The focus of this book is a legend that has been recited for centuries around fires in longhouses in the Kelabit Highlands, the highest inhabited place in Borneo and part of the area designated the 'Heart of Borneo' in 2007 with WWF support.

The legend relates the adventures of a powerful hero, Tuked Rini. He and his wife Aruring Menepo Boong (pictured on the front cover) are said to have led the people of a longhouse called Luun Atar long ago. While Tuked Rini led the men into battle against powerful spirits, she led the women in growing rice - the central crop nutritionally, socially and cosmologically.

The Legend of Tuked Rini is used as a springboard to explore highland life, kinship and hierarchy, the significance of rice and forest products, and cosmological beliefs - all now changing rapidly under increasing influence from the world outside.