ABSTRACT
The Penans' monsters are as important as ever. However, today, the Eastern Penan, a traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherer people of the Malaysian state of Sarawak in Borneo's interior, find themselves within a context of unprecedented transformation. Monsters live on, partly in their traditional form, partly adapted to the new conditions. The explanation for this can be found by analyzing the event described in introductory vignette: monsters seem to work well as explanatory devices, also in the face of cultural changes, if not cultural disasters. Traditionally, the Penan lived in nomadic clusters of fifteen to thirty individuals and primarily hunted and foraged in a certain area, their pengurip. The word urip means "life" or "lifespan" and thus pengurip designates the place where one's life unfolds. Monsters are designed to break down the normal systems of classification. They are by definition reversed creatures, anti-structural beings, paradoxical organisms impossible to place in ordinary taxonomies.
