Robert Knox Dentan's OVERWHELMING TERROR: LOVE, FEAR, PEACE, AND VIOLENCE AMONG SEMAI OF MALAYSIA

"Ethnographies are mountains and endure," writes Dentan, but "theories are mayflies and don't." This work of ethnography is certain to endure like the mountain it is, and its theory about Semai peaceability is likely to be developed, strengthened, and affirmed by future ethnographers. To state its theory simplistically, Dentan argues that Semai peaceability originated as a functioning adaptation to Malay and British invasion, colonization, and child slavery. The Semai response to overwhelming violence, rape, and kidnapping is to flee, and when they cannot flee from the encroaching hegemonic state, to "surrender," in the author's specific sense of acting with the understanding that success is not within their control. The alternative is death and extinction. Semai elaborated this response into a religion of demon lovers (identification with one's oppressors), protective rituals, an egalitarian ethos, and a respectful way of raising kids, all described in different chapters of this remarkable study. This book has opened my eyes to the history and culture of Malaysian indigenes, and I'm eager to share it with another interested reader.

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