Tribal Communities in the Malay World: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives 9789812306104

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Tribal Communities in the Malay World

Reproduced from Tribal Communities in the Malay W orld: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives , edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles ar e available at < http://www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html >.

The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) is a postdoctoral research centre based in Leiden and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Its main objective is to encourage the study of Asia and to promote national and international co-operation in this field. The geographical scope of the institute covers South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Central Asia. The institute focuses on the humanities and the social sciences and, where relevant, on their interaction with other sciences. The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) was established as an autonomous organization in 1968. It is a regional research centre for scholars and other specialists concerned with modern Southeast Asia, particularly the many-faceted problems of stability and security, economic development, and political and social change. The Institute’s research programmes are the Regional Economic Studies (RES, including ASEAN and APEC), Regional Strategic and Political Studies (RSPS), and Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS). The Institute is governed by a twenty-two-member Board of Trustees comprising nominees from the Singapore Government, the National University of Singapore, the various Chambers of Commerce, and professional and civic organizations. An Executive Committee oversees day-to-day operations; it is chaired by the Director, the Institute’s chief academic and administrative officer.

Tribal Communities in the Malay World Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives

Edited by

Geoffrey Benjamin & Cynthia Chou

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ASIAN STUDIES, The Netherlands

I5ER5 INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES, Singapore

First published in Singapore in 2002 by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang Singapore 119614 E-mail: [email protected] Website: First published in Europe in 2002 as a co-publication by International Institute for Asian Studies P.O. Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands E-mail: [email protected] Website: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. © 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. The responsibility for facts and opinions in this publication r ests exclusively with the editors and contributors and their interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the publishers or their supporters. ISEAS Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Tribal communities in the Malay World: historical, cultural and social perspectives / edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou. Papers presented originally to a Conference on Tribal Communities in the Malay World : Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives, Singapore, 24–27 March 1997, organized by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies … [et al.]. 1. Ethnology—Asia, Southeastern—Congresses. 2. Tribes—Asia, Southeastern—Congresses. I. Benjamin, Geoffrey. II. Chou, Cynthia. III. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. IV. Conference on Tribal Communities in the Malay World : Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives (1997 : Singapore) GN635 A9T82 2002 sls2002010850 ISBN 981-230-167-4 (hard cover) Printed in Singapore by Seng Lee Press Pte Ltd.

© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

CONTENTS

List of Contributors

vii

Pronunciation Guide

viii

Acknowledgements

x

1

Introduction Cynthia Chou and Geoffrey Benjamin

1

2

On Being Tribal in the Malay World Geoffrey Benjamin

7

3

Tribal People on the Southern Thai Border: Internal Colonialism, Minorities, and the State Annette Hamilton

77

Developing Indigenous Communities into Sakais: South Thailand and Riau Nathan Porath

97

4

5

Organizing Orang Asli Identity Colin Nicholas

6

Traditional Alliances: Contact between the Semais and the Malay State in Pre-modern Perak Juli Edo

137

Forest People, Conservation Boundaries, and the Problem of “Modernity” in Malaysia Lye Tuck-Po

160

7

119

8

Engaging the Spirits of Modernity: The Temiars Marina Roseman

9

Against the Kingdom of the Beast: Semai Theology, Pre-Aryan Religion, and the Dynamics of Abjection Robert K. Dentan

10

Culture Contact and Semai Cultural Identity Gerco Kroes v

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185

206

237

vi 11

12

13

14

Contents

“We People Belong in the Forest”: Chewong Re-creations of Uniqueness and Separateness Signe Howell

254

Singapore’s Orang Seletar, Orang Kallang, and Orang Selat: The Last Settlements Mariam Ali

273

Orang Suku Laut Identity: The Construction of Ethnic Realities Lioba Lenhart

293

Tribality and Globalization: The Orang Suku Laut and the “Growth Triangle” in a Contested Environment Cynthia Chou and Vivienne Wee

318

15

The Orang Petalangan of Riau and their Forest Environment Tenas Effendy

364

16

Inter-group Relations in North Sumatra Juara R. Ginting

384

17

State Policy, Peasantization and Ethnicity: Changes in the Karo Area of Langkat in Colonial Times Tine G. Ruiter

401

Visions of the Wilderness on Siberut in a Comparative Southeast Asian Perpective Reimar Schefold

422

Defining Wildness and Wilderness: Minangkabau Images and Actions on Siberut (West Sumatra) Gerard A. Persoon

439

18

19

20

Gender and Ethnic Identity among the Lahanans of Sarawak Jennifer Alexander and Paul Alexander

Index

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457

475

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Jennifer ALEXANDER

University of Sydney, Australia

Paul ALEXANDER

University of Sydney, Australia

Geoffrey BENJAMIN

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Cynthia CHOU

University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Robert K. DENTAN

State University of New York, Buffalo, USA

Juara R. GINTING

Leiden University, The Netherlands

Annette HAMILTON

University of New South Wales, Australia

Signe HOWELL

University of Oslo, Norway

JULI Edo

University of Malaya, Malaysia

Gerco KROES

Leiden University, The Netherlands

Lioba LENHART

University of Cologne, Germany

LYE Tuck-Po

Centre for Environment, Technology and Development, Malaysia

MARIAM Ali

International Medical Corps, Madura, Indonesia

Colin NICHOLAS

Centre for Orang Asli Concerns, Malaysia

Gerard PERSOON

Leiden University, The Netherlands

Nathan PORATH

Leiden University, The Netherlands

Marina ROSEMAN

Indiana University, Bloomington, USA

Tine G. RUITER

University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Reimar SCHEFOLD

Leiden University, The Netherlands

TENAS Effendy

Setanggi Foundation, Pekanbaru, Indonesia

Vivienne WEE

City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

vii © 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

Words in Aslian and related languages are transcribed in this volume according to the orthography currently used in Mon-Khmer linguistic studies. The symbols employed are pronounced approximately as indicated below: Vowels i e 3 2

As in Malay tapis: Kensiw k9la7is “liver”. As in Malay leher: Jahai te? “earth”. As the e in English get: Temiar l3h “wife”. As the u in Scottish hus (“house”) or the ü in German Hütte: Jah Hut k9b2s “dead”. 9 The “neutral” schwa (p&p&t) vowel, like the e in Malay betul or sumber: Jah Hut b9s “throw away”. a As in Malay belah: Semai g9rpar “pigeon”. u As the first u in Malay pucuk: Temoq luk “dart quiver”. o As the o in Malay gol (“goal” in football): Lanoh doo? “father”. 0 As the au in English taut, but shorter: Jah Hut j07 “foot”. 5 As the Vietnamese vowel 5 (or somewhat like the Russian vowel usually romanized as y). Pronounced like u but with the lips unrounded. 8 As the Vietnamese vowel 8. Pronounced like o, but with the lips unrounded. 6 As the o in (British) English hot. Nasal vowels are written with a superscript tilde: Chewong ha?\t “rotten”. The phonemically long vowels of Central Aslian are written doubled: Temiar t3? “earth”, t33? “earlier today”. Consonants These are mostly written and pronounced as in the modern romanized spelling used for Bahasa Malaysia, but some of the symbols require further explanation: viii © 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

Pronunciation Guide

c j 4 7 ? k

ix

Pronounced like the c in Malay cuci; unlike Malay, this consonant commonly occurs word-finally, as in Temiar b9cuuc “sour”. Pronounced like the j in Malay janji; this too can occur in positions unknown in Malay: Batek hãj “rain”, Temiar b3jb00j “lick”. Pronounced like the ny in Malay nyanyi. The uppercase form is $. Pronounced like the ng in Malay nganga or English singer (not as in finger). The uppercase form is &. The glottal stop (hamzah), a consonantal phoneme, sounding like the k in Peninsular Malay pronunciations of duduk or rakyat. The uppercase form is ?. Always pronounced as a velar, like the k in Malay makan, and not as a glottal stop, even word-finally.

© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Grateful acknowledgement to the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands; Centre for Environment, Gender and Development, Singapore; and Westälische Wilhelms-Universität, Institut für Ethnologie, Münster, Germany for support in convening the conference on “Tribal Communities in the Malay World: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives”, together with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore in March 1997; and the Japan Foundation Asia Center for its support towards the research costs and publication.

x © 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

Reproduced from Tribal Communities in the Malay W orld: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives , edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles ar e available at < http://www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html >.

1 INTRODUCTION Cynthia Chou and Geoffrey Benjamin

This volume focuses on a distinct historical singularity – the Malay World – even though much of the material presented may seem familiar to researchers who have worked on other parts of the world.1 It should not come as a surprise to find, for instance, that certain peculiarities in the Malay World correspond to generalities uncovered by analyses of situations elsewhere.2 Such being the case, the aim of this volume is to offer theoretical, descriptive, and practical perspectives that will be relevant to researchers working on both the Malay World and beyond. The scope of the volume is sufficiently narrow for historical, ecological, and cultural factors to be held relatively constant – notwithstanding the variations that do occur in the region – but it is also sufficiently wide for each of us to learn from the findings of the others. The collation of materials on Peninsular Malaysia with work from South Thailand, Indonesian Sumatra, Sarawak in eastern Malaysia, and from Singapore, has been a valuable exercise. This is especially so, as the contributions cover contemporary ethnography, sociology and political science on the one hand, and historical issues on the other.3 The tribal and recently-tribal people of the Malay World cover a broad spectrum. They include, as this volume shows, nomadic foragers (inland, coastal, and maritime), swidden farmers, traders in forest and marine products, petty commodity producers, emergent and established peasantries, proletarians, and professionals, among others. 1

Cynthia Chou and Geoffrey Benjamin

2

Many broad themes can be found in this volume, some of which we highlight here. However, the issues discussed in all the contributions overlap in numerous ways. Therefore, rather than organizing the chapters according to the usual thematic groupings, which would direct the reader’s attention unnecessarily to one or another frame of reference, we have instead arranged them along a north–south axis, commencing in South Thailand, moving southwards through Malaysia and Singapore, and finally reaching Indonesia. In so doing, we believe that the reader will gain a panoramic view of all the themes and issues that interlock in each of these areas.

SOME GENERAL THEMES NEW THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES This volume introduces to a wider readership some of the imaginative theoretical work that is currently going on in Southeast Asian studies. Different approaches to the study of tribal communities are demonstrated in the following pages, for example, a radically rethought “orientalist” approach to historical ethnology (Dentan), and the mythologizing (Hamilton, Porath), invisibilizing (Mariam) and postmodern (Roseman, Lye) approaches.

ETHNOGENESIS There is much evidence to show that insider–outsider imagery is a basic theme in human cultures generally. What is important in the Malay World, however, is that this theme has often had to be established within a relatively homogeneous population – especially where the tribal peoples in question are also indigenously Malay-speakers. The question of being an insider or outsider has thus become more pronounced in the Malay World than elsewhere and it has become an important feature in social discourse and local historical documents. Concern over the question of autochthony and indigeny is a characteristic feature of the Malay World. In Malay-type polities, it seems necessary for self-declared “outsiders” to capture, subvert or replace a recognized indigeny via subjugation-through-marriage and cultural suppletion (Ginting, Schefold, Alexander & Alexander). In Thailand, however, the rulers must be seen as both autochthonous and Thai (Hamilton, Porath). In neither case do the polities treat their minorities in accordance with the wishes of the minorities themselves. Thai and Malay polities both find it difficult to “place” their indigenous minorities (tribal or otherwise) conceptually in their scheme of social order – though their difficulties differ in character.

© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

Introduction

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This difference reflects, in turn, the real ethnology of the situations. Malay states were formed by differentiation within an essentially homogeneous population by leaders who chose to present themselves as different (for example, murni “pure” versus asli “indigenous”). Thai states, on the other hand, were formed by actual linguistic and cultural suppletion from the outside, over a formerly Mon-speaking population. Yet, the leaders, who may or may not have been truly outsiders, persisted in seeing themselves as indigenous. In both cases, the tribal populations provide a conceptually dissonant and troubled backdrop to state ideologies.

INTER-GROUP INTERACTION Several studies in this volume have much to say about the nation-states – and former colonial polities – in which the research was carried out. The real test of a political system is how it treats its minorities, a theme that all the contributors have highlighted. First, what can be learnt about the historical Malay states ( Juli, Ginting, Ruiter) and the region’s modern nation-states (Mariam, Chou & Wee, Persoon) through studying the tribal populations that fell or fall under their influence? Second, in what ways does our concept of “tribal society” correspond to the imagery employed by the tribal people themselves, by their non-tribal neighbours, and by power-holders in the state (Hamilton, Porath, Lenhart)? Third, what are the mechanisms of cultural interaction and contestation within and between culture-groups (Kroes, Alexander & Alexander, Howell, Tenas, Ruiter, Persoon)? What are the corresponding intra- and inter-group negotiation processes (Juli, Dentan, Kroes, Alexander & Alexander, Lenhart)? The flow of broader cultural elements into tribal communities has a long history, indicating that they have indeed been active members of a larger social universe, even if they have frequently dissented within that universe (Dentan, Schefold). Fourth, how are boundaries conceptualized and put into operation? What are the material, environmental and spatial bases of the relations between the tribal peoples themselves, and between them and the state (Lye, Nicholas, Chou & Wee, Tenas)? An important topic closely linked to the issues just highlighted is the theme of assimilation: the Malay view of culture requires that one remember the Malay Sultanate era, be it bygone or current (Porath, Hamilton, Mariam). This in turn raises an interesting issue: how would the Malays define themselves if there were no Orang Asli?4 When Malays need to construct boundaries – as when setting up conservation areas in order to “protect” modernity (Lye)

© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

Cynthia Chou and Geoffrey Benjamin

4

– do they also need to keep tribal peoples around to protect their progressive Malayness? There is much ambivalence here: Malays are often embarrassed by “modern” Orang Asli who refuse to masuk Melayu (enter Malayness), and seek to resolve this by converting them to Islam (Lenhart). On the other hand, Malays often seem unwilling to conceive of even “traditional” Orang Asli as autonomous populations who can run their own affairs (Nicholas). In Malay polities, the tribal peoples are often pushed into “protected’ situations, whether they like it or not. This may well help to explain the problems the Orang Asli have met with in gaining the kinds of land-rights that Malaysian Malays get easily (Nicholas).5

ALTERNATIVE MODERNITIES Is change necessary? Should development be state-imposed or self-generated? Are the tribal communities willing and/or capable of participating in the modernization programmes directed at them, or do they have other ideas on how to proceed? Some of the sure paths to tribal alienation are examined in this volume. For example, in order to assimilate, “integrate” or simply derecognize the Orang Asli, the authorities must first alienate them from their land – the basis of their identity (Nicholas, Mariam, Chou & Wee, Tenas). Several contributors present alternative perspectives and responses to modernity as proposed by the tribal communities themselves (Roseman, Howell, Lye). They show how tribal communities can incorporate the modern and postmodern worlds that now form the broader context of their lives. Taken as a whole, these chapters constitute a study in alternative modernities and a radical plea to drop all pretence at thinking evolutionarily when dealing with people who are, after all, contemporaries (Benjamin). As editors of this volume, we hope to have presented an inter-disciplinary forum, rich in themes but focused on one geographical area, that will stimulate future research efforts in Southeast Asia and promote discussions among scholars working in other fields. Above all, we hope that the ideas and information presented in this volume will eventually prove useful to the tribal communities themselves in finding ways to ameliorate their situation.

NOTES 1. This volume is based on selected material from a conference bearing the same title as this volume that we convened at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, in March 1997. (Two of the contributors, Lye Tuck-Po and Marina Roseman, were unable to attend the conference.) The conference was hosted by

© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

Introduction

2.

3.

4. 5.

5

the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands; the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore; the Centre for Environment, Gender and Development, Singapore; and the Institut für Ethnologie, Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, Germany. We also thank the Japan Foundation for funding a part of the publication of this volume. Gérard Diffloth helped with some of the Aslian-language transcriptions. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the skilled attention of Rahilah Yusuf, Production Editor at ISEAS, to the details and overall design of this volume. When the framework for the conference was first conceptualized (by Cynthia Chou and Vivienne Wee), we were motivated by the wish to transcend national boundaries and colonial realities. Historically, the Isthmus of Kra, the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, Riau, Sumatra, and Kalimantan have belonged to one historical reality – the Malay World, which forms the context of this volume. Geographically, this is an area interconnected by well-traversed bodies of water – the Straits of Melaka, the Straits of Singapore, and the South China Sea. Politically, however, this area has been fragmented. The most significant event of fragmentation occurred in 1824 when the Treaty of London split this Malay World into two zones of influence: the British zone of influence north of the Straits of Singapore and the Dutch zone of influence south of Singapore. In our current postcolonial reality, these colonial zones of influence have been nationalized as Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia respectively. These colonial realities and national boundaries have greatly shaped the context of research and scholarly discourse. The discussions at the conference were further enriched by sociological, linguistic and archaeological presentations from Reinald Döbel, Narifumi Maeda Tachimoto, Wan Zawawi Ibrahim, Mohd Razha Rashid; James T. Collins; and Nik Hassan Shuhaimi bin Nik Abd Rahman, respectively. This is the reverse of a question first posed by Dentan (1975), “Would there be any Malays if there were no Orang Asli?”. This has also been thoroughly documented in the volumes by Dentan et al. (1997) and Nicholas (2000), as well as in the collection edited by Razha (1995). For the directly expressed views of Orang Asli themselves, see Zawawi (1996).

REFERENCES Dentan, Robert K. 1975. “If There Were No Malays, Who Would the Semai Be?”. In Pluralism in Malaysia: Myth and Reality, edited by Judith Nagata, [=] Contributions to Asian Studies 7: 50–64. ———, Kirk Endicott, Alberto G. Gomes, and M. B. Hooker. 1997. Malaysia and the Original People: A Case S tudy of the I mpact of Dev elopment on I ndigenous Peoples. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Nicholas, Colin. 2000. The Orang Asli and the Contest for R esources: Indigenous

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Politics, Development and Identity in P eninsular Malaysia. Copenhagen: International Workgroup for Indigenous Affairs; Subang Jaya: Centre for Orang Asli Concerns. Razha Rashid, ed. 1995. Indigenous Minorities of P eninsular Malaysia: Selected Issues and Ethnographies. Kuala Lumpur: Intersocietal and Scientific. Zawawi Ibrahim, ed. 1996. Kami Bukan Anti-Pembangunan! Bicara Orang Asli Menuju Wawasan 2020. Bangi: Persatuan Sains Sosial Malaysia.

© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

Reproduced from Tribal Communities in the Malay W orld: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives , edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles ar e available at < http://www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html >.

2 ON BEING TRIBAL IN 1 THE MALAY WORLD Geoffrey Benjamin

The “Malay World” is here defined narrowly, and in an historically responsive manner, to refer to the areas currently or formerly falling under kerajaan Melayu, the rule of a Malay king (Milner 1982). It does not refer to insular Southeast Asia at large, and certainly not to the Austronesian-speaking world as a whole – both of which are usages of “Malay World” that have crept into scholarly discourse in the last decade.2 In this sense, the Malay World (Alam Melayu) refers to the various Malay kingdoms and their attendant hinterlands that have existed or still exist along the coasts of Borneo, the east coast of Sumatra, and on the Malay Peninsula. My title has three components: “being”, “tribal”, and “Malay World”, each of which needs further discussion.

BEING TRIBAL With the word “being” I mean to indicate not the passive condition of a whole group of people, but the active agency of individuals. Too often, tribespeople – to use an amended version of Sahlins’s term “tribesmen” (1968) – have been characterized as total collectivities rather than as people. How many of us, following the quaint English idiom reserved just for “tribes”, still refer to the Nuers as “the Nuer”? Why is it that “the Nuer are …”, with its 7

8

Geoffrey Benjamin

missing plural marker -s, does not jar the ear, when the phrase “the American are …” certainly does?3 Tribespeople, however, do not follow the dictates of some collective inborn drive: they engage severally in a culturally mediated social strateg y, whether out of choice or under geographical or political constraint. “Tribal” thus refers not to some sort of “ethnic” category, but to particular socio-political circumstances of life, which (like all such circumstances) demand to be understood in terms of their specific histories and with constant acknowledgement of the people’s own agency. “We need to problematize the notion of community: we need to stop talking of the community as a unitary subject and to analyse axes of contestation within it” (Alexander & Alexander, in this volume). The history of non-literate populations is of course difficult to get at, and it often requires a higher proportion of conjecture than a professional historian would feel comfortable with.4 But if such conjecture pays due attention to questions of agency, it is less likely to go astray. In any case, documents do exist, and several contributors to this volume make thorough use of them. Contemporary anthropologists pay much attention to both choice and constraint in discussing the tribal situation. Writers in other fields, however, are more likely to emphasize the supposed effects of ignorance or isolation – approaches that anthropologists would often ascribe to the ignorance of the writers, rather than of the tribespeople. In any case, most of the tribal populations discussed in this volume have not been especially isolated, and the few isolated ones have still taken their neighbours into account in formulating their way of life.

TRIBALITY AND THE STATE Tribal circumstances have not existed from time immemorial,5 but came into being with the emergence of centralized polities – states and the civilizational culture that goes with them. These include the modern nation-state, with its history of just a few centuries, but also the many kinds of pre-modern and colonial state formations that preceded it. The essence of civilization lies in the attempt to impose and maintain a centralized state organization and a homogeneous cultural regime throughout a region which had previously harboured autonomous local communities. (“Autonomous” does not mean that they did not have social relations with each other, only that the degree of mutual interference and control was relatively low.) The classical civilizing process engenders three basic types of sociocultural situation, where in pre-state times there had been just one. Those who place themselves in command belong to what we can loosely call

© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

On Being Tribal in the Malay World

9

the ruler category, used here as a shorthand term for priests, tax collectors, soldiers and so on, as well as kings. Those who allow their lives to be controlled by agencies of the state, which they provision in exchange for a little reflected glory but no counter-control, are peasants.6 But those who stand apart from the state and its rulers, holding themselves culturally aloof in a “sub-nuclear” fashion (see below), are in the tribal category. The character of tribal society – in Asia especially – is shaped nevertheless by the proximity of civilization. Two things must be emphasized about this Tribespeople–Peasants–Rulers typology. First, it is not an evolutionary series. It is, rather, a single complex, formed of alternative, mutually dissimilatory responses to the same sociopolitical circumstance – the imposition of a hierarchically organized, supralocal, state apparatus. On this view, all historically and ethnographically reported tribal societies are secondary formations, characterized by the positive steps they have taken to hold themselves apart from incorporation into the state apparatus (or its more remote tentacles), while often attempting to suppress the knowledge that their way of life has nevertheless been profoundly shaped by the presence of the state, or whatever locally represents its complexifying effects.7 The structure and formation of tribal societies, especially in Southeast Asia, is best understood as an adaptation to the broader state situations in which they are found. But the tribespeople nevertheless talk as if they believed themselves to be culturally autonomous – as Edmund Leach (1954) pointed out decades ago in his study of the Kachins of northern Burma. Frequently, they lack an institutionalized means of mounting a discourse about the broader framework that subtends their social formation. Individual tribespeople, however, can succeed in mounting such a discourse, acknowledging perfectly well what their situation is.

TRIBAL TRADITIONS IN THE MALAY WORLD The ethnology of the Malay World appears to support both of these claims – first, that tribality has resulted largely from choice; and second, that the presence of a state-based civilization (both modern and pre-modern) has figured hugely in that choice. For example, the Peninsular Orang Asli have long had the choice of becoming Malay peasants, even in pre-Islamic times. Some did so, and in consequence much of the Malay peasantry has an origin in the Orang Asli population. In some parts of the Peninsula, the proportion appears to be high (cf. Noone 1936, pp. 54–56). But those who did not become Malay peasants had to set up their own cultural and social institutions,

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operated largely through “switches” in their kinship patterns, to block off that option and to make alternative, tribal, ways of life seem more appropriate. In so doing, they generated three institutionalized societal patterns – the “Semang”, “Senoi”, and “Malayic” – as well as some less well-defined ones (Benjamin 1985). These three patterns have been aimed at retaining the people’s social and cultural autonomy in the face of the state, while allowing them nevertheless to sustain relations with each other and with the civilizational centres downstream.8 The Semang pattern is followed in northern parts of the Malay Peninsula by an egalitarian, low-density population, maintained by marriage over large distances. The people live by a generalized foraging off whatever is available to them. Hunting and gathering in the immediate forest environment has been a major component, but they have also “foraged” off the other polities and economies in their vicinity. (See Benjamin 1973, and the commentary on it by Rahmann 1975.) The “Senoi” pattern is espoused primarily by Temiars and upland Semais in the central parts of the Peninsula. They have lived mainly by swidden farming combined with some trading and trapping. Maintaining a high degree of autonomy from the state, they still continued to trade with it and to have dealings with outsiders. This, of course, they could get away with quite easily until very recently, living in the central mountain fastnesses. In so doing, they developed cultural frameworks of a highly “dialectical” kind, as exemplified in the chapters by Roseman and Dentan. The Senoi societal pattern is characterized by an egalitarian, medium-density population, a prohibition on marriage with traceable consanguines, and a preference for marriage with affines. This led to the development of relatively autonomous deme-like concentrations of population in each of the major river valleys within their territory. The “Malayic” pattern – which is found also in lowland Sumatra and the neighbouring islands, includes the traditions often referred to as Aboriginal Malay, Jakun,9 or Orang Laut, and by various other terms in mainland Sumatra. Existing in many varieties, it is based on the fusion of farming- or fishing-based subsistence with a livelihood based on the collecting of forest or marine products for trade with outsiders (Dunn 1975). (For a detailed contemporary account, see Gianno 1990.) The collecting component would have intensified around 2000 years ago, when Chinese, Indian, and West Asian interests had led to the exploitation by tribal “fetchers” of the region’s lac, wood-oil, camphor, and minerals (Wang 1958; Wheatley 1959; Dunn 1975). The various centralized states that have characterized the Malay World since the seventh century CE or earlier emerged out of this matrix.

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On Being Tribal in the Malay World

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Consequently, the Malayic tradition now exhibits two major facies: the statecentred Melayu traditions, and the relatively autonomous tribal-Malay traditions. These latter traditions are culturally Malay in many senses – but on their own terms, and without assimilating completely to full Melayu-ness (in which conversion to Islam now plays a large part). The Malayic tradition (both Melayu and tribal-Malay) is characterized by hierarchical, medium- to high-density populations, and a preference for consanguineal (cousin) marriage that effectively downplays the structural importance of affinal relations. The local populations have tended to orientate themselves more towards the nontribal outsiders with whom they have trade relations than towards their fellow tribespeople in other settlements. The underlying reason for this tripartite patterning appears to be the long-established presence in the region of three main modes of environmental appropriation: foraging (nomadic hunting-and-gathering), horticulture (semisedentary swidden-farming), and collecting (the gathering of natural products for trade with outsiders). These, separately or in combination, have been the major factors in the evolution of the different patterns of social organization in the Malay World. While the patterns were combined together to varying degrees in the lifeways of some of the constituent populations, it seems that most of the populations preferred to allow just one of the modes to dominate their lives. This led to the instituting of a distinct societal pattern in each population, aimed at “locking” them into the appropriate demographic and ideational response to maintain the chosen mode. Thus arose the close association of the Semang pattern with foraging, the Senoi pattern with horticulture, and the Malayic pattern with collecting (fused with horticulture). While examples of each of these appropriative modes are still to be found in almost any part of the region, there is a discernible geographical pattern to their distribution as the dominant modes in different areas. In the Peninsular north, on both sides of the Thai border, foraging has been dominant until very recently. Horticulture has been dominant in the mountains and hills of the Peninsular centre. Collecting – almost always combined with horticulture or fishing in a distinctive way – has been dominant in two main varieties, which are themselves complementary with each other: the land-based and the sea-based. Collecting of this sort is found mainly in the lowlands of the Peninsular south and mainland Sumatra, as well as on the islands between them.10 Several other non-Malayic-speaking (but Austronesian) tribal communities that do not fit these patterns are also discussed in this volume: the Lahanans of Sarawak (Alexander & Alexander), the Bataks of North Sumatra (Ruiter, Ginting), and the Mentawaians or Sakuddeis of Siberut Island off the west

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coast of Sumatra. These populations all fall to varying degrees within the ambit of kerajaan Melayu, and have been much influenced by it.

TERMINOLOGICAL ISSUES: WHY “T TRIBAL”?? Tribality in the Malay World (as elsewhere) is thus a relational, not a primordial, quality – even if the resulting degree of cultural distinctiveness often comes to seem primordial. Its characteristics vary with the broader contemporary setting within which the people live. (I comment below on some still-current conceptions of tribal society as “primordial”.) This much is surely acceptable to most anthropologists. But is the term “tribal” analytically useful? Could it and should it be replaced by some other term?11 It is now recognized that “tribes”, in the sense of discrete, total social units, do not exist outside of the popular, administrative or sociological imaginings.12 Scholars have frequently criticized the idea of “the tribe”, regarding it as a chimera induced by a misreading of segmentary social organization by outsiders accustomed to more hierarchized and bounded circumstances. Most commonly, this has arisen whenever attempts are made to bring the segmentary populations under the umbrella of centralized state administration. At base, then, tribality is an individual matter rather than a total societal one: tribal individuals can coexist with peasants or proletarians even within the same family. I know several Temiar families in which this situation currently holds, and the same is now true for most of the other (formerly) tribal populations in the Malay World. If one accepts that being tribal is a matter of social action, rather than a passive condition of existence, this should not prove difficult to understand.13 To make my point clear, let me now distinguish explicitly between tribality and the other conditions of social life with which it is frequently confused. This will require discussion of some major macrosociological themes, as well as the question of terminological political correctness. “Tribal” People sometimes find the word “tribal” offensive. Unfortunately, political correctness, however justified it may be on occasion, constantly deprives us of words that we need. Social labels are not usually inherently offensive; normally, they simply become offensive when used by those who despise the people referred to. The solution is not to constantly re-make our lexicon, but to mend our attitudes. In Malaysia, for example, the perfectly good word “aborigine” has been all but banished under the wrong impression that it is

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insulting.14 Presumably, some of those who wish to ban the word have less than comfortable feelings about Australian Aborigines, for I have been told firmly that the Orang Asli have no connection whatsoever with Australia and the word “aborigine” must therefore be avoided in Malaysia! On the other hand, the word “native”, much avoided in “correct” circles elsewhere, is employed openly in Sabah and Sarawak. Similarly, the word “Sakai” has been reworked into a supposedly insulting word in Peninsular Malaysia, where it has been used historically mainly to refer to non-Malayspeaking tribal Aborigines. In modern spoken Malay it is also used more casually to refer to “tribespeople” anywhere in the world (as Porath, in this volume, also reports for Indonesia). Nevertheless, “Sakai” is still used as a fairly neutral term in both South Thailand (where it refers to Mon-Khmerspeaking populations related closely to the northernmost Malaysian Orang Asli) and in Sumatra (where it refers to Malay-speaking tribal populations), as Hamilton and Porath both demonstrate in this volume. In Brunei “Sakai” even labels a stratum within the established hierarchy of Brunei-Malay society (Brown 1970, p. 5).15 Given such vagaries of usage with terms that are sometimes seen as disparaging, I see relatively little harm in using the word “tribal” as a term of sociological analysis, but with the positive meanings I have proposed in the last few pages. “Tribal” remains useful precisely because it refers to a characteristic way of life and of social organization for which no other unambiguous label exists. The current alternative terms, such as “segmentary” or “indigenous”, employed perhaps as politically correct euphemisms, do not really address the central issue of tribality. “Tribal” overlaps with “segmentary” or “indigenous”, for example, but is not the same thing as either, for each of these terms has its own sociology. Let me make this clear by briefly examining these and other terms that are sometimes employed in place of “tribal”. “Segmentary” Durkheim’s term segmentary (or segmental ) refers to social formations consisting of local or regional segments (lineages, clans, villages, hordes, and so on) that are not integrated into any higher-level unity. Each segment is organizationally similar to the others, but no one segment has control over all the others. If ranking is present – as it is among some southern Orang Asli, and in some of the tribal populations of Sarawak and Sumatra – the pattern of ranking is replicated separately in each segment, but no overall ruler is found. This formulation corresponds to Durkheim’s idea of “mechanical” solidarity.16 At first glance, the term “segmentary” has its attractions. It sounds value-

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neutral, since it obviates the problems caused by using words like “primitive” or “simple”. Moreover, it facilitates those styles of comparative social analysis that are based on the idea of differentiation, some of which have been very subtle indeed (for example, Gellner 1988). “Segmentary” is also very similar in meaning to the older sense of “tribal”, for etymologically the latter word means not “belonging to a tribe”, but “living in a social formation that is divided into tribes”.17 Despite these undoubted advantages, however, the term “segmentary” is too concerned simply with questions of social morphology. Just as Durkheim’s Division of Labour study ignores politics and history (see Barnes 1966), so also does the term “segmentary”. “Segmentary” usually implies that the people have not yet come across any alternative ways to organize themselves. But, as the chapters in this volume illustrate, tribespeople have frequently maintained their society in a segmentary formation out of deliberate choice. “Segmentary” therefore does not capture the sheer work that lies behind such an outcome. This is a drawback, for the tribal way of life is usually based on the positive desire to retain segmentary organization – which can be realized only through political action. “Indigenous” The term “indigenous” is the most usual epithet for the kinds of lifeway here called “tribal”. This usage was further reinforced by the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Peoples (1993), which (despite its name) clearly referred to the world’s disadvantaged tribal populations, and not to the many other populations in the world who can equally claim to be indigenous. (See Waterson 1993 for a comprehensive summary of the situation that the Year was trying to address.) “Indigenous” sounds value-neutral at first hearing, but as anyone knows who has had to grapple with the complexities of Malaysian Bumiputera-ness or Indonesian Pribumi-ness, the concept is utterly value-filled – especially when it becomes an explicit political rallying-cry.18 It is true, of course, that most tribal populations are indeed indigenous to the areas they inhabit. But there is a much larger number of non-tribal people who are also in various senses indigenous to where they live. Moreover, some tribal groups (such as the Orang Kanaq mentioned later) are not indigenous to their places, or even countries, of residence. The overlap between tribality and indigeny is interesting, but it can be misleading. Both are of fundamental sociological importance, but they are different issues, that need to be kept separate if analysis is to proceed. Elsewhere (Benjamin, ms), I have tried to sketch out what a sociology of indigeny (and its reciprocal, exogeny) might look like, and to demonstrate

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just how important it is. A key point is that indigeny has to do with familylevel connections to concrete places, and not with the connection of whole ethnic groups (whatever they may be) to broad territories. The social situation of indigenes – non-tribal as well as tribal – differs in profound ways from that of exogenes. The difference cuts right through “societies”, and not (as commonly thought) just between them. The two main examples in my study concerned the Welsh in Wales and the Malays of Singapore – largely indigenous populations, but hardly tribal! In the latter case, I tried to show that differences within the Malay community in relation to their degree of familial indigeny were at least as significant sociologically as differences between the Singapore Malays as a whole and the republic’s other ethnic “groups”. (Most Malays in Singapore are, of course, descended from areas outside the republic.)19 In sum, then, the term “indigenous”, though well-intentioned, does not fully capture the social and political issues that attach to tribespeople, and it removes a fundamental sociological concept from its proper context of discourse. (See also footnote 28.) “Sub-nuclear” A term that comes much closer to the sense of “tribal” that I have in mind here is “sub-nuclear society”, proposed by Frederick K. Lehman in his book on the Chins of Burma (1963). Building on Leach’s ideas about the relations between the Kachins of northern Burma with the neighbouring Shan states, Lehman argues that in Southeast Asia the tribal populations are neither “primitive” in the commonly understood sense of being completely distinct from and autonomous of civilization, nor are they peasants, incorporated culturally into the mainstream civilization. However, they share with peasants a positive orientation to civilization. Everywhere, they have been brought (if only minimally) into the national government’s orbit, and supplied with schools and health services. Money has been circulating in the tribal economy, coupled with newer desires that necessarily tie them in to the larger society. Sometimes, though not often, they have become the major source for a rare product. (Examples in the Malay World would be jelutung latex, wood oils, sea slug, and bird’s nest, which are still primarily produced by tribal populations, and then sent out into the world market.) Normally, the orientation is oneway: the tribal population is orientated to the larger society, but the reverse is not true. (The pre-modern Malay state is a partial exception to this generalization: see below.) Thus they have a relationship to civilization that is tenuous, one-sided, almost wholly economic and ideological in character, but

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stable over a considerable period of time. (Lehman was writing forty years ago, and such stability can no longer be guaranteed, now that highly capitalized commercial ventures have moved into the hinterlands.) This relationship displays many of the same characteristics as that which holds between peasants and industrial civilization, but unlike the case of peasants, it is accompanied by the retention of distinct cultural styles, languages, and religions. It is this neither-one-nor-the-other type of situation that led Lehman to propose the label “sub-nuclear”, to refer to a societal type distinct from both peasant and (“primitive”) tribal patterns, and characteristic of the special hills/plains relation found in Southeast Asia from Assam to tribal southwest China, and from Laos to Sumatra and eastwards. Its characteristics according to Lehman are as follows. First, sub-nuclear societies abut on “nuclear” civilization, but remain distinct: the sub-nuclear society’s adaptation to the relationship is complete, even if the people might not picture themselves that way. Second, they lack their own supra-local political organization, and do not participate in nation-wide politics. And third, they retain a marginal dependence on the larger society, but not so great as to change their own cultural traditions. (Although that was not part of Lehman’s purpose, these characterizations also provide a means of recognizing the degree to which former tribespeople cease to be tribal, under conditions of social change.) With due allowance for regional differences, most of Lehman’s characterization of “sub-nuclear” society would seem to fit the situation of the various tribal populations discussed in this volume. Zawawi (1995) has reopened discussion of these issues in his thoughtful analysis of the character of tribality in southern Peninsular Malaysia. Most of what he has to say about the neither-peasant-nor-“primitive” character of contemporary Orang Asli life sounds very like what Lehman was driving at forty years ago. Today we have available a more critical analytical apparatus – anthropology and sociology have moved on a bit – for dealing with the economic and cultural features of situations, as well as a wealth of comparative material to lean on. These, Zawawi uses to the full. In other words, Lehman’s idea of “subnuclear” corresponds well to at least one recent sophisticated approach to “tribality”. My main objections to “sub-nuclear”, as opposed to “tribal”, are that it is rather a mouthful and that its meaning would not always be self-evident. Terasing and Orang Asli In formal Indonesian usage the closest equivalent of “tribal” is suku (or masyarakat) terasing. Suku signifies some kind of societal segment, including

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especially segmentary tribal society.20 Masyarakat is the usual word for “(a) society”. Terasing, however, is more complicated: it is certainly not a simple equivalent to “tribal”, even though it refers mostly to populations that happen to be tribal. The word is compounded of asing “apart, separate, distinct, foreign, remote, isolated” and the “involuntary” agency-neutral prefix ter-. It would therefore seem to mean something like “separated off and distinctive through no fault of their own”. In confirmation of this, the Indonesian documents I consulted (see below) include some Melayu and Acehnese villagers as terasing too. Clearly, here at least, the term is meant to denote “geographically remote” populations rather than simply “tribal” ones. Nevertheless, the term terasing still has relevance to the tribal populations, for it implies that tribality and other forms of apparent social backwardness are simply a consequence of being left out of the mainstream for purely logistical reasons. This could then be used as justification for the central or provincial government to move in and “improve” the situation. All the more reason, then, for us to remember that many tribal populations have been living in geographically remote areas out of choice, as part of a strategy to keep the state off their backs.21 The Malaysian label Orang Asli “original people” was initially intended as an etymologically responsible translation for “aborigine” (Latin, “from the origin”) during the anti-Communist “Emergency” in the late 1950s. This Arabo-Malay phrase – which is increasingly used in Indonesia too – carries connotations that are lacking from its English prototype. As already noted, some Malaysians feel that “aborigine” is a derogatory term.22 “Asli” on the other hand carries the opposite connotation, for it also means “genuine, authentic, natural” (as in getah asli “natural rubber”). While one must applaud this attempt to improve the image of a formerly little-respected population, one should also guard against the opposite tendency – to see the Orang Asli as noble savages who only require conservation. This charge has already been made by Malaysian government spokesmen when expressing annoyance at publications critical of official policies towards the Orang Asli. They have repeatedly claimed that anthropologists and other researchers are opposed to the modernization of Orang Asli facilities and want only to preserve an outdated way of life. This assertion – which runs counter to what is actually stated in all such publications that I have read – must seem all the easier to accept for those who have never read the literature in question, simply because of the “noble savage” connotations that attend the label “Asli”. (See Nicholas’s chapter in this volume for further analysis of the relation between ethnic labelling and the administration of Orang Asli communities.)

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THE PEOPLE(S) OF THE MALAY WORLD The action-based view I have been presenting is unfortunately often hard to maintain, for a “race”-based chimera continues to stalk the field of Malay World studies. I refer to the kuih lapis (layer cake) folk-scholarly ethnology that stratifies the region’s population into “Negritoids”, “Veddoids”, “ProtoMalays”, and “Deutero-Malays” (with “Australoids”, “Melanesoids”, and even “Palaeo-Alpines”, sometimes thrown in for good measure) – all, it seems, originating in Yunnan, southwestern China! This has the cumulative effect of characterizing the people themselves as the passive exponents of preformed, evolutionarily-ranked “cultures”. A version of this story currently (December 2000) appears on the “profile” page of the website of the JHEOA, the Malaysian Department of Orang Asli Affairs () presented here unedited. (The final paragraph is modified directly from a passage in Winstedt 1961.) According to historical researchers the Negritos are descendants of the prehistorical man known as Australia-Melanesians that migrated to south east from China 7,000 to 10,000 years ago. However, there are also ancient historical records that suggest that they have been in this area much earlier. The Senois and Proto-Malays are descendants from the pre-historical man known as Austranesian (Malayo-Polynesian) which is believed to have gradually migrated in small numbers from southern China and Taiwan to South East Asia up to the east approximately 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. Nevertheless there were evidence of intermarriage and assimilation between these two groups of historical men. Historian also concludes that the present Malays, Indonesian and Filipinos are of Proto-Malays descent after intermarriage with the Chinese during the Chao Dynasty, Indians from Bengal and Dacca together with the Arabs and Thais.

KUIH LAPIS ETHNOLOGY The kuih lapis view has not yet fallen out of favour in Malaysian, Indonesian, and Singaporean academic circles. If this were just a matter of pure prehistoric research, it would not require much discussion here. Unfortunately, this ethnological framework still has consequences far beyond academe, long after it was shown to be wrong. It still needs to be repeatedly and firmly rejected.23 Whether they realize it or not, those in Malaysia and Singapore who persist in asserting the kuih lapis view derive their ideas from Winstedt’s decades-old analysis (1961, pp. 5–17) of Malay ethnology, or from the small

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number of yet earlier writers from whom Winstedt took some of his ideas. But even in Winstedt’s time, several scholars (such as Wilkinson 1939) disagreed with him. For Sumatra, the kuih lapis view probably derives more directly from Loeb’s classic account of that island’s ethnology (Loeb 1932/1972). Heine-Geldern (1965) too, in a thought-provoking essay on the area’s art history, applied this approach to Borneo. However, over the last three decades archaeologists, linguists and human biologists have shown that the processes of socio-cultural and demographic differentiation took place in a quite different manner from the simple layering of separate migrational waves, whether from southwest China or elsewhere.24 The issue is not simply a matter of antiquarian interest. The peoples labelled “Negritos”, “Veddoids” or “Proto-Malays” are contemporary human beings whose ways of life are not mindless replications of ancestral cultural forms established thousands of years ago. Their lives are lived now, and with constant regard for how their neighbours live now as well. The racial approach, if taken seriously, would preclude any serious sociological or historical appraisal of the lifeways of the tribal (or any other) populations – just as it would remove from discussion any consideration that they have strategies and wishes of their own. It is true that serious writers sometimes reiterate the kuih lapis scenario in the opening pages of their essays only to move on to responsible and enlightened sociological analysis. One such is the Indonesian researcher Djatmiko (1993) in his useful survey of the social situation of the tribal communities of Riau province. Here, his race-based introduction seems to have served as little more than a familiarizing device to help orientate the reader.25 All too often, though, writers fall into the trap of presenting the tribal communities as if they occupied different steps on a culture-evolutionary staircase – what Keesing (1981) calls the “ladder” approach. This is notably true of the textbooks employed in Malaysian schools, including those attended by Orang Asli children. One such book that I picked up in an Orang Asli school taught that the Senoi are lebih berakal (cleverer, more capable) than the Negritos, and that the Proto-Malays are in turn more berakal than the Senoi. This approach also precludes considering the possibility of secondary tribality, a phenomenon of some importance in parts of Southeast Asia. The Tasadays of Mindanao and the Phii Tong Luang of northern Thailand are examples. More to the point, the Orang Suku Laut of Johor-Riau have probably been more tribal in recent decades than they were in the heyday of the Sultanate. (See Leonard Andaya 1975; Wee 1987, 1988; Trocki 1979; Sather 1999; and the chapters by Chou & Wee and Lenhart in this volume.)

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Ethnology as Ideology The kuih lapis approach is not simply a matter of outdated scholarly fashion, for the contrast between indigeny and exogeny that underpins it also serves significant political and ideological ends – for both indigenes and exogenes. The highly assimilatory character of Melayu culture means that it must be constantly cultivated, as a means of supplanting whatever went before. In Melayu imagery, as McKinley (1979) and Wee (1987, p. 162ff.) have shown, one’s cultural progress is monitored by regularly glancing back at what one has left behind. There is no shame in having been a pagan, a “HinduBuddhist” or a tribal indigene (asli) in a former era (zaman), so long as one consciously moves forward into the era of proper religion (agama), purified (murni) culture (Wee 1988, p. 212), and “modern” citizenship. Consequently, the more self-conscious varieties of Melayu culture display a shifting content. At different times, the focus has fallen on proper language, deportment, deference, dress, religion, food, and even music, as the sign that one’s manners indicate a successfully achieved and maintained Melayu-ness. It is of course the ruling classes who define – and even invent – these criteria, the initial introduction of which must seem like an invitation to adopt foreign ways. In effect, this gives authoritative precedence to those who came later into Melayu-ness. Those who continue to demonstrate dyed-in-thewool indigeny (asli ) are seen as less fit to rule than those (the murni) who have remade themselves culturally. The more recent the “arrival”, the more legitimate is the right to rule. In the Malay World (as in many other regions), the ability to claim an exogenous origin therefore lends legitimacy to the right to rule. Sultans, nobles and prime ministers alike are not shy about their less-than-solely Melayu origins.26 Contrariwise, to be fully indigenous (asli ) implies that one is born to be ruled. The enthusiasm still engendered by the kuih lapis view of ethnology and the search for Malay “origins” therefore reflects political ideology writ large: “Proto-Malay” and “Deutero-Malay” are political rather than ethnological categories.27 In effect, Proto-Malays (and “Negritos”, “Veddoids”, etc.) are those who do not need to be consulted whenever administrative decisions are made (by “Deutero-Malays”) that affect their livelihood. Nicholas’s chapter in this volume provides several explicit examples of this outlook, culled from the speeches of Malaysian leaders. The passage quoted earlier from the JHEOA’s website provides another example – this time implying that Deutero-Malays were formed by the intermarriage of Proto-Malays with a variety of people from beyond the Malay World. Kuih lapis ethnology also relates to an existing tendency in the Malay

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World to look on tribal peoples – especially the nomadic ones who eat wild animals – as being close to animals themselves. This connection of wilderness with animalian wildness is discussed explicitly in this volume by Lye and Persoon. Alternatively, as Schefold shows in his valuable survey, “autochthony” has often been accommodated in pre-modern Southeast Asia by assimilating it to a virtual affinal relationship set up between the tribal people and their immigrant overlords through a mythic marriage between their leading families. This serves to “domesticate” the wilderness inhabited by the tribal populations, so that it can all the more easily be incorporated into the state’s domain. The tribal people too, have incorporated recognition of this relationship into their still-“tribal” ritual and expressive culture. (Negeri Sembilan is another case, mentioned by Nicholas.) On the other hand, the claim to “indigeny” by tribal and formerly tribal peoples themselves is an increasingly important device in the battle to gain political recognition of their rights in the face of modern state actions. As Gray (1995, p. 40) puts it: “Indigenousness is an assertion by people directed against the power of outsiders.” Contrariwise, the resistance to that claim by the powers-that-be often takes the form of an attempt to dilute that sense of indigeny. Nicholas (2000, p. 175) provides an example of this from Malaysia, and several other examples are given elsewhere in this volume.28 Just who, then, are the people of the Malay World? To answer this question, let us first take a brief look at some of the current population data, and then at the evidence of linguistics. I leave questions of human biology and regional archaeology for brief discussion later. I must reiterate that these different criteria do not overlap in a solidary manner. The degree of correlation between language, cultural tradition, conscious identity and populationgenetics within the Malay World is at best partial. The interflow of genes, ideas and languages has often been so intensive and multidirectional as to render futile any attempt to delineate the various “peoples” in terms of completely distinct bundles of geographical, linguistic, biological, or culturehistorical features. The search for the remoter “origins” of any of the constituent populations will therefore be misconceived – and with it the search for a supposedly single “origin” for the Malays themselves.

DEMOGRAPHICS It is uncertain how many tribespeople there are currently in the Malay World. Reliable figures are more easily available for some areas than for others. Truly detailed demographic profiles, such as that by Fix (1977) on the Semais, are very few indeed. This is therefore not the place to explore the wider information

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22

that can be gleaned from demographic studies, such as questions of population viability, age-distribution, health, reproduction or migration.29 Instead, I shall limit myself to presenting what is known of the total population figures for the tribespeople in two of the three major sub-regions of the Malay World: the Peninsula and the Malay-World parts of Sumatra. I shall also briefly discuss the situation in Borneo. The Peninsula The most reliable figures available to me for the Peninsular Orang Asli are as shown in Table 2.1, which I have retabulated from the JHEOA website as of December 2000. Unfortunately, no date is given, but I suspect that figures relate to 1996. The JHEOA ignores the linguistic divisions used here, preferring instead to employ its own version of kuih lapis categories: “Negrito”, “Senoi”, and “Proto-Malay”. (The JHEOA is the only source for Orang Asli population figures, as the published Census of Malaysia absorbs them into the Malay figures.) I have given the ethnic categorization mainly in terms of the official JHEOA labels, which absorb some smaller groups into neighbouring populations. As Nicholas points out in his chapter, this procedure produces a tidy list of just six “tribes” within each of the three major categories. The Semelai figure probably includes that for the very small Temoq population (cf. Gianno 1997). There are a few smaller groups, such as the Mintils (or Batek Tanum), and the various populations (such as the Semnams and Sabüms) lumped together under “Lanoh”, whose distinctiveness has never TABLE 2.1 Tribal Populations of Southern Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia, 2000 LINGUISTIC AFFILIATION MON-KHMER Northern Aslian

Central Aslian

“Maniq” Kensiu Kentaq Jahai Mendriq Batek Chewong

±200 224 359 1,049 145 960 403

Lanoh 359 Temiar 15,122 Semai 26,049 Jah Hut 3,193

SUB-TOTALS:

3,340

44,723

AUSTRONESIAN Southern Aslian Semaq Beri Semelai Besisi

© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

2,488 4,103 2,185

8,776

Malayic Temuan Jakun Orang Kanaq Orang Seletar Duano

16,020 16,637 64 801 2,492

36,014

On Being Tribal in the Malay World

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been recognized by the JHEOA, probably because they are too small to make any notable statistical difference. The Besisis are referred to as Mah Meri by the JHEOA, who also employ certain spellings that are not found in the scholarly literature. Table 2.1 indicates that (in 1996?) there were a total of 92,853 (rural-dwelling) Orang Asli, if we include the guessed-at number for Thailand. However, the current (2000) population is thought to be closer to 115,000 (Colin Nicholas, personal communication). The “missing” figures are due in part to natural increase, but also to the fact that the JHEOA’s own census enumerations cover only the rural settlements that come under their administration. A significant number of Orang Asli now live in urban areas, and their numbers can only be guessed at, as they are not recorded separately from the Malays. This does not mean, however, that they have assimilated into the Melayu community. Sumatra The figures for the tribal population of this large island are rather inconsistent, both statistically and in terms of the ethnic classifications employed. My two main sources are documents prepared by the Direktorat Bina Masyarakat Terasing (1990, 1994/95), a division of the Republic’s Social Department.30 Additional sources for portions of Sumatra’s tribal population are Djatmiko 1993 for Riau Province as a whole, and FKKS–Batam for the Orang Suku Laut of Riau.31 The variant figures for Riau province (Table 2.2) illustrate the inconsistencies. Presumably, these are due in part to the fusion in 1993 and TABLE 2.2 Tribal Populations of Riau Province, Sumatra POPULATION Suku or sub-suku Orang Laut Talang Mamak Bonai Hutan Akit Sakai Kuala/Laut Bertam TOTAL:

DBMT 1990

Djatmiko 1993

DBMT 1994/95

5,402 6,983 2,244 5,334 3,456 5,437 3,872 ?

9,582 6,983 3,790 8,682 3,995 2,824 ? ?

7,179 5,311 2,269 5,270 2,376 3,251 ? 814

32,728

35,856

26,470

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TABLE 2.3 Tribal Populations of Sumatra (Other Selected Provinces) POPULATION Province

Suku or sub-suku

Jambi

Anak Dalam [Kubu] Masyarakat Talang Masyarakat Terasing [sic] Bajau/Suku Laut Talang Mamak

DBMT 1990

DBMT 1994/95

3,718 2,040 83 2,943 575

5,142 — — 2,481 —

9,359

7,623

7,188 2,676 —

1,086 — 451

9,864

1,537

1,877

no data

8,512 11,040 —

8,152 9,915 1,125

19,552 40,652

19,192 28,352

SUB-TOTAL: Sumatera Selatan

Anak Dalam [Kubu] Laut Ameng Sawang SUB-TOTAL:

Sumatera Utara

Nias

Bengkulu

Serawai Rejang Kaarubi, Kaano SUB-TOTAL: GRAND TOTAL:

1994 of the “Kuala Laut” figures (reported separately in 1990) with the “Orang Laut” figures. Unfortunately, it is not clear what ethnological import, if any, these partly distinct labels carry.32 The same inconsistencies are apparent in the figures from the other Sumatran provinces that also have a Malayic tribal population (Table 2.3). Borneo Tables 2.1 to 2.3 exclude Sarawak, Indonesian Borneo, and the remaining provinces of Sumatra. Borneo is ethnologically too complicated to discuss here in any detail, and the data are often gratuitously masked by the custom of referring generically to the island’s tribal populations as “Dayaks” (uplanders, inlanders). Nevertheless, portions of Borneo’s coastal areas are important parts of the Malay World. In Brunei, Sarawak, and the Indonesian provinces of West and South Kalimantan, for example, the Melayu population has long been added to by assimilatory Malayization-cum-Islamization of other Austronesian-speaking communities, as mentioned later.

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One estimate given in 1996 for the number of tribal people in the whole of Malaysia was “ninety-five tribal groups with a combined population of over two million people”. This statement was made by the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Land and Co-operative Development at what was billed as “the first national conference of aborigines [at least they used the word there!] from Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak and Sabah” (Straits Times, 3 September 1996, p. 16). This figure of two million for the “tribal” population of Malaysia was heavily weighted towards the large, “Native” populations that constitute the majorities in Sabah and Sarawak, Malaysia’s Borneo states.33 Only a small minority among these people are still tribal in any normal sociological sense of the term. (The Lahanans, discussed in this volume by Jennifer and Paul Alexander, form one such population.) It is more probable that the official’s statement was yet another example of kuih lapis race-based thinking, in which tribality is seen as some kind of unchanging essence – “Proto”-Malayness perhaps, as opposed to the “Deutero”-Malayness of the Orang Melayu. Today, the circumstances of these Bornean people are in almost all respects different from those of the 100,000 or so Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia. Among other features, they possess legislation that (in principle, at least) guarantees them land rights, while the Orang Asli do not. Figures for the suku terasing population of Indonesian Borneo are given in the same publications from which I obtained the Sumatran figures, but they indicate only those who have been the recipients of government resettlement and welfare programmes. Since I cannot tell what proportion of the total tribal population is formed by these people, I have not cited the figures. In any case, the ethnological and linguistic situation in most of Borneo is more complex than in Sumatra, and the former Malay sultanates of Borneo are discontinuously distributed. This means that these outposts are sandwiched between large tracts that probably do not belong to the Malay World as narrowly defined. Thus, great distances separate Brunei on the north coast from Pontianak on the west coast and from Banjarmasin in the south.

LANGUAGES: AUSTRONESIAN AND MON-KHMER The indigenous populations of the Malay World speak languages belonging to two different stocks: Austronesian and Austroasiatic. The former is represented primarily by Malayic, a relatively homogeneous low-level genetic grouping that includes Malay (with its many dialects) as one of its members. The latter is represented by Aslian, a less homogeneous, higher-level grouping that falls within the major subdivision of Austroasiatic known (after two of its

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major members) as Mon-Khmer. (The other major Austroasiatic subdivision consists of the Munda languages of India.) The linkages of the two groups of languages lie in opposite directions: Aslian with the Southeast Asian mainland lying to the north, and Malayic with the insular areas (Borneo and Sumatra in particular) to the south. Correlated with this to a certain degree are differences in the overall societal patterns. Historically, the Aslian-speakers have constituted themselves into egalitarian tribal formations, largely in abreaction from the various Malay states that lay downstream. The Malayic-speaking tribespeople, on the other hand, have usually formed variably ranked societies that differ from Melayu society mainly in the absence of a centralizing state formation and its attendant religious institutions (formerly Mahayana Buddhism, now Islam). As already noted, Melayu social organization is therefore best understood as a variant on a more broadly shared “Malayic” theme. However, there are some Orang Asli populations, such as the Semelais and Besisis, who are Malayic in social formation but Aslian (Mon-Khmer) by language. The Malayic Dialects The Austronesian languages, originating in the eastern end of the archipelago (probably Taiwan) some five or more millennia ago (Blust 1988), reached the current territory of the Malay World around two to three thousand years ago. The many Malayic dialects (including Malay itself ) count among the more recent of these languages, having emerged initially in northwest Borneo and moving therefrom to Sumatra and the southern part of the Peninsula, as well as eastwards around the Bornean coast to Brunei and beyond. In Sumatra, several substantial inscriptions in Old Malay attest to the importance of Malay as an official state language as early as 683 CE, in what are the presentday provinces of South Sumatra and Jambi (Coedès 1930; Nik Hassan Shuhaimi 1992). The tribal populations of Sumatra, both current and former, live mostly in those same areas today, and (with some important exceptions, such as the Bataks of North Sumatra and the people of Siberut Island) they speak Malay or other Malayic dialects as their own languages. Although current Malaysian usage would not accord the label Orang Melayu to these Malayspeaking tribal populations, they are sometimes called “Melayu” in Sumatra (see the chapters by Tenas, Porath, and Chou & Wee), and there seems little reason to doubt that they are indeed descendents of the same population from which the majority of the Malays “proper” also descended. Fifty years ago, Leach (1950, p. 53) was so impressed by evidence that Malayness was not restricted to the Malays proper, that he coined the label

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“para-Malay”. Para-Malays share the same general background with the Orang Melayu, but they lack one or more criteria (Islam, ethnic identity, language, the centralized state) of full Melayu-ness. Leach was referring specifically to northern Borneo and to populations speaking non-Malayic languages, but para-Malay populations of this sort are widely found, elsewhere in Borneo, in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. Vivienne Wee (1988) has researched these issues in the Riau Archipelago of western Indonesia, an area which the Orang Melayu themselves regard as one of their major centres of distribution. Ethnologically, Riau has turned out to be quite heterogeneous despite the obvious “Malayness” of all the various populations. Similar points are made by Sandbukt (1982) with regard to Sumatra’s Jambi province, and by Yampolsky (1996) in his concentrated general account (1996) of the Melayu parts of Sumatra.34 This close interplay between the tribal and the non-tribal facies of Malayness is still apparent today. In a detailed study, Kähler (1960) demonstrated that the Malay dialects spoken by the Peninsular Jakuns continue on through Singapore (the Orang Seletar), into the Riau Islands (the Orang Suku Laut) and on to mainland Sumatra, albeit with some dialectal variation between them. This gives substance to Skeat’s decision a century ago to refer to the Orang Laut as “Sea Jakun” (Skeat and Blagden 1906, vol. 1, p. 87). In the Lingga Islands south of Riau, the descendants of the old Malay royal families even today speak a variety of Malay recognizably closer to that spoken by the tribal Orang Laut of the area than to the Malay spoken by the Bugis-descended Malays, who had replaced them on Pulau Penyengat in the early 1700s (Vivienne Wee, personal communication). Moreover, the Lingga royals use several forms of expression that the present-day Riau royals affect to despise as sounding too “tribally” coarse. Since Standard Malaysian and Standard Indonesian are both derived from the written version of this suppletive Riau variety of Malay, this point is of great socio-linguistic interest, and warrants further research. More generally, there are grounds for holding that Malay has been standardized several times over out of the various local Malay dialects (Teeuw 1959), most of which in earlier times would have been essentially “tribal” ones. These standardized varieties presumably go back at least as far as the Old Malay of the seventh-century Sumatran inscriptions. Adelaar (1992b) has demonstrated how a knowledge of these tribal forms of Malay and other Malayic dialects can help elucidate, and even revise, our understanding of several obscure points in those inscriptions. Further light is thrown on this question by a (probably) Malayic language still spoken today in the very area where these early developments took place. I refer to Duano, spoken by Orang Asli (the so-called Orang Kuala) on both

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sides of the Straits, in the Pontian area of Johor (Malaysia) and on Pulau Rangsang and the Jambi coast of Sumatra (Indonesia). The brief grammatical sketch of this language with accompanying texts provided by Kähler (1946– 49) affords a fascinating glimpse of the complicated linguistic mix out of which Malay itself probably emerged some 2,000 years ago. Linguists have so far paid little attention to this important material, the significance of which I commented on in a recent study on Malay linguistics (Benjamin, forthcoming a).35 In this regard, it is interesting to note that the Temuan language as described by Abdullah Hassan (1969), spoken by a large Orang Asli population in Negeri Sembilan, is much closer to “standard” Malay than is the famously variant form spoken by the Malays of the area. Since the latter people are descended from Minang migrants who moved across from West Sumatra some centuries ago, bringing their own Malayic dialect with them, it is Temuan, not Negeri Sembilan Malay, that should be considered as the historically “authentic” Malay dialect of that part of the Peninsula (Asmah Haji Omar, personal communication). This suggests that the Temuans at some stage assimilated to an unselfconscious Malayness (probably from a Central-Aslian-speaking tradition) at a time when language, but not yet Islam, was the key criterion. If so, Malayness at that time did not preclude tribality, even in the Peninsula. To complete the picture, I should note that the Malay World also contains populations who speak non-Malayic but still Austronesian languages (such as Batak, Mentawaian, and Lahanan), just as it contains Malayic speakers (such as the Ibans) who do not fall into the “Malayic” societal pattern. The Aslian Languages As already noted, some 65,000 of the Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia and southern Thailand speak languages belonging to the southern Mon-Khmer division of the Austroasiatic stock. In the professional linguistic literature these are known as the “Aslian” languages, and current opinion places them closest to the Monic group within Mon-Khmer. The remaining 45,000 Orang Asli who currently speak Malay or other Malayic dialects contain many individuals who descend from people who spoke Aslian languages as recently as the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Benjamin 1997, p. 110). Because the Aslian languages exhibit much greater variety than the Malayic dialects spoken in the Peninsula, it must be assumed that they have been present for a much longer period (Benjamin 1976; Diffloth 1975). Current opinion seems to be agreed that the nearly twenty Aslian languages

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have a history in the Peninsula of at least three millennia, while the Malayic dialects have been present for less than two millennia in the Peninsula, and for a little longer in Borneo and Sumatra. The Mon-Khmer family in general has been less thoroughly researched than the Austronesian languages, but thanks especially to the researches of Gérard Diffloth, the picture is becoming clearer. Diffloth began his historicallinguistic work on all branches of Mon-Khmer with a study of Semai and other Aslian languages in the 1960s. Since then, a few other linguists have researched these languages, and the information available has begun to expand rapidly since the late 1990s. It turns out that, apart from their intrinsic linguistic interest, the Aslian languages have much to tell us about the broader culture-history of mainland Southeast Asia. They are phonologically, morphologically and semantically very conservative, retaining features that have largely been lost elsewhere – and lost especially from the family’s largest member, Vietnamese. Moreover, the Aslian languages reveal evidence of a complex pattern of interaction within the subfamily and with other nonAslian languages. This has made it possible to suggest in some detail that the early history of the Malay Peninsula was much more complicated than normally assumed. Linguistic research has also demonstrated the intrusive presence at various times of Austronesian languages other than Malayic, as well as of Khmer, Mon and even Tai, spoken presumably by traders, miners, and perhaps administrators. This is not the place to enter into a discussion of the issue, which I have treated in a little detail elsewhere (Benjamin 1997, 2001a, forthcoming b). For now, let Diffloth’s recent ideas (personal communication) on the etymology of “Senoi” suffice to give a taste of what can be learnt from this approach. The word “Senoi” derives from the Temiar s3n?00y or Semai s97?00y, both of which mean “human being, people, person”. But that is not the end of the etymological story, for the word appears to be a Khmer loan that originally meant something quite different. In the Khmer currently spoken in Surin province, Thailand, s97?66y – clearly a cognate of the Aslian “Senoi” words – means “to be peevish, cry-baby; to be knowledgeable, but unwilling to boast about it”. The word has also been borrowed into Thai as sam?00y, with the meaning “cry-baby”. Related to this is the Surin-Khmer expressive tas?00y s?00y “to act slowly, unsure, insecure; preferring not to finish something for fear of doing it wrong”. The reconstructible Khmer root must therefore be *s?00y, with the basic meaning “insecure, shy”. These words have not (as yet) been found elsewhere, which suggests that in both Thai and Aslian, they are loans from Khmer. In Khmer, an infixed nasal, like the -m- of sam?00y, indicates an adversative, “disapproving” meaning, quite appropriate when calling someone

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a cry-baby. The Khmers therefore presumably saw shyness as an undesirable quality. Judging by the nasals n and 7 that are still infixed into the Temiar and Semai words, the Orang Asli seem to have accepted the Khmers’ description of them as shy – though the Senoi people themselves presumably saw it as a desirable quality. This reconstruction fits well with what little we know of Temiar and Semai history, in which flight deep into the forest has been their normal response to slave-raiding and other depredations. However, the fact that they now call themselves by an originally Khmer word demonstrates that the flight response was balanced by the continued maintenance of relations with outsiders, for trade and other pursuits. The dialectic of both having contact with outsiders and shying away from such contact delineates the overall trajectory of Senoi history.36

THE MALAY WORLD AS A SOCIOLOGICAL FIELD OF STUDY At least five major issues attend the study of social process in the Malay World. I would like to illustrate these with appropriate examples from the ethnographic and historical literature. Some of these features have already been mentioned briefly; others are introduced here for the first time. First, there is the contrast between tribality and non-tribality – a contrast that is found outside the Malay World as well. This is a process, not a fixed primordial contrast. Just as detribalization is currently an increasingly frequent happening, the tribalization or retribalization of formerly non-tribal people has also occurred. In the Malay World, however, this contrast is frequently established within populations (the “Malayics”) that share the same basic cultural and linguistic matrix. To that extent, Malay World tribality shares something of the features that characterize tribality in parts of West Asia, such as Afghanistan or the Arabian Peninsula. Second, there is the generation of mutually dissimilatory difference, to produce the various societal patterns mentioned earlier, as well as the complementarity between the sea peoples and the land peoples among the Malayic populations commented on by several authors in this volume. Historically, these differences have been related most closely to different alternative modes of livelihood, but reactions to political pressures have also played a part. Third, pre-modern Malay states – initially emerging from within the (tribal-)Malayic societal tradition – evinced a peculiarly close relation between the tribal populations and the ruling classes, such that the peasantry has often

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been peripheral, or even non-existent. The pre-modern Malay state therefore acted to reconstitute, and sometimes reinforce, tribality in various ways. This involved such institutions as slavery and tribute relations. Fourth, there is the process of assimilation to Melayu-ness or resistance to it, with which all tribal populations in the Malay World must come to terms. With the increased association of the Malay state with Islam especially, the assimilation of difference is a positively held value in Melayu culture – a feature that is not necessarily found in other parts of Southeast Asia, such as the Thai realm. The different varieties of Malayness, therefore, constitute a major sociological theme. Fifth, the Malay World now extends over five different modern nationstates, each of which has different views of both Malayness and tribality. These modern states, too, have acted to reconstitute the character of tribality, normally in a manner that leads to detribalization but sometimes, by abreaction, to the further intensification of tribality.

TRIBAL/NON-TRIBAL The boundary between tribality and non-tribality in the Malay World is a porous one, with movement occurring in both directions. At one extreme are the Chewongs (Howell) in the centre of the Peninsula, who have resolutely reasserted their positive tribality at every opportunity by moving as far away from mainstream society as they can. Much the same applies to some of the Semang (“Sakai”) groups of southern Thailand (Porath, Hamilton). Sandbukt (1984) has described an even more committedly tribal Malayic population living in the forests of Jambi province, Sumatra. At the other extreme are populations whose members have left tribality behind for good, even if they and their neighbours retain a memory of their formerly tribal status. The Bataks of North Sumatra (Ruiter, Ginting) are a clear example. Even where they continue to live in their ancestral villages and houses (some of which have been in continuous use for more than two centuries), the Bataks’ life circumstances now fall variously into the peasant, petty commodity-producer, proletarian or bourgeois categories. The same finally became true of Singapore’s Orang Seletar and Orang Selat (Mariam) as recently as the late 1980s, when they were faced with obligatory resettlement into government flats. However, most of the populations discussed in this volume display a less uniform profile, without necessarily losing their sense of sameness. Increasingly, this expresses itself as an explicitly ethnic “identity”, in the modern sense (Nicholas, Kroes, Ruiter). In other cases, however, the feeling of sameness is founded in a more implicit acknowledgement of cultural continuity, whether

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based on language, music (Roseman), religion or locality. The Lahanans of Sarawak (Alexander & Alexander) demonstrate a strong attachment to an explicit identity (not normally recognized by others) that is founded both on cultural concerns and on the need to assert an “ethnicity” in the face of massive disruptions caused by the state’s development plans. In the long run, ethnicity will presumably win out in all these populations. But just how long is the long run? One factor that affects this outcome is the dialectical mode of orientation that still characterizes many of these cultural traditions, which seems capable of envisioning a considerable degree of difference as being somehow the “same”. The Temiars have managed to absorb even consumerist capitalism into their dialectically shaped cultural and musical framework (Roseman) without necessarily pushing the people into peasantlike or proletarian circumstances – at least for the moment. Nevertheless, a certain amount of overt consciousness of their changed circumstances has begun to emerge, as in the development of innovative syncretic cults, incorporating Malay, Chinese and Hindu elements, within the broader framework of Temiar mediumistic religion. Moreover, for a few years, the highly formalized Baha’i religion gained a substantial number of converts among the Temiars (Benjamin 1996). A “commercial pop” (their description) CD record by the Temiar-Semai band Jelmol (“Mountain”), with two of the tracks sung in Temiar, has had quite some success in Kuala Lumpur.37 Temiar tribality, therefore, is still in a state of flux. Semai communities have exhibited this kind of variation since at least the late 1920s, when a motor road was built from Tapah town right through Semai country to the newly opened hill station of Cameron Highlands. This greatly facilitated their access to the urban areas and the cash economy. Nowadays, like the Bataks, Semais fall individually into many different socioeconomic categories. This differentiation is further reinforced by the longstanding difference between the lowland Semais (“like Malays”) and the hilldwelling Semais (“those Temiars”, “those Semang”) – the epithets as reported in Dentan’s well-known monograph (1979, p. 15). The hill Semais even now retain some dialecticism, and still have at least one foot in the tribal camp, despite the influx of cash, employment, schooling, and medical services. Many Semais however – perhaps the majority – live as peasants, proletarians, or petty commodity-producers; a growing number are tertiary graduates following professional careers. The chapters in this volume by Dentan, Juli (himself a Semai) and Kroes richly illustrate this diversity “on the ground”, while Nicholas mentions the activities of many Semais in the modern sector of Malaysian life. Of course, this heterogeneity begs the question: in what

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sense can we talk of the Semais? Gomes (1988) has shown that the people themselves began to wear this homogenizing label only in the early twentieth century, and that it still rests uneasily on top of the many socio-cultural differences – now including the tribal/non-tribal distinction – that characterize them. On Siberut, the Mentawaians are currently experiencing strongly differentiating forces emanating from the Sumatran mainland. This has produced some “moderns”, some “traditionalists”, and a majority who fit somewhere in between (Persoon). Schefold, looking at the more “traditional” side of the same situation, demonstrates just how profoundly the people have incorporated their awareness of these outside influences by integrating them into their own expressive culture – much as Roseman describes for the Temiars and Dentan hints at for very much more ancient times among the Semais. Once again, as Persoon remarks, “it is hard to talk about the local people.” The Orang Suku Laut (Lenhart, Chou & Wee) have long managed to encompass the differences between their constituent communities. The presence among them of an increasingly non-tribal membership (as marked in part by conversion to Islam or Catholicism) is therefore not a completely new element. In any case, some of these communities were less tribal in the past than they became in later times. Such an intensification of tribality can occur for several different reasons. In Riau (see below) this occurred because the sultanate sought advantage in having a mobile segmentary population at its beck and call. In some of the Malayic “collecting” regions, including the maritime portions, tribality has sometimes intensified in step with the increasing demand for forest or marine products: it is to the commercial advantage of the collecting communities to retain their detailed knowledge of the forests and seas, and their willingness to exploit it. A somewhat ironic example is presented by the Bateks living in Malaysia’s National Park. Lye shows that the park’s administrators have erected a conceptual boundary around it, in order to emphasize their respectably modern concern for the “Nature” it encapsulates. Everything inside the park, including the Bateks – its Naturvolk – must remain “frozen in idealized time” so as to sanctify the “development” that has been achieved outside the park. Kuih lapis ethnology here meets and fuses with modernization. Unusual though it is, this example illustrates how intolerant the modern world is of the dialectical mindset (even if post-modernists have begun to favour a version of it). Indeed, as Ruiter argues with regard to the nineteenth-century Bataks, the most general form of detribalization is conversion into an unambiguously non-dialectical “ethnic group” following the penetration of

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state administration or capitalist enterprise. (On this theme, see also Kubitschek 1997; McCaskill 1998.)

DISSIMILATION The ethnology of the Malay World tells a story of continued complementarity between the tribal communities themselves and between them and the neighbouring non-tribal domain. As mentioned earlier, this interaction appears to have led to a series of mutual assimilations and dissimilations that generated three major patterns of societal organization: the Semang, Senoi, and Malayic. The details of this argument, which involve a close examination of kinship and other such institutions, are presented elsewhere (see especially Benjamin 1985, 1999). Here, I present brief accounts of some other culture-historical features relating to dissimilatory processes that are relevant to the understanding of broader Malay World issues. First, I shall discuss the population that, from the Malay standpoint, is the most “different”: the Semang negritos of southern Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia. Then I shall make some suggestions as to the long-term historical place of a population that is much more closely related to the Orang Melayu “proper”: the Malayic sea peoples. Negrito Foraging and Semang Distinctiveness The various populations who follow the Semang pattern are not simply hunter-gatherers, for they actually forage off anything that comes their way, including the Malay state.38 (See, for example, Benjamin 1973.) They have worked the fields for Malay farmers, served as porters for forest travellers, sold or bartered forest products with outsiders, and even desultorily cultivated their own swiddens. Of course, they will also forage by hunting and gathering if the opportunity arises – as it frequently does – but their foraging is not necessarily definable in terms of hunting and gathering. On the other hand, what the Semang do not do is just as interesting. Even now, they avoid both trapping and long-term integral swidden farming, for these activities would require them to reside for long periods in the same place. This would clash with their desire to retain complementarity with the more sedentary populations around them – the Malays, Temiars, and (formerly) the Semais. Thus, the Semang imperative has had three main components: the maintenance of a widespread low-density population, a minimalist social organization that allows them to break into conjugal-family groups at almost a moment’s notice, and an avoidance of a long-term commitment to sedentism. As I have argued elsewhere, these ends were achieved by the instituting of a distinct

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kinship pattern that (a) favoured patrifilial consociation, and (b) enjoined avoidance between adult consanguines and in-laws of opposite sex. This had several consequences, including a marriage pattern that required one to marry at considerable distances, and a low rate of population growth. These institutions may well be connected with the genesis and/or maintenance of the physical distinctiveness of these populations. Because of their unusual “negrito” somatotype it has often been assumed that the Semang are the remnants of a formerly more widespread population, related distantly to those of Melanesia and Aboriginal Australia.39 On this view, they became peripheralized early on by the arrival of Mongoloid populations speaking Mon-Khmer and Austronesian languages. The main proponent of this interpretation is the prehistorian Peter Bellwood (1993, 1997, pp. 71–74), whose detailed integrative analysis of the prehistory of island Southeast Asia also links the Semang to some extent with the so-called “negritos” of the Philippines and the Andaman Islands. The negrito phenotype, with its dark skin and purportedly small body size – often more a myth than a reality – is usually seen as adaptive to a nomadic deep-forest life. Bellwood nevertheless acknowledges that the ancestry of the negritos is not “simple”, since they display a genetic variability that is partly due to a “reticulate” pattern of interbreeding with neighbouring Mongoloid populations. This interpretation is consistent with the view that Semang hunting and gathering is primordial, not secondary, and that they are therefore the direct inheritors (in part, at least) of practices invented in the Hoabinhian period and earlier. On this view, their presumed later adoption of Mon-Khmer (or in the Philippines, Austronesian) speech is seen as a palaeo-sociolinguistic problem needing explanation. This approach has not gone unchallenged. An alternative view, proposed most strongly by Rambo (1988), suggests that the negrito phenotype exhibited by most of the Semang population has evolved comparatively recently in the Malay Peninsula out of the basically Mongoloid population that was already there. This could even have been recent enough to have occurred after the emergence of farming, and hence consequent upon the complementary dissimilation between the two lifeways commented on earlier. Such a view would pose fewer (socio)linguistic problems, and it would allow for a relatively large part of Semang hunting and gathering to be secondary in character – though presumably still intensive enough to exert a strong selective effect on bodily physique. (It would also imply that the three geographically distinct “negrito” populations of Southeast Asia do not share a uniquely common ancestry.) As yet, the genetic evidence is neither sufficient in quantity nor sufficiently analysed to decide the issue.40 Such a rapid rate of genetic evolution

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is not impossible, however, given the low-density “fission-fusion” breeding patterns that have characterized populations with the kind of breeding pattern followed by the Semang (cf. Fix 1982, 1995). The total Semang population has numbered around two or three thousand since counts and estimates were first published about two hundred years ago (Schebesta 1952, pp. 163–65). Because of epidemics, this figure has not remained truly constant over the short term (Schebesta 1952, p. 167), but its long-term constancy is striking. However, as Gomes (1982) has demonstrated, this very low rate of population growth is associated specifically with nomadism. When the people are made to settle down, their population growth-rate rapidly increases. Nomadic foraging is associated with a low value of children: until they reach their teen years children are net consumers rather than producers, and as infants they encumber the nomadic way of life. This suggests that the Semang probably had the means to keep their population growth low by spacing their births far apart. How has the Semang pattern managed to be so persistent? Two main problems had to be solved. First, how to sustain an egalitarian low-density population over such a large territory, and segmentary right down to conjugalfamily level? Second, how to retain their complementary distinctiveness from the more settled, farming-based ways of life espoused by their neighbours, the Senoi peoples and the Malays? I shall limit myself here to a bare sketch of the mechanisms they appear to have employed, which are founded on their distinctive kinship pattern (Benjamin 1985, 2001b). As I have already suggested, the first problem – the maintenance of a lowdensity non-increasing population – was solved in two main ways. First, marriages usually had to be contracted over great distances. Second, they had children as infrequently as possible, through two mutually reinforcing mechanisms: (a) a ban on sexual intercourse for about two years after a woman had given birth, and (b) a preference for delaying weaning for two years. The latter practice suppresses ovulation through hormonal mechanisms, especially in women with low body fat (Bongaarts 1980). Moreover, the Semang pattern of sexual avoidance between traceable consanguines and affines meant that the husband could not easily find a substitute sexual partner at this time. The net result was a very slow, or perhaps flat, rate of population growth so long as the people remained nomadic. On settling down, however, the population growth rises spectacularly: the provision of alternative food supplies allows the mothers to wean their children earlier (onto grain-based porridge), and the people allow a concomitant relaxation of the post-partum coital taboo.41 Why should the Semang populations have bothered to organize their

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lives in this way? I suggest that they did so in order to maintain a lifeway that was distinctively complementary to that of their neighbours, the Senoi and the Malays. By so doing, they were able to reduce any competition that may have emerged between themselves and the other populations who shared their environment. But to achieve this end they had to positively maintain a commitment to nomadic foraging that was binding on a just-sufficient number of people to maintain a viable self-reproducing population. Any attraction to the long-term sedentism espoused by their neighbours would have dissolved away this selective advantage. Differential kinship patterns had a great deal to do with this: the distinctive Semang and Senoi kinship rules generated the demographic structure appropriate to each of the lifeways, and served to sustain an ideology that painted the other population’s ways as inappropriate. To give just one example: where the Semang forbade sexual relations with both traceable consanguines and affines, the Senoi actually favoured sexual and marital relations with close affines, even to the extent of instituting sexually charged joking relations between siblings-in-law of opposite sex. This, as Semang individuals have remarked to several investigators (including myself ), is immoral behaviour that just should not be emulated. The Malay pattern, on the other hand, favours an ideal of close consanguineal marriage, something that followers of both the Semang or the Senoi pattern find hard to accept. Thus, it is possible that even some of the genetic features characteristic of at least one of the constituent populations of the Malay World has its roots in the kind of deliberate dissimilatory complementarity between populations that is typical of the whole region. (For further discussion of this hypothesis, see Fix 1995.) Let me now turn to another instance in which such complementarity has been of socio-historical importance.

THE VARIETIES OF MALAYNESS As we have seen, the Malayic societal pattern exists in several different varieties: tribal versus centralized, and maritime versus land-based. It has long been noted that there is a close linguistic and cultural similarity between the Melayu Malays “proper” and the tribal Malays. Logan (1847, p. 249), for example, reported that numerous Malays possessed pagan cousins or even brothers: the Jakuns differed from the Malays in physical appearance only because their “air, manner and expression constituted the great distinction between them”. A little further south, Williams-Hunt (1952, pp. 13, 19, 44) included the Orang Selat among the 1,000 “Aborigines” that he estimated to

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be living in the Colony of Singapore in the early 1950s. These people had been (nominal) Muslims for several generations and were regarded by almost all outsiders simply as Malays. They regarded themselves as Malays too, but as Malays who had not yet forgotten their distinct tribal-group (suku) origins in particular parts of the Riau archipelago. Likewise, Mariam Ali (this volume) was told by some north-coast Singapore Malays that they were of Orang Laut ancestry. Similar observations have been made with regard to several parts of Sumatra: as Persoon remarks (this volume), “though the Orang Kubu are hunters and gatherers wandering around in the remaining forests of central and south Sumatra, it is evident from their language, magical spells, and folk stories that there have been interactions between them and the Minangkabau and Orang Melayu for a very long time, and even a common origin.” Very similar findings are reported by Sandbukt (1984) and Chou (1995), as well as by Porath and Tenas in this volume. Clearly, a significant number of observers have been convinced that the Orang Melayu share a common background with most of the tribal peoples living in the region. The label “Aboriginal Malay”, first proposed by WilliamsHunt, encapsulates this idea very well, and it has been adopted by the JHEOA as the basis for their Malay-language term, Orang Melayu Asli, for these populations. Needless to say, ordinary up-country and island Malays have also long been aware of this close relationship. (See Chou 1995 for a particularly explicit example, among the Melayu people and the neighbouring Orang Suku Laut of the Riau Islands.) It is not surprising then to discover that fears of reassimilation into tribality are common in the Melayu community. As already noted, Melayu cultural rhetoric takes much pride in what it has discarded, historically speaking, in its quest for cultural self-improvement. Favre (1848, pp. 272–73) noted the “extreme fear” that obtained between Orang Melayu and Jakuns in Johor, in places where the Orang Melayu were themselves recently Malayized Jakuns. This was probably because the Jakuns still knew the “secret” of the local Malays’ origins, while at the same time the latter were pressuring the Jakuns through slave-raiding and land-expropriation. Logan (1847, p. 4) also noted that such forest-spirits as pontianak and hantu were probably instituted to socialize the neo-Melayu children into fear of entering the forest – where they might disconcertingly meet up with their Jakun “cousins” and learn their true origins. Porath (this volume) reports that the same fears of entrapment magic are still expressed by Sumatran Malays with regard to the Sakais of the area, as also does Lenhart for the Riau Islands. All these reports mention in particular the fear that Orang Melayu will be enticed into marriage or sexual intrigue with a tribal-Malay, leading to the dissolution of the civilizational

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difference between them. In a fascinating reversal, Sandbukt (1984) reports that at least one group of Kubus in Jambi regard the outside world as diseaseladen, which they associate with the supposedly life-destroying (layu “fade”) effects of too much contact with Malays (Me-layu). (It is interesting to note that reports of such magical entanglement appear to be lacking for those parts of the Peninsula where the Orang Asli speak Mon-Khmer languages, and are therefore clearly not Malayic by language or cultural pattern.) What then is the basis for this socio-cultural commonality between populations who otherwise differ greatly along the tribal/non-tribal dimension? To answer this question, we need to look more closely at the Malayic societal tradition and its genesis. (The following sections summarize material that I have published elsewhere in greater detail: see Benjamin 1985, 1999, 2001b.) The Malayic Societal Pattern Revisited One of the distinctive features of the Malayic societal pattern is that it brings matrifilial and patrifilial organizational biases together with a tendency to village-internal ranking. The centralized Melayu states that arose within this same region did so primarily by adding a further level of organization to what had already developed in these tribal-Malay circumstances. I suggested earlier that the Malayic societal pattern was instituted as a means of locking into place a productive regime composed of both swidden farming and intensified collecting. These activities if carried out on a regular basis, impose contrary organizational problems. Farming requires the joint co-operation of the men and the women within the village sphere, but collecting-for-trade requires the dispersal of the men away from the village for considerable periods. I suggest that this organizational paradox was solved by imaging the contrast between the two spheres of enterprise as being based on the apposition of matrifilial and patrifilial modes of incorporation. Withinvillage (and hence farming-related) core-group relations came to be thought of as matrifilial relations, while the dispersed extra-village relations generated in trading with outsiders were thought of as patrifilial.42 Yet, this matri-/patrifilial image, if acted upon too literally, would generate an organizational pattern increasingly incompatible with the requirements of the males’ collecting-for-trade. Sedentary farming carried out by a matrifiliated core of villagers would lead, if intensified, to a network of matrifocal local groups whose male members move in from elsewhere upon marriage. Closely related males would therefore tend to become dispersed and lose effective co-operation with each other, while the males within each local community would tend to be unrelated to each other and less inclined to co-operate. The people seem

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to have solved this problem by instituting a preference for marriage to take place within their own community and/or between cousins – with their own people, so to speak.43 The males of each village could now think of themselves as consanguineally related after all, so that they could continue without hindrance to treat their co-operative collecting and trading activities as patrifiliatively organized. At the same time, their links with males in other villages could now be thought of as falling outside of the sphere of kinship, preparing them ideologically for the competition that would have arisen between residents of different villages for the goodwill of the traders downstream. Thus, I suggest, the Malayic local communities came to combine a sexual division of labour with a preference for relatively closed consanguineal settlements. They were linked through their male members with wealthy outsider trading-partners, but displayed a matrifiliative bias with regard to village residence. Such social formations tend to become ranked, primarily because they bring together in the same settlement in-married males who are otherwise unrelated to each other and who would get on badly unless organized into an institutionalized hierarchy (cf. Murphy 1957). The Orang Melayu and many of the southern Peninsular Orang Asli (such as the Temuans, Jakuns, Semelais, Temoqs, and Besisis) do in fact display a formal political hierarchy (pangkat, derajat, etc.) that probably pre-dates the development of centralized states in the Peninsula. I have less information of this kind on the Sumatran populations (but see below on the maritime ones). However, in an unpublished field report on the Kubus (Orang Rimba), Sandbukt (1979, p. 7), mentions transmission of unequal trading relations with Malay headmen as passing from wife’s father to daughter’s husband. Residence also is uxorilocal. This is admittedly not a patrifilial pattern, but it probably represents a yet further transformation-byfusion of the two filiative biases. In this regard, it sounds similar to the situation among the Aslian-speaking, but societally otherwise “Malayic”, Temoqs of Pahang, Peninsular Malaysia, which I have analysed elsewhere (Benjamin 1999). How do the various maritime tribal-Malays fit into the picture? The Orang Suku Laut have shown great complementarity with the non-tribal landed people they have dealings with (as well as with some of the tribal ones). This complementarity had two main components: trade, and (as discussed below) the various degrees of political association with the Malay state. This complementarity is well exemplified in several contributions to this volume (Mariam, Lenhart, Chou & Wee). Sather (1999, pp. 3–12) in a recent review of the literature has also highlighted it as a fundamental

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characteristic of Orang Laut life. One consequence of this is that the Orang Suku Laut are probably not primordially tribal. As I discuss further below, they have waxed and waned historically as tribals, according to how strongly incorporated they were into the political mechanisms of the Malay states within which they lived. Despite their obvious differences from the landed tribal-Malays, it seems that the same Malayic pattern of social organization characterized at least some of the Orang Suku Laut divisions. Sopher (1977, p. 99) provides evidence that the men were regularly siphoned off among these people too. In their case, he says, it was trade and “piracy” that had this effect, whereas ordinary fishing (like land-based farming) involved whole families together. (The latter pattern is still followed today. This family-based fishing is, in fact, an important distinguishing mark between the tribal Orang Suku Laut and the non-tribal Orang Melayu, among whom only the men go fishing (Wee 1988, pp. 203–4; Chou 1995, pp. 182–83).) Sopher suggests that trade (which became “piracy” when colonial European powers entered the stage), led in turn to a sexual division of labour, with matrifocal settled villages linked to patrifocal raiding crews. This development exactly parallels, in its socialstructural consequences, the more “inland” Malayic evolutionary pattern just described. This complementarity between maritime and land-based Malayics is undoubtedly ancient, and must go back to the time of the earliest movement of Austronesian-speakers into the western end of the archipelago by sea. As people moved from island to island, they maintained their long-distance links by boat, and hence never lost their profound connection with the sea.44 This means that early on there would have been two basic expressions of the Malayic population: sea- or boat-dwellers, and land-dwellers. A minor adaptation would be represented by strand-foragers, a pattern continued to the present day by the Orang Seletar. Those who lived along the major trade routes passing through the narrow Straits between the mainland and Sumatra came to share a common linguistic heritage, based on the Malayic speech that had already spread out of northwest Borneo, where it first emerged. Thus, Malayic-type societies evolved jointly and simultaneously in sea-dwelling and land-dwelling populations. As already proposed, the initial evolution would have involved such changes as trade, sexual differentiation, ranking, and the sorts of linguistic changes that make the Malayic languages (including Iban, Serawai, Minang, etc.) syntactically so different from the other, focus-based, Austronesian languages. This linguistic discontinuity probably betokens an early shift towards a more outward-looking “transcendental” mode of consciousness (Benjamin 1993, forthcoming a). The later changes involved

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the growth of states, with Srivijaya in what is now South Sumatra as one of the earliest. In his classic studies of Srivijaya, Wolters (1967, 1979) also emphasized the importance of the integrative role played by the mobile tribal sea-peoples. The Early Malay State At the risk of caricaturizing what has been told in greater detail by those better qualified to do so, let me now cut the story short.45 The first people to become chiefs, and then kings, were probably sea-people leaders who had moved from individual trading to middlemanship, and settled as land-people on some controlling estuarine site in villages formed around the womenfolk. Several authors have suggested that the early capitals may well have been on boats or in houses built on piles over the water, as at the archaeological site of Kuala Selinsing on the Peninsular west coast, or still today in Brunei and in most of the Riau Archipelago. (At one time this was the claimed reason why Srivijaya had apparently left no archaeological remains; but the remains have now been found, in Palembang (Bambang 1985), and they are as land-based and monumental as the remains of early kingdoms elsewhere in Southeast Asia.) Eventually, Indian-derived ideas of kingship and courtly religion arrived, to be supplanted in turn centuries later by Muslim ideas of how to run a state. These emerging polities were not simply maritime in orientation. As Barbara Andaya has shown (1997), the linkage between the island (kepulauan) and inland (daratan) areas was important. In the Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo, gold was mined inland and traded out towards the coast. In later periods tin too became important in many areas. Andaya (1997, p. 486) links Melaka’s expansion to the supply of gold from the Minangkabau highlands, connected via the great Siak, Kampar and Indragiri rivers, all of which became the sites of important Malay kingdoms. Srivijaya itself, situated at the site of modern Palembang, was located far upstream, near to where the mountains began to rise. The interstitial situation of these Malay states was connected with the presence, and possible intensification, of tribal populations at both ends – in the forest and on the seas. An important exception to this was the Minangkabau highlands of West Sumatra, where the combination of gold and volcanic soil allowed the early emergence of rather densely populated state societies, with little room for tribal peoples. However, this did not harm the prospects of the tribal populations living between the highlands and the coast in what is now the mainland portion of Riau province. It was during these latter changes, following the ascendancy and break up

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of the Melakan state, that a self-conscious sense of Melayu-ness emerged. It served as a political device, now making it possible for people from elsewhere and from other linguistic groups to assimilate to – or even to appropriate to themselves – the emerging Melayu ideal of a Malay-speaking Muslim subject to a sultan. It was in this last stage that the Johor-Riau Malay “standard” language was developed – primarily as a political force in extending the courts’ relations outwards to foreign traders, and inwards to the tribal populations, mostly already speakers of Malay dialects, as a means of peasantizing them. This would argue for a distinction between two kinds of pre-modern Malay state. First, there were the early states associated with the Sumatran Old Malay inscriptions and monumental remains at Palembang (Srivijaya), Muara Jambi (Malayu), and others.46 These had indigenous rulers modelling their kingship on Mahayanist or Tantric patterns, with an “immanentist” court culture trying to attract the attention of a hinterland or maritime tribal population all speaking varieties of Malay (Kulke 1986). These were states – but not yet self-consciously Malay ones. Second, there came the later (Melaka onwards), self-consciously “Malay” states, with foreigner rulers (Bugis, Arab, Minang, etc.) who followed a strongly interfering transcendental culture built of linguistic and Islamic orthodoxy. As Virginia Matheson has shown (1979), these appropriated the name Melayu as a means of associating their rule with descent from the kings of the earliest state of the area, which had a seat on the Malayu(r) River at Jambi. From then onwards the name Melayu came gradually to be attached to all the populations under the purview of the Malay states (of which there were now many, scattered around the coastal areas). These Orang Melayu also included the Malay-speaking tribals who fell to varying degrees within the ambit of the state, for everyone now had a name available to label what they already recognized as a common culture. Later, however, and partly under European influence, the meaning of Melayu became in effect narrowed down to mean Islamic, Malay-speaking, subjects of a sultan. This was especially the case in those parts of the Malay World that fell under British influence. Although Islam, especially in its Sufic varieties, had already formed an important element in the ideology and practice of Malay kingship (Milner 1981), the addition of Islam to the defining features of Malayness (non-royal, and now non-tribal) in general seems to have been most firmly institutionalized in the Treaty of Pangkor, drawn up between the Sultan of Perak and the British in 1874. This rather one-sided “agreement”, which effectively stripped the Sultan of all his powers except that of administering Malay matters and Islam in his state, led to the definition

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of the Malays – the Sultan’s primary subjects – as those people who followed Malay custom, spoke the Malay language, and acknowledged themselves to be Muslims. Other Peninsular state constitutions later took this definition of “Malay” as a model, as eventually did the Malaysian Constitution. (For further discussion, see Yegar 1979, pp. 26–37.) The new element was Islam. Previously there would have been no legal necessity to define “Malay” at all, and many of the non-Muslim populations of the time were as “Malay” as the Muslims. The post-1874 notion of Malayness, however, had the effect of converting those populations, virtually overnight, into the “aborigines” they are considered to be today. These considerations do not apply, of course, to the culturally and linguistically different Semang and Senoi of the north, though they do apply to some extent to the Aslian-speaking but culturally Malayic populations in the centre of the Peninsula. My purpose in presenting this sketch of the long-term history of Melayu state-based polities has been to reiterate the crucial role played by tribalMalay populations in that story. In many important respects, pre-modern Malay states bore a segmentary character, in that the ruling classes often relied more on the tribal populations than on a peasantry. This has had consequences that are discernible right up to the present day.

THE KERAJAAN AS A SEGMENTARY STATE47 This chapter, in common with the rest of the volume, has so far concentrated on tribal populations in the context of the Malay state or kerajaan. However, we need also pay regard to the reverse feature: the question of state-formation and state-maintenance in the context of tribality. The tribal populations, especially those who were moving by sea, were crucial in keeping these Malay states together. It is not clear to what extent this was true in the north of the Peninsula (which appears to have had a very different, agriculture-based and Mon-linked, early history), but it seems to have been true on the east coast of Sumatra, in the southern Peninsular states, and coastal Borneo – the nuclear Malayic area. This feature differentiates the quality of being tribal in a Malay state from the patterns of tribality found in other parts of Southeast Asia, and it provides an important exception to Lehman’s view, remarked on earlier, that the state pays no attention to the “sub-nuclear” tribal peoples. Most of the literature on the pre-modern state in Southeast Asia has been concerned with inland states (such as those at Pagan, Angkor, Central Java, and perhaps Champa) that had a very strong centre and were built up on a co-opted peasantry that encircled and supplied that centre. The Malay state, on the other hand, often

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floated like a raft on top of its tribal populations, especially in the already Malayic areas of the region. The parallel processes of state-formation and tribal (re)constitution went hand in hand. In some cases, tribal populations were peasantized, especially in the more land-based polities (such as Pahang), but in many other cases tribal segmentarity was further reinforced. The Orang Laut in particular, served very prominent communicative, tax-collecting and military functions. In several areas, they were therefore much more critical to the maintenance of the royals’ power than the peasantry. The latter, busy feeding themselves and paying taxes, would have been less important to the maintenance of a state based on maritime communications and trade. (This trade included rice, imported from outside the region.) The interstitial role of the Orang Laut means that they played a key part in the configuration of centralized power (Leonard Andaya 1975; Trocki 1979), but they waxed and waned in terms of how they fitted in to the state. Those most central to the state’s organization were reorganized into a series of caste-like ranked segmentary groups, each associated with some stereotypical service that they performed for the royals (Sopher 1977, p. 93). Thus were created several of the Orang Laut “tribes” (Orang Galang, Orang Akit, etc.) that still exist today, and the nature of whose identity still provides material for ethnographers to puzzle over. In eighteenth-century Riau, after the state was effectively taken over by Bugis migrants and their descendants, these close personal relations between the rulers and the Orang Laut, based on historical and mythological ties, began to fall away. This led to decentralization and the emergence of centrifugal forces among the Orang Laut, who thereby became more autonomously tribal in their social characteristics than they had been previously. Mercenaries were hired from the small island of Bawean, north of Java, to take their place. Leonard Andaya (1975) writing on the history of Johor state and Trocki (1979) in his work on the historical background to the emergence of modern Singapore in the early 1800s have both revealed the same story: the tribal populations were deeply involved in the processes of state-formation. Paul Wheatley’s map of ancient Singapore (1961, p. 81) suggests that, further back in time, the people living closest to the ruler’s palace on Bukit Larangan (now Fort Canning Hill), were the Orang Laut population, and that the rakyat, the Orang Melayu (if there were any), were living further away. More recent analyses, such as those of Miksic (1985, pp. 1–35) and Kwa (1985, pp. 121–23) have reaffirmed the importance of the Orang Laut in the earlier history of Singapore. What has all this to do with the topics discussed by the contributors to this volume? After all, most of them are concerned with present-day issues or

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with modern history. Nevertheless – and without the authors having been requested to do so – no fewer than eleven of the nineteen substantive chapters in this volume make mention of direct relations between Malay royals and the tribal people. Although some of these references are to a clearly mythical content, most are historically documented. Needless to say, the rulers’ motives for entering into relations with the tribespeople were various, and not always benign. In Riau and Johor (Lenhart, Chou & Wee, Mariam) the rulers were concerned primarily with a rational concern for the administrative advantages that could be gained by having the Orang Laut on their side, as a still-mobile semi-autonomous sector of the population.48 In other cases the rulers, once they had taken over the modern notion of a bounded territory, attempted to incorporate the tribal populations as rakyat into their domain. This, as Ruiter shows for North Sumatra, led to a quite rapid detribalizing and peasantization of the hinterland population. In other such places, the rulers took the opportunity to portray themselves in a noblesse oblige mode as concerned for the welfare of the tribal populations living in their territory (Hamilton, Porath, Juli, Tenas). Closely related to this, but less benign, are relations with tribespeople entered into with amusement or entertainment as the goal. Mariam mentions how the Orang Seletar still remember that they used to accompany the Sultan of Johor on hunting expeditions. Others have recounted how the Orang Suku Laut and some of the land-dwelling tribal-Malays have served as musicians and dancers – a practice that still survives (and which can be listened to on the recordings published by Yampolsky).49 One Orang Asli group actually owes its very existence to the concern of a Johor royal to have a tribal group as “his”: I refer to the tiny population (just sixty-four) of Orang Kanaq, currently living on the Sedili River, but moved there from Sekanak Island in Riau by a member of the Johor royal family in the nineteenth century. A similar motive seems to have been present in the Thai King’s removal of a Negrito from the south to the court in Bangkok in the late nineteenth century, more or less as a conversation-piece (Hamilton, Porath). The role of tribal peoples in the mythical charters of several Malay states has frequently been noted. The idea of a dynastic marriage between an immigrant ruler and an autochthonous tribal woman – a theme widespread in Southeast Asia, as Schefold shows – is not uncommon in the Malay World. (For Peninsular examples, see Lewis 1960; Dentan 1997, p. 108.) These days, this mythology tends to be forgotten by those on the Melayu side of the bargain, but the tribal peoples themselves often retell their own version of the stories, and allow it to colour their approach to the problems they face with

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the modern state. Lenhart remarks on this attitude among the older Orang Suku Laut, and Juli’s account of Semai dealings with the Malay state of Perak is especially rich in this regard. Nicholas also remarks on the place of these ideas in the more overtly political activism that some Peninsular Orang Asli are currently involved in. However, Schefold makes it plain that there is a dark side to all this. He argues that what really motivated the rulers in entering into relations with the tribespeople was the desire to demonstrate their power through the civilizing subjugation of wildness. This theme too is widespread in Southeast Asia, but it comes especially to the fore when the tribal people in question can be seen as truly exotic, due to their isolation, their non-Malayic languages, their different physical appearance, or their outlandish modes of life. The Sakuddeis of Siberut Island off the west coast of Sumatra fit into this pattern, as both Persoon and Schefold discuss in detail. Dentan (1997, pp. 109–12) discusses the closely parallel ideas that attached to Orang Asli “wildness” in the Peninsula. Of course, there is a certain ambiguity here: if the civilizing goes too far, then the desired “wildness” evaporates. We should expect then, that in modern times wildness is still much valued by certain classes of outsider, as Porath illustrates in his account of the exoticism that has been gratuitously applied to both the negrito Sakais of South Thailand and the Malayic Sakais of Sumatra.

THE RECONSTITUTING OF TRIBALITY BY THE STATE As we have seen, relations between the state and the tribal populations in the Malay World were sometimes benign, but often much less than benign. Among the less benign actions have been the frequent urgings by latterday state agencies – often the royals themselves – that the tribal people should form permanent settlements. Juli shows that this was a constant theme in the speeches made by visiting royals to the lowland Semai communities of Perak. Tenas too reports that the different Orang Talang subgroups were given landrights by the Sultan of Pelalawan. All too often, though, the requirement that the tribespeople settle down permanently – all the better to be administered – has not been met with a parallel guarantee of land rights. The authorities who urge them not to move around are usually the same authorities who move them away when more prominent citizens desire the land they occupy (Nicholas). But that is not the end of the story, for these state–tribal relations were all too often decidedly malign: I refer, of course, to the slave-raiding and the people’s responses to it that marked the lives of many of the tribal populations until just within living memory. How did this come about?

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The state has always acted to reconstitute the tribal societies, even when the latter were still allowed to retain their tribality.50 However, we need to distinguish between the actions of the modern state and the pre-colonial state. The tribal populations may sometimes have held a respected status in the pre-colonial state, but in many cases they were enslaved. At the present time, both peasants and tribespeople are again being reconstituted, through the coming of capitalist enterprise. “Peasant” and “tribal” are currently much used as descriptive categories in the scholarly literature, but capital tends to make petty commodity-producers or proletarians of both populations, effectively dissolving the distinction away. With these themes in mind, let me finish this chapter with a discussion of some of the main problems that the modern and immediately pre-modern or pre-colonial Malay state has posed for the maintenance of tribal lifeways. Enslavement and Tribute The threat and memory of enslavement colour the history and outlook of most of the tribal populations, even today. A stark example is given by Dentan in this volume. The fear engendered by having one’s child torn away has left a lasting impression on the character of Semai Senoi religion and personality. (As noted earlier, the word “Senoi” relates etymologically to shyness – that is to the flight response that was the usual recourse of Semais in the old days when slave-raiders entered their territory.) A more general historical accounting of the effects of slave-raiding on the Peninsular Orang Asli is given by Endicott (1983), in a volume that also contains an analysis by Matheson & Hooker (1983) of the legal framework that helped shape the views of those who raided, bought and kept slaves. Dentan too (1997) has explored the conceptual framework that helped to rationalize slavery in the Peninsula. As he pointed out, the history of slaving is regularly underplayed by writers on the Orang Asli – just as, for other reasons, it has recently been positively denied by a not disinterested government official (Ikram 1997).51 Here, I shall not review the literature on enslavement, as it is easily available. Instead, I would like to comment briefly on two aspects of tribal life in the Malay World that are closely related to this history. First, slavery must have been made all the easier for anyone who had already come to think of the tribal populations as exotic, wild playthings. By their own lights, slave owners in the Malay World probably did not see themselves as cruel. And in any case, as Matheson & Hooker show, there was no single category of “slave”: according to Islamic law slaves came in several varieties, which sometimes afforded them a degree of relatively benign

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protection. However, the initial willingness to enslave another human being must have been helped by seeing the target population as wild. It is a short distance between first subjugating a tribal-inhabited wilderness (Schefold) and then enslaving the people who live there. Second, flight was not the only response available to the tribal peoples. Although some of them fought back on occasion (cf. Noone 1936, p. 55), a more institutionalized means of getting the slave-raiding chiefs and royals off their backs was the giving of formal tribute. In many ways, this was like a small-scale replica of the payments that used to pass between the Malay states and Thailand or China in earlier times, and even between some Malay states and other Malay states (Barbara Andaya 1997, p. 488), which served to indicate that they were nested, mandala-fashion, within the domain of those larger polities. Unlike what was expected from the non-tribal peasantry, the tribal tributes usually involved unusual goods or foods (such as freshly harvested green hill-rice) rather than ordinary staples, and they were exchanged for other goods, rather than simply taken. There were obvious advantages to the tribal people in maintaining a protected position vis-à-vis powerful outsiders, but as the following passages imply, the outsiders’ motivations were not necessarily altruistic. The first passage relates to the Semais of Perak, and the second to the Semang (probably Kensiws) of Kedah. In those days we were bebas [“free”]. The Sultan feared us and appointed these officials to organize our territories. He forbade anyone to enter them. He ruled the Malays, and these four officials ruled us. He gave each a baleey, a palace to which the forest people brought rice, jungle produce and other tribute whenever the Sultan visited. When he left after a week, he would give money [to the officials]. In those days, any Malay who used the word “Sakai” was tied up for two weeks. They didn’t start using the term “Sakai” again until the British came. Ngah Hari (as told to R obert Dentan, personal communication) The second occasion of meeting these people was at the head of the Baling river, a branch of the Muda, near Patani, where I had the good fortune to come across a tribe under the protection of the Raja of Kedah, by whose orders they roamed unmolested through his country. Anonymous 1878

Shuichi Nagata (1997, p. 90) reports that visits by royals, involving both protection and the exchange of goods were still taking place in exactly the same area in the early twentieth century. In both these instances, it is clear that the powerful outsiders were also interested in preventing anyone else from claiming rights over the tribespeople. This is not slavery; but it is not

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unconnected with the frame of mind that allowed slavery to exist. Where the outsider was the ruler of the state, as was sometimes the case (Juli), this exclusionary view is understandable. But the outsider was often much lower on the state’s hierarchy. (For a Sumatran example, see Sandbukt 1988.) In such cases he usually lived in closer proximity to the tribal peoples, so as to set himself up at the top of a local hierarchy consisting of supposedly ranked tribal chiefs and headmen. Institutionalized arrangements of this sort emerged in several parts of the Malay World, and displayed a surprising degree of stability until the Japanese War. These include the offices of Mikong and To’ Pangku at the exit points from Temiar territory, as originally reported by Noone (1936, pp. 23, 47–48). One of these officers was interviewed directly by Leary (1995, pp. 22–23), and I have myself recorded something of the Temiars’ memories of the Mikong (Benjamin 1968, pp. 9–13). The institution involved intermarriage with Temiar women, and the retaining of the local Temiars’ domestic services. My own Temiar respondents displayed some ambiguity when talking about their lives in the Mikong’s old village at Kuala Betis, Kelantan. The Mikong was very kind // the Mikong expected the Temiars to clean up his babies’ stools (“like dogs”). The Mikongs took Temiar wives for three generations // the Mikongs were Malay, not Temiar. Assimilation to Melayu-ness In the preceding sections I have been arguing that the Malay state has often had an interest in maintaining the distinctiveness of the tribal populations. However, there is another side to the picture. Over the last century or so the Malay World has become increasingly concerned with its Islamicity, and this has had the effect of reversing the celebration of difference that was typical of earlier periods. The majority of Malays see themselves or their ancestors as having once been something else. Hardly anyone is a Malay pure and simple, but some kind of Malay, defined as such by differential ancestry. Assimilation to Malayuness is therefore not a once-and-for-all matter. One cannot simply be Melayu, for Melayu-ness is an achievement – one must act Melayu. The threat of losing one’s Melayu-ness must therefore be taken into account. At least three components are involved in this: language, Islam, and an acceptance of social hierarchy. Today, these have largely fused together, but historically they were distinct. Thus, the process of entry into Melayu-ness (masuk Melayu) has differed according to where the entrant was coming from. For an Indian or Arab Muslim, it usually involved little more than marrying into a Malay family. © 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

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Contextually, the Arabness or Indianness could be retained without compromising one’s achieved Melayu-ness (cf. Judith Nagata 1974). For a non-Muslim to became a Malay, however, other concerns were involved. Adoption into a Malay family, as of Chinese baby girls or former African slaves in Singapore, was a favoured process, with relatively unambiguous results. But the conversion of individuals or whole communities did not in itself lead to assimilation. In Malaysia, recent Chinese converts to Islam become saudara baru “new kin”, and they may be admired for thereby validating the superiority of Islam. But they do not become Malays, since they remain socially Chinese, outside the framework of Melayu society. The tribal populations present different perspectives. As we have seen, the Malayic-speakers already share a common culture-historical background with the Orang Melayu, who can therefore easily see them as “incomplete” Malays, requiring only Islam and an acceptance of social hierarchy to make them “complete”. Of course, the tribespeople themselves may have other ideas on the matter (cf. Chou 1995). Those who speak languages unrelated to Malay, such as the Aslian-speakers, are not quite so easily seen as incomplete Malays, but the gap can be closed to a considerable extent by conversion to Islam (and by regarding Aslian speech-varieties as mere “dialects”, not languages). Governmental agencies in Malaysia, both state and federal (including for many years the JHEOA itself ), have accordingly spent much effort in converting the Orang Asli to Islam. (Paradoxically, the Islamist state government of Kelantan seems, so far, to be an exception to this rule.) The motivation for this is sometimes authentically religious, but it is more usually seen primarily as the means of Malayization. As noted earlier, the Orang Asli are included within the “Malay” figures in the published versions of the national censuses. Governmental policy towards the Orang Asli has long proposed that their “integration” into the broader Malaysian community should be brought about by assimilating them specifically into the Malay community, which by local custom and national law is Sunni Muslim by religion. JHEOA officers have been heard to comment that the Orang Asli “problem” – usually defined as that of poverty – would disappear if they became Muslims, and hence Malays. In September 1996, for example, the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Land and Co-operative Development (Datuk Nik Mohamed Zain bin Nik Yusof ) gave the following justification for the Federal government’s newly announced review of legislation relating to Orang Asli land rights: If these amendments are made, Orang Asli can be more easily integrated into Malay society. It will help them to embrace Islam and follow Malay customs too. (Straits Times, 3 September 1996, p. 16.)

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In an even more forceful declaration (Ikram 1997), a former DirectorGeneral of the JHEOA asserted (erroneously) that all the indigenes of Malaysia spoke Austronesian languages and (also erroneously) that this therefore made them all “Malays”. This conceptual dissolution of the gap between pagan Mon-Khmer-speakers and Muslim Malay-speakers was presumably aimed at reassuring the Malay public that the Orang Asli posed only a trivial “problem” that could easily be solved by assimilation to Melayu-ness. Similar pressures affect the Sumatran populations, but there the requirement seems to be primarily that the tribespeople should accept an officially recognized religion (agama) – any religion – not necessarily Islam. Thus, there are Catholic and Chinese-religionist members of the Orang Suku Laut population, as well as Muslims. The policing of religiosity is less intensive in Riau and Jambi than in many parts of Malaysia, and public conversion ceremonies to Islam are rarely followed up by the mosque authorities. Is it possible to detect a fear of retribalization, commented on earlier, as lying behind this kind of attitude? Formerly, becoming a Muslim was primarily a matter of making a public declaration of faith (as still seems to be the case in Riau). In recent years, however, it has become a matter of increasingly selfconscious and competing orthodoxies, coupled with much confusion as to where the distinction between Islam and Malayu-ness lies. For rural Malays especially, urged to see Islam as an intrinsic part of modernity, the image of successfully modernizing, but unbelieving (kafir) or religiously ignorant ( jahil ) Orang Asli is seen as a cognitive threat. I have personally witnessed Orang Asli villagers being spoken to in exactly these terms by visiting Muslim clergy: “You are modern now, and it is not respectable for you not to be Muslims.” My impression was that the Orang Asli were quite happy with their religious situation, but that the nearby Malay villagers found their pagan ways threatening. The same Melayu embarrassment over “modern” but pagan tribespeople is reported for the Riau Islands (Lenhart). Thus, a renewed concern for Islam, backed by state pressure, is currently the major component in assimilation (or resistance) to Melayu-ness. In earlier times, however, such assimilation emphasized other dimensions. Moreover, it did not necessarily require the abolition of all differences between assimilators and assimilees. Often the assimilation occurred spontaneously or in an unselfconscious manner. It should be remembered too that Malayness itself has had an historically shifting content, and that it existed before Islam arrived on the scene. For example, as mentioned earlier, I suspect that at least part of the Orang Asli population currently known as the Temuans are descended from Aslian-speaking ancestors, by assimilating linguistically to Malay at a time when neither Islam nor centralization had become significant

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issues. Similarly, the Southern-Aslian-speaking populations, in following the Malayic societal pattern, illustrate the possibility of a partial assimilation that affected only the details of kinship and local-group organization, but not their tribality or religious allegiance. Large sections of this population must have added linguistic assimilation to the mix too, for some of today’s upriver Melayu communities in Johor were reported in the nineteenth century to be pagan tribal communities, who spoke not Malay but a southern Aslian language related, presumably, to Semelai (see, for example, Miklucho-Maclay 1878). Further south, in the Sedili valley, I discovered in the 1970s that villages formerly reported by travellers to be “Jakun” are nowadays Melayu communities. There seems no doubt, then, that there has long been a process of culture-change in which southern Aslian speakers became Jakuns, who in turn became Orang Melayu. To regard this as “assimilation”, of course, requires that we look at it from the vantage-point of later times. Many Orang Asli, even in the south, are no longer prepared to take the final step of becoming Muslims, involving as it does circumcision, the giving up of pork, and a relative loss of freedom for the women (cf. Carey 1976, pp. 326–27). Nowadays, many Jakuns are developing special cultural mechanisms to emphasize, and perhaps magnify, their differences from the upriver Malays, which are, in truth, often slight. Similar processes have been observed in other parts of the Malay World. The Islamization-cum-Malayization of the Mirek people of Miri, Sarawak, has been sensitively analysed by Tunku Zainah (1982). In Sarawak, “Malay” effectively means Muslim, according to Harrisson (1970, pp. 154–60), who discusses the very local but diverse origins of Sarawak Malays. Sometimes, this separates sibling from sibling simply by religion, and hence ethnicity. Ginting (this volume) shows that a similar process, occurring on a larger scale in early nineteenth-century North Sumatra, was responsible for creating the Muslim “Mandailing” Malays/Bataks out of a population that had a common origin with those who were to become the “Toba Bataks” after conversion to Protestantism. Miles (1976) has shown how the Malays of South Kalimantan continue to draw demographic strength from the Islamization of the large Dayak population who inhabit the province. On the other hand, the Malayic Duanos of Johor and Jambi steadfastly maintain their tribal separateness from the Malays despite having converted to Islam several generations ago. Some sections of the Kubus of Jambi and the Orang Suku Laut of Riau, who have presumably always been linguistically Malay, persist nevertheless in resisting religious conversion and incorporation into a hierarchical social framework.52 A similar case of resistance is that of the egalitarian Gerai people in West

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Kalimantan (Helliwell 1992) whose refusal to become Malay is founded primarily on their sharp dislike of social hierarchy and of working in the mud of irrigated rice fields. Although Helliwell does not say so, it is likely nevertheless that many of the local Malays have a Gerai ancestry, as the degree of co-operation between the two groups is quite high. Other Bornean populations have become culturally completely Melayu-ized, but claim (or are pushed into) an apparently distinct ethnicity. This is true of the Kedayans of Brunei (Maxwell 1997), whose assimilation is marked by an apparent acceptance of a subsidiary position in a Melayu-dominated complex social hierarchy. (The collection edited by Winzeler, 1997, contains many further examples illustrating the different pathways that attend assimilation to Melayu-ness, or resistance to it.)

THE MALAY WORLD AND THE MODERN NATION-STATE In whole or part, the historical Malay World is now partitioned between five modern nation-states: Thailand, Malaysia (with its Peninsular and Bornean wings), Singapore, Indonesia, and Brunei. The contributors to this volume have demonstrated the profound degree to which the modern states have reconstituted the lives of their tribal and formerly tribal populations. Modernity and development are invasive processes that exhibit much greed for tribal land (except perhaps in Brunei) and little tolerance for tribal autonomy. In this respect, all five states have acted in a similar manner, and there is no need for me to add to what others have said. Instead, let me end by suggesting some of the ways in which these states differ from each other in their handling of Melayu-ness and tribality. Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore Several commonalities exist between the three countries that formerly fell under the British sphere of influence. Following the ostensibly indirect-rule “protectorate” style of British colonialism – though not without some hiccups on the way – Malaysia is now a remade virtual sultanate. Brunei simply is a Malay sultanate that also happens to be a nation-state. Singapore, as a republic, has no pretensions to being a sultanate, although it began two centuries ago as a territory levered out of a Malay sultanate. In all three cases, however, the connection between legitimacy, Islam and Melayu-ness (first formalized on paper by the 1874 Treaty of Pangkor) still matters – overtly so in Malaysia and Brunei, but more subtly in Singapore. In the first two countries, the notion of fealty to a ruler, charged to protect Islam in his territory, is still central.

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In Brunei this has been institutionalized under the state ideology of Melayu Islam Beraja “Malay Islamic Monarchy” (Bernstein 1997, pp. 171–73). Note, however, that “Melayu” (as opposed to “Berunai”) in this political sense also includes the protected non-Muslim peoples, such as Ibans, Tutongs, and Dusuns. Brunei, as a still-functioning sultanate – the people pay no taxes, in return for no parliamentary representation – places Islamic institutions at the centre of the state’s interests. Yet, at the same time, it retains an elaborated social hierarchy that cuts right through the rest of the community, including the Muslims. Consequently, there are two kinds of Malayness in operation in Brunei: the general Melayu cultural pattern to which most of the population have by now assimilated, and the higher-ranking social position (labelled “Berunai”) which distinguishes some of those cultural-Malays from others (cf. Bernstein 1997, p. 168). The other main community, the Kedayans, still rank lower, despite being Muslims and living in a manner virtually identical to that of the Orang Berunai. Thus, unlike what happens elsewhere, assimilation to Melayu cultural patterns in Brunei does not necessarily eradicate difference. Consequently, the Bruneian authorities have little tolerance for reformist Islamic views of the sort that preach the fundamental equality of the umma. In most respects the role of Islam in Brunei is similar to that outlined by Milner (1981) for the pre-colonial Malay state: the maintenance of kingly distinctiveness and courtly ceremonial. Thus the situation of Brunei’s tribal populations is in many ways more like that of the tribal peoples elsewhere in the Malay World a century or more ago: a largely unforced cultural assimilation that nevertheless does little to raise their relative socio-economic status. This volume contains no contribution on Brunei, but Bernstein’s account (1997) of the Bruneian Dusuns, still partly tribal and pagan, and the essay by Maxwell (1997) on the fully Islamic but non-Berunai Kedayans make excellent companion pieces. In Malaysia, Islam is the declared official religion, and (as the name of the country indicates) the state itself is largely organized around the idea of maintaining a special status for Malays as the first-among-equals of the Bumiputera (“indigenous”) communities. On the other hand, even in the Peninsula, there is still a considerable degree of heterogeneity in the Malay population. The rural/urban, “east-coast”/“west-coast”, immigrant/native and activist/traditionalist divides still count, and this presents an unclear choice as to which variety of Melayu-ness the Orang Asli should “integrate” with. Certainly, the Orang Asli themselves remain puzzled, and in any case most of them would prefer modernization without Malayization – even when they convert to Islam. Consequently, the development of a new “Asli” ethnicity (Nicholas) which includes even Muslim Orang Asli has been a major innovation

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in Peninsular Malaysia. Several chapters in this volume explore the complicated interaction that currently goes on between the Malaysian state and the Orang Asli. Until Kuala Lumpur took over that role in the 1970s, Singapore was the main powerhouse of sophisticated Malay cultural production. Usually thought of as an essentially Chinese city, Singapore was nevertheless the Malay city: contrary to stereotype, the Malays were the most urbanized of the island’s three main “races”, and there was no such concentration of urbanized Malays anywhere else in the Malay World. Here were produced a high proportion of the modernist Malay writings, including novels and newspapers, that generated Malay nationalism, as well as the films of P. Ramlee and others. Singaporean Malayness therefore had, and still has, a special character. Levered out of the Johor-Riau sultanate by Raffles, with that cession legitimated by installing a figurehead Malay royalty (initially with the help of the Orang Suku Laut), Singapore was rapidly swamped by migration from elsewhere, especially Java. These migrants were at least nominally Muslim, but they were mostly not Orang Melayu and had no interest in, or even knowledge of, the purportedly ruling Royal family (which survives, obscurely, even today). They had migrated out of a “feudally” patterned hierarchy to a city with no other hierarchy than that of personal wealth. The emergent Singapore-Malay community was added to by intermarriage with Arabs, Indian Muslims and Peninsular Malays, as well as by the adoption of Chinese babies. Linguistically, Malay (along with Hokkien, which in Singapore absorbed a high proportion of Malay loanwords) became the island’s lingua franca. In other words, Singapore-Malayness was a creolized culture, closer in character to the Pasisir coastal culture that had developed elsewhere in the Archipelago than to the kind of Malayness that characterized the Malay World proper. Singapore still forms a key focus in the lives of both the Orang Suku Laut and Orang Melayu of the nearby Riau Islands, as Chou & Wee spell out in this volume. In Singapore itself, assimilation to Malayness was (and is) purely cultural, with no guiding hand to police it. On the other hand, the “Malays” – all of them, it seems – are defined in the Constitution as the indigenous people of Singapore. Moreover, Islam still has a special official status in the secular Republic, which has a Minister in Charge of Muslim Affairs overseeing the work of a Muslim Religious Council. The existence of both features, I suspect, is aimed at preventing any queries over the legitimacy of the succession that took place from backwater in a Malay sultanate to independent, largely Chinese republic. But the authorities, religious or governmental, are unable to insist that Malays, as Malays, behave in any particular way. It is therefore possible to be both Malay and non-religious, or even pagan, in Singapore,

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and until the recent rehousing programme that has affected virtually the whole population of Singapore, it was still possible to be both tribal and Malay. In recent times, only the Orang Seletar retained the latter pathway, but (as Mariam shows) the other truly indigenous sectors of the SingaporeMalay community still retain their memory of a recent tribal past. Indonesia Indonesia was colonized by the Dutch, whose methods were very different from those of the British. They made no pretence at indirect rule, and destroyed the functioning (though not the memory) of the existing Malay sultanates, mostly less than a century ago. Consequently, a major component of Melayu-ness – fealty to a ruling sultan – was removed from the modern republican ideology. Officially, therefore, Melayu-ness has no special position in Indonesian state ideology, except as one of the constituent regional cultures – which tend, in any case to be represented on a province-by-province basis. If anything, Melayu-ness is actually somewhat downplayed in the national culture of Indonesia, not out of any special prejudice, but because of the special situation of the Malay language. The national language, Bahasa Indonesia, is of course a special register of Malay (Bahasa Melayu) – special because it is meant to be the equal, non-“ethnic” possession of all Indonesians, the overwhelming majority of whom speak it as their second language. Two communities stick out in this regard: those Chinese who speak no other language but Indonesian, even at home, and the Orang Melayu of Sumatra and Kalimantan whose own “ethnic” language is the source of the national language. This has tended to colour people’s attitudes to Malay. Instead of being honoured as the source of the national language, “Bahasa Melayu” is used to label speech that falls short in some way of the perfection ascribed to Bahasa Indonesia. Several times in Indonesia, on being baselessly but politely complimented on the quality of my spoken Bahasa Indonesia I have protested, truthfully, that I was speaking Bahasa Melayu. This was instantly denied by my interlocutors, on the grounds that Bahasa Melayu was too unrefined to be worthy of any compliment! Melayu-ness in Indonesia therefore lacks several of the key features that characterize it in Malaysia. The Melayu ethnicity has no special status in Indonesia’s national ideology; Melayu-ness itself is seen as (linguistically) embarrassing in the national context; and there is no way, apart from purely neighbourhood pressures, to restrict Indonesian Malays to Islam. In other words, there are no large-scale processes affecting the cultural trajectory of the Malayic populations of Indonesia, either tribal or Melayu, beyond the general

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Indonesian requirement to have a recognized religion. This, I feel, largely explains the socially heterogeneous profile of the tribal and formerly-tribal populations in the Indonesian sector of the Malay World, as the relevant chapters in this volume make clear. Thailand Finally, there is little I can say about the situation in southern Thailand that has not already been said by Hamilton and Porath in their chapters. The Thai state shares a Southeast Asian context with the other countries that have absorbed portions of the Malay World, but its ideological underpinnings are very different. Despite the historically exogenous and suppletive character of Thai cultural traditions – though not necessarily of the people – state ideology has it that its rule is based on an overarching homogeneity compounded of language, religion (Theravada Buddhism), and indigeny. Unlike the encapsulation of autochthony (Schefold) that the Malay World favours, the Thai domain seems unable to accommodate anything – like the Semang – that suggests an alternative, exogenous, origin for Thai culture. This places both the Malays and the Semang of southern Thailand into a peculiar situation of flux, in which the nearness of northern Peninsular Malaysia also plays a part. Both communities have been subjected to a high degree of remaking by the state, in which their own view of themselves counts for little.

NOTES 1. This chapter has benefited from comments made at the Singapore meeting by Lim Chong Keat, Vivienne Wee, Wan Zawawi Ibrahim, Reimar Schefold, Tine Ruiter, Ivan Polunin, Annette Hamilton, and James Collins. Kirk Endicott and Cynthia Chou also suggested improvements. None of these scholars is responsible for the faults that remain. 2. A current Malaysian academic fashion refers to almost everything in the MalayoPolynesian–speaking world as “Malay”. This is as misleading as it would be to refer to the Sinhalese as “Europeans” because they speak an Indo-European language, or to the Vietnamese as “Mons” because they speak a Mon-Khmer language. 3. There are parallel “tribal-plural” constructions – avoiding a morphologically pluralized subject before a plural verb – in other European languages. In French, for example, “tribal” adjectives do not take the normal plural form when qualifying pluralized nouns: maisons françaises “French houses”, but maisons temiar (not *temiars) “Temiar houses”. Such usages are not always consistently employed, however: “Help is on the way for thousands of Penans and Orang Ulus

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5. 6.

7.

8.

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in the interior of Sarawak who have no proper birth certificates and identity cards (ICs)” (Straits Times [Singapore], 20 March 1998, p. 40; emphasis added). Here there is no fussing about “correct” English, or even euphony. The people are being treated simply as Malaysian citizens, awarded a plural -s just like any other Malaysians. Sometimes, writers seem to employ or withhold the -s on semantic grounds, depending on whether they are commenting on a supposedly whole culture or on the individuality of the group’s members. This is well exemplified in a sentence from the Official Hopi Cultural Preservation Website, presumably written by a Hopi: “The Hopi are a diverse group of people who vary in their attitudes and beliefs. The information and views expressed within these pages may not be uniformly held by all Hopis.” (Emphasis added.) In taped discussion at the Singapore meeting, Ivan Polunin remarked that “great White hunters” never talked of “elephants” or “rhinoceroses” but of “elephant” or “rhinoceros” – leading James Collins to suggest that the imagery behind the equivalent human usage was that of “tribes as prey”. In a recent development (1998), the publishers of the Encyclopedia of Malaysia (Didier Millet, Kuala Lumpur) agreed to drop the “tribal” collective singular in favour of the plural -s. In this regard, anthropologists and other scholars are falling behind the emergent norm. The editors of the present volume have done their best to alleviate this situation. The contributors (with one exception) have agreed to employ the -s where appropriate in “tribal” plurals. For reasons of euphony, however, we have refrained from adding -s to multi-word ethnonyms (such as Semaq Beri). And for semantic reasons, we have also not added an -s to words that label socio-cultural patterns rather than actual populations: “the Semang”, not “the Semangs”. Some tribal populations in Southeast Asia, including one or two living within the Malay World, such as the Rejangs of South Sumatra (Jaspan 1964), did possess a degree of literacy in pre-modern times, employing their own Indicderived scripts. As imaged in the phrase “Timeless Temiar”, the title of a prizewinning colonialperiod Malayan Government film title, which commits two faults in two words! This dependency is well put by Hockett (1973, p. 553): “We know what a city is: an aggregate of the dwelling places of people who raise little or none of the food they eat.” Even such apparent exceptions as “traditional” New Guinea or Aboriginal Australia are precisely that – apparent (cf. Urry 1979; White 1971). On the wider issue of tribal societies as consequences, not antecedents, of the state see Fried (1975) and notably Wolf (1982). The terms “Semang”, “Senoi”, and “Malayic” do not refer to so-called ethnic groups, nor do they refer to any ideology of ethnicity as understood in the modern world. Rather, they refer to recognizable but embedded cultural traditions, not self-conscious identity. Ethnicity and identity are separate issues, discussed

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elsewhere in this volume by several contributors. 9. “Jakun” is a term that seems to be shifting in its political correctness. I avoided the word for many years, using “Orang Hulu” instead (cf. Gianno 1997, p. 56). But I have been told that Jakuns themselves (all of them?) are happy to be called “Jakuns”, and I have accordingly reverted to this older established usage. 10. In the Peninsula, there have also been ethnologically important, though less well known, lake-fringe, coastal, and estuarine populations engaged traditionally in fishing and strand-foraging, sometimes combined with desultory farming. At the present time, lake-fringe fishing is practised by some of the Semelais on Lake Bera, central Pahang. The Duanos (“Orang Kuala”) of the west coast of Johor and east coast of Sumatra are seafarers. The Orang Seletar of the mangrove inlets of Johor and Singapore are strand foragers. The first two groups may in fact be considered as falling within the “collector” category, and the third group as “foragers”. In general, their kinship systems and social organization appear to fit into the Malayic pattern, as discussed later. 11. The usage of “tribal” as proposed here should not be confused with the occasional use of the same word to refer to prehistoric societies. The active tribality of postNeolithic people is quite different from the passive “tribality” of Palaeolithic times, because the latter people knew of no alternative way of life from which to dissimilate. The data on recent tribal peoples have come either from historical or ethnographical research, and those data are always gathered in a state-based context. Prehistoric archaeologists are dealing with something else. This raises the question of how far we can project what we discover about contemporary tribal populations back onto prehistoric populations, when there were no states. The sociology of the two situations is very different. “Tribal” as used here, then, refers to a situation that we know about and in which the state is always present in the data we employ. 12. See, for example, Fried 1975; Godelier 1977; Zawawi 1995. Other uses of the word “tribe” are found. In West Asia and North Africa – characterized by “a weak state and strong tribes” – “tribe” refers to (endogamous, maximal) patriclans (Gellner 1995). In many African countries, on the other hand, “tribe” is regularly used to refer to (urban) ethnic groups. (But then, do ethnic groups, as opposed to ethnic categories, really exist?) In India, “tribes” are classified, sometimes together with Dalit “scheduled castes”, as Adivasi. None of these cases corresponds to the situation of tribespeople in Southeast Asia. 13. There have been several collections in recent years devoted to the situation of the tribal populations of Asia. One of the most geographically wide-ranging is the volume edited by Barnes, Gray, and Kingsbury (1995). Covering a range very close to that of the present volume is Winzeler (1997). The essays brought together by Chou and Derks (1997) contain several dealing with tribal communities in Riau, the central area within the Malay World. The present volume is cross-national but intra-“cultural” in its focus on a single culturehistorical area and its transformations through time.

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14. My own Australian Aboriginal students in Canberra in the 1970s did not find the term “Aborigine” embarrassing. At that time, a short article appeared in American Anthropologist urging anthropologists to replace the label “Aborigines” with “Native Australian”. The authors appeared to be Americans, not Australians (Aboriginal or otherwise). Not only would this proposal make a perfectly good usage unavailable, it would have us misrepresent reality. Several of my own relatives, for example, are native Australians, having been born in that country, although they are not Aborigines. 15. It has been suggested that Sakai derives from the Sanskritic word sakhi “companion”, with the implication that the people so labelled were once seen primarily as trading partners (see, for example, Couillard 1984). This connection is phonologically unlikely, however, unless perhaps the word had come via a Chamic language – which is not impossible. In support of the other suggested original meanings – such as “slave”, “dependent” – the Temiars (Peninsular Malaysia) still use sakey among themselves to refer to their own dependent relatives as well as to a headman’s followers. This usage appears to pre-date the use of Sakai as an ethnonym, which the Temiars dislike, in common with the other Orang Asli. In Brunei, the puak Sakai, though considered as Orang Berunai, are ranked as “subjects or followers”. 16. Gellner (1987, pp. 29–46), in an illuminating discussion, traces Durkheim’s usage of “segmentary” to an earlier writer, Émile Masqueray (1982) on the societies of North Africa. As Gellner points out in his comments on Ibn Khaldun (1987, p. 40), “tribal” as applied to West Asian and North African society refers solely to the segmentary, state-rejecting stance, and not to any cultural or linguistic divide between the tribal people and the mainstream sector of the population. In Southeast Asia, on the other hand, tribality is usually associated with linguistic and cultural distinctiveness. In the Malayic-speaking portion of the region, however, tribality does indeed rest mainly in the maintenance of a segmentary state-rejecting stance within an otherwise homogeneous population that also contains a centralized and hierarchical variety, namely Melayu society. I return to this feature below. 17. The source is the Latin tribu “a constituent segment of society”, very close in meaning to some of the usages of the Malay word suku, discussed later. 18. For a study of the political uses made of “indigeny” in Malaysia and Indonesia, see Siddique and Suryadinata 1981/82. I suspect that, in Malaysia at least, bumiputera and asli, both of which translate as “indigenous”, are in complementary distribution – the former referring specifically to modern state-based discourse, and the latter to ethnological and culture-historical issues. This does not help to resolve the unsettled political status of the Orang Asli: are they or are they not bumiputera? The answer depends on whom one asks. 19. The vast majority of Singapore’s Malays are no longer tribal, but my study did make brief mention too of the then still-tribal Orang Seletar, based on the work of Mariam Ali. For more information, see her chapter in this volume.

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20. Note, for example, Mochtar Naim’s use of suku even for the (non-tribal) Minangkabaus in his book title, Merantau: Pola Migrasi Suku Minangkabau [“Merantau: Patterns of Migration among the Minangkabau Suku”] (Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1979). But note also Lenhart’s discussion, in this volume, of the difference drawn in the Riau Islands between orang laut “sea people [of any kind]” and orang suku laut “tribal sea people”. 21. For especially clear examples, see Helliwell (1992) on the Gerai people of West Kalimantan, Sandbukt (1984) on the Kubus of Jambi, and the chapters by Howell and Tenas in this volume. 22. See Dentan (1997) for an account of the various terms that have been used in a derogatory manner to refer to Orang Asli, some now obsolete, and some still in use. 23. At least one Malay-World scholar objected to this approach nearly forty years ago, and for much the same reasons as presented here. I refer to the short critical essay of Syed Hussein Alatas (1964) on what he (correctly) saw as scholars’ persistent misconstrual of the early history of Southeast Asia. 24. These statements, and the later ones on language, are based on recent literature dealing with the linguistics, prehistoric archaeology and human biology of the Malay World. See under the following names in the References: for linguistics, Blust, Tryon, Diffloth; for pre- and proto-history, Bellwood, Solheim, Nik Hassan Shuhaimi; for human biology, Baer, Fix, Bulbeck. All these authors, despite some differences in detail, agreed (1) that any attempt to map genetic, linguistic and archaeological data directly onto each other in a simple manner is invalid, and (2) that most of the layer cake views of the region’s ethnology still repeated in textbooks and encyclopaedias are wrong. Views still differ, however, as to relative parts played by local differentiation and the influx of new populations in producing the array of populations currently inhabiting the Malay World. Those who continue to assert the layer cake view often protest that this is what the historians claim to have occurred. Winstedt was once Director of Education for Malaya, and this may be why the habit arose of writing his views into the first pages of the school history textbooks. But historians – even schooltextbook writers – are no less obligated to check the primary sources than any other serious writer. Instead, they have, with a few notable exceptions (such as Andaya and Andaya 1982), continued to quote each other, instead of finding out what the primary researchers have to say on the topic. 25. Something similar to the race-based approach can be found in at least one of the documents on the tribal populations produced by Indonesian government agencies. For example, in the demographic profile published by the Direktorat Bina Masyarakat Terasing (1990), the surveyed populations are each typologized according to a seemingly scientific code relating to such characteristics as: F Bodily characteristics (F1 Generally athletic, tall, upstanding / F2 Generally pyknic, slender, medium / F3 Generally short, fat, small), and N Non-physical characteristics (Temperament) (N1 distrustful, shy, regressive / N2 approachable,

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27.

28.

29.

30. 31.

32.

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friendly / N3 brave, aggressive). This typology had disappeared from the revised and expanded version put out a few years later by the same agency (1994/95). See Brown (1974) and Maxwell (1997) for studies of the importance of ideological exogeny in Brunei, the only remaining Malay sultanate functioning as an independent state. A valuable summary and critique of the literature on Malay “origins” can be found in an extended footnote by Maxwell (1997, pp. 153–54). More empirically based discussions of the same question can be found scattered through Bellwood (1997). Bellwood draws no clear linkage between any particular archaeological “tradition” and the origins of a “Malay people”, but his summary of the linguistic (Malayic) evidence on pp. 119–24 does, however, support the view that a somewhat uniformatizing Malayic-speaking – not yet “Malay” – cultural tradition spread out of northwest Borneo two or more millennia ago, into a region where other “earlier” Austronesian and Austroasiatic languages were already spoken. This view is based primarily on the work of Adelaar (1992a, pp. 206–7). For an accessible account of the later, more narrowly Malay, stages of linguistic history, see Collins (1998). A note of caution is necessary. We should distinguish between unselfconscious “true” indigeny as an embedded social dimension, and the self-conscious “Indigenous” identity that is often involved in asserting some degree of autonomy from the state. Sociologically, these are quite different phenomena. I propose calling the former “indigeny” and the latter (after Gray) “indigenousness”. However, and pace Gray, indigenousness is also used by the state for its own purposes, at least as much as it is by those who wish to get the state off their backs. (Several instances are examined by the contributors to this volume with reference to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.) Gray fails to recognize this distinction primarily because he ignores the separate importance of tribality, which he fuses with indigeny or indigenousness. For some relevant work in this field, see (for Borneo) Wadley (1993) and (for the Peninsula) Fix (1990), Gomes (1982, 1983), and the many relevant items in the bibliography to Baer (1999). I am grateful to Gerard Persoon for providing me with copies of these and other hard-to-find documents relating to the tribal demography of Indonesia. Another valuable source, which I came across too late to incorporate into this account, is Melalatoa (1995). This two-volume encyclopaedia gives many population figures, mostly estimates, for the constituent ethnic groups of Indonesia, tribal and non-tribal alike. It is also useful for providing the currently favoured names for these groups. Unfortunately, like so many such publications in Indonesia, it is marked Tidak diperdagangkan, Not for commercial sale. There is a linguistically distinct group, known sometimes as Orang Kuala, who live in both Indonesia and Malaysia (Sandbukt 1983). They call themselves Duano or Desin Dolaq, and speak an Austronesian language that may well be Malayic, but is not a Malay dialect (Kähler 1946–49). However, in Indonesia

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33.

34.

35.

36.

37. 38.

they live mainly in Jambi Province, not Riau, and the “Kuala/Laut” listed here are probably a different group. According to the Yearbook of Statistics, Sarawak 1992, the Iban population in Sarawak was 493,000 in 1990, with an average annual growth rate of about 2 per cent, thereby doubling in less than 30 years. (Ibans in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, number around 15,000.) Yampolsky (1996, pp. 2–7), in the sleeve notes that accompany his field recordings of Malay music (both Melayu and tribal-Malay) from Sumatra, presents some valuable ideas about Malay tribality and the meaning of Melayu in Sumatra. (As he acknowledges, many of his ideas derive from the work of Vivienne Wee.) His discussion is all the more valuable for being uninfluenced by the historical “distortions” that often creep into discussions in Malaysia or Singapore, where ideas about the topic are greatly influenced by formulations first put on paper in the Treaty of Pangkor, 1874, between the British and the Sultan of Perak, as discussed later. The linguist David Gil, who had been working in Riau on an aberrant speech variety he labelled “Riau Indonesian”, was astonished to discover when we (Chou, Wee, Benjamin) brought him to Tanjung Berakit on the northeast tip of Bentan Island, that the Orang Suku Laut there spoke something he found quite different from the speech variety he had been studying. In fact, the tribespeople were conversing both with us and with each other in the normal Johor-Riau Malay that had provided the original basis for the standardized Indonesian language. The “Riau Indonesian” spoken in the ethnically highly mixed Tanjung Pinang town was presumably a heavily creolized version of the language. In general, the ethnonyms applied to the various populations in the Malay World, and their folk-etymologies, retain a history of the attitudes that have been current towards these peoples. In most cases, however, the linguistically supportable etymologies suggest a much more prosaic semantic than the fantastic popular accounts. There is no room here to pursue this issue. But see footnote 38. One other use of linguistic data is in ascertaining or suggesting the possibility of social linkages that have left no trace in historical documents – an especially important question when dealing with tribal societies. One such is the hint by Adelaar (1995, pp. 87–91) that there may once have been direct contact between the Aslian languages and certain languages of Sarawak, and even that Aslian may once have been spoken in Sarawak. Although the linguistic evidence for this is not very strong, it is worth reporting that intermarriages took place between Ibans from Sarawak and Jakuns or Semelais in the Peninsula as long ago as the nineteenth century, and possibly earlier. Life Records HSP 01079-2 [compact disk]; Life Records HSP 01079-4 [cassette]. Like the word “Senoi”, the culture-type label “Semang” is not an ethnonym: no Orang Asli population calls itself by this name, although the word has been applied to some of them in the past by Malays. The word must have originated

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41.

42.

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as the Malayized version of a common Aslian word for “person, human being”: Lanoh (Sabüm) s9maa?, Temiar s3nma? (in counting), Semaq Beri s9ma?, or Besisi h9ma?. (A phonologically regular cognate also appears in the northern Aslian languages spoken by the Semang peoples themselves, in the shape hami?, which means “non-Aboriginal person”.) The form “Semang” probably comes from Lanoh, a Central Aslian language spoken by “Negritos” in Perak, with the -ng resulting from a Malay reanalysis – polite linguistic jargon for “mishearing”! – of the nasalized vowels of the original Lanoh word. Additionally, Malays would probably have assimilated it to an already existing Malay word, semang, which has a variety of meanings that they could have considered appropriate for application to a tribal population, namely “debt-slave”, “someone taken into the family”, “adoptive”. This is probably why the word “Semang” is sometimes thought to be derogatory. For some local folk-beliefs concerning negrito origins, see Porath’s chapter in this volume. Recent biology-based analyses are presented in: Baer 1995, 2000; Fix 1995, 2000; Bulbeck 1996, 2000. It could also be argued that Semang nomadism has constituted just one facies of a broader repertoire of adaptations that have been available for many millennia. That would mean that its recent manifestations are, therefore, not as “primordial” as they might appear. The people in question have inhabited areas that are not in such deep and isolated forest as, say, central Borneo (which appears never to have been inhabited in archaeological times). They were, therefore, not all that distant from influences emanating from the east and west coasts, and hence could gain access to other modes of livelihood as well as to other populations. (For further discussion, see Endicott & Bellwood 1991.) Some “low-country” negrito populations, known as the Bila or Wila, were still living right on the west coast in the nineteenth century. Archaeological evidence suggests that the possibility of being sedentary for long periods was already present in the Peninsular Hoabinhian way of life, with riverine fishing and so on, combined with semi-sedentary hunting and gathering. (Benjamin 1985, 1997.) These comments are based on Gomes’s studies of Jahai demography (Gomes 1982, 1983). Whatever the welfare agencies might think to the contrary, Gomes’s findings imply that (forced) settlement is sensed by the Jahais, his Semang study group, as a less secure circumstance than being nomadic. If this sounds difficult to grasp, think how easy it is in practice to regard your own brother or sister as (1) your mother’s child (matrifilial), or (2) your father’s child (patrifilial), or (3) your parents’ child (cognatic), without necessarily implying any shift in the genealogical “facts”. Note that such arrangements need not involve either corporateness or a concern for descent from an ancestor. At base, the Malayic patterns of filiative bias would have referred primarily – as they still do – to face-to-face relations, thought of in terms of the sex of the immediately connecting kinspersons. In only a few instances did these biases lead to the

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43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

development, relatively recently, of unilineal ancestor-orientated descent-groups, which are of very localized distribution in the Malay Peninsula. This need not have been literally the case; it could mean merely that husband and wife should think of each other as “cousins” (= “elder” and “younger sibling”, respectively), whether or not this was genealogically the case. Adelaar (1989) has determined that the Malagasy languages on the other side of the Indian Ocean contain many specifically Sumatran-Malay loans that arrived in Madagascar up to a thousand years after the original movement of ancestral Malagasy (an Austronesian language) out of southern Borneo. Malay-speaking sailors were therefore continuing to cross the oceans, just as their Austronesian ancestors and collaterals had been doing. For a thorough review of the literature on early maritime states in Southeast Asia, see Christie (1995). See also her suggestions as to how early trade in the Peninsula may have been linked to social complexification (Christie 1990). The early states of the northern part of the Peninsula (in present-day Kedah, Kelantan and Isthmian Thailand) probably did not enter the Malay World until around 1200 to 1400 CE, for there is good evidence that they were Monspeaking polities until that time (Benjamin 1987; Bauer 1992). This section incorporates ideas from the taped comments of Vivienne Wee and Wan Zawawi Ibrahim at the Singapore meeting on which this volume is based. They are not responsible for the use I have made of their comments here. According to a shadowy episode in the Malay Annals (Sejarah Melayu) something of the kind may even have happened deep inside early Pahang, with Batek negritos serving some runaway royals as cross-Peninsular porters – a function similar to that which the Semang further north, in the Isthmus, seem also to have undertaken. (See Benjamin 1997, pp. 108–9.) See, for example, Williams-Hunt’s photograph (1952, Plate 11) of a Jakun playing a Jakun-built violin (biola), and which is now in the collection of the national History Museum, Singapore. This section derives largely from Wan Zawawi Ibrahim’s taped comments at the Singapore meeting. See also Zawawi (1995), where his ideas are presented at greater length. However, given that the slave raiders were often not local Malays, but Minangkabaus, Bataks and Rawa Malays, all originating from Sumatra (cf. Gianno 1997, p. 60), this denial may contain just a grain of partial truth. On the other hand, the slave-raiders sometimes employed or pressured “tame” Orang Asli to do the capturing for them. Despite this, Sandbukt also reports (1979, p. 8) that among some Kubus (Orang Rimba) of Jambi there is an outward flow of male bachelors (but not females) who settle down as sedentary Malays – despite the strong ethnic boundary that exists between Malays and Kubu. (This suggests that the people themselves regard their differences as one of “phase”, not “race” – just as Chou (1995) documents for the parallel situation in island Riau.)

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Bellwood, Peter. 1993. “Cultural and Biological Differentiation in Peninsular Malaysia: The Last 10,000 Years”. Asian Perspectives 32: 37–60. ———. 1995. “Austronesian Prehistory in Southeast Asia: Homeland, Expansion and Transformation”. In The Austronesians: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, edited by Peter Bellwood, James J. Fox, and Darrell Tryon, pp. 96–111. Canberra: Australian National University, Department of Anthropology (RSPAS). ———. 1997. Prehistory of the I ndo-Malaysian Archipelago. 2nd ed. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Benjamin, Geoffrey. 1968. “Headmanship and Leadership in Temiar Society”. Federation Museums Journal (New Series) 13: 1–43. ———. 1973. “Introduction”. In Among the Forest Dwarfs of Malaya, by Paul Schebesta, 2nd impression, pp. v–xii. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. ———. 1976. “Austroasiatic Subgroupings and Prehistory in the Malay Peninsula”. In Austroasiatic Studies, edited by Philip N. Jenner, Laurence C. Thompson, and Stanley Starosta, pp. 37–128. Honolulu: University Press of Hawai’i. ———. 1985. “In the Long Term: Three Themes in Malayan Cultural Ecology”. In Cultural Values and Human Ecology in Southeast Asia, edited by Karl L. Hutterer, A. Terry Rambo, and George Lovelace, pp. 219–78. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan. ———. 1987. “Ethnohistorical Perspectives on Kelantan’s Prehistory”. In Kelantan Zaman Awal: Kajian Arkeologi dan Sejarah di Malaysia, edited by Nik Hassan Shuhaimi bin Nik Abdul Rahman, pp. 108–53. Kota Bharu: Perpaduan Muzium Negeri Kelantan. ———. 1993. “Grammar and Polity: The Cultural and Political Background to Standard Malay”. In The Role of Theory in Language Description, edited by W. A. Foley [= Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 69], pp. 341–92. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. ———. 1996. “Rationalisation and Re-enchantment: Temiar Religion, 1964–1995.” Department of Sociology Working Papers No. 130, National University of Singapore. 46pp. ———. 1997. “Issues in the Ethnohistory of Pahang”. In Pembangunan Arkeologi Pelancongan Negeri Pahang, edited by Nik Hassan Shuhaimi bin Nik Abdul Rahman et al., pp. 82–121. Pekan: Muzium Pahang. ———. 1999. “The Malay World as a Regional Array”. Unpublished paper presented at the session on “Forms of Regional Integration: South America, Melanesia and Southeast Asia”, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, USA, 17–21 November 1999. 45pp. ———. 2001a. “Orang Asli Languages: From Heritage to Death?” In Minority Cultures of Peninsular Malaysia: Survivals of Indigenous Heritage, edited by Razha Rashid and Wazir Jahan Karim, pp. 99–120. Penang: Malaysian Academy of Social Sciences (AKASS). ———. 2001b. “Process and Structure in Temiar Social Organisation”. In Minority Cultures of Peninsular Malaysia: Survivals of Indigenous Heritage, edited by Razha

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Rashid and Wazir Jahan Karim, pp. 121–44. Penang: Malaysian Academy of Social Sciences (AKASS). Benjamin, Geoffrey. Forthcoming a. “Affixes, Austronesian and Iconicity in Malay”. To appear in a volume edited by David Gil and James T. Collins, London: Curzon Press (Monograph Series on Asian Linguistics). [Earlier draft pre-published as Department of Sociolog y Working Papers No. 133, National University of Singapore, 29pp.] ———. Forthcoming b. “The Aslian Languages: An Assessment”. In Endangered Languages and Literatures of Southeast A sia. Leiden: KITLV (Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology). ———. Manuscript. “Indigeny and Exogeny: The Fundamental Social Dimension?” 20pp. Revised version of a paper presented at the Second ASEAN Inter-University Seminar on Social Development, Cebu City, The Philippines, 28–30 November 1995. Bernstein, Jay H. 1997. “The Deculturation of the Brunei Dusun”. In Indigenous Peoples and the State: Politics, Land, and Ethnicity in the Malayan Peninsula and Borneo, edited by Robert L. Winzeler, pp. 159–79. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, Monograph 46. Blagden, C. O. 1906. “Language”. In Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, by W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, vol. 2, pp. 379–775. London: Macmillan. Blust, Robert. 1988. “The Austronesian Homeland: A Linguistic Perspective”. Asian Perspectives 26: 45–67. Bongaarts, J. 1980. “Does Malnutrition Affect Fecundity? A Summary of Evidence”. Science 208: 564–69. Brown, Donald E. 1970. Brunei: The Structure and H istory of a Bornean Malay Sultanate. Brunei: Brunei Museum. ———. 1974. “Hereditary Rank and Ethnic History: An Analysis of Brunei Historiography”. Journal of Anthropological Research 30: 113–21. Bulbeck, F. David. 1981. “Continuities in Southeast Asian Evolution since the Late Pleistocene”. Unpublished M.A. dissertation, Australian National University, Canberra. ———. 1996. “Holocene Biological Evolution of the Malay Peninsula Aborigines (Orang Asli)”. Perspectives in Human Biology 2: 37–61. ———. 2000. “Dental Morphology at Gua Cha, West Malaysia, and the Implications for ‘Sundadonty’”. Bulletin of the I ndo-Pacific Prehistory Association 19: 17–41. Chou, Cynthia. 1995. “Orang Laut Women of Riau: An Exploration of Difference and the Emblems of Status and Prestige”. Indonesia Circle 67: 175–98. ——— and Will Derks, eds. 1997. Riau in Transition. [=] Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 153, no. 4. Christie, Jan Wisseman. 1990. “Trade and State Formation in the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, 300 B.C. – A.D. 700”. In The Southeast Asian Port and Polity: Rise and Demise, edited by J. Kathirithamby-Wells and John Villiers, pp. 39–60. Singapore: Singapore University Press.

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Christie, Jan Wisseman. 1995. “State Formation in Early Maritime Southeast Asia: A Consideration of the Theories and Data”. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 151: 235–88. Coedès, G. 1930. “Les Inscriptions Malaises de Çrivijaya”. Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 30: 29–80. [English translation: “The Malay Inscriptions of Sriwijaya”. In Sriwijaya: History, Religion and Language of an Early Malay Polity, edited by Pierre-Yves Manguin and Mubin Sheppard, pp. 41–92. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1992.] Collins, James T. 1998. Malay, World Language: A S hort History. 2nd ed. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Couillard, Marie-Andrée. 1984. “The Malays and the ‘Sakai’: Some Comments on their Social Relations in the Malay Peninsula”. Kajian Malaysia: Journal of Malaysian Studies 2: 81–109. Dentan, Robert K. 1979. The Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaya. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. ———. 1997. “The Persistence of Received Truth: How the Malaysian Ruling Class Constructs the Orang Asli”. In Indigenous Peoples and the S tate: Politics, Land, and Ethnicity in the Malayan Peninsula and Borneo, edited by Robert L. Winzeler, pp. 98–134. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, Monograph 46. Diffloth, Gérard. 1975. “Les Langues Mon-Khmer de Malaisie: Classification Historique et Innovations”. Asie du Sud-est et Monde Insulinde 6, no. 4: 1–19. ———. 1979. “Aslian Languages and Southeast Asian Prehistory”. Federation Museums Journal (New Series) 24: 2–16. Direktorat Bina Masyarakat Terasing. 1990. Peta Suku dan Permasalahan Masyarakat Terasing di Indonesia. Jakarta: Departemen Sosial RI. ————. 1994/95. Data dan I nformasi Pembinaan Masyarakat Terasing. Jakarta: Departemen Sosial RI. Djatmiko, Edhie. 1993. “Masyarakat Tradisional di Pedalaman (‘Masyarakat Terasing’)”. In Riau Menatap Masa Depan, edited by Mubyarto, pp. 31–50. Yogyakarta: Aditya Media. Dunn, F. L. 1975. Rain-forest Collectors and Traders: A Study of Resource Utilization in Modern and Ancient Malaya. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch, Royal Asiatic Society. Endicott, Kirk M. 1983. “The Effects of Slave Raiding on the Aborigines of the Malay Peninsula”. In Slavery, Bondage and Dependency in Southeast A sia, edited by Anthony Reid, pp. 216–45. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. ———. 1984. “The Economy of the Batek of Malaysia: Annual and Historical Perspectives”. Research in Economic Anthropology 6: 29–52. ——— and Bellwood. 1991. “The Possibility of Independent Foraging in the Rain Forest of Peninsular Malaysia”. Human Ecology 19: 151–85. Favre, P. 1848. “Account of the Wild Tribes Inhabiting the Malayan Peninsula, Sumatra, and a Few Neighbouring Islands”. Journal of the Indian Archipelago and

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Eastern Asia (Series I) 2: 237–82. Fix, Alan. 1977. The Demography of the Semai Senoi. Anthropological Papers No. 62. Ann Arbor, MI: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan. ———. 1982. “Genetic Structure of the Semai.” In Current Developments in Anthropological Genetics, edited by M. H. Crawford and J. H. Mielke, vol. 2, pp. 179–204. New York: Plenum. ———. 1990. “The Collection and Analysis of Demographic Data for Anthropological Populations”. Orang Asli Studies Newsletter 8: 2–4. [Hanover NH: Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College.] ———. 1995. “Malayan Paleosociology: Implications for Patterns of Genetic Variation among the Orang Asli”. American Anthropologist 97, no. 2: 313–23. ———. 2000. “Genes, Language, and Ethnic Groups: Reconstructing Orang Asli History”. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 19: 11–16. Forum Komunikasi & Konsultasi Sosial. ca. 1990. Pembinaan Suku Laut. Batam: FKKS–Batam. Fried, Morton H. 1975. The Notion of Tribe. Menlo Park, CA: Cummings. Gellner, Ernest. 1987. Culture, Identity, and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1988. Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History. Chicago: Chicago University Press. ———. 1995. “Tribe and State in the Middle East”. In his Anthropology and Politics: Revolutions in the Sacred Grove, pp. 180–201. Oxford: Blackwell. Gianno, Rosemary. 1990. Semelai Culture and R esin Technology. Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, no. 22. ———. 1997. “Malay, Semelai, Temoq: Semelai Concepts of Ethnicity in SouthCentral Malaya”. In Indigenous Peoples and the State: Politics, Land, and Ethnicity in the Malayan Peninsula and Borneo, edited by Robert L. Winzeler, pp. 51–83. New Haven: Yale Southeast Asian Studies, monograph 46. Godelier, Maurice. 1977. “The Concept of the ‘Tribe’: A Crisis Involving Merely a Concept or the Empirical Foundations of Anthropology Itself?”. In his Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology, Chapter 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gomes, Alberto. 1982. “Ecological Adaptation and Population Change: Semang Foragers and Temuan Horticulturists in West Malaysia”. Research Report no. 12. Honolulu: East-West Environment and Policy Institute. ———. 1983. “Demography and Environmental Adaptation: A Comparative Study of Two Aboriginal Populations in West Malaysia”. In Population Change in Southeast Asia, edited by Wilfredo F. Arce and Gabriel C. Alvarez, pp. 391–447. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. ———. 1988. “The Semai: The Making of an Ethnic Group in Malaysia”. In Ethnic Diversity and the Control of Natural Resources in Southeast Asia, edited by A. Terry Rambo, Kathleen Gillogly, and Karl L. Hutterer, pp. 99–117. Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies. Gray, Andrew. 1995. “The Indigenous Movement in Asia”. In Indigenous Peoples of

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Asia, edited by R. H. Barnes et al., pp. 35–58. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies. Harrisson, Tom. 1970. The Malays of South-West Sarawak before Malaysia: A SocioEcological Survey. London: Macmillan. Heine-Geldern, Robert. 1965. “Some Tribal Art Styles of Southeast Asia: An Experiment in Art History”. In The Many Faces of Primitive Art: A Critical Anthology, edited by Douglas Fraser, pp. 165–221. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Helliwell, Christine. 1992. “Evolution and Ethnicity: A Note on Rice Cultivation Practices in Borneo”. In The Heritage of Traditional Agriculture among the Western Austronesians, edited by James J. Fox, pp. 7–20. Canberra: ANU Research School of Pacific Studies. Hockett, Charles. 1973. Man’s Place in Nature. New York: McGraw-Hill. Ikram Jamaluddin, Haji. 1997. “Kenyataan Ketua Pengarah Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli Malaysia pada Perjumpaan dengan Wakil-Wakil Media Massa pada 31hb Oktober, 1997”. Typescript. 35pp. Jaspan, M. A. 1964. Redjang Ka-Ga-Nga Texts. Canberra: Australian National University. Kähler, H. 1946–49. “Ethnographische und Linguistische Studien von den Orang Laut auf der Insel Rangsang an der Ostküste von Sumatra”. Anthropos 61–64: 1– 31, 757–85. ———. 1960. Ethnographische und Linguistische Studien über die Orang Darat, Orang Akit, Orang Laut und Or ang Utan im Riau-Archipel und auf den I nseln an der Ostküste von Sumatra. Berlin: Dietrich Riemer. Keesing, Roger. 1981. “The Tribal World as Mosaic, as Ladder, and as System”. In his Cultural Anthropology, Chapter 7. Holt. Kubitschek, Hans-Dieter. 1997. “Horja and Bius: ‘Pseudo-Tribalism’ in Toba Batak Society, North Sumatra”. In Nationalism and Cultural Revival in Southeast Asia: Perspectives from the C entre and the R egion, edited by Sri Kuhnt-Saptodewo, Volker Grabowsky, and Martin Großheim, pp. 191–99. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Kulke, Hermann. 1986. “The Early and the Imperial Kingdom in Southeast Asian History”. In Southeast Asia in the 9th to 14th centuries, edited by David G. Marr and A. C. Milner, pp. 1–22. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Kwa Chong Guan. 1985. “Records and Notices of Early Singapore”. In Archaeological Research on the ‘Forbidden Hill’ of Singapore: Excavations at Fort Canning, 1984, by John N. Miksic, pp. 100–39. Singapore: National Museum. Leach, E. R. 1950. Social Science Research in Sarawak. London: H.M.S.O. Reprinted 1970. New York: Johnson. ———. 1954. Political Systems of Highland Burma. London: Bell. Leary, John D. 1995. Violence and the Dream People: The Orang Asli in the Malayan Emergency, 1948–1960. Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies. Lehman, Frederick L. K. 1963. The Structure of Chin Society. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Lewis, D. 1960. “Inas: A Study of Local History.” Journal of the M alayan Branch,

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Royal Asiatic Society 33: 65–94. Loeb, Edwin M. 1972 [1932]. Sumatra: Its History and People. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Logan, J. R. 1847. “The Orang Binua of Johore”. Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia 1: 242–93. Masqueray, Émile. 1886. Formations des Cités chez les P opulations Sédentaires de l’Algérie. Paris: Ernest Leroux. [Not seen; cited in Gellner 1987.] Matheson, Virginia. 1979. “Concepts of Malay Ethos in Indigenous Malay Writings”. Journal of Southeast Asian S tudies 10: 351–71. ——— and M. B. Hooker. 1983. “Slavery in the Malay Texts: Categories of Dependency and Compensation”. In Slavery, Bondage and Dependency in Southeast Asia, edited by Anthony Reid, pp. 182–208. St Lucia: Queensland University Press. Maxwell, Alan R. 1997. “The Origin of the Brunei Kadayan in Ethnohistorical Perspective”. In Indigenous Peoples and the State: Politics, Land, and Ethnicity in the Malayan Peninsula and Bor neo, edited by Robert L. Winzeler, pp. 135–58. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, Monograph 46. McCaskill, Don. 1998. “From Tribal Peoples to Ethnic Minorities: The Transformation of Indigenous Peoples: A Theoretical Discussion”. In Development or Domestication? Indigenous Peoples of Southeast Asia, edited by Don McCaskill and Ken Kampe, pp. 26–60. Chiang Mai: Silkworm. McKinley, Robert. 1979. “Zaman dan Masa, Eras and Periods: Religious Evolution and the Permanence of Epistemological Ages in Malay Culture”. In The Imagination of R eality: Essays in Southeast A sian Coherence Systems, edited by Aram Yengoyan and Alton L. Becker, pp. 303–24. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation. Melalatoa, M. Junus. 1995. Ensiklopedi Suku Bangsa di I ndonesia. 2 vols. Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan RI. Miklucho-Maclay, N. von. 1878. “Dialects of the Melanesian Tribes in the Malay Peninsula”. Journal of the Straits Branch, Royal Asiatic Society 1: 38–44. Miksic, John N. 1985. Archaeological Research on the ‘F orbidden Hill’ of S ingapore: Excavations at Fort Canning, 1984. Singapore: National Museum. Miles, Douglas. 1976. Cutlass and Crescent Moon: A Case Study of Social and Political Change in O uter Indonesia. Sydney: Centre for Asian Studies, University of Sydney. Milner, A. 1981. “Islam and Malay Kingship”. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: 46– 70. ———. 1982. Kerajaan: Malay Political Culture on the Eve of Colonial Rule. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Murphy, Robert F. 1957. “Intergroup Hostility and Social Cohesion.” American Anthropologist 59: 1018–35. Nagata, Judith. 1974. “What is a Malay? Situational Selection of Ethnic Identity in a Plural Society”. American Ethnologist 1: 331–50.

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Nagata, Shuichi. 1997. “The Origin of an Orang Asli Reserve in Kedah”. In Indigenous Peoples and the State: Politics, Land, and Ethnicity in the Malayan Peninsula and Borneo, edited by Robert L. Winzeler, pp. 84–97. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, monograph 46. Nicholas, Colin. 2000. The Orang Asli and the Contest for R esources: Indigenous Politics, Development and Identity in P eninsular Malaysia. Copenhagen: International Workgroup for Indigenous Affairs; Subang Jaya: Centre for Orang Asli Concerns, Nik Hassan Shuhaimi Nik Abd Rahman. 1992. Arkeologi, Seni dan Kerajaan Kuno Sumatera Sebelum Abad ke-14. Bangi: Ikatan Ahli Arkeologi Malaysia, c/o Department of History, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. ———. 1997. “Tracing the Origins of the Malays and Orang Asli: From Archaeological Perspective”. Jurnal Arkeologi Malaysia 10: 95–105. Noone, H. D. 1936. “Report on the Settlements and Welfare of the Ple-Temiar Senoi of the Perak-Kelantan Watershed”. Journal of the Federated Malay States Museums 19: 1–85. Rahmann, Rudolf. 1975. “Review of: Schebesta’s Among the Forest Dwarfs of Malaya, 2nd impression”. Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 3: 286–88. Rambo, A. Terry. 1988. “Why are the Semang? Ecology and Ethnogenesis in Peninsular Malaysia”. In Ethnic Diversity and the Contr ol of Natural Resources in Southeast Asia, edited by A. Terry Rambo et al., pp. 19–35. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies. Sahlins, M. D. 1968. Tribesmen. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Sandbukt, Øyvind. 1979. Unpublished field report on the Kubu (Orang Rimba). ———. 1982. “Perceiving the Sumatran Kubus”. Annual Newsletter of the Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies 16: 5–13. ———. 1983. “The Sea Nomads of Southeast Asia — New Perspectives on Ancient Traditions”. Annual Newsletter of the Scandinavian Institute for Asian Studies 17: 13–33. ———. 1984. “Kubu Conceptions of Reality”. Asian Folklore Studies 43: 85–98. ———. 1988. “Tributary Tradition and Relations of Affinity and Gender among the Sumatran Kubu”. In Hunters and Gatherers, Vol. 1: History, Evolution, and Social Change, edited by T. Ingold, D. Riches, and J. Woodburn, pp. 107–16. Oxford: Berg. Sather, Clifford. 1999. “The Orang Laut”. Occasional Paper No. 5, AKASS Heritage Paper Series. Penang: Academy of Social Sciences. Schebesta, Paul. 1952. Die Negrito Asiens. I B and: Geschichte, Geographie, Umwelt, Demographie und Anthropologie der Negrito. Wien-Mödling: St.-Gabriel-Verlag. Siddique, Sharon, and Leo Suryadinata. 1981/82. “Bumiputera and Pribumi: Economic Nationalism (Indigenism) in Malaysia and Indonesia”. Pacific Affairs 54: 662–87. Skeat, W. W., and C. O. Blagden. 1906. Pagan Races of the M alay Peninsula. 2 vols. London: Macmillan. Solheim, Wilhelm G., II. 1980. “Searching for the Origin of the Orang Asli”.

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Federation Museums Journal (New Series) 25: 61–75. Sopher, David E. 1977 [1965]. The Sea Nomads: A Study of the Maritime Boat P eople of Southeast Asia. Reprint 1965, with postscript. Singapore: National Museum. Teeuw, A. 1959. “The History of the Malay Language”. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Landen Volkenkunde 115: 138–56. Trocki, Karl A. 1979. Prince of Pirates: The Temenggongs and the Development of Johor and Singapore 1784–1885. Singapore: Singapore University Press. Tryon, Darrell. 1995. “Proto-Austronesian and the Major Austronesian Subgroups”. In The Austronesians: Historical and Compar ative Perspectives, edited by Peter Bellwood, James J. Fox, and Darrell Tryon, pp. 17–38. Canberra: Australian National University, Department of Anthropology (RSPAS). Tunku Zainah Tunku Ibrahim. 1982. “The Mirek: Islamized Indigenes of Northwestern Sarawak”. Contributions to Southeast Asian E thnography 1: 3–18. Urry, James. 1979. “Beyond the Frontier: European Influence, Aborigines and the Concept of ‘Traditional Culture’”. Journal of Australian Studies 5: 2–16. Wadley, R. L. 1993. “Demography and Social Organization in Borneo”. In Change and Development in Borneo, edited by V. Sutlive, pp. 189–203. Williamsburg, VA: Borneo Research Council. Wang Gungwu. 1958. “The Nanhai Trade”. Journal of the Malayan B ranch, Royal Asiatic Society 31: 1–135. Waterson, Roxana. 1993. “What to Celebrate in the United Nations Year of Indigenous Peoples?”. Department of Sociology Working Papers No. 117, National University of Singapore. 55pp. Wee, Vivienne. 1987. “Melayu: Hierarchies of Being in Riau”. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University. ———. 1988. “Material Dependence and Symbolic Independence: The Construction of Melayu Ethnicity in Island Riau, Indonesia”. In Ethnic Diversity and the Control of Natural Resources in Southeast Asia , edited by A. Terry Rambo et al. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies. Wheatley, Paul. 1959. “Geographical Notes on Some Commodities Involved in Sung Maritime Trade”. Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 32, no. 2: 4–140. ———. 1961. The Golden Khersonese: Studies in the Historical Geography of the Malay Peninsula before A.D. 1500. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press. White, J. Peter. 1971. “New Guinea and Australian Prehistory: The ‘Neolithic Problem’”. In Aboriginal Man and Environment in Australia, edited by D. J. Mulvaney and J. Golson, pp. 182–95. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Williams-Hunt, P. D. R. 1952. An Introduction to the Malayan A borigines. Kuala Lumpur: Government Press. Wilkinson, R. J. 1939. “Some ‘Sakai’ Problems”. Journal of the Malayan Branch, Royal Asiatic Society 17: 131–33. Winstedt, R. O. 1961. The Malays: A Cultural History. 6th ed. London: Routledge and

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Kegan Paul. Winzeler, Robert L., ed. 1997. Indigenous Peoples and the S tate: Politics, Land, and Ethnicity in the M alayan Peninsula and Bor neo. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, Monograph 46. Wolf, Eric R. 1982. Europe and the P eople without H istory. Berkeley: California University Press. Wolters, Oliver. 1967. Early Indonesian Commerce: A Study of the Origins of Srivijaya. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ———. 1979. “Studying Srivijaya”. Journal of the M alaysian Branch of the R oyal Asiatic Society 52: 1–32. Yampolsky, Philip. 1996. Introductory Notes to Melayu Music of S umatra and the Riau Islands. Smithsonian Folkways CD recording , “Music of Indonesia” Series, vol. 11. Yegar, Moshe. 1979. Islam and I slamic Institutions in B ritish Malaya: P olicy and Implementation. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press. Zawawi Ibrahim. 1995. “Regional Development in Rural Malaysia and the ‘tribal question’”. Occasional Paper 28, Centre for South-East Asian Studies, University of Hull.

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Reproduced from Tribal Communities in the Malay W orld: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives , edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles ar e available at < http://www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html >.

3 TRIBAL PEOPLE ON THE SOUTHERN THAI BORDER Internal Colonialism, Minorities, and the State Annette Hamilton

... in this part of the world, the word “aborigines” is applied only to the Orang Asli of Malaya and to the aboriginal population of Australia. In both cases we find a situation where the “aborigines” do not only form a very small proportion of the total population, but they are also economically and socially backward when compared to other races. (Carey 1976, p. 5.)

The “aborigines” of Southeast Asia generally, and those of the Malay Peninsula in particular, have been subject to varying forms of scholarly scrutiny and state intervention since the colonial period. However, substantial attempts are now being made to grasp their ethnological, historical, and social positions from a comparative perspective. Early evolutionist paradigms postulated a “Negrito” population in much of the region, displaced through varying proto-historical movements by more “advanced” peoples. As these modes of analysis lost legitimacy, and particularly under the influence of ethnographic studies within “national” regional definitions, the effort to understand the origins and dispositions of the many “tribal”, “aboriginal”, or “indigenous” groups in Southeast Asia gave way to much more defined scholarly aims, 77

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focusing on specific groups in defined ethno-ecological areas. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, an emerging concern with indigenous or tribal peoples in the face of global development has called for a renewed interest in ethnological, social, and political comparison. The postcolonial1 era has seen increasing pressure on the habitats, lifeways and continued social reproduction of minority groups, particularly in those parts of the world where the impacts of industrialization, tourism, and population growth have occurred with explosive results. The role of the respective national governments and states in maintaining, controlling or ignoring these impacts calls for urgent and specific comparative analysis. The situation of the so-called Sakais in southern Thailand is an excellent exemplar of the historical, cultural, social and political relations between dominant (hegemonic) nation-states and the small, vulnerable populations encircled by them. The former are committed to various versions of national identity and nation-state power, but the latter find themselves stranded (more or less) within these alien life-worlds. Very small groups of Sakais are now scattered in three isolated regions of Thailand, living close to or within shrinking jungle tracts across five southern Thai provinces. The southernmost groups of “Sakais” in Thailand are linked by kinship, culture, language and lived experience with others living across the border in northern Malaysia. Hence, this is another situation where “tribal” people are separated by national boundaries and where their social, economic and cultural lives, and their opportunities for social reproduction, are subject to legal, practical and political understandings controlled by two very different national-political regimes.2 My encounter with the people of “Baan Sakai” in 1994/95, and the many conversations and discussions I subsequently had with other residents in the south, including southern Thais, Malay-speaking Muslims, Thai-speaking Muslims, people of Sino-Thai descent and others, prompted a series of increasingly urgent reflections on the question of ethnicity, minority status, history, and the state in Thailand. Struggles over the place of indigenous and tribal minorities have become increasingly visible in international political discourse over the past decade or so, and this has resulted in dramatic changes to legal and property systems, especially in the ex-settler colonies. In Australia, the High Court recently found that the indigenous people and their descendants (around 350,000 out of a population of 18.5 million) had “native title rights” over all the remaining crown land (that is, all land not currently under freehold title). Similar indigenous property rights have been widely recognized in New Zealand, Canada and the United States, where land restitution has been extensive, and

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substantial financial restitution has been made where native title has been extinguished. By comparison, indigenous and minority communities in Southeast Asia are only rarely recognized as having any rights to land (or sea), and even where such rights are recognized they are seldom backed up by legal sanctions. Tribal communities see their traditional lands handed over to outsiders or new immigrants, denuded of forest for logging or settlement, and find themselves repeatedly removed from place to place in accordance with whatever need is currently asserted by the national government and its agencies. The current situation of indigenous and minority communities is perhaps the clearest example of the operation of internal colonialism throughout Southeast Asia. Colonialism came into being as the West imposed its social, economic and political control over subject populations in its colonies. In turn, the emergent postcolonial nations ensured that subordination was extended to their own minority populations, attempting to obliterate minority cultural and linguistic diversity in the name of unity in nation-building. As is endlessly reiterated, Thailand was never formally colonized. Nevertheless, the lessons of the colonial period were well learnt by the élite under the direction of the Monarchy and it can be said that Thailand colonized itself.3 This very usage came from the mouth of a Thai military general during the tumultuous mid-1970s. Avoiding colonization by Europe simply meant that we colonized our own people. This internal colonialism, in which officials appointed from the metropolis rule and drain the countryside like conquered provinces, has led to obvious differences among the Thai. (General Saiyut Koetphon, “Government Policy is Leading to Disaster in the Hills”, Bangkok Post, 4 January 1976; quoted in Luther 1995, p. 183.)

The administrative structures and state ideologies through which the internal colonization of the country was achieved are still substantially in place today. Tej Bunnag (1997) describes the development of the administrative system. Especially during the reign of King Chulalongkorn (1868–1910), even as he ensured that the emergent “nation” remained politically, administratively, and culturally independent, forms of direct political and administrative control were being extended to peoples who previously had not in any sense been “Thai”.4 The “problems” arising from this are particularly visible in the southern border region.

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SOUTHERN THAILAND: ETHNICITY, CULTURE, AND THE STATE Southern Thailand is a zone of immense complexity. Actually, there are several “souths”, each quite distinctive in culture, history, and ethnic mix. The first is the area south from Chumpon through Nakhon Sri Thammarat and down to Songkhla and Hat Yai. This is the true home of “southern Thai” culture, with its distinctive dialect, flourishing economy, and strong local identity. Hat Yai is the southern capital with a vast cross-border trade from Malaysia. Across the peninsula to the west lie the rubber-growing and tinmining southern provinces, dominated ethnically by descendants of Chinese immigrants but also many with Thai Muslims, especially in Phuket, Trang, and Phang-Nga. South of Hat Yai lie the four southern provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, Pattani, and Satun. Except for the latter, where the population is largely Thaispeaking Muslim, the population in rural areas are Malay-speaking5 Muslims and much of the remainder are of Chinese or Sino-Thai ethnicity, who predominate in the towns and are generally merchants, traders or businessmen. The administrative tasks of the nation-state are carried out in part by local people but senior office holders in most of the major institutions are Bangkokians with a strong Central Thai identity. The Muslim south represents not merely barbarism but terrorism to the Bangkok Thais. Throughout the latter period of the Emergency in Malaya, and subsequently, the region was home base to the remaining forces of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) under their leader Chin Peng. The remaining Communist Terrorists (socalled) who laid down their arms under the Hat Yai accords in 1989 now live in four resettlement villages (Friendship Villages Nos 1 –4) where they maintain a communist agricultural and social system.6 Much of the area, especially Yala province, is vast, jungle-clad, sparsely inhabited and very difficult of access. Not merely the Chinese CPM, but also a variety of Muslim separatist groups have been active over decades in the area. Separatist influences are expressed sporadically today. School-burning, in protest against the forced education of Muslim children in state schools, for example, has occurred periodically many times since the 1970s. Other acts of violence and banditry are attributed to Muslim separatist guerrillas, especially in the Thai press, whatever the truth of the matter. The Muslims in the south have long been considered a “problem”. They are referred to as “Thai Muslims”.7 Their primary identity as persons of Malay ethnicity and culture is obliterated in official discourse. Although there have been some recent moves towards increased mutual accommodation, the

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integration of the Muslims is the primary aim of the state. This requires all citizens to speak and write in Thai, to commit themselves to Thai values especially respect for the King and nation, and above all, to accept state programmes and requirements such as compulsory education in Thai schools. There are many signs that some aspects of this programme are being quite successful, especially with the use of Thai language among young people. The religious issue is paramount, implicated as it is with the idea of “Thai-ness” itself. Religious toleration is extended to all in the Kingdom, but there is a profound sense in which to be Thai is to be a Buddhist. Islamic identity does not mesh comfortably with many common Thai cultural practices, of which the wearing of hijab head-covering by women is the most obvious.8 There is a palpable air of anxiety and danger among the central Thais who work and live in the far south. Stories of grenade attacks on cinemas and concerts abound, and many Thais hesitate to go about at night or off the beaten track.9 The remoteness of the four southern provinces, and their reputation for danger, has been seen as a significant problem for regional development in recent times. Particularly, the role of tourism as a prime means of development has been pushed by the state through the Tourist Authority of Thailand. Of course the more development occurs in the far south, the more likely it is that non-Muslim Thais will settle and work there, and the more likely that Thainess will spread through the Muslim population, or at least dilute the effects of its “difference”. In summary then, the extraordinary ethnic and cultural complexity of the southern regions of Thailand stands in stark contrast to the official ideology of homogeneity within a unified nation-state. Rather than recognize and accommodate the many differences (not least those between the various Chinese-origin groups and communities, which I have no space to discuss here), state ideology insists that such differences should not exist. However, there is one very minuscule component of the population whose differences are officially recognized and valourized: these are the “Sakais”.

THE MANIQ ((“S SAKAIS”)) OF SOUTHERN THAILAND The ethnic/cultural map of southern Thailand has been constructed by centuries of complex historical developments, and the situation of the surviving Sakais is the outcome of struggles and accommodations with the demands of others on their indigenous life-ways and social formations. Efforts to comprehend the ethno-history and palaeo-sociology of the tribal peoples of the peninsula have been substantial but the long-term evolution and

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distribution of the population remains uncertain in many respects. The most common descriptor is “Sakai”, although especially in Satun they are known as Chao Paa “jungle folk”. However, Bangkokians and other educated people are much more likely to use the term Ngoh Paa, as did King Chulalongkorn in his book Bot Lakara Rueng Ngoh Paa. The term “Maniq” (Mani?) means “human being” in the Kensiw language, and is the term they apply to themselves. In the following discussion I will use both “Sakai” and “Maniq”, depending on context. Many early travellers wrote accounts of the “Sakai” and “Semang” they encountered (for example, Brau 1883; de Morgan 1886 [1993]; Maxwell 1878, 1879), and a number of “classic” works discuss aspects of Sakai life and culture (for example, Skeat and Blagden 1906; Evans 1925, 1937; Schebesta 1927, 1954). General studies of the Orang Asli in Malaysia have been published more recently (for example, Williams-Hunt 1952; Carey 1976) and the careful ethnographic studies and theoretical approaches of Benjamin are outstanding in the field (for example, 1976, 1983, 1985, 1995, 2001). Classic studies of the “Negritos” in Thailand include the reports of Father Paul Schebesta who traversed the region in 1924–25, and the work of Professor Dr Hugo Bernatzik who visited the Phatthalung–Trang bands in 1924. Other early reports include those of Annandale (Annandale 1902, Annandale and Robinson 1903). Annandale in 1902 described the “Hami [hami?] Negritos” of Phatthalung Province as “a subject race of the Malays and Siamese” and also stated that Negrito slaves were in 1878 in the keep of Rajah Muda of Singgora (Songkhla) (Brandt 1961, p. 124). “Negrito bands” apparently existed in Perlis, on the border with Satun, but had died out or disappeared before the turn of the century (Brandt 1961). The position of the Maniq in southern Thailand today appears to be substantially different to that of their fellows living over the border in Malaysia. This is evident even in the terminology commonly used to describe them. Whereas the term “Orang Asli” in Malay implies “originality”, as compared with others who came more recently, the Thai usages have no such implication. The term “Ngoh” refers to fuzzy hair, like the outer skin of a rambutan fruit (“ngoh”) and, like “Sakai”, implies an absolute otherness to Thai-ness and an irreducible outsider status.10 Thais are perfectly comfortable with using these terms: I have never heard it suggested that to refer to people in this way is demeaning. The Sakais tend to be viewed as strange but cute, an attitude suffused with the same kind of superiority and evolutionism as marked the British attitude towards “primitives” everywhere. Use of the terms Orang Asli for the people and Aslian for the Mon-Khmer languages spoken by the Orang Asli is well established now in Malaysia, but cannot be used in

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Thailand (except in linguistic research). The term “Maniq”, mentioned earlier, is used almost exclusively by Sakais themselves: “Thai Maniq” are those who live in Thailand, “Melayu Maniq” those who live in Malaysia. People from Baan Sakai (discussed below) are aware of African and American blacks and count them as “African or American Maniq”.11 Thai attitudes towards Maniq, as is the case with most minority populations, is expressed largely in evolutionary terms, including by Thai scholars: These people lag behind very much in their civilization and culture. They inhabit the deep forest and have just learned a bit about planting ... I would like to define the word “Sakais” as the “Primitive men” because they have been inhabiting in the Malay peninsula longer than all other tribes. However they have a lower civilization and culture than other tribes because they adjust themselves very slowly to new environments. (Phaiboon 1984, p. 2.)

The anthropological and archaeological understandings commonly found in Thai University contexts, at least until recently, can also be glimpsed from Phaiboon’s account of the history of the Sakai: Some people believe that the Sakais migrated to the south of Thailand and the Malay Peninsula from the Sahara desert about 4,000 years ago (Chamnong Adiwathasit and Churi Chulaket, 2532, pp. 21–23) and there are others who believe that the Sakais came to live in the Malay Peninsula after the Semang did, and they may be the same band of the Vedda of the Langka island who migrated to live there a very long time ago. (Prathum Chumphengphan, 2519, p. 13.)12

The notion that the “Negritos” came originally from Langka appears to have originated from a report by Evans from a Phatthalung–Trang Negrito woman (mentioned in Brandt 1961, p. 124). Phaiboon concludes, using another source (Chaleum Khamphai 2521, p. 10) that the Sakais may have lived in southern Thailand from between 1,500 to 10,000 years. The extraordinary implications of this dating are not questioned. The older date suggests that the Sakais were present long before any possible notion of “Thai” or “Malay” occupation of the same area might be reasonably suggested. Conventional “Thai history” as understood in Thailand does not recognize any ethnic groups preceding the Thais. For example, many educated metropolitan Thais believe that the southern Muslim population arose from recent migrants to Thailand from “other places”, such as Persia, India, or Indonesia. The fact that they are continuous with the local Malay population on the other side of the border, and have merely been “cut off ” by the vagaries

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of territorial politics in the colonial era, is not understood, or perhaps more accurately, is resisted. In terms of the way local histories of the Maniq (such as they are) are expressed, random events and voluntaristic movements constitute the “explanations” for their present conditions. Phaiboon for example records that one middle-aged informant from Baan Thaanto (Mr Lui Srithanto) told him before he died that: when he was a child they used to live in Ban Thamthalu, Bannangsata13 district, Yala province. When the cholera ... spread into the village and caused nearly 100 people to die, the rest of them evacuated from there to live in the vicinity of Baan Tangkadeng of the same district. In 1964 they moved to the ground of Rubber Center, Thaanto district, Yala province. Before long, the Thaanto Self-help Settlement was set up and they have been living there at Baan Sakai since 1966” (Phaiboon 1984, pp. 113–14).

The Maniq populations in southern Thailand are incredibly small and fragile. A population demographer would almost certainly say that these are groups on the verge of extinction: they are far too small for continued reproductive viability, and are so isolated from one another that it is difficult to see even how one more generation could reproduce while maintaining a “Maniq” identity. However, it is clear that such an analysis with similar conclusions has been repeatedly made over the past century. Benjamin’s map of language groups in Peninsular Thailand indicates the areas over which the different Kensiu (Kensiw) and Jahai groups ranged in the past. Much of the map indicates that the groups are “extinct”. For the remaining few communities in southern Thailand, they seem to have remained in more-or-less the same areas for decades.14 As of 1997, Maniq still live in three quite separate areas. In Phatthalung–Trang three groups occupy separate but adjacent “territories”. Two bands live in Amphur Palian, in Trang province, several kilometres away from each other. Another band lives in Phatthalung province in the upland region between Amphur Kongra and Amphur Tamot. This group was videoed in the mid-1980s by a research team from the Institute of Southern Thai Studies in Songkhla. Many kilometres away, a very small group survives in southern Satun province near the Malaysian border, but separated from Malaysia by a range of hills. All of these groups seem to be “Tonga” (sometimes called Mos or Chong), which apparently is a dialect or language group identity, which today seems very uncertain.15 The Phatthalung, Trang, and Satun groups are classified together by Phaiboon (1984, p. 8) as speakers of “Tean-Ean” (that is, T3n?3n) dialect. Brandt uses the term “Tonga” but only

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for the Phatthalung and Trang groups and admits himself the term is “arbitrary” (1961, p. 130). Brandt provides considerable detail about these bands and the areas they lived in 1961 (1961, p. 131). None of these groups is formally “settled” and apparently they continue to live largely in the jungle. They do have contact with officials from time to time, however, and trade forest products for goods such as cloth from nearby settlers or traders. It might seem that these northern groups represent a population isolate, broken off from their original links as the engulfing of the jungle lowlands by agriculturalists (and others) occurred. The presence of many Malay loan-words in these groups was noted by Brandt (1961, p. 7). They are also familiar with southern Thai dialect, and the historical circumstances surrounding their survival and reproduction is at this stage a matter of conjecture. The other major groups of Maniq live just on the Thai side of the Thai– Malaysia border, in Yala province. One of these groups is now based in a “resettlement” village about halfway between Yala and Betong. There is one other group which may be living in the jungle straddling the border, of whom it is difficult to discover much, although they might also be the “Kintaks” mentioned by Brandt (1961, p. 130) who also reported a settlement of twentythree people on the upper Bongaw River at the base of Angae Mountain in Rangae district. This band had formerly ranged into Kelantan and had had contact with the Betong Negritos, but for the previous ten years had become “the ward [sic] of a rubber planter upon whom they seem almost completely dependent” (Brandt 1961, p. 133). Phaiboon (1948, p. 8) reports “Yahai” (that is, Jahai) speakers living in Wang and Sukhirin districts in Narathiwat province, and Brandt (1961) includes several photographs of people from Narathiwat and of a “Jahai Negrito” house in Rengae district, also of a woman of Rengae. More recent research by Bishop and Peterson (1993) did not confirm any Maniq in Narathiwat. These more southerly groups are clearly members of the much larger communities based in northern Malaysia indicated in Benjamin (1976, pp. 59–66) who have been separated by the arbitrary nature of the border. The border is in one sense merely a political concept (since there is nothing to stop the Maniq crossing it today via the numerous ancient jungle paths, not to mention by bus, taxi and car). But it has had a powerful effect on all those Maniq who are expected to remain more or less permanently on the Thai side, creating them as objects and subjects of the Thai state at the same time and subjecting them to pressures to fit the Thai model of the citizen-subject. The total population of Maniq in southern Thailand in 1992 would appear to be around ninety-one people.

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THE KENSIWS OF THAANTO ((“B BAAN SAKAI”)) “Baan Sakai” lies at the top of a remote valley abutting some of the little remaining natural jungle, about two kilometres from the Thai-Malay border in Yala province (in Moo. 3, Baan Rea village, Thaanto district). The complex cross-border relations between Thailand and Malaysia, at their most contentious during the period of the Emergency and its aftermath, have been heavily implicated in the traditional relations and practices of the Maniq in the area. Interviews with elderly residents of Yala and Betong towns revealed how important their contacts with Maniq had been during the early phases of settlement in the area, and subsequently. “Baan Sakai” as it is commonly known in the area is the only resettlement village16 of Maniq in Thailand and increasingly of recent times has been included in descriptions of the province in “official” sources, in Thai-language tourist guides and brochures, and in publicity for the four southern provinces and Yala in particular. Border Patrol Police (Tor Chor Dor) have a station nearby and access to the village can only be gained by permission from them, transmitted in many cases via the local district officials in Yala. However, it is easy for Thai tourists and visitors to turn up at any time and receive permission to visit. The road to the village is generally passable, and the whole area between the main road and the village itself is sprinkled with small farms, rubber plantations and a variety of local businesses; the inhabitants are largely Muslims and Chinese, with some Thais. The administrative arrangements of the village are complex, due to overlapping interests between the Public Welfare Department (within the Ministry of the Interior), the local Provincial Administration, the Border Patrol Police, and local officials. Population size seems to shift substantially. Phaiboon reports that in 1975 there were between fifty and sixty people there, but he says, “some of them died or moved to Malaysia”, and during 1984 there were only twenty left (Phaiboon 1984, p. 5, footnote 1). The maintenance of the population in the village is one of the principal problems of the local officials and it is clearly a struggle to keep people there.17 The resettlement village was established in late 1966 according to some sources, but in 1973 according to the account on the sign at the entrance to the village. This presents the “official” version of why the village was established, stating that the Department of Public Welfare gathered together the Sakais who had been scattered in the area of Amphur Betong and Amphur Bannang Star. A total of twenty-one families, comprising around fifty-two people, were to be settled here. The Public Welfare Department built them houses and granted them 300 rai of land suitable for good-quality rubber plantation in

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order to improve their way of life. Her Royal Highness the Queen Mother herself conferred the surname “Srithaanto” on the Kensiw.18 Actually, it is very difficult to put together the various accounts of the founding of the village. It was said by a local official that the origin-site of this population was the Bor Hin area. In the late 1950s they were taken to Thaanto, the rubber plantation experimental station, by the Jungle Survey Group (apparently, a division of the Army). The overwhelming importance of the Emergency in terms of disruption of the jungle-dwelling way of life is implicated but not recognized. The role of the Orang Asli in the Malayan Emergency has recently been analysed by Leary (1995). Even though it seems Sakais were rounded up and moved to the village with the intention that they should stay there, large numbers remained very visible throughout the area until the early 1970s. Personal communication from elderly people in Betong indicated that Sakais were often found selling roofing thatch or bamboo on the main road, clearing land in the villages and helping with work on the rubber plantations. It was only when the cross-border pursuit of Communists became constant that they disappeared from view. Almost certainly, the present resettlement village was established as a direct result of the complex politics of the region. It is clear that Sakai groups in this particular area would have been in a strategically important position, especially around Betong, given the penetration by the CPM members who were using that area as a base of operations well into the 1980s.19 However, the publicly presented reason for the resettlement was that it was intended to improve the poor quality of life of the Sakais, as part of the duties of a caring and protective state. The effort to turn the Maniq into rubber-farmers has not been very successful. Today, out of 300 rai, only around 150 remains, the rest having been traded off or sold to local farmers. Of the 150 remaining, only 50 can still be cultivated.20 Some Kensiws are employed as rubber tappers on other land, and might earn as much as 130 baht a day if they processed ten pieces. The average rubber worker in Betong would process around twenty per day. (Local incomes in the area appear to be very low in any case: the Muslim and Thai settlers nearby also have limited work and income.) The village tends to divide into two sections, the “top” section whose inhabitants have lived as much in Thailand as in Malaysia, and the lower section, where people have spent more time in Malaysia than in Thailand and tend to speak and understand Malay better than Thai. The current development solution, put forward since the early 1990s, has been to promote the village as a tourist attraction, and to this end a substantial budget was given to build a large concrete path into the village. It was

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thought that the people could have a stall where they could sell jungle herbs and souvenirs, and could give demonstrations of the blowpipe, traditional music, and dancing, and so on. Here is where the maintenance of the population is of such importance. For the village to function as a tourist attraction, it is important not only that people stay there but also that they continue to live in ways identifiably “Sakai”. For example, the traditional style of shelter of bamboo and palm leaves has been largely replaced by normal rural Thai-style houses made of timber and thatch or tin built on pillars. These houses were built by the Public Welfare Department in 1979 and have since been maintained and extended. A couple of examples of the old-style shelter remain in the village, but these are not apparently lived in, and seem to have been constructed for the benefit of visitors. Up until the early 1970s, the Maniq would go into market in Betong with jungle products for trade or sale, wearing their minimal traditional coverings, carrying woven bamboo bags and containers, and their blowpipes. Today they can sometimes be seen in Betong wearing sarongs or Western frocks, the men in shorts and shirts. Central to the Thai assimilationist credo is education. As occurs on many other border regions of Thailand, the Border Patrol Police established a local school in 1973, under the control of the General Headquarters Region 9 Songkhla. Currently, the school is run as a normal Thai school, with seven teachers and seventy students, from grade 1 to 6, the compulsory education period. The main emphasis in the school is on the inculcation of Thai values and the teaching of Thai language. As a result of two decades of occasional schooling in Central Thai dialect, many of the Maniq at Baan Thaanto are said to speak and understand Central Thai. The extent of this knowledge may not be great, however. Once again the frequency with which people cross the border into Malaysia means constant interruption in their schooling. When they go to Malaysia, the children do not go to school at all. It is reported that a number of people, adults and children, speak Malay much better than they do Thai. Because several shopkeepers and local landholders are Malay speakers, the Maniq are often exposed to Malay even in their home village. Although keen to visit kin and associates across the border, the Maniq will not stay in Malaysia because there is pressure on them there to become Muslims. The assistant headman reported that in the year 2522 (1979), the Malaysian soldiers who crossed into the Baan Thaanto region took all the Sakais with them back across the border, but they were fetched by the Thai Public Welfare Department and returned three years later. More recently, the population had dwindled by more than 50 per cent. However, in April 1993, Thai district officials once again went to bring them back from Malaysia. This was explicitly

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done with the intention that they should co-operate with the Tourist Authority of Thailand in setting up their village as a major tourist attraction. Thai language-use is increasing, and access to mass media clearly plays a part here. There were two television sets in the village in 1994. One had been set up as an official “village” set in a special sala (open-sided hall), but was later moved into the headman’s house. The other is down in the “Thai” part of the village where the Maniq are welcome to watch. It is hard to estimate the effects of exposure to Thai television. Certainly, people had clear viewing preferences which were the same as those of most other rural people in Thailand, namely, Thai boxing and sports programmes for men and soapies for women. Channel Seven was the preferred station. Malaysian television broadcasts cannot be received without a special booster, and there seems to be little interest in Malay popular music or cultural forms. Marriage is supposed to be band-exogamous, although how this might be measured given the apparent frequency of movement between groups and across the border is not at all clear. Nevertheless, the maintenance of the kinship universe requires Maniq to be able to continue moving freely. This exemplifies the dilemmas of indigenous minorities trapped between nationstates. In spite of the arbitrary nature of the border, severing traditional travel and trade routes, kinship networks, and patterns of movement thousands of years old, Maniq (especially those who have been given Thai identity papers) are being called upon to revoke their identity as Maniq, but to maintain it as a form of spectacle at the same time. Their long exposure to Malay language and institutions, and the fact that their closest kin live just a few kilometres away is ignored by the Thai state, which aims only to “settle” the Maniq and find some harmless occupation for them. The extent to which the very small surviving bands can survive into the future must be very uncertain. They are given no official recognition, tolerated in most contexts but equally ignored in terms of security of land holding, health, welfare, and the autonomy of their culture and language. On the other hand, Maniq have now survived several centuries of pressure of all kinds from their surrounding populations, and seem to have been able to sustain themselves to a quite extraordinary degree.

CONCLUSION The structure, symbolism, and functioning of the modern states of Southeast Asia exhibit certain parallels deriving from the colonial experience. Because the dominant lowland rice- and trade-dependent populations, with their associated economies and polities, had already established themselves centuries

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before the arrival of European powers, the struggles leading towards postcolonialism have been constructed in terms of “the West” as Other. The position of minorities, tribes and indigenous peoples has been substantially obscured or rendered insignificant. Nevertheless, in a strange kind of mimesis at the level of the state, the forms of colonial control experienced or imagined during the colonial period are mirrored back onto minority populations who are expected to conform to the demands of their “masters”, now administrators from élite groups of the dominant political and ethnic powers. Nevertheless, indigenous peoples throughout the region have activated, in their everyday lives, a vibrant mixture of accommodation and resistance. As the pressures on them increase, so too may the resistance increase. Today, the contemporary technological base provides means of communication and comprehension unthinkable only a decade ago. Internet links focusing on Fourth World issues, television, even the ordinary telephone, mean that what happens to a remote tribal minority is news the next day, news which is available to other minority groups also. The emergent sense of interconnection and common interest among indigenous, minority, and Fourth World peoples has been growing apace over the past decade. The recent events in West Kalimantan (1997, 2000) (where indigenous Dayaks clashed with Madurese migrants from another part of Indonesia) are testament to the reach of the media and the dangers inherent in policies of internal colonialism, of which the Indonesian Government’s transmigrasi scheme is the outstanding contemporary example. In southern Thailand, the remaining tribal groups are highlighted as attractive and interesting, quaint relics of an uncivilized jungle world, as against the dominant Malay-speaking Muslims who are characterized as terrorists and rebels. In Malaysia, very closely related groups are represented as peoples whose requirements in terms of land, space and economy are considered to present problems to the dominant models of state power. In neither Thailand nor Malaysia is there even a hint in official discourse that such populations should be recognized as having “rights” of the kind recognized elsewhere as arising from “native title”. What is the role of historical reconstruction in considering the possible legal recognition of a special status for indigenous, tribal, and minority peoples? In Southeast Asia, the concept of “indigeny” itself is problematic due to the long and little-understood mixing of populations and the lack of any clear “horizon” to provide a before-and-after perspective such as exists in Australia (see Benjamin 1995 and in this volume). Can the concept of “colonialism” be reserved only for the period of Western expansion, or was it a form of colonialism when farming and rice-growing peoples entered and

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occupied much of the lands of the earlier indigenous inhabitants? Do the consequences automatically extinguish their rights to land and lifeways? This becomes ever more pressing as development processes engulf the last of the more remote regions, displacing tribal and other indigenous groups yet again from access to areas necessary for the maintenance of their distinctive cultural and social systems. The postcolonial vision has been given strong support in those places where settler colonialism was so effective, and so disastrous. But, from the point of view of the indigenous peoples in many places, including Southeast Asia, it is difficult to see why their opportunities for recognition should be so occluded by localized representations of history and the imaginaries of the state. It should be clearly recognized that expectations of “assimilation”, or the hope that through education and rehousing the differences of such peoples will disappear, arises from a social Darwinian framework of civilizational superiority. If we repudiate evolutionary imaginaries, then we would recognize their rights to social, physical and enduring reproduction, no matter how small their populations or tenuous their hold on the material and physical world which permits their continued existence.

RESEARCH PROJECT AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This chapter draws on over twenty years of research among indigenous (“Aboriginal”) people in Australia, and the many issues which have been raised regarding indigenous rights over those years. The total transformation in terms of the legal recognition of the rights of people to land and compensation for dispossession has been astounding, going from zero in 1967 to the present situation where over 70 per cent of the land now has some form of native title pertaining to it. More recently I have been researching in urban and rural Thailand. The study from which this chapter arises is concerned with the impacts of new technologies and media on the multi-ethnic populations of the southern Thai-Malaysian border region. During the period February–June 1994 I worked in Yala province and was invited by a local official to visit “Baan Sakai”. I spent only one day there, but subsequently collected extensive oral histories from local townsfolk, farmers, traders and housewives which included specific questions about local peoples’ interactions with the Sakais. Research among the Maniq groups in Thailand is continuing. I would like to thank Macquarie University Research Grants Committee and the Australian Research Council for their support for work in Thailand. I would also like to thank the National Research Council of Thailand, and the many other people in Thailand who have materially and intellectually

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contributed to my work. Scholars at Chulalongkorn University, Thammasat University, and Prince of Songkhla University – Pattani have offered support and assistance as well as intellectual insight into the complex ethnic relations in the region. However interpretations and views offered here are those of the author.

NOTES 1. Postcolonialism was developed in literary and cultural studies to refer to certain kinds of writings, in particular the literatures of the ex-colonies. Sociological definitions have come to the fore recently, along with the recognition of diaspora and multiculturalism as an aspect of postcolonial social formations. There has been a constant shift in meaning to the point where some theorists are designating the United Kingdom and the United States as “postcolonial” largely due to the presence of immigrant ethnic minority communities. An important recent critique discusses the theoretical problems with this move and argues for a more restricted usage (Sharpe 1995). 2. Of course similar circumstances obtain in other Thai border regions, the bestknown being the “hill-tribes” along the upper western and northern border zones; see Wijeyawardene (1990). 3. I suggested the utility of this perspective in Hamilton (1991, p. 373, note 6). Recent works following this line of analysis are Grabowsky (1995) and Missingham (1996). 4. King Chulalongkorn, too, took a personal interest in the “Sakais” or “Ngoh Paa”. A youth named Kanang from Nawong District in Phatthalung Province became a page-boy at the King’s court. The King wrote a famous romantic drama, Bot Lakara Rueng Ngoh Paa, set among the Sakais in 1903. For a more detailed discussion of this work and its place in Thai culture, see Hamilton (1999) and Nathan Porath’s chapter in the present volume. 5. Thais generally refer to the language as “Jawi”, thus obscuring the fact that it is a dialect of Malay more or less identical to that spoken on the other side of the border in northern Malaysia. “Jawi” is the old Southeast Asian term for the Muslims of the region. Malays use the term jawi for the modified Arabic script in which Malay was written until recently, and which is still used in many Muslim contexts in the south. Arguments over what to call the language spoken by the southern Muslims frequently occur, for instance at the local university, where the different perspectives of Buddhists and Muslims (that is, Thais and ethnic Malays) often come into conflict. 6. See Kitti Ratanachaya (n.d.) for a detailed account of the way in which the armed struggle of the CPM was brought to an end, together with photographs of “old soldiers” who had been living in the jungle for over forty years. I was able to interview several of these men in 1995, but further research is required particularly on their relations with Sakais in the area.

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7. Today there are many Muslims who identify themselves as Thai and speak Thai (usually southern Thai) as their first language. The distinctiveness of the “Malayspeaking Muslims” is obliterated by labelling them “Thai Muslims” along with the others, although in terms of citizenship this is quite accurate. 8. More and more young women are wearing full hijab. See Chaiwat Satha-Anand (1994) for an outstanding discussion of this complex issue. 9. Chaiwat Satha-Anand reports (quoting a thesis written in 1984–85) that over 25 per cent of civil servants in the four southern provinces did not want to work there, one reason for which was concern for their own safety (1994, p. 300, footnote 6). 10. The association of the term Sakai with slave status is not currently recognized in Thailand, at least in everyday discourse. Conditions approaching enslavement, or a kind of ethno-dependency, no doubt obtained in what is now Thai territory, as in Malaysia. Some remarks on slavery appear elsewhere in this chapter, and see Endicott (1983) for a summary with respect to Orang Asli generally. 11. Personal communication at Baan Thaanto. A number of observations in this chapter arose from personal communications but due to the contentious nature of some, I have not named the persons from whom the information came. 12. These references are to historical accounts in Thai. I have not included them in references to the present paper, and am here quoting the author. 13. The spelling in English of this place-name is highly variable, to say the least. Many English speakers clearly hear it as Banang Star; Thai speakers as Banang Sata; and there are other variants. Banang is probably the Thai pronunciation of the originally Mon word that appears in northern Malay as bendang “wet-rice field” (Geoffrey Benjamin, personal communication). I have made no effort to standardize the spellings of this place-name. Place-name spellings are also a contested matter in the south, due to the different pronunciations in Malay and Thai. 14. Of course it is impossible to accurately ascertain the extent and degree of movement of people who normally move from place to place in the course of their economic and social life. I am indicating here merely that continuing reports suggest the presence of Maniq in certain general locations. No doubt this occurs because these are, except in the case of “resettlement villages”, the least attractive to other settlers, in the least accessible regions, and possess the most difficult characteristics for transport and communications. 15. On etymological grounds, “Tonga” (To7a?) appears to mean “middle”, and Mos (M0s) probably means “end”. These meanings fit well with the geographical positions of these groups in the Isthmus. Both are Austronesian words. (Geoffrey Benjamin, personal communication.) 16. “Resettlement villages” have been established all over the Thai border regions (and elsewhere within the Kingdom) as sites where otherwise “illegal” or uncontrolled families and groups can be incorporated within the administrative contexts of the State. Alternatively, impoverished people from overcrowded

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17.

18.

19.

20.

regions may be offered resettlement in border areas which are sparsely populated and considered actual or potential “security risks”. Land is usually allocated to new villagers as a result of Royal Development projects, or similar land redistribution schemes, and the intention is to provide the wherewithal for them to adopt a typical small-scale horticultural or agricultural way of life. The legal status of their land tenure, however, is not always clear. In many cases, they are not permitted to resell the land. In others, they obtain a limited form of titledeed which can be traded away or sold. In the case of Baan Sakai, the alienation of much of the land may have occurred as a result of illegal or unofficial dealings with other local farmers. The issue is highly contentious, as is so often the case with land-dealings in Thailand. Efforts to “settle down” peoples who have been nomadic hunter-gatherers preoccupy colonial powers everywhere. The constant movement of Aboriginal people in remote Australia, even those who were supposedly “settled”, created a constant headache for administrators and welfare staff. It was strange indeed to hear the same kinds of complaints among Thai officials in what seemed to be such different circumstances. Phaiboon (1984, p. 12) maintains that all other “Sakais” in Thailand take the same surname. I have seen no evidence that this is the case, although it may be the official expectation and used in government documents. One of the other fascinating tourist attractions being developed to promote Yala province is the underground headquarters of the CPM near Betong, a network of excavated caves and tunnels which were occupied until 1989. Information was provided by a local person with close personal knowledge of the situation in the village.

REFERENCES References to Thai writers are in accordance with customary Thai usage, that is, by first name rather than surname, except in cases where the writer is well known and frequently cited by surname, as in Tej Bunnag. Annandale, N. 1902. “Some Preliminary Results of an Expedition to the Malay Peninsula”. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 32: 407–17. ——— and Robinson, C. H. 1903. Fasciculi Malayenses: Anthropological and Zoological Results of an Expedition to Perak and the Siamese Malay States, 1901–2, Parts 1 and 2. Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool. Bernatzik, H. A. 1928. Die Geister der Gelben Blätter. Munich: F. Bruckmann. Benjamin, Geoffrey. 1976. “Austroasiatic Subgroupings and Prehistory in the Malay Peninsula”. In Austroasiatic Studies, Part 1, edited by Philip N. Jenner, Lawrence C. Thomson, and Stanley Starosta, pp. 37–128. Honolulu: University Press of Hawai’i. ———. 1983. “Peninsular Malaysia” and part of “Southern Mainland Southeast Asia” with notes. In Language Atlas of the Pacific Area, edited by Stephen A. Wurm and

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Shiro Hattori, Part 2, maps 37 and 38. Canberra: Australian Academy of the Humanities; Tokyo: The Japan Academy. Benjamin, Geoffrey. 1985. “In the Long Term: Three Themes in Malayan Cultural Ecology”. In Cultural Values and Human Ecology in Southeast Asia, edited by Karl L. Hutterer, A. Terry Rambo, and George Lovelace, pp. 219–78. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan. ———. 1988. “The Unseen Presence: A Theory of the Nation-State and its Mystifications”. National University of Singapore, Department of Sociology Working Papers No. 91. ———. 1995. “The Sociology of Indigeny”. Paper presented at Second ASEAN Inter-University Seminar on Social Development, Cebu City, Philippines, 28–30 November 1995. ———. 1997. “Issues in the Ethnohistory of Pahang”. In Pembangunan Arkeologi Pelancongan Negeri Pahang, edited by Nik Hassan Shuhaimi bin Nik Abdul Rahman et al., pp. 82–121. Pekan: Muzium Pahang. ———. 2001. “Process and Structure in Temiar Social Organisation”. In Indigenous Cultures and Heritage in Peninsular Malaysia, edited by Wazir Jahan Karim, pp 121–44. Penang: Malaysian Academy of Social Sciences. Bishop, Nancy, and Mary Peterson. 1993. “Maniq Language Survey Report”. TUSIL– LRPD, Bangkok: Thammasat University. Brandt, John H. 1961. “The Negritos of Peninsular Thailand”. Journal of the S iam Society 49, no. 2: 123–60. Brau de Saint-Pol Lias. 1983. Pérak et les Or ang Sakey, Voyage dans l’Intérieur de la Presqu’île Malaise. Paris: Plon. Bunnag, Tej. 1977. The Provincial Administration of Siam, 1892–1915: The Ministry of the Interior under Prince Damrong Rajanubhab. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Carey, Iskandar. 1976. Orang Asli: The Aboriginal Tribes of Peninsular Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Chaiwat Satha-Anand. 1994. “Hijab and Moments of Legitimation: Islamic Resurgence in Thai Society”. In Asian Visions of Authority, edited by Charles F. Keyes, Laurel Kendall, and Helen Hardacre, pp. 279–300. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. de Morgan, Jacques. 1993. Exploration dans la Presqu’île Malaise: Royaumes de Perak et de Patani. 1896. Reprint. Paris: CNRS and Pattani: Prince of Songkhla University. Endicott, Kirk M. 1983. “Slavery and the Orang Asli”. In Slavery, Bondage and Dependence in Southeast Asia, edited by Anthony Reid and J. Brewster, pp. 216– 45. Brisbane: Queensland University Press. Evans, I. H. N. 1925. “An Ethnological Expedition into South Siam”. Journal of the Federated Malay States Museums 12 [no pagination]. ———. 1937. The Negritos of Malaya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grabowsky, Volker, ed. 1995. Regions and National Integration in Thailand 1892–1992. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

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Hamilton, Annette. 1999. “The ‘Disappearing Sakai’: An Ethnological Mystery in a Post-Modern State”. Unpublished manuscript, Macquarie University, Sydney. Kitti, Ratananachaya, Gen. Dato. n.d. The Communist Party of Malaya, Malaysia and Thailand. Bangkok: Thailand Dungkaew Publishing House. Leary, John D. 1995. Violence and the Dream People: The Orang Asli in the Malayan Emergency, 1948–1960. Athens, OH: Center for International Studies, Southeast Asia Series No. 95, Ohio University Press. Luther, Hans V. 1995. “Regional Identity versus National Integration: Contemporary Patterns of Modernization in Northeastern Thailand”. In Regions and National Integration in Thailand 1892–1992, edited by Volker Grabowsky, pp. 183–91. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Maxwell, W. E. 1878. “The Semang and Sakai Tribes of the District of Kedah and Perak Bordering on Province Wellesley”. Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 1: 111–13. ———. 1879. “The Aboriginal Tribes of Perak”. Journal of the S traits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 4: 46–50. Phaiboon Duangchand. 1984. “A Phonological Description of the Kansiw Language (A Sakai Dialect)”. M.A. dissertation, Mahidol University, Bangkok. Reynolds, Craig J., ed. 1991. National Identity and its Defenders: Thailand, 1939–1989. Clayton, Vic.: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University. Schebesta, Father P. 1927. Bei den Urwaldzwergen von Malaya. Leipzig: Brockhaus. ———. 1954. Die Negrito Asiens. Vols. 1 and 2. Studia Instituti Anthropos. MödlingVienna: St-Gabriel Verlag. Skeat, W. W., and C. O. Blagden. 1906. Pagan Races of the Malay P eninsula. Vols. 1 and 2, London: Macmillan. Sharpe, Jenny. 1995. “Is the United States Postcolonial? Transnationalism, Immigration and Race”. Diaspora 2, no. 4: 181–99. Uhlig, Harald. 1995. “Southern Thailand and Its Borders”. In Regions and National Integration in Thailand 1892–1992, edited by Volker Grabowsky, pp. 211–31. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Wan Kadir Che Man. 1995. “National Integration and the Resistance Movement”. In Regions and N ational Integration in Thailand 1892–1992, edited by Volker Grabowsky, pp. 232–50. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Wijeyawardene, Gehan, ed. 1990. Ethnic Groups across National Boundaries in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Williams-Hunt, P. D. R. 1952. An Introduction to the Malayan A borigines. Kuala Lumpur: Government Press. Worawit Baru alias Ahmad Idris. 1995. “Tradition and Cultural Background of the Pattani Region”. In Regions and N ational Integration in Thailand 1892–1992, edited by Volker Grabowsky, pp. 195–209. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

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Reproduced from Tribal Communities in the Malay W orld: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives , edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles ar e available at < http://www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html >.

4 DEVELOPING INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES INTO SAKAIS South Thailand and Riau Nathan Porath

This chapter1 is concerned with two contemporary indigenous ethnic groups, who have come to be officially named Sakai. The first are a small Negrito population of ex-hunters and gatherers living in the southern region of the modern kingdom of Thailand. Their area was peripheral to the historical Malay kingdom of Patani. Today, their area is located in the Thai border province of Yala. The second group are a larger population of descendants of indigenous Malay woodsmen living in the peripheral forest of the Malay kingdom of Siak. Today, they live in the Indonesian province of mainland Riau, on the east coast of Sumatra, between the modern towns of Duri and Pekanbaru. The southern Thai Negritos were traditionally nomadic hunters and gatherers. The Riau indigenes were sago- and (sometimes) rice-swiddeners and forest-produce collectors. They also engaged in gathering fish from the rivers of the area, and hunting and trapping wild animals. The Negritos were, and some still are, lean-to dwellers. The Sakais of Riau would traditionally build their houses as rectangular thatched rooms on stilts sometimes two metres high. The Negritos are usually considered to be genetically distinct from the surrounding populations2 and they speak Mon-Khmer, not 97

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Austronesian or Tai, languages. In the migratory-wave approach still widely followed in the region, the Sakais of Riau are considered to be “Proto-” or indigenous Malays; their languages are Austronesian, being Malay dialects. Both peoples are characterized as Orang Asli in certain contexts.

RECONSIDERING THE NAME SAKAI The name Sakai is an exonym, a name given to one population by another. It seems that in the past the name Sakai was a cover-all term used for a certain type of population not very well understood, living in the forests peripheral to the Malay kingdoms. Malays had various terms for the forest-dwelling peoples, but the dominant one seems to have been Sakai (Skeat and Blagden 1906, p. 22). In the anthropological literature, the term Sakai has been characterized as having disparaging connotations. Already in Annandale and Robinson (1903, p. 1) the name was taken as a term of abuse. Dentan (1968, p. 2) conveyed this nicely in his monograph on the Semais of Malaysia, who have also been called Sakai. He writes that the term expressed that they were nothing more than Sakai “and despicable pagans to boot”. However, Skeat and Blagden (1906, p. 22) suggest the possibility that the word may derive from sakhi, the Sanskrit word for “friend”. They also remark that sakai was used to mean “retainer” or “follower of a chief ”. This would give the name a rather more positive original meaning, such as may have been used by the original kingdom builders who may have had alliances with the various forest tribes of the time. If this was indeed the case, then the name Sakai received its more negative connotations not from any original meaning it may have had, but from the way it came to be used later. Although the term Sakai was used as a cover-all term for the diverse tribes, it seems that the Negritos were commonly referred to by other names, such as Semang, which some authors seem to think associated them with simians. (See, for example, Annandale and Robinson 1903, p. 1, footnote 2.)3 There is the clear case of Portman (1899, p. 29), the late nineteenth-century colonial administrator of the Andaman Islands, who brought a group of Andamanese Negritos to Penang. He wrote that Malays crowded in on the Andamanese, wanting to see what they called Hanuman. I. H. N. Evans (1925, p. 53) pointed out a Thai association of the Negritos with monkeys through the Ramayana epic. He further suggested that the Phatthalung/Trang Negrito origin-myth telling that they were descendent of monkeys transformed into human beings may have its origin in the local Thai perspective. It is interesting, however, to point out that according to Annandale and Robinson (1903, p. 1, footnote 1) the Negritos of Patani were called Pangan, not Semang,

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by the Malays. Apparently, there was a suggestion at the time that this name derived from the Malay word panggang “to roast”: the Malays had supposedly associated the Negrito darker complexion with a mythical fire that burnt their skin. This was dismissed by Skeat and Blagden (1906, p. 21, footnote 1), who considered its possible origin from a northern Borneo word (pangan) for “friend”.4 However, the Negritos of Yala do have an origin-myth which recounts that their ancestors were from a part of humanity which fled from an original fire. In panic they ran in the direction of the flames, getting burnt in the process and left with black skin. It is because of negative connotations and rejection by the tribal population that these names, and especially the name Sakai, have been rejected by Malaysian officialdom. Instead, the more respectable Orang Asli (“indigenous people”) is used, which characterizes the population as original and native to the land. In Thailand, however, Thais do not see the Negritos as indigenous. The problem has a simple nationalist logic: how could the Negritos be indigenous to the land of the Thais? Of course, in Thailand the four southern provinces of Pattani, Yala, Satun and Narathiwat, territory that originally comprised the Patani kingdom, are not officially considered Malay, but “Thai Islam”. Since the Negritos are neither Thai nor Thai Islam, then their ancestors must have originally come from Malaysia or elsewhere. Traditionally, Thais had their own name for the Negritos which was Ngo Paa: ngo means “rambutan” and paa means “forest”. The association of the Negritos with the rambutan is because of their curly hair, which the Thais think resembles the curly hair of the fruit. It is reasonable to assume that the name Sakai was taken from Malay, perhaps via the colonial literature, during the 1950s and 1960s when the Thai administration had to come to terms with the fact that there was such a population still living within their borders. At the time, the military were fighting communists in the jungle and happened to bash a few Negrito bands by mistake (Onwong 1991, p. 220). As far as I know, modern Thais do not generally know that the name Sakai comes from the Malay language. “Sakai”, when used in Thailand, has primitivist associations. It is used for the tribal forest population living in the south. It is a racial term, as it is applied only to the Negritos and not to the tribal people of the northern provinces of the country. It is also the name used in Thai academic and popular documentary writings on them. The name Ngo Paa is also used, but has more traditionalist associations with royal courts, kings and princes, demons and other forest marvels. Ngo Paa also appear in Thai television soap-operas as magical allies of royalty.5 It is however common to also hear today both names combined, as “Ngo Paa, Sakai”.

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The Negrito peoples of the Thai/Malay Peninsula did not call themselves Sakai. In fact, they eschewed it. Traditionally and still today, they have called themselves Maniq or Meniq (m9ni?), which means “people”, i.e., themselves. This name is present in the colonial literature but was never taken seriously, being given a somewhat footnote status. I shall use this name in the rest of this chapter, however. Another word for “people” is Hamiq (hami?), which refers to everybody who is not Meniq, such as the Malays, Thais and the reader (if not a Meniq). For the small Meniq population in Yala, the term has been stretched to incorporate not only themselves (that is, Negritos) but also the sea tribes (Moken, Moklen, Urak Lawoi’) of Thailand, and the Semais, Temiars, and others of Malaysia. I was told that Meniq are the people whom the Hamiq come to see and ply with such questions as “how do you eat?”, “how do you sleep”, and “what is your religion?”. For the Meniq of Yala, the name Meniq has come to be synonymous with the Malaysian term Orang Asli. Although this chapter is concerned only with the settled Meniq of Yala, I should mention briefly the semi-nomadic forest-dwelling Meniq of Trang province. This small group also call themselves Meniq. Here the name refers to the people of the few related bands on the Trang/Phatthalung Banthat mountain range. However, they also use the name to refer to other people of similar appearance to them whom they know to exist elsewhere (that is, Negritos) but with whom they do not have a relationship, as for example the Meniq in Yala. The name, however, does not refer to an imagined pan-Meniq community, all sharing the same culture, economic pursuits and immediate economic process – as the names Sakai or Orang Asli seem to assume. Their world is one of different peoples (Meniq) with differing relationships to each other and to the Hamiq. In Trang, when the Meniq talk about “Meniq” they are actually talking about themselves – the immediate people (m9ni?) they live and share their lives with. The name is further used in contradistinction to Hamiq. Whereas the Meniq of Yala freely use the name Sakai but drop it once crossing over to Malaysia, the Meniq in Trang totally reject the name and may even get angry when they hear it said. With respect to the Sakais of the Indonesian province of Riau, the indigenous population have come to accept the name Sakai, but with some reservation – or at least they mention that only recently have they come to accept it. They prefer to be called Orang Asli. In the past they called themselves simply Orang Batin or the “batin people” (that is, people with a batin [headman]). Over the past twenty years they have been settled into more permanent villages and state development projects. They have also experienced the influx of transmigrant villagers whom they consider as more

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maju (“developed, advanced”) and therefore richer than they. As a consequence of stigmatization by outsiders through their total exposure to them, the Riau indigenes have generally come to see their traditional way of life and culture as one of backwardness and poverty. The desire not to be different and not to be seen as terkebelakang (“backward”) or terasing (“outsiders to” or “separated from” broader Indonesian society) has led the Sakais of Riau to refer to themselves simply as Orang Kampung (“villagers”). However, I have heard the word Sakai sometimes used by them to refer to other Indonesian tribespeople whom they have heard about or seen on television, such as the Sakai Bonai, Sakai Mentawai, and Sakai Dayak. In such recent usages, the name Sakai (as with the word Meniq) has been broadened and given the modern definition of Orang Asli-hood. To conclude this section and bridge it to the next, I would like to take up the traditional association of tribespeople with monkeys that occurs in the Ramayana epic that represents within its unfolding narrative the structure of kingdomhood found in one form or another throughout Southeast Asia. Prince Rama entered the forest after being forced to leave the royal centre, and there he met Hanuman and the tribe of monkeys who helped in his battle against the demons. Hanuman served many purposes for prince Rama – Rama’s knowledge and map of the forest, his magical strength, his spy, and his medicine monkey. In this relationship, he served as an aid to the future king at his moment of obscurity and need. If the word sakai did indeed originally mean “friend” and/or “follower of a chief ”, then one can say that Hanuman the monkey was a true sakai. But these are tales of kingdomhood and not the modern nation-state.

MARVELS OF THE FOREST Historically in Southeast Asia, forest-dwelling peoples, like the various Negrito groups, were considered marvellous in themselves. Some were said to be cannibal monstrosities. The Andamanese were the prime example: their image as dwarf black island-dwelling man-eaters even entered extra-local thought in the “Arabian Nights”, and later in the Sherlock Holmes story “The Sign of Four”. There were others, like the Malayan forest Negritos, who may not have been seen as cannibals, but were still sensationalized through association with other fabulous forest-people, with tails, fangs and the like (Miklucho-Maclay 1878, p. 216). These people were believed to inhabit the forests, seen only fleetingly, but not really known. The Negritos, of course – although they engaged in exchange and trade with the surrounding populations and were commonly

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seen in local villages – may also have presented a somewhat sensational sight. However, these were not the same Negritos as those who managed to keep their autonomy in the forest. Attempts at capturing forest people were common. Their fear and shyness of surrounding populations is attributable to this historical experience (Endicott 1993). Forest people could nevertheless utilize their knowledge of the forest to maintain their autonomy from the surrounding dominant population (Dodge 1981, p. 3; Leary 1994, p. 97). The more autonomous they were, the more sensational – and as such, objects of royal curiosity. It was common for kings and local rajahs to collect the various uncommon beings of the forest. The most well known to Europeans was the white (albino) elephant, which was believed to have mystical power (sakti ) in its very being; it was seen as auspicious to have as many of them as one could obtain. Collecting and controlling white elephants would add to the king’s sakti and his personal cult of glory. Baby albino elephants would even be suckled by ladies from the royal families. Other animals sought were the white crow and the white monkey, associated respectively with Garuda and Hanuman (Quaritch Wales 1992, p. 282). The king would surround himself with other characters that piqued his curiosity. Common were albino men and women, dwarfs, and other individuals with an uncommon appearance. Peripheral forest-dwelling people were another royal collector’s item. The individuals so “collected” would sidestep hierarchical society to become royal pages and be directly adopted by the king. They were also given to other royal courts as gifts and prizes. Catching and collecting forest beings, be they people or animals, and bringing them under direct control to the power centre may have been seen as not only tapping into external sources of mystical power (sakti ) but as preventing others from doing so (Anderson 1972, pp. 12–13). The forests were inhabited by other people seeking refuge from the kingdom, such as tax evaders, the discontented, and the rebellious. In the traditional Southeast Asian state imagination, forests were shelters for aspiring princes and rulers seeking a throne. The Ramayana/Ramakien story was based on this political reality. In the Sangthong story, a royal theatre play structured on this theme, the young prince is cast out of his future kingdom and ends up in the forest, nursed by a demoness. One day he discovers the costume of Ngo Paa (Negrito). When Sangthong puts on the costume, consisting basically of a mask and a blowpipe, the beautiful golden prince took on the appearance of a Negrito. It also gave him special powers, which brought about the death of his adopted demon mother and his release from the forest. The power of the costume also enabled him to regain his kingdom.

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In the traditional Southeast Asian state imagination, the forest was not only the breeding-ground of usurpers and social misfits, but also the habitation of marvellous beings who would aid these would-be troublemakers. One means of attempting to control this situation was for the local king to keep a number of tribesmen close by, at court. This may have allowed the establishment of an alliance between the local power-centre and some of the forest tribes. The local rajah could grant protection to the tribes within their specific forest territory, thus bringing them and the forest they inhabited within his political orbit. (See, for example, Anonymous 1878, p. 113.) At the turn of the century, the rulers of the two southernmost Thai provinces, Nakon Si Thammarat and Songkhla (Malay: Singgora) had Ngo Paa at their courts. The rajahs of the Malay tributary states such as Patani also had Semang (or Pangan) individuals at their palaces (Brandt 1961, p. 4).

THE NEGRITO AND THE KING OF SIAM The modern political turning point for Siam and the kingdoms peripheral to it, was the late nineteenth century under the rule of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V). By the end of his reign, in 1910, Siam had managed to secure independence from the surrounding colonial powers and transform itself into a modern bordered nation state with Bangkok as its permanent political centre (Wyatt 1984, p. 212).6 During the first decade of the twentieth century, King Chulalongkorn travelled to South Siam. In Nakon Si Thammarat he was introduced to a Negrito couple who aroused his interest. The King requested that a Negrito child be sought and sent to his court in Bangkok. A search was held and an orphan boy by the name of Kanang from the Phatthalung forests was sent to the king. A contemporary royal account described the ceremonial procedure of taking Kanang from the forest and sending him to king Chulalongkorn as being similar to the ritual treatment given to a white elephant. (See Duangjan 1988.) Thus the child of the peripheral forests was ritually transformed into a person living in the heart of the country. At the King’s residence, Kanang was nursed by one of the royal ladies of the palace. The boy was to stay at the palace until the King’s death, after which he was sent away to live another three years slowly dying of grief (Schebesta 1973, p. 265). During the period that Kanang lived with King Chulalongkorn, he was generally considered as the King’s adopted son (Duangjan 1988). At the court, Kanang was taught how to dance and play the part of the Negrito in the Sangthong play, and he became the regular actor of this role in performances before the king’s guests. The sensational moment in the drama is when Prince

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Sangthong takes off his “ugly” Negrito mask to reveal his beautiful noble self. The audience was shocked to see that under the mask was a real live Ngo Paa. The king also had a large number of photographs taken of Kanang, which were sold. The money went partly to the boy for his future keeping and partly donated to the state temple (Duangjan 1988). On the basis of this relationship King Chulalongkorn wrote a story or long poem entitled Ngo Paa. One of the characters of the story was named Kanang. The Negrito child was thus immortalized into Thai literary culture. The story tells of a Negrito love triangle in which the two heroes compete for the heroine, and all three die in the end. The structural theme of the story does not concern itself with centre-periphery relations, dispossessed princes and marvellous beings of the forest. King Chulalongkorn based the poem on the introduction of a new kind of modern writing of the time – ethnography. He prefaces the play with a few pages of what he claimed to be ethnographic facts about Ngo Paa, which he obtained from Kanang, and intended to help the reader understand the cultural context of the story. He also gave a short Negrito–Thai word list. One of the statements made has left a lasting image in the mind of modern Thais, namely that Ngo Paa like to wear red cloth. Red cloth was so prized, he claimed, that it was used as a bride price. He further claimed that they liked to wear flowers in their hair and around the ears, and that the men hunt with blowpipes. The idea of the Negrito appreciation of the red colour also came from the word Ngo itself. The traditional Thai notion was that the curly-haired Ngo Paa like to wear red because they identify with the curly-haired red rambutan fruit that they also relish. This conception was already around during the reign of Rama II, the author of the Sangthong story. This poet-king seems to have been fascinated by the idea of ugliness harbouring beauty inside: the rambutan fruit was a good example of this. As already hinted, the Sangthong story also played on this theme too – the beautiful golden prince masked by the ugly Negrito. King Chulalongkorn introduced the already traditional Thai conception of Ngo Paa into his poem and the introductory ethnographic piece. Modern Thais are aware of the popular image of the red-clad, curlyhaired blowpipe-wielding Negrito. Children are already taught at an early age the Sangthong and Ngo Paa stories at school. Children’s fairy-tale versions of the royal stories are illustrated by colourful images of Ngo Paa. In conversation about Sakais, people will immediately state with confidence that “Sakai like to wear red” and “like to eat Ngo”. The physical appearance of the Negrito is also predictably mentioned.7

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A PERFORMING “TRIBE” OF SOUTH THAILAND Unsuccessful attempts at settling the border-roaming Negritos in Yala province were made in the early 1960s, but by the early 1970s they had been settled in what came to be called Muban Sakai, “Sakai village”. The Negrito presence had become a political issue in the state’s fight against forest-based communists, for the forest Negritos knew where their forest camps were, and at times had even aided them.8 Thus, caught between the communists and the government’s soldiers, and suffering from declining land to forage in, the small bands of Negritos were persuaded out of the forest. Since the 1970s they have been living a settled life, migrating once a year by bus to Kampung Lalang in Kedah, Malaysia, in search of work and to visit relatives and friends. Their presentday economy is based on cutting and selling rubber from state-donated rubber trees, engaging in low-wage labour, selling herbal medicines and, most important for our purposes, performing Ngo Paa, Sakai. The Negritos of Yala are invited to various parts of the country to perform at schools, fairs, department stores, and audience halls. From photographs they showed me, it is apparent that by the 1980s they were already being given red T-shirts to wear in their Bangkok presentations so as to associate them with the red-clad Ngo Paa. By the early 1990s they had accumulated many lengths of red cloth, given to them in the belief that they like to wear red. These they wear for their various performances: the men wrap them around their waist in the classic Thai manner, while the women wear a red dress with a red flower in their hair. An important display item in these performances is the blowpipe. The performances are of various types: a large group of Negritos may set up lean-tos and do some cooking in bamboo tubes in a show of domestic life; popular ethnographic films may be shot in natural locations; or some individuals may present their “Negrito selves” at some local event. The Negritos may also be joined by local Thais dressed in red, with bodies painted black. In these Negrito performances, each individual has a role to play: setting up a makeshift lean-to, making a fire, or constructing a musical instrument. Once they have done their bit, they sit at the side (although they then might be asked questions by members of the audience). Members of the audience ask questions about the Negrito culture. The performers know exactly what to answer in accordance with what they know the “Hamiq” audience wants to hear. The following is a somewhat comic characterization given to me by the Meniq of the discourse that ensues, and it conforms to what I have seen and heard myself.

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“Do you like to wear red?” They answer submissively, “krup”, the polite Thai word for affirming what is being asked. “Do you like to eat rambutan fruit?” They answer “krup”. The questions move on to other cultural features, such as eating habits, sex and marriage customs. Finally, of course, the nationalist question: “How is your settled life in the Thai village today?” They answer, “it was difficult once finding food in the forest but now we have everything we want.” Then, “so your life is comfortable now?” and the answer is of course “krup”.

On one such occasion, a man who was already drunk answered the repeated Thai questions about their marriage customs by claiming that the woman goes to the top of the hill and the man then has to run after her and catch her. This innovative description was based on some mistaken information given to me by a Thai a week earlier which I was now trying to have confirmed. But I had never asked this particular Meniq man about the issue. It seems that within a space of a week or so, the mistaken ethnographic description had become another “what-Hamiq-think-of-us” item, and therefore appropriate knowledge to convey back to them. When the Meniq returned to the village there was laughter at his ridiculous answer. A Meniq friend told me that the first time he went to such a performance, he was amazed to hear all the older people in turn answering questions with the affirmative “krup”, when he knew that their answers were not true. But when his turn came, he too had answered “krup”. In return for all these “krup” answers, they receive money, a large bag of rice, salt, sugar, canned fish, clothing and blankets, and meals for the day. These occasions also give the Meniq a chance to sell their herbal medicines, for which one local Thai has been helping them to develop a mail-order system. Negrito material culture may also be collected. Items such as blowpipes are usually given by the performers as “gifts”, in exchange for the gift commodities given to them. However, in effect, the Negritos are seen as not really having a true culture – or, rather, their culture is seen as too primitive to be considered a culture for contemporary Thai primitivists. In one museum, which purports to represent the cultural history of South Thailand, the Negritos are represented by a single broken blowpipe and dart-quiver. Modern young Thais will collect cultural tourist items from the northern hill tribes for their own personal and home adornment, but not from the Meniq. Objects made by the Meniq out of bamboo are seen as nothing more than bamboo, while their woven products are seen as children’s versions of what Thais themselves can do. When items are bought, it is not out of any primitivist

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aesthetic value, but to help the Meniq out financially. Recently, though, there has been some encouragement by concerned local Thais – of whom there are many – to persuade them to produce and sell their traditional artefacts as a source of extra income. There is, however, one place in Culture where the Meniq do feature. In the cultural paraphernalia shops one can see or rent traditional Malay, provincial Thai, and Central Thai clothing and artefacts. The Negritos are also represented in these shops – as a little puppet doll alongside Hanuman, Prince Rama, demons, and other characters from royal Thai theatre plays, all of which are part of high Thai culture. The Negrito population of South Thailand has been “developed” into what Thais think them to be – Ngo Paa, Sakai, a primitive people who like to adorn themselves in red. They are thus representatives of Thai cultural property. It is no wonder therefore that whenever the Meniq disappear to Malaysia with the intention of not returning, their prolonged sojourn prompts the local Thai authorities to send a truck to bring them back.9 I would like to conclude the section on Thailand on a different note. All the Meniq of southern Thailand are officially under royal Thai protection and patronage, and they occasionally receive visits from members of the royal family. Thus the traditional royal/tribal relationship has been brought into a new modern dimension that I believe works in the indigenous peoples’ favour. During these meetings, Meniq can sidestep Thai bureaucracy and present their situation directly to the royal patron. I understand that these meetings are fruitful, as they place certain pressures on the local authorities, who may be concerned with other issues, to focus seriously on the Meniq situation. I also feel that there are many Thais from all walks of life who, in their own way, are sensitive to the embodied cultural difference of the Meniq. After all, the Meniq of the Phatthalung/Trang hills were still, in the early 1990s, forest-based roaming hunters and gatherers. Moreover, Thai visitors would speak in a very soft voice in their presence and avoid using the words “Sakai” and “Ngo Paa”. Here, the negotiated term is chow paa “forest folk”. Also, during the 1990s there were some Thai writers who were concerned with the Yala situation. For example, Chip Panjan (1992), writing about the Negritos of Trang, ends his short book with an imaginative story of a displaced Meniq who is taken around the country to perform savagery. The story is reminiscent of late nineteenth-century descriptions of wolf-boy shows. In the context in which it was written, it is clearly a subtle critique of the “Performing Negrito” phenomenon (p. 119).

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FROM MAGIC PEOPLE OF THE WOODS TO POSSESSORS OF INDIGENOUS RIAU CULTURE When I started my research in Riau I was taken to the Riau Centre for the Arts (Balai Dang Merdu) in Pekanbaru. At centre stage was an elderly woman dressed in modern rural Malay fashion with her hair covered. She was from the Bonai population, an indigenous people neighbouring the Sakais. The woman had been brought to town to perform traditional Bonai songs about the past. At one point she stopped and asked for her plastic bag to be circulated: she would not continue until the bag was full of banknotes. In justification she said, “once culture was important, today money is”. What was an Orang Asli woman doing on stage before an audience of Malay academics, students, and writers? The answer was given at the end of the performance, when a number of Malay women warmly embraced her. By this act the Malay women were expressing a sororal unity with the indigenous Bonai woman, based on their belief that they shared a single origin – which, in effect, she was seen as representing. Her songs were thought to be of value not because they were Bonai songs, but because they were indigenous Riau songs. Malay interest in the Riau Orang Asli is an expression of what one Dutch author has called a “burgeoning Riau Malay consciousness” (Derks 1994, p. 60). Riau cultural awareness is of a Malay province, within the state of Indonesia but descended from historically independent Muslim Malay kingdoms. The Orang Asli are included within this modern Riau-Malay cultural entity even though they were historically peripheral non-Muslim forest peoples, because they have recently “entered Melayu-dom” more fully by becoming Muslims. The Riau Malay awareness of the Riau “primitive” is a modernist development, linked nevertheless to a more traditional view of the indigenes as possessors of strong magic. Malays (and Minangkabaus) have a fear of showing repulsion at having Sakais in front of them, slipping in their courtesy towards them, or unintentionally offending them. There is a fear that the Sakais will use their magic to possess the offender, making him leave the comforts of home, family, loved ones, and Islam to follow the Sakais in a way of life which the offender had denigrated. Moreover, Malays also fear that a Sakai might take a fancy to one of them when they visit, and bewitch them into marriage. Simply put, Malays (and Minangkabaus) are takut ikut Sakai (“scared of following Sakais”). (Chou [1995] and Wee [1988] discuss similar attitudes and beliefs held by the Island Riau Malays towards the indigenous sea people.) Because the Sakais are forest-dwellers, they are considered to be living

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closer to nature and believed to have knowledge of other realities and ways of controlling the natural world. For Muslim Malays, however, magic itself is morally neutral; what is a moral concern is whether magic is put to use for purposes acceptable by Islam or not. As Sakais were traditionally not Muslims, their magic was generally considered by Malays as “black” and outside the realm of what is permitted by Allah. Since Malays see the Sakais as representing what Malays were like before they “developed” and masuk Islam (entered Islam), “going Sakai” would be an absurdity – a backward turn. People who marry Sakais or decide to live with Sakais may sometimes be considered by the nonSakai villagers and many townspeople as having been bewitched by them. Provencher (1971, p. 188), writing on Malay communities, tells us that relationships between households are based on the “social faith” between them. Following Provencher, we may say that Malays do not fully credit social faith to all Sakais, whose relationship to Islam may seem questionable. However, this does not stop at the Malay–Sakai ethnic borders. Malay fear of Sakai magic and bewitchment is not merely the imposition of otherness on a seemingly exotic community. Similar fears exist among the Sakais themselves with regard to other Sakais and other indigenous populations. More affluent Sakais may warn of bewitchment by Sakais living in poorer settlements. A group of sisters who have married non-Sakai husbands may be accused of having used magic to obtain them. A woman who feels strong desires for a shaman’s son may make a mild allegation that he may have bewitched her by using magical knowledge learnt from his father. Young men and women who move between settlements may use love potions (minyak pemanih “sweetening oil”) and spells (monto) to make themselves bewitchingly radiant in the presence of desired others. Sakais may even explain the Chinese–Sakai marriages of the past as resulting from the use of magic by the indigenous women on the affluent Chinese merchants. Whereas Malays fear Sakai magic, Sakais recognize it as a fact of their everyday existence. Although Sakais may warn of other people’s magic, I received the impression from conversations with them that individuals would not hesitate to use it themselves if they had to. One possibility is using it when meeting a socially superior outsider, so as to make the other lean towards favouring the user of the magic. The use of magic against others is justified by Sakais on the basis of those others’ arrogant stance towards them. Hence, magic serves the Sakais as a “power of the weak” against outsiders’ disparaging and stigmatizing attitudes. The best prevention against possession by Sakai magic is believed to be a strong faith in Allah or a strong conscious rationality. Even if one does get possessed or bewitched through Sakai magic, it is one’s faith or rationality that will provide the return path.

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Historically, the one person who could successfully use the Sakais’ magical knowledge was the Sultan. As the head of a Muslim state, he was in theory an exemplary Muslim. Thus, if he were to use Sakai magic for sakti purposes, his high religious status would temporarily lend political and Islamic legitimacy to his actions. I was told that Sakais used to refer to, and thereby justify, their magical knowledge as olemu tangan ki ’i, “left-hand knowledge”. (To the ordinary Malays it was “black” magic.) The Sakais and other Riau Orang Asli can thus be said to have served as the magical left hand of the Riau Sultans. As such, the tribal people were important to the Sultans, both within their kingdoms and in the petty strife that occurred between them. By the turn of the century, Sultan Syarif Hasyim of Siak (1889–1908) had the Sakais organized into administrative areas called pebatinan (“headmandom”). Each batin – as the Sakais called it – covered a stretch of forest territory siding onto the river which gave the area its name. In turn, these locality names were applied to the forest-dwellers living there, who were seen as part of a general cultural totality referred to as Sakai. Thus, for example, the forest-dwellers living in the inner administrative area of Paoh (Pebatinan Paoh) were termed Sakai Batin Paoh by the administration of the Malay kingdom of Siak. In modern Indonesia, the traditional pebatinan have become area villages, inhabited by Sakai and Malay minorities and Sumatran migrant majorities. Earlier in the present century it was discovered that the Sakai area was rich in oil. Nowadays, the most common sights in the area are logging and oil trucks, oil pipes, oil rigs, well-maintained dirt roads, yellow Caltex cars, and the office-working Indonesian middle class (usually of Javanese descent) who drive them. Every so often, middle-class people pay visits to the poorer Sakais. Handouts of clothes, cakes, powdered milk, instant noodles and other items are given. Questions about their culture and way of life are asked. Jokes are made, sometimes at the expense of Sakai culture and probably as a means of easing the visitors’ culture shock in circumstances very different to their own. Similar to the Thai situation, photos are taken and video films are made, later to be shown on internal Caltex television for their own departmental promotion. The Sakai groups tolerate these visits in the hope that pembangunan (development) will follow, as it has done with other groups. After President Soeharto stepped down from office in 1998, there was a growing Malay concern with the Orang Asli groups. The newly appointed Governor of Riau, who is of local Malay origin, granted a small stretch of ancestral pebatin land to one dispossessed Sakai group trying to revitalize their pebatin traditions (see Porath 2000). He also granted a sum of money to a group of Malay students to carry out a survey of the Sakai area. Interestingly,

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when on 15 March 1999 Dr Tabrani Rab declared the independence of Riau, he invited a number of indigenous elders to be present, presumably to symbolically represent Riau indigeny. This again is reminiscent of the traditional Malay-nobleman/tribal relationship, but in a modern form.

AND RED AGAIN: KESUMBO The Sakai picture today is rather diverse and socially complicated. Most of the thirteen pebatins do not exist anymore. Yet, in recent years there have been attempts by descendents of particular pebatins to revitalize their customary relationship to the land within the limits of Islam and the national ideology of development. A well-known and successful revitalization attempt is that of Pebatin Sebanga, north of Duri. The headman of this development settlement was the beneficiary of an earlier educational development programme that sponsored the education of some Sakai children. After working many years for the area’s oil company, he took an early retirement and set himself the task of creating a Sakai settlement with government and Caltex sponsorship. Today, this settlement has become an example for Sakai development possibilities. Caltex also granted a large sum of money to build a Sakai museum exhibiting and promoting Sakai culture. The museum, pretty though it may be, seems to have presented the idea that the Sakai ethnic colour is red, kesumbo. The most spectacular aspect of the museum is its building, which purports to be a Sakai house, and just in front of it, a maiden’s watchtower (maligai). They called the house Balai Kesumbo (the Red Hall). Sometimes Western and Indonesian Caltex workers visit this museum. Settlement Sakais display graceful shamanic dances, dressed in barkcloth costume, with their shoulders covered in red cloth (kain kesumbo). The colour red is becoming known for its symbolic centrality within Sakai culture. Some Sakais who are descended from another pebatin have been rather critical of this museum and the “Sakai culture” it purports to represent.10 They have pointed out that the museum represents not Sakai material culture but, as one man put it, budaya legenda or budaya hantu (legend or spirit culture). First, that particular pebatin has a sacred site relating to a legend of a shaman (kemantat) and a mythical mountain called Gunung Kesumbo (red mountain). Therefore, the museum has adopted the name Kesumbo. The house has a saddleback roof, characteristic of the Riau house and it resembles the model house (balai ) which the Sakais make as an offering to the spirits. Sakais call this type of house Balai Kampar, associating it with a more southern Malay area. Moreover, the maiden’s watchtower (maligai) seems only to feature in legends.

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If critical Sakais see in the museum the representation of a “spirit culture”, an anthropologist can see semblances of Malay culture. I should stress that the Sakai representation of spirits in both the shamanic and oral literary art is set in Malay kingdomhood (kerajaan) discourse. In the past, both the downriver Malays and the spirits represented to the Sakais the powerful Other. Sakais refer to the healing spirits as ajo (raja) in shamanic séances and the offerings given to them are model items of royal Malay consumer goods. The saddleback roof associated with the downriver Kampar area is a Malaytype house. It is the Other’s style house being given to the spirit-Other. Having said this, early photos do show some Sakai houses with saddleback roofs. It seems however, that the traditional batin (headman) and his family sometimes lived in this style of house. Naturally, headmen were intermediaries between Sakais and the kingdom. They therefore were more acculturated into Malay culture than the ordinary Sakais, as Moskowski (1909) clearly showed. The Sebanga project is very much a product of Soeharto’s New Order cultural politics. Whereas on the one hand it does provide Sakais with a protective Sakai settlement, it also objectifies Sakai culture and presents it as spectacle. Malay visitors can find the museum appealing because it reveals Sakai–Malay similarities. The museum objectifies Sakai spirit- and legenddiscourses of otherness and presents them as Sakai culture. It is Sakai culture, but we must also understand the subtleties of the other Sakais’ critique. The critical Sakai group are still struggling to revive their own pebatin identity and maintain their own sacred sites and related legends. Nevertheless, they retain a more traditional view of spirits, not one fully mediated by an anthropological idea of culture. For them, and probably for the more traditional Sakais of Sebanga living behind the cultural spectacle and museum, spirits are real people – as real as the Malays. In this perspective, their relationship to the spirits is not a “cultural” one and neither is it a testament of belief. Their relationship to the spirits is a social one based on knowledge (ilmu) of how to conduct oneself in relation to this category of people. Museumized Sakai culture is actually the objectification of the Sakai representation of spirits. From a traditional Sakai perspective it represents the way the spirits live. For an anthropologist, it is easy to see in it the materialization of Malay cultural forms.

CONCERNING THE COLOUR RED In Sakai shamanic rituals, red is a dominant colour. The shaman dons a red cloth over the shoulders, and some shamans attire themselves with a red belt and crown. However, in other rituals the shaman uses a white cloth. In the

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past, when Malay noblemen invited Sakai shamans to their courts for healing purposes, the latter would use a yellow cloth. Meniq also use red for healing purposes. When people are ill with fever, they colour their bodies with ochre, for example. Traditionally though, the colour red was not an ethnic colour. The colour red is a ritual colour symbolically associated with certain powers relating to the liminal phase (Turner 1967). Liminality is the inter-phasal period when structure and order are momentarily suspended and reversed. Red is the colour of liminality and is associated with ritual transformation (Leach 1972, p. 251). During liminal ritual periods, people come close to the power of the Other. Therefore, it is a dominant colour in some shamanic healing traditions when the shaman crosses boundaries between the group and the spirit-Other. Historically, in culture-contact situations the colour red also seems to have played its part. Taussig (1993) points out the general relationship of mimesis between European ideas of the colour red and indigenous people whom they encountered and traded with. He tells us that from the beginning of European discoveries red dye wood from species of trees in India and the Americas brought enormous prices. This was a dominant colour in early ethnographies describing tribespeople who coloured themselves in red. In return for what sailors were looking for, they would give tribespeople red objects, thus reissuing the exotic with the exotic (p. 95). An interesting culture-contact example was between the Andamanese and the British during the mid-nineteenth century. The reports clearly show that the Andamanese would paint their bodies with red colour when meeting the colonials. The Andamanese also wanted red cloth, cord and paper from the colonial penal-settlement. Earlier writers pointed out that they used these items ritually to protect themselves from the spirits (Portman 1899, p. 304; RadcliffeBrown 1964, p. 262). In the late twentieth century the Indian Government still gives red cloth to remaining Andamanese tribes to pacify them. From a politico-economic perspective, redness is about relationships with powerful but dangerous others. Conceptually these “Others” are spirits or people. I suggest that when tribespeople met European others, they were engaging in liminal activities similar to those carried out by shamans. They were momentarily crossing cultural boundaries and therefore red became a dominant colour in these ritually dangerous interactions. Historic outsiders, such as sailors, state officials and so on, focused on the “sensational primitives” and not on their power relationship to them as people. Outsiders thus came to believe that “tribe X likes to wear red”. Therefore, the naked tribal-body coloured for protection during contact situations with outsiders, has been covered in red cloth by state representatives, as part of their beneficent and

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civilizing mission. In the process, various indigenized tribal people are today somehow associated with the colour red as something like their ethnic colour. In some cases, indigenous people do indeed accept the colour red as an ethnic colour. The settled Meniq of South Thailand know of the origin of the myth that alleges they like to wear red. This somewhat distances their knowledge of it as a purportedly cultural fact. For the Sakais of Riau, the colour red is still used within shamanic rituals. The case of the Sebanga project is really the product of a Sakai man exposed to the anthropological ideas about culture and tribespeople that underlay the development projects of the Soeharto regime. He has now applied these ideas to his own people as they undergo development projects. This association of redness with Sakais has already permeated Malay academic circles. Recently, the word Kesumbo has been used as the title of an interesting new journal dedicated to the affairs of the Riau indigenous people. Are we seeing here a process among some Riau Sakais similar to that which happened to some Meniq Sakais in the Peninsula?

CONCLUSION The concern of this chapter was with the development of two indigenous populations into a national and local aesthetic of “our primitives”. The indigenous peoples have been settled down in permanent villages, given corrugated tin-roofed houses, presented with handouts of food and passed-on clothing, and supplied with some form of state education. But this has been accompanied by inviting them here and there to perform, display and present information about various aspects of their way of life. (In public, they wear red.) (Cf. Feest 1989, p. 615.) However, this way of life, by virtue of their having to perform it, may have already ceased to exist. Moreover, performances of “culture” are an aesthetic matter, and therefore need to appeal to the taste of the audience paying to see the show.11 Unlike a theatre play, indigenous performances and presentations are not written. Their dialogue and form emerge through the face-to-face rhetorical discourses and actions that go on during the gift-giving developmental process that takes place between the tribal population and the dominant population who surround them. The dominant population already has an opinion, perspective, image and expectation of the indigenous population which is framed within the cultural aesthetic of the “primitive other”. This stereotypical imagery is constructed in opposition to the imagery of the self. So “while we should be extremely careful before we believe outsiders’ views” on indigenous peoples (Woodburn 1991, p. 41), those views

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that stigmatize and exoticize the indigenes should be understood as having meaning and as forming part of a symbolic system in themselves. They work within the cultural “discourse about human difference” (Foster 1982, p. 22) and (we might add) control of territory. Similar images also structure the understanding and judgements of national administrators who implement policies (Ngdala 1991, p. 65). These views can then be tried out on the indigenous population by the dominant one through the channel of development. The tribespeople gradually come to accommodate and even embody these views, as they do not want to disappoint the visiting gift-givers, whose views are obstinately held to. For example, I was told by some Meniq that if they did not wear some form of red, they would not be considered true Sakais anymore. Moreover, they fear that they will be considered so stupid that they do not even know that wearing red is part of their own culture. Thus they politely affirm what they know is thought of them and go home with the gifts they are given, and then have a good laugh in the privacy of their corrugated tin-roofed houses. For sure, the aesthetic of the primitive in both South Thailand and Riau is rooted today in modernist ideas of the Primitive. For example, both indigenous groups are perceived as an archaeological “once was” who are of “scientific value”. This is similar to what Rosaldo (1982) describes as the American attitude towards the Filipino Negritos at the turn of the century and, in general, to what has been criticized as characteristic of Western anthropology. In both Thailand and Indonesia, school and university students are sent for short periods with pen and notebook to the indigenous populations to do bits of research on various cultural and developmental topics as part of their educational course. However, traditional cultural impressions, ideas and associations concerning the tribespeople, originally rooted in the period of the pre-modern kingdoms, may still be the dominant theme structuring the “Primitivist” aesthetic of the modern Southeast Asian audience. The very donation of the name Sakai itself is one such inheritance from that period.

NOTES 1. I would like to thank the I. H. N. Evans Fund of Cambridge University and the London University Central Research Fund for providing me with the financial support for my research in Thailand. I would also like to thank the CNWS of Leiden University for financial support for my research in Riau, Indonesia. 2. Several scholars have proposed, however, that this “racial” difference is of relatively recent origin, reflecting in situ developments rather than a separate migratory history from outside the region. (See, for example, Fix 1995.) Moreover, it is not all certain that they are especially related genetically to the so-called Negritos of

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the Philippines or the Andaman Islands. 3. However, the ethnonym “Semang” is almost certainly a Malayized version of a common Aslian word (s9ma?) for “person, human being”. See Benjamin’s chapter in this volume. 4. It is unlikely that Malays would confuse pangan [pa7an] with panggang [pa7ga7], although a European might! In fact, pangan is a common word for “food” or “eat” in modern Indonesian, deriving from Javanese, and presumably cognate with the more usual Malay word makan. In the early 1970s, Mendriq Negritos in Kelantan were well aware of this meaning and they abhorred being called Pangan by the local Malays, as they assumed it was intended to mean “eaters of raw food”. The semi-official Kamus Dewan dictionary, which had defined pangan, arbitrarily, as “scrubland” is in error. (Geoffrey Benjamin, personal communication.) 5. The actors are Thais whose skin has been darkened by make-up, and their hair curled. They are dressed in red and sometimes wear a red flower. 6. For the development of Siam as a geo-body, see Winichakul 1994. 7. This should not be understood as saying that Thais hold a racist view of Meniq. 8. For the Malaysian Orang Asli case, see Leary 1989. 9. At the time of writing, Muban Sakai had a small museum selling Negrito artefacts. 10. These Sakai groups are thus struggling to revitalize their own customary pebatin. 11. For a modern Western example, see Myers 1994.

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Boundaries, edited by Allen Abramson and Dimitrius Theodossopoulos, pp. 176–90. London: Pluto Press. Portman, I. M. 1889. A History of Our Relations with the Andamanese, 2 vols. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing. Quaritch Wales, H. G. 1992. Siamese State Ceremonies, Their History and Function. London: Curzon Press. Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 1922. The Andaman Islanders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosaldo, R. 1982. “Utter Savages of Scientific Value”. In Politics and History in Band Societies, edited by Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee, pp. 309–25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schebesta, Paul. 1973. Among the Forest Dwarfs of Malaya. 2nd Impression, with an Introduction by Geoffrey Benjamin. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Skeat, W. W., and C. O. 1906. Blagden. Pagan Races of the M alay Peninsula, vol. 1. London: Macmillan. Taussig, Michael. 1993. Mimesis and A lterity: A P articular History of the S enses. London: Routledge. Turner, Victor. 1967. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Rituals. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Wee, Vivienne. 1988. “Material Dependence and Symbolic Independence: The Construction of Melayu Ethnicity in Island Riau, Indonesia”. In Ethnic Diversity and the Control of Natural Resources in Southeast Asia, edited by A. Terry Rambo, Kathleen Gillogly, and Karl Hutterer, pp. 197–226. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for South and South East Asian Studies. Winichakul, Thongchai. 1994. A History of the G eo-body of a N ation. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Woodburn, James. 1991. “African Hunters-Gatherer Social Organization: Is It Best Understood as the Product of Encapsulation?”. In Hunters and Gatherers. Vol. 1: History, Evolution and Social Change , edited by T. Ingold, D. Riches, and J. Woodburn, pp. 31–64. Oxford: Berg. Wyatt, David K. 1984. Thailand: A Short History. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Reproduced from Tribal Communities in the Malay W orld: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives , edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles ar e available at < http://www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html >.

5 ORGANIZING ORANG ASLI IDENTITY Colin Nicholas

Before 1960, the Orang Asli – as an ethnic category – did not exist. The various indigenous minority peoples of Peninsular Malaysia did not see themselves as a homogeneous group, nor did they consciously adopt common ethnic markers to differentiate themselves from the dominant population. Instead, they derived their micro-identity spatially, identifying with the specific geographical place they lived in. Their cultural distinctiveness was relative only to other Orang Asli communities, and these perceived differences were great enough for each group to regard itself as distinct and different from the other. This is not to suggest that traditional Orang Asli societies developed in isolation. On the contrary, far from remaining static, they have continually changed and adapted themselves and their social organization to their neighbours. However, with increased contact with the dominant population, it became clear that the various Orang Asli groups had more in common with each other than they did with the dominant population (Carey 1976, p. 6). It is argued here that Orang Asli homogeneity is more a creation of non– Orang Asli perceptions and ideological impositions than it is self-imposed. Nevertheless, as a result of social stress brought about by the implementation of new development paradigms and new political equations, the various Orang Asli communities quickly adopted the ethnic label – largely as a political tool for more effective negotiation. Orang Asli identity, however, is perceived differently by the Orang Asli themselves, and is utilized variously 119

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by different categories of Orang Asli. This gives rise to problems of representation of Orang Asli interests and, consequently, this has implications for the genuine progress of the community.

GIVING ORANG ASLI A NAME Particular ethnic labels and identities had historically been ascribed to indigenous communities by others who wanted to discriminate against them on the grounds of real or assumed ethnic characteristics (Veber and Waehle 1993, p. 14). The Orang Asli are no exception. In the colonial period, the generic terms “Sakai” and “Aborigines” were commonly used to refer to this group of peoples. In fact, the term “Sakai” continued to be used in popular and official communication well into the late 1950s even though it was despised by the peoples so addressed, as it was used to mean slave or servant.1 Ironically, it took the communist insurgents, who were then waging a civil war against the Malayan Government – the Emergency of 1948–60 – to make the authorities realize that a more correct and positive term was necessary if they were to win the hearts and minds of the Orang Asli. Perhaps realizing that the insurgents were able to get the sympathy of indigenous inhabitants by referring to them as Orang Asal “original peoples” – a term in itself ascribed from the outside – the government, in turn, adopted the term Orang Asli (literally “natural” or “indigenous” people) to be used even in the English language (Carey 1976, p. 3). Prior to this, anthropologists and administrators referred to the Orang Asli by a variety of terms. Some were descriptive of their abode (as in Orang Hulu “people of the headwaters”, Orang Darat “people of the hinterland”, and Orang Laut “people of the sea”). Others were descriptive of their perceived characteristics (as in Besisi “people with scales”, Mantra “people who chanted”, and Orang Mawas “people like apes”). Still others were outright derogatory and reflected the assumed superiority of the “civilized” speakers (Orang Liar “uncivilized, but free men”, and Orang Jinak “tame or enslaved men”) (Skeat and Blagden 1906, pp. 19–24; Wilkinson 1971, pp. 15–20; Wazir-Jahan 1981, p. 13). Nevertheless, giving Orang Asli names, or analysing the semantics of their given name, has always interested researchers. In 1956, a team from the Department of Aborigines, led by R. O. D. Noone, the Federal Advisor on Aborigines, went to a Jakun village in Terengganu, did their analysis, and promptly pronounced that the people were not what they always considered themselves to be. In retrospect, the newspaper headline of the day is rather

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comical: “Surprise! These ‘Jakuns’ find that they are really ‘Semoq-Beris’” (The Singapore Standard, 17 October 1956).2 More recently, another researcher has related how the Che Wong – or “Siwang” as the earlier researchers referred them – in the Krau Valley got their name (Howell 1984, pp. 12–13; see also her chapter in this volume). A British forester had requested a Malay Forest Department worker to ask the people what they were known as. Wrongly thinking that his name (Siwang bin Ahmat) was being asked, the latter was to go down in Orang Asli, or at least Che Wong history, as having a whole classification of people named after him – as the Siwang people. Howell (personal conversation, 1996) now suggests that there is no point spelling the name as two words, as is done officially, “Chewong” being preferred instead. An Orang Asli anthropologist, in keeping with modern spelling convention in Malay, further shortened it to “Cewong” (Juli 1992, p. 21). For convenience of tabulation, the nineteen official Orang Asli “ethnic” groups have been reduced to eighteen so as to have exactly six subgroups under each of the major classifications of Negrito, Senoi, and Proto-Malay. The Temoqs have apparently disappeared as a people, presumably subsumed under the Proto-Malay Jakuns or Semelais. Even the generic term “Orang Asli”, a term in use since 1960, has seen attempts at change. In 1977, the then Deputy Prime Minister, Abdul Ghafar Baba, wanted to reclassify the Orang Asli as “Putra Asli” (original princes). Educated Orang Asli working in the Department of Orang Asli Affairs ( JHEOA) objected to this. In fact, the Peninsular Malaysia Orang Asli Association (POASM) was mooted largely in response to having to deal with this attempt at renaming them. The term “Orang Asli” was still preferred as it correctly reflected their historical niche.3 In 1984, however, the Sultan of Johor, prior to his installation as the Yang DiPertuan Agung (King) of Malaysia, reopened the issue. He declared that the Orang Asli should be referred to as “Bumiputera Asli” (original indigenes), arguing that the only reason that they are not Malays is that they are not Muslims (The Star, 26 April 1984). More significantly, since 1989, there has been a conscious effort by the government to regard Orang Asli as Malays. By 1992, news reports were already emphasizing this “fact”. Official statistics were also subsuming the Orang Asli under “Malay”. At the launch of the International Year of Indigenous Peoples in December 1992, the Malaysian Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Razali Ismail, revealed the current position of the government vis-à-vis the Orang Asli: that the Malays and the Orang Asli go back to the same beginnings, but the former had left the forests and made

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their choice towards modernization (Razali 1993). The implied suggestion is that the Orang Asli are those Malays who did not modernize. As will be noted, all the semantic activities have come from outside the Orang Asli community. In fact, even the definition of who legally constitutes an Orang Asli was formulated by non–Orang Asli, as in the Aboriginal Peoples Act. This is diametrically opposed to the efforts now being made in the United Nations to accord indigenous peoples the right to self-identification, in line with the Draft International Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. While academics and activists are fond of brandishing the terms “tribals”, “fourth world”, “cultural minorities”, and such, ordinary Orang Asli do not usually identify themselves in this manner. Their identity is closely linked to a specific territory, which forms the basis of their material and spiritual being, and their source of physical and emotional sustenance.4 A Semai in the Buntu catchment of Pahang, for example, would consider himself first as may Buntu? (Buntu people) before he asserts his affiliation with the wider “Semai” ethnic category. Nevertheless, precisely because of such a highly localized sense of identity, and because the Orang Asli were often concerned with matters that often do not readily correspond with the larger political agenda of the nation-state, they were never regarded as a political entity with accompanying clout and inherent rights. It was such an observation that led two Prime Ministers to justify Malay political dominance in Malaysia. Mahathir Mohamad, the current Prime Minister, but writing when he was in political exclusion, held that “the Malays are the rightful owners of Malaya” because The Orang Melayu or Malays have always been the definitive people of the Malay Peninsula. The aborigines were never accorded any such recognition nor did they claim such recognition. There was no known aborigine government or state. Above all, at no time did they outnumber the Malays. It is quite obvious that if today there were four million aborigines, the right of the Malays to regard the Malay Peninsula as their own country would be questioned by the world. But in fact there are no more than a few thousand aborigines (Mahathir 1981, pp. 126–27.)

Tunku Abdul Rahman, the country’s first Prime Minister, shared this view. Responding to suggestions that the Malays, Chinese and Indians were all immigrants to the Peninsula, the Tunku reiterated that there could be no doubt that the Malays were the indigenous people of this country because the original inhabitants did not have any form of civilisation

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compared with the Malays .… [These] inhabitants also had no direction and lived like primitives in mountains and jungles (The Star, 6 November 1986).

Thus, being perceived as without civilization, without government, without direction, without numbers and, it follows, without a collective name, proved to be the political bane of the Orang Asli.

THE STATE, CAPITAL, AND THE BASIS OF ORANG ASLI DISCONTENT It is not any a priori cultural difference that makes Orang Asli identity so pertinent, but rather the specificity of the power relations at a given historical moment and in a particular place. Invariably, the perception towards the Orang Asli – and the genesis of Orang Asli identity – is closely linked to the current ideologies subscribed to by the state. It is now evident that the history of Orang Asli incorporation and development is in many ways a history of justifications of the different powers that were in political control. Thus, at different times, different capitalisms related to the Orang Asli differently. For example, the Orang Asli were largely left alone during the British Colonial period. But this was only because the British colonized Malaya with capital rather than with its people (as it did in Australia and Northern America). At most, the Orang Asli became excellent subjects for the zeal of Christian missionary activity or stimulating objects for anthropological pursuit. Ethnographers and administrators, who wanted to situate the “tribes” of a region conveniently on a map, felt it pertinent that the various ethnic units should be divided clearly into separate population groups. Nevertheless, with the exception, perhaps, of the institution of slavery, the impact of this epoch on the Orang Asli was relatively minimal. This was not so with the Emergency of 1948–60. The Orang Asli were directly affected, as the interests of the British Colonial and Malayan Governments were being threatened by a civil war waged by Communist insurgents whose close rapport with the Orang Asli in the forests was a cause for strategic concern. As a consequence, in the name of national interest, the Orang Asli were uprooted from their traditional homelands, and consequently suffered death and misery in the ill-conceived resettlement camps. The then Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, promised that after the Emergency was over, the Orang Asli would be able to return to the “place of your choice, and live in peace as before”.5 This was a clear indication that their displacement was only temporary, and for reasons of national security.

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However, the Orang Asli began to suffer immense anguish and material loss, especially in the last two decades, when development capital came to dictate the ruling state ideology. Orang Asli lands, in particular, became coveted by the state and the commercial-industrial complex, and were regularly acquired or reclaimed – invariably without adequate reciprocal compensation or replacement.6 Inadvertently, in the context of Orang Asli development, the state has always played a leading role in facilitating the exploitation of lands and resources held by Orang Asli. The state’s own involvement in administering the Orang Asli, particularly through the JHEOA, has been justified by complex social and ideological considerations as well as by economic factors. This is most clearly manifested in the expressed policy objective of integrating the Orang Asli with the mainstream society.7 In practical terms, the mechanisms advanced for achieving these objectives are through regroupment and Islamization. The former involves relocating Orang Asli from their traditional homelands (and so destroying the material basis of their ecological identity), while the latter advocates conversion to an alien religion (and so effectively displacing the spiritual basis of their micro-identity). In its simplest elaboration, the ideology that is imposed on the Orang Asli assumes that it is the duty of a people to maximize the exploitation of resources bestowed on them by nature. Failure to do this necessarily implies “backwardness”. It is argued that a people ill-disposed to exploiting nature’s resources have no right to stand in the way of other (external) peoples representing “higher levels” of civilization. Further, it is assumed that the state of backwardness itself is a symptom of inferiority. Needless to say, progress is thus equated with civilization. But what is not made explicit in this ideology is the people’s realization that progress in the abstract means domination in the concrete for them (cf. Devalle 1992, pp. 38–39). This explains why, with earlier forms of capitalism, the different ethnic groups were allowed to exploit non-conflicting territorial niches – since it was in the self-interest of each group to maintain good relations with the other, for each was both customer for the resources they controlled and provider of the product the others lacked (Fidler 1989, p. 23). Present-day capitalism, however, is less likely to tolerate indigenous cultures such as the Orang Asli in its midst. This is so since it is more deeply felt that capital cannot exploit the resources that lie within traditional territories if the Orang Asli impede access to them. However, because the material and spiritual basis of the Orang Asli – their traditional land – has not been completely destroyed, Orang Asli identity has persisted in the face of state onslaught. Therefore, the state’s

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logical aim now would be to destroy the material basis so that Orang Asli identities will disappear and a new (mainstream) one will emerge (cf. David & Kadirgamar 1989, p. 3).8 Just as with the threat to their traditional resource base, the sustained and often aggressive efforts of the state to assimilate Orang Asli have also served to generate within Orang Asli communities a remarkable persistence and deep sense of grievance and justice – key elements that have formed the basis of the political claims that they are beginning to declare openly and directly today. As Dyck (1992, p. 18) points out, a common sense of grievance vis-à-vis the attitudes and actions of non-indigenous and dominant citizens and governments can provide a powerful means of mobilizing an indigenous constituency beyond the micro-local level. In the case of the Orang Asli, they have had more than a sufficient share of grievances to stimulate the creation of an Orang Asli identity.9

BECOMING ORANG ASLI, POLITICALLY Merely coming together, as in seeking medical attention at the Orang Asli hospital in Gombak, or in attending JHEOA-sponsored fairs or sports events, does not create identity. Such events can be a means of creating identity but they are not sufficient in themselves for identity formation. Thus, when I met with the Jahais in Perak and Kelantan in 1993, the Jahais of Banun (Perak) emphatically denied that those in Jeli (Kelantan) were also Jahais. Similarly, the Jeli Jahais strongly insisted that they were the real Jahais. This is despite the fact that both groups have similar physical features and linguistic affiliations. It is clear that ethnic groups such as the Orang Asli do not form because people are of the same race, or share the same language or culture, or because they are lumped together and treated by outsiders as members of a distinct group. They form because people who share such characteristics decide that they are members of a distinct group (Maybury-Lewis 1997, p. 61). Orang Asli identity, therefore, is essentially a political phenomenon. It is mainly articulated in the sphere of political action, with the state and the nation being the major determinants. Having a single government agency – the JHEOA – as the sole intermediary for all dealings concerning the Orang Asli has provided the Orang Asli with a single entity on which to focus their grievances. In disputes with the state, especially over land matters, the JHEOA has invariably sided with the authorities. Individual JHEOA officers have also obtained pecuniary

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benefit because of their position (Mohd Tap 1990, p. 84). The JHEOA has also been slow to act in resolving Orang Asli issues, especially those pertaining to the gazetting of their lands. As a result, Orang Asli are becoming increasingly critical of the JHEOA, preferring to equate its usual acronym (JOA) with “Jual Orang Asli” (selling out the Orang Asli). Individual Orang Asli have even gone to the extent of calling for the abolition of the department,10 while others have sought a revamp of its structure and role. It has also become increasingly common to hear Orang Asli complain that after four decades of JHEOA intervention, the Orang Asli are still among the poorest in Malaysian society. The statistics, as revealed by the JHEOA Director-General, attest to this (The Star, 19 February 1997).11 The JHEOA is, however, only an administrative arm of the state. Nevertheless, it is the JHEOA that the Orang Asli target their grievances at, even if state policies (such as regroupment, integration and Islamization) are not dictated by the JHEOA. In fact, the sustained and often aggressive efforts by the state to assimilate Orang Asli, especially when this is to be done through Islamization, have served only to generate within some Orang Asli communities a deep sense of grievance and increased allegiance to their “Orang Asli-ness”. This is only to be expected, since most minority groups need, and want, to have their cultural identity protected against the encroachment of the predominant culture, and not to be assimilated or integrated into it (Okin 1991, pp. 126–27). Furthermore, as Roosens (1989, pp. 13–14) suggests, it becomes more interesting to appear socially as a member of an ethnic group than as a specimen of a lower socio-economic category. If one identifies oneself as a member of a lower class, one places oneself at the bottom of the social ladder. The class division is vertical and is thus a hierarchical division of groups of people; the ethnic division, on the other hand, is horizontal, and it creates equivalencies rather than hierarchies. Orang Asli claims as an ethnic grouping coincide with an emergence of social self-awareness, brought about in part by increased incidences of social stress and greater communication between the communities. Those claims being made in the name of cultural identity are no longer primarily based on culturist/anthropological definitions and interpretations. They are now inherently political, the concept of Orang Asli identity being a concise expression of aspirations that speak the universal language of contemporary politics – a language that is a strategic one aimed at legitimizing specific intranational relations. Thus, when the Peninsular Malaysia Orang Asli Association (POASM)

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embarked actively on a membership drive in 1989, the response was overwhelming. From a membership of 277, comprising mainly Orang Asli working in the JHEOA in Gombak, it swelled to about 11,000 in two years, and crossed the 17,000 mark in early 2000 – nearly 20 per cent of the total Orang Asli population. Although registered as a society, many Orang Asli had aspirations for POASM to become a political party then. Bek Gerahoi, a Semai headman, said, “The Malays have their UMNO, the Chinese have their MCA, and the Indians have their MIC. We too need our own political party.”12 Such statements were common at most POASM gatherings, especially in the early 1990s. In the same vein, Majid Suhut, a Temuan and now (2002) the current POASM President, regularly advocated that the Orang Asli needed an independent organization such as POASM: Are Orang Asli to menumpang [squat] in other people’s houses [such as UMNO, MCA, MIC]? … Even if we have a bamboo house, no matter how small, it is better to stay in our own house rather than menumpang in other people’s houses.13

But more than just having an independent representative organization for themselves, the call at recent general assemblies of POASM has been to “consider ourselves as Orang Asli. Not as Temuan, Semai and such. We must be like UMNO – they are united even though there are many types of Malay.”14 Nevertheless, while the creation and the political affirmation of Orang Asli ethnic identity has ironically been the result of the threat of cultural and economic subjugation, whether real or perceived, brought about by the expansion of the dominant society, the response has been to claim a communal identity that combines cultural particularity (which never before had to be affirmed) with modern political aspirations. Such political aspirations, however, are never seen in the same light by various sectors of the Orang Asli community.

THE PERSONAL AND THE POLITICAL The issue of Orang Asli identity, besides being discussed from the perspective of “the other”, should also be approached from another angle: the viewpoint of the community itself regarding its own identity (cf. Hakim 1996, p. 1494). As it is, in most instances, Orang Asli intellectuals – those with some level of formal education and those engaged in the formal sector – are invariably in the forefront of the process of advocating an Orang Asli identity. They are

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also usually the ones who have lost contact with their cultural roots, and who share little or none of the social experience of their group. Understandably, there is some variance between the perceived aspirations of this group and that of the Orang Asli (especially the elders) still in the communities. But this is not a unique situation. Sowell (1994, p. 28) submits that it is a common social phenomenon around the world that those who have lost a culture have often been its most strident apostles. They now “identify” with their group, and may even do so in a highly vocal and exaggerated form. But because, as Roosens (1989, pp. 13, 151) notes, ethnic self-affirmation is always related in one way or another to the defence of social or economic interests, many people are willing to assert an ethnic identity only if they can gain by doing so. This creates a paradox, for the ethnic claims and slogans are mainly formulated by people who seem to have markedly moved away from their own culture of origin, which they now want to “keep”. This incongruity in the perceived content of Orang Asli identity is perhaps best manifested in the regard both groups have for the customary lands. For the “traditional” Orang Asli, the land is more than a resource base; it is also the spiritual and material basis of their identity. Thus a traditionalist like Batin Hun-ho, the Semai headman of Kampung Sat in Perak, would have no reservations in telling a JHEOA officer: Each time you come here, you tell us that we have to move, that this is Tanah Melayu [Malay Land]. But we are from here. Like that durian tree. It grows tall. It flowers. It bears fruit. The fruits fall, and new seedlings emerge. Then new trees grow. We are like the durian trees here. We are the s97?00y ?asal [original people] here.”15

The “move” the batin was referring to was to a regroupment scheme a few kilometres downriver from their present site. The promises of wooden houses, potable water, electricity, agricultural projects – and even the possibility of permanent land titles – were not enough to entice the Semai elder to give up his community’s link with its specific ecological niche. Furthermore, he did not want to impose himself on another community’s traditional land. Younger Orang Asli leaders are likely to view things differently. They see nothing wrong, for example, in exchanging their vast customary tracts for household lots of 6 to 8 acres, individually titled, and in a completely different location. They have even chastised their elders for refusing to move, arguing that with titled lots, they would be able to get bank mortgages which could be used for investments or to improve their livelihood.16 There is also a difference in the way young intellectuals and the traditionalists use Orang Asli symbols. Batin Asoi, the Jakun headman of

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Kampung Kudong, Johor, described the demonstration they organized to stop the logging in their area in the following way: Pisau, sumpitan, r aga, kita bawa sebab lambang Or ang Asli. Kalau tidak bawa, orang lain anggap kami O rang Melayu. We brought the machete, blowpipe, back-basket because these are Orang Asli symbols. If we did not, others would think we were Malays.17

However, Itam Wali, an established businessman and then the Orang Asli senator, viewed the use of Orang Asli symbols differently. At a congregation of Orang Asli leaders and non–Orang Asli sympathizers during a break in the proceedings of the 1994 POASM General Assembly, he emphasized that, “We don’t want to be pegged with the traditional identity. Majid has a Ferrazo [a 4-wheel drive vehicle]; I have a Mercedes. We have to change our attitude.” Only then, he argued, could the Orang Asli Baru (the New Orang Asli) be identified as such. At the same POASM General Assembly, the incumbent President, Long Jidin, himself a Jakun, wore a traditional Temiar plaited-mengkuang headband and sash. “We must continue (kekalkan) the culture”, he told me, perhaps to justify the western lounge suit he was wearing.18 From the text of his subsequent speech, it was clear that his choice of adopting the symbols of both the traditional and the perceived-to-be dominant cultures was calculated to project his personal ambitions.19 Precisely because of latent personal ambitions, or apprehension about their livelihood, Orang Asli intellectuals-cum-leaders are wont to tread a cautious line vis-à-vis the dominant population. While the leaders in the communities would mince no words about the manner in which their lives are being affected by government policies and programmes, some Orang Asli leaders openly acknowledge and accept the state’s hold over Orang Asli affairs. In so doing, they reinforce the perception of the apparent impotence of the Orang Asli in matters concerning their autonomy and self-determination. The issue of “assimilation through Islamization” best illustrates this stress in asserting Orang Asli identity. At the 1994 POASM General Assembly, the membership was very vocal about the government’s programme to have livein Community Development Officers (Penggerak Masyarakat) in their settlements. The true role of these officers, who were invariably MuslimMalay males, was never a secret: to achieve the government’s objective of converting all Orang Asli to Islam.20 During the debate on the tabling of a resolution to call for an end to this programme, a POASM Supreme Council leader, and also a senior employee of the JHEOA, warned against any protest against the programme. His advice to the assembled Orang Asli was

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This is a sensitive issue, a policy of the government. The Penggerak Masyarakat comes under the Islamic Department of the Prime Minister’s Department. Yes, the aim is to Islamise Orang Asli. POASM can protest about the behaviour of the Penggerak Masyarakat. But POASM cannot object to them being there because this is a government policy.21

It is clear, therefore, that there exists an increasing gap between various sectors of Orang Asli as to what constitutes Orang Asli identity. The actual content of this identity in itself has not been articulated, but the obvious advantages of promoting such an ethnic category are already evident among both communities and individuals.

REPRESENTING THE COMMON IDENTITY With varying perceptions of the constituent components of Orang Asli identity, the question of political representivity arises.22 Arguably, POASM has been at the forefront of creating Orang Asli social awareness and, it follows, an Orang Asli identity. Its large membership base also gives a semblance of ethnic representivity, although in reality some of the smaller groups (such as the Orang Kanaq, Temoq, and all the “Negrito” subgroups) are not represented. At various times also, it has negotiated with the government on behalf of the Orang Asli, conveying demands and opinions that are often projected as responding to the wishes of the Orang Asli. However, POASM is not the only body organized on the basis of Orang Asli representivity. A myriad of organizations now compete for such representivity, all asserting a common Orang Asli identity. These include the Muslim Orang Asli Welfare Association, Perak Orang Asli Foundation, the Orang Asli 4B Youth Movement, the Peninsula-wide Kijang Mas Co-operative, a host of smaller state-level Orang Asli co-operatives, the Orang Asli Entrepreneurs’ Association (PASLIM), and local branches of UMNO.23 Thus, with numerous Orang Asli organizations claiming Orang Asli representivity, the state is able to treat such representivity as a political resource that it can assign and withdraw to serve its own interests. Thus, at one time POASM may be recognized by the state as the authorized representative of the Orang Asli. At other times, it could be the stateappointed Orang Asli senator, or any of the other “Orang Asli” organizations. In any case, the fact that the state deems it necessary to assign representivity variously to Orang Asli organizations is in itself testimony that an Orang Asli identity has evolved. It is now up to the Orang Asli to increasingly assert their identity, and to use this identity to reclaim a birthright. If used wisely, an

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Orang Asli identity can be a powerful tool to resist assimilation and to seek political redress and distributive justice.

NOTES 1. However, Geoffrey Benjamin informs me that “slave” is probably not the historical meaning of “Sakai”, even if recent folk-etymology has said it is. Nor is Couillard’s (1984, pp. 84–85) derivation from the Sanskrit sakhi “friend” yet settled from a linguistic point of view. 2. The caption accompanying the photos of the “Semoq-Beris” reads: “Surprise is the keynote of this gathering (at left) of ‘Jakuns’ in Jabor Valley when they, in a discussion with Aborigine Department officials, re-discovered their identity as the ‘Semoq Beri’, believed to have become extinct in the wake of Kuantan’s development in the last century” (Singapore Standard, 17 October 1956). Geoffrey Benjamin attests to this as, according to him, Howard Biles, at the time the Protector of Aborigines in Kelantan, told him in the 1960s that he (Biles) had introduced the term “Semaq Beri” while serving earlier as the Protector in Pahang. 3. According to the minutes of the special meeting held on 6 October 1973 to specifically discuss the “Putra Asli” proposal, a vote was taken on the motion and the results were as follows: None for “Putra Asli”, one for “Bumiputera Asli”, and forty-one for retaining “Orang Asli”. The meeting also noted that several other names were being used to refer to the Orang Asli – such as saudara lama (old kinsfolk or brethren) in the Department of Information – which gave cause for worry as to whether Orang Asli identity would be protected. 4. This is similar to what Tachimoto (1997, p. 32) refers to as the “ecological identity” – the site-consciousness or proto-identity that is related to a sense of place and a feeling of dissociative togetherness against uncertain life-chances that are perceived to be shared. Put more simply, it is the identity shared by a community that has a common destiny in its political economy. 5. “Address by the Prime Minister introducing the new Radio Malaya programme for the Aborigines on 3rd February 1959”. Arkib Negara Malaysia, TAR 1: 2: 59. 6. Some of these cases have been described in various issues of Pernloi Gah, the occasional newsletter of the Centre for Orang Asli Concerns as well as in Nicholas (1996, pp. 168–72). 7. The policy is laid down in the “Statement of Policy Regarding the Administration of the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia” ( JHEOA 1961). The original version of the Statement, however, placed the policy objective squarely on the “ultimate integration” of the Orang Asli “with the Malay section of the community” (p. 2). 8. Perhaps knowing that Orang Asli ethnicity will persist as long as the material basis is not destroyed, and to coincide with the needs of capital, the government has stepped up its programme to dislodge the Orang Asli from their traditional homelands under the guise of resettlement or regroupment schemes. Various

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9. 10.

11.

12.

13. 14.

15. 16.

rationales have been put forward to convince the Orang Asli of the “genuine” intentions of the authorities. The Perak state government, for example, argues that they want to relocate the Orang Asli because “the lands they are residing in at present are unproductive; and we want to relocate them to more productive lands” (The Star, 26 October 1994). The Orang Asli were not convinced with this argument. However, following the tragedy of the mudslide at Pos Dipang (where thirty-nine Orang Asli were killed), the new rationale for resettlement is to “relocate Orang Asli settlements to safer ground” (The Star, 23 April 1997). But the Orang Asli know better: their lands are coveted. See Nicholas (2000, pp. 93–104) for a discussion of the various government policies towards the Orang Asli. For example, Arif Embing, a Mah Meri leader from Selangor called for the dissolution of the JHEOA because “I feel that we can live better lives without their presence” (Harian Metro, 18 April 1996). The statistics reveal that 80 per cent of the Orang Asli live below the poverty line (compared to 8.5 per cent nationally), that 50 per cent are among the very poor (compared to 2.5 per cent nationally), that only 0.02 per cent of Orang Asli have title to their land, and that only 30 per cent of Orang Asli in the regroupment schemes have electricity and water (compared to 90 per cent nationally). Also, 66 per cent of the Orang Asli are illiterate. The United Malays National Organization (UMNO) is the dominant party of the Malays, and the senior partner in the Barisan Nasional, the ruling coalition party. The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) are the dominant political parties for the Chinese and the Indians respectively, and are also in the ruling coalition. President’s speech, POASM’s 7th General Assembly, Gombak, 19 November 1995. Delegates to POASM’s 6th General Assembly (13 November 1994) were even asked to emulate their UMNO/Malay counterparts and work towards a new generation of forward-looking, entrepreneurial and aggressive Orang Asli – the Orang Asli Baru (or New Orang Asli). In the words of outgoing POASM president, Long Jidin, “Kalau Melayu ada ‘Melayu Baru’, kenapa Orang Asli tak ada ‘Orang Asli Baru’?” (If the Malays have the New Malay, why is it that the Orang Asli do not have their “New Orang Asli”?) Personal conversation, 12 May 1995. This poser over the government’s plan to issue individual land titles came to light again in 1997 (New Straits Times, 1 April 1997). POASM President Majid Suhut acknowledged that, “individual land titles would benefit those Orang Asli living near towns, … or in areas which are likely to be developed. This would enable the Orang Asli concerned to get loans for developing their lands or improving commercial output from it.” Jali Yusuf, of Kampung Tamuk in Segamat, Johor, differed in opinion. On the state government’s proposal to grant individual land titles to the Orang Asli

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19.

20.

21. 22.

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in five settlements provided they move to Bekok, Jali was mystified that relocation should be a condition especially since their present settlement already had facilities like telephones and proper roads. He added, “Wouldn’t it be easier to give titles to the lands we are occupying now? These are lands that have remained in the same families for many generations.” Personal conversation, Kuala Lumpur, 18 September 1996. POASM funds were used to pay for the lounge suits that were made for each member of the supreme council. “We meet with leaders, big shots. Don’t expect us to wear a T-shirt”, justified Long Jidin. Nevertheless, on that day, he was the only one with a suit, even including the guest-of-honour, the Director-General of the JHEOA. At this general assembly, Long Jidin was forced to withdraw from the elections given the extremely low support he had been able to garner through the nominations. Three other Orang Asli were challenging him for the post of President. Long’s popularity dropped immediately after he encouraged Malays to join the Association, and especially after installing a Malay politician and the Director-General of the JHEOA, also a Malay, as the patron and adviser of POASM respectively. This provision (for Malays to be members of POASM as well) was formally dropped from the constitution in May 1997, an indication of the unwillingness of the Orang Asli to share their identity with others. Nevertheless, since dropping out of POASM, Long went on to set up the Orang Asli Entrepreneurs’ Association of Peninsular Malaysia, PASLIM. Furthermore, and after intense lobbying with the Minister in charge of Orang Asli Affairs and the JHEOA, he was installed as Orang Asli Senator on 27 May 1997. Neither the Orang Asli community nor POASM were consulted on this appointment. See Nicholas (2000, pp. 214–18) for a more detailed profile of Long Jidin. The Orang Asli have become the target of institutionalized Islamic missionary activity particularly after 1980, when a seminar on “Islamic Dakwah among the Orang Asli” was organized by the Malaysian Islamic Welfare Organization, Perkim. The recommendations were largely accepted by the JHEOA in a policy statement ( JHEOA 1983). The expressed objectives of this policy were twopronged: the Islamization of the whole Orang Asli community and the integration/ assimilation of the Orang Asli with the Malays. Towards the end of 1991, the appointment of 250 “welfare officers” – to be trained by the Religious Affairs Department and the JHEOA – and a programme of building prayer-houses (surau) cum community halls in Orang Asli settlements – was announced (Berita Harian, 26 November 1991). The establishment of a special unit called “Dakwah Orang Asli” at the Islamic Centre (Pusat Islam) demonstrates the official continuation of this policy (Berita Harian, 23 June 1995). Author’s field notes, 13 November 1994. Weaver (1989, p. 114) attributes three meanings to political representivity. In the first meaning, an indigenous organization is considered to be representative if it is seen to represent the views, needs, and aspirations of its constituency to the

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government and the public. That is, it is both authorized to be a reliable vehicle of communication and is held accountable to its constituents for its conveyance. In the second meaning, an indigenous organization is seen to be politically representative if it is representative of its constituency. In other words, the members of the organization are expected to be a social microcosm of its constituency. The third meaning stresses representativeness by responsiveness: whether the organization actually responds to the needs and demands of its constituency by providing services needed or expected by the constituency. 23. The co-operatives and the UMNO branches also involve non–Orang Asli (that is, Malay) members, but their establishment incorporates an Orang Asli membership base.

REFERENCES Arkib Negara Malaysia. 1959. “Address by the Prime Minister Introducing the New Radio Malaya Programme for the Aborigines on 3rd February 1959”, TAR 1: 2: 59. Berita Harian. “200 Dewan Serbaguna di Kampung Orang Asli”. 26 November 1991. ———. “Seminar Metodologi Dakwah Orang Asli: Usaha Tarik Orang Asli Peluk Islam”. 23 June 1995. Carey, Iskandar. 1976. Orang Asli: The Aboriginal Tribes of Peninsular Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Couillard, Marie-Andrée. 1984. “The Malays and the ‘Sakai’: Some Comments on Their Social Relations in the Malay Peninsula”. Kajian Malaysia: Journal of Malaysian Studies 2: 81–109. David, Kumar, and Santasilan Kadirgamar. 1989. “Ethnic Conflict: Some Theoretical Considerations”. In Ethnicity: Identity, Conflict, Crisis, edited by Kumar David and Santasilan Kadirgamar, pp. 1–14. Hong Kong: Arena Press. Devalle, Susana B. C. 1992. Discourses of Ethnicity: Culture and Protest in Jharkand. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Dyck, Noel, ed. 1992. Indigenous Peoples and the Nation State: Fourth World Politics in Canada, Australia and Norway. Social and Economic Papers No. 14. St. John’s: Memorial University of Newfoundland. Fidler, Richard C. 1989. “Ethnic Identity in Multiethnic Societies”. Sarawak Museum Journal (New Series) 40: 21–25. Hakim, Roxanne. 1996. “Vasada Identity in Transition: Some Theoretical Issues”. Economic and Political Weekly 31: 1492–99. Harian Metro. “5 Keluarga Serba Kekurangan”. 18 April 1996. Howell, Signe. 1984. Society and Cosmos: Chewong of Peninsular Malaysia. Singapore: Oxford University Press. JHEOA. 1961. “Statement of Policy Regarding the Administration of the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia”. Kuala Lumpur: Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli. ———. 1983. “Strategi Perkembangan Ugama Islam di Kalangan Masyarakat Orang Asli”. Mimeographed. Kuala Lumpur: Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli.

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Juli Edo. 1992. “Perumahan Semai: Satu Analisis Awal”. Manusia dan M asyarakat (New Series) 7: 21–39. Mahathir Mohamad. 1981. The Malay Dilemma. Petaling Jaya: Federal Publications. Maybury-Lewis, David. 1997. Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups and the S tate. Massachusetts: Allyn and Bacon. Mohd Tap bin Salleh. 1990. “An Examination of Development Planning among the Rural Orang Asli of West Malaysia”. Ph.D. thesis, University of Bath. New Straits Times. “Keeping Land within the Community”. 1 April 1997. ———. “Land Title Poser for Orang Asli”. 1 April 1997. Nicholas, Colin. 1994. Pathway to Dependence: Commodity Relations and the Dissolution of Semai Society. Monash Papers on Southeast Asia no. 33. Melbourne: Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University. ———. 1996. “The Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia”. In Indigenous Peoples of Asia: Many Peoples, One Struggle, edited by Colin Nicholas and Raajen Singh, pp. 157– 76. Bangkok: Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact. ———. 2000. The Orang Asli and the Contest for R esources: Indigenous Politics, Development and I dentity in Peninsular Malaysia. IWGIA Document No. 95. Copenhagen: International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs; Subang Jaya: Centre for Orang Asli Concerns. ——— and Anthony Williams-Hunt. 1996. “Orang Asli”. In Malaysia’s Economic Development: Policies and Reforms, edited by Jomo K. S. and Ng Suew Keat, pp. 451–76. Kuala Lumpur: Pelanduk Press. Okin, Susan Moller. 1991. Review of Will Kymlicka’s “Liberalism, Community and Culture”. Political Theory, February 1991, pp. 123–29. Razali Ismail. 1992. “Creating an Equal World”. Speech of Malaysia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations at the launch of the International Year for the World’s Indigenous People on 14 December 1992. The Sunday Star, 3 January 1993. Roosens, Eugeen E. 1989. Creating Ethnicity: The Process of Ethnogenesis. Frontiers of Anthropology, vol. 5. Newbury Park, California: Sage Publications. Skeat, Walter William, and Charles Otto Blagden. 1966 [1906]. Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula. vol 1. London: Frank Cass. Sowell, Thomas. 1994. Race and Culture: A World View. New York: Basic Books. Tachimoto, Narifumi Maeda. 1997. “Symbiotic Dynamics of an Insular Community in the Melaka Straits”. Paper presented at the conference on “Tribal Communities in the Malay World: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives”, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 24–27 March 1997. The Singapore Standard, “Surprise! These ‘Jakuns’ Find That They Are Really ‘SemoqBeris’”. 17 October 1956. The Star. “‘We Should Lead by Example’: DYMM”. 26 April 1984. ———. “Tunku: No Reason to Doubt Position of Malays”. 6 November 1986. ———. “Perak to Offer Other Sites to Orang Asli”. 26 October 1994. ———. “Orang Asli Likely to Get Land Titles”. 19 February 1997.

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The Star. “RM52mil Budget for Relocation of Orang Asli Villages”. 23 April 1997. Veber, Hanne and Espen Waehle. 1993. “... Never Drink from the Same Cup: An Introduction”. In ... Never Drink from the Same Cup, Proceedings of the Conference on Indigenous Peoples in Africa, edited by Hanne Veber et al. IWGIA Document No. 74, pp. 9–19. Copenhagen: IWGIA/CDR. Wazir-Jahan Begum Karim. 1981. Ma’ Betisék Concepts of Living Things. London: The Athlone Press. Weaver, Sally. 1989. “Political Representivity and Indigenous Minorities in Canada and Australia”. In Indigenous Peoples and the Nation State: Fourth World Politics in Canada, Australia and N orway, edited by Noel Dyck. Social and Economic Papers no. 14, pp. 113–50. St. John’s: Memorial University of Newfoundland. Wilkinson, R. J. 1971. “A History of the Peninsular Malays with Chapters on Perak and Selangor”. In Papers on Malay Subjects, edited by R. J. Wilkinson, pp. 13–151. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Williams-Hunt, P. D. R. 1952. An Introduction to the Malayan A borigines. Kuala Lumpur: The Government Press.

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Reproduced from Tribal Communities in the Malay W orld: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives , edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles ar e available at < http://www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html >.

6 TRADITIONAL ALLIANCES Contact between the Semais and the Malay State in Pre-modern Perak1 Juli Edo

INTRODUCTION This chapter is based on my Ph.D. research in two Semai villages, Kampung Perah and Kampung Tangkai Cermin, in the State of Perak. My main concern is to trace the history of contacts between the Semai people, an Orang Asli ethnic group, and the rulers of the pre-modern Malay state of Perak during the late precolonial period and the early British era, which ended in 1941. The discussion of these two periods overlaps to some extent because the Orang Asli in both villages were not aware of, or were confused about, these political changes. For them, the period of the early 1900s still falls within the era of the pre-modern Malay state era, because during that time they were still closely tied to the Malay rulers rather than to the British Resident. My discussion will begin by describing various Semai myths in order to trace their cultural ideas about Malaysia and the State of Perak, its indigenous inhabitants, and their early contacts with the pre-modern Malay state. This is followed by a presentation of the oral history of local Semais so as to approach the main theme of this chapter, the contact between the Orang Asli and the 137

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pre-modern Malay state of Perak during the transitional period. Finally, I will discuss the socio-economic impact of these Malay–Orang Asli contacts.

THE MYTHS Myth, or c9rm00r, is included in this discussion because it is regarded by the Semais as the source of Semai cosmology, the basis of their social organization and indigenous identity, as well as of their relationships with the outside world. Older Semais regard c9rm00r myths as true stories of the past. As Mara’ Semae2 said, the story of today will become a c9rm00r in the future, especially as it is passed down verbally. There are several Semai categories of story. Gah “news” refers to accounts of current events. P9nasal are old accounts or stories whose roots are traceable, from their content, to one or two hundred years ago. C9rm00r myths are very old stories (older than p9nasal ), some of which are regarded as fairy tales, and which are illogical from the empirical point of view. The Semais regard these myths in particular as origin-stories for all human beings, including themselves. Some older individuals, however, such as Mara’ Semae, are convinced that elements in the Semai myths were borrowed from the Malays during the long period of contact between the two peoples. The term M97kah for instance, which refers to the first earth created by $9naa7 (see below), could also be associated with Mekah (Mecca), the holy place of Islam. In Semai, according to Mara’ Semae, m97kah (etymologically, “splitting open”) refers to the sunrise. Another element borrowed by the Semais is the term Semudre Raye (cf. Malay, samudra raya “great ocean”), a place-name originally known only as teew “water”. These borrowings, however, never erased the essence of the stories, which appear similar to other origin stories, especially those of the Christian and Malay–Islamic traditions. The Semai belief system offers a universal perspective on the natural and supernatural world. According to the c9rm00r, the deity $9naa7 created the earth and all mankind. $9naa7 created the first earth from a combination of the main items used in Semai rituals, popped rice or m9rtih, the rice that is ground with patchouli leaf or tepung penawar (Malay: “neutralizing paste”), and flowers. This first earth was called M97kah “sunrise” or Padaak Judah, the name later given to the first woman created by $9naa7. $9naa7 asked his helper to put a mixture of the first earth in the middle of the Semudre Raye, a section of the universe which contained water. He gave the earth the same characteristics as human beings, such as having a human being’s soul or r9waay. It grew up like a human being too. At first, the earth was just the small area called M97kah, but it grew until finally the whole of the Semudre

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Raye became encompassed within it, as it is today. Some older Semais (such as Andak Jameah of Kampung Perah) believe the earth today has reached its old age. $9naa7 created the first human being from the dust of the earth and called him Adam. He then sent a female partner for Adam straight from heaven, and named her Siti Hawa. The Semais of Kampung Perah say that the Orang Asli of Malaysia are the last descendants of Adam. The population after Adam’s generation grew quite rapidly and M97kah became overpopulated. The people began to face shortages of food and started to quarrel. This led the elders of M97kah to hold meetings in order to relocate the population. The elders knew that the earth was growing up and that there was insufficient space for the people to live. After a few meetings, however, they failed to achieve any agreement since no one was willing to move from M97kah. This made Baginda Ali angry and he pounded his walking stick onto the earth – which is believed to be the origin of the tongkat Ali plant, a popular sexual stimulant in the Malay world. Finally, the last descendants of Adam decided to move. These last descendants, who are believed by Semais to be the ancestors of the Orang Asli, took bamboo rafts and surrendered them to the wind to sail away from M97kah. The wind pushed them in the direction of the sunrise. When they arrived at an island off d97g9rii? ?ad3h (“this country”, as the Semais refer to Malaysia), a group of them landed because they were too tired and could not endure any further travelling.This group then established a settlement called Pagaruyung.3 The rest of the group continued their journey and thus they separated into three groups. The first group landed on the seashore near Siyap (Siam) and settled on Malok mountain, which is believed by Semais to be located in northern Peninsular Malaysia. The second group landed further south, and settled on Sahineh mountain, which Semais believe to be located in the central-eastern part of Perak state. The last group landed on the shores of Melaka state and settled on Ledang mountain. Hundreds of years after that, M97kah became overcrowded again and a second exodus occurred. This time many people were willing to move out voluntarily. The second-last of the descendants of Adam, who were the ancestors of the Malays, sailed in the direction of the sunrise to rejoin their brothers and sisters, the Orang Asli. All of them landed in Sumatra and occupied the whole island. They then met the people of Pagaruyung and resided there with them. The newcomers were quite aggressive and became dominant in the village, which finally forced the people of Pagaruyung to flee, as they could not cohabit with their new relatives. These people from Pagaruyung landed in Melaka and met their long-lost relatives, who were

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living on Ledang mountain.4 They decided, however, to reside on the coast of Melaka. The c9rm00r goes on to tell that, hundreds of years later still, the Malays of Sumatra started to arrive in Melaka. One of the Semai myths states that the first such Malay was a prince who had failed to become the king of his country. The Royal Shaman (Pawang Di Raja) then predicted that there was a supernatural (betuah) Orang Asli (may s9rak) girl on Ledang mountain. The Royal Shaman asked the prince to marry the girl and establish a state there. As a result of this marriage, the prince established the state of Melaka. He employed Orang Asli as palace workers, and as guards and soldiers. This tradition was later continued by his successor(s). According to the Semais, the two legendary figures Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat were Orang Asli.5 When Hang Tuah became the panglima (Malay: “army leader”), a chaotic situation occurred in Melaka that led to a clash between Hang Tuah and his brother, Hang Jebat. After Hang Tuah defeated his brother, he decided to move away from Melaka, accompanied by his wife’s family, the Orang Asli of Ledang mountain, and the family of Hang Jebat’s wife. They moved north. On their journey, his followers stopped one-by-one as they became tired. The last group stopped in central Perak and identified themselves as the may bar9h “(Semai) lowland people”. Hang Tuah and his wife continued their journey and he become a leader of the Orang Asli in Upper Perak, where he died. The last group of Hang Tuah’s followers settled in an area now called Lambor. After living there for a while, the Siamese (S9yap) came to conquer the state. However, they became stuck at Lambor because there were two silver bars, each about the size of a human’s lower leg, across the river. But the bars were protected by the supernatural guardian of that area and the Siamese failed to cut them. They then tried to persuade an Orang Asli shaman (halaa?) of Lambor to help, but he refused. Finally, the Siamese challenged the shaman by saying that if he was able to cut the bars, they would honour his healing power. The Siamese would also retreat from the state and recognize it as belonging to the Orang Asli. However, if the shaman failed in his attempts, the Siamese would kill him and his people for fraud and would continue their own efforts to cut the bars. For that purpose, the shaman had to undertake a k9but ritual – a séance in a darkened hut – to persuade the supernatural guardian to allow the human beings to cut the silver bars. With the help of his supernatural guardian, the shaman managed to cut the bars, and as a result the Siamese pulled their troops out of Lambor. The river was then named the Perak River, after the two silver (Malay: perak) bars. The State of Perak was named after this river. The place where the shaman performed

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his ritual was named Lambor, after the k9but ritual, which is known as lambor in Perak Malay.6 Decades later, a prince of Johor named Tok Betangkuk (or Nakhoda Kassim according to some informants7) came to marry an Orang Asli girl who possessed white blood. After the marriage, Tok Betangkuk established a state, and this is believed to be the origin of the ancient Malay state and sultanate of Perak. Later, Malays came to follow Tok Betangkuk and occupied almost all the areas along the lower Perak River, resulting in the Orang Asli fleeing from Lambor into the interior. The Sultan, however, maintained his relationship with the Orang Asli, especially the people whom he appointed as palace workers, guards, and hunting partners. Many other Semai myths speak of the same subject. With the exception of the myth of Si Tenggang, an Orang Asli who married a Malay princess, the other myths tell of a Malay prince or raja who married an Orang Asli girl. A common thread running through these stories is that the raja knew about the girl from a dream and went to find her by pretending to be a hunter, bird trapper, or wandering traveller. The Orang Asli girl is always said to live in a padi field, looking after her field, having long hair, and possessing a beautiful voice. They meet each other and marry. As a precondition to the marriage, the Orang Asli girl always asks the prince to provide good treatment to her family and her people, and to accept them as his subjects (rakyat) ( Juli 1990).

LOCAL HISTORIES In addition to the oral histories widely shared among the Semais, each rivervalley group also has its own oral histories describing its culture, patterns of land use and settlement, trading, and political contact with outside world. This discussion, therefore, focuses on the oral history of the particular Semai groups that provide a significant understanding of indigenous roles and participation in the establishment of the pre-modern Malay state. In 1993, I undertook field research in Kampung Sungai Bot (B00t) in the War valley (Malay: Woh) territory, Batang Padang District. The research concerned the development of the Semai family, and for this purpose I chose Bah Bulat’s family as my focus. However, I had to do research on the whole village community because the Semais living in one village generally have one, or at the most two, cognatic descent groups (ramages). In my research, I found that Bah Busu, the grandfather of Bah Bulat, maintained a close friendship with a local Malay leader named Tok Bayas. Through his friendship with Tok Bayas, Bah Busu established contact with the palace of the Sultan of Perak. He paid annual tribute by sending rice, vegetables, fruits and domestic

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animals to Kuala Kangsar. He and his people took days to walk from Kampong Sungai Bot to Kuala Kangsar to fulfil these annual rituals. In return, the Sultan gave Bah Busu advice and goods, especially machetes, to be distributed to his people. The Sultan mainly suggested that Bah Busu and his people establish a permanent settlement at Sungai Bot and engage in permanent agriculture. That advice led Bah Bulat and his people to cultivate rubber in 1914, and become pioneers in the industry among the Orang Asli of the War territory. As a result of this contact, the Sultan appointed Bah Busu to be one of his apit kanan Maharaja (“ruler’s right-hand men”), and gave him the title of Tok Lela Dewa Angsa in 1909. (See Table 6.1.) Together with the title, Bah Busu was given a huge area of land, which was referred to by the Orang Asli as the War territory, to be administered under his ‘umbrella’. His duty was to look after the Orang Asli in the territory on behalf of the Sultan. That appointment reflected the close contact between the Sultan and the Orang Asli, which led the former to delegate political power to the Orang Asli leaders to administer a huge interior area of the Orang Asli territory. This endorsement was interpreted as a grant to the people of War, giving them secure rights to occupy the territory, and these rights were inherited by the descendants of this group, including the family of Bah Busu. Traditionally and currently, the Semais have been divided into cognatic descent-groups, each of which normally possesses its own territory. However, some of the larger territories, such as Woh (War), Batang Padang (G00l ), Temboh Hangat (T9mboh B9k33t), Changkat Pinggan, and Bernam (B9rn9m), were inhabited by several groups. The Sultan and chiefs of Perak used to delegate the same degree of political power as was given to Bah Busu to the Semai leaders of these territories, which were predominantly inhabited by Batang Padang Semais. Other Semai leaders who obtained titles for similar reasons in other territories are shown in Table 6.1. Skeat (Skeat & Blagden 1906, pp. 288–89) reports that Sir Hugh Low had contact with one of these titled leaders, Tok Lela Perkasa, who taught him about the use of the ipoh dart-poison. They also report that Leonard Wray had visited the grave of Tok Sang, another titled Semai leader, at Kuala Dipang, Kinta District. These statements show that the Orang Asli had obtained titles as political endorsement from their Malay allies by the nineteenth century, and probably earlier. This indicates the validity of some of the oral traditions that the Semais regard more as history than as myth. In other words, the Semais consider some of the stories in their oral history as real histories concerning events that occurred in the past. In contrast, outsiders, including previous researchers, have regarded these stories as myths, because they were not written down.

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TABLE 6.1 Orang Asli Titles in Pre-modern Perak State District

Semai Territory

Title

Bestower

Batang Padang

G00l War C97g9riik Gumpey Luwas

Padak K9rikal

Tok Balang Ali Tok Lela Dewa Angsa Tok Sang Lela Mutu Nuangga Tok Maharaja Tok Singa Merjan Tok Singa Merban Tok Mas Mulia

Sultan Sultan Sultan Raja Muda Raja Muda Raja Muda Raja Muda

Kinta

Bip0k Dook (Gope7) Salu?

Tok Sang Lela Pujangga Tok Lela Perkasa Tok Sang

Sultan Sultan Sultan

Central Perak

P9rah Busut (L97kuwas) T9mboh B9k33t Suwak Padi?

Tok Takor Tok Mat Melaka Tok Gerak Macang Tok Antan Bedui Tok Alang Ishak

Sultan Sultan Raja Sultan Sultan

?ero7 (B9rn9m)

Tok Batin Lela Perkasa

Sultan

Lower Perak

During the history of the Perak sultanate, however, not all Sultans were close to the Orang Asli. Some ignored the Orang Asli, as they were more concerned with the power struggles that preceded British intervention. Sultan Iskandar Shah (1918–38) was the last to have close contact with the Orang Asli in the early British era. Such contact later declined further, as the British took even fuller control over Malaya.

FIELDWORK AREA I carried out my most recent research in two Semai villages, Kampung Perah in Central Perak District, and Kampung Tangkai Cermin in Kinta District. The main aim of the research was to look into changing ideas about land rights among the Semais from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. My study uncovered a number of major issues regarding the land-rights concepts adopted by the Semais in the precolonial period. The first was that, although Semais were shifting from one place to another, they had a clear concept of territorial rights. In this, they were bounded by cultural ideas

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(adat) that their movements could only take place within their own territory and that they had to respect others’ territories. Under this adat, every Semai had an absolute right to dwell, hunt, fish, plant, harvest, collect jungle products, build shelters, etc., on the land within their own territory. They only moved to another territory by joining or marrying into the group which owned that territory. A second issue concerned the flexibility of the inheritance of leadership. In the old days, the Semais normally appointed their group leader from among the elders who had the power to deal with the spiritual aspects of land, especially to conduct rituals associated with the land. This group leader was called pawa7 or halaa?. After a pawa7’s death, the position passed to another elder of the group who possessed that power. Later, when Malay influence penetrated the society, the Semais had two leaders at once: the pawa7 as opinion leader, and the p97hulu? as group leader or headman.8 The position of p97hulu? is inherited (on the Malay pattern), while that of pawa7 is a noninherited post taken up by some older members of the group, both male and female. Another issue was related to the landownership system. Most of the Semai groups in the precolonial period still considered land as communal property ( Juli forthcoming; Gomes 1990). People had rights over the crops they had planted, but not over the land on which the crops were growing. When they established closer contact with the state, through the Palace and the Penghulu Mukim (parish headman), and became involved in permanent agriculture, especially the planting of commercial crops like rubber and fruits, the Semais began to adopt new concepts of land rights, in which land was regarded as belonging to the conjugal family that planted the crop. However, the people were still flexible in passing down the land, in that the head of either a conjugal or an extended family could give the land to family members, both male and female, who needed it in order to gain a livelihood. The people retained this flexibility in order to maintain family ties and harmonious relationships, especially with members of other settlements. In this chapter, I shall focus on the history of the relationships between the Semais in my field site and the Malay sultan and other chiefs of the premodern Perak state, with special regard to Perah and Tangkai Cermin villages.

KAMPUNG PERAH Perah is protected by the supernatural guardian (k9ramat) of a Semai man who had borne the title Tok Takor, awarded by the Sultan. In life, Tok Takor had served as a fighter for the Palace of Perak. In his last fight against the

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Siamese, he was injured and asked the Sultan to abandon him in an area that was full of perah (Elateriospermum tapos) trees, where he then disappeared (raib). Kampung Perah village and its population developed from three cognatic descent groups (ramages): those of Long Jeroneh, Mat Melaka, and Ngapok Kulup Laru. I shall discuss each of these separately. Long Jeroneh The following account was told to me by the late Itam Langsat, his son Bah Derboh, the late Andak Jameah and his son Long Dahaman, and Bah Gek the son of Alang Tek. Kampung Perah was established in 1916, and was pioneered by Long Jeroneh and his family. Long Jeroneh came from Salu?, a Semai village near Batang Tonggang (now Kampar) town. He was a typical old-time Semai man, who left his village to go ‘wandering’ to look for a wife and to build a new life outside his own and his wife’s own village. Long Jeroneh later married Itam Perak, a young woman of T9mboh B9k33t (Malay: Tumboh Hangat), now a sub-village of Bota, whose family originated from Denak and was related to that of Mat Melaka. After living in T9mboh B9k33t for some time, Long Jeroneh decided to look for a new site for his family to open dry-rice fields (s9laay). They migrated south to the Cangkat Pinggan area of Batang Padang District, and moved about within that area for quite a long time until Long Jeroneh became middle-aged. They then moved north to areas near Siputeh and Ulu Lengkuas, near Parit town. From Ulu Lengkuas, Long Jeroneh and his group joined his wife’s relatives in Bekau (B9kaaw) village, and settled there for several seasons. While there, Long Jeroneh and a few Bekau families cleared padi fields in the Perah area, to the southeast of Bekau. They worked on their s9laay “to and fro” every day. When the padi was ripe, they lived in the field to protect it from the attacks of birds and wild boar, until they had finished harvesting. Long Jeroneh liked the Perah area very much because the land was fertile and the Perah River was also rich in fish. While in Bekau, Long Jeroneh, together with the headman of Bekau, went to Kuala Kangsar a few times to meet the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Idris Murshidul A’zam Shah (1887–1916). The Orang Asli paid their tribute to the Sultan every year after harvest. Sometimes they sent their tribute twice a year. In the middle of the year was the season of tampoi fruit (Baccaurea malayana, B. bracteata), which they sent to the Sultan together with palm-cabbage (pal3y) and other vegetables.

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Long Jeroneh and his people carried on planting padi in the Perah area and paying their annual tribute to Sultan Idris Murshidul A’zam Shah until the Sultan passed away. They continued their contact with his successor, Sultan Abdul Jalil (1916–18). Just after Sultan Abdul Jalil was appointed, Long Jeroneh and the headman of Bekau visited the new Sultan and paid their tribute. During their meeting, Sultan Abdul Jalil suggested they settle in a permanent village or kampung and plant padi and vegetables, and raise domestic animals. That advice inspired Long Jeroneh to build a new community, rather than squatting in Bekau. He then decided to open a settlement at his old s9laay in the Perah area. During that same season (1916), Long Jeroneh and three other families moved into Perah and established a permanent settlement. However, they faced a few problems during their early settlement, because the area was proposed by the British for conversion to the Keledang Sayong Forest Reserve. They heard rumours that they could be fined for intruding into that area. They moved into a few places within the area and finally settled in a place called Keramat, where Perah village is now. Since Long Jeroneh was busy moving from one place to another, he failed to pay further tribute to Sultan Abdul Jalil for the season after their first meeting (1917). In the next season, Long Jeroneh also failed to fulfil his tribute to the Sultan because the latter had passed away in 1918, two years after his appointment. At that time, Long Jeroneh was already old. He passed his position as headman to his nephew, Alang Tek. Alang Tek’s appointment as a headman was made by Mat Alit, the Malay Penghulu Mukim of Tanjung Belanja. After his appointment, Alang Tek asked the Penghulu Mukim to measure their occupied area and produce an Occupation Permit or g9ran (“grant”) for his village. However, the Penghulu Mukim told Alang Tek that the Orang Asli need not have a g9ran because the state generally belonged to them. The Orang Asli could occupy any area they chose, especially in the jungle, such as the Perah area. Nevertheless, the Penghulu Mukim suggested that Alang Tek and his people establish a permanent settlement because it would be easier for the Sultan to visit them. The Penghulu Mukim also advised them to carry out permanent agriculture. After a few seasons living permanently in Perah, Alang Tek and Long Jeroneh once again joined the headman of Bekau and went to Kuala Kangsar to pay tribute to Sultan Iskandar Shah, who had just been appointed in 1918. At that meeting, the Sultan advised Long Jeroneh and his people to settle permanently in the Perah area. Following that meeting, the Sultan made a few unofficial visits to Perah, mainly for camping and hunting. He and his guards went to the upper Perah River and camped there. The Sultan travelled by

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elephant while his guards went on foot. The Sultan told the villagers that he had come to visit his subjects (rakyat) in the interior, and at the same time he wanted to hunt wild game, especially mousedeer. On his second visit, the Sultan slept overnight at a camping site. On the way home, he left a kusa – a metal chain used as an elephant-goad – with Alang Tek, the headman of Perah. According to the Sultan, as narrated by Andak Jameah, the late daughter of Long Jeroneh, he left the kusa because it would be easier for them to travel without it on the next trip. Otherwise, his guards would have had to carry the heavy chain all the way from Kuala Kangsar to Perah. Long after his second visit, the Sultan visited Perah for a third time. Andak Jameah did not remember whether the Sultan made any visits after that. All she remembered was that her father, Long Jeroneh, died a few months after the Sultan’s third visit, which was probably in the mid or late 1920s. On every visit, the Sultan did not allow the villagers to perform a formal welcome ceremony because his visit was informal. Almost all the men in the village accompanied the Sultan to the camping site. They voluntarily cleaned the site, built a camp, and also hunted with the Sultan’s guards. They did all this to show their appreciation of the Sultan, who was willing to visit his rakyat in the interior. Mat Melaka The second group who developed Kampung Perah was the family of Tok Mat Melaka, whose real name was Mara’ Nile’. (This account was told to me by Ataa’ Be’ Pakai and Ataa’ Be’ Makar, the sons of Mat Melaka, and their nephew Be’ Tambun.) This family also had close contact with the Malay chiefs of Perak. Mara’ Nile’ was the grandson of a Semai leader, best known by his title Tok Gerak Macang, who occasionally served as a fighter for Raja Yusuf of Tanjung Belanja.9 During Tok Gerak Macang’s time, he and his people lived in Kampung Busut near Parit town. Raja Yusuf was close to him because he was a good healer and possessed good fighting skills. On one occasion, Tanjung Belanja was visited by a Royal family from Aceh (but some said from Java). In conjunction with that visit, both sides agreed to hold a fighting show. Raja Yusuf asked Tok Gerak Macang to represent Tanjung Belanja. At first, Tok Gerak Macang refused because the fight was just for fun. He told the Raja that anybody could take part in such a show because it was not a real fight. Raja Yusuf, however, wanted to keep his pride, and insisted Tok Gerak Macang take part. Tok Gerak Macang finally accepted because he had to obey his Raja.

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The fight took place under a horse-mango or macang (Mangifera foetida) tree. The Acehnese fighter attacked Tok Gerak Macang with his keris very rapidly and Tok Gerak Macang retreated because he was not serious in that fight since he considered it as just a show. In contrast, the Acehnese was very serious, and finally forced Tok Gerak Macang to pull back to the macang tree. The Acehnese then had a good chance to stab Tok Gerak Macang. However, Tok Gerak Macang managed to escape by falling to the ground, which made the Acehnese stab the macang tree, and his keris stuck there. Tok Gerak Macang was very angry. He stood up and released his anger by shaking the macang tree, which was as big as a gunny sack. All the macang fruit fell down. The Raja of Tanjung Belanja stopped the fight and gave his fighter the title Tok Gerak Macang or “macang shaker”. Tok Gerak Macang died; some said that he disappeared (raib), in Busut. After that, the Busut villagers abandoned the village and moved north to Teew &00r (now called Manu7, or Manong in Malay) and B9rkey (also known as Sangka Jadi). They lived in various locations in these two areas for some decades. They also engaged in selling rattan and other jungle products. One of the small market towns or pekan that they always visited to sell their products was Tanjung Belanja. Their presence in the area and in the pekan was reported in a letter to Walter William Skeat in the 1880s by Leonard Wray,10 then at the State Museum of Taiping (Skeat & Blagden 1906, pp. 528– 29). After this long period of moving around the B9rkey and Teew &00r areas, Mara’ Nile’s father and his group finally settled with their distant relatives in Denak. At that time, Mara’ Nile’s father was already old; he died soon after they moved to Denak. Although the British Administration had been established in Perak in 1874, the people of Denak still had strong ties with the Sultan. During the time that Mara’ Nile’s family was settled in Denak, the Sultan of Perak was Sultan Idris Murshidul A’zam Shah I (1887– 1916), who was then succeeded by Sultan Abdul Jalil (1916–18). Every year the people of Denak paid their tribute of rice and vegetables to the Sultan. For that purpose, each family was required to contribute five gantangs of padi. The headman would gather the padi and vegetables from his people, and then call the villagers to pound the padi, which took one or two days. When everything was ready, the headman and a few elders carried these offerings to Kuala Kangsar, and delivered them to the Sultan. This tradition was carried on until the time of Sultan Iskandar Shah (1918–38). Mara’ Nile’ was young when the family settled in Denak, and he soon married a girl of that village. With the advent of tin mining near their village, the people of Denak shifted their economic activity from planting padi to

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supplying sticks and logs to the mining companies. The sticks, called lungkut and kacar, were used to shore up the banks of the mines to avoid landslides, while the logs were used to fuel the steam-powered machinery. Mara’ Nile’ worked with the Denak villagers, selling wood to the English and Chinese mining companies around the area. At this time, contact between the Denak villagers and the Sultan of Perak still occurred, but it began to decrease when the British took control of the state. In addition, the people were then engaging in the traditional open-cast mining known as kelit, and because of this their contact was more often with the British administrators. In the early 1920s, after living in Denak for about twenty years, Mara’ Nile’ developed a problem with his wife’s sister’s husband, the headman of Denak. As a result, he decided to move out from the village in order to prevent the problem from becoming more serious. He moved to a place called Pancor in the Perah area. There, in 1925 he developed a good relationship with the Penghulu Mukim of Parit, Raja Yusuf, who encouraged him to cultivate rubber. He also established contact with Sultan Iskandar Shah, from whom he obtained his title Tok Mat Melaka. This contact is confirmed by H. D. Noone, Field Ethnographer with the Federated Malay States Museums and Protector of Aborigines, Perak, in his report to the Controller of Rubber, Malaya: “I have since studied the Parit paper 455/28 giving the record of this group’s contact with the Administration since 1925.”11 The Penghulu Mukim, with the permission of the Sultan, gave Mara’ Nile’ an area of 200 acres within the Malay Reserve of Choping. (This land came under the jurisdiction of the Sultan as part of the recognition of Malay customary rights by the British colonial administration.) Mara’ Nile’ obtained his title of Tok Mat Melaka in the early 1930s, during one of the Sultan’s visits to Parit town. The day before that visit, the Penghulu Mukim of Parit asked the Semais to work together with the Malays in Parit town to prepare food for the occasion. The Semais were asked to prepare lemang, sticky rice cooked in bamboo tubes. On the visiting day, the Sultan sailed down from Kuala Kangsar. In the morning he stopped at a Malay village at the estuary of Bekor River and met the rakyat there, including the Semais of Bekau. From there, he sailed to Parit. At his meeting with the rakyat in Parit, the Sultan first called the leaders of the Malay villages, followed by the leaders of the Orang Asli in the district, one by one. At that meeting, the leaders delivered their offerings. After the Sultan received each offering, he asked the leader about the developments and problems that had occurred in his village during the past year. Then the Sultan delivered his suggestions to improve that village. If there were problems which related to the District Administration, he would call the relevant officers, either the

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Penghulu Mukim or the District Officer to come to the front and ask them to attend to the problem faced by that village. These sessions went on for a very long time, sometimes for days. In his conversation with Mara’ Nile’, the Sultan advised him and his people to establish a permanent village and cultivate rubber. Then he gave the title Tok Mat Melaka to Mara’ Nile’ because the ancestor of Mara’ Nile’ supposedly came from Melaka.12 The Sultan then asked the Malays to accept the Orang Asli as their relatives (saudara). He also advised the Malays not to address the Orang Asli as sakai since he himself treated both the Malays and the Orang Asli as his rakyat. Instead, they should be called orang dalam “people of the interior” or orang darat “people of the dry land”. He said he would punish anyone he found looking down on the Orang Asli. The Sultan continued his visit the next day to other areas further downriver, where he bestowed two more titles on Semai leaders. He gave the title of Tok Alang Ishak to the headman of Suak Padi, and the title of Tok Antan Bedui to Uda Pikut, the headman of T9mboh B9k33t. Sultan Iskandar Shah gave simpler titles to the Orang Asli leaders than the other Perak royals. For example, he gave Uda Pikut the title Antan ‘pestle’, because Uda Pikut’s arm was affected by elephantiasis and looked like a pestle. Both of these Semai leaders, Tok Alang Ishak and Tok Antan Bedui, were elders who had just succeeded to the position of headman. The titles they received symbolized a responsibility to administer the Semai people in these villages, both of which were located in the T9mboh B9k33t territory, on behalf of the head of the state. With the political recognition of the Sultan and his permission to cultivate rubber, Tok Mat Melaka took the Sultan’s advice, and eventually made his living through involvement in the rubber cultivation industry. The glory days of rubber, however, stopped when the Japanese occupied Malaya in 1942. Contacts between Tok Mat Melaka and the Sultan also ended. In the post-Independence era, the people of Pancor moved to Keramat when their village was affected by the route of a high-power electricity cable. They then joined the Keramat people and their village became known as Pos Perah, now Kampung Perah. Ngapok Kulup Laru13 The third group of people who developed Kampung Perah were descendants of Ngapok Kulop Laru. They came from Teew Batu?, a village near Malim Nawar town. The territory of Teew Batu?, about 200 acres in area, was given by the Yamtuan Teja (known as Marhum Teja after his death). The Yamtuan

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Teja advised all the Orang Asli groups who moved separately within the area to gather together and build their life in that village. He also advised them to carry out permanent agriculture. The people planted the area with rubber after it was introduced as a commercial crop in Perak in the early twentieth century. However, the whole area of Teew Batu? was bought by a mining tycoon from Kampar in the 1930s, forcing the villagers to move to various other places. Ngapok Kulop Laru and his families decided to move to Perah. Their contact with the royal family of Teja also ended at this time.

TANGKAI CERMIN14 Tangkai Cermin is a new village, first occupied in 1985. The people moved there because of a lack of land to work in their old villages of Pengkalan Jering and Sungai Galah. These two villages were founded and developed by Long Tanjung, who came from the War area of Batang Padang District. He arrived in the Sungai Galah area, which was previously known as Gumpei Luas, in the late 1800s. Long Tanjung also adopted the “wandering” tradition, and moved away from his village to look for a new future. The main reason he went to Gumpei Luas was to look for rattan, but he was also looking for an opportunity to start a new life and to start a family. He joined the group from Suak Padi (or Teew Baa?) who had come to this area to open padi fields. He followed this group back into their village at the end of every padi season and married a girl from there. After marriage, Long Tanjung and a few members of his wife’s family returned to Gumpei Luas, and moved around the area for quite some time. A few other groups, mostly from Bota, also lived in the Gumpei Luas area. Each group comprised four or five conjugal families or kelamin. These groups joined together to form a larger group. This occurred because some of the groups who lived in the area were without their shaman (pawa7, halaa?). There were two reasons for this: either their shaman had died or he had left the group. Among the Semais, the group member who becomes a shaman is usually old. When he gets too old to do hard work such as opening fields, he withdraws from the group and goes back to his old village. The absence of a shaman leaves his group supernaturally insecure. When a member of the group becomes ill, they must join another group who has a shaman. This process can go on until various groups form one large group. During the time when Long Tanjung was the shaman, his group became a central reference point, and groups without a shaman came and joined them. Although the group became bigger, they continued to move around

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only within the Gumpei Luas territory. They never went across the Kinta River to work in the Padak Kerikal area, which belonged to the people of Kelubi, or the Cangkat Pinggan area which used to be the territory of the Kuruk people. According to one of my key informants, Panjang Long, the people in the old days had a strong respect for each other’s territories. “If a man of our group wanted to work in the Padak Kerikal territory, for instance, he had first to become a villager of Kelubi, either by moving into that village or getting married to a girl of that village.” He added that this mutual understanding and appreciation of each other’s rights was a source of harmonious relationships in the old days. In the mid-1920s, the people settled permanently in Pengkalan Jering, a high, flat area located on the banks of the Kinta River. Pengkalan Jering was a strategic place, being located at the middle of the trade route from Teluk Anson (now Teluk Intan) to Bukit Pekan, Tanjung Tualang, Malim Nawar, and other villages along the Kinta River. When the people settled in Pengkalan Jering, traders from Teluk Anson came through with their goods. Before tin mining came to the Kinta valley, the waters of the Kinta River were clear. A little further downriver from Pengkalan Jering was Tasik Bangsi, well known as a Royal camp site. During their settlement in Pengkalan Jering, Ataa’ Be’ Pari’ was the headman of the village, while Long Tanjung was the shaman. At that time they began to establish close contacts with the Raja Muda of Perak, who lived in the palace of Durian Sebatang in Teluk Anson town. Long Tanjung and Ataa’ Be’ Pari’, together with the other villagers, used to accompany the Raja Muda when he stayed overnight in Tasik Bangsi. They teamed up with the part-time ‘royal escort’ of Semais to fish and hunt mousedeer around the Tasik Bangsi area. Since Ataa’ Bek Pari’ depended on fishing for his livelihood, the Raja Muda asked him to fish for prawns (udang galah) and kelah fish, while Long Tanjung was usually asked to accompany the hunting group, which was mostly made up of Orang Asli. The Raja Muda, however, wanted to have at least one Malay in the hunting group, so he could slaughter the game according to Islamic custom. This close contact led the Raja Muda to bestow the title Tok Maharaja on Ataa’ Be’ Pari’ because of his position as the headman of the village. The titlegiving ceremony was held at Pengkalan Jering in 1928 or 1929. Two years later, Tok Maharaja went back to his own village, Suak Padi, to spend the rest of his life on his home ground. The position of headman of Pengkalan Jering was then taken up by another elder named Itam Belit. He was given the title Tok Singa Merban by the Raja Muda at a ceremony in the early 1930s. According to Keling Nawan, an elder of Tangkai Cermin, the ceremony

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started at about 8.00 p.m. because the Raja Muda arrived late due to the high water level. The current was fast and slowed the royal boat. At the ceremony, the Raja Muda put his “royal weapon” (Badik Diraja) into the water in a white bowl. The water was then poured onto the head of Itam Belit, and at the same time the Raja Muda gave him the title Tok Singa Merban. The Raja Muda then advised Tok Singa Merban to “persuade” his people to settle permanently in Pengkalan Jering, to become involved in trading activities and to carry out permanent agriculture. The Raja Muda went back to Teluk Anson the next morning. Keling Nawan claims that this was the last royal visit into the area by way of the Kinta River, because after that the river declined as the main route for traders and travellers due to the development of roads. He added that there were three headmen with titles in Gumpei Luas: Tok Maharaja, Tok Singa Merjan, and Tok Singa Merban. The story of Tok Singa Merjan was unclear, for the Tangkai Cermin people were not sure when or where he received his title. Some said it was at Pengkalan Jering, another said at Bota; but the rest replied that they just did not know. The Orang Asli of Pengkalan Jering paid their tribute to the royalty of Perak by sending annual offerings. The headmen and a few elders went down to Teluk Anson and paid their tribute to the Raja Muda, who lived in the Palace of Durian Sebatang. However, they never went to the Sultan’s palace, which was located far upriver at Kuala Kangsar. They did meet Sultan Iskandar Shah once when he visited the palace of Durian Sebatang. In the mid-1930s, the Orang Asli of Pengkalan Jering received the news that the area had been “purchased” by a “white-man” (may b9y3k) dredging company. They also heard rumours that there was an order to remove them and other inhabitants from the area. They therefore fled “voluntarily” from Pengkalan Jering and settled a little inside Sungai Galah, the only area which had not been purchased by the mining companies. Long Tanjung and Tok Singa Merban urged their people to remain there and face whatever challenges there were from the state because Gumpei Luas was considered the last frontier for them to live in. Now that the Kinta River was no longer the main travel route and the people had moved to Sungai Galah, their contact with the palace of Durian Sebatang also ended: their affairs had now been taken over by the British administrators.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACTS The contacts between the Semais and the rulers of the pre-modern Malay state of Perak had a considerable socio-economic impact on local communities.

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I shall briefly describe some of the consequences of this contact, in the hope of stimulating further research. These contacts affected the way the villagers live today. The Semais live in permanent villages, practise non-swidden agriculture, and lay claim to the area or territory in which they now live. This Semai land claim is based on their previous contacts with the Sultan, Raja or other Malay chiefs, who acknowledged their presence there, bestowed titles on their leaders, and regarded them as state representatives who were supposed to look after the rakyat in that area. However, this was ignored by the colonial British, who introduced land laws and took away all the territories and converted them into reserves, which later became state land. These land laws were then inherited by the Malaysian Government. (See Act 134 – the Aboriginal Peoples’ Ordinance, 1954, Revised 1974.) One of the results of repeated contact was a change in settlement pattern. In the old days, the Semai leaders, or headmen, took the advice of the Sultan or Raja and brought their people to establish large permanent villages. By the early twentieth century, almost all Semai communities, especially those in the lowland area (may bar9h), lived in permanent, established villages. They engaged in permanent agriculture, cultivating fruit orchards, (dusut or kampok). The main concern of the Malay rulers at that time was to encourage the people to live in permanent villages in the same way as the Malay rakyat. This aim, however, did not much affect other aspects of the Orang Asli way of life, as they still had the freedom to continue their traditional economic activities (including opening padi swiddens), to practise their customs and beliefs, and to trade jungle products, especially rattan. In regard to the freedom of trade, Leonard Wray reported that the Orang Asli of Batang Padang took the train to Teluk Anson to sell their rattan as they could get a better price there than by selling it to local dealers (Skeat & Blagden 1906, p. 529). When the British came, they introduced common laws that mostly contravened the interests of the Malay rulers and natives like the Orang Asli. The Malay rulers eventually had no choice but to adopt these laws. In their relations with their Orang Asli rakyat, however, the rulers reacted differently. They advised the rakyat to carry on their traditional lifestyle in the interior areas. In the early 1900s, when rubber became the main industry in Malaya, the Malay rulers encouraged the Orang Asli to engage in this industry because the crop could bring in a good income as rattan became scarce. This encouragement appeared to be a part of the attraction to persuade the Orang Asli to develop a more settled lifestyle. The Orang Asli once again took that advice. This had a great impact on their lives since it resulted in a transition from the indigenous swidden-based economy to one based on rubber

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smallholding. The encouragement from the Malay rulers, however, contradicted the regulations proposed by the International Rubber Regulation Committee, and caused serious concern to the Controller of Rubber, Malaya.15 Another socio-economic impact of contacts was an increase in cultural borrowing. Because of contact with the Malay rulers, some Malay cultural traits were adopted by the Orang Asli, particularly the Semai people, who adopted certain elements of Malay marriage custom or adat. These included the idea of adat payment, such as the belanja tubuh (bride wealth) and the belanja hangus (expenditure costs). This adat required a Semai man to pay an amount of belanja tubuh to the girl who was to become his wife. Regarding the belanja hangus, however, most of the Semais believed in equal sharing between the man’s and woman’s families. In contrast, the Denak and Perah people adopted this adat directly from the Malays, requiring a man to provide the full amount of the belanja hangus, the cost of the marriage ceremony. In addition to this adat, the Semais also regard the marrying couple as raja sehari (rajah for a day). The couple are given special treatment on the day of their marriage ceremony. In the bathing ceremony, for instance, the couple is accompanied by a marching troop of relatives, complete with traditional Malay music performed live along the way from home to the river or well where the raja sehari bathe. The Semais also adopted the Malay style in the bersanding (sitting sideby-side) ceremony, in which the couple, dressed in royal Malay suits, sit together on the bridal dais ( pelamin). After the bersanding ceremony, the lowland Semais will perform another adat ceremony called (in Malay) sembah mentua (bowing to the parents-in-law): the bride and groom bow and shake hands with each of their village leaders, and then with their parents-in-law. This is a clear example of borrowing, illustrating the elements that have been adopted by the Semais, especially among the villagers of Denak, Bekau, Perah and Bota, in the lowland area. However, the Semais have adopted different practices in regard to the belanja tubuh dowry payment. In some villages, this is paid at a flat rate, which the suitor has to pay to the woman regardless of her status. This amount is enam puluh tengah tiga ($61.50). In other villages, the amount of belanja tubuh is differentiated according to the status of the woman – whether she is the daughter of the headman or his assistant, or of an ordinary family.16 (See Table 6.2.) In some areas, the man just needs to pay half of the belanja tubuh to his wife, and keeps the other half for himself. Despite these differences regarding the belanja tubuh, the Semais have still adopted the same requirements for marriage, that is, that the man has to pay the belanja tubuh to his future wife.

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156 TABLE 6.2 The Belanja Tubuh Rates for Semai Girls of Different Status Social Status of the Girl

Terms of Adat Payment

Value

Daughter of headman Daughter of headman’s assistant Daughter of ordinary family

Enam puluh tengah tiga Tiga puluh lima suku Dua puluh lima

$61.50 $31.25 $25.00

These differences in customary practice are due to the fact that the Semai leaders in the old days received their lessons about adat at different times and from different sources. Some of them obtained this custom directly from the Sultan, while others adopted it from the Raja Muda, or other lower-level rulers such as the Yamtuan Teja or the Penghulu Mukim. In the case of Kampung Sungai Bot, from which Bah Busu gained his new knowledge, the custom was adopted from the local chief, Tok Bayas. The adat was also received verbally, and none of it was in written form. This then led to the local differences in practice of the marriage adat.

CONCLUSION The transition period from the nineteenth to the twentieth century had a great impact on Malaysian political history. The period saw the collapse of the pre-modern Malay state and its replacement by a colonial power. This period also witnessed a great social change in the Orang Asli community, especially among the lowland Semais (may dir3h). Previously, the Orang Asli had established close contacts with the Malay state of Perak, which led the Sultan and the Raja Muda, as heads of the State, to provide political endorsements to Orang Asli leaders by giving them titles or g9lar, and by recognizing their people as rakyat. This recognition appeared to demonstrate the significant role of the Orang Asli in the establishment of the ancient Malay state of Perak. The small degree of political power gained by the Orang Asli leaders allowed them to persuade their people to change their way of life and to live in permanent villages, undertake permanent agriculture, especially rubber cultivation, and to engage in fair-trading activities. This contact with the Malay state, however, came to an end after the British took full control of Malaya in 1919. The British slowly took over all internal affairs, including issues relating to the Orang Asli. Starting from the mid-1930s, the Orang Asli began a new relationship with such British Administrative officers as the District Officer and the Head of the Department of Forestry, which indirectly separated the Orang Asli from their old alliances with the community of the

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Palace of Perak. By the middle of the twentieth century the Orang Asli, such as those in Perah and Sungai Galah, no longer played any part in Malay politics, and the new Malay politicians also ignored the myths describing the role of the Orang Asli in the founding of the Malay kingdoms. (Dentan et al. 1997.)

NOTES 1. This chapter is based on several chapters of my Ph.D. thesis. The content and presentation is, therefore, slightly similar to the original chapters. I thank Professor James J. Fox, Dr Mandy Scott, and Peter Raftos for assistance with the preparation of this chapter. 2. [Editors’ note:] While we have tried to ensure that ordinary Semai words are accurately (that is, phonemically) transcribed in this chapter, this has not always proved possible with place names and personal names, which are largely left in the author’s original spelling. 3. Semais regard Pagaruyung as the homeland of their Orang Asli neighbours, the Temuans, with whom they have some contact. Some Temuans, such as Mamak Ahad of Kampung Lubuk Bandung, Jasin, Melaka, claim that their ancestors came from this place much earlier than the Malays. (The real Pagarruyung is an important place in West Sumatra, from where many Minang migrants to the Temuan-inhabited areas of the Malay Peninsula claimed to originate.) 4. That reunion is believed by Semais to be the origin of the ethnonym Temuan: they had met (temu) their long-lost relatives. Today, Temuan is still used as the name of a (Malay-speaking) Orang Asli group living inland from Melaka state. 5. According to Malay tradition, Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat were legendary military leaders, or panglima, who subdued pirates and bandits around the kingdom of Melaka in the fifteenth century (Andaya 1987, pp. 58–68). They came from an extended family of the Gunung Ledang Orang Asli, gained their healing powers and martial skills from the same instructor, and both went on to serve the state of Melaka as military commanders. The Semais’ claim that these figures were Orang Asli agrees with the Malay version of the story, Hikayat Hang Tuah (Kassim 1964), where it is stated that Hang Tuah originated from an Orang Asli family. In the Semai version, Hang Tuah finally gets back to his people and becomes an Orang Asli leader in Upper Perak. 6. Some Semais also use lamur or ramul to refer to the same ritual. 7. According to Andak Jameah, one of my key informants, the first Malay prince to come to Perak was Nakhoda Kassim and not Tok Betangkuk. See also Maxwell (1882); Ragayah (1995); Dentan et al. (1997). 8. Pawa7 and p97hulu? are Malay words, as is recognized by many Semais, and despite Maxwell’s opinion (1882, p. 22) that the former was borrowed by Malays from a “Sakai dialect”. 9. Raja Yusuf was one of the three princes involved in the rivalry for the regency of

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10.

11. 12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

Perak in the mid-1800s. After the twenty-fourth Sultan of Perak, Sultan Ali alMukammal Inayat Shah, died in 1871, the three princes, Raja Yusuf, Raja Abdullah and Raja Ismail, struggled to succeed him. Raja Ismail emerged as the victor and twenty-fifth Sultan. Following this, Raja Abdullah then sought British support in order to regain the regency. This struggle became the reason for British intervention in Perak in 1874, which marked an early stage of British colonialization of Malaya (Wilkinson 1923). Leonard Wray was appointed Superintendent of the Government Hill Garden in 1881, and Curator of the State Museum, Taiping in 1883. He retired in 1908 (Menon 1976, p. 5). Source: H. D. Noone, in File No. 8B in Ad.F.200/36. Arkib Negara Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. According to Ataa’ Bek Makar, there were two groups of Orang Asli in Melaka during the era of Hang Tuah: the Sakais (S97?0y), ancestors of the Semais, and the Temuans. According to him, his ancestors were the last Sakai group to leave Melaka together with Hang Tuah. This claim implies that there were Semais living further south than they do at present. This account was told to me by Long Apon of Kampung Perah (Parit), Bah Empe’ of Kampung Prenggeurb (Sahom), and Ngah Hari Yeop of Kampung Teew M94ca7 (Kampar). This account was told to me by: Anjang Ngah Lesu, the Penghulu of Tangkai Cermin; Keling Nawan, the adat leader; and his uncle, Panjang Long, the only surviving son of Long Tanjung. Source: File No. 8 in Ad.F.200/36, Arkib Negara Malaysia. According to Lim Teck Ghee (Lim 1977), the Rubber Controller of Malaya was concerned over the production of rubber by smallholders. He tried to reduce the production in order to stabilize the price. As a means of control, coupons were distributed to planters and smallholders who held licences allowing them to plant and sell rubber. Only those producers with coupons were allowed to sell their rubber, while the rest were regarded as illegal growers, whose rubber should therefore be eradicated too. See Juli 1993.

REFERENCES Andaya, L. Y. 1987. Kerajaan Johor 1641–1728: Pembangunan Ekonomi dan Politik. (Trans. Shamsuddin Jaafar.) Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Dentan, R. K., K. Endicott, A. G. Gomes, and M. B. Hooker. 1997. Malaysia and the Original People: A Case Study of the Impact of Development on Indigenous People. Massachusetts: Allyn and Bacon. Gomes, A. L. 1990. “Confrontation and Continuity: Simple Commodity Production among the Orang Asli”. In Tribal Peoples and D evelopment in Southeast Asia , Special issue of Manusia dan Masyarakat, edited by Lim Teck Ghee and A. L.

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Gomes, pp. 12–36. Department of Anthroplogy and Sociology, University of Malaya. Juli Edo. 1990. Tradisi Lisan Masyarakat Semai. Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. ———. 1993. “Perkahwinan Semai: Satu Refleksi tentang Kesinambungan dan Transformasi Budaya”. Paper presented at the Seminar Antarabangsa Mengenai Pembangunan dan K ebudayaan Masyarakat Pedalaman, Pekanbaru, Riau, Indonesia. ———. Forthcoming. “The Issues of Orang Asli Land in the Context of National Development Planning: The Experience of Bah Bulat Bekek Family, Kampung Sungai Bot, Tapah, Perak”. In Eight Malaysian Families, edited by T. Kato and Azizah Kassim. Kassim Ahmad, ed. 1964. Hikayat Hang Tuah, Menurut Naskhah Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Lim Teck Ghee. 1977. Peasants and their A gricultural Economy in Colonial M alaya, 1874–1941. Kuala Lumpur, New York: Oxford University Press. Maxwell, W. E. 1882. “The History of Perak from Native Sources”, Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 9: 85–108. Menon, K. P. V. 1976. History and Development of F orestry and Forest Industries in Malaysia (A Bibliography). Kepong: Forest Research Institute of Malaysia. Ragayah Eusoff. 1995. Lord of Kinta: The Biography of Dato P anglima Kinta Eusoff. Petaling Jaya, Malaysia: Pelanduk Publication. Skeat, W. W., and C. O. Blagden. 1906. Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula. 2 vols. London: Macmillan. Wilkinson, R. J. 1923. A History of the Peninsular Malays with Chapters on Perak and Selangor. Singapore: Kelly & Walsh.

© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

Reproduced from Tribal Communities in the Malay W orld: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives , edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles ar e available at < http://www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html >.

7 FOREST PEOPLE, CONSERVATION BOUNDARIES, AND THE PROBLEM OF “MODERNITY” IN MALAYSIA Lye Tuck-Po

INTRODUCTION TRADITION AND MODERNITY This chapter will examine how Malays in Peninsular Malaysia perceive the Bateks and how the Bateks’ ways of life and thought challenge the official perception. These mutual perceptions are reflected in the peoples’ respective enactments of environmental relationships. Fundamentally, the administrative discourse tends to order the world into oppositional categories: the convenient tropes of “tradition” and “modernity”. While “tradition” is equated with indigenous, “modernity” is equated with progressive. Hence the former is identified with “folk” and “unchanging” while the latter is identified with “Western”, “developing”, and “scientific”. Such linkages are widespread (see, for example, Frossard 1994; Hobart 1993). It goes almost without saying that for anthropologists “tradition” and “modernity”1 are at best heurisms and at worst political ideologies that are deployed to obfuscate the true nature of power relations between state and 160

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local social entities (see Hobsbawm 1983). On the other hand, that we routinely continue to challenge this distinction reveals just how embedded, and therefore how politically useful, the fiction has become. The popular imagination would have it that there is a discontinuous break between tradition and modernity. In recent years, the dichotomy has resurfaced forcefully in the study, dissemination and application of so-called indigenous knowledge. Indigenous knowledge as viewed in this manner, being passive, unchanging and vulnerable, threatens to slip our grasp because it simply cannot stand up to the virile force of modernity. As Brush (1996, p. 6) notes, “this opposition blurs the actual fluidity and permeability of knowledge and cultural boundaries. Indigenous knowledge very often includes information that has been adopted from the dominant culture … . Likewise, the culture of the dominant group includes ideas and precepts from minority cultures.” However, he continues, “the urge persists to reify knowledge systems and set artificial boundaries around culture where none exists in everyday life” (p. 6). A notable attack has been sounded by Agrawal (1995). He in turn suggests that “the attempt to create distinctions in terms of indigenous and Western is potentially ridiculous. It makes much more sense to talk about multiple domains and types of knowledge, with differing logics and epistemologies” (p. 5). This is the position that I take in this chapter. My interest, however, is not specifically to describe what properties of knowledge undermine the attempt to disengage indigenous (traditional) from non-indigenous (modern). Rather, accepting that this perception is extremely pervasive and prominent in Malaysia, I will examine how it is manifested in the field of conservation planning.

CONSERVATION, KNOWLEDGE, AND BOUNDARIES If the popular and political imagination would insist that a sharp break does exist between tradition and modernity, then that imagination also constructs boundaries to enshrine the break. Naturally, many kinds of boundaries exist. Here I focus on those that are hallowed in law and policy. Boundaries keep the moderns from sliding back into the traditional, and the traditional within a field of perceptions in which the people are thought to be like savages, primitives, and animals (see, for example, Endicott 1970, pp. 80–81; cf. Linklater 1990; Torgovnik 1990). Historically in conservation planning, boundaries have been regarded as a necessity. Widely accepted has been the practice of establishing wildlife reserves and habitat protection zones where human activity is restricted,

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circumscribed, or simply forbidden. Lands are marked out for conservation, boundaries drawn around them; often the people who once dwelt in these areas are either resettled or treated as potential encroachers (WRI et al. 1992, pp. 117–18; Zube 1986).2 This practice, which has assumed the status of “common sense” in Malaysia, rests on several implicit premises. To begin with the conservation premise: boundaries enable us to justify development. While some areas are set aside for special conservation purposes, the rest of the country can proceed apace in its march towards progress. Hence the conservation areas are marginalized from the broader concerns of the society. This marginality has two dimensions. Politically, as Aiken and Leigh (1995, p. 140) put it, conservation in Malaysia “has been a rearguard activity, seeking for the most part to protect the remnants of the natural world”. Conceptually, the rest of the country is viewed as modern or modernizing while conservation areas remain traditional. The latter, indeed, being undeveloped land, are sites of wilderness and of nostalgia. They remind us of what we once were but no longer want to be. Or, as McKinley (1979, p. 314) phrases the Malay conception: “The concept of modernity also includes a vague sense of keeping pace with the rest of the world, and this leads to many negative judgements about attitudes derived from the past.” Boundaries, then, define the contours of the social-ecological landscape: to wit, in setting up a division between safe and unsafe areas. Conservation areas are safe for wildlife and plant life. They are unsafe for people. Other places are safe for people but unsafe for wildlife and plant life. Forest dwellers, living in places that are deemed unsafe for humans, are associated most especially with the wildlife. Recall the point just made above. If the people are associated mostly with wild, unsafe landscapes that recall the past, then so do they remind us of tradition, a tradition that we no longer consider ourselves to embody. And just as conservation areas are to be left out of development, then so are the people dwelling in them relegated to the past and their culture to the heap of history. Thus the people can teach us something about our past (cf. McKinley 1979, p. 313), but have no significance to the construction of our modernity. Boundaries, in short, valorize some ideas and demonize others. Ideas from science and modernity are the engines of progress; ideas from indigenous peoples either will die out with time or should be replaced with their scientific counterparts. Not surprising, then, to hear the common administrative lament that the Orang Asli must change their attitudes in order to “catch up”: the flow of knowledge should be from the urban and industrial to the rural and indigenous – not the other way around.

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In sum, boundaries are first and foremost theoretical concepts that serve a political purpose. I do not deny that natural, ecological boundaries exist, or that all social groups create resource-use, political, and ethnic boundaries of one sort or another (see, for example, Dwyer 1996; Hviding 1996; Rambo et al. 1988; Ticsay-Ruscoe 1995). What most concerns me here is the way in which the cherished concepts of state agencies have translated into political action; the way, for example, that boundaries are used to keep animals in and people out. Given the dominance of this official paradigm and prescription, little effort is made to unblock the flow of knowledge. The boundaries freeze some cultures in idealized time and sanctify other cultures’ developments. Hence what begins as a conceptual construct (albeit with long historical provenance) does assume the force of social reality. And in conservation planning, it shows up in an outright rejection of the value of Orang Asli environmental knowledge.

THE PROBLEM PROTECTING THE PARK WITH BOUNDARIES Let us, then, turn to the use of boundaries in the specific arena of national park administration. I aim to question the dismissal of the Bateks’ knowledge by the administrators of Taman Negara, the national park where many of them live. The Bateks are mobile hunter-gatherers who live in lowland forests of Kelantan, Pahang, and Terengganu states. There are two kinds of boundaries. The first is the actual line ringing biodiversity in within the confines of the park, creating the place as a biodiversity “hot-spot” that stands out from the adjacent zones of settlement and development. The boundary serves as a frame. The second kind of boundary is conceptual: it disengages one culture from another and denies that both are equally valid ways of knowing and defining the world. The first culture is that of scientific conservation on which park administration is founded. The second are the culture and conservation premises of the park dwellers. Here the boundary is not a frame so much as an impassable fence. And as for their differing environmental perceptions, where Batek conservation privileges the presence of people, scientific conservation privileges absence. Where for the Bateks no boundaries exist between culture and nature, for the park administrators and conservationists, no nature is possible without boundaries. This is the crucial distinction that has evoked resentment amongst the Bateks. Equally important, the people know how they are viewed: like animals (Endicott 1970, pp. 80–86). Animals are meant to be

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observed, not participate in political life. And because the park authorities cannot or are not authorized to recognize the importance of the forest culture to the maintenance of park biodiversity, they also cannot perceive that culture to be anything more than a historical artefact that has the potential to damage the ecosystem. We will return to this point below. At any rate, it is safe to say that, if these boundaries (physical and conceptual) did not exist, Taman Negara would look very different. It is set up as a park, and it has all the characteristics of a park: cleared, debris-free trails; direction pointers; zonation; rangers. A well-ordered environment for the temporary edification of the urban tourist. While, in light of the threats wrought by external political economic institutions (Hurst 1990, pp. 72–75; Aiken and Leigh 1995, pp. 122–29), there is an argument for having a rational management policy (Anon 1987, pp. 1– 2; DWNP et al. 1986, pp. 5–6), there is no sound argument for basing that practice solely on one ideology: scientific conservation with its roots in colonial ideas of the environment. These ideas have long since been appropriated, indigenized, and become everyday taken-for-granted reality. I will return to this point in the conclusion. One way in which scientific conservation legitimates its existence is by reifying boundaries. Boundaries make scientific understandings of the environment seem exclusive. Hence the double function of Taman Negara: as a laboratory for research, it privileges scientific knowledge that only an initiated few can appreciate; as a recreational area, it is a museum where visitors are simply transient passengers. Within its own structure, then, park administration needs boundaries. As we will see, this fence between the exclusive knowledge of science and the popular knowledge of visitors undermines the third function of the park which is truly the larger goal of conservation – to educate and encourage the populace to support the environmental project.

THE BATEKS INTRODUCTION I spent fifteen months (1995 to 1996) conducting fieldwork with the Bateks of Pahang. They have experienced the changes and pressures common to all Orang Asli peoples. Many in Kelantan and Terengganu have converted to Islam, settled down in settlements and become small-scale horticulturists, and sent their children to school. This is a specific example of the unilinear flow of knowledge that state agencies promote. Even in Pahang, where the

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Bateks have largely maintained their preferred cultural and social norms, there are always threats of losing land to encroachers, logging concerns, and plantation agriculture (Lye 1997, pp. 148–50). The locus of social interaction is the forest camp (hayã? ). A camp is a fluid grouping of six to seventy people living temporarily together. Flux is a central characteristic of daily life. A group might stay in one camp anywhere from one night to a month. Within the camp setting, individuals might move in and out as social, economic, ecological and political conditions change. A group’s movement from one river valley to another is less frantic and occurs about once every three to four months (Lye 1997, pp. 222–29). They are a sexually and politically egalitarian society. This social structure has vast implications for the nature of their knowledge: much knowledge is shared, little attempt is made to hoard knowledge for one’s own use alone, and conscious steps are taken to ensure that everybody knows a little bit of something. Economically, hunting and gathering has been the production base, but the Bateks do a variety of other things as well: chiefly, the collection and sale of forest products like rattan and eaglewood ( gaharu; Aquilaria sp.), wage labour, and occasional horticulture (Endicott 1984; Lye 1997, pp. 69– 76). Despite having less land than before, they will not give up their mobility. Among those in Pahang, roughly half acknowledge Taman Negara as their base although they may regularly travel in and out of the park as kin, affines and companions move about, as material and economic conditions change, as different social, political and work imperatives become significant. Ties to land are deeply historical and wide-ranging and individuals cannot be identified with a particular micro-environment only. See Maps 7.1 and 7.2 for the Batek area and their camps in Taman Negara.

METHOD I myself in documenting their movements spent roughly two-thirds of my fieldwork travelling along the Kechau and Atok river systems close to the southwestern boundaries of the park. The remaining portion of fieldwork was conducted within Taman Negara. Because the relationship of the Bateks to conservation planning is more heightened in the latter place, I will refer primarily to this experience. My understanding of Batek knowledge, on the other hand, was drawn from interviews and observations conducted throughout fieldwork. My analytical strategy, to disentangle the relationship between conservation and the Bateks, was to see how the institutional perception emerges in policy decisions and is made manifest in signs and symbols that, in turn, reveal how

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166 MAP 7.1 The Batek Area \

I

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\

)

Manek \ :'] Urai . \ \ 01

Kelantan

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20 miles Road River - ··-· Railway - - -State boundary S. Sungai River Kg. Kampung Village G. Gunung IMtl Mountain

Source: Kirk Endicott.

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4°30'N

I TAMANNEGARA I

Shaded area: Taman Negara

0 0 2 3 4

5

4°25'N

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Kuala Tahan (park headquarters) Some Batek camps, past & present Ruwil (several camps) No name recorded Was Tirpal L:lpan dog Was P;;,laiJ;;,r Was T;;,n;;,r Hayii? Tey Was MahaiJ Tabw Was Y:Jt) R;;,mpay Tabut) N

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MAP 7.2 Batek Camps in Taman Negara

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the park authorities think about their world. I include among these signs and symbols such things as place-names, poster displays, and direction markers: things that communicate the authorities’ sense of what the Taman Negara landscape should be like. As such, I treat these signs and symbols as cultural objects that reflect the world-view (briefly alluded to above) from which they come. I intend to subject them to cultural analysis, in the same way and to the same ends that we regularly subject indigenous bodies of knowledge. The goal is to render an interpretation of these symbols’ roles in promoting biodiversity conservation. Further, I will examine the images that the Bateks use to talk about environmental relations. I will conclude by examining how their practices of knowledge production challenge the assumptions of the administrative discourse.

TAMAN NEGARA HISTORY AND BACKGROUND It may be useful to start by understanding Taman Negara’s origins. The enabling legislation was first promulgated in 1938/39. The park encompasses 4,343 square kilometres laid out over the states of Pahang, Terengganu, and Kelantan; it lies almost entirely within the Bateks’ traditional lands. It is managed by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) of the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment. The colonial legacy is evident. For one thing, the park’s original name, “King George V National Park”, was given to honour the English monarch’s 1935 silver jubilee. The park was first set up to protect wild game. Forest reserves had been created as far back as 1884 (Burkill 1971, p. 206). By the 1920s, with expanding pioneering settlements and forest clearance, the population viability of the larger fauna was being threatened as habitat was diminished (Burkill 1971, p. 207). Finally, in 1932, the Wild Life Commission of Malaya recommended that the existing Tahan Game Reserve (first granted protection in 1925) should be expanded to its present size, and this new national park should serve the role of sanctuary, breeding ground and refuge for the wildlife (Burkill 1971, pp. 207–8). In the 1987 Master Plan, Taman Negara’s policy objectives were explicitly declared as being based upon the American National Park Service model (Anon 1987, p. i). The American model in turn privileges the wilderness concept (see below).3 The goal of the park, as stated in the enabling enactments, is “the propagation, protection, and preservation of the indigenous fauna and flora of Malaya and of the preservation of objects and places of aesthetic, historical

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TABLE 7.1 Average Numbers of Taman Negara Visitors Per Annum Period 1971–75 1976–80 1981–85 1986–90 1991–95

Visitors per annum 1,264.2 3,699.6 8,010.4 14,042.8 30,975.4

Source: Figures from 1969 to 1979 derived from Appendix 2 of the Development Plan for Kuala Tahan and Adjacent Areas (DWNP 1980, p. 49). Figures from 1980 to 1996 were released to me by the DWNP. Total numbers of visitors for the years 1980 to 1985 from both sources are not congruent with one another. On the reasoning that time has improved the accounting methods, I have taken the latter source to be definitive.

or scientific interest” (cited in Anon 1987, p. 3). This biological diversity is “to be kept in trust for all mankind, with controlled access for scientific research, education and tourism” (Anon 1971a, p. 113). In the Master Plan, the priorities, in addition to the maintenance and management of biodiversity and the ecosystem and scientific research, include an increased emphasis on recreational development or tourism (Anon 1987, p. 3; see also DWNP et al. 1986, pp. 4– 6). On the matter of this last, the park follows a democratic policy in the belief that “Taman Negara is the heritage of all Malaysians none of whom should be denied the reasonable opportunity to visit their National Park” (Anon 1987, p. 11). Recreational development is a controversial issue. The DWNP believes that such developments must be balanced against conservation imperatives (Anon 1987; Yong 1990). As shown in Table 7.1, tourism had little significance before the early 1980s. Numbers of visitors per annum have increased dramatically in the last twenty-five years. Undoubtedly, the impetus for this situation has come from shifts in official policy (see Yong 1990, pp. 580–81) twinned with growing environmental awareness and increasing affluence in Malaysian society.

OPENING THE PARK, SHUTTING OUT THE PEOPLE POLICY AND IDEOLOGY On first view, the park’s policies are rather admirable. The DWNP faces the common development dilemma: in a world that promotes the commodification

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of nature, the agency must balance conservation constraints against funding opportunities. Further, there is a conflict of vision: conservation planning looks to the long-term, development planning to the short. Preserving the park for future generations means that success is measured by how long and in what state of nature it can stay in existence. Yet, to sustain itself and generate political support, the DWNP must show monetary profits and increased numbers of visitors every year. Yet another problem is the environmental bureaucracy itself. There are competing agencies like the departments of forestry, agriculture, and energy, to name a few, all requiring funding and attention. This competition reflects the style of governance in Malaysia, which has resulted in the “proliferation of statutory bodies, special public enterprises, and other institutions whose multifarious activities tend to be fragmented, overlapping, competitive, and uncoordinated” (Aiken and Leigh 1995, p. 137). My problem lies in the DWNP’s very ideology: scientific conservation. The premise for conservationists around the world, as Lohmann (1993, p. 203) phrases it, is that nature is “an industrial-free and therefore (they assume) human-free reserve”. To accomplish this vision, scientific conservation “operates by sealing off portions of wilderness and their animal inhabitants, and by restricting or banning human intervention” (Ingold 1994, p. 10). The folly of such an approach is evident, poaching and local encroachment being just two of Taman Negara’s everyday problems. Further, as the DWNP has long been discovering (see Anon 1971b, pp. 203–5), there is no way to protect the park from the development impetus. Indeed, as I write this chapter (1997), a road is being built on the other side of the Tembeling River (which forms a boundary to much of the park’s southern and eastern borders); this new development, in expanding access to the area, will certainly have an impact on wildlife ecology within the park (WWFM 1986, pp. 3–5). Consequently, boundary construction becomes more and more impotent as political-economic conditions change. What is more, because political support for conservation is weak, the DWNP has been under pressure to open up more areas of the park for tourism. But how can it do this without compromising its own existence? The traditional response has been to argue for a holistic understanding of biodiversity. But here is where scientific conservation’s own ideology works against itself. Conservationists try to engender support for a hard-todemonstrate value of biodiversity; that is, they try to make people care for biodiversity. But in fencing off that biodiversity and containing it within boundaries, they render it distant from everyday life (cf. Ingold 1994, p. 10). The message is further reinforced with slogans like the one that greets

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campers at the park headquarters: Take nothing but photographs. Leave nothing but footprints. Scientific conservation par excellence. Such a slogan implicitly says that biodiversity is an observable phenomenon (it should be viewed through camera lens) but is not part of our everyday life support system (even footprints would almost be intrusive). Not only is this method of treating biodiversity counter-productive, it implicitly supports the agenda of those who would prefer conservation concerns to remain on the margins of politics and the fringes of popular consciousness. Beyond these contradictory messages voiced by the notion and reality of having a “safe area” for biodiversity, the ideology also alienates the park authorities from the reality they seek to organize. The truth is, the park is not an empty wilderness. As the Bateks were wont to insist, their history predates the construction of the park. Their homeland, a place inscribed in myth and cosmology, once centred around the area from Kelantan down to the Kenyam valley. The limestone pillars in the latter place are among the central iconic features of the Batek landscape. From the scientific point of view, “the area is very poorly known and no aspect has been studied in detail” (Cole 1985, p. 2); from the Bateks’ point of view, enough is known to have given the pillars sacred status. Furthermore, the proliferation of Batek names for obscure rivers, streams, and landforms elsewhere in the forest clearly shows an ongoing cultural relationship to these places.4 As Forbes (1995, p. 70) writes, “Naming the objects of our places is a way of entering into relationships with those places, of making them our own, of making a home.” While others – scientists and layfolk alike – still do not know enough about park ecology, the same cannot be said of the Bateks. It is, indeed, their place of origin. I will address this point at greater length below. The Bateks’ presence in the park is treated as a problem at best. Until today, official agencies would rather that the Bateks uproot themselves to the nearby settlement of Kuala Atok; there, it is reasoned, developments can be more easily brought to them. Looking to park enactments, we find no provision made for the people. The most definitive statement that I know is expressed in the Taman Negara Master Plan: “The department has to be quite pragmatic in accepting the fact that a certain number of Orang Asli have always lived within [the park] borders and will continue to do so in the future” (Anon 1987, p. 23). In other words, the park authorities are resigned to the presence of the Bateks. However, the Master Plan goes on: It should also be noted that the Taman Negara Enactments make no reference to the aboriginal population that naturally inhabit the Park. There is also a department that has jurisdiction over Aboriginal affairs5 and it is

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their general policy to integrate these people into modern society. For these two reasons there can be no policy regarding the preservation of the ethnicity of the Batek in Taman Negara in this document. (Anon 1987, p. 24)

Certainly this official position does not amount to a ringing endorsement of cultural-environmental relations in the park. Ingold’s comment (1994, p. 11) seems entirely à propos here: The presence of indigenous hunter-gatherers in regions designated for conservation has proved acutely embarrassing for the conservationists. For there is no way in which native people can be accommodated within schemes of scientific conservation except as parts of the wildlife , that is as constituents of the nature that is to be preserved.

ADMINISTRATIVE VIEW OF THE BATEKS This identification of the people with nature shows up in the park’s presentations of itself. Let us look now at a poster display on the Bateks’ way of life that occurs in the Taman Negara Interpretation Centre in Kuala Tahan, the headquarters of the park. A selection of the text follows: Where do they go from here? On the surface their traditional lives appear ideal – they are in harmony with the forest, taking nothing from it that cannot be replaced by Nature. But .... Forest clearance outside Park boundaries has restricted the territory available to them and the law restricts their activities within the Park .... Choices are limited: to leave the forest means embracing the problems of the urban or rural poor, as the forest skills they possess help little in other environments.

These words aptly summarize the received orthodoxy. They seem innocuous and non-controversial, express what seems like a truism. I argue that this image-and-text display articulates the central tension in the people’s relationship not to any real or potential life in “other environments”, but to the environment that they presently live in. The display allows us a glimpse not into the culture or knowledge of the Bateks, but into how that culture and knowledge are treated by the Park authorities. The display is at base a sympathetic portrait of Batek lives. One way to deflect criticism is to convince others that one is doing the best that one can; this is often the response when bureaucratic agencies in Malaysia are criticized for their lack of action. Throwing out sympathetic messages therefore conveys the impression that one genuinely cares about doing something, while

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permitting oneself to go on achieving nothing. Sympathy, in short, helps to distract attention from inertia.6 A sympathetic portrait such as this imageand-text display, then, should signal that something is not-quite-right. The display indeed has a hint of the admiration that pervaded colonial descriptions of forest life. It sketches out the main foraging activities, focusing on local uses of natural materials. It then skimps over the cultural and social life; there is simply no popular understanding of what this life might consist of. Then it puts the matter bluntly: there is a possibility that the Bateks could be ejected from the park, but such a move would be destructive. The modern world has no place for the Bateks. To remove the people from the forest, the text implies, would lead to grave social consequences; to maintain them in the forest, on the other hand, is to risk greater pressure on the park’s own resources (see also Anon 1987, p. 23). This is not the place to reflect at greater length on the message of the text, but two things merit brief attention. The first is the use of human presence in the park to culturalize the forest. Promoting the Bateks’ presence helps to make the forest familiar to the visitors since the visitors expect to see forest people in the forest. But, because the goal is to instil awareness of the natural heritage, it suits the interest of the park interpreters to promote the Bateks’ relationship to the environment: the Bateks, says the display, “tak[e] nothing from [the forest] that cannot be replaced by Nature”.7 This is a classic example of the tendency to identify hunter-gatherers as people “allegedly lacking the capability to control and transform nature” (Ingold 1994, pp. 10– 11). By implication, this forest orientation is preferable to the visitor’s urban lifestyle; a separation is drawn between the culture of the visitor and the nature of the Bateks. For the second point, I wish to focus on that disturbing phrase: “the forest skills they possess help little in other environments”. The question is: why should this be? What is so distinctive about Batek “skills” that they are useless in other environments? Here the assumption is that the people are so locked into one tradition-bound mode of life that they couldn’t possibly survive elsewhere. The premise is that Batek knowledge, as revealed in these exotic foraging skills, has some unique, essential property with no relevance outside the forest. This perception misses the reality that food-procurement demands the knowledge not just to do, but to look, search, discriminate, rank, remember, hear, track, compare, connect, map, listen (cf. Bloch 1992; Lye 1997; Puri 1997). In other words, foraging knowledge, like any knowledge anywhere, is built on a base of problem-solving and tactical skills, largely implicit and beyond verbalization, that are necessary for living. Who could claim that such knowledge is necessarily limited to a forest-anchored life? But

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this is precisely the conclusion that the park managers cannot reach, for to do so – to give the people their full humanity – would run against the goals of promoting nature. My point here is that in their very selection of words and photographs the park authorities reveal what they think about the people. An implicit contrast is set up here. The people and their skills are good to look at and nice to think about; they are what stands out in the park. In saying that these skills are so unique that they are not transferable to other environments, the park managers are saying that Batek knowledge is not transferable to the environment of the park administration. In essence, the park sets up a boundary between their own knowledge and the knowledge of the people. In the Master Plan, indeed, the authorities view the Bateks merely as a “population that naturally inhabit the Park” (Anon 1987, p. 24). Because they do not see the park as the Bateks’ home, they also cannot see the Bateks as administrative partners who should be consulted on the overall running of the park.8 As envisioned in the document, the Bateks’ major roles are as sources of information only: information about wildlife, trails, and scenic places (Anon 1987, p. 23). In a specific example of how the authorities blithely reject a proper role for the Bateks, Kirk Endicott (1996, personal communication) notes that, as far back as the early 1980s, he recommended to the JHEOA that the Bateks be trained as forest rangers and that another point of entry to the park be constructed closer to the Batek camps on the Kelantan side. Until now, no response or action has ever been taken on this proposal.

BATEKS AND THE FOREST How then do we cross these official boundaries? One way is to launch a counter-critique: fill in the gaps in the official view and take Batek knowledge seriously. This is the purpose of the present section. The burden of my argument is precisely that Batek “skills” do have enormous implications beyond the confines of their local context. The Bateks believe that if there were no people in the forest, the world would collapse. Ergo, as forest-dwellers, they are also, by definition, people who look after the forest. Note how different is their perception of people– forest relations from that legitimated in conservation planning. Moreover, contrary to the administrative view, the Bateks’ knowledge world is very responsive to the ongoing changes in the environment. Within the knowledge structure itself, flux is the norm, and stasis is remarkable (Endicott 1979a, pp. 220–21). Over and above this issue, the conditions of the day make it impossible for the Bateks to be blissfully unaware: a vast expanse of their

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forest, as mentioned already, is subject to development processes (cf. Dentan et al. 1997; Endicott 1979b, 1982). Even for those who live inside Taman Negara the threat of bulldozers coming ever nearer is never absent.

A PLEA FOR CONSERVATION Let us hear now from the Bateks: The forest holds the te? [land; earth] together. When you cut down the trees, the te? breaks up. The rivers flood their banks, the te? becomes soft and fissures, the d94a? [world] ends. The rivers are the ?0r3t [veins and tendons] of the world. The superhuman beings made this world and they are its k9la7es [heart]. They see what is happening and they ha?ip [miss; long for] the world of the past. They do not think that the world as it is can last much longer. By all means let us make a living from the forest, but let us think of each other’s needs. Do not cut it all down, keep enough in reserve. Heed this message, but if you do not say37 [care for] the world, if you do not love it enough to keep it going, then what can we do? We can only wait for the destruction to come. We miss the world as it was in the past. Before, it was healthy; it is not healthy anymore, and you and we suffer the consequences together.9

Thus speaks a Batek shaman two nights before I left the field. This shaman is a greatly respected member of the society; when he speaks, others listen. Indeed, he speaks also for other important and influential shamans. In various forms and from various persons, I had already heard these themes expressed throughout my relationship with the Bateks and was not surprised to hear them again. The Bateks understand that their environmental perceptions have not hitherto been recognized, hence the need to send this message to the ?0ra7 bandar “urban people” now. The overt aim is to convince those who would cut down the forest that their actions have consequences. The shaman says that they want to sit down and discuss conditions with outsiders. They want to plan the future together with us. They feel that we must be ignorant, that we must need to be taught about environmental processes. To begin this learning process, I will interpret their definitions of the environment. I will examine the images that they use. Two characteristics of the shaman’s words stand out: the use of bodily images, and the focus on life, health, and death – processes of generation and regeneration. To the Bateks, the minute particulars of the forest are not so important; theirs is a holistic vision in which “the rivers are the veins and tendons of the world” while “the superhuman beings10 are its heart”. Here the shaman seems

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to be using bodily metaphors deliberately, in order to accentuate our relationship to the environment. Just as we would strive to stanch the draining of our blood, so should we strive to prevent the rivers from silting, overflowing, flooding, and wreaking destruction on the earth. But we are causing destruction not just in the terrestrial and visible realm. The superhuman beings who created the world and keep it going are at the centre of the cosmos; they are its heart. And just as the heart is the centre of the human body and the seat of emotions, so the core of the earth is being wrecked apart. The consequence is the sentiment of ha?ip, which is that inexpressible feeling of longing for something or someone that is absent – what in English we gloss, inadequately, as “to miss”. The superhuman beings ha?ip the fertile, abundant, and healthy world that they created for us to enjoy; the Bateks ha?ip the past in which such terrors and images of doom were absent. This sentiment is not to be dismissed lightly. Ha?ip can put a person in ritual danger. When we are intensely ha?ip, we lose the capacity to enjoy life, we refuse sustenance, nothing can pull us out of our malaise. Just as, when a person becomes ha?ip, she/he becomes insensible to what is happening around her/him, the superhuman beings can become indifferent to the concerns of this social world and ignore the shamans’ calls for help. In other words, uncontrolled ha?ip plunges us into spiralling depression; the next stage is death. If the superhuman beings were to perish because they are ha?ip, there would be no possibility of regenerating the world. The environment would be on a direct collision course with destruction.11 What the shaman is saying, then, amounts to a critique of our environmental understanding. In the Batek view, forest cutting has global consequences, not limited to the local context wherein they occur, and definitely not limited to the terrestrial and the visible. In effect, the Bateks are trying to teach us to see.

KNOWLEDGE THAT CHANGES12 Underlying the official dismissal of the Bateks’ knowledge, of course, is the reification of tradition as something that by definition is handed down, unchanging, from the past. To do justice to the Bateks’ critique, I will now bring to the fore the contexts wherein their knowledge emerges. This analysis reveals the errors in official ways of thinking, in which Batek knowledge is considered too unchanging to be relevant. The Bateks’ central thesis, to repeat, is that the forest needs to have people in it. Without people, disaster follows. What people can do to maintain the forest depends on how knowledgeable they are. Such knowledge, of

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course, has various contexts of reproduction. It is worth stressing that forest ecology has a critical effect on knowledge structure and reproduction. The ecology not only undergoes diurnal and seasonal cycles of change, or stochastic and unpredictable changes (Whitmore 1990), there are also changes in scenes, places, and settings because the people themselves are mobile. The knowledge that emerges from living in this environment is in turn constitutive of these processes (Lye 1997, pp. 206–9). Thus the broader context of knowledge reproduction is the forest. Within the landscape expanse, superhuman beings communicate knowledge to save the world, stave off ritual danger, and prevent ecological collapse. Within the human community, more prosaic knowledge is shared amongst people or individually acquired. Earlier discussion showed that the superhumans can feel despair or anger and convey these emotions to the Bateks, through the agency of the shamans and/or by unleashing threatening winds, rains, and floods. The superhumans can also withhold the annual bounty of fruits if they are displeased with human behaviour, if their admonitions and injunctions are ignored. Through the beings, then, the Bateks maintain connection to less visible forces that reside in other worlds. With such formidable spirits living in the cosmos, the people need to attend to the beings’ messages, and those messages in turn can change as the ecology changes. In order to interpret these messages correctly, the Bateks need to have a highly developed sensibility of the forest (Lye 1998). In more prosaic settings, everyday practical experience itself furnishes the context for knowledge reproduction (Lye 1997). Within the camp setting or wherever people get together, conversations tend to be rich with details of forest ecology. The people actively monitor developments – the emergence of flower blossoms, the migration of bees, the growth stages of fruits and of trailside vines, the tracks and traces of animals, and the like (Lye 1997, pp. 98– 140). There are always new phenomena to study, analyse, or take advantage of, new stuff that is revealed as people go walking about the forest everyday. Passive observation, such as that promoted by park administration (see above), is simply foolish under these circumstances. Nor is individual knowledge removed from these processes of change either. While there is a body of received knowledge, culturally defined, individual understandings also undergo standard processes of experimentation and refinement. As different people engage in different practices at different times and places, new findings come to light about the forest and appropriate methods of use and exploitation. These findings are often shared with others, sometimes put forward for debate and discussion, thus adding to the general pool of ongoing knowledge production and reproduction.

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These different contexts mutually inform each other and are linked by the one defining characteristic of social life: the mobility. There must be movement towards knowledge (Lye 1997). Superhumans have their own places in the forest; ritual experts may be living in other camps; kinfolk, affines, and wise elders are always moving about; the forest is vast, is worth exploring; and resources are patchy (see, for example, Medway 1971). If individuals do not jok “move”, if they stay in one place, not only would their resources be restricted and quickly depleted, they also could not acquire knowledge from these dispersed sources of authority. The mobility is central to the dynamic of knowledge searching, experimentation, and evolution. The point here, then, is that sedentariness, oft-promoted by administrators, disengages people from the broader knowledge world in which they live. Ultimately, it disengages them from contact with the lessons and guidance of the superhuman beings and therefore threatens the well-being of the forest.

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION: SHARED L ANDSCAPES This chapter has examined the cultural dynamics that shape the Bateks’ relations with the authorities, especially in Taman Negara. For purposes of analysis, it has been necessary to disengage one set of perceptions from the other. In reality, however, Taman Negara is a shared landscape in which both Batek and Malay perceptions intersect. However, both peoples see the place differently and derive divergent meanings from it. Viewed from the Malay perspective, furthermore, two sorts of dynamics are prominent. First, there is the history of scientific conservation in Malaysia, with its own (global) trajectory of understandings regarding biodiversity protection and the proper role of local communities in park administration. At core, of course, conservation has a sociological component, and here we have witnessed the hegemony of Malay ideology and perception of the forest peoples. A critical component of this ideology is the notion of modernity, that being “modern” entails, to recall McKinley (1979, p. 314), “keeping pace with the rest of the world”. The partnership of Malay and conservation ideologies in Malaysia is neatly encapsulated in the cherished trope of “boundary” – the world is to be carved out between tradition and modernity, rural and urban, forest and agriculture, conservation and development. And because modernity is preferable to tradition, conservation has to be premised on scientific principles borrowed from other contexts rather than from the Orang Asli. This unidirectional view of the ecology ignores the reality of cultural relations, as Brush (1996; cited earlier) points out: Malay and Orang Asli environmental

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knowledge, particularly as mediated through trade, have not developed independent of each other (see, for example, Andaya and Andaya 1982, p. 14). Neither is Orang Asli knowledge completely alien to that of institutional science. As my discussion in the earlier section showed, we can see a difference in the way that scientific and Batek knowledge emerge: the latter lacks formal systematization and institutionalization. Further, in the way that the Bateks attend to ecological information and change their responses when appropriate, there is a quality of improvization and performance as well (Lye 1997, 1998; see also Richards 1993). In the way that knowledge is gathered on an everyday basis, however, Batek knowledge is based on observation, experimentation, careful documentation (albeit orally and transmitted mnemonically), and step-by-step analysis of causes and effects. This quality of experimentation shares fundamental affinities with the protocols of scientific conservation. Indeed, classification studies elsewhere, like Avé’s among the neighbouring Semai (1988, p. 108), show that, in some ecological contexts, there may be striking similarities between local and scientific categories of the landscape (but see Puri 1997).13 Such findings, however, are regularly missed if not ignored by administrators and this is the crux of the issue. The answer lies in the political use of boundaries (imaginary or physical). In conservation, boundaries are meant to keep animals in and people out. Politically, boundaries are meant to keep the right people in and the wrong people out. The Bateks are in the latter category, and because they are forest peoples, to them are attributed the essential qualities that the Malay world wishes to rid itself of. It is, after all, not just the Orang Asli who are told to change their attitudes in order to catch up: lower class Malays confront this rhetoric too. For this reason, it is impossible for the conservation planners to embrace Batek environmental knowledge, for doing so would mean valorizing those parts of Malay culture that are meant to be discarded in the modern world. The shamans’ message, analysed here, can be viewed in this light. Overtly the message is an environmental statement. But the statement is meant to be communicated to the urban people, especially to those who run environmental affairs. It is, then, a Batek critique of the dominant discourse and practice of forest management and the dominant view of them as peripheral savages (cf. Tsing 1993). On the question of the “periphery”, there is a spatial dimension to the official position. If the Bateks are the Malays’ “Other” – a mirror of the Malay self – then so is their forest home the projected site of difference, the dangerous place from which Malay culture must be protected (Endicott 1970, pp. 111–19; Lye 1997, p. 87). It is because the Bateks are identified with the forest that they and their knowledge cannot officially be used to transform

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Malay culture. This perception has long been reported for agrarian peoples in the region and beyond (Hutterer 1985, p. 64; Wells 1940, p. 153). What distinguishes present day strategies: the enclosure of wild landscapes within boundaries and the protection of those landscapes as conservation areas. Herein, then, lies an internal contradiction in the Malay conception. On the one hand, forests have to be brought under production and development and the forest people taught to embrace modern ways for their own good. On the other, forests are also sites of nostalgia and forest peoples embodiments of the Malay past. If there were no forests and no forest peoples left, then nostalgia is impossible. Modernity has meaning only when cast in the light of tradition, its structural opposite. Thus, if there is no nostalgia and no living symbol of the past, then there is no modernity. For environmentalists, conservation planning in Malaysia ostensibly is meant to protect dwindling biodiversity. In its cultural roots, however, conservation is meant to protect the memories of the past and the illusion of modernity.14 In closing, it is well to consider the Bateks’ most important message: the problems that beset their environment beset ours. The park managers, as I wrote earlier, believe that “the forest skills [the Bateks] possess help little in other environments”. This dismissal is quite contrary to the Bateks’ position. Their point is that if we continue to relegate their knowledge to the periphery, we will die along with them. There is no boundary between their concerns and our concerns. As they say, if we do not love the world, then what can they do? But if we overcome our conceptual boundaries between “them” (tradition) and “us” (modernity), then they could have much to teach us about our world.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The fieldwork on which this chapter is based was supported by the WennerGren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the East-West Center, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. I thank the Economic Planning Unit in the Prime Minister’s Department, Kuala Lumpur, for granting me permission to conduct fieldwork in Malaysia and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks for granting me access to Taman Negara. Sections of this chapter thankfully bear little resemblance to their original inceptions; for this, I am most grateful for the constructive comments of Michael R. Dove, Glenn Dolcemascolo, Robert K. Dentan, Tim Ingold, Geoffrey Benjamin, and Cynthia Chou. Finally, I thank the Bateks for all that they have taught me about the environment.

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NOTES 1. Since this chapter aims to problematize these two concepts, I will henceforth forego the quotation marks. 2. That this situation has been changing in favour of more local participation in protected areas management is not in question. However, the very process of change itself is fraught with controversy, as the WRI et al. document cited here attests. One problem is that “participation” requires more than just gaining social and political access; it also requires overcoming the essentialist ideas and discursive practices addressed here. 3. For more on American understandings of the “wilderness”, see Cartmill (1993). 4. It is beyond the bounds of this chapter to discuss this nomenclatural technique at length, but the few names I recorded generally have narrative and mnemonic content. Most of these names are not listed in official topographical maps. 5. The Department of Orang Asli Affairs; known in Malay as the Jabatan HalEhwal Orang Asli ( JHEOA). 6. I thank Michael Dove for this reminder. 7. The singling out of the Bateks’ nature orientation becomes more marked when we compare this presentation to that in the Taman Negara Master Plan. There, under “Culture and History” (p. 43) is given a description of the “rich and relatively unchanged” life of Malay riverine villagers on the upper Tembeling. In this case, the focus is on oral narratives, religion and ritual, and kinship relations. 8. The distinctions between “home” and “habitat” may seem academic or trivial. In this case, there are policy implications. If we say that the forest is “home”, we would have to acknowledge that the home-dwellers are the owners and managers. If we acknowledge that the forest is “habitat”, we are saying that the inhabitants have no more or less significance than the other inhabitants – like plants and animals – and thus that there needs to be extra-local administrators to take charge of everyday affairs. 9. This passage is a free translation of a message that I recorded on 4 November 1996. 10. The class of deities who created the world, continue to supply the forest with its nutrients, look after the stability of the cosmos, and maintain an interest in the health and well-being of the people (Endicott 1979a). 11. Comparable visions are being offered by other Malaysian peoples, the Temuans and the Semais (Balasegaram 1996). 12. I am indebted to Tim Ingold’s input for this discussion. 13. Admittedly this is a controversial issue in classification studies. Puri’s (1997, p. 170) study of Penan Benalui classification of mammals shows that local names rarely correspond neatly with scientific ones. Interestingly, however, locals and scientists show similar biases in picking out significant specimens (p. 169). This seems to indicate that, at some conceptual level, the same things tend to stand out. Differences only become apparent when we delve into their respective criteria for ordering and grouping phenomena. At any rate, I would argue that

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there are enough similarities in perception from which to build a base of shared understandings and collaborative research. 14. I am indebted to Geoffrey Benjamin’s suggestions for provoking me to consider this point.

REFERENCES Agrawal, Arun. 1995. “Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge: Some Critical Comments”. Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor 3, no. 3: 3–5. Aiken, S. Robert, and Colin H. Leigh. 1995. Vanishing Rain Forests: The Ecological Transition in Malaysia. Oxford: Clarendon. Andaya, Barbara Watson, and Leonard Y. Andaya. 1982. A History of M alaysia. London: Macmillan. Anonymous. 1971a. “Taman Negara: Introduction”. Malayan Nature Journal 24: 113– 14. ———. 1971b. “The Need for the Conservation of Taman Negara”. Malayan Nature Journal 24: 196–205. ———. 1987. Taman Negara Master Plan. Kuala Lumpur: Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment. Avé, Wanda. 1988. “Small-Scale Utilization of Rattan by a Semai Community in West Malaysia”. Economic Botany 42: 105–19. DWNP. 1980. Development Plan for Kuala Tahan and Adjacent Areas. Kuala Lumpur: DWNP. Balasegaram, Mangai. 1996. “Living in Awe of the Dragon”. The Star, 20 October 1996. (No pagination available). Bloch, Maurice. 1992. “What Goes Without Saying: The Conceptualization of Zafimanry Society”. In Conceptualizing Society, edited by Adam Kuper, pp. 127– 46. London: Routledge. Brush, Stephen B. 1996. “Whose Knowledge, Whose Genes, Whose Rights?”. In Valuing Local Knowledge: Indigenous People and Intellectual Property Rights, edited by Stephen B. Brush and Doreen Stabinsky, pp. 1–21. Washington, D.C.: Island. Burkill, H. M. 1971. “A Plea for the Inviolacy of Taman Negara”. Malayan Nature Journal 24: 206–9. Cartmill, Matt. 1993. A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature through History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cole, Jim. 1985. “Report of Selangor Branch Caving Group Batu Kepayang 1984 Expedition”. Malayan Naturalist 38, no. 3: 2–4. Dentan, Robert K., et al. 1997. Malaysia and the Original People: A Case Study of the Impact of Development on Indigenous Peoples. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Dwyer, Peter D. 1996. “The Invention of Nature”. In Redefining Nature: Ecology, Culture and Domestication, edited by Roy F. Ellen and Katsuyoshi Fukui, pp. 157–86. Oxford: Berg.

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DWNP, MNS, MMA, and WWFM. 1986. “Tourist Development Proposals for the Kuala Tahan Area of Taman Negara”. Report produced under Project MAL 97/ 86: Taman Negara Development Plan. Prepared for the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Petaling Jaya, World Wildlife Fund Malaysia. Endicott, Kirk M. 1970. An Analysis of Malay Magic . Singapore: Oxford University Press. ———. 1979a. Batek Negrito Religion: The World-View and Rituals of a Hunting and Gathering People of Peninsular Malaysia. Oxford: Clarendon. ———. 1979b. “The Impact of Economic Modernization on the Orang Asli (Aborigines) of Northern Peninsular Malaysia.” In Issues in Malaysian Development, edited by J. C. Jackson and M. Rudner, pp. 167–204. Singapore: Heinemann. ———. 1982. “The Effects of Logging on the Batek of Malaysia”. Cultural Survival Quarterly 6: 19–20. ———. 1984. “The Economy of the Batek of Malaysia: Annual and Historical Perspectives”. Research in Economic Anthropology 6: 29–52. Forbes, Ann Armbrecht. 1995. “Heirs to the Land: Mapping the Future of the Makalu-Barun”. Cultural Survival Quarterly 18, no. 4: 69–71. Frossard, David Robert. 1994. Peasant Science: Farmer Research and Philippine Rice Development. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Irvine, California, University Microfilms International. Hobart, Mark. 1993. “Introduction: The Growth of Ignorance?”. In An Anthropological Critique of Development: The Growth of Ignorance, edited by Mark Hobart, pp. 1– 30. London: Routledge. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1983. “Introduction: Inventing Traditions”. In The Invention of Tradition, edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, pp. 1–14. Cambridge: Canto. Hurst, Philip. 1990. Rainforest Politics: Ecological Destruction in Southeast Asia. London: Zed. Hutterer, Karl L. 1985. “People and Nature in the Tropics: Remarks Concerning Ecological Relationships”. In Cultural Values and Human Ecology in Southeast Asia, edited by Karl L. Hutterer, A. Terry Rambo, and George Lovelace, pp. 55–76. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies. Hviding, Edvard. 1996. Guardians of the Marovo Lagoon: Practice, Place, and Politics in Maritime Melanesia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Ingold, Tim. 1994. “From Trust to Domination: An Alternative View of HumanAnimal Relations”. In Animals and Human Society: Changing Perspectives, edited by A. Manning and J. Serpell, pp. 1–22. London: Routledge. Linklater, Andro. 1990. Wild People: Travels with Borneo’s Head-Hunters. New York: Atlantic Monthly. Lohmann, Larry. 1993. “Editorial: Green Orientalism”. The Ecologist 23: 202–4. Lye Tuck-Po. 1997. “Knowledge, Forest, and Hunter-Gatherer Movement: The Batek of Pahang, Malaysia”. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hawai’i at Manoa. ———. 1998. “Being Forest Peoples: A Local Conception of Sustainability”. Paper

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presented at the workshop on “New Perspectives to the Human-Oriented Ecosystem”, Center of Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Kyoto, 16–18 March 1998. McKinley, Robert M. 1979. “Zaman dan Masa, Eras and Periods: Religious Evolution and the Permanence of Epistemological Ages in Malay Culture”. In The Imagination of Reality: Essays in Southeast Asian Coherence Systems, edited by A. L. Becker and Aram A. Yengoyan, pp. 303–24. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Medway, Lord. 1971. “Importance of Taman Negara in the Conservation of Mammals”. Malayan Nature Journal 24: 212–14. Puri, Rajindra K. 1997. “Hunting Knowledge of the Penan Benalui”. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hawai’i at Manoa. Rambo, A. Terry, Kathleen Gillogly, and Karl L. Hutterer, eds. 1988. Ethnic Diversity and the Control of Natural Resources in Southeast Asia. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies. Richards, Paul. 1993. “Cultivation: Knowledge or Performance?”. In An Anthropological Critique of Development: The Growth of Ignorance, edited by Mark Hobart, pp. 61–78. London: Routledge. Rubeli, Ken. 1986. Tropical Rain Forest in South-east Asia: A P ictorial Journey. Kuala Lumpur: Tropical. Ticsay-Ruscoe, Mariliza V. 1995. “Biodiversity and Sustainability: A Case Study of the Traditional Swidden-Based Production System of the Ayangan of HaliapPanubtuban, Asipolo, Ifugao Province, Philippines”. Ph.D. dissertation, University of the Philippines at Los Baños. Torgovnik, Marianna. 1990. Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 1993. In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: M arginality in an Out-of-the-Way Place. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wells, Carveth. 1940. North of Singapore. New York: Robert M. McBride. Whitmore, T. C. 1990. An Introduction to Tropical Rain Forests. Oxford: Clarendon. WRI, IUCN, and UNEP. 1992. Global Biodiversity Strategy: Guidelines for Action to Save, Study, and Use Earth’s Biotic Wealth Sustainably and Equitably. (No publication details.) WWFM. 1986. The Development of Taman Negara. Report produced under Project MAL/85. Petaling Jaya: World Wildlife Fund Malaysia. Yong, Frank S. K. 1990. “Environmental Impact of Tourism on Taman Negara National Park Malaysia”. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Tropical Biodiversity “In Harmony with N ature”, pp. 579–91. Kuala Lumpur: Malayan Nature Society. Zube, Ervin H. 1986. “Local and Extra-Local Perceptions of National Parks and Protected Areas”. Landscape and Urban Planning 13: 11–17.

© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

Reproduced from Tribal Communities in the Malay W orld: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives , edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles ar e available at < http://www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html >.

8 ENGAGING THE SPIRITS OF MODERNITY The Temiars Marina Roseman

In a Chinese logging camp at the edge of the forest in Kelantan, Malaysia, piles of logs await pick-up for their final journey out of the jungle and into the global economy. The camp complex, constructed out of wood and covered with the zinc roofing common to hastily built, commercial forest enterprises, includes dormitories for predominantly Chinese timber workers and truck drivers, kitchen, coffee shop, and grocery store. Forest-dwelling Temiars from surrounding settlements drop in periodically to buy food and sundries, or eat in the coffee shop. Logging trucks roll in, emptying their loads, and the jungle’s spoils accumulate like jewels in a dragon’s lair. Back behind the living-quarters, the run-off from bathing structures and latrines fouls a small rivulet emerging from a limestone outcrop about three metres upstream. The limestone cliff is pocketed with caves worn by falling water, so soon to be polluted by the effluvia just downstream. From the spirit of this waterfall, the Temiar shaman and headman Ading Kerah has received a song during his dreams. The spirit emerged in the shape of a young Chinese woman, who stepped out of the cab of a passing logging truck, stylishly dressed in a miniskirt. The stench, filth and – from the viewpoint of a Temiar forest-dweller rather than a timber company executive – devastation of the 185

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logging industry are concentrated in the camp’s gathering of workers and products. Yet from this site, Ading Kerah was able to receive a dream-song gift. This song could then be used in ceremonies to call upon the spirit of the waterfall for help in healing – or for the many other uses to which dreamsong ceremonies are directed: to mark important moments in the agricultural cycle; to welcome or send off travellers; to mark a mourning period’s end; or merely to celebrate the experience of dancing, trancing, and singing with the spirits. The miniskirted Chinese lumber-camp cave spirit, with her gift of song for use in healing, comprises one of many instances in which Temiars engage the spirits of modernity for their own purposes. In this chapter, I investigate imaginative realms of dream and song as sites for the engagement of local peoples with global processes, and suggest that spirit songs sung to effect individual healings address, as well, the health of a social group traumatized by loss of land and resources.1 Over the last twenty years I have charted the effects of deforestation, land alienation, and Islamic evangelism upon Temiar self and society.2 Ading Kerah’s dream-song is a striking instance of ways I have seen Temiars draw the spirits into history through the power of expressive culture. Animated signs absorb the crash of disjunctured pasts and presents in Temiar ceremonial performance. Community members exploit the ability of motions and odours, musical sounds, and glimmering colours to cross temporal and ontological boundaries, transcend geographic and cosmological space, and polyphonically signal multiply-layered identities. On the one hand, I am impressed by the resilience of a traditional ethnopsychology and cosmology, which is able to engage the spirits of foreign things and people – what Temiars call g0b (“non-foresters”) – within an indigenous discursive system of power, knowledge, and agency. On the other, I am concerned that such shamanistic incorporation of the Out-forest Other might presage an ideological acceptance of material disenfranchisement, as Temiars focus upon the flash of a spirit-guide’s beauty, rather than mobilizing to resist their material losses. Yet I have come to see this ability to grasp a spirit’s healing song from those people, things, and technologies that have so thoroughly assaulted their material resource base as an act of social suturing, an art of survival, a technology for maintaining personal and social integrity in the face of nearly overwhelming odds. Dream-songs have long provided Temiars with a site for mediating encounters with their forest environment (Roseman 1991). The realm of songs, dreams, and spirit-mediumship provides a space for Temiars to incorporate the knowledge and power of “non-forester” peoples and commodities, as well. Temiar dream-song receipt is based in an ethno-

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psychology that posits detachable and multiple soul-components that may become animated and detached as “spirit”. These include the head-soul (r9waay), locus of expression and vocalization; the heart/breath soul (hup), locus of stored thoughts, feelings and memory; the shadow soul (k3nl00k), a reflective emanation; and the odour soul (700y), the composite of things eaten and transported by a person. During dreams, usually the head and sometimes the heart soul-component of the dreamer and the beings he or she might encounter become temporarily detached, meet, and communicate. A song taught to a dreamer, as soul-component vocalized, becomes a channel for reestablishing contact with that spirit during night-time, house-bound ceremonies. The spirit-guide (gonig) may also designate certain fragrant leaves (implicating odour souls), dance steps, and other performance parameters that are then recreated ceremonially to activate that spirit’s presence in the human realm. The spirit-guide, Temiars say, is able to see far above the forest canopy; made present in the shaman’s song, it brings its extensive knowledge and perspective to bear upon human illnesses. Activated spirit, when temporally and contextually bounded in dream and ceremony, results in the infusion of power and knowledge into a medium, who is thereby empowered to heal. But when spirit is excessively animated outside the bounds of dream and ceremony, illnesses of spirit-intrusion or soul-loss may result. In such cases, mediums call upon their spirit-guides to seek out the source of the illness. Through singing and trance-dancing, mediums move ceremonially into the realm of detached spirit in which they may extract, replace, or re-situate spirit-components in the patient and the cosmos. Some mediums specify particular spirit-guides for assistance with specific illness complexes; others say that whatever spirit-guide arrives can deal with an illness by virtue of its paramount status as animated spirit. Spirit-guides make themselves known primarily through their songs and dance movements. Indeed, music packs its boundary-crossing power via its detachability, as sound resonates from its source through space, whether crossing social boundaries of natal and affinal affiliation as in Suyá shout songs (Seeger 1988), through temporal zones of generational kin as in Mapuche tayil songs (Robertson 1979), or across cosmological categories of bound soul and unbound spirit in Temiar dream-songs. If, as Attali suggests, music is prophetic, a herald of times to come (1985/1977, p. 4), then the increased potential for detachability and reproducibility initiated by recording technologies in the late 1800s, heralding what has come to be called the schizophonic realm of separable and re-assemblable sounds, are the audible sign of the transnational era. “Music”, Attali continues, “makes mutations audible. It obliges us to invent categories and new dynamics to regenerate

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social theory ...” (ibid.). Temiar theories of detachability and reintegration of components of the self may be peculiarly well-adapted to handle the disjunctures posed by the post-modern condition. Appadurai (1996, p. 27ff.) suggests the image of disjuncture to describe what he considers to be the unique quality of contemporary global culture: an increase in overlaps and disjunctures among persons, places, and economic exchange mechanisms, primarily due to an increase in speed and volume of motion, both demographic and informational. In his discussion of the particular dynamism of modernity, Giddens (1991, p. 14) directs our attention to transformations in the ways in which social systems bind time and space. He terms this “time-space distanciation”, which he defines as “the conditions under which time and space are organized so as to connect presence and absence” (ibid.). Drawing upon images of severance and disembedding, on the one hand, and recombination and compression, on the other, he suggests that the level of time-space distanciation has increased under the conditions of modernity (ibid., pp. 17–21). The advent of modernity increasingly “tears space away from place”, or locale, “by fostering relations between ‘absent’ others, locationally distant from any given situation of face-to-face interaction” (ibid., p. 18). By disembedding, Giddens refers to the “‘lifting out’ of social relations from local contexts of interaction and their restructuring across indefinite spans of time-space” (ibid., p. 21). Stuart Hall (1992, p. 297) similarly finds “timespace compression” to be the hallmark of globalization in the modern/postmodern era, which he defines as “those processes, operating on a global scale, which cut across community, regional, and national boundaries, integrating and connecting communities and organizations in new space-time configurations”. Temiar theories of detachability and reintegration of components of the self, mediated in musical practice, may be peculiarly welladapted to handle the disjunctures posed by modernity.

SONG-SITES OF ENCOUNTER AND INCORPORATION The dense jungle constitutes both refuge and sustenance for Temiars, and holds within it powers both benevolent and malevolent. Temiars tap into this circuit of power, rendering the unknown known, in their dream-songs, received from the sprits of the landscape, its flora and fauna. Temiars negotiate their geopolitical terrain with a double vision that responds simultaneously to spiritual and material presences. The forest’s edge, a porous boundary between forest and out-forest, and the river, flowing between the domains of deeper upstream forest and downriver market place, link forest and non-forest

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domains. The space above the forest canopy, and the long distance vision it affords, constitutes another realm of fantasy and fear. Home in its highest reaches to the thunder and lightning deity ?37kuu?, feared for the floods and storms he unleashes, it is also home in its lower reaches to things of the “above ground”, like birds. Temiar hunter-horticulturalists, who refer to themselves as s3n?00y s9r0k (or s37r0k, the adjectival plural) “people of the forest” in their Mon-Khmer language, have long engaged with peoples and things from beyond the forest, whom they call g0b. The term is qualified according to the perceived ethnicity of the non-forester person or item: g0b m9layuu? for the Austronesian-speaking Malays who now constitute the mainstream Islamic population; g0b puteh or “white foreigners” for the British colonials and other Euro-Americans who preceded and followed them; g0b cinaa? and g0b ?ind9yaah for the Chinese and Tamil workers brought to work British tin mines and rubber plantations; g0b j9pun, for the Japanese occupiers during World War II. Songs sung during Temiar healing rituals now include those received from the spirits of the tunnels built by the Japanese, as well as those from market goods arriving from downriver Malay settlements. Rivers and footpaths, red-dirt military and logging roads that came later, and the asphalt roads that followed them, wind their way out of, into, and through the jungle, connecting Temiars with “upstream” (teh) and “downstream” (r3h). In an indigenous musical terminology rich with metaphors of movement through the landscape, Temiar songs are conceived of as “paths” bestowed during dreams by spirit-guides, who have the knowledge and vision to see through and soar above the density of the jungle brush and forest canopy. In the Temiar scheme of borderlines and the routes between them, “upstream” is traditionally associated with things of the deeper jungle (b33k “forest”), including both benevolent spirit-guides and malevolent illness agents. “Downstream” – the direction of the market place, big towns, and “nonforester” or non-aboriginal Others penetrating into forest territory – is also a realm of things, people, and experiences both positively and negatively charged. The dense forest once provided a refuge for Temiars from intercultural interactions. These included symbiotic economic and cultural exchanges among forest peoples with peasants and petty entrepreneurs linked to transoceanic trade routes. Jungle products, such as sandalwood, resin, rattan, medicinal herbs and fruit, were exchanged for “non-forester” items such as salt, iron and cotton cloth in earlier times – batteries, gym shorts and T-shirts, or cash nowadays.3 The interpenetrable distinctions offered by forest’s edge – while always porous – have become increasingly jumbled in the transnational era. Temiars currently face their cosmology gone wild: “market” (k9dey “town,

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shop”) illnesses now come from Chinese and Malay logging camps upstream, from whence only forest illnesses once emerged. Temiar healing ceremonies draw on songs received from Malay, Chinese and forest spirit-guides to grapple with the diversity of illness sources.

SONIC BOOMS AND AIR FOR CE BOMBS: THE AIRPLANE SONG To soar like a bird is a spirit’s privilege: to see long distances, returning visions and knowledge through the conduit of song. From that airspace above the forest canopy, the spirit-space of cool winds and liquid mists, of entranced head-souls flying and spirits’ long-range vision, Temiars now receive dreamsongs from airplanes and parachute drops as they do from birds, from wristwatches as well as pulsing insects. Foreign peoples and things are socialized in dreams, brought into kinship relations as spirit-familiar “child” to the Temiar dreamer as “parent”. Strange people, things, and technologies become humanized, even Temiarized, their potentially disruptive foreign presence now tapped for use as a spirit-familiar in Temiar ceremonies. Hi-tech phenomena such as airplanes bring mixed blessings: parachute drops of food during the rainy season, when subsistence travels can be harder to perform, were dropped from the sky by British colonials, and later by the Malaysian Department of Aboriginal Affairs. Fixed-wing planes also landed regularly in Temiar country in the 1950s and 1960s at several jungle forts, bringing both supplies and personnel. But planes, which in Temiar memory date to the Japanese Occupation of 1941 to 1945, also brought bombs that strafed communists hiding in the jungle during the Malaysian “Emergency” (1948–65). Desire and destruction coalesce in the airplane as it brings foodstuffs on the one hand, and death on the other. While I was recording a night-time house-bound singing ceremony in the settlement of Lambok, in the area of Kuala Betis, Ulu Kelantan in 1981, Busu Puteh (or Taa? Busuu?, Old Man Busu), sang a song received from the Airplane spirit. Old Man Busu had strong kinship ties to the Betis (B9t2s) and its tributary Perolak (P3rl00b) river valleys, in the heart of the Kelantan area known for the origination and continuation of songs in the Ta7g99y genre. His father was from Perias (P3ryas), near the origination point of another important Kelantan Temiar genre, S9lumba7. He sang various songs received by spirits, some from his own dreams, and others given to him through ceremonializing together with song-receiving relatives. Amidst the songs of the Ta7g99y genre, received from things “above ground” like birds, mammals, and flowers, and his S9lumba7 repertoire, received from the water-serpent

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Engaging the Spirits ofModernity: The Temiars

5Jlumba1J of the "underground", he sang the song his grandfather had received from an Airplane spirit two generations earlier, during the 1940s and 1950s. Busu Puteh's grandfather received the Airplane song in the Ta1jgJrygenre, characterized by melodies that begin with a relatively flat melodic contour opening out slightly into a narrow range of tones constituting the melodic core that, compared with other Temiar vocal genres, remains relatively restricted tonally. This constraint is particularly noticeable in Ta1JgJ3J from the Perolak and Betis river valleys, where Lambok is situated. The Tar;gJJY tone-row may be expanded by the periodic insertion of a jmhook phrase, which begins on a pitch higher than those forming the melodic core, and descends, often reaching the tonal centre. Temiar dream-songs are constructed of verses formed from two or three song phrases, alternated in variable patterns, with the periodic insertion of a jmhook phrase. 4 (See Figure 8.1.) The song phrase melodies are repeated, while song text is varied extemporaneously. Each phrase sung by the initial singer is repeated heterophonically or, using Feld's term (Keil and Feld 1994, p. u8), in "echo polyphony" by a female chorus. As is characteristic of TmjgJJy, the Airplane song's first song phrase begins with a flat melodic contour, rhythmically elaborating the tonal centre of E. Through most of the

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15 THE ORANG PETALANGAN OF RIAU 1 AND THEIR FOREST ENVIRONMENT Tenas Effendy

INTRODUCTION In Riau Province there are several Suku Asli tribal groups (kelompok suku asli): the Suku Bonai along the Rokan river, the Suku Sakai along the Siak, the Suku Talang along the Kampar, the Suku Talang Mamak along the Indragiri, and the Suku Laut in the waters of the Melaka Straits. (See Map 15.1.) Each of these communities is made up of several sub-groups known by such terms as pesukuan “major tribal division”, tobo “sub-pesukuan”, and yet smaller kinship-based subdivisions known variously as hinduk, perut, and puak anak.2 In daily life, these Suku Asli are known simply as “people” (orang) rather than “tribes” (suku), thus: Orang Asal, Orang Bonai, Orang Sakai, Orang Talang, Orang Talang Mamak, and Orang Laut. They may be further named according to their particular local subgroup (pesukuan or puak anak).3 More general names for the Mainland Sumatra groups are Orang Darat (“Land People”), Orang Petalangan (probably related to talang “middleman, trader”),4 or Orang Pebatinan (“Headmandom People”). Nowadays, all such groups of this kind of society are called Suku Terasing (“isolated, separated tribes”) by the government. Although they are dispersed throughout several different areas, all these groups, including the Orang Laut, nevertheless possess a basic similarity of culture. Their customs, beliefs, symbols and philosophy all follow the same 364

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mould. A notable similarity is their sense of consubstantiality with the natural world (“persebatian” mereka dengan alamnya) – like that between a person’s backbone and body. For them, the natural world is not just where they reside and make a living, but a “self ” in its own right and the authentic basis for their own self-identity ( jati dirinya). For this reason, they cannot be separated from their own natural environment, whether on land or at sea. One of their mantras (monto) puts it thus: “The world as a whole may be made smaller, the local environment may be used up, but the world itself will still remain”.5 The point of this saying becomes clear when interpreted through such ever-present symbols as the “World Tree”, usually thought of as represented by the sialang tree (Koompassia excelsa, or tualang). (See Figures 15.1 to 15.3.) At present, in the era of development, the forest-environment belonging to these societies has largely been transformed into extensive plantations and industrial sites. Their settlements are now mostly like small islands in an ocean of oil-palms and new housing estates. This situation, although it provides these societies with some life-advantages, leads them to feel the loss of both the forest’s and their own “selfhood”. Moreover, they are losing their ancestral cultural resources.

THE ORANG TALANG AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT HISTORY AND ECONOMY The Orang Talang are one of the aboriginal tribal groups of Riau, now settled in the Subdistricts (Kecamatan) of Langgam, Pengkalan Kuras, Bunut, and Kuala Kampar (see Map 15.2). They inhabit customarily recognized hutan tanah wilayat, inherited forest tracts owned by the whole suku. In the four subdistricts with tribal populations there were twenty-nine batin to serve as headmen of the Suku Asli. Formerly these areas were known collectively as the Pebatinan Kuang Oso Tigo Pulou “The Thirty Minus One Headmandoms”. Each headmandom was led by a batin, aided by several assistants known as ketiapan, an office found only among the Orang Talang. Nowadays, almost all of the headmandom areas have been broken up into administrative Villages (Desa), each under a formal Village Headman (Kepala Desa). However, they still regard local rights as pertaining to the traditional headmandoms (pebatinan), in accordance with their customary-law rules. In the District (Kabupaten) of Batu Ampar, Riau Province (see Map 15.1), the Petalangan people (who numbered 30,675 in 1992) live in four different subdistricts: Langgam (6,885), Pengkarang Kuras (8,824), Bunut (9,230), and

© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

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Kuala Kampar (10,736). In pre-Independence times, this whole area formed part of the territory (wilayah) of the sultanate of Pelalawan. The Sultan at that time had four titled territorial chiefs (datuk) under his authority: at Langgam, there was the Datuk Engku Raja Lela Putera; at Pengkalan Kuras, the Datuk Laksamana Mangku di-Raja; at Bunut, the Datuk Kampar Samat di-Raja; and at Kuala Kampar, the Datuk Bandar Setia di-Raja. After Indonesia declared independence on 13 August 1945, this territory was handed over to the Republic as a wilayah kewedanaan, an area under the administration of a wedana.6 The Sultan became the Wedana and the territorial chiefs became district heads (camat); under these were the local headmen (penghulu). In 1958–59, there was an increase in the number of formally recognized villages, and the former “headmandom territory” (wilayah pebatinan) became a “village territory” (wilayah desa). The batins are now regarded as formal village headmen (kepala desa). For example, the former single headmandom of Pengkalan Kuras, a subdistrict of Kampar district, was reorganized into four Administrative Villages: Desa Talau, Desa Kesuma, Desa Betung, and Desa Tanjung Beringin. In the days of the former sultanate, the Orang Talang subgroups were each given land rights by the Sultan, which allowed them some authority over the land. The batin was then charged with dealing with any land-based issues that arose. But with the rural development programme this no longer occurs. Instead, there are disputes between the batin and the administrative village head (kepala desa). The batin as “owner” (pemilik) of a particular area of forest-land with several villages in it, says “I am indigenous ( yang asli ) here, and this area is my traditionally recognized forested territory. Matters concerning land in this area are my concern.” But the new village head says, “this is my property (milik). I hold the rights here, because I am a Government officer.” Thus began the disagreements between the Suku Asli and the new government, as discussed below. The batins try to resist the selling of the land by the village heads, but in the end the forest will probably disappear. The main productive activities of the Orang Talang are: farming (rice in swiddens, rubber in smallholdings, and local fruits); hunting; fishing (in rivers, coastal inlets and lakes); and the collecting of forest products (resins, eaglewood, balam merah latex,7 cane, etc.). Nowadays, a minority of the people work as government officers, petty village traders or as daily-rated labourers on oil-palm estates. In 1978, the per capita income was Rp38,039 in Langgam subdistrict, Rp29,683 in Pengkalan Kuras, Rp41,497 in Bunut, and around Rp40,000 in Kuala Kampar (source: Direktorat Agraria, 1978). By 1981, the annual per capita income in these subdistricts averaged Rp55,208 (Badan Perancanaan

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Pembangunan Daerah 1991). Although the per capita income of the people – most of whom are Orang Talang – appears to have risen, so also has the cost of their daily necessities. And with the opening of large-scale plantations and industry, these societies have lost a large portion of the forested areas that were formerly the basis – in the broadest sense – of their lives. In fact, for these societies, life is not simply a matter of satisfying material needs, but of satisfying spiritual ones also, as the source of their feelings of peace and wellbeing. Their spiritual satisfaction is in turn very closely linked to the preservation of the forested environment which they have inherited from their ancestors, and which provides for many of their material and spiritual needs. The Orang Talang have almost all come under the influence of Islam but their ancestral beliefs persist, rooted in their daily life and in their ceremonies and traditions. In any case, Islam too emphasizes preservation of the environment, for the world was created by God for the well-being of His creatures, and the presence of Islam would fortify them in protecting the relations between the people and their forest environment.

THE SYMBOLIC ORDER OF PETALANGAN SOCIETY Whenever Orang Talang meet each other, besides asking each other how many children and grandchildren they have, they also enquire as to which headmandom they live in. This habit, apart from reflecting their concern with ancestry, also shows the importance they ascribe to their place of residence (which is usually a village built along the banks of a river). The Orang Talang usually refer to both the headmandom and place of residence by such terms as hutan tanah wilayat or hutan tanah ulayat (“forest-land territory”), hutan tanah pebatinan (“headmandom forest-land”), hutan tanah adat (“customary-law forest-land”) – or simply as hutan tanah (“forest and land”) – all of which are thought of as being owned by the local group. This “landed territory”, according to traditional custom, was divided into four parts: • •

Tanah kampung (“village land”), along the river, where they build their unpretentious houses and villages. Tanah dusun (“orchard land”), for raising such woody crops as jackfruit, durian, rambutan, and (from 1933) rubber. This is currently regarded by the Pengerusi Tanah “Land Chairman” as part of a formal Village Expansion Programme (Cadangan Perluasan Tanah Kampung): as the number of villagers and houses increases, more orchard land is made available.

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370 •

•

Tanah peladangan (“swidden land”), where they have their dry-rice farms, which are cultivated for one year and then left fallow for about five years before they are farmed again. Although these are rotating farms, they nevertheless fall within a recognized area. Those who claim that this swidden farming destroys the forest are mistaken, for the Orang Talang pattern means that they can make their farms only within declared “swidden land” areas, and nowhere else. The rest, which they declare to be rimba larangan (“off-limits forest”). This is of two kinds. The first is rimba simpanan (“reserved forest”), where live a variety of flora and fauna. Second, there are the rimba kepungan sialang (“reserved forest stands of sialang trees”), which are highly protected under customary law, and which provide wild bee honey. As the price of timber logs rose, outsiders came in and began to fell these sialang areas (which also contained other large trees), despite the fact that this was a traditional forest reserve. But this reserve should absolutely not have been destroyed, as it contained the people’s symbols.

This spatial ordering reflects the way in which Petalangan society has long held to the concept of environmental conservation. In turn, this is reaffirmed by customary law (adat), transgression of which incurs heavy sanctions in the form of fines or banishment. Among Petalangan customary sayings is “to the forest for study, to the land to be guided” (begu’u ke utan, bepedoman ke tana ), which portrays the forest-environment as a source of knowledge, examples and metaphors, and as a model for individual and social life. But the forest-environment is important not just for these reasons, but also as the material mainstay of their lives. This is spelled out in the saying, “life depends on the natural world, death depends on origins” (idup begantung pado alam, mati begantung pado asal ). That is to say, living is at one with the world, until the world itself breaks down, whereupon people too die. This framework of ideas is also apparent in one of their mantras, which runs: “sky as father, earth as mother” (bebapak ke langit, beibu ke bum i). This declares that the people are themselves “children of the cosmos”. The macrocosm8 is the source of human life, and they make themselves at one with it through such symbols as the sialang tree and (as discussed below) the Éndak Éndang Alam tree, the Putei Pandang Gelobu tree and the Puan (a pointing ceremony employed by the kemantan shaman during healing ceremonies). This imagery is also reflected in the mantra, “the earth is as broad as a tray, the sky is as an unfurled umbrella” (koto bumi selebe dulang, koto langit sekombang payung). This connects with the concept of the microcosmic

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“world within ourselves” (alam dalam di ’i) that appears in the mantra mentioned earlier. The “world within ourselves”, according to the dukuns, pawangs, kemantans, and bomos – the various kinds of traditional specialists in magic, healing and shamanism9 – is none other than the soul (semangat), which lives as one with the physical body. This is a genuine consubstantiality, they say, and the two cannot be separated. It is because of this underlying image of authentic consubstantiality that outward appearances can constantly change yet continue to be pictured through the symbols discussed in this chapter. Each symbol, big or small, continues to possess the same meaning, as indicated in the following verse mantra: Anak itik anak ayam Tobang menyisi-nyisi langit, Kocit sebose bijo bayam Mengandung bumi dengan langit.

A duckling and a chick Flew right up to the sky, No bigger than a spinach seed The earth was pregnant by the sky.

Separating the Orang Talang from their world and forest-environment would be to separate their souls from their bodies, alienating them from the very source of their being. The traditional magicians, healers and shamans express this threat as “separating oneself from oneself ” (memisakan di’i dengan di’i) – that is, separating the invisible spiritual self (di’i halus) from the bodily self (di’i kasar). The same idea underlies another of their mantras: “sitting on a clod of earth since birth, the grass grows bitter” (duduk di tana sekopal mulo jadi, tumbou umput taung temaung), which asserts the inseparable and originbased connection between human beings and nature. For the Orang Talang, the forest is not just their source of food, but the symbol of their very life; it is their identity ( jati diri ). (See Figure 15.1.) The cosmos (alam yang luas) is writ small in the form of the World Tree (Kayu Alam or Pohon Alam), known to the traditional healers and ritualists as Pohon Éndak Éndang Alam or Pandang Gelobu.10 Different parts of the World Tree are under the control of different spiritual agencies known as akuan.11 The uppermost parts come under an akuan with the title Bughung Putih Yono Beyaleh12 (“White Bird of the Changing Colours”). From the middle section to the ground, the controlling agency is called Akuan Sidi,13 a mystical creature that can appear as a helping agency in the form of several different kinds of spirit, known as embang, dewa or péri. The underground akuan is called Akuan Sa’ti.14 Now, if this is metaphorized onto the living human body (Figure 15.1), from the head to the shoulders is controlled by the White Bird, from the shoulders to the knees by the Akuan Sidi, and from the knees downwards by the Akuan Sa’ti. If ritual practitioners want to treat a sick person, they call

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372 FIGURE 15.1 The World Tree and Humankind

upon the appropriate akuan, depending on the part of the body that needs treatment. When the practitioner goes into trance, these spirits enter first from the feet, moving upwards to the head. (This relates to the vertical reversal of the parts between tree and human indicated in Figure 15.1.) He must take care not to call on the wrong agency, as there are many other spirits around, such as jembalang tanah earth demons, which may act dangerously. They must call only on the particular spiritual agency that has the power to cure the respective part of the body. As indicated in Table 15.1 (which provides a key to the numbers on Figure 15.1), the Orang Talang image the world in just the same way as they image their own selves. For that reason, the people say that to damage the world is to damage themselves. The same symbolic framework appears in other contexts as well, further reinforcing the imagery. The main symbol of the World Tree is the sialang, a tree species they take great care of. When collecting bee honey from it, they

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TABLE 15.1 Key to Figure 15.1 WORLD TREE Controlling Akuan

Item Part

Corresponding shaman’s accoutrement

HUMANKIND Body part

Corresponding environmental element

1

Shoot

Offering container ( puan persembah)

Big toe

2

Leaf

Shaman’s covering (tudung kemantan)

Body hair Bitter grass [?] (Rumput Taung Temaung)

3

Fruit

Bell (genta)

Calf

Palm blossom (mayang)

4

Branchlet

Basket/Fish trap (kumbe)

Knee

Line of bays and headlands [?] (Ondan teluk ondan telekan)

5

Flower

Toasted rice (bertih) Waist

? (Gondang telecok Tondang Telenggong)

6

Thorn

Peg or nail (pating atau paku)

Belly

Sea (laut)

II:

7

Outer latex

Candle wax (lilin)

Chest

Field ( padang)

Akuan Sidi

8

Inner latex

Resin (damar)

Shoulder

Building for weighing things up (Balai timbang-timbangan)

9

Heartwood

Headdress [?] (ketobung)

Neck

Swift flow of narrow rivers, narrow rises of land, and the Twenty Human Beings [?]

10

Roots

Platform or boat for offerings (balai, lancang)

Mouth

Stone palisade (pagar batu)

11

Roothairs

Mat (tikar)

Nose

Iron fishtrap (tengkalak besi)

12

—

—

Eye

Hard diamond dust (intan teras)

13

—

—

Ear

Cormorant (dendang air)

14

—

—

Head

Mountain (gunung)

I: Akuan Burung Puteh

III: Akuan Sa’ti

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A fistful of earth (Tanah Sekopal Mula Jadi)

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use a special implement called a semangkat, made out of a piece of wood bound with cane. The semangkat symbolizes the human backbone. If they want to make a boat (perahu) dug out of sialang wood – which is usually the business of the Orang Laut – they must first gather the wood for themselves. As indicated in Figures 15.2 and 15.3, this involves a sequence of ceremonial processes. In stage 1 an appropriate tree is chosen in the forest and preshaped into a rectangular form, much like a rice-mortar. Before this can be done, the shaman (kemantan) must chant a special mantra over it. They then request FIGURE 15.2 The Akuan Souls of World Tree, Humankind, and Boat

I

I ‘Borrowing the Semangat’

II

Pengkalan Asal

II

III III III WORLD TREE (Home-base on land)

(HUMANKIND)

II

I

BOAT (Home-base at sea)

FIGURE 15.3 From World Tree to Boat Pengkalan Asal The house Semangat

Pengkalan Tambatan

‘Borrowing the semangat’ and inserting it through the ‘nyao’ hole

I Old-style pillared house Finding the wood (World Tree)

3

2 Making the boat

Launching the boat

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permission from all the various souls (semangat) to go ahead with making the boat. Stage 2 involves shaping the rectangular log into a boat. A special “soul hole” (lobang nyao [that is, nyawa] or lobang semangat) is made, through which the semangat-soul of the sialang tree is ritually transferred into the boat. Nevertheless, the semangat is still that of the Kayu Éndak Éndang Alam, the World Tree, even after the boat is taken to sea. The four rituals that bring this about take place at the boat’s “original starting point” ( pangkalan asal ), also known as the “place-of-oath-taking” (persumpahan). In stage 3, as soon as the semangat has been introduced into the boat and everything is complete, the log has taken final shape as a boat. It is then moved to its “initial mooring-point” ( pangkalan tambatan), from where, in stage 4, it is launched into the river and on to the sea. As already remarked, the semangkat implement is a symbol of the backbone. The backbone in turn is a symbol of the boat’s keel: the keel is both the backbone and the semangkat. Because the boat has a continuing unity with the soul of the Kayu Éndak Éndang A lam, and with its “birthplaces” the pengkalan asal and pengkalan tambatan, it is able to live at sea. (See Figure 15.3.) In one of their oaths, the people say that “what is of the sea returns to the sea, and that of the land goes home to the land” ( yang laut pulang ke-laut, yang darat balik ke-darat), but through the series of rituals the semangat-soul has moved from the land to the sea. The Orang Laut consequently have imposed a taboo against separating themselves from their boats. If they were forced to live on land, they would have to break their vows, and that is why they refuse to do so, insisting on remaining on the sea. But, however far they may travel in their search for food, they must retain their links with their own pengkalan tambatan and pengkalan asal, and through those, to their original oath-taking. The area through which they travel is therefore not just a wilderness – as it seems to outsiders – but contains within it places of great significance to them. Petalangan societies are mindful of symbols. For example, when the dukun is treating a pregnant woman, he makes use of a five-coloured thread (benang pancawarna), five-coloured cloth and five flowers of different colours. These are based on the following colour symbolism: white is the backbone; yellow is the flesh; green is the veins; red is the blood; and black is the symbol of skin. (See Figure 15.4.) The same symbolic equations are also found in connection with the World Tree image: both the human body and the tree have a skin (bark), for example. If five-coloured objects are not available, they will substitute instead betel (for red), lime (for white) and turmeric (for yellow), reducing the five colours to three.

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376 FIGURE 15.4 The Symbolism of the “Five Colours”

THE ORANG TALANG AND THE FOREST Based on their view that the natural world has its own authentic identity ( jati dirinya), the Orang Talang take great care to conserve their natural forest environment. They protect and utilize nature so as to sustain their lives physically and spiritually. Following their customary rules of spatial organization, the recognized forested territories are utilized with care, and almost all decisions are made according to the obligatory social and customary norms followed by every member of the society. This can be seen from several of their customary-law regulations, such as those for opening new forest land, swiddening, fishing, hunting, travelling in the forest, dealing with the sialang tree, setting up a house, maintaining an orchard, collecting forest products, and so on. Each of these customary-law regulations is backed by obligatory taboos carrying heavy sanctions. So as to implant the feelings of consubstantiality and mutual identification between humans and the natural world, the Orang Talang have long carried out ceremonies that involve these values. These include: the Mandi Air Jejak Tanah ceremony, in which a new-born baby (usually between seven and forty

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days) is bathed while stepping on the ground for the first time. Thereafter, as the child grows up, further “learning demonstrations” of this are passed on, to heighten the recognition of the bonds between humans and the natural world and the responsibility of the former to conserve the latter. In the 1970s, commercial logging began in Riau province; this has cut more deeply every year since. Much of the forest has gone over to this business, and much timber has been felled, in the Orang Talang area too. Trees such as the sialang, the balam merah, and the jelutung (Dyera costulata), which had all along been protected and which had served as symbols and material resources for the local societies began to be logged out. In order to calm the situation, the Riau provincial government issued a Resolution15 in 1972 forbidding the felling of certain trees. Among other prescriptions, this document stated that: “The following may absolutely not be felled: (1) Ringalang or Sialang and other trees that are utilized for their bees’ nests. (2) Immature trees and other trees as determined by the authorized agencies.” In 1988, extensive oil-palm estates began to be opened up in Riau, increasing over the years to occupy millions of hectares. Since then, many of the forest areas belonging to the Orang Talang have been given over to oilpalm and industrial use. So as to safeguard this forest-land, the Riau provincial government issued a Resolution16 in 1991 regarding “site permits and the release of rights in and purchase of land”, the main clauses of which were: 3.2 Concerning the acreage mentioned above, wherever there are forest stands of sialang trees or any reserved forest, [licences] can be issued [only] in accordance with the Governor’s Resolution no. 118/IX/1972, 18 September 1972. 3.3 For any such sialang stands or reserved forest to be utilized by industry, [the document] freeing the rights must be signed by the local Tribal Customary Chief [Pemangku Adat Pesukuan], acting upon customarylaw deliberations and with the knowledge of the Village Headman and the Subdistrict Officer (Camat). 3.4 If the people living on the licensed site have gardens or other land under cultivation for which they wish to seek compensation, they must do so through the District Officer (Bupati), District Level II, in Kampar. But if the people in question do not wish to seek compensation for their gardens and other cultivated land, they must be removed from their garden areas … 3.5 In opening up forest or utilizing land under this Site Licence, environmental damage and pollution must be guarded against …

It is true that – together with certain legal actions that had been taken before permission was given to open plantations and industry – this Resolution

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by the Governor of Riau guaranteed protection of the recognized “forested areas” and the people’s rights in them. However, the facts on the ground differ greatly from what was hoped for. A large proportion of the plantation industries have opened up the forest-land in a high-handed and arbitrary manner, destroying the forest stands of sialang trees, the forest reserves and the people’s lands. The companies use various means to conquer the terrain. Moreover, they try to obtain far larger areas than they are usually granted permission for. Let me say something about the process of getting permission to plant oil-palm. For example, a company wanting to open a plantation in Riau seeks permission from the Indonesian Government to open up 30,000 hectares in a particular sub-district. (Generally, companies ask for tens of thousands of hectares, even 100,000 hectares, but not just one or two thousand hectares.) The government first makes a recommendation to the Forest Department, which then makes a recommendation to the subdistrict authorities to free up the 30,000 hectares – even though the ordinary people may already have their paths, villages, farms and so on there. Thirty thousand hectares of this area is then released by the Forest Department, who consider it to be hutan (“forest”): they don’t see any houses or paths there – just “forest”. Next comes a “pre-survey”, testing the possibility of requesting an izin lokasi, a licence for freeing up forest. This allows the licensees to open up a plantation (kebun) there. But the question then arises of just how much land is to be licensed, for the surveyors notice that here’s a village, there’s a settlement, there’s a farm. These are subtracted from the 30,000 hectares to leave, say, 20,000 hectares. Thus, although the Forest Department grants 30,000 hectares, the izin lokasi licence only grants 20,000 hectares. Next, a request is made from the Badan Pertahanan Nasional (the National Land Authority) and the central government for a Right of Commercial Use (Hak Guna Usaha or HGU ). The original contract was for 30,000 hectares over 30 years, but now under the HGU it gets extended to 150 years. The HGU leads to a “micro-survey”, which notes that the available land is not as extensive as expected, because some of it is being worked by the local people, and some of it consists of sialang stands. Thus, of the 20,000 hectares they thought was available up to this point, only 15,000 hectares is really free to the company under its Right of Commercial Use. With this permission, the company can now go ahead and begin making a 15,000-hectare estate. But their original request was for 30,000 hectares. This would have allowed for building two processing plants, through obtaining a large amount of credit against the 30,000 hectares. But they have only been granted 15,000 hectares. To solve this, the boss goes to the site area and tells

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the people living there, “I have received permission from the government to open a plantation here.” But he shows them a map indicating the originally requested 30,000 hectare area. What can the illiterate local people say about this map? On it are government officers’ signatures, and all the land that they have been working is gone – despite the government’s attempts to safeguard the local people’s land rights. Almost all the land marked on the map was taken up by nine companies. The parts belonging to the local people were indicated by a few small green patches – which is all that was left for the Orang Petalangan living there. This was a great problem, because (as we saw earlier) the forest isn’t just a source of food. The government tried to calm things down by issuing a regulation saying that if there is land there already owned by (local) people, it is covered by the Surat Keputusan (Official Decision) of the Governor. As such, it must be protected as an enclave, so that out of our hypothetical 30,000 hectares requested, only 15,000 would be released. But on the ground things are quite different: the companies work at finding a way to still get 30,000 hectares. These are the games played by the companies – it is not the government’s fault. There are governmental regulations, there are declarations by the Governor, but the businesspeople do their best to get round them. And the result is that the small green areas marked on the map are all that is left for the local people. In the Petalangan area today, all that’s visible is an ocean of oil-palms. According to the Governor’s Official Decision it was decided that along the main road, if at all possible at least 2 kilometres should be left for the people of each local village. Some of the public notices in which this was announced reached the edge of the road, 200 metres from the actual villages. The resultant problems did not affect just the Orang Petalangan alone, for several other local populations suffered the same fate. Consequently, at present, the Orang Talang forest-land area exists only as remnants around their villages – and people in several other quarters have their eyes on controlling even that. Many of the villages are like islands in the midst of an oil-palm ocean, the produce of which holds barely any benefit for the villagers themselves. At best, a small number of Orang Talang are involved in Perkebunan Inti Rakyat (special plantations owned by the local people, on which they grow crops ordered by the government) or have become dailyrated rough labourers. At several meetings between the Orang Talang customary-law administrator (Pemangku) on the one side and government and industry on the other, it was revealed that much of their forest-land had been used up, some with compensation but a large part without compensation. Since then there have

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arisen a whole chain of problems concerning the forest-land, made even more complicated with the entry of third parties lacking any sense of responsibility. These have exploited the unsophisticated character of Orang Talang society just to make a personal profit for themselves. The government has taken steps to settle this case by case, but very many cases remain unsettled. This is mainly because most of the companies do no more than seek a profit, without considering the rights and lives of the local communities. With the almost complete extinction of their forest-land, Petalangan society has been overwhelmed by anxiety – over their lives and over the perpetuation of their ancestral values. The destruction of the forest has meant the loss of their material and spiritual resources, their sense of authenticity and even their own selfhood. They can no longer take the forest as the source of the values that they should emulate, nor even of the symbols which were formerly the pride and invisible support of each one of them. Thousands of sialang trees, which materially provided honey as one of their economic resources, have vanished – just as spiritually they have lost their symbols and source of values. With the exhaustion of the forest-land, all sorts of plants and forest products, including also the wild animals, have disappeared too. Many of the plants used as medical ingredients or as materials for preparing the traditional ceremonial objects and handicrafts are hardly ever met with today. These facts seem to have had a great influence on Petalangan society. They are being driven to try and hold out before a new way of life, which they are scarcely able to follow successfully. Moreover they lack sufficient education: some of them are still illiterate and feel alienated from the current rapid rate of development. They are unable to fulfil such opportunities as do exist, and it will surely be a relatively long time before they adjust. Other elements of their culture are eroding away, dissolving in a developmental process that will force the people either to change their life-ways and cultural traits or to replace them with new patterns that may not be compatible with the local culture.

CONCLUSION In the face of this situation, various efforts are being made to stop things from simply fading away. A Petalangan Cultural Centre has been set up in Betung village (Pengkalan Kuras subdistrict). A Petalangan Customary-Law Institute (Lembaga Adat Petalangan), encompassing four subdistricts, has been formed. Craft training sessions have been held. Model fish ponds have been built, and agricultural training provided. These efforts are being made by the Riau provincial government and also by a private organization, the Yayasan Setanggi

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(“Incense-stick Foundation”),17 aided by the Toyota Foundation and the Ford Foundation. However, the resources are so far insufficient to meet what is hoped for, because much remains to be done. Meanwhile, other people’s control over Orang Talang territory is continually being extended, such that even some of their village homes are now being threatened. Efforts of the kind just mentioned will be heightened in the future, and it is hoped that the outcome will be an increase in the sophistication, standard of living and well-being of Petalangan society in particular, and of the (Riau) aboriginal tribal societies in general.

NOTES 1. [Translator:] This chapter was translated from the Indonesian by Geoffrey Benjamin, who would like to record his gratitude to the late Raja Hamzah Yunus for his help with some otherwise obscure points in the original text. The author employs two main ethnonyms in this chapter: Talang and Petalangan. The former appears to refer to the specific local population that he discusses in some detail. The latter refers more generally to all the Talang-like populations of mainland Riau. I have left these words in their original forms throughout, so that both Talang and Petalangan appear in the text. For further discussion, see Tenas (1997). The phrase translated here as “forest environment” is expressed as hutan tanah in the original Indonesian text. Literally, this means “forest [and] land”, but more generally in Indonesian the phrase also means “natural environment”. Likewise, alam, literally “world”, is also frequently used for “nature” and “cosmos”. I have tried to choose the appropriate English word in each case, but something of the writer’s meaning is unavoidably lost whenever it is transferred onto a single English word or phrase. 2. [Translator:] It is not clear exactly what the social-organizational correlates of these latter terms are. In more narrowly Melayu usage the terms hinduk (“mother”), perut (“stomach”, “womb”) and puak anak (“descendants”) would hint at some kind of matri-bias, but subsequent discussion with the author suggested that this was not the case here. 3. Examples that incorporate the names of localities are: Orang Akit, Orang Kuala, Orang Utan, Orang Talang Napoh, Orang Talang Kerumutan, Orang Talang Bunut, Orang Talang Gondai, Orang Talang Geringging, Orang Bonai Hulu, and Orang Sakai Batin Selapan. 4. [Translator:] If this connection with a middleman role is valid, it suggests that in the time of the sultanate the Orang Petalangan were seen by those linked to the court as intermediaries in transactions between themselves and yet more remote tribal populations. 5. Alam bose dipekocit, alam kocit diabisi, tinggal alam dalam di ’i.

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6. This administrative category is no longer employed. The former kewedanaan is now known as Kabupaten Pelalawan. 7. [Translator:] I have been unable to identify this tree. 8. Alam secara makro or alam yang luas. 9. [Translator:] According to Raja Hamzah Yunus (personal communication), a dukun is a healer specializing in just one or two skills; a pawang specializes in a particular spirit; a kemantan is a tribal shaman, not found among the Malays; and a bomo is a general practitioner, skilled in many things. 10. [Translator:] The meaning of these names is not clear, and the entities they refer to were not known to some Malays I questioned on the matter. Besides their obviously symbolic status, these may also be normal forest trees that supply traditional medicines. The author explained that the Éndak Éndang Alam was a tree species that benefits mankind (bermanfaat bagi manusia ), while the Putei Pandang Gelobu was a tree species that gets rid of all diseases and misfortunes (membuang segala penyakit dan bala bencana ). Gelobu is probably from the Portuguese word for Globe: there are many words of Portuguese origin in Malay. If so, the second name could mean “[That which] watches over the World.” This would recall the dialectical imagery found elsewhere in the region, according to which the differentiation of the cosmos into heaven and earth, plants and animals, animals and humans, and so on, is sustained by – or contained within – the Cosmos’ own subjectivity. 11. [Translator:] The dictionary definition of akuan is “genie, spirit” (Echols and Shadily 1989, p. 10), but it is listed nevertheless as a derivate of aku “I”. It would be justifiable, therefore, to consider the World Tree’s various akuans as its subjective and agentive ego, thought of here as tripartite. 12. In Standard Indonesian this would be Burung Putih Warna Beralih. 13. [Translator:] This is probably a Sanskritic word (siddhi) meaning “effective (of charms); quite certain of fulfilment” (Wilkinson 1959, p. 1103). 14. [Translator:] Dewa, a Sanskritic word, means “god”, “idol” or “spirit”. Péri, probably connected indirectly to the English “fairy”, usually refers to a “female celestial being of exceeding beauty.” Sa’ti, another Sanskritic word (usually spelled Sakti in Malay) refers to supernatural or divine power. 15. Surat Keputusan Gubernor KDH Tk I Riau : Kpts/118/IX/1972, 18 September 1972. 16. Surat Keputusan Gubernor KDH Tk I Propinsi Riau: Kpts. 52/I–IV/1991, 29 June 1991. 17. [Translator:] Raja Hamzah Yunus (personal communication) suggested that this foundation took its name from two sources. First, setanggi “incense” is a peculiarly forest-derived product. Second, Amir Hamzah’s SeTanggi Timur, a collection of his poetry, is much admired by the founder of the Yayasan Setanggi, the author of this chapter.

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REFERENCES Echols, John M. and Hassan Shadily. 1989. Kamus Indonesia–Inggris. 3rd ed. Jakarta: Gramedia. Tenas Effendy. 1997. “Petalangan Society and Changes in Riau”. In Riau in Transition, edited by Cynthia Chou and Will Derks [=] Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 153, no. 4: 630–47. Wilkinson, R. J. 1959. A Malay–English Dictionary (Romanized). London: Macmillan.

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Reproduced from Tribal Communities in the Malay W orld: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives , edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles ar e available at < http://www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html >.

16 INTER-GROUP RELATIONS IN NORTH SUMATRA Juara R. Ginting

INTRODUCTION In this chapter I examine changes in inter-group relations in North Sumatra following the incorporation of the Batak and Malay settlements into the colonial state of the Netherlands East Indies. Paying primary attention to the Karos, I argue that the identity of a group is determined by its inclusion within a larger group rather than by the preservation of its racial or cultural heritage. This argument can be traced back to Van Wouden’s study (1956, English translation 1983) which revealed that a person may belong to more than one group and that, in turn, different groups may combine to form a larger group. Van Wouden (1983, p. 196) emphasized that this is no simple system, even if we regard the organization at the top as a completely modern creation which is highly debatable … This pyramid-like development of a great number of levels is characteristic of Indonesia and, in fact, all later Indonesian forms of the state are based on this very principle.

Van Wouden leaves open the question whether the introduction of a colonial or national state affects the existence of a group and of inter-group relations. My intention is to show how people or the literature perceive the 384

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relationship between groups in North Sumatra. It is based on the assumption that inter-group relations in North Sumatra have always changed following the relationship between an observing group and an observed one.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF GROUPS IN NORTH SUMATRA The province of North Sumatra has been described as the homeland of three main ethnic groups: the Bataks, the Malays, and the Nias. On basis of the older ethnographic literature, and in reference to current local issues concerning the unity and diversity of people, culture and society, current ethnographic literature depicts each of these groups as subdivided into several smaller groups. The Malays are subdivided according to their presumed areas of residence. Thus, along the east coast of Sumatra there are the Melayu Langkat, Melayu Deli, Melayu Serdang, Melayu Asahan, and Melayu Batubara; and the Malays on the west coast of Sumatra are known as Melayu Pesisir, “coastal Malays”. The Bataks are similarly subdivided into Karo, Simalungun, PakpakDairi, Toba, and Angkola-Mandailing. The people of Nias are divided into Northern Nias (Nias Utara), Central Nias (Nias Tengah), and Southern Nias (Nias Selatan). A careful reading of the ethnographic literature on the Bataks reveals two different perspectives. These coincide with the two main routes used by western adventurers, ethnographers and missionaries in reaching Batak interior – from the west or east coast of Sumatra. These two perspectives became embedded within the conceptual framework of the colonial state, which for administrative purposes converted the southern part of the Batak area into the Tapanuli Residency and the northern part into the East Coast of Sumatra Residency. The population of these two colonial residencies was not solely Batak. The Tapanuli Residency incorporated west-coast Malay (Orang Pesisir) and Nias settlements along with Batak ones (Angkola, Mandailing, Toba, Dairi, and Pakpak). The East-Coast Residency included Malay communities (the six sultanates of Langkat, Deli, Serdang, Asahan, Labuhan Batu, and Siak) and Batak ones (Karo, Simalungun). The government of the Republic of Indonesia has incorporated these former colonial residencies into the Province of North Sumatra, with Medan as the capital city, except for the residency of Siak, which is part of Riau Province. At the highest level of local government there is little difference between the two former colonial residencies and the present-day Province of North Sumatra. North Sumatra is subdivided into several second-level local governments, the Regencies of Langkat, Deli-Serdang, Asahan, Labuhan

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Batu, Tapanuli Selatan, Tapanuli Tengah, Tapanuli Utara, Nias, Dairi, Simalungun, and Karo; there are also a number of municipalities. The third level of local government, the administrative District or kabupaten – the colonial onderdistrict – has never been free from “ethnic” considerations. The names used for most of the groups in North Sumatra refer to these administrative domains. Among the Bataks, for example, we find: Orang Tapanuli, Orang Sumatera Timur (the people of East Sumatra), Batak Selatan (Southern Bataks), etc. The Malays too are differentiated into District populations, but here most of the names refer back to pre-colonial sultanates with the same names: Melayu Langkat, Melayu Deli, Melayu Serdang, Melayu Asahan and Melayu Batubara (now Labuhan Batu). The ethnic names employed in governmental and ethnographic publications differ from these locality-based names somewhat: although the “Melayu” divisions are almost identical to those just given, the Bataks are divided into Karo, Simalungun, Pakpak, Toba, Angkola, and Mandailing. Karo and Simalungun are the names of present-day regencies, transformations in turn of the colonial afdeling of the same name created by the Dutch. The names Angkola and Mandailing, however, are not applied to current administrative divisions: originally kingdoms, they were incorporated into the Dutch-created district of South Tapanuli. The Pakpak homelands have never achieved the status of an administrative domain: in colonial times they were incorporated into the regency of Dairi, which also included some Toba and Karo “homelands”. Today, however, the regency of Dairi is thought of as including Pakpak society: the name Pakpak therefore refers only to an ethnic identity. The name Toba is a unique case as it is also the name of a large lake. In most of the literature concerned with ethnic distribution in North Sumatra the name Toba emerges as the name of a Batak subethnic group. As such, the Toba Batak “homelands” cover the entire regency of North Tapanuli and extend some way into the regencies of Dairi, Simalungun, and Central Tapanuli. In this way, the regency of North Tapanuli has come to be seen as incorporating the homelands of the Toba Bataks, even though the people call themselves Orang Tapanuli Utara (the people of North Tapanuli). What makes the Toba case unique is the disjuncture between official and popular usage. In governmental and ethnographic publications the subethnic group name Toba coincides with a territory, but people themselves only use the term Batak Toba as an indicator of ethnic identity in urban academic discourse. For the people, the Tobas (or Partobas) are one of the four main groups who together constitute the Batak: Toba, Humbang, Silindung, and

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Samosir. In governmental and ethnographic publications, on the other hand, these Bataks are called Toba Batak. The inclusion of the Toba, Humbang, Silindung and Samosir groups within the Batak category appears to relate to the incorporation of their “homelands” into the Bataklanden residencies by the Dutch, before being extended and transformed into the residency of Tapanuli. The term Batak as the name of a category of people thereby became reified. Furthermore, it has become an identifiable whole, encompassing the four groups within a larger grouping of people, representing a particular configuration of inter-group relations, but excluding such neighbouring groups as the Angkolas, Mandailings, Sipiroks, Dairis, Pakpaks, Simalunguns, and Karos. But, when the Bataklanden Residency was transformed into the Residency of Tapanuli, its domain was extended to include the “homelands” of the Angkola, Mandailing, Sipirok, Dairi and Pakpak as well. Consequently, “Batak” came to embrace these latter groups too. As a result of this realignment the Tobas now stand out as a new whole (encompassing the former Toba, Humbang, Silindung and Samosir groups), whereas “Batak” now encompasses this enlarged Toba group along with the others.1

TWO CASE STUDIES Let me now present two similar cases that occurred after the incorporation of the region into the Dutch colonial state. The Regency of South Tapanuli includes two ethnic groups, the Mandailings and the Angkolas: those originating in the regency of South Tapanuli are also called Angkola-Mandailing. The Mandailings are said to be an Islamic society, while the Angkolas are a Protestant one. The incorporation of West Sumatra into the Netherlands East Indies was violently opposed by those Islamic Minangkabau known as the Padri. As the literature describes it, these Padri tried to extend their influence to the Bataks, successfully converting the Mandailings. Later, this Muslim territory was merged with the Onderdistrict Mandailinglanden, which became part of the province of West Sumatra. Protestant missionary activities then concentrated on the Angkolas, Silindungs, and Sipiroks (Pedersen 1970, pp. 47–72), all neighbours of the Mandailings. The Mandailings have since emerged as a homogeneous, Muslim group. However, the fact that “... a Mennonite community was established at Pakantan, Mandailing, in 1838, erecting a Byzantine style church there ...” (Pedersen 1970, p. 56), reveals that at that time not all the smaller groups shared the same identity. That Pakantan is now Muslim too is not so much because of the Padri movement, but because the Islamization of Mandailing

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took place within the conceptual framework of the colonial state. The incorporation of the Mandailing-landen into the Islamic Minangkabau-landen of West Sumatra led to the inclusion of the Mandailing within Islamic as well as Minangkabau society. The existence of the Batak Protestant Church (HKBP) has aggravated the difference between the Mandailings and Angkolas on the one hand, and between the Mandailings and Bataks as a whole on the other. This church was first founded among the Angkola and Toba Bataks, and later extended to the Pakpak and Simalungun Bataks. Mandailing territory later became part of the Tapanuli Residency and was incorporated, together with Angkola and Sipirok territories, into the subdistrict of South Tapanuli. In this new arrangement the Mandailings were in a different constellation with the Angkolas and Sipiroks. The Mandailings had been a part of Islamic as well as Minangkabau society, whereas the Angkolas had been aligned within Protestant and Toba Batak society. Such inclusions within a larger group did not lead the Sipiroks to constitute themselves as a particular homogeneous ethnic group, for “between 1870 and 1900, a minority (about 25%) of the population of the Sipirok region converted to Christianity; although all the kuria chiefs had by this time become Muslims ...” (Van Langenberg 1977, p. 89). The MuslimChristian contrast appeared to take place within smaller groups of Sipiroks, who then presented themselves as either Muslim or Christian Sipiroks. Muslim Sipiroks tended to include themselves within the Mandailings, while Christian Sipiroks aligned themselves with the Angkolas. In this regard the Sipiroks have remained marginal and hidden at the level of the nation-state, which has employed the idea of religious homogeneity in fitting the various groups into the national pattern of representation. The case of Kalak Timur below is no less unique. The term Timur Batak was used by Dutch civil servants to identify a group of people who are today known as Simalungun [Batak]. Nowadays, identification as Kalak Timur (literally, Eastern People) usually occurs only among the Karo Bataks who are thought to come from villages that were located in a Simalungun territorial confederation (negeri) in colonial times. The colonial government incorporated this confederation into the Malay sultanate of Serdang. The term Kalak Timur was used, and still is, by most Karos to identify the people as Simalungun (in the past known as Timur), despite the fact that the same people are called Halak Karo (the people of Karo) by their Simalungun neighbours. To their Malay neighbours they are just Bataks. Who, then, are they really? This question fascinated European adventurers, Protestant missionaries, and Dutch colonial civil servants, and it forms part of the question discussed in the next section.

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WHO ARE THE KAROS? EARLY ETHNOGRAPHIC ACCOUNTS The Karrau (Karos) only appear in William Marsden’s famous The History of Sumatra (1811) on page 396: the interior inhabitants from Achin to Siñgkel are distinguished into those of Allas, Riah, and Karrau … The Achinese manners prevail among the two former; but the latter resemble the Battas, from whom they are divided by a range of mountains ...

Under the name of Karau Karau and Karau Batta, the Karos appear in John Anderson’s Mission to the E ast Coast of S umatra in 1823 (1971 [1826], pp. 52, 251) as the interior population of the Deli, Langkat, and Serdang Malay sultanates. However, he seems to be inconsistent about the relation between the Karos and the Malay sultanates, often identifying the Karos as migrants in Deli, but failing to map this so-called domain of Deli. Elsewhere in his book he mentions the Deli villages of Labuhan Deli and Kullumpang (Klumpang), about 4 kilometres away. In the latter village “Battas of the tribe Karau Karau … cultivate pepper, returning generally once in the year for a few days, with the fruits of their industry” (Anderson 1971, pp. 60–61). He further described Soonghal (Sunggal), about 15 kilometres from Labuhan Deli, as a village the principal inhabitants of which were Battas, without mentioning which kind of Batak.2 In other sections of his book, however, he gives the impression that Deli was like a state, embracing both Malay and Batak settlements. For Anderson, the Karos were a section of the Bataks whose homelands were located in the highlands. He was himself clearly aware that the so-called Karo Bataks consisted of a number of smaller groups, but he often confused the Bataks, Karo Bataks, and Karo-karos. Almost all his descriptions using the term Karau Karau concern the Karo-karo merga (“clan”), although he also uses the term as a synonym for the Karau Batta. Similarly he uses the term Batta or Battas to refer to a group of Karos and uses the term “tribe” for the Ketaren group as if this were equivalent to all the Karos,3 whereas in fact it was just part of the Karo-karo clan.

PLANTATIONS, COLONIZATION, AND CHRISTIANIZATION Anderson’s description of the Karos undoubtedly reflected a Malay perspective, in which all people related to the highlands were considered Batak.4 This

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same perspective was adapted by the western plantation companies when they started to develop tobacco, rubber, and cocoa plantations on the east coast of Sumatra. In their view, all the lands along the east coast, from the seashore to the steep sloping mountains fell under the authority of Malay sultans, who were therefore thought to have the right to collect the land-rent. The Batak War which broke out in 1872 was a reaction against this perspective.5 In order to suppress the rebellion, the government of the Netherlands East Indies sent troops from Riau to Deli, leading to the incorporation of the east coast of Sumatra into the Netherlands East Indies. At the start, the central government of the Netherlands East Indies considered the east coast to consist of the territory of the East Coast of Sumatra Residency and that of the independent Bataks. The Residency was divided into the districts of Langkat, Deli, Serdang, Asahan, Labuhan Batu, and Siak. Each of the first three districts was divided into a number of kejurun (or urung) with a datuk or perbapan as the chief. The kejurun were regarded as a territorial confederation of several villages, each represented by a pengulu. Dutch reports usually referred to the Karo villages Langkat, Deli and Serdang districts by the term dusun. In this regard the East Coast Residency appeared to consist of three kinds of domains: the coastal Malay settlements, the western plantation belt, and the dusun. The use of the term dusun, a Malay word meaning “hamlet located far from the centre of a settlement”, presented an image of settlements in this region as not standing on their own. The Karos in Langkat, Deli, and Serdang were thought of as migrants from the Karo Highlands, whereas the land on which they lived was seen as a part of the respective Malay sultanate. Based on this idea, Western companies extended their plantations to the forest area, compensating for the loss of land by paying rent only to the sultan and to the chief of the local kejurun who, thanks to the Batak War, had been accorded this share by the plantation companies. The use of the term “empty land” for the forest reveals that it was conceived as not belonging to a human settlement. Karl J. Pelzer’s investigations (1978, pp. 70–71) later revealed the forest to be an integral part of the Karo way of life at the village level, especially in relation to the rotation of extensive cultivation, hunting and collecting forest products.6 These payments were divided into three equal parts, one to the sultan, one to the Karo datuks, and one to the chiefs of the villages within the concession area. To the Karos, the share they received was not acceptable, and they again expressed their resentment, this time by burning tobacco barns (Pelzer 1978, p. 74). In response to these Karo resentments, the director of the Deli Plantation Company

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proposed that missionaries should be brought in and Christianity introduced to the Karo, so that they might become more civilized and adapt to encroaching Western culture more easily ... (Pedersen 1970, p. 131).

The missionary work carried out by the Dutch Calvinist missionary society was started in 1890 in a Karo village in the upper part of Deli district. When the mission extended into the Karo Highlands, rebellion broke out there; this was again dealt with by a military expedition. In 1904, the territory of the so-called “independent Bataks” was incorporated into the new District of Simalungun-and-Karolanden in the East Coast Residency. In 1907, this district was divided into two onderdistricts (Simalungun and Karolanden), headed by an Assistent-Resident. From 1914 on, each of these onderdistricts was governed by a Dutch Controleur. Since its annexation in 1904 the onderdistrict of Karolanden was indirectly ruled, in consultation with a council of four indigenous chiefs, called raja marompat. In 1907 a fifth indigenous chief was added in order to cover all of the Karolands. These four indigenous chiefs had the title of sibayak (literally, “rich man”): the sibayaks of Lingga, Barusjahe, Suka, and Sarinembah. Each sibayak represented a territorial domain called a landschap which was further divided into urung. Each urung, which consisted of a number of villages represented by the village chief ( pengulu),7 was represented by a raja urung. At the outset, the incorporation of the Karolands and the appointment of the four sibayaks was vocally and violently opposed by a group of Karos, led by a man who called himself the Sibayak of Kutabuluh. This rebellion was suppressed by the formation of the landschap of Kutabuluh and the appointment of his opponent as the Sibayak of Kutabuluh in 1906. The four indigenous chiefs together continued to represent the highest level of indigenous justice, although at the subdistrict level each of the members was the chief of a landschap. This mode of judicial organization was put into effect at all levels, the advisers of a local chief standing in a similar relation to the Controleur and the council of four indigenous chiefs. In this way the Onderdistrict of Karolanden was hierarchically organized into a single territorial chieftainship, supported by four advisors called kerapaten or balai.

KARO SOCIETY IN COLONIAL TIMES During the colonial period, the Karos continually rebelled against everything Dutch: the plantations, Christian missionaries, and Dutch-appointed indigenous chiefs. Their autonomy forced the Dutch officers to learn more about this Karo society. W. Middendorp (see Slaats and Portier 1994, p. 74), the first Controleur of the Karolanden Subdistrict between 1914 and 1919, and © 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

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J. H. Neumann (1926, 1927), a missionary, carefully tried to discover the participants’ view by collecting myths of origin of the “groups” that were included within these so-called Karos. Middendorp and Neumann started at the point at which Karo people are related to each other as “siblings”, descended from the same patrilineal ancestor, Grandparent Karo. The latter had five sons who became the ancestors of the five Karo clans, which were later divided into subclans and lineages. The discontinuity in origin emerges at the level of the so-called “subclan”. Although some of the Karo “subclans” are the result of fission from another Karo “subclan”, most of them appear to originate from outside Karo society, such as other Bataks (especially Pakpak, Simalungun, and Toba), Acehnese (Alas, Gayo), Malays (Langkat, Deli, Serdang) and Minangkabaus (Pagarruyung). Conversely, a number of Karo myths describe the migrations of an ancestor to a place located outside the Karolands, where he became the founding ancestor of a non-Karo group, such as the Simalunguns, Tobas and Pakpaks. Thus, according to one such Karo myth, the founding ancestor of Siak was a Karo. At least in Neumann’s and Middendorp’s time, the origin myths of a group ran parallel with certain inter-group relations, either within the Karo community or between a Karo and a non-Karo group.8 Neumann’s findings showed that unity and diversity in Karo society occurred at different levels of inter-group relations. The highest relational level is siblingship, at which the Karos share the same ancestor. Through siblingship this ancestor “fissions” into several clans, while presumed migration generates several localized clans. The diversification of origins becomes apparent at the level of localized clans,9 where a clan is associated with a territorial domain. In this regard, Karo myths about the origin of a localized clan are relevant not merely to inter-group relations, but also to inter-territorial relations. Joustra (1926) describes the Karo territorial domain, Taneh Karo (“Karoland”), as consisting of Karo Jahe ( jahe = downstream) and Karo Gugung (gugung = highland).10 Karo Jahe was further divided into Sinuan Bunga (“the region of cotton planters”) and Sinuan Gambir (“the region of gambir planters”), and Karo Gugung into Julu (“upstream region”), Gununggunung (“mountain area”), and Berneh (“lowland”). During the colonial period parts of Karo Jahe (“Karo downstream”) became part of the Malay sultanates of Langkat, Deli and Serdang, while Karo Gugung was viewed as the “traditional homeland” of the Karos. Instead of elaborating this classification system to encompass the unity and diversity of the Karolands, Dutch officers tried to find its limits. However, to do this they altered indigenous boundaries and included villages from one territorial unit into another for administrative

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convenience. For instance, they defined Tongging (on the northern shore of Lake Toba) as a Karo village because it was included within the Karo territorial confederation of Si Pitu Kuta. The fact that it was also included within Si Tolu Huta, a Toba Batak territorial confederation, was not considered.

RECENT INVESTIGATIONS INTO INTER-GROUP RELATIONS Neumann’s studies contributed to the unification of smaller Karo groups and the relationships that helped form them on the basis of their origin myths. Middendorp (see Slaats and Portier 1994, p. 74) prepared a systematic list of Karo groups and their villages of origin, grouping them into the following five clans: Karo-karo, Ginting, Tarigan, Sembiring, and Perangin-angin, the names of Grandfather Karo’s sons. Joustra (1926, p. 201) describes each of these clans as consisting of a number of subclans, also called merga, which are further subdivided into different sub-subclans. Tamboen (1952) extended this list by taking into consideration prohibited and permissible marriage relations, dividing the clans Sembiring and Perangin-angin into two marriage classes which, although belonging to the same clan, are allowed to marry each other. Tamboen’s list of Karo clans was later adopted by many authors. Prinst and Prinst (1985) reviewed Tamboen’s list, creating a more systematic set of generative levels, from clan to lineage and sublineage. Like Middendorp before them they added the names of the villages of which the sublineage ancestors are also the founders. They also added a number of sublineages which did not appear in Tamboen’s list. Nevertheless, such lists present the embodiment of Karo society into five main clans as an absolute, bringing into question when and how Karo society became structured this way. The myth that describes the Karo people as patrilineal descendants of Grandfather Karo, whose five sons became the founding ancestors of the five clans was, according to Neumann, a new one, referring to the unification of the Karo into a particular unitary group (Neumann 1926). A Karo creation myth collected by M. Joustra (1907) describes people originating from the ova of seven animals which had been fertilized by a heavenly man. In the 1930s a polemic taking place among Karos themselves appeared in a Karo newspaper, asking whether Karo society was really made up of these five clans (Steedly 1996). The list of Karo clans is directly related to the idea of the unity of the Karolands within fixed boundaries. It also ignores the level at which a clan appears and the context of such an occurrence. My own research has revealed that group formation of whatever form occurs first of all at village level, since

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all clans of various levels, as well as the people, are always part of a village (Ginting 1994). In other words, a clan never exists without being a part of a certain village. Inter-clan relations, furthermore, are based on inter-village relations. In turn, a village appears to exist only as a part of a territorial confederation called urung, in which a number of villages make up a particular unity. Inter-clan relations then run along inter-urung relations. Indeed, Karo territorial confederations were reorganized and adapted to suit the Dutch governmental system of district and onderdistrict, a system which collapsed during the revolution of 1945. However, inter-clan relations can never escape from such inter-territorial relations since the clans themselves, although they are in a sense conceived to run along patrilineal descent lines, are formed by inter-territorial relations. For example, all the aforementioned authors agree that Sitepu is a subclan of the Karo-karo. But why do the Karos further distinguish this subclan into the Sitepu Teran and the Sitepu Simbelang? In the first instance, the distinction runs parallel to the inter-relation between two equally different territorial confederations, Si Empat Teran and Sukanalu Simbelang. Secondly, not all the members of Sitepu subclan are related to each other in the same way. Those who belong to the same territorial confederation are related to each other as “patrilateral parallel cousins” (sembuyak), while those who belong to different territorial confederations are related as “matrilateral parallel cousins” (senina).11 Being identified as a member of Sitepu appears to apply more to a group of “matrilateral parallel cousins” than to a “patrilineal descent group”. The example reveals that a group of “patrilateral parallel cousins” (sembuyak) constitutes no larger a body than that which unites people who originate in the same territorial confederation, called urung. A one-dimensional model of the Karo clan is valid, but only in reference to the grouping of people who originate in the same urung. As the term senina indicates,12 interurung or inter-clan relations correspond to intermarriage relations. This assumes that inter-group relations in Karo society articulate with the relationship between the people and a “settlement”.

THE KAROS AS PART OF THE DELI SULTANATE In the second part of his book Anderson (1971, p. 275) defined “Delli [as] bounded to the north-west by Sungei Bubalan, to the north-east by the sea, the south-west by Sungei Tuan, and the south-east by the great Batta state, Seantar”. However, he added that sovereignty over Deli was solely claimed by the Sultan, and that this was acknowledged by Bulu China, Perchoot, and other intervening places.

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In the later colonial state of the Netherlands East Indies, Deli appeared to extend to the mountainous horizon, as a result of which all Karo settlements located between the sea shore and the mountains fell under the authority of the Sultan of Deli. After the Batak War, Deli appeared to be composed of a 7–8 fold structure of territorial confederations, three-and-a-half parts Malay and three-and-a-half parts of Karo origin. The Urung Sepulu Dua Kuta was a prototype of this Malay-Karo dual ethnic constitution of the Deli sultanate as it was also divided into Malay and Karo parts (Halewijn 1876, pp. 147–48; Pelzer 1978, p. 70). In the Malay–Karo double leadership of the time, the Sultan of Deli represented Deli as a whole to the government of the Netherlands East Indies, whereas the chief (datuk) of Sunggal, who was of Karo origin, became the autochthonous principal (ulun jandi) (Luckman Sinar 1986). In the Batak War, which was led by the chief of Sunggal and supported by Karo chiefs from the Karo Downstream as well as from the Karo Highlands, a configuration of inter-group relations appears to have re-emerged. This configuration was encompassed by trade exchanges both inland and across the Malacca straits, in which the Sultan of Deli represented Deli in foreign exchanges while the chief of Sunggal did so in exchanges with the interior. The sultan and the chief were affines, and were related to each other as anak beru (“wife-taking group” and “patrilateral cross-cousins”) and kalimbubu (“wife-giving group” and “matrilateral cross-cousins”) (Luckman Sinar 1986). The embodiment of Deli as a sultanate legitimized by the government of the Netherlands East Indies was primarily based on the particular configuration of trade exchanges in which money and “international” networks were the primary intention rather than local solidarities expressed especially through ritual exchanges.13 This particular arrangement was later chosen by the government of the Netherlands Indies, attempting to regularize the people of Deli as part of a state as the sole legitimate configuration. This resulted in Deli becoming a Malay sultanate while the Karos were reduced to migrants. The former configuration of the relations between the Malays and the Karos, represented respectively by the sultan as a migrant/bride-taker and the datuk of Sunggal as the autochthonous/bride-giver, was turned around to represent the relation between a deity and a stranger.

CONCLUSION In pre-colonial Deli, the relationship between the Karos and the Malays was encompassed within two contrasting perspectives: the chief of Sunggal represented Deli in exchange for relations with the interior, and the Sultan of Deli did so in foreign exchange relations. Similar examples of such an

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arrangement have been reported from elsewhere in Sumatra.14 However, inherent in the phenomenon of the colonial state is the reduction to just one perspective. This results in the association of an area with one group, which is seen as representing the indigenous peoples, while other peoples are reduced

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to the status of migrants. Much of the literature takes the same approach, so that a social theory concerning group relations is in fact no more than a description of the inclusion of a group within a state. Such social theories claim to base themselves on the participants’ point of view, since the participants for the most part differentiate themselves into indigenes and migrants. The relevance of such participants’ views can be disputed, however, since the same differentiation can manifest itself in varying ways at different territorial levels. Thus, members of a group said to be immigrants in a certain area can appear as indigenes in wider or narrower territorial relationships. The concept of migration, therefore, is not so much connected with the movement of people from one place to another as it is with the way in which places organize people. If in most of the literature on the grouping of people in North Sumatra the movement to and from a place takes the central position, in which the place is considered to be a passive or dead entity, this chapter to the contrary emphasizes that a place moves and that this movement is connected with its being part of varying relationships. The question of who belongs to or with a specific place or group can never be considered separate from a larger body of which the place or group is a part. The perception itself encompasses the inclusion of a place or group within a larger whole. As I see it, in making a description of inter-group relations, it is better to obtain first-hand information in the field than to rely on written (historical) sources, which tend to reflect their authors’ biases, or at least their ideas.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank Beatriz van der Goes and Robert Wessing for their comments and input into this chapter.

NOTES 1. Coincidentally, some Karo and Simalungun settlements were incorporated into the territory of Tapanuli residency, despite the fact that most were located outside Tapanuli. Their inclusion within Tapanuli seems to have led to their inclusion within the Batak ethnic category. 2. He described Sunggal as follows: “The principal inhabitants of this place are Battas ... there is a very large population of Battas in this quarter, who cultivate pepper. They have no religion at all … I was surrounded during the evening with … panglimas … all of the Karau tribe” (Anderson 1971, p. 68–69). 3. See Anderson (1971, p. 86).

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4. “The origin of the name Batak is not certain, but it was already in use in the seventeenth century. It was probably an abusive nickname given by the Mohammedans and signifying pig-eater. The Bataks have taken up this nickname as an honorary title, thus distinguishing themselves from the Djawi, the Mohammedans, and Malays.” (Loeb 1985 [1935], p. 20.) 5. Later investigations have described the so-called Batak War as a rebellion by the Karo inhabitants of Deli, who received support from the Karo inhabitants of the highlands against the Western plantations in Deli and Serdang (Luckman Sinar 1986). 6. In my field research on the traditional use of plants in Karo agricultural ritual practices I found this same pattern (Ginting 1994). 7. The position of yard chief ( pengulu kesain), as it occurred in some villages which were traditionally divided into a number of “yards” (kesain), was not further recognized in the governmental system. 8. According to Neumann (1926, 1927), the origin myth of Siak, for instance, coincided with the then current kin relations between the Sultan of Siak and Pa Pelita, Sibayak of Kabanjahe, a highland Karo urung. 9. For instance, both the merga of Karo-karo Sinulingga and Karo-karo Purba belong to the merga of Karo-karo. However, the former originated in the region of Lau Lingga, a part of the Pakpak settlements, whereas the latter came from the Purba region which was part of the Simalungun settlements. 10. Masri Singarimbun (1975, p. 2) located Joustra’s conceptualization in the fixed geo-physical space of the Karolands. His map showing the fixed boundaries of the six Batak peoples has for over two decades been the standard map for any author writing about the Bataks. Recently Simon Rae (1994, p. 7), based on early sources, has extended this map of the Karo ethnic domain to include parts of Simalungun and parts closer to the east coast of Sumatra. 11. The following examples of different forms of senina relation will make clear how the term senina can be translated into neither “patrilateral parallel cousin” nor “patrilineal descent group”: senina sepemeren (mother’s sister’s same-sex child), senina siparibanen (wife’s sister’s husband), senina sepengalon (daughter’s husband’s brother’s wife’s parent), senina sendalanen (son’s wife’s sister’s husband’s parent). Conversely, different forms of sembuyak (literally, one womb) relation seem to refer to a patrilineal descent group: sembuyak sada bapa (brothers originating from the same father), sembuyak bapa (father’s brother’s sons), sembuyak nini (father’s father’s brother’s son’s sons). 12. See the preceding note. 13. In an article comparing the previous situation of Deli with the then current one, Van Cats Baron de Raet (1876, pp. 31–32) stressed the flourishing economic situation after the recognition of Dutch rule by the Sultan. Europeans preeminently would profit from this new, politically stable, climate. 14. See Drakard (1982, pp. 81–84) and Andaya (1995).

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REFERENCES Andaya, Barbara Watson. 1995. “Upstreams and Downstreams in Early Modern Sumatra”. The Historian 57, no. 3: 537–52. Anderson, John. 1971 [1826]. Mission to the E ast Coast of S umatra in 1823. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Cats Baron de Raet, J. A. M, van. 1876. “Vergelijking van den Vroegeren Toestand van Deli, Serdang en Langkat met de Tegenwoordigen”. Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 23: 20–39. Drakard, Jane. 1982. “The Upland and Downland Rajas of Barus: A North Sumatran Case Study”. In The Malay-Islamic World of S umatra: Studies in P olitics and Culture, edited by John Maxwell, pp. 74–95. Clayton: Monash University Centre of Southeast Asian Studies. Ginting, Juara R. 1994. “Plants that Cool and Clear the Mind: The Symbolism of Rice Cultivation, Holy Places, and Rituals among the Karo Batak of North Sumatra (Indonesia)”. M.A. thesis, Department of Cultural Anthropology, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden. Halewijn, E. A. 1876. “Geographische en Ethnographische Gegevens Betreffende het Rijk van Deli (Oostkust van Sumatra)”. Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 23: 147–58. Joustra, M. 1907. “Radja Ketengahen: Karo Batakse Vertellingen”. Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen 56: 91–123. ———. 1926. Batakspiegel. Leiden: S. C. van Doesburgh. Kipp, Rita Smith. 1976. “The Ideology of Kinship in Karo Batak Ritual”. Ph.D. dissertation, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of Pittsburgh. Langenberg, Michael van. 1977. “North Sumatra under Dutch Colonial Rule: Aspects of Structural Change”. Review of Indonesian and Malayan Affairs 11, no. 1: 74– 105; 2: 46–86. Loeb, Edwin. 1985 [1935]. Sumatra: Its History and People. Singapore: Oxford University Press. Luckman Sinar, T. 1986. Sari Sejarah Serdang I & II [A nthology of the H istory of Serdang, Parts I & II]. Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Proyek Penerbitan Buku Sastra Indonesia dan Daerah. Marsden, William. 1986 [1811]. The History of Sumatra. Singapore: Oxford University Press. Neumann, J. H. 1926. “Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis der Karo-Batakstammen, 1”. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 82: 1–36. ———. 1927. “Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis der Karo-Batakstammen, 2.” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 83: 162–80. Pedersen, P. 1970. Batak Blood and Protestant Soul: The Development of National Batak Churches in North Sumatra. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

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Pelzer, K. 1978. “Planter and Peasant”. Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk I nstituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde no. 84. ‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1982. “Planters against Peasants”. Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde no. 97. ’s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff. Prinst, Darwan, and Darwin Prinst. 1985. Sejarah dan Kebudayaan Karo. Bandung: Penerbit Yrama. Rae, Simon. 1994. Breath Becomes the Wind: Old and New in Karo Religion. Dunedin: University of Otago Press. Singarimbun, Masri. 1975. Kinship, Descent and A lliance among the Karo B atak. Berkeley: University of California Press. Slaats, Herman, and Karen Portier, eds. 1994. Wilhelm Middendorp over de Kar o Batak, 1914–1919. Deel I. Reeks Recht & Samenleving no. 11. Nijmegen: Katholieke Universiteit, Faculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid. Steedly, Mary M. 1996. “The Importance of Proper Names: Language and ‘National’ Identity in Colonial Karoland”. American Ethnologist 23, no. 3: 447–75. Tamboen, P. 1952. Adat-Istiadat Karo. Jakarta: Balai Pustaka. Wouden, F. A. E. van. 1968 [1935]. Types of Social Structure in Eastern Indonesia. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1983 [1956]. “Local Groups and Double Descent in Kodi, West Sumba”. In Structural Anthropology in the Netherlands, edited by P. E. de Josselin de Jong, pp. 183–222. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.

© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapor e

Reproduced from Tribal Communities in the Malay W orld: Historical, Cultural and Social Perspectives , edited by Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles ar e available at < http://www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html >.

17 STATE POLICY, PEASANTIZATION AND ETHNICITY Changes in the Karo Area of Langkat in Colonial Times1 Tine G. Ruiter

INTRODUCTION The expression “to rule is to tax” could be used by a Malay Sultan heading a Malay maritime state in Southeast Asia as well as by colonial power-holders. Under colonial rule, however, state instruments for taxation generally became more efficient. Taxation as a form of surplus extraction by the state is, I argue, crucial for an understanding of the changes in the Karo Batak uplands of Langkat regency (kabupaten) in colonial times. The formerly Islamic Malay maritime state of Langkat, bordering Aceh in the north, was one of the petty Malay states on the east coast of Sumatra to be annexed by the Dutch around 1865. This annexation meant the incorporation of tribal Karo Bataks, who lived quite autonomously in the uplands, into a newly styled Sultanate of Langkat under colonial dominance. At the same time, the Karos were confronted with a booming plantation economy operated by Western entrepreneurs since 1870. This chapter is about the changing status and conditions of the Karos in 401

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Langkat during the period of colonial rule. Contrary to the idea of a penetrating capitalist market system dominating a periphery, as dependency theorists have been claiming, I show how important was the role of the state in the changes that took place in upland Karo rural society. The state, I argue, should however be viewed in regard to its interaction with local village politics, and not as an overwhelmingly influential unitary force. In this chapter, I focus on two phenomena: peasantization and the development of ethnicity. I characterize the changes in the uplands of Langkat as a “peasantization” process affecting tribal Karo society. By this I mean that the incorporation of members of the Karo “tribe” – ”tribe” used as a relational concept – into the newly styled Malay state, made them “peasants” because of the extraction of surplus from Karo rural society by this state. Whereas the Karo “tribe” formed part of a larger society through relations of trade and war, it was the character of these relationships that changed. Thus I define “peasants” as rural cultivators whose surpluses are transferred to a dominant group of rulers (Wolf 1966). “Ethnicity”, I argue, should not be seen as a timeless, unchangeable part of culture. I describe both of these phenomena in relation to state policy, especially with respect to taxation, its policy on land, and on the Karos as an ethnic group. Observing a process of peasantization tells us something, but not much, about socio-economic change. Together with incorporation into the new state, there was a greater involvement in the market, which in turn affected economic life. Based on my historical and anthropological work in this area, I will sketch some of the trends I observed in the uplands in Langkat. I specifically focus on changes in the village of Bukit Bangun, located in the district of Salapian some 16 kilometres from the district capital of Tanjung Langkat, and around 60 kilometres southwest of Binjai town, amidst oilpalm and rubber plantations (see Map 17.1). In this village, which has been involved in the production of rubber since the 1920s, I conducted anthropological fieldwork in 1986 and 1987.2 I conclude that there was no proletarianization, in other words no forming of a class of landless Karo labourers in the uplands in colonial times. The Karos managed to survive as smallholders engaged in the production of rice in addition to rubber. Concerning the development of an ethnic consciousness, I argue that contact with other ethnic groups was not the only factor stimulating this, as some have argued (Barth 1969); there was state policy as well. The effect of this policy could be a direct one because of a special “ethnic” policy, or an indirect one because of its contribution to the creation of scarce resources for the population. As has been demonstrated by other authors (for example, Gomes 1988, p. 111), conditions of inter-group competition for scarce

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