Description: The unusual and symbolically complex funerary rites of the Berawan of central Borneo are here analyzed in the first such full-length study based on modern ethnographic research. Metcalf demonstrates how the ritual sand social organization of death serve as a crucial point of entry into the cosmology of a non-Western culture.
Review Quotes: "Clearly and unpretentiously written, with a wealth of convincing details and narrative observation. . . . An admirable case study in the fields of comparative religion and informal philosophies of life."-- "Rodney Needham, Oxford University"