Metamorphosis and Ancestrality
I suggest in this paper that Iban « gods » are in fact ancestors transformed in birds or animals who sustain human life. On the conceptual plan, my analysis is inscribed in a contemporary current which revisits animism. In that current, I am following Tim Ingold relational approach of ancestrality in which invisible beings of different origins nurture humans. On the ethnographic side, my argument enters the debate initiated by Sellato who considers that only a minority of deceased becomes ancestors following a ritual process. That argument applied to the Iban of Sarawak, but the creation of ancestors is not by means of rituals, but of metamorphosis which creates ancestrality with the aviary and animal kingdoms.