In the Realm of the Diamond Queen by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Author:Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing [Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Dayak (Indonesian people) -- Government relations, Dayak (Indonesian people) -- Social conditions, Sex role -- Indonesia -- Meratus Mountains Region
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2013-12-10T08:09:44+00:00

184 Chapter 6

eery depend upon using language to create rationality and differentiate one's "self" from the wild. Protective spells shield the body through religiously powerful words by articulating the true names of irrational dangers. Here is a spell that keeps off blood-sucking kuyang monsters:

Jalmamarah run to the seven layers of the sky, Jalmamarah run to the seven layers of the earth. I know your origin from "Latup Kuhul Kumaratis"

[the true name of kuyang monsters] If you don't run you'll be hit by the blessed law: There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet.

The speaking subject articulates the names of monsters in order to reconstitute the law and himself within it.

One method for gaining impenetrable skin involves a special bath during which passages from the Koran are scratched on one's back. To make the bath effective, the bather must recite daily a series of spells in which the body is renamed in mystic correspondences. Thus, the man with reason develops a body trained and tamed by language. He must keep careful watch against both internal and external excesses.

Gendered bodies

These understandings of the body depend upon important distinctions between women and men. Women are those who can never do a good job of controlling bodily desire or protecting the boundaries of the body. As a result, women are much more susceptible to illness. They are seen as more involved with food and sleep than are men; they are more likely to be lamah bulu. Moreover, the ability of women to use religious restraint on their bodies is weakened by the pollution of menstruation [ku-turan, literally "dirt"). Menstruating women neither fast nor pray; thus, women can never achieve the same degree of religious control as men. Not surprisingly, menstrual blood is a potent sorcery substance, used against men by women gone bad. (Women operators of food stalls are particularly suspect; how easy it would be for them to add menstrual blood to the food.) Women, therefore, must be both protected and constrained by men. Indeed, the male control that allows men to shield and guide women is defined through opposition to female vulnerability and temptation.

Although superficially gender-symmetric, sexuality, interpreted within this discourse, further affirms gender distinction. Heterosexuality increases

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