The Form of a North Borneo Nativistic Behavior*

Abstract

IN THE past forty years, systematic studies of micro-temporal cultural change processes of innovation, acculturation, and assimilation have led to formulation of a series of models, on the basis of which dynamic alterations in regularities in customary behavior may be recognized and made a basis for prediction and empirical test, thereby contributing to a general theory of cultural stability and change (Keesing 1953). Only in the last two decades, however, has detailed attention been accorded to sometimes abrupt, often violent, fluctuations in cultural behavior which occur under a variety of conditions. Such short term, turbulent modifications in custom generally have been termed nativistic movements and have been defined as adaptive or reformulative responses in internal organization which some cultural systems appear to undergo as a consequence of conditions of disequilibrium arising in cultural contact situations. In this discussion I shall describe the form of a nativistic, or revitalization, movement among the Murut of North Borneo. I shall offer also an analysis of these data with reference to current theory of this type of micro-temporal cultural change. These data are derived from ethnological studies conducted in 1959-60 and 1962-64 as part of research among the Dusun and Murut peoples of North Borneo. The Murut comprise a population of some 22,343 persons, concentrated in the southern portion of the North Borneo Interior Residency.1 Descriptions of some forms of Murut customary behavior are found in the works of Roth (1896), Haddon (1901), and Rutter (1922, 1929). Landgraf's report (1956) of his brief survey of Murut population is the initial study of the group by an ethnographer. I have published accounts recently of Murut customary behavior (1960, 1961). Murut peoples generally subsist today in an economy based on an annual crop of swidden rice. The rice diet is supplemented by root crops grown in small mountainside gardens. The basic subsistence activities are extended through a variety of hunting and gathering techniques. The Murut population long has been in contact with agents of differing cultural traditions. There are evidences, in contemporary material cultural