Ethnohistorical perspectives on Kelantan's prehistory

Abstract

In this paper I cannot hope to give a finished solution to the problem of relating Kelantan's prehistory to its present-day circumstances, for that is not yet possible (except perhaps in the broadest terms). Instead, I would like to examine certain of the ethnographic, linguistic and historical data on Kelantan for the lessons they might hold for those who are interested in interpreting the state's prehistory. Some of the data (such as the pattern of language-distribution in Kelantan) are so obviously the consequence of prehistoric processes that they can be treated almost as if they were prehistoric data in themselves, complementary to the "hard" findings provided by archaeology. Other data, however (such as those relating to the principles by which contemporary Kelantanese populations decide between alternative modes of production), serve more as hints or warnings to the prehistorian than as data of prehistory in their own right. que acceptable but it should n represent the pa older theory of t of these populati layer-cake, with followed by the Kelantan, it w pposedly mad referred to in ord much too often the last half-cent prehistorian. Un Title to reduce in the popular i the intellectual There are L Supposed northe concerns the su populations. Res In what follows I want to give special emphasis to the mutual connectedness of the various cultural traditions that have left their traces in Kelantan. Prehistorians, like other anthropologists, have ceased to think of "cultures" as distinct, monolithic entities. That older conception has given way to a sociologically more appropriate concern with processes of complementarity between "cultures", as generated by interaction within a single, though complex, field of social relations.