Headhunting in Brunei

Thanks to everyone who gave ideas about what to do with my computer. It was indeed a virus attack and I lost the winsock.dll file or whatever equivalent it is on Windows 7. The technician took less than 10 minutes to repair it. Unfortunately it took me more than 2 weeks to bring it over to him. I got the PC up and running yesterday.

What have I been doing in the meantime?

I have been reading books. One in particular was this book edited by Janet Hoskins with the title Headhunting and the Social Imagination in Southeast Asia. What caught my attention was there was an article in there written by an Allen R Maxwell entitled Headhunting and the Consolidation of Political Power in the Early Brunei State.

I actually referred to this article when I wrote about the early Brunei conquests article a few weeks ago. The Maxwell article actually is based on the Syair Awang Semaun but it focused especially on the headhunting part. When Awang Alak Betatar attacked the Melanau Government in today's Sarawak, thousands of Dayaks also fought with him. They valued heads of their foes and collected thousands during the campaign. Awang Alak Betatar did not take any but he did allow his Dayak soldiers to do that. The whole article talked about the rationality and the justification of the entire headhunting episode.

The book is a worthwhile read. I would recommend anyone wanting to find out more about one of our sometimes gruesome history.