Encyclopedia of world cultures 10 volume set 5 east and southeast asia (1993)

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD CULTURESDavid Levinson Editor in Chief North America Oceania South Asia Europe Central, Western, and Southeastern Europe East and Southeast Asia Russia and Eurasia

Encyclopedia of World Cultures

Volume V

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD CULTURES

David Levinson Editor in Chief

North America Oceania South Asia Europe (Central, Western, and Southeastern Europe)

East and Southeast Asia Russia and Eurasia / China South America

Middle America and the Caribbean Africa and the Middle East

Encyclopedia of World Cultures

Paul Hockings

G.K Hall & Company

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster Macmillan

NEW YORK

Prentice Hall International

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© 1993 by theHuman Relations AreaFiles, Inc

Firstpublished 1993

by G.K Hall & Co., animprintof Simon & Schuster Macmillan

1633 Broadway

New York, NY 10019-6785

All rights reserved

No partof this book may be reproduced in any formorbyany means, electronicor

mechanical, including photocopying, recording, orby anyinformation storageor

retrieval systemwithout permission in writingfromthe publisher

10 9 8

library of CongressCataloging-in-Publication Data

(Revised for volume 5)

Encyclopedia of world cultures

Includesbibliographicalreferences, filmographies,

and indexes

Contents:v 1. North America /Timothy J O'Leary,

David Levinson, volume editors -v 3. South Asia/

Paul Hockings, volume editor -v. 5 Eastand

SoutheastAsia/PaulHockings, volume editor

1 Ethnology-Encyclopedias I Levinson, David,

1947-GN307.E53 1991 306'.097

ISBN 0-8168-8840-X (set: alk.paper)

ISBN 0-8161-1808-6 (v 1:alk paper)

ISBN 0-8161-1812-4 (v 3:alk paper)

90-49123

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American

National Standard for InformationSciences-Permanence of Paper for PrintedLibrary

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

4.Cultural Groups of the Philippines xxxix

5.CulturalGroupsof Mainland SoutheastAsia xli

Cultures of East and Southeast Asia 1

Project Staff Editorial Board

Europe

Fernando Cimara Barbachano Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico City

Middle America and the Caribbean Norma J Diamond

University of Michigan China

Editorial and Production

Terence E Hays Rhode Island College Oceania

Cartography

Robert Sullivan

Rhode Island College

Paul Hockings University of Illinois at Chicago South, Eastand Southeast Asia

Robert V Kemper Southern Methodist University Middle America and the Caribbean John H Middleton

Yale University Africa

Timothy J O'Leary Human Relations Area Files North America

Amal Rassam Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University ofNewYork

Middle East Johannes Wilbert University of California at Los Angeles South America

vi

Center for the Study ofSocialConflicts

State University of Leiden

Tribal Research Institute

Chiang Mai University

State University of NewYork-Buffalo

Amherst, New York

The Graduate School and University Center

City University ofNewYork

New York, New York

JamesJ Fox

Research School of Pacific Studies

Australian NationalUniversity

Canberra, AustralianCapitalTerritory

Ethnologie Comparativede l'Asie du Sud-Est

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Agta; Philippine Negritos; Tasaday

Buddhist; Indonesian; Singaporean; Taiwanese;

Choong Soon Kim Korean

DepartmentofSociologyandAnthropology

Department ofHumanities andSocial StudiesinMedicine

Human Relations AreaFiles

NewHaven, Connecticut

United States

Schoolof Continuing Education

Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, Maryland

United States

Centerfor SoutheastAsianStudies

Osaka International University

Research School of Pacific Studies

Australian National University

Canberra, Australian Capital Territory

Departmentof Environmental Studies and Planning

Sonoma State University

Rohnert Park, California

Makassar

Contributors xiii

Goes

TheNetherlands

MichaelP Vischer Palu'e

ResearchSchool of Pacific Studies

AustralianNational University

Canberra, Australian CapitalTerritory

GehanWijeyewardene Tai Lue

Research School of Pacific Studies

Australian NationalUniversity

Canberra, AustralianCapitalTerritory

Australia

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

George MasonUniversity

This project began in 1987 with the goal ofassembling a basic

referencesourcethatprovidesaccurate,clear,andconcise

de-scriptions ofthe cultures of the world Wewanted tobeas

comprehensiveand authoritativeaspossible:comprehensive,

by providing descriptions of all the cultures of each region of

the worldorby describingarepresentativesampleof cultures

for regions where full coverage is impossible, and

authori-tativeby providingaccurate descriptions of the cultures for

both the past and the present

Thepublication of the Encyclopedia of World Cultures in

the last decade of the twentieth centuryisespecially timely

The political, economic, and social changes of thepast fifty

yearshaveproducedaworldmorecomplexand fluidthanat

anytime inhumanhistory Three sweepingtransformations

of the worldwide culturallandscapeareespecially significant

First is whatsome socialscientists arecalling the"New

Diaspora"-the dispersalofcultural groupsto newlocations

acrossthe world Thisdispersalaffects allnationsand takesa

wide variety of forms:inEastAfrican nations, theformation

ofnew townsinhabited bypeople from dozens of different

ethnic groups; in Micronesia andPolynesia, the movement of

islandersto cities in NewZealand and the UnitedStates;in

North America, thereplacement byAsiansandLatin

Ameri-cansof Europeansasthemost numerousimmigrants;in

Eu-rope, the increased relianceonworkers from the MiddleEast

and NorthAfrica; and so on

Second, and related to this dispersal, is theinternal division

ofwhat were oncesingle, unified cultural groups into two or

morerelatively distinct groups This pattern of internaldivision

is mostdramatic amongindigenous or third or fourth world

cul-tureswhose traditional ways of life have beenalteredby contact

with the outside world Underlying this division are both the

population dispersion mentioned above and sustained contact

with theeconomically developed world The result isthat groups

who at one time saw themselves and were seen byothers as

sin-gle cultural groups have beentransformedinto two ormore

dis-tinctgroups Thus, in many cultural groups, we find deep and

probably permanent divisions between those who live in the

country and those who live in cities, those who followthe

tradi-tional religion and those who have converted to Christianity,

those who live inland and those who live on theseacoast, and

those who liveby means of a subsistence economy and those

nowenmeshed in a cash economy

The third important transformation of the worldwide

culturallandscape is the revival of ethnic nationalism, with

many peoplesclaiming and fighting forpoliticalfreedom and

territorial integrity on the basis of ethnic solidarity and

ethnic-based claimstotheir traditional homeland.Although

most attentionhas focusedrecentlyonethnic nationalisminEastern Europe and the former SovietUnion, the trend is

nonetheless a worldwidephenomenon involving, for

exam-ple, American Indian culturesinNorthand South America,the BasquesinSpainand France, the Tamil and SinhaleseinSriLanka, and theTutsiandHutu inBurundi, among others

Tobe informed citizens of ourrapidlychangingtural worldwe must understand the ways of life ofpeople

multicul-from cultures different multicul-fromour own."We"isused hereinthebroadest sense,toincludenotjust scholars whostudy the cul-

turesof the world andbusinesspeople and governmentcials who workinthe world community but also the average

offi-citizenwho readsorhears about multicultural events inthe

newseveryday and young people whoaregrowing upinthiscomplex cultural world For all of these people-whichmeansall of us-there is a pressing need forinformation onthe cultures of the world Thisencyclopediaprovides thisin-

formationintwoways First, itsdescriptions of the traditionalways of life of the world's cultures can serve as abaselineagainstwhich cultural change can bemeasured and under-stood.Second,itacquaints thereader with the contemporaryways of life throughout the world

We areable toprovide this informationlargely throughthe efforts of the volume editors and thenearly one thousandcontributors who wrote the cultural summaries thataretheheart of the book The contributorsaresocial scientists (an-thropologists, sociologists, historians, and geographers) as

well as educators, government officials, and missionaries who

usuallyhave firsthand research-based knowledge of theturesthey write about In many cases they are the major ex-pertor oneof theleading expertsontheculture, and some arethemselves members of the cultures As experts, they are able

cul-to provide accurate, up-to-date information This is crucialfor many parts of the world whereindigenouscultures may beoverlooked by official information seekers such as govern-ment census takers These experts haveoften lived among thepeople they write about, conductingparticipant-observations

with them andspeaking their language.Thus they are able toprovide integrated, holistic descriptions ofthe cultures, notjust a list of facts Their portraits of the cultures leave thereader with a real sense of what it means to be a "Taos" or a

"Rom" or a "Sicilian."

Those summaries not written by anexpert on the culturehave usually been written by a researcher atthe Human Rela-tions Area Files, Inc., working from primarysource materials.The Human Relations Area Files, an international educa-

xv

xvi Preface

tional andresearch institute,isrecognized by professionalsin

the social andbehavioral sciences, humanities, and medical

sciences as amajorsourceof informationonthe cultures of

the world

Uses of the Encyclopedia

Thisencyclopedia is meant tobe usedbyavarietyofpeople

foravariety of purposes.It canbe used bothtogainageneral

understanding ofaculture andtofindaspecific pieceof

in-formationbylookingitup under the relevantsubheadingina

summary It can also be usedtolearnabout aparticular

re-gion orsubregion of the world and the social, economic, and

politicalforces that haveshapedthe culturesinthat region

Theencyclopedia isalsoa resource guidethatleads readers

whowant adeeper understanding ofparticular culturesto

ad-ditionalsourcesof information Resourceguidesinthe

ency-clopedia include ethnonyms listedineach summary, which

canbe usedasentry points intothe socialscienceliterature

wherethe culture maysometimesbe identifiedbyadifferent

name;abibliographyatthe endof eachsummary,which lists

books and articles about theculture; andafilmographyatthe

end of eachvolume,which listsfilmsand videosonmany of

the cultures

Beyondbeingabasic reference resource, the

encyclope-dia also serves readers withmorefocused needs.For

research-ersinterestedincomparingcultures, the encyclopediaserves

as the most complete and up-to-date sampling frame from

which to select cultures for furtherstudy.Forthoseinterested

in internationalstudies, the encyclopedia leads onequickly

intothe relevant social science literature as well as providing

astate-of-the-artassessmentofourknowledgeofthe cultures

of aparticular region.Forcurriculumdevelopers and teachers

seeking to internationalize their curriculum, theencyclopedia

isitselfabasic reference and educationalresource aswell asa

directory to other materials Forgovernmentofficials, it is a

repository of information not likely to be available in any

othersingle publication or,in somecases, notavailable at all

Forstudents, from high schoolthrough graduate school, it

providesbackground andbibliographic information for term

papers and class projects And fortravelers, it provides an

in-troduction into the ways of lifeof theindigenous peoples in

the area ofthe world they will be visiting

Format of the Encyclopedia

The encyclopedia comprises ten volumes, ordered by

geo-graphical regions of the world The order of publicationisnot

meant torepresent any sort of priority Volumes 1 through 9

contain a total of about fifteen hundred summaries along

with maps,glossaries, and indexes of alternate names for the

cultural groups The tenth andfinal volume contains

cumula-tive lists of the cultures of theworld, their alternate names,

and a bibliography of selected publications pertaining to

those groups

North Americacovers the culturesof Canada, Greenland, and

the United States of America

Oceaniacovers the cultures of Australia, New Zealand,

Mela-nesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia

South Asia covers the cultures ofBangladesh, India,Pakistan,

Sri Lanka and otherSouth Asianislands and the Himalayan

states

Europe covers the cultures ofEurope

East and Southeast Asia covers the cultures ofJapan, Korea,

mainland and insular SoutheastAsia, and Taiwan

Russiaand Eurasia /Chinacoversthe culturesofMongolia,

the People's Republicof China, and the former Union ofSoviet SocialistRepublics

SouthAmerica covers the cultures of SouthAmerica.Middle America and the Caribbean covers the cultures of Cen-tralAmerica, Mexico, and the Caribbean islands

Africa and the Middle East covers the culturesofMadagascarandsub-Saharan Africa, NorthAfrica,theMiddle East, and

south-centralAsia

Format of the Volumes

Eachvolume contains this preface, anintroductory essay bythevolume editor, the cultural summaries ranging from a fewlines to several pages each, maps pinpointing the location ofthecultures, afilmography, anethnonymindex of alternate

namesfor the cultures, and a glossary of scientific and calterms.All entriesarelistedinalphabetical order and areextensively cross-referenced

techni-Cultures Covered

Acentral issue in selecting cultures for coverage in the clopedia hasbeen how to define what we mean by a culturalgroup The questions of what a culture is and what criteriacanbe usedtoclassify a particular social group (such as a reli-giousgroup,ethnic group, nationality, or territorial group) as

ency-a cultural group have long perplexed social scientists andhave yettobe answeredtoeveryone's satisfaction Two reali-ties accountforwhy the questionscannotbe answered defini-tively First, awide variety ofdifferent types ofcultures existaround the world Among common types are national cul-tures, regional cultures, ethnic groups, indigenous societies,religious groups, and unassimilated immigrant groups Nosingle criterion or marker of cultural uniqueness can consis-tently distinguish among the hundreds of cultures that fitintothesegeneral types Second, as noted above, single cul-tures orwhatwere atonetime identified as single cultures canand do vary internally over time and place Thus a markerthatmay identify a specific group as a culture in one location

or at onetimemaynotworkfor that culture in another place

or at another time Forexample, use of the Yiddish languagewould have beenamarker of Jewish culturalidentity in East-ernEuropeinthe nineteenth century, but itwould not serve

as amarker for Jews in thetwentieth-centuryUnited States,wheremost speakEnglish Similarly, residence on one of theCook Islands inPolynesia would have been a marker of CookIslanderidentity in the eighteenth century, but not in thetwentieth centurywhen two-thirds of Cook Islanders live inNew Zealand andelsewhere

Given theseconsiderations, no attempt has been made

todevelop and use a single definition of a cultural unit or todevelop and use afixed list of criteria for identifying culturalunits Instead, the task ofselecting cultures was left to thevolumeeditors, and the criteria and procedures they used arediscussed in theirintroductory essays Ingeneral,however, sixcriteria were used,sometimes alone and sometimes in combi-nationto classify social groups as cultural groups: (1) geo-graphicallocalization, (2) identification in the social scienceliterature as a distinct group, (3) distinct language, (4)shared traditions, religion, folklore, or values, (5) mainte-

Preface xvii

nance ofgroup identityinthe face of strong assimilative

pres-sures,and (6) previous listing in an inventory of the world's

cultures such as Ethnographic Atlas (Murdock 1967) or the

Outline of World Cultures (Murdock 1983)

Ingeneral, we have been bumperss" rather than

'split-ters" in writing the summaries That is, if there is some

ques-tionabout whetheraparticular group is really one culture or

tworelated cultures, we have more often than not treated it as

asingle culture, withinternaldifferences noted in the

sum-mary Similarly, we have sometimes chosen to describe a

number of very similar cultures in a single summary rather

than in a series of summaries that would be mostly

redun-dant There is, however, some variation from one region to

another in thisapproach, and the rationale for each region is

discussed in the volume editor's essay

Two categoriesof cultures are usually not covered in the

encyclopedia First, extinct cultures, especially those that

have not existed as distinct cultural units for some time, are

usually not described Cultural extinction is often, though

certainly notalways, indicated by the disappearance of the

culture's language So, for example, the Aztec are not

cov-ered, although living descendantsofthe Aztec, the

Nahuatl-speakers of central Mexico, are described

Second, the ways of life of immigrant groups are usually

notdescribed in muchdetail, unless there is a long history of

resistance to assimilation andthe group has maintained its

distinct identity, as have the Amish in North America These

cultures are, however, described inthe location where they

traditionallylived and, for the most part, continue to live, and

migration patterns are noted For example, the Hmong in

Laos are described in theSoutheast Asia volume, but the

ref-ugee communitiesinthe UnitedStatesand Canadaare

cov-ered onlyinthe general summaries onSoutheastAsians in

those twocountries inthe NorthAmericavolume.Although

itwould be ideal toprovidedescriptions of all the immigrant

cultures or communitiesofthe world, thatis anundertaking

well beyond the scope of this encyclopedia, for thereare

prob-ably more thanfivethousand suchcommunities inthe world

Finally, it should be noted thatnotall nationalitiesare

covered, only those thatarealso distinct cultures aswellas

political entities Forexample, theVietnameseandBurmese

areincluded but Indians (citizens of the Republic of India)

are not,because the latteris apolitical entity made up ofa

great mix ofcultural groups In the case ofnationswhose

populations includeanumber ofdifferent,relatively

unassim-ilated groups or culturalregions, each ofthe groups is

de-scribed separately Forexample,thereis nosummary for

Ital-ians as such in the Europevolume, but there are summaries

for theregional cultures of Italy, such asthe Tuscans,

Sicil-ians, and Tirolians, and other cultures such as the Sinti

Piemontese

Cultural Summaries

The heart of thisencyclopediaisthedescriptivesummaries of

the cultures, which range froma fewlinestofiveor sixpages

in length They provide amixofdemographic,historical,

so-cial, economic, political, and religious information on the

cultures Their emphasis orflavor is cultural; that is, they

focus on the ways of life of the people-both past and

present-and the factors that have caused the culture to

change over timeandplace

A key issue has been how to decide which culturesshould be described by longer summaries and which byshorter ones This decision was made by the volume editors,who had to balance a number ofintellectual and practicalconsiderations Again, therationale for these decisions is dis-cussed in their essays But among the factors that were con-sideredby all the editors were the total number of cultures intheir region,the availability of experts to write summaries, theavailability of information on thecultures, the degree of simi-larity between cultures, and the importance of a culture in ascientific orpolitical sense

The summary authors followedastandardized outline sothat each summaryprovides information on a core list of top-ics.The authors, however, had some leeway in deciding howmuch attention was to be given each topic and whetheraddi-

tional information should be included Summaries usuallyprovide information on the following topics:

CULTURE NAME:The name used most often in the socialscience literature to refer to the culture or the name the groupuses foritself

ETHNONYMS: Alternate names for the culture includingnamesusedby outsiders, the self-name, and alternate spell-ings, within reasonable limits

ORIENTATIONIdentification Location of the culture and the derivation ofits name and ethnonyms

Location Where the culture islocated and a description ofthe physical environment

Demography Population history and the most recent able population figures or estimates

reli-Linguistic Affiliation The name of the language spokenand/or written by the culture, its place in an internationallanguage classification system, andinternal variation in lan-guage use

HISTORY AND CULTURALRELATIONS: A tracing

of the origins and history of theculture and the past and rent nature of relationships withother groups

cur-SETTLEMENTS:The location of settlements, types of

set-tlements, typesof structures, housing design and materials

ECONOMY

Subsistence and CommercialActivities.The primary ods of obtaining, consuming, and distributing money, food,

meth-and othernecessities

Industrial Arts Implements and objects produced by thecultureeither for its own use orfor sale ortrade

Trade Products traded and patterns of trade with othergroups

Division of Labor How basiceconomictasksareassigned byage, sex, ability, occupational specialization, or status

Land Tenure Rules and practicesconcerning the allocation

of landand land-userightstomembers of the cultureand to

outsiders

KINSHIPKin Groups andDescent Rules and practices concerningkin-based featuresof socialorganization suchaslineagesandclans and alliancesbetween these groups

Kinship Terminology Classification of thekinship

termi-nological system onthe basis of eithercousin terms or

genera-xviii Preface.

tion, and information about any unique aspects ofkinship

terminology

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

Marriage Rules and practices concerningreasons for

mar-riage, types of marriage, economic aspects of marriage,

postmarital residence, divorce, and remarriage

Domestic Unit Description of the basic householdunit

in-cludingtype, size, and composition

Inheritance Rules and practicesconcerning the inheritance

of property

Socialization Rules and practices concerning child rearing

including caretakers, values inculcated, child-rearing

meth-ods, initiation rites, and education

SOCIOPOLITICALORGANIZATION

SocialOrganization Rules and practices concerning the

in-temal organization of the culture,includingsocialstatus,

pri-maryandsecondary groups, and social stratification

PoliticalOrganization.Rules and practices concerning

lead-ership, politics, governmental organizations, and decision

making

Social Control The sources of conflict within the culture

and informal and formal social control mechanisms

Conflict.Thesourcesof conflict with other groups and

infor-mal and forinfor-malmeans ofresolving conflicts

RELIGION AND EXPRESSIVECULTURE

Religious Beliefs The nature ofreligious beliefs including

beliefs insupernatural entities, traditional beliefs, and the

ef-fects of majorreligions

ReligiousPractitioners The types, sources of power, and

ac-tivities ofreligious specialists suchas shamans and priests

Ceremonies The nature, type, and frequency of religious

and otherceremonies andrites

Arts.The nature, types, and characteristics of artistic

activi-ties includingliterature, music,dance, carving, and so on

Medicine Thenatureoftraditional medical beliefs and

prac-tices and the influence ofscientific medicine

Death andAfterlife.The natureofbeliefs and practices

con-cerningdeath, thedeceased, funerals, and the afterlife

BIBLIOGRAPHY:Aselected listofpublications about the

culture The list usually includes publications that describe

both the traditional andthe contemporary culture

AUTHOR'SNAME:The name ofthe summary author

Maps

Each regional volume contains maps pinpointing the current

location of the cultures described in that volume The first

map in eachvolume is usually an overview, showing the

coun-tries in that region The other maps provide more detail by

marking the locations of the cultures in four or five

subregions

Filmography

Each volume containsalist of filmsand videos about cultures

covered in that volume.This list is provided as a service and

in noway indicates an endorsement by the editor, the volume

editor,or the summary authors Addresses ofdistributors are

provided so thatinformation about availability and prices can

bereadily obtained

Ethnonym Index

Each volume contains anethnonym index for the culturescovered in thatvolume As mentioned above,ethnonyms arealternative names for the culture-that is, names differentfrom thoseusedhere as the summary headings Ethnonymsmay be alternativespellings of the culture name,atotally dif-ferentnameusedbyoutsiders,anameusedinthe past butno

longer used, orthename in anotherlanguage It is not

un-usual thatsomeethnonymsareconsidereddegradingand

in-sulting by the peopletowhomthey refer Thesenames maynevertheless be included here because they do identify thegroup and mayhelp some users locate the summaryoraddi-tional information on the culture in other sources Eth-nonymsarecross-referenced to the culturename inthe index

Glossary

Each volumecontains a glossary of technical andscientific

terms found in the summaries Bothgeneral social science

terms and region-specific terms areincluded

Special Considerations

In a project of this magnitude, decisions had to be madeabout thehandling ofsomeinformation thatcannoteasily bestandardized for all areas ofthe world The two most trouble-

some matters concerned population figures and units ofmeasure

Population Figures

We have tried tobe as up-to-date and as accurate as possible

inreporting population figures This is no easy task, as somegroupsare not counted in official government censuses, somegroups are very likely undercounted, andinsome cases thedefinition of a cultural group used by the census takers differsfrom thedefinition we have used In general, we have relied

on population figures supplied by the summary authors.When other population data sources have been used in a vol-ume,theyare sonoted by the volume editor If the reportedfigure is from an earlier date-say, the 1970s-it is usuallybecause it is the most accurate figure that could be found

Units ofMeasure

In aninternational encyclopedia, editors encounter thelem ofhow to report distances, units of space, and tempera-ture Inmuch of the world, the metric system is used, but sci-entists prefer theInternational System of Units (similar tothe metric system), and in Great Britain and North AmericatheEnglish system is usually used We decided to use EnglishmeasuresintheNorth America volume and metric measures

prob-in the other volumes Each volume contains a conversiontable

Acknowledgments

In aproject of this size, there are many people to acknowledgeand thank for their contributions In its planning stages,members of theresearch staff of the Human Relations AreaFiles providedmany useful ideas These included Timothy J.O'Leary, Marlene Martin, John Beierle, Gerald Reid, DeloresWalters, Richard Wagner, and Christopher Latham Thead-visoryeditors, of course, also played a major role in planning

Preface xix

the project, andnotjust for their ownvolumes but also for

the project asawhole.Timothy O'Leary,TerenceHays,and

PaulHockingsdeservespecialthanks for theircomments on

this preface and the glossary, as does Melvin Ember,

presi-dent of the Human RelationsAreaFiles Members of the

of-ficeand technical staff also mustbe thanked forsoquickly

andcarefullyattendingtothe many tasksaproject ofthissize

inevitably generates They are Erlinda Maramba, Abraham

Maramba, Victoria Crocco, Nancy Gratton, and Douglas

Black At Macmillan and 0 K Hall, the encyclopedia has

benefited from thewiseand careful editorial management of

EllyDickason, ElizabethKubik,and ElizabethHolthaus, and

the editorial and production management ofAraSalibian

Finally, I would like to thank Melvin Ember and theboard of directors of the Human Relations Area Files for theiradministrative and intellectual support for this project

DAVID LEVINSONReferences

Murdock, George Peter (1967) Ethnographic Atlas burgh: University of PittsburghPress

Pitts-Murdock, George Peter (1983) Outline of World Cultures.6th rev ed New Haven: Human Relations Area Files

The national motto of the Indonesian republic, "Bhineka

tunggalika" (UnityamidDiversity),could well standasthe

theme of this introductory essay The diversity, not just of

In-donesiabut of the whole realm of tropical and subtropical

Asia, is quite apparent as onereads through the many dozens

ofdescriptiveaccountspublishedhere andinthe volumeon

South Asia Some groups are tiny, while others number in the

millions; some are maritime, while others live high in the

mountain ranges; some have long flourished in the

main-stream of major Eastern civilizations, while others are so

remote thatthey havebeen effectively cut off from any

civili-zational influence until the present century, by geography if

notby preference

Geography and Agriculture

If there is a single factor uniting geography and culture

throughout this area, it is thatingeneral the lowland areas of

Southeast Asia are devoted to the intensive cultivation of one

staple crop, rice (Oryza sativa); the farming ofrice isequally

widespread in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea Evidently the plant

was indigenous to southern China, Vietnam, and nearby

areas,but itspread south and west from there during the

Ne-olithicperiod, untilinancient times itoccupied most of the

land suited to its cultivation in the tropical Asian areas,

which up to that point had been densely forested Although

large tracts of that tropical forest still remain in some parts

that are unsuitedtorice (in Borneo, for example), hundreds

of thousands of squarekilometers have been devoted to small

irrigated paddyfields,which are often terraced to make use of

theslopes Japanese industry, today the world's largest

con-sumer oftropical lumber, is causing extremely rapid

defores-tation in Borneo (as it has already done in Thailand and the

Philippines), with all the usual ensuing environmental

dam-age Rice isideally suited to these tropical forest lands: unlike

any other cereal crop,ricerequiresa hotgrowing seasonand

inundation of the fieldduring partof thegrowth period,and

hence abundant rainfall to feed the rivers Where irrigated

paddyisgrown, as inJavaor Bangladesh, one can find the

densest ruralpopulationsintheworld Cultivation of the rice

crop is labor-intensive, requiring human labor even more

than it does that of water buffalo; this facttends tokeep a

large part of the population on the land today

Ideal though these geographic conditions might be for

ricecultivation,theyare notfounduniversallyinthe

South-east Asian area.Thefloodplains of the larger rivers-the waddy, Salween, Chao Phraya, Mekong, Red River, andothers-with their alluvial soil andplentifulwater,were actu-

Irra-ally terraced and canalized in ancient times, and in someareas (Banaue, in northern Luzon, for example) even thesteepesthillsideswereterraced forpaddyfields But much ofthe landis mountainous and notclimatically suited to thecultivation ofeventhosevarietiesof rice that need no irriga-

tion Totheextent that anyagriculture canbe practicedon

the mountains, it consists of the farming of several species ofmillet that were indigenous to those regions In general mil-lets (Panicum and Sorghum spp.) require less sun and lessrainfall: some cultivation of them in swiddens is still fairly

widespreadinthe SoutheastAsian mountainareasand islandinteriors Inthe equatorial regions-namely, Malaysia, Indo-nesia, and the southern Philippines-cassava is anotherwidely grown staple Pepper, cloves, and other spices havebeen prominentinlocal cuisine and internationaltrade forseveral millennia

During the nineteenth century colonial commercial terests introduced some valuable new plantation crops,largely through private initiative: primarily rubber, but alsosugarcane, both ofwhichrevolutionized the economy of parts

in-of Southeast Asia,changing the social and geographical scape-and especially the natural rain forest-in the process.Spicesbecame of even greater economic importance: indeed,

land-it wasthe greatneed for spices thatfirstattracted the Dutch

to Indonesia four centuries ago

The area this volume deals with stretches some 5,300 lometers from east to west and 6,000kilometersfrom north

ki-tosouth While we might well expect such a vast area of theworld to show considerable climatic variation, much of theland experiences only two closely related climatic types,mainland and insular (Aw and Af in the Koppen system).Translated into figures, this means that almost everywhere inSoutheast Asia exceptonthe high mountains, the tempera-ture inthe coldest month of the year is atleast 18° C and therainfall in the driest month is at least 60 centimeters The in-sular climate (Af) is aconstantly rainy one, and some coastalareas of mainland SoutheastAsiaalso experiencethis In the

interior of Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Cambodia oneencounters the mainland climate (Aw), in which the temper-ature is still above 180 C in the coldest month butthere is a

dryseason in wintertime.Thehighermountainsof the

South-east Asian mainland, however, are of the Cwaclimatictype,which is characterizedby temperaturesinthecoldest month

somewhere between 18° and -3° C and in the warmest

monthhigher than100C.Coastal areas of Myanmar and

Vi-etnam, as well as Luzon, are somewhat different inclimatexxi

fromthese typesandareclassifiedasAm,whichmeansthat

while the temperature of the coldest month still remains

above 180 C,thereis a monsoonlike that which strikes

west-ernIndia:ashortdryseason in winter ismadeupforby heavy

rains duringmuch of the restof theyear.The South China

Sea is notorious for its typhoons (as described in Joseph

Conrad's novels LordJimandTyphoon) Mean annual

rain-fallin the insularsectorsof Southeast Asiaranges from 300

to 400 centimeters. On the west coasts of Myanmar and

Sumatra, however, itgenerally goes above 400centimeters.

Throughouttheareathe naturalvegetation is rainforest and

the predominantcultivatedplantis rice. (New Guinea, the

Congo,CentralAmerica,and theAmazon Basin are theonly

otherpartsof the world thatexperiencesuchaclimate.) In

SoutheastAsia,theonlyexception inregardto natural

vege-tation isCambodia,whichgenerallyhassavannarather than

rain forest

Japan and Korea, however, lie very much farther north

than the othercountriesdealt withinthis volume With the

smallexceptionof Okinawa and theRyukyuIslands

which-like neighboring Taiwan-are subtropical, Japan and the

peninsulaof Korea haveamild climate with well-defined

sea-sons, much like that of Britain Their climateisclassifiedin

the Kbppen system asCafinthe south, and asDawinthe

more northerly parts of the two countries (Dbw in

Hok-kaid6).Thismeansthatinthe south thereis a rainyclimate

with mildwinters,the coolest month of theyear averaging

be-tween 00 and 180 C, whereasinthe north of bothcountries

thewinters are more severe,and the coldest monthaverages

below0°C-inotherwords,snowfall and frostarenormal

The Nations of East and Southeast Asia

Fourteen nation-states nowmake up the regioncoveredin

this volume (populationtotalswereestimated atthe

begin-ning of1992):

Brunei,asmall sultanateonthenorthwestcoastof the

is-land of Borneo, surroundedby Malaysianterritory.Itscapital

isBandar Seri Begawan anditspopulationin1992numbered

only about 411,000 Thiswealthystate covers 5,765 square

kilometers andisofficially Muslim The populationis infact

66 percent Muslim, 12 percent Buddhist, and 9 percent

Christian Tribal animists accountforthe remainder of the

population

Cambodia (until recently known as Kampuchea) is a

people's republic currently under UnitedNationssupervision

in some areas.ItscapitalisPhnomPenh, anditspopulation

in1992wasestimatedat543,000 Thecountryhasan areaof

181,035square kilometers andisborderedbyVietnam and

Thailand Buddhismisthestatereligion, andmostpeopleare

Theravada Buddhists Manyothersare Marxists and belong

to the Khmer Rouge (For further details, see the article

"Khmer.")

Indonesia, the largest and most widespread country in

Southeast Asia,is arepublic,with Jakartaas itscapital The

populationwas estimated at 195,300,000 in 1992, and the

landarea is 1,919,443 squarekilometers The dimensions of

thecountry are impressive,foritstretchesover 5,100

kilome-ters from east to west and 2,000 kilometers from northto

south The land area consists ofan archipelago of 13,677

large and smallislands, of which about6,000 areinhabited

The populationis 87 percent Muslim and9 percent

Chris-tian, but there are also some 1.6millionBuddhists and 3.5

million Hindus It mustbepointedoutthat theRepublicof

Indonesia includes IrianJaya,the western half of the hugeisland ofNew Guinea Inthisparticularvolume of the Ency-clopedia of World Cultures,however,wehaveexcludedcover-

ageof the cultures of IrianJaya,sincetheywere morepriately dealt with in volume 2, Oceania; those particularculturesareall Melanesianandnon-Muslim,whereas the rest

appro-of Indonesia is generally Muslim and linguistically Malay

The province ofIrianJayacovers421,981 square kilometers

and had an estimated population of 1.56 million in 1989

(For further details onthis, seethe article'Irianese.")

Japan(Nippon, Nihon)is aconstitutionalmonarchywith

a democratically elected parliament, the Diet It consists of

four major and many small islands andislocatedinthe Pacific

OceanjusttotheeastofKoreaandimmediatelysouth of the

Russian island of Sakhalin The total land area is 377,708squarekilometers,an areaabout one-and-a-halftimesthat of

Great Britain (This areawill expand veryslightly ifRussia

eventuallycedestoJapansomeof the KurileIslands,which the

USSRseizedatthe end ofWorldWarII.) The populationwas

estimatedin 1992 at124,270,000,afigure thatincludes(1989figures) 681,838 Koreans (most of them long resident in

Japan), 137,499 Chinese, 38,925 Filipinos, 6,316Vietnamese

refugees, 5,542 Thais, and (1988 figure) 3,542 Malays,aswell

asabout 60,000people from other parts of the world.The ital city,Tokyo,onceknownasEdo,nownumbers justover 8

cap-million inhabitants The vast majority of the Japanese

popula-tionfollows Mahayana Buddhist deathritesbutalso adheres

tothenativeShint6religion Christiansare asmall minority.(For further details, see the article "Japanese.")

Korea,apeninsula of the Asian mainland, lies betweenJapanand the northeast comer of China Since 1948 it hasbeen divided into two very different nation-states: NorthKorea (Inmin Konghwa-guk, Democratic People's Republic

of Korea) and South Korea (Han Kook, Republic of Korea).Thedividing line between the two Koreas, near the 38th par-allel, was established at the end of the Korean War (1950-1953); it is a demilitarized zone of 1,262 square kilometersseparating the two nations North Korea contains the greatmajority of thepeninsula's mineral and forest resources; yettoday it is the economy of South Korea that is flourishing,whereas that of North Korea is stagnant and the country hasbecome a military dictatorship under Kim II-Sung and hisson.The capital of North Korea is Pyongyang, and that coun-try has a population of about 22,250,000 and an area of121,248 square kilometers In 1986 there were said to beabout 200,000Christians, 400,000 Buddhists, and 3 millionChondogyists (syncretists) in North Korea South Korea has

a population of about 43,305,000, and an area of 99,591squarekilometers; itscapital is Seoul Christians therenum-berabout 8.5 million, and the rest of the South Koreanpopu-lation follows a mixture of Buddhist, Confucian, andshamanic practices (For further details, see the article

"Korean.")

Laos is a smallinland democratic republiclying to thewest of Vietnam Its capital is Vientiane The area of thecountry is 231,399 square kilometers, and its populationnumbered some 4,158,000 in 1992 The population is mainlyHindu or Buddhist, but about 34 percent of the people followtribal, animistic religions (For further details, see the article'Lao.")

Introduction xxiii

Malaysiais acountrymade up of fifteen federatedstates

The area is 329,758 square kilometers, and this includes

198,160 square kilometers on the island ofBorneo, also

called Sarawak and Sabah, which form the eastern part of

Malaysia; the remaining part of the country is a peninsula

projecting southward from Thailand towards Sumatra.The

national populationwasestimatedat18,200,000in1992,

in-cludingsome350,000 Filipinoand 150,000 Indonesian

im-migrantsinSabah (1990estimates),mostof themillegal

set-tlers The federalcapitalisKualaLumpur Islamisthe official

religion, but therearealsonumerousBuddhists, Christians,

and tribalanimists inthe country.(Forfurtherdetails,seethe

article "Malay.")

Myanmar (formerly Burma) has for many years beena

military dictatorship Its capital is Yangon (formerly

Ran-goon) Although there has notbeen areliable census in a

long time, the population was estimated at 42,615,000 in

1992 About68 percent of the people are Theravada

Bud-dhists The landarea is 676,577 squarekilometers (For

fur-therdetails, seethe article"Burmese.")

The Philippine Republic is another archipelago, made up

ofabout 7,100 islands covering 299,681 squarekilometers

Ofthese Luzon, thelargestisland,covers athird of the land

surface, 104,684 squarekilometers; Mindanaointhe south

covers 94,627 square kilometers Thecapital is Manila In

1992 the population was about 62,380,000 This is the

only country in the region that is predominantly Roman

Catholic,althoughtherearesizable Muslimpopulations in

thesouthern islandsnearthe Sulu Sea, and tribal,animistic

religions are to be found in mostparts of the country In

1970a censusyieldedthefollowingnumbers ofreligious

ad-herents: 31,169,488RomanCatholics, 1,584,963 Muslims,

1,433,688Aglipayan, 1,122,999 other Protestants, 475,407

Iglesia ni Kristo, 33,639 Buddhists (mainly Chinese),

863,302 tribalanimistsand others Communist

sympathiz-ers are also numerous (For furtherdetails, see the article

"Filipino.")

Singaporeisscarcelymorethan one city,but it is alsoone

of the wealthiest statesinthe region andarepublicinwhich

Chinese dominate Thestate consistsofoneisland and58 is

lets, covering only 626 square kilometers Thepopulationin

1992 was approximately 3,062,000 Of these 41.7 percent

were Buddhist and Taoist (i.e., the Chinese), with another

18.7 percentChristian, 16percentMuslim, and 4.9 percent

Hindu (For furtherdetails, seethe article'Singaporean.")

Taiwan (the Republic of China, or Nationalist China)

since 1949 hasbeen a breakaway province of China undera

democratic government It covers 36,179 square kilometers,

and its capital is T'ai-pei The populationin 1992 stoodat

20,785,000, which included 337,342aboriginalpeople (1990

figure) The great majority of thepopulationis ofChinese

or-igin, some 16 million of themspeaking Hokkien The

tradi-tional Chinese mixof Buddhism and Taoismwith

Confu-cianismisthe dominantreligion (Forfurther details,seethe

articles "Taiwanese" and "Taiwan Aboriginal Peoples.")

Thailand, a democratickingdom, is a large country

cen-trallylocatedontheSoutheastAsianmainland.Itscapitalis

the flourishing city of Bangkok The areais 513,115 square

kilometers,and the population was about 57,200,000 in1992

In a census of 1983 the population included 47,049,223

Theravada Buddhists, 1,869,427 Muslims, 267,381

Chris-tians,aswellas64,469Hindus, Sikhs,and adherents of otherreligions (Forfurtherdetails,seethe article "CentralThai.")

Vietnam isalong, thin, andmainly coastal country ingmuch ofthewesternmarginof theSouth China Sea It is

form-a socialist republic, covering 329,566 square kilometers In

1992 thepopulationwasestimatedat 68,310,000,but there

were an additional 1.5 millionVietnamese living as refugees

in Hong Kong, elsewhereinSoutheast Asia, ortheUnited

States Because thearea hasbeen under strong Chinese

influ-ence for 2,100 years Taoism isthe traditional religion, butMahayana Buddhism is also widespread The country hasabout 2 millionfollowers of Hoa Hao, a Buddhist sect, andabout2millionmorefollowingCaodaism, a religion founded

in 1926thatsynthesizes Buddhism, Christianity, and

Confu-cianism Inthe southernpartof thecountrythere are blysome 6 millionRoman Catholics,but their religion hasbeensuppressed bythe socialistgovernment sincethe end oftheVietnam War (Seethe later section onthe war.) Com-munistsympathizers are very numerous (For further details,

proba-see thearticle "Vietnamese.")The Flux ofSoutheast Asian Civilizations

If one were todraw on a map a continuous line that scribed all the territory ofSoutheast Asia, one would find thatthe majority of the area soenclosedwas infactsea.Thesea

circum-has beenadeterminant of economicand social life in the areasince timeimmemorial For what we maycall insular South-eastAsia (Indonesia, Taiwan, and the Philippines) maritimetransportationwouldseem tohave beenanessential aspect ofcivilization Until the end ofthePaleolithic era most of theseislands and indeedmostofthe South China Sea were simplythe southeasterncontinuationof thegreat Asiaticlandmass;but withthe rising of sealevels at the end of the Ice Age theseislandsbecame cut off from the rest of Asia, around 16,000-12,000 years ago Some were already populated Prehistoricculturesdeveloped locally in these islands as they did on themainland.The land was rich, in many places of volcanic ori-gin,andby 6000-4000B.C.northern Thailand (at the sites ofSpirit Caveand Non Nok Tha) possibly had rice cultivation.Overlater centuries thiskind of farming became dominantoverhuge tracts of Southeast Asia Even the hillsides wereterraced for rice cultivationinancient times-mostdramati-cally, forexample, at Banaue innorthern Luzon Neolithiccultures slowly evolved into Bronze Age cultures as the tech-niquesofmetallurgy spread By about 500B.C.iron, too,hadbeen mastered in centralThailand, as it had in China, andoceanicshippingwas nodoubtbringing Chinesetrade intothis area

Yetmajor change was slow to follow the introduction of

iron.The distinctive rice-eatingcultures of thearea asyet had

nowritingsystems, no major cities, no universalistic religions.All this was to change very slowly as first China and thenIndia began to extend their influence into the SoutheastAsian region.Tropical geography has no doubt beenacrucialand limiting factor, determining which staple crop can begrownineach region; but almost as influentialhasbeenthe

long andinsidious thrust of civilization emanatingfrom

em-pires andkingdoms alike For Southeast Asia has been thehome and fertileseeding ground to notonebut five majorciv-

ilizations, eachbeing the historical and cultural elaboration

of a worldreligion of great antiquity and widepopular appeal

xxiv Introduction

Noneof these civilizationalinfluenceswasindigenoustothe

area, but allof them hadvastimpact

FirstwemayidentifytheHindusphere Arisingfrom the

earlier Brahmanism of Vedic andpost-Vedic India, Nepal,

and Sri Lanka, Hinduism took a recognizableform around

the seventh century A.D. Soon after that Indian mariners

spread eastward on their only phase offoreign ventures,

bringingtheir influencetotouch,ifnotactually establish,the

medievalkingdomsofBurma,Thailand, Malaya, Cambodia,

southernVietnam,southernBorneo, Sumatra, Java,Bali,and

Lombok Despitetheearlytrade connections,townsand

cit-iesdidnotappearinany number untilA.D.700,and thenthey

were muchmore numerous onthe mainland thaninthe

is-lands.At theirheightintheeleventh and twelfth centuries,

Angkor (in Cambodia) coveredmorethan20,000hectares,

andPagan (in Burma) covered 10,000 hectares, two of the

largest andgrandestcities onearth.Yetuntil about thetime

of the Muslim arrival inIndonesia (inthe fourteenthto

fif-teenth centuriesA.D.) true cities werevirtuallynonexistent in

the archipelago. The celebrated temple complexes at

Boro-budur and Prambanam inJavawerejustthat, notcity

com-plexes; buttheydid indicateastrong Hindu influence there

in the eighth and ninthcenturies.

Thevastbulk ofthe SoutheastAsianmainland,

includ-ing Thailand andCambodia,hadalreadybeenchangedsome

centuriesearlierbythe advent of anotherIndian

philosophi-cal and religious system, TheravadaBuddhism,which

para-doxicallyhad all butdisappearedfromitshomelandbyabout

the sixth centuryA.D.Buddhismwas toprovideapermanent

philosophical framework for most of the mainland cultures

that stretched between TibetinthewestandVietnaminthe

east; indeed, from the first centuryA.D itbecameoneof the

main religious and philosophicalstrands inthe civilizations

ofChina, Korea, andJapan

Chinesecivilization has beenathird majorinfluenceon

SoutheastAsiaaswellas onneighboringKoreaandJapan It

was the source of the principles of Taoist thinking,

Con-fucian ethics, and-even more important to millions of

people-Chinese mercantilism Thus the Chinese influence

was byno means onlyassociated with theancientspreadof

Buddhism, which indeed filtered eastward to Japan and

southwardthrough southern ChinaonlyasfarasVietnam

(The BuddhismofSriLanka, Myanmar,andThailandowes

littletoChinabecauseit wascarriedtothose landsbymonks

coming from India, and its texts were in the Pali language,

written in a scriptderived from that used forSanskrit.) The

huge Chinese populations to be found today throughout

muchofThailand, Singapore,Vietnam,Indonesia,and

else-where are aforceful reminder of the longand vigorous trade

associationsthatlinked the Chinese Empire with thesemore

southerly lands

Forthe past fewcenturies afourth greatcivilizing force,

also coming from the west, has been the spreadof Islam It

reached across India and Southeast Asia not only by the

sword but also with the tradingvesselsthat linked much of

the IndianOceanwith thewesternPacific.Yet itwas aslate

asthe fifteenth centurybeforeMalaysiaandIndonesiawere

converted; and by then the Portuguese were already at the

door-infact, theyattracted Arab traderstoMalacca Today

themostpopulousIslamic landsinthe worldaretobe found

in South and Southeast Asia, namelyPakistan, India,

Ban-gladesh, Malaysia,andIndonesia Islam reached as far as the

southern parts of the Philippinesbut did not travel farthernorth toTaiwan, Japan, or Korea Other religionsthat lefttheir mark on Indian civilization-Jainism, Sikhism, and

Zoroastrianism-were ofno importance farthereast

The fifth and final influence tobe noted has been the

more recentEuropeanone:iteffectively beganwith Vasco daGama's voyage to South India from Portugal in A.D 1498

Onehesitatesto identifythisas aChristianinfluence,even

thoughthatwasthereligionof these colonial conquerors,

be-causethe impact of Christianevangelists in most areashas

notbeen very great.Infactit isonlyinthePhilippinesand

somepocketsofIndonesia,Korea,andVietnamthatonecanfindChristiancommunitiesrunningto somemillions of peo-

ple; and of these countries only the Philippines can be

regardedaspredominantlyChristian Thereal impact of ropeancivilization has beenadministrative, educational,and

Eu-commercial,for therecentlyended colonialperiodsawnearlyevery country of SoutheastAsiaunderfairly direct colonialadministration (Indeed,TaiwanandKorea wereforawhileunder Japaneseimperial rule.)Thisstateof affairswasending

everywhere byabout 1950; but themodern infrastructure of

highways, railways, ports, government buildings, air and

postalservices, schools,universities, andpolitical and mercialinstitutionswasfirmlyinplace by thattimeand hasaltered the face of theseAsianlands forever

com-This picture of SoutheastAsia as an areaunder the

influ-enceofsomanyhistoricallydistinct civilizations must be

rec-ognizedas apartialone: it is notthewhole story The fact isthatonmuch of themainland,as inmostof the many thou-sands of inhabitedislands,inancientandrecenttimes, peo-

ple have commonly subsisted through simple farming or

food-collectingstrategies,withnoreliance whateverondistancemaritimetrade, withno familiarity with any of thegreat worldreligions, and with no participation in any city-centeredpolity Indeed, civilization in general came ratherlatetotheSoutheastAsianarea,although it had beenrecog-nizableon the Indian subcontinent 5,000 years ago and inChina4,000years ago.Butwhenonelookselsewhere in theregion,onefinds fewcity-statesanywhere until well after thesixth century A.D., andnearly allofthese reflect a Hindu influ-

long-ence Islam and the Europeanswereyet to arrive, and

Chi-nese traders seldom left much of a mark on indigenousculturesinthoseearlytimes (Koreaand Japan,being muchclosertoChina, were aratherdifferent story.)Tothesouththere were maritime connections with China, and Java was

even attacked by Mongols coming from there in 1293; yetIndiawasthemaininfluence on medieval Malay andIndone-

siankingdoms

Thespreadof Hinduismwasmarked by the diffusion ofmonumentalarchitecture, of writing scripts, and of Brahmanpriestsand scholars, particularly to the royal courts of South-

east Asia Eventoday people identifiable as Brahmans maystill be found at theroyalcourt in Bangkok, and they existalso inBali Thereis a remarkable correlation between themedieval incidence of Hinduism and irrigated rice cultivation

inSoutheastAsia:the two were distributed through the sameregions Oneshouldnotargue that the irrigation was intro-ducedtothisareaby Brahmans or other Indians, but itssur-

pluses did favor the erection of great Hindu and Buddhist

monuments Thiswas probably because the lax period afterthericeharvest,when food was most plentiful, allowedpeas-

antpeople thetime todonate their labor (or be coerced into

Introduction xxv

doing soby soldiers and officials) to buildthegrand

monu-mentsof civilization.Angkor, for example, a cluster of

medie-val towns, hydraulic engineering projects, and

Hindu-Buddhisttemples, covered, aswe have seen, something like

200 square kilometers

Korea and Japan

Amountainous spine runsthroughout the length of Japan,

and another runs more orlessparallel to itthrougheastern

Korea Between these twocountries lies the Sea of Japan, the

major source of fish in the diet of both The other staple in

that diet is rice, grown inirrigated paddies throughout

low-land Japan and Korea.Two otherimportant Japanese crops

are tea and mulberries, the latter providing the food for

silkworms

Asmight be expected fromitspositionatthe northeast

extremity of China, the Korean Peninsula has been under

very strong Chinese influence since the Bronze Age In 108

B.C.the Han army invaded Korea andconquered the kingdom

of OldChos6n Chinese rule lasted from then untilA.D.313,

but the influence of theChinese has neverceased Inthefirst

centuryB.C threekingdomscame into existence in Korea as

Chinese tributaries (Silla,Kogury6 and Paekche),adivision

thatlasted till A.D 668 InA.D 372 Buddhism first entered

Kogury6from China, and it soon became the dominant faith,

althoughithasneverfully supplantedalocal form of

shaman-ism Confucianism too, as well as Chinese art, architecture,

literature, and styles of governance, continued to exert a

stronginfluenceon Koreaoverthecenturies.GreatSilla

be-camethe preeminent powerin668, and ruled a unified Korea

until 936 The rest of Korean history downtothe present

cen-turyencompasses the rule of onlytwo dynasties, the Kory6

(936-1392) and theYi (1392-1910) During the twentieth

century Korea has sufferedvastly from the machinations of

foreignpowers First, the country found itself caught, latein

thenineteenth century,in apower struggle between its three

neighbors,China, Japan, andRussia.Then, following a

Japa-nese invasion, it became part of theJapanese Empire from

1910 to 1945 Hundreds of thousands of Koreans ended up

asslave labor inJapan, wherethey ortheir descendants

re-main By 1948 the country had splitintotwo: North Korea,

backed by theSovietUnion,and South Korea,backedby the

UnitedStatesand otherUnitedNationsforces TheKorean

Warended in 1953, buttoday, forty years later, the land is

still divided along the 38th parallel into two hostile states

(For further details, see the article "Korean.")

In the past Japan,Korea, and Taiwan looked to the

Bud-dhism and Confucianism and the arts and letters of China

for cultural inspiration Many of the cultural features of

an-cientJapan, including the useof kanji script, canbetraced

backthrough Korea to a Chinese origin Inmodem times,

however, the orientation ofthese countries is tothe world

economy Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are nowadays all

highlyindustrializedlands Earlyin thiscentury, at the

com-mencement of their industrialization, bothKoreaandTaiwan

were parts of the Japanese Empire, and theJapanese then

in-troducedtheir management style to the fledgling

manufactur-ingindustries ofthe other two countries TodayKorea and

Taiwan find themselves inmuch thesame situation astheir

mentor,exportingvastquantities ofadvanced technological

productsworldwide but importing hugeamountsof oil(they

produce virtuallynone) While Australia and New Zealand

canadequately supply the meat and fruits needed by Japan,the almost insatiable needs of the Japanese for fish, petro-leum, and tropical timbers constitute a long-term threat tothe ecology of the westernPacific and raise serious questionsabout the future stability ofthe Japanese economy

Salient features of Japanese and Korean history are

out-lined in the articles"Japanese" and "Korean." Taiwan will bediscussed furtherinthe volume dealing with China (but seealso thearticle 'Taiwanese" inthis volume)

Historical Geography

Aprominent geographical differencebetween China or India

on the one hand and Southeast Asia on the otheris thatwhile the former twocountries have the absolute minimumlength of coastline for such large territories, Southeast Asiahas an extremely longcoastline South Asia has very few nat-ural harbors, and thebest-known ports are to a large extentartificial Southeast Asia'smainland, in contrast, has a muchindented coastline; and the hugearchipelagoes of thePhilip-pines andIndonesia, as well as Japan, add tens of thousands

ofkilometers to the total coastline of the region The pines as we have seencontains 7,100 islands, including 11

Philip-very largeones; Japan includes 4 larger and more than 1,000smaller islands; andIndonesia has 13,677, including thesec-ond-, third- andfifth-largest islands on Earth-it is the larg-est group of islands anywhere From the earliest times seaconnections must have been of crucial importance in thisarea, and it was inevitablethat the Hindu, the Chinese, andthen the Muslim andEuropean influences camewith seafar-ing traders and adventurers in Southeast Asia Inpremoderntimes Malaysia, Indonesia, and other coastal areas were di-vided among what have been called "harbor principalities,"small coastal territories with sultans or chiefs controllingtheir economies Although much reduced in their powertoday, some of these people are still to be found living inram-

shackle palaces and bearing the title of sultan And where that the maritime traders went their alter egos, thepirates, were also to be found Some of these too have sur-vived to the present day (Seethearticles"Bajau," "Samal,"

every-and "Sea Nomads oftheAndaman.")

Inthe age of explorationit wasthe diverseattractionsoftrade, especiallyforcloves, nutmeg, mace, pepper, camphor,and Chinese silks, that brought the first European adventur-ers into the area.The Philippines, seized by Spain in 1571,became the only Spanishcolony in Asia, and Spain held it formore thanthree centuries in close connection with her Mexi-canterritories The Dutch held Indonesia forasimilarlength

of time,havingfoundedBatavia atthesiteofJakarta in 1619

The British acquired Malaya from the Dutch in 1824 andconquered Burma beginningin the sameyear;between 1859and 1893the French addedCambodia, Laos, and Vietnamto

their widespread empire as French Indochina Only Siam(nowThailand) managed to remain beyond formal annexa-tion,althoughit too wassubjecttostrongBritish and French

commercial exploitation The Portuguese, sopowerful

else-where, were hardlya force tobe reckonedwith in Southeast

Asia It istruethatd'Albuquerque conqueredthegreating port of Malacca, near Singapore, in 1511, thus making

trad-thePortuguese the first European traderstoventure into

In-donesianwaters Yet after their lossof MalaccatotheDutch

in 1641, the remote Indonesian island of Timoralong with

Macao, onthe south ChinacoastnearHong Kong,became

Portugal's onlytwo East Asian colonies Portugalwas more

involvedinexploitingthecoastsof Brazil and parts of Africa

One otherlatecomer to the colonial feastwas the United

States, which as a result of the Spanish-American Warof

1898found itself theguardian of the Philippines, Cuba, and

someother Caribbean islands Virtually all of the colonial

holdingssurvived until the mid-twentieth century, when the

Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia in WorldWar II and

sundry guerrillawarsfinallydrove the Europeans and

Ameri-cansout

The impact of these colonial powers-or rather of their

trading companies-was enormous and, as in India and

else-where, they developed the infrastructure of the present ten

states found in the Southeast Asian region The two most

prominenttrading ports, Singapore and Jakarta, were

Euro-pean foundations In Indochina and Malaysiathe valuable

plantation crop of rubberwasintroduced from South

Amer-ica.Tea,originally from China,wasanother plantation crop

that was introduced toJava InthePhilippines the Spanish

introducedRoman Catholicism anda Western outlook

fos-tered by the educational system Elsewhere indigenous

cus-toms and faiths weregenerally left alone by the Europeans,

especially by the Dutch Except for Myanmar, Thailand, and

Cambodia, it is true tosay that all of the majorcitiesofEast

and SoutheastAsia inmodemtimesarelocatedonthecoasts

of the regionand these are where Western influence was most

concentrated Eastand SoutheastAsia contains someof the

world's largest islands, and so it is not surprising that the

ef-fects of European colonization and modernization didnot

al-waysreach far inland Borneoinparticularissovastthatits

interior is not well known andisonly thinly populated and

quite underdeveloped That island is now divided among

three nations: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei

The Vietnam War

The recent history of Vietnameffectivelybegins with its

dec-laration ofindependence in 1945 Then, following the siege

of Dien Bien Phu bylocal guerrilla forces and after that the

GenevaConference, the French, who had administered this

region as Tongking, Annam,and Cochin China since 1859,

finally withdrew in 1956 Even before this very significant

de-feat of a major European imperial power, the ongoing civil

war in Vietnam had attracted the military attention of a

sin-gle-minded United States government intent on 'beating

communism." In 1956 acease-fire between warring factions

had created a demilitarized zone ("DMZ" in military

par-lance) across the central part of the country This zone was to

separate Communists to the north from Buddhists and

Christians to thesouth; but the United States, siding with

thesoutherners,began to treat the DMZ as a national

bound-ary, whichit was neverintendedtobe.By 1965 theUnited

States had documented the returnofseventeen ex-soldiers

from the north into the southern zone-something

com-pletely within their rights-and to counter this "invasion"

began a massivebuildup of U.S military forces, with 50,000

from South Korea and some token support from Australia

and elsewhere What ensuedwas theVietnam War

(1965-1975), inwhich the UnitedStatessent over2.5 millionmen

andwomen into the field, onlyto see over59,000 of them

killed by well-trained guerrilla fighters In April 1975 the last

of the U.S forces left Saigon,leaving behind a reunited

Viet-namunder a Communist government, impoverished almost

beyondrepair.In 1993 Vietnam isstilloneof themostward countries of the region,despite its great agricultural po-tential The infrastructurethe French colonial administrationleft behindnearly forty years ago is no longer effective, andconsequently refugees, mainly"boat people," are still fleeingfrom Vietnam's poverty and repression in considerablenumbers

back-Religions

But what of the unity amid this cultural and geographicaldiversity-or perhapsmore accurately, the separate unities?Although the hilly interiors both of islands and of the main-land remain the home of numerous localized animistic reli-gions, Southeast Asia as we have seen has been a meetingplace of four major world faiths Thus the region has a Thera-vada Buddhist northern sector that stretches throughMyan-

mar,Thailand,and Cambodia and a Muslim southern sectorthat stretches through Malaysia and Indonesia to the south-

em Philippines From its centerinthe Philippines, ity reaches westward to parts of Vietnam,Indonesia, and Ma-laysia The northern part of Vietnam, which had been understrong Chinese influence since about 110 B.C., has the Chi-nese mixofMahayana Buddhism with Taoism and Confu-

Christian-cianphilosophy,asdo Singapore and Taiwan; and now there

is aCommunist (officially atheistic) segment in the eastthat reaches down from North Korea andChina throughLaos and the long finger of Vietnam No doubt this geo-graphicsketch is a gross oversimplification, but it serves topoint out how people in great blocks of territory have beenstimulated by contact with greatly differentphilosophies Be-ginninginthesecond orthird centuryA.D Hindu influencebecame widespread in Java, southern Vietnam, southernSumatra, and Cambodia; but later Islam displaced the power

north-ofmedieval Hinduism in most of these areas, and sothe latterfaith is now scarcely noticeable in the regionoutside of Baliand Lombok The cultural impact of Hinduism was wide-spread and of great importance in kingship, the arts, mythol-ogy, and the diffusion of writing Buddhism in SoutheastAsiancountries of course has roots that go back nearly 2,000years Communismhas been important here only since themiddlethird of this century, and Christianity since the arrival

of the first European missionariesin the Philippines in thesixteenth century Sikhism and Hinduism are now to befoundamong the sizable immigrant populations of Malaysiaand Singapore

All of these influences persist throughout this vast region

to this day and are reflected in the latestestimates for

reli-giousadherence For the entirety of Southeast Asia, it is lievedthat in 1990 there were roughly 178 million Muslims,

be-65 million Christians, 53 million Buddhists, and 5 millionHindus

These figures are mere estimates, and they by no meanscover the entire Southeast Asian population of435 million,which also included (in 1990) perhaps 9 millionConfucians,Taoists, Sikhs, atheists and nonworshiping Marxists, and atleast 125 million tribal animists What these figures do re-flect, then, is the persisting impactinthat part ofthe world ofthe fivediverse civilizations listed earlier

Introduction xxvii

These figures cannot really be enlarged to include the

four countries ofEastAsiawithwhich this volume deals The

reason is astraightforward one InTaiwan the Chinese

peo-ple are commonly simultaneously Buddhists, Taoists, and

Confucianists:inthe words ofapopulardictum, "The three

faiths are one."Asimilarmelangeisalsoencounteredinboth

North and South Korea, whereanadded element-or a local

variant ofTaoism-is the widely prevalent shamanism In

Japan it has oftenbeen saidthatonelives as a Shintoist and

diesaBuddhist: there thesetworeligions coexistinthelives

of many It was in theninth century A.D that Shint6 (a

Chi-neseterm) and Buddhism became welded together into a

sin-gle Japanese faith that was called Ry6bu-Shint6 or "dual

Shint6." The old Shint6 deities thus became avatars of the

Buddhist deities.Inthe nationalistic fervor thatfollowed the

Meiji restoration in 1867, Shint6 rituals were given a new

prominencewhile Buddhism experienced some disfavor Yet

today Buddhist moralteachings, funerals,and concepts of

es-chatology complement theShint6 pilgrimages, local festivals,

and marriage ceremonies inthe religious life of most

Japa-nese Insummary,mostworshipers in these countriesof East

Asiatend not to be distinctly ofonehistoric faith oranother,

asthey are inSoutheastAsia

Contemplation of the huge numbers of people living in

East and Southeast Asia, a land area of about 4,706,700

squarekilometers, promptsme toadd that this volume deals

withnearly 13 percent of the world'spopulation (justover 5

billion in 1993) The rough geographiclimitsencompassing

this massaretheChindwinRiverinthe west; thePhilippine,

Japanese, and Indonesian archipelagoes in the east; the

In-dianOcean to the south; andto the north, the Red River

(Song Koi) in Vietnam and the Russian territories of

Sakhalin and Kamchatka

Categorization of Cultures

Inall of SoutheastAsiatraditionalpremodern societieswere

of three typesonly.First,therewerethe tribal societies,

doz-ens of which have been described in the present volume

Their cultures showed great variation, particularly between

oneregionand another Social fragmentation was a common

featureof their former histories Butthey did havetwo

dis-tinct kinds of economy There were the foragers, some of

whom traded forest produce with the coastaltowns (See the

later discussion.) Someindeed have flourishedinthe present

centurythrough theproductionof opium,which, though

ille-gal, nowcommands a huge world market There were also the

swiddenfarmers,who usedslash-and-bumtechniques to

pro-ducesmall fields of millet and other foodstuffs on the

hill-sides; they too often grew opium, in the swiddens of the

notorious Golden Triangle Tribal societies have been quite

varied in their cultures, partly for environmental reasons and

partly becauseuntilrecently most have beenlittleaffectedby

the great world religions on account of the geographic

re-moteness of theirterritories Spirit cults, slaving and

head-huntinghave been features of these tribal cultures right down

tothe twentieth century

Asecond type of society was the inland state-though

some examples of this shouldperhaps be describedinother

terms,astheymay havestretched downtothecoasts.These

states were a stark contrasttothe smallself-contained tribal

societies:theywerealways basedonirrigatedricecultivation,

supported large populations, and usually had a hierarchicalsocial organization centered on towns A rural peasantry la-bored toproduce the staple foodswhile an extensive bureauc-racyandpriesthood, mainlyinthe towns,wassubservient to apettyking or raja The religion of thesestatesthroughout theSoutheast Asian area was a sometimes uneasy amalgam ofHinduism and Buddhism; the insularareasofIndonesia andthe southern Philippines have been Islamized since the fif-teenth century, and much of the Philippines has becomeChristiansincethe sixteenth century.Premodern Korea andJapan wereessentially made upof states of this sort although,

asdiscussedearlier, a Hindu orIslamic componentintheirregionwaslacking

Athird kind of society that provided economic tion in premodern times was whatvan Leur (1955) has calledthe harbor principality These were independent tradingstates, centered on certain seaports and river estuaries, thathad a raja, a strong mercantile class, and very often slavelabor Merchants gained products from the inland rice-producing states andevenfrom forest-dwellingtribes, whichthey then traded to other parts of Southeast Asia, even tosouthern China and India

integra-The arrival ofEuropean traders some centuries ago didnotimmediately alter this pattern of societies Batavia underthe Dutch East IndiaCompany was simply another harborprincipality, aswasthelater British settlementatSingapore.But eventually therelationship between seaports and inlandagricultural regions was to change radically, because the Eu-ropean colonists started developing plantations for coffee,tea, sugar, andin somemainland areas rubber By thenine-

teenth century the rajas of Malaysia and Indonesia were servient respectively to British and Dutch colonial authori-

sub-ties Aprominent feature of the plantation system was its use

of indentured laborbroughtfrom outside the area-Chinese

in Malaysia, Vietnam, andIndonesia, Javanese in Sumatra,and Indians in Malaysia and SriLanka The plantation super-visorswerenormally European,but middle-level staff on theplantations, aswell ason such supporting transportation asthe railroads, were commonly half-caste: Anglo-Indians inMalaysia and South India, Burghers in Sri Lanka, mestizos inthe Philippines (where sugar was grown), and Dutch orFrench half-castes intheir respective colonial territories.Whereas many of theplantations survived the Japaneseinvasion inWorld War 11, European political control did not;andalthough the British, French, and Dutch did stay on intheareaforawhile after the war, all of theirSoutheast Asiancolonies had disappeared by about 1960 The fabric of society

is now beingformed in some countries by the requirements ofcapitalist development and in other countries by guerrillawarfareand continuing civil strife

Social Organization

Theorganization of Southeast Asian societies is in the mostgeneral way characterized by kindreds andbilateral descent.This makes astark contrast with social organizationinSouthAsia, for example, where castedifferentiationis adominantfeature, orwiththe social orderinJapan, Korea, and Taiwan,where patrilineages are universal Even though there was a

long Indian cultural influence onmuch of Southeast Asia,theidea of acaste-organizedsocietydidnotreallydiffuse be-yond thesettlementsof Indian invaders Casteimpliesabasic

xxviii 119TUUIL&UL

rule ofpatrilineal descent and inheritance, which accounts

forthe well-known fact thatsons inSouthAsiainherittheir

father's propertyandusuallyfollowinhisoccupational

foot-stepsaswell.Thisisalso thecase in EastAsiancountries In

Southeast Asia, bycontrast, small families ofparents with

their children arethe universal socialunit: themost

impor-tant corporate unit forlandholding, economic activity, and

daily social relationsisthis domestic unit, a family Beyond

this themost commonlargersocialunit isthe kindred Both

of themarebilateralratherthan lineal.Whereasacaste isa

social group withwell-defined boundaries and thusadefinite,

if numerous, set ofmembers, akindred is not agroup but

ratherasocial groupinghavingnoparticularboundaries: the

kindred ofoneindividual differs from thatof another because

it issimplydefinableas the close lineal and collateral kin of

anindividual, regardlessof whethertheyarerelatedtohimor

her matrilaterally orpatrilaterally Inshort, the kindredis a

bilateral grouping of one's relatives tracedperhaps as far as

one's secondorthird cousins,whereas the Indian caste is a

unilineal descent group made up ofclans,lineages, and

ex-tended families Chinese and Japanese clans haveastructure

similartothat ofthecaste Putanother way,we canvisualize

thecaste as alargegroupthat willcontinue to existfor

cen-turies,regardlessof whether anyoneparticular personisborn

into it or not.The kindred, incontrast, is Ego-centered and

onlyexists(orcanonlybedefined)inrelationto one

particu-lar individual (whom anthropologists conventionally call

Ego). Forthisreasonthekindred,whichis soimportantin a

person'ssocial relationsbeyondthefamily level,cannotbea

descent group andis not even acorporate group; whereas for

Indians the caste, and for Chinese the clan,isthe largest

de-scentgroup.Inregardtomarriage,wemaynotethat while the

domestic unit, the family,is anexogamous unit, thekindred

isonly rarelydefinableasexogamous Indian familiesare

ex-ogamous too, but theircastes are always endogamous

Languages

The SoutheastAsianlanguages belongtothree different

fam-ilies Virtually all languages of insular Southeast Asia are

related to Malay and classifiedas Austronesian (or

Malayo-Polynesian); these include the aboriginallanguages of

Tai-wanbut donotextendintoIrianJaya.Onthemainland,

how-ever, another language family, Sino-Tibetan, predominates

It has three main subfamilies: Tibeto-Burman, Tai, and

Sinitic, althoughthe lastisonlyrepresented here among

im-migrant Chinese populations, including those of Taiwan

Khmer andsometribal pockets ofLaosand Thailandcanbe

assignedto athirdfamily,Austroasiatic (also calledMunda

orMon-Khmer).The Japaneselanguagecannotbeassigned

to any family.Korean might be remotely relatedto itbutis

probably to be classifiedas Ural-Altaic

Despite the large number oflanguages spoken ineach

country today, each has an "official" language of wide

cur-rency: Burmese in Myanmar, Thai in Thailand, Khmer in

Cambodia,Vietnamese inVietnam, MalayinMalaysia,

Chi-neseand otherlanguagesinSingapore, Bahasa Indonesiain

Indonesia, FilipinointhePhilippines,Laotian inLaos,

Man-darin in Taiwan, Korean in Korea, and Japanese inJapan

Englishiswidelyused inMalaysia, Singapore, andthe

Philip-pines andis common as asecondlanguageinbigcitiesof the

othercountries Frenchisstillspoken bysomeolder

Cambo-dians, Laotians,andVietnamese,whileJapaneseis known toolder Koreans and Taiwanese InIndonesia Dutch hasbeen

displaced by Englishas asecond(orrather athird) language;

for mostpeoplethere the secondlanguageisBahasa

Indone-sia,anationallanguagethat was madeupbya committeein

the mid-twentieth centuryto answerthe needs of national

in-tegration.Itcould beloosely characterizedasJavanese witha

largetechnicalvocabularyborrowed fromEnglishandDutch

A Note on Placenames

In recentyears several important and well-established

place-nameshavebeenchangedby national governments Thusin

1989 General Ne Win changed the name ofBurma tothe

moreliteraryMyanmaratthebehest of his soothsayer.bodia was namedKampucheafor a while In Indonesia (the

Cam-former Dutch East Indies),mostof Borneo is nowKaliman-.tan;Celebes isSulawesi;Halmaherahaslong had the alterna-

tive nameJailolo Gilolo; JavaisJawa; theLesserSundasareNusa Tenggara; the Moluccas are Maluku; and Sumatra is

Sumatera

Ofthe various townsthat havechangednames in recent

years, we notethat Rangoon, the capital of Myanmar, ciallybecameYangonin 1989, and that Makassar (in Sula-wesi) is nowknown asUjungPandang Seoul, the capital of

offi-SouthKorea,is also known as S6ul orKy6ngs6ng AftertheVietnam Wartherewas extensiverenamingofplacesinthesouthern part of Vietnam, with Saigon forexample becoming

Ho Chi Minh City

Agood atlas,suchasThe TimesAtlasof the World,

usu-allygivesboth old and new names intheinterestofclarity.Earlierinthe century,wemight also note,Siambecame Thai-

land, and after independence Dutch New Guinea became

IrianJaya;Malaya (formerly theStraitsSettlements and erated MalayStates) joined with Sarawak andSabah to be-

Fed-come Malaysia; and the French provinces of Tongking,Annam, and Cochin Chinatogether becameVietnam NorthKorea and South Korea were, before 1948, jointly called

Corea Taiwan previously went by its Portuguese name,

Formosa

The Coverage ofThis Volume

Thereis nowayinwhich wemighthavecovered,evenmatically, all the peoples of East and Southeast Asia in onevolume.Eventhoughitmay appearthatthis volume containsmanydescriptionsofminority cultures-thoseof smalltribes

sche-ortinyislands, with diminutive populations and a minimalhistorical impact inthe region-we have infact only beenabletooffera smallsampling of such cultural descriptions

Forexample,onthe island of Halmahera (area 17,350 square

kilometers) onthe equatorintheeasternpartofIndonesia,therearetwenty-onecultures,distinguishable in particular by

their use oftwenty-onedistinctlanguages belonging to two

families, but of thesewe have coveredonly Tobelorese (but

seealso"Moluccans-North"and"Ternatan/Tidorese").thermore, forsome countries in theregion (especially Myan-mar, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia,andVietnam) there hasbeen little or no anthropological research on local culturalgroupsfor over aquarterof acentury: thisismainlyan effect

Fur-of socialist governmentpolicies prohibiting such research As

a consequence there is adearth ofnew information aboutsomeof the cultures that are covered in this volume To the

Introduction xxix

extentpossible,wehave tried to update previous descriptions

of the cultures of those countries (mainly from the volumes

edited by LeBar et al., 1964, 1972, 1975) with more recent

population and locational data It is not possible, however, to

gauge accurately how the political, economic, and social

changes of the last several decades haveaffected many of the

smallergroups,especially in thesocialist countries just cited

The population figures for certain groups are also quite

unreliable, although we have triedto be as up-to-date as

pos-sible by providing estimates Wedid contact the governments

of Southeast Asian nations forcensusdatabut tolittle avail,

asmany of their ethnic groupsare not enumerated separately

ingovernment censuses We havealso relied on the estimates

reported in Ethnologue, althoughthese can perhaps be more

accurately described as counts of speakers of specific

lan-guages rather than counts of the members of ethnic groups

Inregard to Vietnam, we wantto thank Frank Prochan, who

kindly supplied us with asummary of the 1985 censusof that

country

Attheoutset, the editor was faced with the taskof

select-ingfrom thousands of discrete social units a relatively small

number that might represent the cultural, religious, ethnic,

social, and economic diversity of the region As a starting

point, forty-six "peoples" included in the World

Ethno-graphicSample were deemed,bythatfact alone, worthy of

in-clusion here (though in several cases no appropriate living

author could be found)

Asecondprocedure was to strive for coverageof peoples

who, regardless of how numerousthey are, figure prominently

in the ethnographic literature

A third requirement was to ensure that major cultural

categories such as the Malaysand Tagalog speakers were

cov-ered, if only because they often number tens of millions of

people.The editor thus saw no difficulty in includingarticles

on groupsof different scale and size

Afinal factor, a very important one, that helped

deter-mine ourcoverage was which authors might be available In

somecasesprofessionalanthropologists volunteeredto write

about aparticular people or tribe with which theywere

famil-iar, and ofcourse such offers were never refused In other

cases,however, the obvious person to writeabout a particular

social group-the "authority" on them-was deceasedor

un-available In theseinstances, where some sort of lacunain our

coverage seemed unavoidable, the project staff came into

play These were people at the Human RelationsArea Files

(HRAF) office and anthropology students at the University

ofIllinois, inChicago, who worked with the editorto produce

shortarticlesbased on previously published ethnographic

lit-erature Ourtask was made vastly easier bythe existence of

twolandmark surveys edited by Frank LeBarand others:

Eth-nic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia (1964) and Ethnic

GroupsofInsularSoutheastAsia (1972,1975) The longer

ar-ticles have allfollowed the format established in volume 1 for

the entireEncyclopedia of World Cultures

Reference ResourcesThere are several good, detailed historical and geographical

surveys ofthis region The standard historyof Southeast Asia

isby Hall (1981) Cady (1964), le May (1954), and Keyes

(1988) canalso berecommended For prehistory and

proto-history there are informative, up-to-date articles in Hughes

(1985) and in Sherratt (1980) The Indian influence is well

coveredbyCoedes (1968) and le May (1954) Manyarticles

dealing with Southeast Asian history may also be found inEmbree (1988) An excellent regional geography isby Fisher

(1966), and another standard geography is by Dobby (1973)

As far as ethnography is concerned, the surveys edited by

LeBar etal (1964, 1972, 1975), mentioned earlier, have notbeen superseded unless by the present volume Three collec-tionsof anthropological essays make profitable reading, one

edited by Murdock (1960), a second edited by Kunstadter

(1967), andathirdby Turton and Tanabe (1984) Anarticle

by Wertheim (1968) is a masterly surveyof Southeast Asiansociety Twouseful French introductions tothe region areby

Condominas (1978)andbyCuisinierand deJosselin deJong

(1972) Two other general surveys, both very dated butwellillustrated, areHutchinson (n.d.) and Frey et al (1937) Anintroductory account of the mythology of the region is byLuomala (1972), and a more thorough and recent one is byBonnefoy (1991, 2:913-1141) In fact, Bonnefoy's twovol-

umes are afine introduction to mythologyof the entireworld,

andtheir sections roughly correspond tothe way volumes ofthis encyclopedia have been divided Recent accounts ofBuddhism in the area include Buswell (1987), Noriyoshi

(1987), andSwearer (1981, 1987) For more onBuddhism,seethe bibliography of the article "Buddhist."Van der Kroef(1976) provides an overview of Indonesian religious move-

ments, and Nguyen Tr5n Huin (1976) does the same forVietnam Four excellent histories of the arts have been pub-

lished for this part of Asia: one dealing with Indonesia(Wagner 1959), one with Indochina (Groslier 1962), onewith Japan (Swann 1966), and another dealing with Burma,Korea, and Tibet (Griswold et al 1964) For the languages ofthe area one should consult Sebeok et al (1967),or Huffman(1986) There are many good introductions to Japanese, forexample Vaccari and Vaccari (1961) Drews and Hockings

(1981) offer a detailed bibliography of bibliographies for theentire region, including Japan, Korea, and Taiwan

For Japan there exists a multitude of reference works Abasic encyclopediahas been published byK6dansha (1983)

A good brief introduction to the cultural history is Collcutt,Jansen, and Kumakura (1988), and for both Japan and KoreaToynbee (1973) contains some excellent articles A moredetailed account of Japanese cultural history, longer because

it consists primarily of translated texts, was prepared byTsunoda, de Bary, and Keene (1958) An old but fascinatinghandbook to the traditional culture is by Chamberlain

(1971).Useful if brief accounts of the religions of Japan are

by Rotermund (1970), Renondeau and Frank (1970), andRenondeau (1976a, b); for recent Japanese sectarian move-ments, see Rotermund (1976) Ogg (1976) introduces Ko-rean religion General surveys of Japanese society includeNakane (1970), Norbeck (1976), Passin (1968), Smith and

Beardsley (1962), and Yanagita (1970) For further ences, see the bibliographies following the articles "Ainu,"

refer-"Japanese," and "Korean," and a bibliography organized bysubject in Collcutt, Jansen, and Kumakura (1988, 225-227).Most of the countries dealt with in this volume havetheir ownmodernnovelists, and these are especially numer-ous in Japan Many of their works finally have been translatedinto English and thus have become accessible to Western stu-dents With no pretensions to providing more than a sam-pling, we offer a short list of novels and a few plays by some of

xxx Introduction

theleadingwritersof Southeast Asia andJapan(with

transla-tiondates; Asianfamilynames are given first)

FromBurma/Myanmar:Nu,U,ThePeopleWinThrough;

Pe, Hla, KonmaraPyaZat (1952) FromIndonesia: Echols,

JohnM., ed., IndonesianWritingin Translation (1956).From

Japan: Akutagawa Ryfinosuke, Hell Screen (1948), Kappa

(1949),Japanese Short Stories (1961), Rashomon and Other

Stories (1952), and Tales Grotesque and Curious (1938);

DazaiOsamu,NoLongerHuman (1958) and TheSettingSun

(1950);Edogawa Rampo,JapaneseTalesofMysteryand

Imag-ination (1957); Hayashi Fumiko, Floating Cloud (1957);

Hino Ashihei, Barley and Soldiers (1939); Kawabata

Yasunari,SnowCountry (1957),The Soundofthe Mountain

(1970), andA Thousand Cranes (1959); Kikuchi Kan,The

Madmanon the Roof(c 1916);KobayashiTakiji, The

Can-nery Boat (1933);MishimaYukio, After theBanquet(1963),

ConfessionsofaMask(1960),DeathinMidsummer and Other

Stories(1966), and The Temple ofthe Golden Pavilion (1956);

Mori Ogai, The Wild Geese (1959); Murasaki Shikibu, The

TaleofGenji(1935, butwrittenaboutA.D. 1000);Mushak6ji

Saneatsu, Friendship (1958) andThe Heart IsAlone(1957);

NatsumeS6seki, Botchan (1973), Kokoro (1967), andMon

(1972); Noma Hiroshi, ZoneofEmptiness (1956); Tanizaki

Junichir6,DiaryofaMad OldMan (1965),The Makioka

Sis-ters (1957), Seven Japanese Tales (1964), and Some Prefer

Nettles(1955); seealsothetranslations by DonaldKeene in

his three books, Anthology ofJapanese Literature (1956),

Modern Japanese Literature (1957), and Five Modern Noh

Plays (1957); and also Ivan Morris, ed., Modern Japanese

Stories-An Anthology (1962) From the Philippines:

Joaquin, Nick, The Woman Who Had Two Navels (1961);

Rizal, Jose,Noli metangare orTheSocial Cancer(1956,1961)

and The Reign of Greek (1912) From Thailand: Khu'krit

Pramoj, MomRatchawong, RedBamboo (1955)

SeveralprominentBritishauthors have produced novels

thatwere set inthe SoutheastAsianarea.Ofthese, themost

noteworthy are surely Joseph Conrad's Almayer's Folly

(1895), LordJim (1900), An Outcastof the Islands (1896),

The Rescue (1920), The Shadow-Line (1917), and Typhoon

(1902); Graham Greene's The Quiet American (1955); W

Somerset Maugham's The Casuarina Tree (1926); and

George Orwell's Burmese Days (1934) Of numerous

ac-countsofEuropeanexploration, the mostimportant

histori-callyareperhaps AlfredR.Wallace'sTheMalay Archipelago

(1869) and the several works of Lafcadio Heam (later

KoizumiYakumo) Theaboveliterarytitleshave notbeen

in-cludedinthe following bibliography,as mosthavecome out

in numerouseditions

Acknowledgments

The editor thanksPaulWheatley and Anthony R Walker for

their valuable advice on the coverage of ethnic groups in

Southeast Asia and Robert L Messer for his advice on the

Vi-etnam War Inaddition,the helpofJoyceDrzal, film librarian

attheUniversity ofIllinois, provided up-to-date information

on the distributors for all films listed in the filmography

Their aid, togetherwiththat of several anthropology students

atthe University ofIllinois, is gratefully acknowledged

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in-cludingThailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia NewYork:Crown Publishers

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Keyes,CharlesF (1988) The Golden Peninsula:Culture and

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Macmillan; K6dansha International

K6dansha (1983) K6dansha Encyclopedia ofJapan 9 vols

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PAUL HOCKINGS

Encyclopedia of World Cultures

ETHNONYMS:Achehnese, Achinese, Atchinese, Atjehnese,

UreungAceh, UreungBaroh, Ureung Tunong

Orientation

The Acehnese areagroupnumberingmorethan 2.6million

who inhabit the northern portion of the island of Sumatrain

Indonesia They aredistinguished from theirneighbors

pri-marily by their adherence to the Muslim (Sunni) faith

Acehnese may be dividedinto twosubgroups: the hill people

(who are physiologically homogeneous proto-Malays) and

thelowland coastal people(whoarephysiologically

heteroge-neous) The Acehneselanguage belongstothe Malay

Sub-family of the Indonesian Branch ofAustronesianandis most

closely related to the Chami languages of Indochina; most

Acehnese also speak Bahasa Indonesia

History and Cultural Relations

Early Acehnese historyindicates that it was once ruled by

Buddhists who wereoriginallyfrom India TheSunniIslam

religion came to the regionprobablyinthe twelfth century,

andperhaps earlier The Acehnese had theirfirstsultan, who

controlled aharbor, inthe sixteenth century, butit was not

until the seventeenth century that the entire area was

politi-cally united as a sultanate The Acehnese resisted colonial

European power,whichappearedinapproximately 1509 and

which became prevalent under the Dutch by 1601 The

Acehnese did not surrender officially to the Dutch until

1903,and even thenresistancecontinued until World War I

Although declared a part ofthe new state of Indonesia in

1945,the Acehneseeffectivelyruled themselves until1961

Settlements

Most Acehnese live invillages, also known as meunasah, or

prayer houses, since each village contains one or more of

these Villages are located in the midst of the inhabitants' rice

fields

Economy

Most Acehnese subsistthrough agriculture, primarily by

rais-ing rice; in thelowland areas, wet-rice culture ismost

com-mon, and in thehills, dry-rice culture.Otherimportant crops

includesugarcane, tobacco,rubber, peanuts, coconuts, areca,

maize, pepper, and, in some areas, coffee

Approxi-mately one-third ofthepeople raising crops doso ascroppers, and there are tens ofthousands of agriculturalla-

share-borersaswell Cattle andwaterbuffaloarefrequently raisedfor meat and as draft animals In coastal areas, Acehnesefishwith casting nets, seines, lines,and traps The Acehnese arewell known as metalworkers who fashion weapons as well asgoods of gold and silver.Women weavehigh-quality cotton

and silk textiles Trade isimportant as a means ofbringingcashtothevillage, and youngmen areexpected to leave thevillage totrade orworkduring thefirst yearofmarriage

in timesofconflict, but now appear to have lost most or all oftheir function Matrilineal descent groups, orkarong, func-

tion as residential groups among the uxorilocalAcehnese

Marriage and Family

The Acehnese follow Islamic law in marriageprohibition, andthey forbid marriage withkin in one's own line of descent orwith anyone within threedegrees of relatedness Polygyny stillexists among thewealthy Marriage, which requires the con-sentof the parents of both bride and groom, takesplace afterthe groom delivers the bride-price to the bride's representa-tives inthe prayer house.Following marriage, the couple liveswith the bride's family, and the bride's parents support thebride and her children for aperiod of time, depending on thesize of the bride-price Inheritance follows Islamic law: forevery share given to a female, two are given to a male Off-

spring receive inheritance from both parents, with sons

re-ceiving agricultural land and daughters dwellings

Sociopolitical Organization

Althoughunder Indonesiancontrol,the Acehnese also have

an elected village chief (keuchi) who regulates family law andrice growing, as well as an elected religious authority(teungku) who adjudicates matters pertaining to Islamic law.These two officers work together with a village council made

up of mature men Between the village and federal

adminis-trative levels is a lower-district level (mukim) comprised ofthose villagesthatareservedbyasingle mosque;it is adminis-

teredby a priest (imeum) There is also an upper-district level3

comprisedof severalvillagesandmukim;it isgoverned byan

uleebalang.Prior toIndonesian controlithadagreatdeal of

autonomy, and the uleebalang office was passed down

throughpatrilinealsuccession

Acehnese ofthe nineteenth century were divided into

four separate groups basedprimarilyonreligious orgovem

mentalfunction,but these havegiven wayto adivision based

on whether one is anulamna (religious scholar) or not

Religion and Expressive Culture

Acehneseare consideredamongthe most zealous of all

Indo-nesiansintheir Islamicbeliefs Theyareespeciallyconcerned

with thepilgrimageto Mecca,the tithe,and the fastduring

Ramadan There alsosurvive traditional beliefs in the

super-natural, aswellas magic associatedwithagriculture and

fe-male shamanism

BibliographyJayawardena, Chandra (1977) "Women and Kinship in

Aceh Besar, Northern Sumatra."Ethnology 16:21-38

Reid, Anthony (1979) The Blood of the People: Revolution

and the End ofTraditional RuleinNorthern Sumatra Kuala

Lumpur: Oxford University Press

Siegel, James T (1979) Shadow and Sound: The Historical

Thought ofa Sumatran People Chicago: University of

groups, numberingin total about7,000 people Theyare

no-madic hunter-gatherers scatteredwidelyoverseveralthousand

square kilometers of denserainforestin eastern Luzon inthe

Philippines They appear phenotypically different from other

Filipinos because of their Negroidfeatures: darkskin,kinkyhair,

and smallsize.Theheight and weightaveragesformen are 153

centimeters(60inches) and45kilograms (99 pounds).

Wom-en'saverages are144centimeters (56 inches) and38kilograms

(84 pounds) They aregenerally referredto as 'Negritos."

Location. TheAgta groups are locatedall along the

east-ern side ofLuzon Islandbetween 14° and 19° N and 121°

and 123° E in the provinces ofCagayan, Isabela, Aurora,

Quirino, Quezon, CamarinesNorte, andCamarines Sur In

theprevious centurythiswhole area was atleast90 percent

coveredby dipterocarptropical lowland forest.Bythe1980s

theareacovered byprimaryforest about40 percent,with

another 20 percent coveredby secondary forest The restofthe area was (in theearly 1980s) grassland (about 13 per-cent), brushland (11 percent), or farms (16 percent) The

fast-accelerating deforestationin recentyearsisthe result of

commercial logging and thehighinflux of colonist farmers

from otherareasofLuzon.Thearea isclassedas true rain

for-est, withanaverageyearlyrainfall of from 361.8 centimeters

per yearinthedeforestedflatlands, to712.5 centimetersperyearinthemountainousforests.Meanannualtemperatureis

26°C Meanrelativehumidityis87 percent.There is nonounced dryseason

pro-Demography In the 700-square-kilometer Casiguran

area of northern Aurora Province, in 1900, the non-Agtafarmers numbered 2,067 andthe Casiguran Agta numbered1,000 By 1984the Casiguran Agtapopulationhad declined

to only 609 and the non-Agta peoples numbered 35,000.Thus, the Agta population densityin 1984was oneAgta persquarekilometer, but the overall population densitywas 59persons per squarekilometer The Agtaaresuffering such aseverepopulation decline not asthe result of out-migration

or alow birth rate, butsolely becauseofanexceptionallyhighdeathrate (Forthe rest of thisessay,the numerical figuresrefer to the Casiguran AgtapopulationofnorthernAurora;these figures may be accepted as roughly general for most

other Agtagroups.) The Agta crude deathrate(45/1,000 peryear) is higher than their crudebirth rate(43/1,000 per year).Average Agta lifeexpectancy at birth is only 21.5 years Theinfantmortality rate is 342 (per 1,000 live births), and 49percent of the children diebefore the age of 15 The totalfertility rate is high, withwomenwho live to the age of 45 hav-ing an average of6.3 live births each What are the causes ofthehigh Agtadeath rates? The main killer is disease, with 80percent of the deaths attributed tothat cause The biggestkiller disease istuberculosis (12 percent of the adult deaths),followed by pneumonia and gastrointestinal illnesses Fivepercent of the adultdeaths are from leprosy The morbidity ofthe population is high as well, with Agta suffering chronicallyfrommalnutrition, malaria, intestinal parasites, alcoholism,and unsanitaryliving conditions Homicide is frequent; 21percent of the adult males die from that cause Thehomicide rate is one ofthe highest on record for any popula-tion (326/100,000 peryear) Twelve percent of the femaledeaths result from complications from childbirth Suicide isextremely rare, and the Agta do not practice infanticide.Three percentofthe deaths are from accidents

Linguistic Affiliation The Agta groups speak eight tinct languagesthat, like those of their non-Negrito neigh-bors, belong to the Austronesian Language Family Most ofthese Agta languages are unintelligible to their agriculturalneighbors; thus they are not simply dialects of those neigh-bors' languages, ashas frequently been suggested, but sepa-

dis-rate languages

History and Cultural Relations

An important historical fact concerning these nomadicNegrito foragers isthat they have not lived isolated from, norindependently of,other peoples, as was assumed and taughtuntil the 1980s Recent research has established that theAgta peoples havecarried on intense symbiotic interactionwith farmingpeoples not only for centuries, but for millennia.The ancestors oftoday's Agta, and of all Philippine Negritos,

Agta 5

areassumedtobe theaboriginals of thatarchipelago, having

migratedintothose islands 20,000to30,000 years ago.Much

later,around3000B.C.,Austronesian-speakingpeoples began

migrating into the Philippines, probably from Taiwan

GraduallytheNegritosswitched from their isolated and

inde-pendent huntingand gathering lifestyle as they increasingly

developed symbiotic relationships with Austronesian

farm-ers For most Agta groups, this switch occurred by around

1000 B.C Fromthis time on, Agta traded and interacted

heav-ily with farming populations The more recent

twentieth-centuryhistory ofthe Agta is another story After thousands

of years oflivingarelatively stable and adaptive lifeinthe rain

forest, theyaretoday undergoingseveredeculturation; their

forestisbeingcutback, immigrants are depleting their game

and fish resources, theyarebeing herded onto small

reserva-tions by the government, and change is beingimposed on

thembyvarious development agencies

Settlements

Agtalive in small andwidelyscattered camp groups

through-outthe forest While60percent of Agta camps are inthe

for-est(the other 40 percentarefoundonthe coastal beaches of

the Pacific Ocean, in openbrushland, or in coconutgroves),

few camps arelocated directly under the forest canopy

Be-causeof theAgta's fear offallingtreesduring storms, forest

camps are usually situated in small open areas away from

trees,suchas ondryriverbedsor insmallgardens.Campsare

small, consisting of from three to sevenkin-related nuclear

households, with ameanaverage ofsix Afamily willrarely

re-side in a camp of non-related kin Agtamove their camps

often In one study they were found to move, on average,

every 18days, andinanother study every29 days

Housing Agta may live in simple lean-tos, sleeping

di-rectly on theground,or insmall hutsonstilts withabamboo

orpalm wood floor about one meter above the ground, and

with a thatch roof.Usually there are no side walls Houses are

very small, with an average floor sizeof only 3.9 square meters

and a per capita floor space ofonly 1.2squaremeters Mean

household size is 4.3 people.Mosthouseholds (79percent)

arecomposed ofsimple nuclear families (parents and

depen-dentchildren) Seventeen percentareofaugmented nuclear

families (e.g., with a cousin orgrandparent present), and only

4 percent arecomposite(i.e.,withtworelatedcouplessharing

the samehearth)

Economy

Subsistence andCommercial Activities The most

sali-ent economicactivity of the Casiguran Agta, until the 1960s,

was hunting Men spent a major part of their time hunting

large game (wildpigs, deer, monkeys) with bow and arrowor

borrowed homemade shotguns Their economy for many

hundreds of years has revolved around an institutionalized

exchangerelationshipwith non-Agtafarmers.Untilrecently,

the main feature ofthisexchange was the trade of wildmeat

for starch foods fromfarmers.Asthe game declined during

the 1960s, theAgta gave moreand moreoftheir economic

time toworkingasunskilledlaborersforthe growingfarming

population In 1984 Agta men gave only 6percent oftheir

daily activitytime tohunting Agtaare nostrangers to

agri-culture They have helped non-Agta farmers seasonally in

their fieldssinceprehistoric times, andtheywerecultivatingsmall slash-and-burn fields of theirownwhenfirst observed

by Spaniardsintheeighteenth century Each year about 25percent of Agta familiesmake tiny desultoryfields that aver-age one-seventh of a hectare in size In a good year thesefields produceenoughrice (theirmainstarch food) tofeedthepopulationforonly 15 days Only6percent ofthedailyactivityof all adults(bothmenandwomen) is given towork-inginthesefields.Thebiggest singleeconomicactivity of theAgtaiscollecting forestproducts for trade The mainproductwas formerly wildmeat In the 1980s it was rattan In 1984

menspent 25 percentof their daily activity in rattaning, and women, 17 percent They also work frequently onnearby farms for wages (12percent of the daily time ofmen,and 6percent ofwomen)

collect-Division of Labor There is a very weak division of laborbetween thesexes Womenparticipate with their husbandsin

hunting on abouthalf of the hunting trips (in Cagayan somewomen even securegame with bow and arrow themselves).Both sexes contribute equal amounts of time to work in their

owngardens.Bothsexescollect forest products for trade, andboth work as casual laborers for farmers Both men and

womencollect firewood for theirownhearths, and both gage in housebuilding, carrying water, etc Only women

en-weavebaskets and mats, and only women wash clothes Onlymen spearfish in deep water on coral reefs, and only menclimbhightrees tocollect wildhoney

Land Tenure Agta do not own land, nor usually show terest indoing so Land tenure is a foreign concept to them.Instead, they see land as afreegood

in-Kinship, Marriage, and Family

KinGroups and Descent Kinship is very important tothe Agta, and their social organization isbased almost exclu-sively on it Descent is bilateral They donothavelineages,clans, or cognatic descent groups Rather, it is the personalkindred that is important to them

Kinship Terminology Kinship terms reflect an Eskimoclassification, with lineal relatives distinguished from collat-erals in thefirstascending and descending generationsfrom

Ego, aswell as in Ego'sowngeneration Thereis notionbetween cross andparallelcousins Cousinterminologymay beEskimo orHawaiian,dependingonthecontextandthe level of contrastrequired The Agta language has a total

distinc-of fifteenkinship terms ofreference, six ofwhich also serve asterms ofaddress, plusseven morekinshiptermsused forad-dress only

Marriage Agtamarriagesaremonogamous.They practicestrict kin exogamy, but manifest a preference for groupendogamy Marriagesbetween distantly related consanguinesare extremely rare, as are unions between affines.In1984, 17percent of the Casiguran Agta adults in northern Aurorawere married to partners from other Agta ethnolinguisticgroups, and 11 percent (two men andtwenty-five women)were married tonon-Agtafarmers Residence isbilocal-thecouple may live with either the husband's or the wife'spar-ents In 1978, 48 percentofthe householdswerevirilocal,35

percent were uxorilocal, 8 percentwereneolocal, and8cent wereambiguous.Divorce isinfrequent,withonly18per.cent of the adults everhaving beendivorced Most cases of