ABSTRACT
When, in 1945, Tom Harrisson – later to become Curator of the Sarawak Museum – was parachuted into the Kelabit Highlands in the interior of Sarawak by the British to organize resistance against the Japanese ‘from the inside out’ (see Harrisson 1959 for an interesting description of this episode), he and his fellow officers needed urgently to get assistance and information about the interior, and if possible to get an assurance of co-operation from the Kelabit. In order to do this, he had to find and negotiate with whoever was in charge. What happened when he set about trying to do this illustrates two things: that the Kelabit, hierarchical in their social organization to some degree, tend towards competition and contestation of authority; and that successful assertion of claims to status are associated with feeding rice meals to others. These are both just as applicable nowadays; but the level of competition for status has heightened.
