Social structure in Sout East Asia

The editor was asked to organize a symposium on Social Structure in South T east Asia at the Ninth Pacific Science Congress, which met in Bangkok, Thailand, from November 18 to November 30, 1957. The present volume is the result. Most of the contributors attended the Congress and delivered papers or briefer summaries at the symposium, later expanding them to their present form. Two of the contributors, Professor Koentjaraningrat and Professor Ruey, though invited to participate in the symposium, were unable to attend the Con gress but nevertheless prepared papers which were presented in absentia and subsequently expanded. Two participants, Dr. W. R. Geddes of the University of Sydney (then of Auckland University College) and Professor R. Lauriston Sharp of Cornell University, delivered short papers on the social organization of the Land Dayak of Sarawak and of the Thai, respectively, but have been unable to expand them for inclusion in the present volume.

The symposium aroused great interest among the anthropologists attending the Congress and led to lively discussions. The participants asked the organizer to edit the papers, to arrange for their separate publication so as to achieve a wider circulation, and to write an introduction to the collective volume. This he gladly agreed to do because of his conviction of the very high level of quality of the contributions and of their important potential significance for the understanding of social organization in Southeast Asia.

The descriptive and analytic studies presented herewith include contributions from anthropologists of seven different nationalities: American, Australian, Brit ish, Chinese, French, Indonesian, and Japanese. Yet they all clearly represent a single international scientific tradition and reflect an encouragingly uniform frame of reference. They cover thirteen separate social systems [Professors Ma buchi and Wei have dealt with six distinct systems among the Formosan abor igines]. Two of these are patrilineal-the Bunun of Formosa and the Miao of China. Two are matrilineal-the Ami of Formosa and the Mnong Gar of Vietnam. The Mnong Gar are especially interesting since they represent, to the best of the editor's knowledge, the first matrilineal society of the Crow type to be described for the entire Eurasiatic continent.