimes intentionally embarrass their husbands in public or flee from their households (which also causes husbands public embarrassment) to protest what they regard as extremely inappropriate behavior on their husbands' part (e.g., taking a second wife).

Unlike what one finds in some other societies such as Morocco (Dwyer 1978), however, women do not steal money, valuables, or other items (rice, other food) from their husbands or the household larders. They don't really need to engage in such behavior since they control the household larders and administer family finances. The "bad mouthing" of men to young children is also relatively rare, to the best of my (and Ellen's)

Figure 24.
Mak Zaini

knowledge, though I have seen Kak Suzaini make scathing remarks about her second husband in front of her youngest daughter (who the man fathered). Significantly, however, these diatribes were confined to the shortcomings of the second husband and were not generalized to any other men, let alone to men as a whole.

One of the major arenas in which women resist official representations of femininity (and masculinity) is the office of the Islamic magistrate (kadi ), which, as noted earlier, handles what is often referred to as "family law" (marriage and divorce, failure to provide wives and children with material support). Such resistance occurs in numerous ways, the most overt of which involves direct verbal challenging of husbands and the heaping upon them of insults and other forms of verbal abuse (calling them liars, animals, etc.). While one might assume that the magistrate's office is relatively unreceptive to such forms of resistance, this is not really the case or, in any event, is only partly true. The kadi and his staff, including especially the "women's official" (pegawai wanita )—who processes and otherwise handles most cases and endeavors to resolve them so that they do not require the kadi 's adjudication—operate with many of the same assumptions about male and female livers, temperaments, personalities, and overall "natures" as do villagers themselves. Such officials do, moreover, feel that most of the problems in marriage, and much of the "fault" in divorce, stem from men who are delinquent in their roles as husbands and fathers. Thus, while many women find the relatively formal environment of the kadi 's office initially intimidating and otherwise off-putting, once they begin talking with the magistrate's staff they tend both to overcome many of their inhibitions, and to speak and behave in other ways which indicate that they are relatively free of the linguistic and other constraints that normally bear upon women (and to a lesser degree men).

The catch of course is that women's relatively unrestrained behavior in these (and other) contexts can easily reinforce official discourses that portray them as having more "passion" and less "reason" than men. In other words, the very recounting of narratives of male irresponsibility and female virtue sometimes conveys messages which are diametrically opposed to those encoded in the "contents" of the narratives in question, and which are in any event the opposite of those intended. Phrased in broader terms, female resistance of this sort sometimes involves what Denys Turner (1983) refers to as "performative contradictions" inasmuch as it bolsters and helps reproduce the conceptual and other legitimizing structures that undergird the gendered distribution of power and prestige in the first place. The same is true of female predominance in spirit possession, which, as we have seen (chap. 4), has been interpreted by some observers as resistance to one or another form of men's control over women.

There is much more that could be said about issues of the latter sort, but I would like to proceed to a discussion of the three sets of variables

that have served to constrain the development and elaboration of oppositional discourses within the context(s) of village society and culture. One such variable (alluded to earlier) is the allocation of prestige in terms of households, which tend to be—and, in the case of the wealthy, almost invariably are—composed of men and women alike. (Prestige is also allocated with respect to lineages [and localized clans], but this is less directly relevant here.) The pooling of household resources (including labor) for the purpose of advancing or at least maintaining the prestige standing of one's household vis-à-vis other households both presupposes and promotes day-to-day economic and other cooperation between husband and wife. It also involves husband and wife conceptualizing their needs and strategies with respect to the satisfaction of subsistence concerns and the attainment of prestige—and their place(s) in the world generally—in relation to their household. Bear in mind, too, that the household is the locus of the individual's most intimate and, in many respects, most sustaining and meaningful social interactions. In sum, the primacy of the household in terms of the allocation of prestige, and with respect to economic matters (production, consumption, and exchange), social identity, and emotional sustenance works against the development and cultural realization of gender-based interest groups, and in these and other ways inhibits the (further) elaboration of oppositional discourses (though it obviously doesn't preclude their existence in the first place).

A second, related variable is the historically specific construction of personhood, social adulthood, and adult womanhood especially. In order to be a full-fledged social adult, one must enter into a legitimate marriage (with a socially approved member of the opposite sex), and bear or father (or adopt) children. For women, this involves not only being defined as a particular man's wife (or ex-wife or widow) and the mother of a particular man's children, but also, as noted earlier, experiencing a potentially extended (but in some cases very brief) period of economic dependence on (though not necessarily co-residence with) a particular man. The relational components of women's identity that focus on women's roles as wives and mothers have become highly salient over the course of the past century as a consequence of the historic restructuring of femininity that occurred as a result of state-sponsored changes of the sort that effected a realignment of the constituent elements of masculinity. In the case of femininity, the changes have entailed the historical deemphasis of women's roles as daughters, (natural and classificatory) sisters, and sisters' daughters, and, as just noted, a foregrounding of their roles as wives and mothers. The factors responsible for such shifts include the economically

and politically engendered erosion of a broadly encompassing clanship, and the weakening and contraction of the siblingship undergirding it, as well as the demise of various forms of predominantly female labor exchange associated with the agricultural cycle, which, in former times, drew heavily on women as (natural and classificatory) sisters.

Clearly relevant, too, of course, is the recent resurgence of Islam, which has been animated and sustained in no small measure by ethnic and class tensions and nationalist and transnational discourse. The doctrines of Islam (like those of Buddhism, Christianity, and the other Great Religions) focus on, and, more importantly, are interpreted locally as focusing on, women's roles as wives and mothers rather than as daughters and sisters. More to the point, Malaysia's Islamic resurgence (the dakwa movement), which is a largely urban-based, primarily middle-class phenomenon, has highlighted and endeavored to restrict women's sexuality and bodily processes, and has in these and other ways (e.g., through "pro-natalist programs" [Stivens 1987]) emphasized women's roles in biological reproduction along with their other "natural functions." Somewhat paradoxically, the involvement of young Malay women in high-tech factory work in "free trade zones" and elsewhere since the 1970s has had some of the same ideological effects as the Islamic resurgence, for, as mentioned earlier, images of factory women, aside from being exceedingly negative, center on their alleged sexual promiscuity.^[9] In short, religious, economic, and attendant developments of the sort noted here have served to define women in relation to men, and as mothers, wives, and sexual (hence "passionate") beings in particular, and have thus effectively promoted official discourses on gender and simultaneously constrained the development and elaboration of oppositional discourses.^[10]

A third variable which inhibits the elaboration of oppositional discourses relates to the fact that village men and women alike espouse various features of practical (as well as official) views of masculinity and femininity.^[11] This may seem paradoxical and/or tautological, but the paradox and tautology, I would argue, are more apparent than real. It is in certain crucial respects much easier to conceive of and develop an oppositional discourse when those against whom it is arrayed or deployed operate with a seamless, rigid, uncompromising, thoroughly self-congratulatory and Other-despising set of assumptions about the way things—and social relations—are and should be. But this is not the case in Negeri Sembilan (or in other parts of the Peninsula), where men's and women's views of gender difference and sameness are in many respects quite similar: Men and women do, after all, operate with the same overarching framework (of

"reason" and "passion") in terms of which gender is experienced, understood, and represented; and even the most extreme contrasts between men's and women's views on gender involve little more than a structural inversion of relationships among the principal signs or signifiers of the framework. More importantly, because many men, especially elite men, espouse views of gender which are far from seamless, uncompromising, thoroughly self-congratulatory or Other-(i.e., female-) despising, they effectively preempt charges and help put to rest women's suspicions that men are trafficking in thoroughly distorting or mystifying discourses. For reasons such as these (and others noted earlier) the discourses of men help constrain the elaboration of oppositional discourses on the part of women, even though they simultaneously provide legitimate moral space for their existence in the first place. Phrased in broader and more abstract terms: Dominant ideological formations both produce and limit the forms, scope, and force of the challenges with which they must invariably contend (see Williams 1977:114; see also Willis 1977; Scott 1985).

Final Remarks

There are, finally, two other sets of issues that merit brief comment. The first relates to Ong's important observations that the sexual promiscuity and dubious morality imputed to young Malay women working in factories in the state of Selangor and elsewhere is, among other things, a register of Malays' profound moral ambivalences about the rapidly changing nature of their "lived relations to the world": most notably, their historically stepped-up involvement in and dependence on the vagaries of the global economy, the transgressions of traditional moral injunctions that such involvement and dependence necessarily entails, and the mystical and other dangers associated with such transgressions (Ong 1988, 1990a, 1990b). To the extent that female factory workers are among the most exploited members of the Malaysian work force, the denigration of such women, and the heaping upon them of blame for threatening the Malay "imagined community" (Anderson 1983), may be seen as yet another ethnographic example of the distressingly widespread ideological phenomenon known as "blaming the victim." A similar type of victim-blaming ideology infuses practical representations of masculinity in Negeri Sembilan, especially those naturalizing, dehistoricizing, and eternalizing representations which attribute to men's "innate" behavior most of the problems in marriage and much of the "fault" in divorce. Interestingly, representations which blame men (male "human nature") in blanket

terms for the dissolution of conjugal and familial bonds (and other social ills and threats to the imagined community) are not only thoroughly mute with respect to the specific kinship roles and social classes of men whose behavior (on closer [analytic] inspection) fuels such representations. They are also blind to the material and other conditions of their own (re)production. As such—and regardless of the structural or other variables responsible for their existence—they clearly help divert attention away from the broadly encompassing realities of historical change and contemporary political economy which have engendered land shortages and highly inequitable distributions of wealth, power, and prestige, and which are responsible for a situation in which, as one observer put it (with reference to the state of Kedah), "poverty itself appears to dissolve marriages" (Banks 1983:100).^[12] Stated differently, while such representations foreground local cultural views of the indissoluble links between the domains of gender and kinship (and marriage), they simultaneously help bring about (but do not fully effect) a mythical sealing off of such domains from all ravages and other entailments of history and political economy. In these and other ways they serve to define the most serious threats to the imagined community as arising from within the Malay community itself (much like the recently emergent discourses on Malay factory women). This despite the fact that in a good many contexts Malays in Negeri Sembilan and elsewhere are quick to argue that the most fundamental obstacles and dangers to the social and cultural reproduction of the Malay community are posed by non-Malays—Indians and especially Chinese, who, taken together, make up roughly half of Malaysia's population—and the state strategies and policies that are responsible both for their existence in Malaysia in the first place and for their economic prosperity relative to Malays.

The second (and final) issue bears on Lévi-Strauss's insightful, often quoted (1949) remark that "Even before slavery or class domination existed, men built an approach to women that would serve one day to introduce differences among us all."^[13] One need not accept this particular (androcentric) formulation of the historical primacy of gender with respect to the development of difference to appreciate that Lévi-Strauss is on to something important here (cf. Bloch 1989:136; Heng and Devan 1992; March 1984). That something is that indeterminacies, paradoxes, and contradictions in representations of gender are, at least potentially, the most profoundly subversive challenges to all ideologies of social order. Such is the case partly because gender differences are among the earliest, least conscious, and most fundamental differences internalized in all societies,

though arguably more relevant is that symbols, idioms, and entire ideologies bearing on gender are rarely if ever simply "about" gender. Because they are also "about" kinship, human nature, and sociality—as well as relations of equality/hierarchy, inclusion/exclusion, and the like—challenges to such ideologies necessarily constitute deeply unsettling threats to the most basic categories through which we experience, understand, and represent our selves, intimate (and not so intimate) others, and the universe as a whole. This is perhaps especially so when such ideologies serve to mark and legitimize class and ethnic/racial distinctions, as clearly occurs in many societies, including Negeri Sembilan. (Recall, among other things, that in Negeri Sembilan and for Malays elsewhere in the Peninsula the exercise [or absence] of restraint is an ethnic/racial marker that is heavily [albeit never explicitly] gendered inasmuch as "other races" are quickly characterized in terms of the relative lack of restraint that official discourse attributes to and defines as a key feature of [Malay] womanhood.) In such instances, challenges to ideologies bearing on gender cannot help but raise questions and doubts about the conceptual bases and legitimacy of class and ethnic/racial hierarchies and the state structures and nationalist discourses that help sustain them, though the extent to which such questions and doubts are explicitly articulated or culturally realized is of course contextually specific and otherwise highly variable.

The widely redounding and potentially limitless scope of such ideologies—to say nothing of their psychological, social, and moral force—is more than sufficient reason to strive to ensure that our descriptions and analyses of gender encompass the study of women and men alike, and that they be informed by an understanding of official representations of gender (and kinship) as well as their practical counterparts. More generally, the highly expansive scope and other features of such ideologies should serve as a clear reminder that gender systems are not intelligible as isolated phenomena, and are in fact most usefully examined in terms of theoretical frameworks which analyze gender in relation to other axes of difference and inequality as well as quotidian social process and the encompassing realities of prestige, political economy, and historical change.

7
Conclusion: Negeri Sembilan in Comparative and Theoretical Perspective

A central contention of this study is that gender and kinship in Negeri Sembilan (and elsewhere) are most profitably understood both as mutually determined and in relation to everyday social process and structures of prestige, political economy, and historical change. I have also argued that representations bearing on gender and kinship in Negeri Sembilan are in many respects contradictory, and that one useful way to try to comprehend the contradictions at issue is to view them through the lens of a modified version of Bourdieu's analytic distinction between official and practical kinship. In chapter 2, I delineated the value of such distinctions, pointing out, among other things, that they have deep roots in Marxist contributions to theories of ideology and are intended not to effect an ontological sundering of the world down the middle, but, rather, to highlight the existence and entailments of the different representations, discourses, and registers which invariably comprise any given ideological formation. More broadly, chapter 2 demonstrated that the nineteenth-century system of marriage and affinal relations was embedded within a system of prestige and political organization that placed heavy demands on the labor power and productivity of in-marrying males, and that, with the noteworthy exception of titled males occupying the highest offices in the land, the system of marriage and affinal exchange focused on the exchange of men (transfers of rights over their labor power and productivity). In the course of that discussion I also illustrated that various aspects of practical kinship and gender (especially masculinity) were congruent with and reproduced by these (exchange-of-men) features of the system of marriage and affinal exchange, whereas their official counterparts were keyed to and reproduced by the types of marriages involving local political elites (which centered on the exchange of women not men) and by various aspects of official Islamic discourse on gender. A more general objective of the chapter was to demonstrate that the secondary status (lower prestige ranking) of women was (and is) rooted not in institutions of kinship and

marriage but, rather, in a broadly grounded cosmology which has long accorded more spiritual power or potency, along with more "reason" and less "passion," to men.

Chapter 3, which provided perspectives on kinship, gender, and sexuality from the nineteenth century to the present, examined how elements of the nineteenth-century system were reproduced and transformed as a result of the imposition of British colonialism, villagers' involvement in cash-cropping and the global economy as a whole, and various aspects of Islamic nationalism and reform. A central argument of the discussion was that the combined impact of largely exogenous forces did not witness a "breakdown of the system" as much as a highly selective transformation of certain elements of that system; and that key features of these processes are best understood in light of precolonial cultural developments and structural precedents which helped channel and otherwise constrain the dislocating effects of social and cultural change. This is especially apparent in the domain of property and inheritance relations, particularly the continued favoring of women in the inheritance and proprietorship of houses and most categories of land. But it is also clear in the domains of sexuality, mate choice, and marriage on the whole, and with respect to gender crossers (such as pondan ), who were once held to be sacred mediators but have come to be defined as potentially criminal and, in any case, contaminating mediators who, to paraphrase Stallybrass and White (1986:110), perversely muddle and enmire the increasingly polar terms of the classical gender system.

My analysis of the social drama culminating in Rubiah and Nordin's shotgun wedding underscored many of the same basic themes, as well as historical consistency in the gendered division of labor (ritual and secular), and both continuity and change in the criteria for allocating prestige/stigma and virtue generally. Perhaps most importantly, we saw that many of the aspects and interrelations of the nineteenth-century system of prestige outlined in chapter 2 remain very much intact, even though they have lost some of their more traditional qualities due to the emergence and spread of new and cross-cutting criteria (in addition to the revalorization of nineteenth-century criteria) that accord prestige to modern education, wealth, and social class, rather than descent. Spiritual power or potency, for example, continues to be not only highly valued but also one of the key symbols in terms of which prestige differentials between males and females are both conceptualized and rationalized. Thus, men are still believed (by men and women alike) to have the stronger semangat , and to be more apt to possess mystical knowledge/power (ilmu ). It is also true,

however, that male-female differences such as these are increasingly cast in the symbols and idioms of "reason" and "passion" (and "shame"), and are more firmly entrenched in local society and culture than at any point in times past.

Chapter 4 focused on knowledge, power, and personal misfortune, and addressed the gendered distribution of ilmu in local society and culture, some of the ways people go about protecting themselves from the uses of ilmu by malevolent others, and the importance of viewing women's involvement in spirit possession within the larger context of mystical attack, which encompasses spirit possession but also includes the various forms of slow wasting away that are more likely to afflict men than women. This broader perspective reveals that women are not necessarily more susceptible to mystical attack than men, despite earlier accounts to the contrary; and, more generally, that men and women appear to be more or less equally vulnerable to many of the social and spiritual dislocations which are associated with the erosion and transformation of indigenous institutions, moral boundaries, and cultural categories, and which are realized in one or another form of mystical attack. We also saw, however, that just as women are viewed as having weaker semangat than men, so, too, are they far more likely than men to be adversely affected by future trends bearing on the Malay social body and the Malaysian body politic, particularly since political and religious developments seem destined to (further) undermine the legitimacy of women's mystically articulated relational and overall moral concerns. The larger issue is that men and women alike move about in social fields—and do in fact experience much of their entire lives in a social universe—deeply suffused with ambivalence, alienation, and tension. Taking stock of these themes, especially that of ambivalence, is thus essential if we are to capture something of the texture and quality of social actors' everyday lives and basic social experiences.

Chapter 5 examined various aspects of the person and the body, by moving from a consideration of the relatively ungendered features of persons and bodies (parallels between the human body and the universe; the relational sense of self; the components and essences of persons and bodies; death) to an analysis of gendered themes such as conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. We then proceeded with a discussion of the heavily gendered concepts of "reason," "passion," and "shame," which revealed among other things that Malays are profoundly ambivalent about the satisfaction of basic biophysiological needs associated with eating, sexual relations, and the like. These concepts were also viewed in relation to Ort-

ner's nature/culture thesis, a modified form of which was shown to be of considerable value both for describing and interpreting local experiences, understandings, and representations of gender(ed) difference (and sameness).

Specifically, I argued that the nature/culture thesis is especially valuable in the Malay case so long as we (1) specify more precisely than Ortner did which meanings of the polyvalent concept of "nature" are primary in the Malay scheme of things (and in our own as well), and (2) limit ourselves to a consideration of official discourse on gender. The thesis clearly runs into some difficulties when we expand our purview to include practical, largely counter-hegemonic discourses, for these latter discourses tend to invert the relationship between signifier and signified, such that women (not men) are associated with "reason" and "culture," and men (not women) with "passion" and "nature." In the course of laying out these arguments I also considered data bearing on the life cycle, such as the developmental trajectory according to which males move along a continuum from "passion" to "reason" (and "nature" to "culture"), and females move from "reason" to "passion" (and "culture" to "nature"). Some scholars (e.g., Dwyer 1978) have claimed that life-cycle data such as these force a major rethinking of the nature/culture thesis, and more generally, that no such simple binary contrasts can capture the essence(s) of gender(ed) difference and sameness as they are experienced, understood, or represented in any given society, let alone in all societies. I agree with the latter part of this argument, but I also made clear that life-cycle data such as these are more appropriately seen as confirming the basic thrust of Ortner's thesis. The reason for this is that the contrasting representations of gender that one finds distributed over the life cycle are not equally weighted. Put simply, in Malay and other Islamic contexts, and probably in all societies, representations bearing on fully social adults are hegemonic with respect to representations pertaining to those who are not fully social adults, namely, children, adolescents, and those who are postreproductive.

A similar argument about the importance of discerning not simply the presence or absence of particular beliefs or practices but the ways in which they are marked in various settings was advanced with respect to pollution associated with bodily fluids such as menstrual blood and semen. Both of these substances are considered polluting in Malay and other Islamic cultures, but they are not valorized in the same way(s). Pollution associated with menstrual blood is by far the more culturally elaborated, partly because it is associated with locally salient ambivalences about women's ca-

pacities to give birth (create life), but also because such blood issues from the uterus/womb, which is emblematic of the dark animal matrix of humankind in its entirety. Through a complex chain of symbolic associations, men and women alike appear to view menstrual blood as indexing the limited extent to which humans are able to "rise above" their animal natures and otherwise behave in accordance with the normative imperatives encoded within their systems of prestige/stigma and moral evaluation. I also suggested that menstrual blood, and women generally, represent to men (however consciously) the precarious foundations on which male ascendancy rests.

Chapter 6, also, focused on the ways in which the contextually variable symbols and meanings of "reason," "passion," and "shame" figure into hegemonic constructions of gender; but it was more concerned with the lacunae, elisions, and equivocations in the hegemony and the ways in which these and other factors have allowed for the development of alternative discourses, many of which constitute inversions of the hegemony and are therefore appropriately characterized as counter-hegemonic. The first part of the chapter presented interview material obtained from ten men, some of whom clearly articulated the official/hegemonic view of gender(ed) difference and sameness: for example, that men have more "reason" and less "passion" than women, and that women's greater "passion" is most evident in the context of sexual relations ("They always want more, even after their husbands have collapsed in satisfaction"). We also saw, however, that some men espoused rather "unorthodox" views of gender(ed) difference and sameness, claiming, for example, that while men tend to have more "reason" than women, they also have more "passion," as evidenced by their irresponsible behavior in their roles as husbands and fathers. Interestingly, these assessments of men as irresponsible in the context of marriage did not usually call into question the legitimacy of the hegemony as far as men were concerned, though they clearly did in the case of most women I spoke with. Be that as it may, the material gathered from interviews with men was of additional value in that it pointed up significant variation in male perspectives and thus demonstrated that, at least with regard to gender, village males do not necessarily speak in a single voice.

The data collected in the course of interviews with women indicate that, with respect to a good many issues, women and men are in basic agreement concerning the fundamental similarities and differences between the sexes. In particular, these data reveal that many women "buy into" the official/hegemonic discourse on gender that men espouse, in-

cluding numerous features of the hegemony that portray women (and femininity in its entirety) in what are ultimately rather negative terms. We also saw the relevance of class variables here: for example, that this tendency to internalize and express, at minimum, tacit acceptance of the hegemony is most pronounced among wealthy (and educated) women and least prevalent among poor (uneducated) women; and that practical representations of masculinity which focus on men being neither reasonable nor responsible are fueled by perceptions bearing on men at the bottom of the local class hierarchy. These latter, practical representations thus serve both to encode and obscure local perspectives on class that are otherwise relatively muted in discourse concerning gender, social relations, and various types of "imagined communities."

The material presented in chapter 6 also illustrates that Negeri Sembilan masculinity (or maleness) is not a singular, straightforward, or internally consistent cultural phenomenon, but is, rather, a protean and hybrid amalgam of a number of contradictory representations, many of which are entangled with the constructions that serve to define adult men's kinship roles. In fact, the category "male" does not have all that much cultural significance (the same holds for the category "female"), though categories such as "brother," "husband," and "father" (and "sister," "wife," and "mother") certainly do. More generally, the data indicate that male relational roles such as husband/father and elder brother may well dominate the category of "male" and, in addition, may color the meanings of all other male relational (and "positional") roles. These data likewise make clear that it is not only the meanings of "female," or the social position of women, that may be negatively affected by the cultural elaboration of relational roles and their relative hegemony in ideologies of gender. The negative dynamics in question can also impinge on the meanings of "male" and the social position of men.

Data of the latter type are of broad relevance partly because they force a revision of earlier thinking concerning the purported existence of cross-cultural universals with respect to differences in structural definitions of males and females. They also demonstrate that Islamic masculinities are not always shaped by rigid, heavily patriarchal discourses. Data of the sort at issue here can therefore help us deconstruct some of the essentialist views of masculinity present in the literature on gender (see, e.g., Gilmore 1990) as well as various types of essentialist perspectives on Islam.^[1]

An analytic focus on maleness (which should not be confused with masculine or masculinist perspectives, or a focus thereon) is of value not simply because it yields salient ethnographic data on the internally disso-

nant and ambivalence-laden construction of masculinity while also augmenting our understanding of the dialectically related domain of femininity. More importantly, such a focus is conducive to the collection of data that remind us of the need to analyze gender in relation to the other axes of difference and inequality (class, race, etc.) that inform the constitution of masculinity and femininity alike. It thus helps underscore that the segregation and compartmentalization of gender as a distinctive subject of study "in its own terms" is highly problematic. To phrase this argument in stronger language: Gender "in and of itself" is a "non-subject" in much the same sense that Schneider (1984) maintains in his critique of conventional studies that treat kinship as an isolable, analytically discrete domain (see also Collier and Yanagisako 1987; Kelly 1993; Peletz 1995).

The merits of this argument become clear when one stops to recall that actors—particularly gendered actors—are commonly ranked along axes or continua defined in terms of virtues and vices such as "reason" and "passion," degrees of mystical or spiritual knowledge or power (ilmu ), and relative strength of life force (semangat ); and that, generally speaking, psychological, interactional, and other qualities that give rise to or entail prestige or stigma with regard to any one of these continua are deeply resonant with the qualities that are prestigious or stigmatizing with respect to the others. Gender is neither an organizing principle nor an absolute marker of position in the most encompassing system of prestige/stigma that is composed of the various axes along which actors are commonly ranked, but it is definitely elaborated in terms of and otherwise shaped by its placement within that system. This means, among other things, that as concerns our long-range goals, we should set our comparative and theoretical sights on expansive systems of prestige/stigma, rather than on gender "per se."

To better understand the structure and scope of the expansive system at issue here, we might look more closely at some of the interrelations and entailments of the various axes in terms of which actors are typically ranked. A key question to ask in this context is, "Just how systematically are these axes interrelated?" Phrased differently and in broader terms: "How systematic—and totalistic—is the system?" The short and admittedly rather imprecise and partial answer to these questions is that while there is a fair degree of congruence among axes of the sort noted in the preceding paragraph (and some others addressed in a moment), there is much less internal resonance when one considers all other potential axes of social differentiation and rank. There are, at the same time, various structural contradictions at play here, though the arguably more im-

portant point is that neither the main axes nor the system as a whole are totalistic in the sense of embracing or pervading all domains of society and culture.

We might first note that age and birth-order distinctions resonate deeply with axes of the sort noted above inasmuch as the attainment of virtues such as "reason" and ilmu are both directly and explicitly linked to age and are strongly associated with adults, especially adult males and the elders among them in particular. Much the same is true of semangat . Recall that adults as a group are seen as having more powerful semangat than those who have yet to attain adulthood, and that, all things being equal, males of each age group are seen as having stronger semangat than their female age-mates. But we need also bear in mind my earlier comment that ilmu and semangat are not systematically related in local discourse (even though a powerful semangat is regarded as a prerequisite [necessary but not sufficient] for strong ilmu ).

A somewhat different situation obtains with respect to the present-day distinction between membership in gentry and nongentry clans. This distinction is not readily mapped onto axes of the sort noted above and is, generally speaking, more or less ungendered. This despite the fact that one can posit an implicit cultural link between gentry clans or membership therein and "male" virtues such as spiritual potency insofar as gentry clans alone can provide candidates for Undang , who is the supreme (terrestrial) repository of spiritual potency as well as the Vice-Regent or Caliph of God (held to be male), and who must, in any case, himself be a male. It merits remark also that members of gentry clans regard themselves (and are viewed by others) as descendants of the original raja (rulers) of the region who, according to mythic charters, were among the region's first permanent settlers and who also presided over the first permanent communities. Members of these clans thus tend to see themselves, but are not necessarily seen by others, as heirs to certain psychological, interactional, and other virtues (e.g., "restraint," "refinement," "dignity") associated with rule, particularly when they think of themselves in relation to the lowly nongentry clan (Biduanda Dagang) that is a satellite clan of one of the gentry groups and includes a number of individuals descended from slaves purchased by a gentry luminary during his travels to Mecca in the nineteenth century. The fact remains, however, that one's membership in a particular clan does not necessarily have any implications with respect to the relative strength of one's semangat or the ways in which one's overall comportment is defined in relation to one or another set of virtues or vices.

The ranking of racial groups, for its part, is highly congruent with—indeed, builds directly on—axes defined in relation to "reason" and "passion" (and culture and nature), but it simultaneously flies in the face of, and thus undercuts rather than amplifies, the otherwise pervasive conceptual links between "reason" (and culture) and ilmu (as well as the links between "passion" [and nature] and the absence of ilmu ). Remember here that Malays invariably situate themselves at the apex of the racial hierarchy and typically do so on the grounds that, as a race, they are more "refined" and "cultured"—and less "base" ("unrefined," "passionate," "animalistic")—than racial groups such as Chinese, Indians, and forest-dwelling aborigines (orang asli ), who are denigrated as relatively "uncultured" and, in some cases, altogether subhuman. Recall also that while the marginalized aborigines occupy the lowest rungs of the ladders of culture and humanity, they are also believed to have the most powerful ilmu (and semangat? ). Associations such as these testify to the existence of the "marginality/power/danger" and "bush/power/sorcery" metaphors that continue to animate various domains of Malay culture (and many others).^[2] Of more immediate relevance is the following two-fold point: First, as noted above, the latter associations undercut the otherwise highly pervasive conceptual links between "reason" and ilmu . And second, they clearly violate the logic of the culturally elaborated but largely implicit view that ilmu is a summarizing or master virtue, a metavirtue of sorts in the systems of prestige/stigma and moral hierarchy.

The relatively recent emergence of ranking in terms of social class further complicates matters, partly because it appropriates some of the logic or at least some of the language keyed to distinctions between gentry and nongentry clans but simultaneously crosscuts and thus undermines such distinctions. Members of the "wealthy" class (orang kaya ) tend to be conceptually linked with (or at least view themselves as having some corner on) various qualities long defined in relation to gentry clans ("restraint," "refinement," etc.), just as those at the other end of the class hierarchy—the "poor" (orang miskin )—tend to be accorded (but do not necessarily view themselves as having) qualities such as the relative absence of "restraint," "refinement," and the like long associated with nongentry clans and "the ruled" as a whole. This may make good sense on various counts, including the fact that a disproportionate amount of the wealth in the village is concentrated among the households associated with a particular lineage of one of the gentry clans. On the other hand, a good number of gentry households are far from wealthy, and are in fact among the poorest households in the entire village. More to the point, there are no intrinsic

connections between gentry status and wealth (or high class standing) or, conversely, between nongentry status and poverty or lack of wealth (or low class standing). Note, also, that while (as suggested above) there is clearly a heavy resonance between class standing and the distribution of virtues and vices such as "reason" and "passion," there are (to my knowledge) no data suggesting that in the local view of things the possession (or nonpossession) of ilmu or the relative strength of one's semangat is in any way linked to class standing.

In sum, in the specific contexts in which individuals are ranked in terms of class, the otherwise pervasive albeit largely implicit cultural link between "reason" and ilmu (and the possession of a strong "life force") is more or less meaningless, as is the equally pervasive but (again) largely implicit view that the possession of ilmu is a summarizing or master virtue in the systems of prestige/stigma and moral evaluation as a whole. In these important respects, the axes of class and racial ranking resonate deeply with one another but are out of keeping with the other axes of differentiation and rank discussed earlier.

There is of course much more to say about relations of congruence and contradiction among the various axes in terms of which Malays differentiate and rank themselves and others in their social universe. And there is clearly a good deal more that could be said about whether, as I believe, the various axes in terms of which actors—especially gendered actors—are commonly ranked are most profitably viewed as constituting a single, broadly encompassing but by no means totalistic system, as opposed to, say, a variety of analytically discrete and obviously less encompassing systems. Rather than pursuing these expansive analytic issues any further, however, I would like to proceed with a more focused discussion that centers on some of the more important implications of Negeri Sembilan masculinity.

The remainder of this chapter provides comparative and theoretical perspectives on Negeri Sembilan masculinity, though I should perhaps make clear at the outset that my main comparative cases are other Islamic societies. The first section of the chapter examines some of the similarities (and differences) between Negeri Sembilan Malays and the "bilateral" Acehnese, partly to point up that the "arelational" notion of masculinity enshrined in the comparative and theoretical literature on gender (e.g., Chodorow 1978, 1989; Ortner and Whitehead 1981a) is also entirely inappropriate to Aceh. In addition to delineating some of the conceptual and analytical problems in this literature, my concerns here are to provide historical perspectives on Aceh so as to help illustrate that Negeri Sembi-

lan and Aceh have much in common, which is to say, among other things, that Negeri Sembilan is by no means anomalous as regards the scope, force, and overall nature of its practical representations of masculinity, or in other ways. The second section of the chapter broadens the comparative perspective by examining data from three other Islamic societies: Minangkabau, Java, and Bedouin. The data of primary interest to me here also bear on practical representations of masculinity, which, as we will see, are in many respects strikingly similar from one case to the next and in relation to those of Negeri Sembilan as well. The third and final section of the chapter (and study) provides some general observations concerning the meanings and entailments of contrasting representations of masculinity on the one hand, and ideology, experience, and ambivalence on the other.

Acehnese, Negeri Sembilan Malays, and the "Arelational" Concept of Masculinity

Nineteenth-century Acehnese society was "not a hierarchical, vertically organized society" but, rather, a society composed of "four encapsulated groups existing side by side" (Siegel 1969:68). These four groups—the sultan and his supporters, the chieftains (uleebelang ) and their retainers, religious teachers (ulama ), and peasant villagers—were not all that well integrated in the nineteenth century, which is to say that each existed somewhat independently of the others, or, put differently, was relatively unconstrained (and otherwise uninfluenced) by institutional links emanating from the other groups. Thus, while the sultan, whose office was hereditary and defined in terms of Islamic ideology, stood at the apex of the Acehnese state and claimed jurisdiction over all that occurred within his realm, he was not able to extend substantive control over chieftains (or his other subjects) (Siegel 1969:40, 43, 47), even though chieftains did depend for their (Islamic and overall cultural) legitimacy on official seals (surat ) issued by the sultan. Similarly, while religious teachers were recruited from village society and trained in local religious schools (pesantren ), their teachings concerning "reason," "passion," human nature, proper conduct, salvation, and the like, seem not to have been all that influential within the contexts of village society; indeed, in some cases, such teachings were clearly disdained by the rural majority.

The primary revenue of both the sultan and the chieftains came from the taxes they levied on riverine and maritime trade (nineteenth-century Aceh was a world entrepôt), as opposed to, say, the settling of disputes or

the administration of Islamic (or other, e.g., "customary") law. Such revenue was especially important since, for the most part, there were no head taxes, property taxes, or corvée labor (Siegel 1969:22, but see p. 27) by means of which sultans or chieftains could augment the revenue they derived from taxation, or their wealth or prestige more generally. Nor was the control of irrigation channels in rice-producing areas a significant source of revenue for chieftains or the sultan, though the former did own much rice land in such areas and did derive income from leasing out their fields to villagers (26–27).

Chieftains, who, at the local level, were of far greater cultural salience than the sultan (Siegel 1979:10), depended for their control of riverine and maritime trade on retainers and other followers who helped them police the border regions of their realms (nanggrou ) and otherwise ensure their receipt of the taxes they claimed as their due. Chieftains also sought to promote the production of commercially valued pepper, since the pepper trade was heavily taxed, and to this end were forever encouraging the expansion of such production. They likewise had a major stake in, and thus encouraged, successful rice cultivation, for, as expressed in an eighteenth-century epic poem (Hikayat Potjoet Moehamat ),

If you farm and get rice, the people of the land thrive.
If there is no rice from farming, the people all leave.
If there are no more people in the land, where are we leaders left?
(Siegel:56)

Chieftains' concerns with building up loyal followers and others capable of adding (directly or indirectly) to their coffers, and thus enhancing their power and prestige, also informed their marriage strategies as well as those of the subjects within their realms of jurisdiction. Some chieftains were reported to "marry in every direction" (Siegel 1979:52), presumably to effect alliances with other chieftains and potential rivals or detractors (cf. Siegel 1979:46). Nonchiefly villagers, however, were encouraged to bring in spouses from outside the village, or at least to find spouses within their villages and remain there, rather than join their spouses in other communities. But since property codes favored uxorilocal residence, this typically meant using local women to attract and retain men from outside the village who would hopefully become loyal and productive members of the community (cf. Jayawardena 1977a:172). This pattern, which is similar in many respects to what one finds in Negeri Sembilan, other parts of the Malay Peninsula, and much of Polynesia, probably served to highlight women's roles as daughters and sisters, as opposed to, say,

mothers and wives (despite countervailing Islamic emphases on women in the latter roles). As such, it would have served to deemphasize their sexuality and reproductive functions, and may account for their relatively high status vis-à-vis women in other societies (e.g., Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, Mediterranean) (see below).

Nineteenth-century property codes exhibited a strong bias toward females in the inheritance and proprietorship of houses and land. Daughters were given houses and house plots at the time of their marriages, over which they acquired full legal rights once they were ritually separated from their parents, usually one to three years after they were married (Siegel 1969:138–39). They also received plots of rice land, assuming their parents owned and had enough rice land to give to them; this occurred either at the time they were ritually separated from their parents or at the birth of their first child. Sons, for their part, received cash, weapons, and other movable property; they frequently received rice land as well, assuming that the rice land earmarked for their sisters did not deplete their parents' estate of land. It is important to note, however, that men did not acquire rights to rice land until after the death of their parents, and thus typically entered into marriage without access to such land.

In the nineteenth century, males usually got married between the ages of fifteen and twenty. During the first year of marriage they were expected to provide new clothes for their wives and to make periodic gifts of meat to their wives' parents. Similarly, when they slept in their wives' houses (i.e., when they weren't involved in temporary out-migration, or merantau ), it was generally expected that they would both reimburse their parents-in-law for expenses if their wives had not already been formally separated (officially established in their own homes) and provide for themselves and (to a lesser extent) their children (Siegel 1969:53).

Married men could stay at home and work (plow, harvest, and thresh) their wives' fields or the fields of the rich (the chieftains?). But since Acehnese rice cultivation was not very labor intensive and since women did about half the work (sowing, weeding, and husking), there was not all that much need for male labor in rice cultivation (Siegel 1969:53). Hence, some men marketed cattle or garden produce (Jayawardena 1977b:29), but most had to leave the village and seek work as cultivators, traders, and so on, in the pepper-growing regions of the East in order to fulfill their duties as husbands (Siegel 1969:53–54). The temporary out-migration that this entailed was not so much to satisfy the masculine role, but because men had no other means of earning a livelihood (54) and of acquiring cash in particular, which was necessary if they were to meet their wives' expecta-

tions that they provide them with imported cloth and personal adornments. That men were motivated in no small measure by their wives' expectations and demands—and by the structure of prestige generally—is suggested by a local religious teacher who noted early in this century, "Many women embitter the lives of their husbands by demanding more than they can bestow in the matter of clothing and personal adornments. Thus they have themselves to blame if their spouses, weary of domestic strife, go forth to seek happiness in rantos [travels, journeys, foreign settlements]" (183 n.16). More generally, as another observer remarked early in this century, "Achehnese [sic ] women ... reproach their husbands for their weak nature.... Their attitude toward Achehnese men seems before all to reveal contempt for their [husbands'] psychical decline which causes them to lose their pride" (96).

There are two points of particular interest about the nineteenth-century Acehnese system. The first is highlighted by Siegel's (1969:68) comment that "[Male] villagers were first of all husbands and fathers." In light of the context of the discussion in which this point is emphasized and the overall thrust of Siegel's arguments, I take this comment to mean that men's primary identities and senses of self—and constructions of masculinity generally were defined not by men's roles or positions in the political economy or in terms of citizenship, nationality, or religion but, rather, in relational terms of the sort that, according to many of the most influential works in the literature on women and gender, are ostensibly reserved for women. I will return to this point in a moment.

The second point of interest is that "even when men lived up to their material obligations, they had little place in their wives' homes. Women were independent of them, even if men could pay their own way" (Siegel 1969:54). "Although men tried to create a role as husbands and, especially, as fathers, women thought of them as essentially superfluous. They allowed men no part in raising children and tolerated them only so long as they paid their own way and contributed money for goods that a woman could not obtain through her own resources.... A man's role as a husband-father in the nineteenth century was small indeed.... Men [were] like 'guests in the houses of their wives' [as Snouck Hurgronje remarked (1906 I:339; cf. p. 327)]" (55).

Circumstances such as these left men feeling obligated toward and dependent on their wives' families, though these feelings were no doubt alleviated as men contributed to the building of new houses and the purchase of rice land for their daughters (Siegel 1969:55–56). Equally im-

portant, these circumstances provided a crucial structural precedent for subsequent religious change, as will be clear in due course.

I noted earlier that religious teachers' (ulama 's) messages concerning human nature, daily conduct, salvation, and the like, appear not to have been all that well received during most of the nineteenth century. I need to add that this began to change in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Married men, especially, became increasingly receptive to the ulama 's attempts to provide a new, religiously grounded basis for male identity, which defined men as Muslims not as kinsmen, and which was thus potentially capable of supplanting extant identities framed in terms of particularistic, cross-cutting social roles such as husband and father. The reasons for such changes need not concern us here, though it is important to note that Dutch attempts to "pacify" Aceh beginning in the 1870s—coupled with the devastating Aceh-Dutch war (1873–1913) which effected such pacification—were instrumental in motivating these (and many other) changes. So, too, was the worldwide Depression of the 1930s, which left most Acehnese men without income (Siegel 1969:91, cf. 98, 131). In short, political and economic circumstances of the sort outlined here were crucial both in engendering modernist Islamic movements (such as those headed by Daud Beureueh), ^[3] and in motivating men's acceptance of the ulama 's teachings. Especially relevant for our purposes is that these teachings emphasized the conceptualization of male (and female) experience in terms of "reason" and "passion" [akal and hawa nafsu in Acehnese], and in these and other ways helped guarantee the subsequent cultural salience or "keyness" of these symbols, which, prior to the late nineteenth century, were "culturally present" but not all that significant (183, 196–98; Siegel 1979:234).

Kinship and gender relations in contemporary Aceh are similar in many respects to the situation I have described for the nineteenth century, though there are some important differences. In the village of Pidie, for example, Siegel found that postmarital residence is still predominantly uxorilocal (with about half of all men marrying out of their natal villages) (cf. Jayawardena 1977a:160); and that all married women own their own house and the land on which it stands (no men own houses [or residential acreage?]), provided that they have been separated from their parents (Siegel 1969). In addition, more women own and control rice land than men (even though, overall, more rice land is registered in the names of men than women) (Siegel 1969; cf. Jayawardena 1977b:28). Siegel also discovered that in the absence of their husbands, women manage nearly

all land and that, in any case, income from rice land is controlled by women (Siegel 1969:145; cf. Jayawardena 1977b:29). Women also raise nearly all the secondary crops, such as tobacco, ground nuts, onions, cucumbers, and other vegetables (Siegel 1969:144), the sale of which yields cash income that is used to supplement the subsistence base provided by rice (Siegel 1969:35).

Men, for their part, are mostly traders in the regional distribution systems that the Dutch created when they broke the chieftains' (and sultan's) monopoly over riverine and maritime trade (redefining their jurisdictions to matters of adat ) and instituted a new system of trade relations that was more conducive to the realization of colonial economic and political objectives (Siegel 1969:137). (Men also help out their wives, work in fruit and vegetable gardens, and tend cattle and buffalo [see Jayawardena 1977a:158–59; 1977b:28].) The temporary out-migration thus entailed provides married men with cash for imported goods (e.g., cloth) that their wives cannot afford.

Interestingly, however, even "wealthy men have little ability to make decisions involving their wives" (Siegel 1969:145) and are said to be "powerless" within their own households. This is much like the situation in the nineteenth century. A key difference, according to Siegel, is that while men are "still unable to make decisions in their families,... they [now] feel entitled to do so" and, more generally, now hold "ideas about themselves [that] are no longer defined by their social [i.e., kinship] roles" (Siegel 1969:137).

Siegel explains (i.e., locates) men's "powerlessness" in terms of Acehnese constructions of masculinity (and gender generally) and the ways in which these constructions have been informed by modernist teachings of the sort alluded to earlier. A brief discussion of some of the data marshalled to support his argument may be useful here, especially since the data call into question Siegel's previously noted contention that men now think about themselves in ways that are no longer defined by their kinship or social roles. As will be apparent in due course, my reading of Siegel's data indicates that the latter contention is only partially correct and is, in any case, rather misleading. For while Acehnese men and women alike now have available to them culturally elaborated religious schema that define men in "positional" rather than "relational" terms (e.g., as Muslims, irrespective of their particular kinship affiliations and loyalties), their constructions of masculinity seem to be more thoroughly informed by the "relational" components of men's identities, and by their notions

of husbands and fathers specifically. In this respect, twentieth-century Aceh is strikingly similar both to nineteenth-century Aceh and to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Negeri Sembilan.

Siegel's argument concerning men's powerlessness within their wives' households takes as its point of departure a series of null hypotheses. Such powerlessness is not a function of the kinship system (Siegel 1969:138), as might be expected if the Acehnese system included descent units of matrilineal design, in which case men would most likely have formal (but not necessarily all that much substantive) authority over their sisters' households, but not over their wives'. Nor is such powerlessness to be explained either in terms of men's prolonged absences from their wives' households and villages, or in terms of women's appreciable resources or well-honed strategies of resistance (178). Rather, men are powerless and without a place in their wives' families due to "contradiction[s] in what success [currently] means to them" and to the Acehnese generally. On the one hand, men feel that they are due deference and indulgence (and that they have a right to make decisions) in light of their financial contributions to their wives' households. "On the other hand, they feel demeaned when they receive the deference and indulgence they seek" (179). The main reason for this is that, in the wake of modernist teachings concerning the conceptualization of experience in terms of "reason" and "passion," asking for indulgence (gratification of desire) is a sign of their lack of akal ("reason") (149), and thus is an index of the predominance of "passion" over "reason."

To understand these dynamics we need to took more closely at the "deference" and "indulgence" to which Siegel refers. Men are deferred to by their wives only so long as they provide cash. In Siegel's words:

Women feel the husband has a place in the family only for as long as the money he brings home from the East lasts. When it is gone, they no longer want their husbands around. Their understanding of the marriage contract is that men have a place in the home only if they pay for it each day.... Their husbands' contributions entitle them to be fed and deferred to while they pay for it; but when the money is gone, they should go too. They do not feet that men are entitled to share in the larger decisions of the family. (Siegel 1969:176–77; emphasis added)

Siegel goes on to make the following points:

To treat a man as a guest is to treat him like a child. Both guests and children are indulged , and neither is allowed authority.... Without deference , men are no longer guests, only children. (181–82; emphasis added; cf. 153–54)

In sum, a man's exertion of power within his household indexes his lack of rationality or "reason," and thus seriously compromises his moral standing as an adult man and as a Muslim generally.

It should come as no surprise to find that conjugal strife is quite common in Aceh and frequently leads to divorce. (In Pidie, some 50% of all marriages end in divorce; the figure for the larger region is slightly lower [39%].) Nor should it come as a surprise to find that Acelinese attribute most divorces to conflicts over money or, more precisely, to conflicts over the fruits of a married man's labor power and productivity (Siegel 1969:174–76). In this connection it is significant that men fear that their wives will demand too much of them, and that of all the qualities that women seek in prospective husbands, generosity ("not being stingy") tops the list (165; see also 174–75). To put the point differently, the ideal husband earns considerable sums of money on the rantou (in the course of out-migration) and spends most of it on his wife and children, rather than on himself or on his mother, sisters, or other natal kin. The husband who sends or brings back nothing, by contrast, not only inverts the ideal, but is also subject to divorce (Jayawardena 1977b:29).

The problem for married men, however, is not simply that they feel that their wives and affines expect too much of them (Siegel 1969:165). but also that they have moral and material obligations to their natal households, which are in many respects in conflict with those to their wives. It is not entirely clear from Siegel's data (or from other relevant sources; e.g., Jayawardena 1977a, 1977b) if the husband role is informed by elder brother norms, as occurs in Negeri Sembilan, throughout the Malay Peninsula, and in much of the rest of the Malay-Indonesian world, but this seems to be the case. It is quite apparent, in any event, that conflicts in men's roles as brothers and as husbands/fathers provide much of the raw material for the domestic tensions and strife many men (and women) experience.

Equally obvious are four other, more general, points. First, men's relational roles are the subject of considerable cultural elaboration and are in fact hegemonic with respect to practical representations of masculinity. Second, practical representations of masculinity, which emphasize men's "passion" rather than their "reason," are largely out of keeping with, and are in many respects inversions of, their official counterparts, which emphasize men's "reason" rather than their "passion." Third, these (practical) representations are relatively negative and have this (negative) quality because they reflect appreciable disjunctions between the expectations that married men will generate property rights, wealth, and prestige for

their wives' households on the one hand, and married men's actual abilities (and/or willingness) to satisfy these expectations on the other. And fourth, the contrasting representations of masculinity reported for Aceh are quite similar to those I have documented for Negeri Sembilan and are, in addition, motivated and (re)produced by many of the same sets of variables.

Some important questions remain. To what extent are women's views of men shared by men themselves? Is there a class dynamic at work here, as is true of Negeri Sembilan? And finally, what are the comparative and theoretical implications of the cultural elaboration of practical representations of masculinity that focus on men in their roles as husbands and fathers? I will address each of these questions in turn.

The answer to the question concerning the extent to which women's views of men are shared by men themselves is relatively straightforward. Siegel reports that "men cannot withstand their wives' complaints and go back to the East, usually sooner than they had anticipated, because they share their wives' estimations of themselves " (Siegel 1969:181; emphasis added). This means, among other things, that we are not dealing with views or representations of masculinity that are part of an exclusively female "counterculture." Note, also, that men sometimes characterize adult mates as a whole as "lazy," as do women (Siegel 1969:180);^[4] that all such data call into question Siegel's previously cited contention that men now hold "ideas about themselves [that] are no longer defined by their social [i.e., kinship] roles"; and that this situation is very much in keeping with that of Negeri Sembilan.

As for the question regarding class, Siegel remarks only that "men who don't go on rantou are noticeably poorer and often have trouble with their wives" (Siegel 1969:166). This might be interpreted to mean that marital strife and divorce are more common among the poor than among the wealthy. It is not clear, however, if views of men as a whole are shaped by stereotypic perceptions bearing on impoverished men (especially their "poor showing" as husbands and fathers), but I suspect that this is the case, as it is in Negeri Sembilan.

The answer to the remaining question, concerning the comparative and theoretical implications of the cultural elaboration of practical representations of masculinity that focus on men in their roles as husbands and fathers, is more complex, particularly since it bears on and calls into question some fundamental assumptions in the anthropological, sociological, and psychoanalytic literature on gender. To sketch out some of the implications of the relevant data from Aceh (and Negeri Sembilan), I provide a

quick (highly selective) overview of recent developments in Ortner's thinking about gender, and then turn to a brief discussion of an enduring theme (the "relational/positional" dichotomy) in the work of Nancy Chodorow, which has informed the thinking of Ortner (and Whitehead), among many others, and which has, I believe, led to a skewed understanding of some of the cross-cultural differences and similarities in structural definitions of males and females.

Earlier on we discussed Ortner's (1974) thesis that women are everywhere held to be "closer to nature" and "further from culture" than men, and that this conceptual linkage is what explains their universal cultural devaluation (secondary status). We saw that this insightful and provocative argument stimulated a great deal of additional research, even though it was highly static and did of course produce much controversy. It remains to emphasize that some of the criticism directed at the thesis, along with largely unrelated developments in social and cultural theory, encouraged Ortner to rethink her overall theoretical orientation. This is readily apparent from the 1981 volume Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality , which she co-edited with Harriet Whitehead. Both in her essay on "Gender and Sexuality in Hierarchical Societies," and in the introduction to Sexual Meanings , which she co-authored with Whitehead, Ortner advocates a processual, dynamic, actor-oriented, practice-theory approach to the study of gender. She suggests, in addition, that the most profitable approach involves examining constructions of gender as inextricably enmeshed both with structures of production and exchange and with the more encompassing systems of prestige to which these structures are keyed.

I am in broad agreement with this position, as many features of the foregoing analysis would suggest. I also find much of value in Ortner and Whitehead's insights into the ways in which the meanings of "female" and the social standing of women may be "pulled down" by the cultural elaboration of certain kinship roles and the relative hegemony of these roles in ideologies of gender. Ortner and Whitehead (1981a:21) point out, for instance, that, cross-culturally, one or another different female relational role—mother, daughter, sister—"tend[s] to dominate the category of 'female' and to color the meanings of all other female relational roles." For example, in most Islamic, Mediterranean, and Catholic cultures, and of course in the United States, the systems of prestige and moral evaluation are such that the category "female" is strongly shaped by local understandings of "mother" and "wife," which, among other things, focus on sexuality and reproduction and thus effectively situate woman and fe-

maleness "closer to nature" in Ortner's 1974 sense. The same is true for Buddhist cultures in Thailand and beyond, as is evident both from the common ground underlying debates between Kirsch (1982, 1985) and Keyes (1984), and from Ledgerwood's recent (1992) work on Khmer women.

This situation contrasts rather sharply with what one finds in Polynesia. In Polynesia, where kinship and political systems tend to be structured by symbols and idioms of cognatic descent, men build up status and prestige by attracting followers, and do this partly by using kinswomen—especially sisters, but also daughters—as "bait" (to use Ortner's term). Consequently, in many Polynesian societies, the category "female" is very much colored by local understandings and values of "sisterhood," and is only minimally informed by local notions of "mother" and "wife." This serves to deemphasize women's sexuality, reproductive capacities, and links with "natural functions," and is partly responsible for the fact that Polynesian women are viewed in a more positive light than women in most Islamic, Mediterranean, Catholic, and Buddhist cultures.

I concur with Ortner and Whitehead on many of these points, and am, more generally, rather heavily indebted to them insofar as their work helped inspire the analytic framework developed in this study. At the same time, there are, I believe, certain features of their approach that limit its explanatory power, two of which merit remark here. First, their perspective on gender ideology (and ideology on the whole) is a rather totalizing one inasmuch as it focuses almost entirely on official discourse and in these and other ways makes insufficient analytic provision for the existence of the contrasting discourses that inevitably make up any given ideological formation. I hasten to add, however, that Ortner now recognizes as much and has gone a long way toward developing an analytic apparatus capable of handling such multiplicity (see Ortner 1989–90).

A second problem with Ortner and Whitehead's approach, one which Ortner does not address in her most recent work, is that it rests on the a priori, unargued assumption that in all societies there is a rigid dichotomy between the structural definitions of males and females. (This same assumption also informs Ortner's earlier [1974] work.) More specifically, after Ortner and Whitehead underscore that in all societies females are defined relationally, they go on to claim that there are no corresponding patterns in the case of males. In their words, "analogous distinctions among men are not critical for masculinity" (Ortner and Whitehead 1981a:21; emphasis added), because men, unlike women, tend to be defined in terms of "positional" ([allegedly] "nonrelational") statuses, such

as "hunter," "warrior," "chief," "politician," and so on. Such claims, which seem to derive in large part from the work of Nancy Chodorow, take for granted important issues, such as masculinity, that should be, along with femininity, at the center of analysis, and certainly merit reassessment in light of Negeri Sembilan data, as well as data from Aceh (and elsewhere).

Suffice it to reiterate that, in Negeri Sembilan, the comportment of married men in relation to their wives is judged largely in terms of the behavioral standards that pertain to elder brothers' treatment (nurturance, protection, etc.) of their younger sisters, and that many married men fall short of the "elder brother" ideal due to their inability to produce sufficient property rights, wealth, and prestige for their wives and their wives' kin. Married men who find that they cannot live up to the expectations of, or otherwise cope with pressures from, their wives and affines, frequently divorce or simply desert their wives, along with any children they might have. This course of action not only helps to shape and reproduce local (practical) views that husbands and fathers are both unreliable and untrustworthy; it also colors practical views of masculinity in their entirety. These latter practical views serve, in turn, to offset and vitiate official views of males, just as they effectively substantiate and promote practical views of females. More broadly, data from Negeri Sembilan and Aceh (where similar dynamics prevail) indicate that in the practice of everyday life, certain male relational roles—those of elder brother, husband, and father—may not only dominate the category of "male" but may also inform the meanings of all other male relational (and "positional") roles. As noted earlier, these same data make clear that it is not merely the meanings of "female," or the social standing of women, that may be dragged down by the cultural elaboration of relational roles and their relative hegemony in everyday, practical discourses on gender. This can also occur in the case of masculinity and the social standing of men, even though males may still come out ahead as regards the overall distribution of power, prestige, and virtue.

Ortner and Whitehead's dichotomizing approach to structural definitions of males and females derives largely from Chodorow's feminist reworking of psychoanalytic theory (although it also has deep roots in the pioneering work of Simone de Beauvoir [1949], which also informs Chodorow's thinking on the subject of women). A brief overview of some of the problems with this dichotomy as it is developed in the highly influential work of Chodorow (1978, 1989) may thus be useful here, though I should make clear at the outset that Ortner and Whitehead's position is

not burdened with all the cultural and other baggage that Chodorow brings to her analyses.

I cannot do justice to the complexity of Chodorow's extremely insightful arguments concerning the "deep structural" (and other) implications of the fact that females predominate in all societies in the rearing of infants and young children. I am concerned primarily with the way she frames some of her most general conclusions regarding the implications of such facts for the reproduction of gendered difference: for example, that women are, to use the portmanteau concept, "relationally oriented."^[5] One problem in this regard is that Chodorow is inconsistent when it comes to specifying whether the particular male-female contrasts with which she is concerned—e.g., conscious and unconscious emotional needs and capacities to relate to others, conscious and unconscious gender-role identifications—involve differences in degree versus differences in kind . In many places, for example, she argues, quite plausibly in my view, that men have less developed or elaborated relational needs and capacities than women. Elsewhere she states, also quite plausibly, that men often deny such needs and capacities. In still other places, however, Chodorow advances the implausible argument that men do not have any such needs and capacities. The term "arelational masculinity," which Chodorow employs in some of her most recent (e.g., 1989:185) writing, further muddies the issue.

Perhaps most problematic, though, is Chodorow's dubious analytic leap from data concerning conscious and unconscious relational needs and capacities, and conscious and unconscious gender-role identifications, to arguments about formal cultural or ideological constructions of gender. Chodorow contends, for example, that in the capitalist world, in other hierarchical, bureaucratically organized societies (the [former] Soviet Union is cited as an example), and, indeed, in all societies, men, unlike women, are defined in formal cultural or ideological terms "positionally" (by their positions or roles in the economy or public domain) rather than relationally (in terms of the domestic domain). But we need to ask the following here: Who is doing the defining, and in what contexts are the definitions at issue relevant to the ways in which people actually experience, understand, and represent one another in the practice of everyday life? It seems quite clear that, from the point of view of state-sponsored nationalist ideologies, men in the United States, the former Soviet Union, Malaysia, and many other places are defined primarily in what Chodorow would refer to as "positional" terms, that is, as members of particular occupational groups, social classes, and ethnic communities (though I should perhaps emphasize the self-evident point that the meaningfulness

of such "positional" identifications is thoroughly relational). But if one looks beyond the elitist top-down perspective and examines the situation either from the bottom-up or simply from within the familial contexts, local social fields, and more encompassing (local) communities in which men (and women) act out, experience, and make sense of much of their lives, these types of components and overall definitions of male identity lose much of their salience and are supplanted by relational definitions of the sort ostensibly reserved for women. This is especially true in communities characterized by (1) relatively little racial, ethnic, religious, class, and occupational diversity; (2) structures of kinship that continue to provide hegemonic frameworks for many domains of society and culture; and, more generally, (3) local ideologies that are in critical respects out of synch with state-sponsored ideologies. To put this last point somewhat differently: "Positional" components and overall definitions of male identity lose much of their salience and are supplanted by relational components and definitions bearing on masculinity in communities in which state-sponsored ideologies are not nearly as hegemonic as they are—or are assumed to be—in Western societies, which is to say, in the vast majority of the contexts in which anthropologists have traditionally studied.

The problem as I see it, then, is that Chodorow and others who adopt her "relational-positional" dichotomy not only impose an overly simplistic "either-or" view on Western data concerning similarities and differences in structural definitions of males and females, which is linked to if not derived from an uncritical distinction between domestic and public domains. They also both overvalorize and overgeneralize from culturally and historically specific state-sponsored constructions of maleness, and, in the process, unwittingly offer up selected elements of a particular variant of a heavily motivated native or folkloric model as an analytic model with purportedly universal applicability. Such oversights are especially curious in the case of Chodorow since some of her earliest (e.g., 1974) work not only makes reference to Acehnese material, but does in fact draw on much the same corpus of Siegel's research (e.g., Siegel 1969) that is cited here.

It is interesting, though not surprising, that the "relational-positional" dichotomy has received very little critical analytic attention to date, and has, for this reason, outlived many of the other dichotomies that informed earlier work on gender and women, such as the (originally formulated) distinctions between "public" and "domestic" (or "private") domains and "nature" and "culture." Perhaps the main reason for the undeserved longevity of this dichotomy is that constructions of masculinity continue to

suffer from what I referred to earlier on as the "taken-for-granted syndrome."

Although the particular dimensions of Chodorow's framework that I have addressed here have received minimal analytic attention to date, recent years have of course witnessed numerous ethnographically grounded critiques of other psychologically oriented universalistic arguments that claim to lay bare either the "essence(s)" of woman or femininity, or the "essence(s)" of male-female contrasts. Stack's recent (1990) work on African Americans, for example, demonstrates convincingly that hypotheses of the sort developed by Carol Gilligan (1982)—concerning ostensibly universal contrasts between males and females with respect to the development of moral reasoning—suffer from various ethnocentric biases and are for these and other reasons highly problematic. Firmly grounded ethnographic analyses of the sort undertaken by Stack are of critical importance if we are to avoid increasingly free-floating and ethereal psychologistic discussions of purportedly universal contrasts (or similarities) between males and females; or, to put it more positively, if we are to advance our understanding of the myriad complexities and nuances of gender(ed) difference (and sameness).

Transformations on Islamic Themes in Southeast Asia and Beyond: Minangkabau, Negeri Sembilan Malays, Javanese, and Bedouin Compared

Minangkabau and Negeri Sembilan Malays

The foregoing discussion indicates that the case of Negeri Sembilan is by no means anomalous, and that Negeri Sembilan Malays do in fact have much in common with the ("bilateral") Acehnese of northern Sumatra. Both cases also bear a strong family resemblance to the ("matrilineal") Minangkabau of West Sumatra, who, it will be recalled, are both the southerly neighbors of the Acehnese and the ancestral group from which Negeri Sembilan Malays trace their descent.

Minangkabau systems of prestige, along with many other features of Minangkabau society and culture, are much like those reported for Negeri Sembilan (and Aceh), as will be apparent in due course. One needs to bear in mind, however, that there are also important differences in these two societies, some of which can be attributed to the circumstances of the Minangkabau's migration to and settlement in Negeri Sembilan (beginning around the fourteenth century if not earlier), along with their subsequent

interactions (which included occasional intermarriage and various types of trade, political accommodation, and warfare) with both the non-Muslim aborigines as well as the ("bilateral") Malays inhabiting surrounding areas. Other contrasts derive from the rather dissimilar colonial experiences of Minangkabau and Negeri Sembilan Malays (under the Dutch and British, respectively), and their quite different experiences under the postcolonial governments of Indonesia and Malaysia. More generally, there are differences in these societies with respect to political succession, kinship terminology, marriage patterns, postmarital residence, domestic group dynamics (and the role of the mother's brother especially), as well as occupational specialization and entrepreneurial traditions, both of which are far more developed in Minangkabau than in Negeri Sembilan.^[6] Additionally, just as the ideological scope and force of Islam appears always to have been more pronounced in Minangkabau than in Negeri Sembilan, so, too, have mosques, prayer houses, and local "coffee shops" always been more efficacious in Minangkabau as regards creating a sense of commonality between in-marrying men and their male affines, and among males as a whole. This despite the fact that the Arabic-origin concepts of "reason" and "passion," which are highly elaborated in many domains of Negeri Sembilan (and Acehnese) society and culture, are culturally "present" though relatively unelaborated among the Minangkabau.^[7] Note also that Minangkabau constructions of masculinity, unlike their counterparts in Negeri Sembilan (and Aceh), are informed in important ways by the notion that men both possess and convey to their wives and their wives' households and kin groups highly valued (because biogenetically and spiritually potent) "seed" or "blood"—such that the exchange of men focuses in certain respects on the exchange of such "seed"/"blood" rather than on transactions over men's labor power and productivity (Pak 1986, n.d.). A full treatment of such issues would require a separate volume. My intention here is merely to highlight the existence of such variation, and to caution against the temptation, to which many, unfortunately, succumb, to make across-the-board generalizations embracing the two societies.^[8]

Having drawn attention to some of the differences between Minangkabau and Negeri Sembilan, let me turn briefly to some of the commonalities. Perhaps most obvious are the basic values of these societies (encapsulated in notions of adat, budi, malu )^[9] as well as their matrilineal descent groups, which are similar in many respects both in their structure and operation. Highly relevant as well is that among the Minangkabau, as in Negeri Sembilan (and Aceh), women are strongly favored in the proprie-

torship and inheritance of houses and most categories of land. Women also manage domestic resources, including the cash incomes of their husbands, and they play an important role in exchange activities associated with the agricultural cycle as well as the cycle of ceremonial feasting. As for other aspects of the sexual division of labor: Minangkabau women do most of the work in the rice fields (subsistence-oriented rice production provides much of the economic base, at least in "traditional" villages), though they also raise cash crops and rear poultry and livestock for sale. Men, for their part, help their wives and sisters during certain stages of the agricultural cycle but are heavily involved in temporary out-migration, which we have seen in Negeri Sembilan (and in Aceh) as well. In earlier times, the yields of men's economic activities were apparently devoted primarily to their mothers, sisters, and other female kin, as opposed to their wives and affines. These activities, like the clearing of previously unclaimed acreage suitable for residential or agricultural purposes, were oriented largely toward the creation of property and wealth for their (natal) kin groups, which could enhance the prestige standing of such groups. Note, too, that, as in Negeri Sembilan (and Aceh), large numbers of followers and substantial wealth were signs of men's spiritual power or potency.

The picture painted thus far is of course highly schematic and "traditional." A good deal has changed in many (but not all) Minangkabau communities. Perhaps most relevant are two changes which closely parallel shifts that occurred in Negeri Sembilan: First, the restructuring of men's roles as brothers (and mothers' brothers) on the one hand, and husbands and fathers on the other; and second, increased socioeconomic differentiation and stratification. Let us take these issues one at a time.

To convey a clear sense of the shifts in men's roles, we need to underscore that, in earlier times, "a husband did not necessarily have to provide a living for his wife and children, or send his children to school, or participate in decisions in their home" (Istutiah Gunawan Mitchell 1969:126). These were the responsibilities of the head of the wife's group or kaum , that is, her brother or mother's brother. The husband had responsibilities to the kaum into which he was born, which included obligations to his sisters and his sisters' children. Note, also, that a husband "was not necessarily a permanent mate; he might leave his wife over the most minor matter," a fact well captured in the customary saying or aphorism pertaining to men in their roles as husbands, "Like ash on a tree trunk, even a soft wind and it [they] will fly away" (126). Indeed, so minimal was the elaboration of the husband/father role—in contrast to the situation in

Negeri Sembilan (and Aceh), the Minangkabau man was not usually a permanent resident of his wife's house; in many cases he simply "visited" from dusk to dawn—that "reportedly a child sometimes did not recognize its own father on the street" (Hamka 1963:56–57, cited in Istutiah Gunawan Mitchell 1969:128).

Much of this changed over the last 150 years as a result of Dutch colonialism and various economic, political, and religious forces that undermined larger kin groupings (clans, lineages) and key features of the property relations undergirding them, thus effectively guaranteeing the rise to prominence of nuclear families and nuclear family households (see von Benda-Beckmann 1979). Based on research conducted in the 1960s, Tanner (1982:144), for example, reported that "during the past two generations, the husband's financial contributions to his wife have increased." These findings are similar to those of Frederick Errington, who carried out field research in 1975. Errington (1984:68) writes that "the [husband/father] role may have become even more demanding in recent years with the change in the relative importance of a man's affinal and matrilineal obligations." In some communities the father has in fact become economically central to family life to the point that, at least in relation to his wife's brothers, "he is now entirely responsible for the support of his wife and children" (Errington 1984:68; emphasis added; see also Istutiah Gunawan Mitchell 1969:130–31).

Changes in the distribution of male responsibilities may have progressed further in the Minangkabau village of Bayur (the site of Errington's research) than in many other Minangkabau communities. "There is currently little mention in Bayur of chronic financial pressures placed on a man by his sisters, evidently still a source of marital tension elsewhere" in the Minangkabau world (Errington 1984:68). Perhaps, opines Errington, this is because "Bayur has long been dependent on the outside world and has, in addition, long been subject to the patriarchal influences of reformist Islam" (68). Worthy of remark in any case is that while the wife's mother and wife's mother's sisters "scrutinize the son-in-law very clearly, they judge him particularly by the amount of his financial contribution to his household" (66). Errington goes on to underscore that "males married to sisters see each other as rivals for the approval of the parents-in-law and feel that their respective economic contributions are always subject to unfavorable comparison" (66).

More generally, as Tanner (1982), among others, has noted, a man "knows that the success of his marriage depends not only on his relationship with his wife but on his relationship to her kin," and that these rela-

tionships "are more than a little dependent on his economic contribution to the family" (135). A husband's position in the household of his wife's matrilineal extended family is indeed rather vulnerable, even under the best of circumstances (136). As Errington (1984:67) puts it, men feel they are "welcome only as long as [they are] able to make a strong contribution," but even "their best efforts to provide are often not enough.... [and] they never win an entirely secure place in their wife's home" (see also Krier 1994).

At this juncture I might emphasize that the situation described here should not be interpreted as yet another peculiar twist on the famed "matrilineal puzzle," as described either in the pioneering work of Audrey Richards (1951), or in the also classic, but modified and somewhat more sophisticated, version proposed by Schneider (1961). The matrilineal puzzle, in Richards's formulation, turns on how to trace descent through women yet allocate authority to men, and on how such authority is to be divided between matrilineally related males on the one hand and in-marrying males on the other. While Schneider accepts much of Richards's formulation, he suggests that the major tension need not focus on the relationship between the in-marrying male and his wife's brother(s), as Richards assumes, but might be realized instead in the relationship between the in-marrying male and other male members of his wife's kin group (who need not be the wife's actual brother [or mother's brother]). What we see in Minangkabau (and in Negeri Sembilan), however, is not tension arising in connection with contested authority over women and children so much—women in any case exercise far more authority than all formulations of the puzzle imply (Prindiville 1985; Tanner and Thomas 1985; Ng 1987)—as in competing claims over the labor power and productivity of in-marrying males. These are very different sets of issues, as discussed elsewhere (Peletz 1988b).^[10]

Consider also that even when competing claims from sisters and other female matrilineal kin do not figure into the picture, as appears to be the case in Bayur, married men are still under tremendous pressure to satisfy the economic expectations and demands of their wives' female kin. These expectations and demands are, at least in part, a reflection of the prestige considerations of women who evaluate and rank one another (including, perhaps especially, their sisters) in terms of what their husbands bring home for them. The expectations and demands at issue also index prestige competition among married men themselves, in a climate in which they are made to feel insecure by their parents-in-law, who are forever judging and ranking the economic contributions of the sons-in-law in relation to

one another and, presumably, in relation to other married men as well.^[11] Of broader concern here is that status rivalry is particularly intense among the Minangkabau, apparently more so than among Negeri Sembilan Malays, perhaps because socioeconomic differentiation and stratification are both quite pronounced and more elaborated than what one finds in Negeri Sembilan.

The problem for married men, then, is not simply or even primarily that they are subject to competing claims on their labor power and productivity; indeed, in some cases this is not an issue at all: rather, it is the spiralling economic expectations and demands of their wives' female kin, particularly their wives' mothers. But this is only part of it; the other salient issue is that the "rising social expectations have not been proportionately paralleled by new channels being created for realizing these aspirations," one consequence of which is that "the desire to accumulate wealth or professional prestige has become an increasing psychological burden on Minangkabau men" (Istutiah Gunawan Mitchell 1969:131).

Data on divorce and its distribution are especially relevant here and are very much in keeping with data from Negeri Sembilan (and Aceh). Tanner (1982:148 n.9) refers to divorce as "very common" and Errington (1984:66) makes a similar claim—"divorce is frequent"—adding in parentheses that "Naim (1973) calculates divorce to be the highest in Indonesia." While precise figures are hard to come by, Tanner comments that the rate "varies widely" from village to village, and that at the time of her research in 1964 divorce "varied from two to forty-four percent" (Tanner 1982:139). More recent data indicate that the divorce rate among male elders is between 45 and 51 percent, and that the rate for female elders is between 32 and 36 percent (Kato 1982:180–81).

Relatively infrequent divorce, according to Tanner (1982:148 n.10), is due partly to "economic prosperity," though "modernist Islam" is also a factor in lowering the rate. Based partly on the existence of similar patterns in Negeri Sembilan and Aceh, I take the first part of this explanation to mean that divorce is less common among relatively wealthy households because the husbands/fathers in those households are better able to live up to the economic expectations and demands of their wives and female kin than are married men in poor households (though the fact that the adult members of wealthy households also have more to lose in the event of divorce may also be relevant). The second part of the explanation, concerning the influence of modernist Islam, may be interpreted to mean that cultural and institutional factors associated with modernist Islam have effectively discouraged divorce by making it more difficult to effect (as has

happened in Negeri Sembilan and other parts of Malaysia), by impressing upon men (and women) their marital and parental responsibilities as Muslims, or by otherwise contributing to the durability (and perhaps the stability) of conjugal bonds. Such factors do not operate in a classless vacuum, however, and, all things being equal, it is probably harder for poor men (and women) to honor their familial commitments as Muslims in the context of marriage. This is significant insofar as the alternative discourse on Minangkabau masculinity that emphasizes men being unreasonable and irresponsible (see below) is undoubtedly fueled by perceptions of husbands/fathers at the bottom of the class hierarchy—as is clearly the case in Negeri Sembilan and Aceh. As in Negeri Sembilan and Aceh, then, our analyses of gender among the Minangkabau must be informed by an understanding of locally salient variables of kinship as well as class.

In light of the overall situation described here, one might reasonably expect to find among the Minangkabau an alternative discourse on masculinity which is in many respects out of keeping with the official line emphasizing male ascendancy,^[12] and which is, in addition, highly elaborated. In point of fact, alternative, largely counter-hegemonic representations of masculinity emphasizing male irresponsibility and unreliability and, more generally, the ways in which men's "passion" dominates their "reason" and renders them morally bankrupt, are found in daily discourse and are enshrined in oral and written literature (Postel-Coster 1992:232; Whalley 1993; Blackwood 1995; Krier 1995).^[13] But unlike the otherwise similar situations in Negeri Sembilan and Aceh, they do not appear to be highly elaborated. Why this is so is difficult to gauge with any degree of certitude, and it is possible that their minimal presence in the ethnographic literature reflects previous observers' narrow focus on official discourse (or adat , matriliny, or women). On the other hand—and this, I think, is more likely—the alternative discourse may exist in relatively unelaborated form due to the fact that Minangkabau masculinity is defined, formally and otherwise, in a much less economically based "performative" fashion than is masculinity in either Negeri Sembilan or Aceh, and is thus less easily called into question by the realities of men's economic performances in their roles as husbands/fathers. Put differently, because Minangkabau constructions of masculinity, unlike their counterparts in Negeri Sembilan and Aceh, are informed in important ways by the notion that men both possess and convey biogenetically and spiritually potent "seed" or "blood" to their wives and their wives' households and lineages (Tanner 1982:137–38; Pak 1986, n.d.; Krier 1994), Minangkabau men are less apt to be defined in negative terms simply because they fall short in

a narrow economic sense.^[14] The focus on men's contributions conveyed through semen and realized in the production of (ideally) "high quality" children belonging to the wife's household and lineage thus constrains the elaboration of negative discourses on masculinity, though it certainly does not preclude their (relatively unelaborated) existence in the first place.^[15]

One corollary of these arguments is that Minangkabau constructions of masculinity are somewhat less vulnerable to the dislocations and other vicissitudes entailed in local communities' heightened integration into state frameworks, global economies, and systems of nationalist and transnational discourse than is the case with constructions of masculinity found in societies such as Negeri Sembilan and Aceh.^[16] But this does not mean that the "relational" components of Minangkabau masculinity are any less significant in an analytic sense. We still see men being defined and judged in critically important ways in terms of what they contribute to their kin (e.g., their wives and children, and their wives' kin), and to reproduction in both the biological and social senses of the term: "While [Minangkabau] women are defined as the source of continuity, [Minangkabau] men are essential to the cycle of continuity; they are the agents who are brought in from the outside or who are sent out to create children; the future reproducers of the women's lineages" (Ng 1987:205). Equally noteworthy is that Minangkabau masculinity and femininity alike are deeply suffused with ambivalence, and will undoubtedly continue to be characterized by profoundly mixed emotions as the Minangkabau find themselves forced to negotiate the increasingly slippery terrain of Indonesian modernity. This is all the more likely since the (Javacentric) nationalist, "development"-oriented, and reformist Islamic discourses on Indonesian modernity accord relatively little value to what is uniquely or distinctively Minangkabau, and are thus (further) transforming and eroding key features of locally valorized conceptions bearing on personhood and kinship as well as gender(ed) difference and sameness.

Javanese

The earliest accounts bearing on kinship and gender in Java emphasized the formally "bilateral" nature of the Javanese kinship system, its matrilateral and matrifocal biases, the high rates of divorce, and the prevalence of women both in small-scale trading activities and in the marketplace generally,^[17] and in managing domestic resources, including the cash incomes of their husbands (see, e.g., Geertz [1961] 1989; Jay 1969; Koentjaraningrat 1960). The authors of these accounts typically took the position

that men's relative exclusion from economic activities of the sort at issue here is best explained by Javanese (men's) prestige considerations, most notably men's concerns that their involvement in such domains might undermine their spiritual power or potency (sakti, kesaktian ) or otherwise sully their status (see also Keeler 1987, 1990). Consistent with such (early) accounts is the assumption that there is in Java a single, seamless, more or less uniform and hegemonic ideology of gender. Brenner (1995), however, has argued convincingly that such explanations and assumptions—along with the attendant line of reasoning emphasizing the "bad" economic decisions that might follow from male economic actors' obsessive concerns with status—only go so far; and that, as such, we need to devote more attention to the limits and silences of this official line on gender. More importantly, she delineates the practical, largely counter-hegemonic view, heretofore effectively ignored in the ethnographic literature, that men do not actively participate in such domains because they are, as Raffles put it early in the nineteenth century, "fools in money concerns" owing to their inabilities to control their desires and "passion" (nepsu in Javanese) and thus act in accordance with their rationality or "reason" (akal in Javanese). Actually, this point was alluded to some years ago by Hildred Geertz, as evidenced by her remark that men themselves "frequently express the belief that they are incapable of handling money carefully, whereas women are supposed to have thrift and foresight" (Geertz [1961] 1989:123; cf. Jay 1969:92; Smith-Hefner 1988a), though she did not really explore its implications. The precise ways in which these practical views of gender are distributed among Javanese (e.g., in terms of gender, class, etc.) is difficult to discern since the available evidence does not speak to such matters directly or in any detail. However, we do know that the views in question are "not ... held exclusively by women," and that they do in fact both "underlie key roles that men and women play in the household" and "form the basis for their practices in other spheres of social life" (Brenner 1995:32).

In short, the available literature provides abundant evidence of the existence in Java of alternative representations of masculinity (and femininity), some of which clearly contradict the official hegemony described in earlier works, which was assumed to effectively "sum up" Javanese constructions of gender (and self-control). The question thus becomes, What is the conceptual source of the alternative view of masculinity at issue here? The answer, quite clear from Brenner's data, is men's greater sexual passion: "Most Javanese men and women take as a given that men have an innately greater desire for sex than women, and that this desire is

extremely difficult for them to suppress. In relation to economic practices, this view of the "inherent differences between women and men leads people in Solo [Central Java] to conclude that women are naturally better suited to managing household finances, the family firm, or the marketplace" (Brenner 1995:33). As for the connection between controlling money and controlling one's "passions," listen to the words of a Javanese man in his seventies: "Women make better traders and entrepreneurs than men, because men have greater lust (syahwat ) than women. Men can never hold on to money for long, because if you give them money, they'll spend it on getting women. Give 'em enough money and they'll have more than one wife, either out in the open or on the sly. Men have greater desires than women. It's always men who spend money on women, who 'buy' women. Who ever heard of a woman buying a man?" (cited in Brenner 1995:33).

The perspective articulated by this man resonates deeply with the views of many other Javanese men and women (see, e.g., Geertz [1961] 1989:131). It is also strikingly similar to the perspectives I encountered among men and women in Negeri Sembilan (as is the overall construction of his argument, with the exception of his reference to the term syahwat , which, in my experience, is not used by Malays). So, too, ultimately, are the specific contexts or relationships in which such views presumably develop-essentially those of marriage (or extramarital liaisons, which are, by definition, viewed in direct relation to marriage and are, equally clearly, held to be highly threatening to marriage and the economic viability of adulterous men's households). More precisely, it is the cultural understanding and moral evaluation of sexual difference—men's greater or stronger sexual urges as compared with women's—realized in the context of marriage (or adultery) that is the ultimate origin of such views.

The relative importance of the theme of "oversexed" husbands (and men generally) with respect to counter-hegemonic representations of masculinity appears more pronounced in Java than in Negeri Sembilan, Aceh, and Minangkabau, but the reasons for such differences are not altogether clear. The contrasts in question might well be related to the fact that Java is far more stratified than the other societies, and that Javanese, especially Central Javanese, are much more concerned with the maintenance—and transgression—of finely graded social distinctions, speech levels, postural and other bodily regimes, and the like. The scope and force of these concerns presuppose intense, ever vigilant social (especially self-) control and, as such, necessarily foreground forces over and against which self-control is defined—most notably, unbridled sexuality—thus render-

ing them both more culturally elaborated and more fraught with ambivalence and anxiety than in the other societies we have considered.

Also relevant are differences in variables related to the systems of production and exchange. Women in Java are more strongly associated with marketing, trade, and cash incomes than women in the other societies we have considered, just as Javanese men are less strongly linked with these phenomena than men in the other societies. Partly for this reason—but also because the system of marriage and affinal exchange in Java has never focused on the exchange of men, whereas those of our other societies did and in some cases still do—the economic performance of men in their roles as husbands has long and perhaps always been less of a culturally elaborated concern in Java than in these other societies.

Further information about the Javanese ideology of fault in divorce—whether most marital problems and dissolutions are attributed to the unreasonable and irresponsible behavior of men, as is true in Negeri Sembilan and Aceh—would obviously be useful here, but there is relatively little material on such topics in the relevant studies (e.g., Geertz [1961] 1989; Nakamura 1983). Note, however, that in the late 1950s Hildred Geertz (139–40) found that "sexual infidelity" was the reason for divorce most commonly cited by divorcing couples themselves, and that the sexual infidelity at issue typically involved the husband, not the wife. Significant as well is that divorce among the (then) highest echelons of Javanese society (the priyayi ) was said to be "rare," and that "shotgun weddings" were more common among the poor (70–71, 138–39). Bear in mind also that, at present, the theme of men's (economic) irresponsibility in their roles as husbands is one that is most often articulated by lower-class women, and that, generally speaking, one of the things that most troubles women about men's sexual infidelities is the threat that such relationships pose to the economic viability of their households (Brenner 1995). The reasons for these overall patterns are undoubtedly quite similar to those we have discussed in connection with Negeri Sembilan and, to a lesser extent, Aceh and Minangkabau. So, too, are many of their theoretical implications; for example, the merits—indeed, the necessity—of describing and analyzing gender in relation to kinship and other forms of difference and inequality (class, race, etc.).

There are two more general points to emphasize. First, while Javanese views bearing on men's ineptness in the marketplace and their mismanagement of funds need not necessarily, but in point of fact do to some degree, focus on men in one or another kinship ("relational") role, stereotypic views of men as ultimately more strongly sexed than women clearly

do. All such views, moreover, counterbalance and to some degree negate official representations of men as more reasonable and responsible than women (and offset and vitiate official representations of women), just as they serve to legitimize both the sexual division of labor and exchange, and myriad other features of social and cultural life. It is thus essential to incorporate such views into our discussions of gender (and kinship) in Java. If we fail to do so, we not only find ourselves in the dark as regards the variables many Javanese cite in legitimizing their gendered division of labor and exchange; we also end up with a seriously impoverished analysis of Javanese experiences, understandings, and representations of gender(ed) difference and sameness.

The second point relates to Brenner's important observation (39) that the marketplace as a domain in the control of women is thus also a "place where women cannot be controlled by men." But can or do market women control themselves? The answer, provided in part by ambiguity and ambivalence in the stories of changing female sexual freedoms and embodiments of power that have been appropriated by Indonesian media and national narratives (Brenner 1995; see also Hellwig 1992), would seem to be a resounding, though not altogether unambiguous, no. For according to one view of things, while women are in many contexts possessed of greater self-control and rationality than men, they are ultimately incapable of controlling themselves (sexually and otherwise)—as, in many contexts, are men. According to the competing view, market women can indeed control themselves but are nonetheless prone to sexual exploits outside marriage because of financial need or concerns to get even with womanizing husbands. Both views indicate (among other things) that profound ambivalence permeates some of the most basic categories through which Javanese experience, understand, and represent both their immediate social universe(s) and the world at large. In this respect, Javanese clearly have much in common with people in Negeri Sembilan and Aceh, and, to a lesser extent, Minangkabau.

Bedouin

The Mzeini Bedouin, who inhabit the South Sinai Peninsula (Egypt), provide an especially appropriate ethnographic example with which to conclude this comparative discussion. The Bedouin in this region are heirs to a rich tribal legacy which includes not only segmentary lineage organization built up on a highly elaborated ideology of patrilineal descent, but also a tradition of fiercely independent, nomadic pastoralism. For the past

half century or so, however, they have been subject to extreme social and cultural dislocations stemming from the occupation of the region by a succession of foreign armies (British, Egyptian, Israeli, Soviet), the most recent of which—Israelis and Egyptians—also sought to "develop" the region through policies promoting agriculture, sedentarization, and large-scale tourism. For the most part, these policies have precluded the enactment of "traditional" Bedouin cultural identity, and as a result, such identity is nowadays realized primarily in the context of allegorical performances. These performances typically occur when a discussion turns into an argument and one or another creative individual steps up to recount an ostensibly personal story that serves to allegorize his or her experiences for the group as a whole and thus resolve, if only temporarily, both the specific argument which prompted the allegorical performance as well as the paradoxes and contradictions of Bedouin identity at large (Lavie 1990).

Analysis of allegories and other relevant data reveal that in many respects "Mzeini ideas about gender ... [do] not differ much from the general Muslim ideology of gender—a hierarchical order where women are to be controlled because of their emotional, passionate, and capricious souls, capable of bringing shame ('eib ) on the whole family, whereas men, with their ability to think and act rationally, acquire religious honor (sharaf, karama^[*] ) for exerting authority over women" (Lavie 1990:119). Mzeini discourses on gender do in fact build on the concepts of "reason" and "passion" (which, in the Mzeini vernacular, are referred to as 'agl and nafs , respectively), much like the other groups we have considered, though there are of course some characteristically Bedouin twists on these concepts and their social realization that are absent from (or heavily deemphasized in) the other societies discussed thus far. (For example, local understandings of these concepts are tinged with strongly patriarchal overtones and entail the veiling of women, the maintenance of strict purdah codes, the favoring of sons in inheritance and many other contexts, and conceptual links underscoring the ways in which masculinity is tied to honor and autonomy [and vice versa] and femininity to modesty and dependency [and vice versa].) Similarly, among the Mzeini we find that official discourses on "reason" and "passion," and on masculinity and femininity, coexist with an analytically distinct, though culturally interlocked, everyday/practical discourse which is highly subversive with respect to—though not, strictly speaking, a wholesale inversion of—the official line(s) on gender.

This discourse focuses on the themes of ghayii , or "sexual lust" on the one hand, and sabr , or "patience" (endurance, tolerance, and equanimity) on the other. In this latter (quotidian) discourse, men are said to be governed by "sexual lust" (rather than "reason"), women by "patience" (rather than "passion"). This discourse is highly elaborated and is in fact, as already noted, the prevailing discourse in everyday life. Its broad scope and force can be explained in part by the constraints of military occupation and the severe political and economic dislocations associated with it, which make it quite difficult for most men to realize their "rationality" through the economic support of their families. The entailments of wage labor and out-migration are also such that most men are not in a position to exercise daily or other control over their wives or other female kin. One of the few areas in which they can realistically attempt such control is the sexual arena, but for various reasons the sexual advances they make toward their wives are typically rebuffed, and their authority and honor are thus seriously challenged. Repeated episodes involving the contestation of men's control over their wives' sexuality often lead to marital disputes and wife beating, just as they fuel the Mzeini's high rates of divorce. ("On the average, young Mzeinis remarry one to three times" [Lavie 1990:122].) Factors such as these clearly animate and sustain practical, subversive views of masculinity that focus on men's insatiable "sexual lust." So, too, does the fact that many men resort to bestiality (with donkeys) to satisfy their sexual urges (Lavie 1990:123–24), whereas women do not.

Quotidian representations of women are motivated and reinforced by the same sets of circumstances. According to these representations, women are both more "patient" than men and less strongly sexed, and to a certain degree more "reasonable" as well. The theme of women's "patience" (endurance, tolerance, and the like) is encouraged by women's perceived successes in dealing with all that they have to put up with, both from their husbands and in life generally. This includes making do economically in the absence of significant contributions from their husbands, and negotiating various contexts in which, due to the intrusions of occupying forces and gawking tourists, among others, their privacy is invaded and the maintenance of purdah codes is rendered extremely difficult.

The prevalence of the idea that women are less strongly sexed than men is due in part to the fact that, as previously noted, they often resist their husbands' sexual advances and in any case are far less likely to initiate sex. The practice of clitoridectomy may be relevant here insofar as it

deadens key pleasure zones and tends to make sexual relations very painful.^[18] But the more salient issue would seem to be that women are deeply resentful of the authority of their husbands, in particular, their husbands' authority over their own sexualities, and thus resist their sexual and other amorous advances.

Some Mzeini women claim that the cultivation of "patience" can effect qualitative changes in a woman's "passion," such that she evinces a "masculine" "rationality," but this seems not to be a majority view either among women or men (Lavie 1990:141). Similarly, while some women assert that men's "sexual lust" is clear evidence of their "passion," others draw no such conclusions and contend that men's greater sexual lust does not call into question the official view that men are more reasonable than women. Circumstances such as these are quite similar to those we encountered in Negeri Sembilan, as are many of their implications. They are also similar, albeit in different ways, to what has been reported for Aceh, Minangkabau, and Java. Equally striking are the ways in which Mzeini data support some of our other very general and by now familiar points: that women and men alike are profoundly ambivalent about gender and sexuality, which is to say, among other things, that femininity and masculinity are key sites in the production of contradiction and ambivalence; that masculinities and femininities alike are both highly contingent and fluid, and intensely hybrid; and that even the most intimate discourses on gender, sexuality, and social relations are shaped by their social location(s) within arenas constituted by the intersection of local, national, and transnational regimes of knowledge and power.

Before concluding this comparative section I should perhaps emphasize that my discussion of practical, largely counter-hegemonic discourses in Islamic societies is not meant to give the impression that alternative discourses are found only among Muslims. I focused my comparative discussion on Islamic societies partly because this allows for a more controlled comparison, and partly because I feel (along with Abu-Lughod [1986:283–84 n.6], among others) that a systematic comparison of local beliefs about "reason" and "passion" across the Islamic world would make an extremely interesting study. I hope that the material presented here and in preceding chapters will provide some points of reference for such a systematic study and will serve as well as a caution against essentialist assumptions that masculinities (and femininities) in Islamic societies are always shaped by rigid, strongly patriarchal discourses. My general position in any case is that alternative discourses occur to one or another degree in all societies, though the precise extent (scope, force, etc.) of their

elaboration either publicly or in what Scott (1990) refers to as "hidden transcripts" does of course vary not only from one society to the next, but also within specific societies, in terms of class, race, gender, and the like.

I should perhaps underscore as well that there are subversive discourses in contemporary Western societies that are in some respects highly reminiscent of those we have discussed here. Consider, for example, the American discourses on masculinity which are found in connection with both sides of the reproductive rights debate(s), and which suggest that men, far from being the more rational and responsible of the two sexes, are actually the more lustful, base, and dangerous (Ginsburg 1989:10–11). Key features of these discourses not only undergird various arguments to the effect that women must be protected from men; they are also central to the official rationale for both the origins and continued existence into the present of a wide variety of patriarchal laws and institutions. More importantly for present purposes, they resonate deeply with the Southeast Asian and other Islamic discourses with which we have been concerned (though there are of course crucial differences, an adequate treatment of which would require an altogether separate volume).

Ideology, Experience, and Ambivalence

The societies considered in the previous sections are of particular interest partly because their dominant discourses on gender are phrased in terms of more or less pan-Islamic concepts of "reason" and "passion," and can thus be described and interpreted in broad comparative perspective. Such a perspective reveals striking commonalities in these societies with respect to constructions of gender(ed) difference and sameness. It also highlights the impressive "staying power" of Islamic ideologies of gender, and of ideologies generally; they are remarkably stable and persistent, especially in terms of content, despite the vast historical and geographic variation that they encounter and must "overcome" in the course of their spread and development (cf. Bloch 1989:131).

Equally striking testimony to the stability and persistence of the official ideologies at issue here is that the main alternative discourses on gender found "alongside" them are not only quite similar to one another but also have much in common with the dominant ideologies in question—with the notable exception that, in many important respects, they entail wholesale inversions of them. Circumstances such as these also attest to the pervasiveness of ideologies inasmuch as they make quite clear the

rather remarkable degree to which dissension and subversion are contained within the very frameworks against which they are deployed; put differently, they show how such frameworks severely limit the possibilities of "answering (or arguing) back."

The larger question is this: Do all ideologies necessarily breed their own inversions? Many theorists of ideology (Williams 1977; Willis 1977; Scott 1985; Bloch 1989) contend that they do. Their contentions are frequently based on the position that ideologies are always "about" systems of moral authority, that they necessarily involve processes entailing the legitimization and masking of such systems, and that such processes invariably ground themselves conceptually in the transcendental realm of "nature" so as to naturalize and, in the process, eternalize and dehistoricize authority as well as the differential distribution of power and prestige (see, e.g., Bloch 1982:223–30, 1989:45; but see also Eagleton 1991:58–61, 222). The "value" or "benefit" of such grounding is of course that to one or another degree it can render such phenomena beyond question and challenge. More to the point, such grounding necessarily produces contradictions insofar as nature itself is, and is perceived to be, full of discontinuities and contradictions, or at least paradoxes and enigmas (birth, death, conception, vitality, movement, mutability, permanence), and is invariably experienced, understood, and represented in contradictory terms.^[19]

This is not the place to elaborate on the strengths and weaknesses of these types of arguments. Suffice it to say that they help point us in the right direction(s) so long as they are joined with perspectives recognizing that contradictory imperatives are built into the structure and organization of all (even "cold") societies, and that the coexistence of such imperatives necessarily gives rise to contradictions that are culturally realized to one or another degree at both the common sense and ideological levels (see Kelly 1977; Giddens 1979; Peletz 1988b; Weigert 1991:5). More generally, recent theoretical developments bearing on contradiction, paradox, double bind, counter-hegemonies, and the like, are, in my view, vital to anthropology and to the study of culture and social life on the whole (see, e.g., Scott 1985, 1990; Ortner 1989, 1989–90; Trawick 1990; Weiner 1992). This is especially so when such contributions advance our understanding not only of the production, reproduction, and transformation of contrasting representations of the social world, but also of the factors that constrain or, alternatively, promote both the development and elaboration of alternative representations and discourses as well as various strategies of resistance (broadly defined).

Bloch (1982, 1986, 1989) is among those who has dealt most directly and extensively with contradictions in systems of kinship and gender, and in political and ideological formations on the whole. His approach builds on a variant of Marxism informed by Lévi-Straussian structuralism and clearly has much to commend it. Somewhat surprisingly, however, most of his discussion of contradiction deals with conceptual contradictions, often subsumed under the gloss "ambiguity," which is of course a largely cognitive phenomenon. The related but analytically distinct phenomenon of ambivalence , which (following Weigert 1991) we have defined as "the experience of commingled contradictory emotions ," slips through the cracks of Bloch's descriptions and analyses.^[20] This may be due in part to Bloch's long-standing interests in indigenous systems of classification and cognition, which prompted him to develop an analytic framework capable of dealing with distinctions between "ordinary cognition" (and knowledge, discourse, and communication) on the one hand, and "ideologized cognition" (and knowledge, discourse, and communication), which is glossed "ideology" on the other. Interests in different types of "cognition" and "thought," in other words, appear to have led Bloch to the study of ideology, and may well be at least partly responsible for his heavily cognitive approach to ideological phenomena.

Whatever the factors figuring into Bloch's relative neglect of ambivalence and other emotional components of ideologies, his oversights are unfortunate for a variety of reasons, two of which merit brief note. First, we know that ideologies must be psychologically compelling if they are to be at all effective, just as we know that the psychologically compelling nature of ideologies has both cognitive and emotional dimensions (Althusser 1969), neither one of which dimensions can be privileged analytically. And second, it is increasingly clear that subversive discourses are typically fueled by the disjunctive relationship between hegemonic ideological formations on the one hand, and sentiments and dispositions engendered in everyday, practical experiences, or "lived relations to the world," on the other (Bourdieu 1977; Abu-Lughod 1986). Failure to attend to such sentiments and dispositions—and, more generally, to the "structures of feeling" (Williams 1977) that often entail "the stirring of 'emergent' forms of consciousness" (Eagleton 1991:49)—thus hinders our understanding of some of the key sources of subversive discourses, and likewise leaves us with an overly "muscular" sense of culture's formative (constituting and constitutive) capacities.

This overly muscular sense of culture is by no means confined to the works of Bloch. It is in fact quite—indeed, much more—pronounced both

in the writings of Clifford Geertz and others who have been influenced by heavily Parsonian readings of Weber,^[21] and in the works of Durkheimians such as Mary Douglas (1970), who emphasizes the ways in which all cultures simultaneously "strive for consonance" and inscribe such strivings in collective representations and individual psyches alike. Interestingly, it also permeates much of the Marxist-oriented work of Bourdieu, despite the analytic sensitivity he displays in many contexts to the highly distributional nature of culture, particularly in class societies (Bourdieu 1984; cf. Bloch 1989:119). More generally, such views of culture are out of keeping with what we all know, especially from our fieldwork, of culture's limitations as regards shaping and giving meaning to human experience (see R. Rosaldo 1980; Abu-Lughod 1986; Kleinman 1988; Trawick 1990; Wikan 1990).

If ideologies are invariably fraught with contradiction, and if ideological contradictions typically entail ambivalence, we obviously need to look more closely at the various social sources of ambivalence. This topic is an exceedingly broad one and we have perforce to limit ourselves to a few key points bearing on ideologies of gender and kinship, which provide contrasting but dialectically related languages and ways of talking about the same general "things" (persons, social relations, difference). One point that cannot be overemphasized here is that kinship as a moral system necessarily cuts both ways (see Peletz 1988b, 1995). Kinship's double-edged nature stems partly from the fact that it brings with it heavy moral entailments in the form of expectations and obligations which are in many cases extremely burdensome if not impossible to fulfill. Also relevant is that in most instances the honoring of such expectations and obligations brings little if any guarantee of the diffuse (or other) reciprocity which is so frequently inscribed in kinship as a whole, and which is in any case typically enjoined upon those who benefit most directly from the honoring of the expectations and obligations in question.

Some such points concerning the deeply Janus-faced condition of kinship were noted long ago by Evans-Pritchard (1940) in his disparate and scattered remarks about Nuer ambivalence toward fellow clansmen, although they were not worked into his heavily idealized analysis of Nuer social relations. Consider first the observations presented in the following passage:

If you wish to live among the Nuer you must do so on their terms, which means you must treat them as a kind of kinsmen and they will then treat you as a kind of kinsman. Rights, privileges, and obligations are determined by kinship. Either a man is a kinsman, actually or by fiction, or he

is a person to whom you have no reciprocal obligations and whom you treat as a potential enemy. Every one in a man's village and district counts in one way or another as a kinsman, if only by linguistic assimilation, so that, except for an occasional homeless and despised wanderer, a Nuer only associates with people whose behavior to him is on a kinship pattern. (183)

So far, so good: Kinship provides an orienting framework for the content and ideology of Nuer social relations, and does in fact supply the hegemonic idiom(s) in terms of which such all encompassing relations are cast. But Evans-Pritchard (183) proceeds to tell us that "Nuer must assist one another, and [that] if one has a surplus of a good thing, he must share it with his neighbors. Consequently, no Nuer ever has a surplus" (emphasis added). He goes on to underscore that

Nuer are most tenacious of their rights and possessions. They take easily but give with difficulty. This selfishness arises from their education and from the nature of kinship obligations. A child soon learns that to maintain his equality with his peers he must stand up for himself against any encroachment on his person and property. This means that he must always be prepared to fight, and his willingness and ability to do so are the only protection of his integrity as a free and independent person against the avarice and bullying of his kinsmen. They protect him against outsiders, but he must resist their demands on himself. The demands made on a man in the name of kinship are incessant and imperious and he resists them to the utmost . (184; emphasis added)

Many of the same themes can be discerned in a more recent classic, namely, Stack's (1974) study of African American kinship networks in an area around Chicago that she refers to as "the Flats." This despite the fact that Stack's analysis not only plays up the safety-net and Rousseauian features of the system, but also makes too little (analytically) of the fact that, if they are financially able to do so, residents of the Flats commonly endeavor to move out of and far from the Flats, and thus effectively sever ties with their kin who have remained behind.^[22]

The larger issue is that we need to deploy a more critical gaze when we try to understand the symbols and meanings implicated in "prescriptive amity," diffuse, enduring solidarity," and the like, especially those encoded in normative cultural statements such as "Home is the place they have to let you in." It is true that the various sentiments and moral obligations encoded in such expressions may well be very reassuring and heartening to those knocking on the door of a close or long-lost relative, assuming, of course, there is no (or relatively little) "hostile dependence."

But we need to more deeply appreciate that the sentiments and obligations are not necessarily all that comforting, and may indeed be rather disconcerting, to those who feel that they must, or should, answer the door. In much the same vein, we also need to more deeply appreciate the wisdom of Freud's insights that all emotional attachments are conducive to the realization of ambivalence, and that intense attachments are in fact thoroughly suffused with mixed emotions.^[23]

There is one other major site in the production of ambivalence that merits special emphasis in this context, though there are of course many others—the antinomies of religious experience, the tragedies of humankind's self-consciousness, the sundered selves and myriad double binds and paradoxes of modernity (see Trawick 1990; Weigert 1991). It has to do with the construction of difference and the extremely pervasive tendency to convert difference into hierarchy. As Stallybrass and White (1986:4–5) point out in their fascinating study of the politics and poetics of transgression, in all systems of hierarchy the dependence of the "top" on the "bottom," the "high" on the "low," produces a "mobile, conflictual fusion of power, fear, and desire in the construction of subjectivity," and thus necessarily entails profound ambivalence. Recall here that symbols and idioms of gender and kinship are invariably "about" differentiation and exclusion (as well as commonality and inclusion), and are, more broadly, key components of systems of virtue and morality that encode hierarchically phrased and heavily value-laden difference. Recall, also, that in the case of Malays and others considered here, men are clearly troubled in various ways by the fact that, at least on some levels, they define themselves in (complementary) opposition to females, yet simultaneously see and fear in themselves the very features whose presence or predominance indexes femininity (as well as the moral status of children and decidedly "inferior" [read non-Muslim] racial groups) and whose absence or deemphasis supposedly indexes masculinity. (Malay [and other] women, for their part, are stigmatized and in some instances troubled by the very same ideological framework which they often turn on men to assert their own moral superiority.)

A recurrent pattern emerges: The 'top' attempts to reject and eliminate the bottom for reasons of prestige and status, only to discover, not only that it is in some ways frequently dependent upon that low-Other (in the classic way that Hegel describes in the master-slave section of the Phenomenology ), but also that the top includes that low symbolically as a primary eroticized constituent of its own fantasy life. The result is a mobile, conflictual fusion of power, fear, and desire in the construction of subjectivity: a psy-

chological dependence upon precisely those Others which are being rigorously opposed at the social level. It is for this reason that what is socially peripheral is so frequently symbolically central.... The low-Other is despised and denied at the level of political organization and social being whilst it is instrumentally constitutive of the shared imaginary repertoires of the dominant culture. (Stallybrass and White 1986:5–6; emphasis in original)

The broader themes are what Stallybrass and White refer to as "the production of identity through negation," and the ways dominant social actors and categories thereof take into themselves as "negative introjections the very categories and domains which surround and threaten them," thus "produc[ing] and reproduc[ing] ... [their identities] through processes of denial and defiance" (89; see also Gilman 1985). A key dynamic in this process is that what is denied is simultaneously desired. Bear in mind also that by taking "the grotesque" (female) within itself so as to reject it, the latter becomes an "unpalpable and interiorized phobic set of representations associated with avoidance and others" (106, 108). For reasons such as these, "the closure and purity of ... dominant [entities and essences such as masculinity are] quite illusory"; and members of dominant groups "perpetually rediscover [themselves]—... the protean, and the motley, the 'neither/nor,' the double negation of high and the low which was the very precondition for ... [their] social identit[ies]" (113)—with some sense of shock and inner revulsion.

The recalcitrant Other (female) thus troubles the fantasy of an independent, separate, "proper" (male) identity (148). As Sander Gilman (1985:240) explains, this occurs despite but also partly because of the existence of "crude representations of difference that serve to localize ... [men's] anxiety, to prove to ... [them] that what ... [they] fear does not lie within." Such troubling is effected partly by "calling the bluff of foreclosure, and partly by denying with a laugh the ludicrous pose of autonomy adopted by the [proper male] subject" (Stallybrass and White 1986:183). Clearly relevant, too, of course, are the various disturbing ways in which female Others of one's own race and/or class index stigmatized and undesirable racial and/or class Others, male and female alike.

One of the main points I would add here is that such bluffs, denials, and laughs merit far more attention from anthropologists and others who hope to capture something of how gender and social relations of other varieties are experienced, understood, and represented in specific societies and their myriad contexts. The other more general point is that we need to develop a more robust theory of ambivalence that pays due attention

both to the cultural psychology of ambivalence and to the diverse political economies and intrasocietal contexts that give form and meaning to these patterns of mixed emotion. This requires focusing our analytic gazes not simply on official ideologies and/or public contexts, but also on alternative discourses which bear on the seamier side(s) of human nature and social relations, and which are in many cases articulated primarily in relatively private contexts or with reference to personal experience. Such focus may yield certain data and perspectives whose airing strikes some observers as impolitic with respect to the sensitivities of those among whom we work, but it seems to me that we do a far greater disservice to them by producing heavily idealized, one-dimensional, and otherwise ethnographically thin ("anemic") accounts of their social worlds and their lived relations to them. To put this in more positive terms, I would argue that our most important and enduring contributions to the various communities with which we are involved are comprehensive and contextually sensitive accounts of the diverse modalities and representations of human sociality in all their fascinating richness and complexity, warts and all.