Raiding, Trading, and Feasting

Description

"As early as the first millennium A.D., the Philippine archipelago formed the easternmost edge of a vast network of Chinese, Southeast Asian, Indian, and Arab traders, who circulated porcelain, silk, glass beads, and other luxury goods throughout the South China Sea and through the Malacca Straits into the Indian Ocean. Items procured through maritime trade became key symbols of social prestige and political power for the Philippine chiefly elite. Raiding, Trading, and Feasting presents the first comprehensive analysis of how participation in this trade related to broader changes in the political economy of these Philippine island societies."--Jacket. "Reaching beyond the Philippine archipelago, this study contributes to the larger anthropological debate regarding ecological and cultural factors that shape political economy in chiefdoms and early states. It attempts to address the question of why Philippine polities, like early historic kingdoms elsewhere in Southeast Asia, have a segmentary political structure in which political leaders are dependent on prestige goods exchanges, personal charisma, and ritual pageantry to maintain highly personalized power bases."--Jacket.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Raiding, Trading, and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine ChiefdomsHardcoverUniversity of Hawaiì Press1999-09-01
• Raiding, Trading, and FeastingUniversity of Hawaii Press1999-01-01