Word: headmen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Along with Christianity have come axes, cooking pots, clothing and bedding, but nomadic Penans insist that modern goods do not threaten their way of life. Most Penan hunters still prefer blowpipes to guns, and a group of headmen insists that if Western goods disappeared, their longhouses could get along just fine so long as the forest remained. This is why after years of arrests, imprisonment and fruitless legal efforts to halt the logging, the Penans continue to blockade the timber roads. "If we die," says Nyelik, "we die in the forest. There is no other place...
...will expose you as a collaborator." It is widely believed in Nablus that Shin Bet agents have given drugged drinks to Palestinian women, then removed their clothing and taken pictures, threatening to shame them by showing the pictures to their families unless they cooperate. Some corrupt village mukhtars (headmen) have collaborated in exchange for permission to gouge money from their people. That is a dangerous game. Such collaborators wind up turning their homes into armed fortresses, with transmitters to keep in touch with the Shin...