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------. 1976. Kinship in American culture: Another view. In Meaning in Anthropology. K. Basso and H. Selby, eds., 57-91. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
------. 1978. Australian Kin Classification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-..........  1984. Markedness and extensions: The
Tamil case. Man 19: 557-574.
------. 1986. The descent of rights and the descent
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------. 1987. Markedness in systems of kin classification. Journal of Anthropological Research 43: 203-221.
Scheffler, H. W., and F. G. Lounsbury. 1972. A study in structural semantics: The Siriono kinship system. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Schneider, D. M. 1965. Kinship and biology. In Aspects of the analysis of family structure. A. J. Coale, ed., 83-101. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
—. 1968. American kinship: A cultural account. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
------. 1972. What is kinship all about? In Kinship
studies in the Morgan centennial year. P. Reining, ed., 32-63. Washington, D.C.: Anthropological Society of Washington.
------. 1984. A critique of the theory of kinship.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Slocum, S. 1975. Woman the gatherer: Male bias in anthropology. In Toward an anthropology of women. R. R. Rapp, ed., 36-50. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Smuts, B. 1986a. Sexual competition and mate choice. In Primate societies. B. Smuts, et al., eds., 385-399. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Weiner, A. 1976. Women of value: Men of renown. Austin: University of Texas Press.
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Weiner, J. F. 1987. Diseases of the soul: sickney,, agency, and the men's cult among the Foi of New Guinea. In Dealing with inequality: Analyzing gender relations in Melanesia and beyond. Marilyn Strathern, ed., 255-27"?. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Westermarck, E. W. 1891. The history of human marriage. London: Macrmllan.
Williams, W. L. 1986. The spirit and the flesh: Sexual diversity in American Indian culiure. Boston: Beacon Press.
Yeatman, A. 1983. The procreative model: llic social ontological bases of gender-kinship systems. Social Analysis 14: 3-30.
------. 1984. A rejoinder (to comments on Yeai-
man 1983). Social Analysis 16: 26^13.
17
Janet Carsten
This article describes how, for Malays on the island of Langkawi, feeding (in the sense of rrceiving as well as giving nourishment) is a vital component in the long process of becoming a person and participating fully in social relations. The process begins with conception ,;iid birth; it continues through feeding and [hrough growing and living together in the house; it involves marriage and the birth of new children; and it is only in a limited sense completed when adult men and women become grandparents. For these Malays kinship itself is a process of becoming.
During the 18 months of my initial stay in Langkawi, and for four months on a subsequent visit, I lived in one house with a Malay lamily, eating with its members and participating in household activities on a daily basis. I raus gained a particularly intimate picture of lite inside houses. My own experience of "beaming kin" lies behind some of what I present ■]«e, but it is also another kind of story that I must tell elsewhere.
Most of the material I present is derived from conversations I had with middle-aged and older women (including one traditional T.idwife) whom I knew well in the village where I did my fieldwork. Like all such mater-1:,1 it is thus "slanted" in a particular way.
Although men might put matters somewhat differently, nothing I know about this village leads me to suspect that they would deny the information I present. They might add more. But then women too differ among themselves over how they see the matters I discuss (their views are often complementary rather than contradictory). What I present here would not seem strange to most of the villagers I know. Of course, my account is incomplete, but I do not take completeness to be a proper aim for an anthropologist.
I also refer to published material on other areas of Malaysia, collected at different times by different ethnographers. The beliefs and practices I describe vary both regionally and over time - in some places I note such variation. Like other ethnographers, however, I have also been struck by a certain consistency in the cultural logic I describe. I hope I have not overemphasized the degree of coherence or consistency, since my aim is to convey the pro-cessuai and transformative potential of Malay culture.
My argument may be placed in the general context of an analysis of kinship that begins from native categories. I take for granted that the meaning of "kinship" cannot be assumed a priori. I use the term "relatedness" to indicate
310
JANET CARSTEN
indigenous ways of acting out and conceptualizing relations between people, as distinct from notions derived from anthropological theory. Ways of living and thinking about relatedness in Langkawi lead me to stress a processual view of personhood and kinship. It is through living and consuming together in houses that people become complete persons - that is, kin. The core substance of kinship in local perceptions is blood, and the major contribution to blood is food. Blood is always mutable and fluid - as is kinship itself.
James Fox has remarked that "it is true for the Austronesian world that one's social identity is not given at birth" (1987: 174). He contrasts this with the image given by classical monographs on Africa in which identity seems to be defined at birth by a structural position in a lineage. The material presented here bears out Fox's emphasis on the fluidity of identity in Austronesia. Further, it suggests that it is not just a newborn child whose identity is unfixed (an assumption that is certainly not confined to Austronesian cultures) but that this fluidity of identity continues to a quite remarkable degree into adulthood. In Langkawi birth itself merely begins the process of becoming a person, a process that continues with feeding and living together in houses. Food creates both persons in a physical sense and the substance - blood - by which they are related to each other. Personhood, relatedness, and feeding are intimately connected. To unravel these connections it is necessary to understand the nature and mutability of substance and the way conception, birth, living in houses, and death are connected through the theme of substance.
Fox's remarks address "social" identity. Schneider underscores how in both anthropological analysis and Western notions
kinship has to do with the reproduction of human beings and the relations between human beings that are the concomitants of reproduction. The reproduction of human beings is formulated as a sexual and biological process. [1984:188]
Both indigenous Western ideas and the analysis of kinship assume that social aspects of a relationship can be separated from, or added to, a biological substratum.
[S]exual reproduction creates biological ]=) between persons and these have impoit; qualities apart from any social or culture] tributes which may be attached to rhc Indeed, the social and cultural attnbin though considered the primary subject mm of anthropologists, and of particular cnnei to social scientists, are nevertheless derivát of, and of lesser determinate significance tithe biological relations. These biologic.il i-t tions have special qualities; they create t constitute bonds, ties, solidary relations p portional to the biological closeness of -he (though the correlation between the siren of the tie and the closeness of the kin ínav be perfect beyond primary kin). Tlu^c considered to be natural ties inherenr in human condition, distinct from the sckíjI cultural. [Schneider 1984:188]
Schneider gives a trenchant critique o way that anthropologists since Morg.ni applied  these  ideas,   derived  from  Vie-notions, to the analysis of kinship in r cultures. He convincingly shows thai n<: societies have something called "kinship' fined in these terms, and this is the bíws u .„., thoroughgoing rejection of the category "kinship" in anthropological analysis. The rn.ireriai I present on notions of relatedness in 1 „mgk.uvi supports much of Schneider's argument. In these  ideas  kinship   is  not  always   ilenvcú from procreation. I would nevertheles.s seek ro rescue   kinship   from   its   post-Schneiderian demise. Although Schneider gives a convincing critique of the way kinship has been defined in anthropological analysis and the w:iy it has been studied cross-culturally, he does nor suggest that it might be possible to get beyond, the criticisms he makes except by abandoning the comparative  use  of kinship  as  an  analytic category.1
On the basis of ideas about relaíLtlru-ss in Langkawi, I suggest a more flexible definition of kinship. Instead of asking, as Schneuici does, "Given this definition of kinship, uo these particular people have it or do ibey not?" {1984:200), I attempt to show, first, how people in.Langkawi define and construe! their notions of relatedness, and then what values and meanings they give these notions. On the basis of these local notions, I show how the separation of the "social" from the "bio-
THE SUBSTANCE OF KINSHIP AND THE HEAT OF THE HEARTH                                  311
-al " which Schneider has shown to be at
heart of the historical definition of kinship
ithropology, is cuíturaííy specific. Recently,
,|d (1991:360-365) has argued that this
action is both culturally constructed and
iliar to Western thought: it is difficult to
any comparable division for many non-
rern people. The distinction is certainly
than useful in understanding relatedness
íalays in Langkawi understand it.
the conclusion of this article I suggest how
Malay understandings not only challenge
jcional anthropological definitions of kin-
but also how they offer the possibility of
ng beyond Schneider's critique and of re-
ling kinship in a more flexible and open
The merging of levels, the elusiveness of
ldaries within indigenous ideas, is a central
ie  of this   article.   Boundaries   between
i|e and what they consume - food - or
een people and the structures in which
live - houses - may be less clear than we
to assume. In the Malay case houses and
are not merely inanimate entities. Both
.es and food share many qualities with the
äieople they contain or nourish; the boundaries
between the container and the contained are at
some levels unclear.
Of course, it is impossible to cover the whole :,inge of relations and their symbolic associations within the confines of a short article. Here I focus strictly on notions about sub-«•ttisi-e and the way it is acquired through feeding. My intent is to show how bodily substance h inn something with which Malays are simply burn and that remains forever unchanged, and :o sliow how it gradually accrues and changes throughout life, as persons participate in rela-ronsliips. First, however, it is necessary to emphasize the centrality of houses, women, and sibhngship to Malay kinship and the way these are symbolically linked together. Siblingship, houses, and hearths are in fact central to the v.ay shared substance is conceived.
Houses, Hearths, Women, and Siblings
T lie house has a fundamental structural signifi-t-iiiLv for Malays, as it does in many Southeast Asian societies. Some implications of this emphasis on the house in Southeast Asia have Ken explored by Lévi-Strauss (1984), among
others. To underline the fact that houses constitute a central feature of social organization in these societies, Lévi-Strauss has used the term "sociétés ä maison," house-based societies. While some of the features of Lévi-Strauss's model of the "house-based society" do not apply to Pulau Langkawi (see Carsten 1987a, 1995), his suggestions that the house is both an important indigenous category and that many Southeast Asian societies can be analyzed in terms of the house are fertile ones.
Perhaps the most important principle embodied by the house in Langkawi is that of unity and resistance to division. Household unity is reflected in the spatial arrangements of the house, which show a minimum of division. In particular, houses never have more than one hearth, dapur. However many couples reside together in one house, they always cook and eat full meals together; rice is a main constituent of these meals. To eat such meals in other houses is much frowned upon, and children from an early age are taught to return home for full rice meals. This commensality is a prime focus of what it means to be of one household.
Houses in Langkawi are strongly associated with women. In the first place this is because women spend much of their time there, while men are absent during most of the day on fishing trips, in the coffee shops, or at the mosque. The association between women and houses, however, should not be construed as merely symptomatic of their absence from another, "public" domain. Women are particularly and positively associated with the focal space of the house, the dapur, a term that is used for the hearth, the kitchen, and the main living area of the house.3 It is in the dapur that women perform the activities that are central to the reproduction of the house and its members: here food is cooked and eaten, and here women spend a great deal of their daytime work and leisure hours.
People in Langkawi make explicit the association between women and houses when they say that while a widowed woman may live in a house by herself, a widowed man may not. A house without a woman living in it is not a proper house because it does not have a "mother of the house," ibu rumah. The association is also asserted symbolically. When houses are built,
312                                                                         JANET CARSTEN
the senior woman to reside there, the "mother of the house," must hold the central post, tiang sen, as it is erected. This post is the abode of the house spirit, semangat rumah, who is also female. Houses are decorated and adorned just as women are, and this is another aspect of the way houses are conceived as female.
Houses are also strongly associated with children. New houses are never established until a couple has at least one child, and this is part of an enormous emphasis on children in marriage. The unity of the house, which I mentioned above, is also conceived in terms of sib-lingship. As McKinley (1981) has emphasized, siblingship is the most elaborated relation in Malay kinship, a relation from which all others may be said to derive. In Langkawi distantly related people who are asked to explain how they are connected will always express their link in terms of a sibling bond between ancestors.5 Many spirits appear in stories and myths as siblings, and in these cases their parentage is always unknown.
The importance of siblingship in other areas of Malaysia has also been underlined by Banks (1983:141-142) for mainland Kedah, and by Peletz (1988) for the "matrilineal" Malays of Negeri Sembilan. In Langkawi, as elsewhere, siblings are expected to render aid to each other and to remain close throughout life; this is especially evident in the warm, affectionate relations that occur between adult sisters. The relation between brothers is much more attenuated: while they adhere to the same ideal of sibling solidarity, brothers tend to avoid close cooperation in adult life (see also Carsten 1989, 1990; McKinley 1981:337-339; Peletz 1988:29, 40-41). Older brothers often have affectionate relations with younger sisters, and this has a structural significance in that it provides a model for the relation between husband and wife. Normatively a married couple should use the terms "older brother" and "younger sister" to address each other (although they may avoid this in practice); these terms capture the ideal of affection, equality, and respect on which marriage should be based. The modeling of marriage on sibling-ship means that affinity has a special status as it is always in the process of being transformed into consanguinity (see Carsten 1991; McKinley 1981:348-354).
Siblings are conceived as a more or less indivisible set, and this principle is expresse{j ■ naming systems for siblings that eniphasi? their similarity and completeness (see (.;arstp 1987b:143-191; McKinley 1981).  If \n ^ marrying husband disrupts the natur.i] ordě of the sibling group by marrying a woman whose older brother or sister is still unwed U is said to "step over the threshold," lam*kah bendul. This phrase implies that the husband in such cases is viewed as violating the integrity of the house itself, and he incurs a ritual fine
The association between a set of siblings and the house in which they originate is made ritu-ally at the time of birth. Each child belongs ro a set of "birth siblings" whose existence precedes birth. The child and the placenta, uru are conceptualized as "two siblings," dua hcradik When a child is born, the uri - coirci-ivcd as the younger sibling - is washed by the midwife and placed in a woven basket together with various ritual objects. It is then buried b\ the father on the grounds of the house-compound in a manner that recalls the burial uf human corpses in the graveyard outside the village. The placenta sibling can cause sickness and mood changes in the child.6 What I would stress here is the way that the sibling set. m this ritual, is anchored to the house.
Siblingship thus asserts itself in the womb before birth and continues to influence a person's fortunes throughout life. The uienii may be considered the siblings' first house, and die placenta sibling can be considered as the child's first commensal relation. Co-eating, which is constitutive of kinship, begins before birth. Houses occupied after birth merely create a weaker form of siblingship than that i. rented in the womb. The very notion of per^onhood can be said to involve the relation or, commensal siblingship since even an onh child -highly undesired - has its placenta sibling. Although individuals may lack or be .-.eparaicd from human siblings, they are still pan of sih-ling sets whose other members closeh affec: their well-being.
Notions of the person reflect the furuhinini-tal importance of siblingship in another way. Each person is said to have a life spirit or essence, semangat. The semangat is not, however, confined to people - animals and plants, for example, have a semangat too.  The m»«
THE SUBSTANCE OF KINSHIP AND THE HEAT OF THE HEARTH
313
•r,portant semangat are those of people, rice, hniises, and boats. The semangat, then, is con-idered a vital principle of things that are ]lied. Each house, person, and boat only has onc semangat, whose unity is highly ambivalent. The semangat is said to be one of seven sibling3' DUt the seven members of this set do nor have any independent existence. They are (eve-i in number, but only one is active. It is as if rhey formed a kind of sevenfold unity. And this unity is perceived in terms of the sibling relation. Endicott, who draws on various sources, many of them published at the begin-niiiu of this century, discusses how
r|K vital principle permeates the whole of the ivivsical world, and its division into semangat ;s an integral part of the division of matter into iiiinificant discrete "things". On the concep-ii.ií plane, the semangat contributes to the okecťs identity, preventing it being merged im o another concept, and this is expressed in niivsical terms as the function of the semangat i» guide the actions and preserve the boundaries of the body. ... Each semangat is naturally diirerentiated and defined to the same degree a-its body. [1970:63]
The person is thus both individual and multiple. Each body is the container of a sibling set. "I Ik- semangat of the person is part of a seven member set, which may be likened to the parts of the body. Persons and their bodies have a null iple identity, and this is conceived in terms ot the relation of siblingship. The human sibling set is closely associated with the house that g:u-s it life, and the notion of semangat makes clc.u an association between the life-stuff of persons, houses, and siblings.8
I louses, hearths, feeding, women, and sibling sets are all intimately bound up with each u'.'kt and with the way kinship is lived and conceptualized in Langkawi. These connections emerge more clearly through an examin-niion of how substance derives from feeding.
Feeding and Shared Substance
I fading is said to begin in the womb. In its first htiĽití the child is nourished by its mother's Mood. After birth, the milk fed to a baby fr»ni its mother's breast is believed to derive trum the mother's blood. People say that "blond becomes milk," darab jadi susu. The
mother's miik is immensely important to a child's physical and emotional development and to the child's connection with its mother. Children who are not breast-fed supposedly become ill; they may also fail to "recognize" their mothers.
Milk feeding also defines the prime category of incestuous relations: kin who have drunk milk from the breast of the same woman may not marry. This is an Islamic prohibition, but one that seems to gain additional salience for Malays because of the particular way it fits into notions that otherwise might not be considered in religious terms. Given local concepts of kinship, it is particularly important that this category of incestuous relations, prohibited in Islam, be primarily constituted by siblings.
The salience of a prohibition on marriage between milk siblings is rendered greater by the fact that many children spend a considerable part of their childhood in houses other than their maternal ones. The frequency of formal and informal fostering arrangements (see Carsten 1991) substantially increases the possibility that a child may drink the milk of a woman who is not its birth mother. It is this possibility that gives this definition of incest its particular fascination and horror. It is quite easy to imagine that a child who has been casually put on the breast of a neighbor or distant kinswoman might later marry her child. This ever-present threat looms large in the minds of villagers and runs through their discourse on incest. Women often described to me how in the past one might easily have given a child a breast to comfort it, but that now this is not done.9 If two of the children a woman had breast-fed later married each other, she would bear responsibility for the incest.
The substance that kin are said to share derives in a large part from their shared consumption of milk as babies. Milk feeding also makes reference to blood since, as I mentioned earlier, human milk is believed to be produced from blood circulating in the body. In these notions the blood shared through consumption of milk is, of course, only that of the mother or the woman from whose body the milk comes. Shared blood is shared female substance; it is never paternal blood. In the context of widespread fostering arrangements of different kinds,  co-feeding  can create  shared  blood,
314
JANET CARSTEN
shared substance, and kinship. People in Langkawi say, "If you drink the same milk you become kin," kalau makán sama susu, jadi adik-beradik. "You become one blood, one flesh," jadi satu darah, satu daging.
Ideas about incest have a number of important implications that apply to feeding more generally. Blood itself is said to be created in the body from food, and the prime food for Malay is cooked rice. Darah, daging mari pada nasi, "Blood, flesh come from cooked rice," people say. Those who do not eat rice become "dry," kering. Such individuals have no "blood," and of them it is said, "All that remains is bones," tinggal tulang sahaja.
Eating rice and eating a meal are synonymous in Malay perception. Food is rice - the defining component of a proper meal. The day-to-day sharing of rice meals cooked in the same hearth (which is a definitive activity for those who live in the same house) thus also implies shared substance, albeit in a weaker sense than for milk siblings. There exists a continuum between rice (food), milk, and blood. The sharing of any or all of these connotes having substance in common, hence being related.10 Traditionally, after being given the mother's breast a child was ritually fed cooked rice and banana because "cooked rice becomes blood too," nasi jadi darah juga. A baby's body is cold at birth and, since breast milk - like blood - is hot, the baby becomes heated through breast-feeding. After this the baby can consume rice with its kin in the way that is constitutive of relations within one house.
Just as relatedness is thought of in terms of a continuum - one is more or less distantly related, and only rarely are the related categorically opposed to the unrelated - we find a parallel in the realm of substance and feeding. Mothers and their offspring and full siblings are most closely related, having blood in common. In fact, the blood of siblings is identical. I was once told that when someone is ill and requires a blood transfusion, they must be given the blood of nonrelatives rather than the blood of a sibling. If the blood requires changing, then that of a sibling would have no effect because it is the same as one's own. More distant than full siblings, but still close enough for marriage to be incestuous, are those, like foster siblings, who have drunk the
same milk. Those raised in one house who shared meals with each other on a daily could technically marry. They are very unl to do so, however, because this would < connotations of incest.
If milk and blood are the prime sourc shared substance, it would seem to follow transfusions of blood might be problemai terms of incest. When I asked about the ii cations of receiving blood during operatio hospital, villagers seemed rather perplexec worried. Generally, they referred me to t experts who they thought might know answer, but their own creativity eventually plied an answer (in accord with the log local notions of kinship): donated blood not carry the potentiality of incest becausi not eaten (bukan makan, bubuh, tambuh, not eaten, it is put there, added"). I was only eating the blood could render rela potentially incestuous.
It is important to emphasize the way tha axis of relatedness operates through women, Blood, milk, and rice meals derive from women, and all denote commonality and similarity. Blood, milk, and food are more than a source of physical strength. The emotional ric children have with their mother is thought to be particularly strong, because mothers are the source of shared substance. Shared substance gives emotions and words a special effecrifc-ness. Love for one's mother derives from being breast-fed: as people say, makan susu badan, kasih ke ibu lagi, "drinking milk from her body, you love a mother more." If a baby is given away it should first be given its mother's milk. If it does not at least taste this milk ii will not recognize its mother. It is because chikhen share blood with their mother that a mothers curse is thought to be especially powerful.''
The mother's milk is thus the source bol h of shared substance and of the strong emotion.il bond between mother and child. It enables the child to recognize its mother. It is in this sense the enabling substance of kinship. If a mother dies before giving her child her milk, s hen. before it leaves the house, the child should be given water cooked in the house hearth. This is the only possible substitute for the mother's milk. It implies that the hearth itself is a source of shared substance, of attachment to the bouse and its occupants.
THE SUBSTANCE OF KINSHIP AND THE HEAT OF THE HEARTH
315
\\omen and hearths can produce kinship in lother way. When children are fostered they re said to take on the character traits and the nhvsical attributes of those who raise them. Thcv come to resemble them, in the same way that children often resemble their birth parents ,.s£f Carsten 1991). These speculations "at \c margins" of normal occurrence - when a child is fostered, when a mother dies, when '"\ooi is given in transfusion - show very ,jt-.irly that notions of shared substance to w[iich blood and milk are central are also verv much bound up with ideas about shared COnsirmption, feeding, and the house hearth.
I have described a continuity between the [vlaiedness of a mother and child or full sib-|ijij>,s who are thought to share bodily substance, which in turn is partly derived from nruaeation, and those who are considered to Owe substance because they live in one house and eat rice meals together. These ideas show verv clearly that kinship in Langkawi cannot ■ie defined solely in terms of procreation, but ,il9n that it may be difficult to distinguish ties we would consider "biological" because they aie derived from procreation from those we rhink of as "social" because they derive from commensality. These notions challenge us to rethink the conventional distinction between the biological and the social that Schneider Lis -,hown to be at the heart of anthropological definitions of kinship. I will return to this ques-iinn in the conclusion.
'fiiat blood and milk should be central to idc.li about bodily substance is not particularly Mirpiising. But the fact that substance is conceptualized in terms of food cooked in the d.ipur means that food and the heat of the house hearth have a particular importance. Ihw is vividly reflected in notions about con-Lcpnon and childbirth. It is to these ideas that I v.ill now turn.
Conception, Birth, and Feeding13
■Wording to Malays in Langkawi children are honied from the seed, benih, of their father and the blood, darah, of their mother. The father's !>c«l comes from the fluid in the backbone, air tubing belakan. The seed spends 40 days inside the body of the father. The first, 15th, and 30th day-s of the month are the "days on which the
seed falls," ban jatuh benih. The seed then "descends to the mother," turun he ibu, where it mixes with the menstrual blood. It only has to mix with the blood of the mother once in order to conceive. The seed is then nourished in the mother's womb from her blood. People say that the blood of the mother becomes the child. And blood, as we have seen, is transformed food.
Both sex and conception are associated with heat and with blood. Marriage involves a process of heating that may be counteracted by ritual means. Massard (1980:359) reports that the absorption of heating food leads to a surplus of sexual energy. In Langkawi, a couple that has consummated its marriage may be described as "cooked," masak (a term that also means "ripe" or "mature" and can have sexual connotations in all usages). Before consummation the man and woman are said to be "raw," mantah.14 Once women are old, after menopause, they "have no blood," darah t'ada, and they cannot conceive. I was told by the village midwife that male infertility results from a lack of seed, for which there is no cure. Since female infertility is attributed to problems of the blood, it is perceived as alterable - as are other aspects of blood.15
Another middle-aged woman told me that infertility in women can be caused by "a thing," benda, in the uterus that "eats the seed," makan benih. It bores a hole in the uterus so that the blood escapes, and, since it is the blood that "grows the child," membesar anak, the fetus cannot survive in its absence. The boring of this hole causes bad pains just before menstruation. Severe menstrual pains are therefore associated with infertility. Such problems are potentially curable, however, through the consumption of medicine and proper food.
Menstruation, sex, and pregnancy are times of body heating. Tor conception to take place the body must be hot and healthy, badan hangat, sibat. It is the "blood of menstruation" that "becomes the child," darah baidb jadi anak. Menstrual blood is thus a potential child, and a good flow is a sign of fertility. At the end of the sixth month of pregnancy, according to Endicott (1970:65, citing Annandale and Robinson 1903:93-94), the fetus receives a nyawa, soul or "life-breath,"
316
JANET CARSTEN
and "becomes a person," jadi orang, having previously been part of its mother's blood. In Langkawi it is at this point that the services of the village midwife, bidan, are secured by the husband's mother, and it is also from this time on, Malays believe, the fetus can sustain life. At this point in a woman's first pregnancy the midwife performs a ritual "bathing of the stomach," mandi perut, of the pregnant mother, and a small feast is held to ensure a safe and easy delivery.
During the delivery itself the semangat of the child is believed to come into existence at the moment when the umbilical cord is cut by the midwife. The semangat is said to "come of itself," jadi sendiri (Endicott 1970:51, citing Annandaíe and Robinson 1903:97). It has no existence before this moment.16 The midwife must cut the umbilical cord with a special bamboo knife rather than a metal one, because metal frightens spirits (in this case the semangat), and that would cause sickness in the child. Generally, if the semangat leaves the body a person is thought to become vulnerable to intrusion by spirits (see Endicott 1970:51). It is the semangat that maintains the boundaries of the body. At the moment when the umbilical cord is cut, the child is also given a name by the midwife. (Names are often changed later, however, and this can be linked to the fluidity of identity.) At the point that the child is physically detached from the body of its mother, it gains the components of its independent identity: a name and a semangat, a life force and a bounded body.
The rituals following childbirth are elaborate and complex (see Laderman 1983:174-207 and Skeat 1900:333-348 for fuller descriptions of birth rites among Malays elsewhere). I will only give a partial account here, focusing on how such rites were conducted at the time of my fieídwork in Langkawi. Briefly, the rites reflect a concern to protect the participant's body from the dangers of invasion by spirits that may cause sickness and infertility. Such spirits are thought to enter through the extremities of the body. Babies are swaddled during the first weeks of life, and an iron object may be kept near them because babies are particularly vulnerable to loss of the semangat and attack by spirits. Such spirits are presumably attracted by the  "dirt of childbirth"  kotor beranak,
which is removed through ritually sk and bathing the child. These ideas that the child, who is still strongly attac'r its mother, is not yet properly boundei though the newborn receives consit]( ritual attention, the baby's mother is tru ject of greater attention. By focusing q mother in the ensuing discussion I aim to lify further how fertility and becoming a p are assured through the consumption of r. food and through the heat of the hearth.
During the 44-day period of posrp, taboos, pantang beranak, both the ihili its mother are confined to the house and ticularly, to the dapur. One aspect of i hü perior of restrictions is especially striking — the continued application of heat to the mother. Immediately after the birth and for sonic dav< following, she bathes in hot water inside tht house, whereas normal bathing is done at th( well with cold water. Most imponantlv throughout the period of postchildbirth prohibitions, she must not consume foods that art considered to be "cooling." All Mal.iv food: are classified according to their "heating'* anc "cooling" properties, and women are e\trcmeh careful to consume the correct types of food a this time. They spend many happy hours dis cussing the heating properties oi dilTercn foods.
The most explicit postpartum riiu.il is tin traditional practice of heating the mother on; platform, gerat or salaian, beneath which ; dapur (fireplace, hearth) is constructed hv tin midwife. Skeat describes the process:
The fire {api saleian) is always lighted by rlie Bidan, and must never be allowed to go mil for the whole of the 44 days. To light it tin. Bidan should take a brand from the house-fire í.í/h dapor), and when it is once properly kindled, nothing must be cooked at it, or the child will suffer. [1900:342, n.2]20
This heating is no longer performed in 1 :in&-kawi, although many middle-aged women described to me how it had been done v\ hen they gave birth. The platform was built in I he dapur, kitchen, of the house. The fire underneath 'f was lit by the midwife from the housi- hearth, dapur masak. Oil was rubbed into a woman's back and she leaned her back against tlie gerai  so  that  she  became  properly  heated
THE SUBSTANCE OF KiNSHIP AND THE HEAT OF THE HEARTH                                  317
behind. Women say their "body was ced " masak badan, "cooked inside," masak
lam.
jday, postpartum women still apply to their
lachs a stone, batu tungku, which has been
)ked in the hearth," masak dalam dapur,
then  wrapped  in  cloth   (see   Gimlette
I[1939]:245; Laderman 1983:176; Skeat
)-343). In the past, I was told, more heat
applied frequently and with greater force.
stone was used until the skin became
kened, the prohibitions more strictly ob-
;d, hot medicines were used, cold food not
j at ail, and, supposedly as a result, women
wen more healthy.
It is evident that the process of heating involved in the postchildbirth rituals is designed to counteract the cooling effect of giving birth, i cooling particularly associated with excessive bíeeding (Laderman 1983:41). The hot blood los! in childbirth cools the body excessively, -endering it vulnerable to the effects of the consumption of cooling foods.
Both the midwife and other women expressed their belief that if the postpartum proscriptions were not observed the mother would become sick. In particular, they feared that women would become afflicted with sakit meroyan, translated by Gimlette (1971:167) as "diseases after childbirth."21 In Langkawi I wai told sakit meroyan means that the "blood is cold," darah sejuk, so that it could not flow. Tlie consumption of cold foods during the period of postpartum prohibitions could lead to various kinds of sakit meroyan. These included kudis meroyan, skin disease; gila mero-yan. meroyan madness; sakit kancing gigi, 'oikjaw; demam, fever; bisa, blood poisoning; bleeding; swelling of the blood vessels; and AviWi, in which the body goes hard and stiff I'ke a plank, preventing speech. Women in Lnigkawi also spoke of "wind" entering and "rsiug," naik angin, up the body.
Women's principal fears are of bleeding, Jjruh turun, and that the "uterus might swell," sarong anak kembang, after childbirth. During pregnancy, women say, the uterus swells; after birth it becomes loose and there ^ a danger that it might prolapse. During labor itself, however, it is considered healthy to bleed a loi, because the body becomes bisa, septic, poisoned, unless the blood of childbirth is ex-
pelled. This blood is considered to be dirty, kotor, and must leave the mother's body so that her body may become light, ringan. The flow should then dry up, and the blood vessels of the uterus and stomach should shrink, kecut. Meroyan is a general sickness following childbirth that takes many forms. Women say there are 44 different kinds of sickness, and their origin invariably lies in the blood. The blood is sick, sakit darah, "Meroyan comes from blood that isn't good," nak jadi meroyan dari darah tak elok.
The beliefs surrounding meroyan sickness show a deep concern with the boundaries of the body. In some contexts the meroyan is likened to an external malevolent spirit, bantu (it is "a kind of spirit," jenis bantu), but it is also described as "a kind of blood," jenis darah. According to one midwife, the origin of meroyan is postpartum women, within their blood. Blood that is not good is said to descend back, turun balik (i.e., does not flow out of the body). She told me that a spirit, hantu, is different, it is not inside women. Whereas meroyan is a sickness inside the body, sakit dalam badan, a hantu is from outside, dari luar. 4
Metal implements such as scissors, betel nut cutters, or a nail in the hair are taken to the well by women who have recently given birth to guard against invisible spirits prone to attack postpartum women. Such spirits want to eat women's blood. Especially feared at this time is Langsuir, a vampire spirit of a woman who died in childbirth. She has a hole in her back and very long hair that covers it. She lives in trees in the jungle and especially likes the blood of women who have just given birth. She can take any form, animal or human, but often appears as a beautiful woman. She may be rendered harmless by plugging the hole in her back with a nail or other metal object; she is then immobilized so that she cannot fly.
This nexus of ideas about blood and heat is applied not only to women's health and fertility but also to men's. All Malay boys are circumcised according to Islamic rites and for religious reasons. Circumcision is also strongly linked in local terms to marriage and male reproduction. This is clear in the timing of the ritual, its form, and in men's comments on it. The food taboos imposed on boys after
318                                                                    JANET CARSTEN
circumcision bear a strong resemblance to postpartum taboos: in both cases there is a restriction on the intake of "cooling" foods (see Laderman 1983:63; Massard 1978:148), although the restrictions applied to boys after circumcision last only until the wound is healed. I was told that cold food would lead to swelling; angin, wind, might enter the wound preventing it from healing. Once again this is linked to a control of bleeding and concern that the wound should heal rapidly. While these regulations are less restrictive than postpartum taboos, and are taken less seriously, the connection between the two states is evident to villagers.25
Both sex and pregnancy imply "overheating"; at marriage and during pregnancy there is an attempt to keep cool. Excessive heating in these states leads to abortion, miscarriage, and infertility, perceived in terms of uncontrolled bleeding. In contrast, childbirth implies "over-cooling"; women have to be reheated, and this process is closely associated with the consumption of appropriate food, with the hearth, and with fire used for cooking. In meroyan sickness it would seem that overcooling or overheating of the mother - both caused by the ingestion of cold foods or by wind entering the body -results either in the retention of bad blood, or in excessive bleeding. In practice, the two effects are equivalent, as Lévi-Strauss has observed in a South American context:
[Women] are perpetually threatened - and the whole world with and through them - by the two possibilities...: their periodic rhythm could slow down and halt the flow of events, or it could accelerate and plunge the world into chaos. It is equally conceivable that women might cease to menstruate and bear children, or they might bleed continuously and give birth haphazardly. [1978:506]
Marriage, circumcision, and childbirth are all symbolically and ritually associated. In childbirth and circumcision the regulated bleeding of women and men is linked to their proper fertility and to the reproduction of the house (see Massard 1978:148). In both cases this is assured through feeding and the heat of the dapur. It is the dapur that both equilibrates the heat of the body through the provision or food of appropriate heat and controls the flow
of blood leaving the body.2S The central the dapur to processes that might be consii as much "biological" as "social" once underscores the difficulty of distinguishir two as separate spheres in the case of Langkawi.
Both the symptoms of meroyan sicknes its various causes can also be read as a í speculation on bodily boundaries. The o of the disease are in fact at once externa internal: childbirth itself, the ingestion of wind, and blood that is retained inste; being released, becoming poisoned. The t\ symptoms are.also suggestive: lockjaw disease, bleeding, and fever. The body's bt aries seem to become either too perineal too rigid. Meroyan sickness can be thoug as both similar to and dissimilar from possession. It is at once internal and exl in causation and effect. Appropriately, childbirth, when the body's boundaries opened to produce another body from w normal   health   in   the   mother   is   restored through the reassertion of these boundaries The boundaries of the baby are equally problematic: the child is liable to lose its semangar and to be penetrated by spirits.
The Substance of Death
If life, blood, and fertility are associated with heat, it is not at all surprising to find that death should be associated with cold. The apparent obviousness of this connection should not prevent us, however, from trying to understand its, meaning as fully as possible. That people in Langkawi make this association in an extremely emphatic way suggests that its meaning is both more central and more complex than might be assumed. "Death is really feeling cold," mati, rasa sejuk sunggu, I was told. "'If there is heat, it's all right, there's still life," kalau bangat, ťapá ada lagi nyawa. Death was described as a state of coldness and stiffness, and a feeling of extreme coldness coufd he interpreted as a sign of imminent death. But there was more to it than that.
"At the time of death the soul leaves the bod> and all the blood flows out," masa dia malu cabut nyawa, durah terbit. The blood leaves the body but humans cannot see this. "There is no blood at all in the body," ťada darsh
THE SUBSTANCE OF KINSHIP AND THE HEAT OF THE HEARTH                                  319
,,unq dalam   badan.   The   dead  become oS and empty blood vessels without flesh .bod. If a person dies in the house, the j from the corpse is believed to flow every-re and become mixed with all the food in house.  "Everything  becomes  soaked  in ,d " darab basah apa-apa. Consequently, ung that has been in a house at the time ! death may be eaten.  Neither already ied food nor raw products such as betel [s or water stored in the house can be coned at this time. Most importantly, no food be cooked in the house from the time [ediately before a  death until after the al has taken place. Meals may be prepared i fire made outside the house or in other tes, and must be consumed elsewhere, fter the corpse has been buried according ie Muslim rites, the floor of the house is red and food can once again be eaten nor-y. Death, then, negates the life of the house of its hearth. A house with death in it cannot simultaneously produce food and life. There is no cooking and no feeding. Death involves the loss of the substance of life - the blood, derived, as we have seen, from women. Violent death by accident or intention has other implications. I was told several stories of murder in which it is clear that the taking of life affected the murderer as dramatically as the victim. A murderer became weak, powerless, and frightened; in this state the murderer was thus liable to be caught. The only way to prevent this was to drink the blood - lire substance - of the victim. By performing the act of a vampire spirit, the murderer became "like a spirit," macam bantu. The act of drinking blood lent the murderer superhuman powers, and particularly the ability to appear and disappear at will and to evade pursuers. In this way the killer became brave, berani, and powerful, kuasa. Given all the attributes of a spirit but the substance of a human, the murderer was considered doubly alive, supersubstanced.2
The murderer, then, was faced with two possibilities: either to be consumed by the victim's substance or to be empowered by consuming it. Once again the notion of feeding is crucial. It is the act of feeding that confers power. The equation of murderers with vampires makes clear that this feeding is in every way negatively construed. Feeding on blood is the
negation of feeding on rice cooked in the house hearth: it is death dealing rather than life giving; it negates human ties rather than producing them.
Hearths, Feeding, and Substance: The Process of Becoming Related
Fhave described how the house in Langkawi is a "female" structure, but that it also "contains" the notion of siblingship. Women and sibling-ship have been shown to lie in equal measure at the core of the house as a domain of meaning. I have described the house as an expanded hearth, and it is in the dapur that the most important reproductive activities are carried out, notably, cooking, eating, and childbirth.
I have given an extended discussion of notions of substance. These are subtle and complex. At their heart lie ideas about blood. Kin share blood, but the degree to which this is true varies. Siblings, and mothers and their children - all of whom share substance to a high degree - are most closely related. This is why the affective ties between a mother and her children, and between siblings, are said to be particularly strong. Blood is not simply a substance with which one is born - it is continuously produced and transformed from food that is eaten. Endicott (1970:82, 85) has suggested that blood, having a quality intermediate between organized physical bodies and undifferentiated matter, derives its power from its potential for being organized. Blood is a potential child.
Milk, too, has a particular significance in these ideas about substance and relatedness, since it is both a bodily substance and food to be consumed. It may be understood as the enabling substance of kinship: a source of emotional and physical connectedness. But relatedness is not so simple. To a lesser degree, food cooked on the natal hearth has the same qualities as milk. Through the day-to-day sharing of meals cooked in the same hearth, those who live together in one house come to have substance in common. From this point of view, eating such meals in other houses has negative implications, and children are strongly discouraged from doing so. Eating meals in other houses implies a dispersal of intimate substance to other houses.
320                                                                         JANET CARSTEN
This argument implies that husband and wife also eventually come to share substance. While I have heard no direct statements to this effect, it seems to me entirely in accord with the logic of marriage, which, as described above, is itself modeled on siblingsbip. As they become more familiar with each other, the relationship of a married couple recalls many aspects of that between older brother and younger sister. In this sense, as McKinley (1981) has argued, Malay marriage can be thought of in processual terms as converting "strangers" and "affines" into "kin."
In a culture in which people often move to different houses, these ideas gain further salience. The frequency of divorce, and temporary or more permanent fostering, lend an enormous force to the idea that living and eating together is one way of coming to share substance. This has further significance, however, in the historical context of demographic mobility characteristic of Langkawi. Feeding is one way in which strangers and outsiders can begin their incorporation into a village community, a process that continues with fostering and marriage. The converse process means that if close kin move to the mainland or to other villages in Langkawi and cease to interact (either because of geographic distance or quarrels) their kinship and that of their descendants effectively lapses.30
There are other important implications to the notions I have described. The long process of becoming - acquiring substance - is one that to a very great degree occurs through the actions and bodies of women. Children are produced from their mothers' blood; their mothers' milk may activate or create kinship. The food cooked in the hearth by women not only nourishes physically, it creates emotional ties and is central to the process of becoming related. The dapur is the transforming center of the house, producing life and ensuring the process of kinship.
The material I have presented has another theme: the notion of boundary. Boundaries are sometimes asserted, but they are always tantal-izingly elusive. Blood, milk, and rice are similar and convertible into each other, but also different from each other. Houses, likewise, have boundaries within them, but these are systematically negated. The house spirit, who may be
said to embody the house, is herself ,. seven siblings, although only one oť ti active and the degree to which these «■■■■  " have separate identities is ambiguous.
These same ideas are echoed in noti the person. Each individual is part ní a . ..■ " set, and these ties are conceived as beinj-or less unbreakable. Individuals' identit1 always bound up with those of their sii\ . . The semangat of the person, like that ■■ ■■ house, is one of seven siblings. Once the precise identity of and relationship In   .. the different members of this set is uncle,'   11 " might say that persons and houses arc taneously individual and multiple, |us human sibling set has both a single and ■ tiple identity. Although they grow up house, after marriage siblings evenJualb   . to be embodied in different houses.
These ideas suggest a subtle and a. speculation on ideas about boundary j are confronted with the possibility o\ hoi ness only to see it recede before us. í liil. when one body literally produces anorlus ;Lui within, brings these concerns to the fore. Tr boundedness and permeability of both tr baby's and the mother's body at this tunc ai especially problematic. Bodies are simultar eously bounded and porous. In some respec it seems hard to say where one pcr.inu sror and another begins. The person contains tŕ core of relatedness, which is sibling-.hip. Wh; is true for people is also true for homes, and i exactly the same way. If the house is em i&age as a female body, it is also clear that 11 ie body in another way a house, containing uthf bodies. 1 Like bodies, houses have -»mjilc ar multiple identities that are envisaged in tern of siblingship.
Conclusion: Toward a Redefinition o Kinship
In the introduction to this article I men iioii Fox remarks on the fluidity of social identity in Au tronesia. Certainly, the material I present he bears out his thesis. My argument, hmvevt goes further. It is clear that not only i- "socia identity in Langkawi unfixed, but "phwca identity, a person's substance, is also cnnrini ously acquired and alterable. Identity at substance are mutable, fluid, and c losch co\
THE SUBSTANCE OF KINSHIP AND THE HEAT OF THE HEARTH
■d-32 Thus the ideas I describe lead me to ion the division - as assumed by Schneider perhaps also implicit in Fox's comments) -een the "biological" and the "social," be-a kinship as a biological, genetic, instant, permanent relationship, and social identity lid. In Langkawi, ideas about relatedness ^pressed in terms of procreation, feeding,
. -he acquisition of substance, and are not Cated on any clear distinction between 5 of biology" (like birth) and "facts of soci-
. ' (like commensality),
: r Schneider, the analytical significance of ing kinship in these terms lies in the uni-lity presupposed:
Doctrine of the Genealogical Unity of
ikind is a necessary corollary of the way
i kinship is defined (as reproduction)
■  way in which reproduction is under-
; a biological process following sexual
rse),   and  the   fact   that   "Blood   Is
Than Water" for all human beings
rd  axiom).   If motherhood  differed
e society to another, if there were no
1 aspects to fatherhood, there could be
no standard genealogy against which to plot
cilural variants. [1984:195)
VI] ne i der, partly by using his Yapese material, explicitly challenges the idea that procreation is everywhere accorded the same high value as in Western cultures. Although he erects tlie separation of the "biological" and che "social" in the anthropological study of kinship, however, his own analysis simultan-eous.lv i and implicitly) relies on their analytical separation. The distinction itself is not explicitly challenged.
The fecund axiom, that kinship, by definition, li«:s to do with human reproduction and that this is ;i biological process entailing sexual re-l.ilioiiv fails not by reason of its definition, but Mine' because of the associated assumptions. f:iĽsi- are that kinship is everywhere and "K\\;;.n, a culturally distinct, distinguishable, End hii-hly valued entity. That is, the fact of filmen (it-ring another human being... is always n f ni rurally distinct construct and is always Sivui a high cultural value. [1984:198; emphasis .ulded]
Schneider is correct to challenge these corollaries: ir is because the meaning and centrality
of procreation are assumed a priori by most anthropologists that the culturally specific meaning and value of kinship cannot be discovered (see Schneider 1984:199). For Schneider, the category of kinship has no cross-cultural value because its definition is bound up in Western notions. The only solution is to abandon the category completely or to set a more limited agenda: "Given this definition of kinship, do these particular people have it or do they not?" (1984:200).
Schneider does not, however, specifically propose that we abandon the equally "Western," and logically prior, distinction of the biological from the social on which the definition of kinship as a biological process rests. Indeed, while analyzing the way earlier anthropologists have applied this distinction, his own argument appears simultaneously to rely on it (Schneider 1984:95-112). Thus in his conclusion, Schneider argues,
Blood Is Thicker Than Water is not only axiomatic in studies of kinship, it is a fundamental axiom of European culture. Even if this axiom were true as a biological fact,... the point remains that culture, even if it were to do no more than recognize biological facts, still adds something to those facts. The problem remains of just what the sociocultural aspects are, of what meaning is added, of where and how that meaning, as a meaning rather than as a biological fact, articulates with other meanings. [1984:199]
At issue here is the way Schneider speaks of culture as somehow superimposed upon, and adding to, prior biological facts.
Like Schneider (1984:95), I would argue that the relationship between "physical" and "social" kinship is centra! to the way kinship has been defined by anthropologists. It is only after biological and social ties have been distinguished from each other that kinship can be defined in terms of biology, and accorded a special value; conversely, the "social" -whether as separable aspect of kinship or as something opposed to it - comes to have an implicit "merely" attached to it.
Given our current definition of kinship, which Schneider shows to be thoroughly imbued with Western notions, he suggests that we might attempt to discover the culturally
55
322
JANET CARSTEN
variable meanings attributed to ideas surrounding procreation. Following this argument, I would suggest that since both the definition and the meaning of kinship are culturally variable, we cannot apply a universal definition of kinship to which procreation is central. But -and here I part company with Schneider - this does not mean that we cannot compare both how people conceive of relatedness and the meaning they attribute to it. Schneider rejects a cross-cultural definition of kinship in terms of procreation because procreation may not be central in some cultures. He accepts that other kinds of relationship, which do not derive (or are not perceived as deriving) from procreative ties, may be important; but for Schneider these are necessarily "social" rather than "biological" facts and therefore not kinship within our present definitions.
For Schneider (1984:200-201) the central question is: Given our definition of kinship, do other people have it, and what value and meaning do they give it? I would suggest, by contrast, that the centra! question should be: how do the people we study define and construct their notions of relatedness and what values and meaning do they give them? It seems to me that we would do better to use the term "kinship" to characterize the relatedness that people act and feel. In this way we may arrive at a new and more flexible approach to the study of kinship in anthropology.
Ideas about relatedness in Langkawi show how culturally specific is the separation of the "social" from the "biological" and the reduction of the latter to sexual reproduction.33 In Langkawi relatedness is derived both from acts of procreation and from living and eating together. It makes little sense in indigenous terms to label some of these activities as social and others as biological. I certainly never heard Langkawi people do so. It is clear that the important relationships of kinship involve what we would regard as both. If blood, which is the stuff of kinship and to some extent of personhood, is acquired during gestation in the uterus and, after birth, in the house through feeding with others as people in Langkawi assert, is it, then, biological or social? The impossibility of answering this question merely underlines the unsatisfactory nature of the distinction.
Instead, the Malay fascination with b aries, the subtle way in which distinctio made only to be erased, may lead us in t question and refine the way in which thropologists, we use dichotomies such s between the biological and the social as a ical tools. If Malay thought on these su seems in many respects more subtle tha own, perhaps it is because kinship for Iv is part of a process of speculation as we process of becoming.
NOTES
1     My criticisms of Schneider are "friendlv" !■ the sense that I am in broad sympathy with hi endeavor and that I agree with, and draw en-much of the argument of his important boo without necessarily accepting his conclusion' (I agree particularly with his attack on rh procreative model in kinship and his situativ of anthropological definitions within Fun-American notions.) In contrast, Yeatma (1983) has presented an argument in favc of the procreative model in kinship, an Scheffler (1991) has criticized Sen neide partly for the relativism of his analysis an its lack of explanatory power. Scheffler won!, keep a universal definition of kinship as category for cross-cultural comparison In. once again his definition is in terms of protři ation (1991:373). Like Schneider, I wou! argue that such a definition does not appl cross-culturally.
2     See also Barraud 1979; Carsten and Hugh Jones 1995; Errington 1987, 1989; Lev Strauss 1979, 1983; Macdonald 198"; an Waterson 1987, 1990 for a discussion (. house-based societies in Southeast Asia.
3     I have argued elsewhere (Carsten 1987a! that houses in Langkawi can be seen as expauoVcl hearths.
4     Space does not allow me to elaborate on all the complex associations of siblingship here; in what follows I highlight certain features that are particularly relevant to the present discussion. Elsewhere I explore other aspects of this topic in more detail (Carsten 1987b, 1989, 1990, 1991), as Jo the authors cited in the text. For the significance of siblingship in Oceania see Marshall 1981.
THE SUBSTANCE OF KINSHIP AND THE HEAT OF THE HEARTH
323
íí is significant in this context that migration is very important to the demographic history of Langkawi. Many villagers have described to me how their ancestors came to the island together with siblings.
Similar beliefs and practices have been recorded widely elsewhere in Southeast Asia and can be related to a complex cosmology that has been explored by Headley 1983, 1987a, 1987b. See Laderman 1983 and Massard 1985 for a description of these rites in the Malaysian states of Tereng-sanu and Pahang respectively, and see Geertz 1961:89 for Java. In most of the recorded cases, however, the placenta seems to be considered the older sibling of the child. One woman in Langkawi told me that whether the placenta sibling is considered older or younger than the child depends on whether age is calculated by time of formation (in which case the placenta is older) or by time of birth (in which case the child is older).
7    See Headley 1987a. This idea is particularly powerful in the case of twins. It is notable that cross-sex twins seem to exercise a particular fascination for the more hierarchical Southeast Asian societies in terms of incest and marriage (see Boon 1977:138-40, 201-202 and Errington 1987). McKinley (1975:226) suggests that once a child begins to be able to socialize in the house it no longer needs to interact with its placenta sibling, from whom it becomes progressively detached.
8    See Endicott (1970:38-39, 41, 50, 63) on the fragmented and unitary nature of the seman-gat, which he does not, however, discuss in terms of sibUngship. Barraud (1990:218, 223) discusses the notion of mat inya in Tanebar-Evav in terms strikingly similar to the terms I use in discussing the semangat. The mat inya is a kind of sevenfold life essence of things that have social value.
9    The reference to the past is meant to imply that the villagers had been less aware of the connotations of milk feeding in Islam in the past than they were at the time of my fieldwork.
10    As far as I know, the idea that the shared consumption of food creates a weak form of siblingship is not an Islamic one.
11    Babies are regularly bottle-fed with powdered milk as a supplement to breast milk,
but I know of no case where bottle-feeding replaced breast-feeding entirely. While I would expect the impossibility of breast-reeding at all to be quite problematic, there is no indication that supplementary bottle-feeding causes any concern or that it has similar connotations to breast-feeding. Fresh cow's milk is not available in the village.
12     The daily sharing of rice meals defines members of one household. While those who live together are generally close kin, there are important exceptions that are normally thought of in terms of fostering (Carsten 1991). My own experience of living in one house and eating with a family on a daily basis was also one of being fostered, of "incorporation" and of "becoming kin."
13     Some of the material used here was presented in an earlier form in a paper specifically on childbirth (see Carsten 1992).
14    In contrast, Laderman (1983:74) reports in her material on Terengganu that conception occurs when both parents are in a "cool" state. This may be a regional variation, or it may be that while sex produces and requires heat, jatuh benih, "dropping of the seed" requires coolness. However, it is clear that in Terengganu heat is believed to have a powerful effect on pregnancy: "hot" medicines have abortifacient and/or contraceptive qualities (Laderman 1983:78-79). "The fetus is considered to be a clot of blood in the early stages, and hot medicine is thought to liquefy the blood, and to make the womb uncongenial for the child" (1983:78). "Hot" foods are avoided during pregnancy in order to control bleeding (1983:82).
15    Ideas about menstrual pollution are not very elaborate in Langkawi. Women may not pray or have sex at this time, and may cause ill fortune to a fishing trip. Elsewhere in Malaysia, Laderman (1983:73) also notes that a scanty menstrual flow is not considered healthy, and that, while sex during menstruation is religiously prohibited, it is also believed to restore potency to a man (1983:74).
16     Interestingly, Endicott (1970:37-38) notes that Cuisinier (1951:207-208) states that a mother gives part of her soul material to her baby.
17     Laderman reports that spirits "are attracted by the sweet smell of the blood of parturition
324
JANET CARSTEN
and    the    lochia    of    the    puerperium" (1983:201).
18     Laderman (1983:175) refers to "hot" leaves added to this water.
19     The categorization of roods according to their intrinsic "heating" and "cooling" properties is discussed at length by Laderman (1983:35-72). She discusses postpartum food restrictions in detail (1983:183-188). See also Massard 1983:262-268.
20    Together with Laderman (1983:181) 1 would argue that use of the terms "roasting" and "roasting bed" by Skeat (1900: 342-343) and others for these practices is misleading, and "heating" is more appropriate. What is aimed at is a regaining of lost heat through a more gentle warming than "roasting" implies, that is, a reassertion of the body's equilibrium not an objective rise in temperature; see also Massard 1978.
21     Gimlette states that meroyan is derived from royan, "to run, or discharge, of a sore," particularly used for "abnormal uterine discharges following childbirth" (1971:167). He continues, "the causa! agent is referred to as angin meroyan (angin, wind)" (1971:167). See also Laderman 1983:98, 201-202.
22     An anonymous reviewer of this article suggested that the symptom of losing speech makes this condition the inverse or latah, in which women's speech becomes uncontrolled and usually obscene. The suggestion that various conditions affecting women's speech (including spirit possession) be looked at in relation to each other merits further research.
23     See Laderman 1983:58-60 on angin, glossed as "temperament." A build up of angin in the body destroys the balance among the four elements - earth, air, fire, and water - and causes sickness.
24     Laderman discusses how sakit meroyan is caused by the "Hantu Meroyan" that "arises from the afterbirth, the blood and the amniotic fluid" (1983:201).
25     Wilkinson (1957:49) describes a rite performed at circumcision, involving coconuts rolled over the boy, that strongly recalls that traditionally undergone by women in the seventh month of pregnancy.
26     See also Gimlette (1971:49, 245) on heat of the dapur applied directly to the bukang root in the treatment of loss of male virility. That
a state of heat may have political imt tions is suggested by Zainal-Abidin. Ahmad (1947) and Laderman (1981) note that the Malay ruler's coolness bals the destructive heat of war, anger, dis and nature that threaten the body pc The sultan embodies coolness, which sures the prosperity of the kingdom.
27    These notions about the power of biooc be related to Endicott's discussion oj Malay concept of badi (Endicott J 66-86). The badi can be thought of harmful expression of disturbed blood arises from the blood - and, in the case murdered person, it is the badi that m this blood especially potent (1970:72). badi can eventually become an indeper spirit, which in the case of a mure person is likely to be especially pow and malicious (1970:73-74). In the ca a woman who dies in childbirth, it i; badi that reanimates her body as a van spirit (1970:72). Endicott points out vampires, familiar spirits, and badi share an intimate connection with hu.,,,,,, blood.
28     Once again I am indebted to an anonymnú* reviewer for the suggestion that the fenulc vampire spirit, Langsuir, who attacks women after childbirth and herself died n; childbirth, can be thought of as the spirit ní "pure alienated kinship." Her untiinely death cuts off the normal process of feeding and making kinship between mother nnd child. The sucking of blood from her vicriim is the inversion of the social feeding that should have occurred had Langsuir not died in childbirth.
29     Sexual intercourse normally occurs, in privacy, in a couple's sleeping area inside hoiiM-s. This is either situated in the main living area, dapur, or the optional formal room, ibu rumab, or .in a small sleeping room, buck. partitioned off one of these rooms.
30     The implications of this, in a society where divorce followed by relocation of one or other spouse is a frequent occurrence, .ire intriguing and merit further research. Rcl.i-tions between a divorced father and his children are in fact quite variable, depending partly on how far away the father lives from his children.
31     This idea has been explored by Hesdluy (1987a)    for    Java.    He    describes    how
THE SUBSTANCE OF KiNSHIP AND THE HEAT OF THE HEARTH                                  325
the body physically houses siblings during gestation.
Fluidity of identity has also been described, if in somewhat different terms, for Melanesia (see, for example, Strathern 1988). Elsewhere in the Austronesian world, Astuti (1995) gives a beautiful example of how the Vezo of Madagascar continuously acquire identity. She explores the implications of this for notions of ethnicity. Our own rather narrow definition of "biology," in which reproduction is separated from nutrition and is seen chiefly as a matter of genetic transmission rather than generation, appears to date from the mid-19th century (see Ingold 1990:209-211; 1991: 359 on the conflation of biology and genetics). In this view the individual is more or less determined at conception, but it is notable that in both the popular and the scholarly culture of early modern Europe the characteristics of a wet nurse were thought to pass to the children she fed because breast-feeding was part of a long process, intrauterine and extrauterine, by which a new individual was generated (see Marvick 1974; Ross 1974).
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