ABSTRACT
As an organic unit, the structure, significance, and function of the home is dictated by the same fundamental principles of belief that rule the village: blood-relation through the worship of the ancestors; rank, indicated by higher and lower levels; and orientation by the cardinal directions, the mountain and the sea, right and left. Out of bamboo they make the great majority of their artifacts; houses, beds, bridges, water-pipes, musical instruments, altars, and so forth. It is woven into light movable screens for walls, sun-hats, and baskets of every conceivable purpose. The household of Gedog, our next-door neighbour in Belaluan, was typical; the place of honour, the higher “north-east” corner of the house towards the mountain, was occupied by the sanggah kemulan, the family temple where Gedog worshipped his ancestors. The sanggah was an elemental version of the formal village temple: a walled space containing a number of little empty god-houses and a shed for offerings.
