BAD DAY AT BUKIT-PEKAN

The Senoi Semai of Malaysia have acquired a reputation as one of the m ost nonviolent peoples known to anthropology. This essay explores the question of Semai violence through interviews with men who have commit ted homicide while in,a state of possession, and with a participant in a 1949 massacre of Chinese villagers that was carried out in retaliat ion for a raid on a Semai village by Chinese Communist insurgents. In Semai storytelling violence is recounted with relish, while first-pers on accounts of violent acts are descriptively revealing but emotionall y neutral.