Drawing on the vast repertoire of ‘oral literature’ of the Iban, this book shows how Iban women ritualized art in such a way that textiles drove men to take heads. The Iban people to Borneo had no scholastic aptitude tests to help them assess the intellectual capacity of a prospective mate and so they turned to art. Women looked for an intelligent and courageous man to protect them and pass on his gifts to their children. The performance indicators were a trophy head and demonstrable artistic talent. Men simply sought an intelligent woman. The performance indicator was the completion of a complex woven design in ikat, sungkit or pilih which displayed well formed hooks throughout the design. Consequently, art was consciously used by the Iban as a marker of intelligence and a basis for sexual selection.

This book is an important reference for collectors and scholars. The meaning and function of the great cloths are explained and the reputation enjoyed by the great weavers is described with many illustrations of woven cloths. The book also crosses the gender divide explaining why women are confined to two-dimensional art on flat surfaces while men have the capacity to produce rounded sculptures, which are brought alive to work some purpose in the complex extraterrestrial world of benign and malign spirits occupying the Iban cosmos. Iban men carved many different objects.
They fashioned wood into figures, bone into sword hilts, iron into swords and brass into jewellery. They etched designs into bamboo, wood and iron and painted motifs onto shields. The range and beauty of these objects are conspicuous and pay ample testimony to the importance of art in the repertoire of a well-rounded man. Tattoos were then used to show how well rounded a man was.

Iban Art, Sexual selection and severed heads tells its story with humour and frequent rhyming translations of Iban verse to bring to life the rich cultural heritage which enabled the Iban to be one of the most successful groups living in Borneo – at least until the colonial powers arrived.”