(Thailand) and the Semang (Malaysia): a Literature Survey SHUICHI NAGATA1,2*
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCE Vol. 000, 000–000, 2005 Subgroup ‘names’ of the Sakai (Thailand) and the Semang (Malaysia): a literature survey SHUICHI NAGATA1,2* 1Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3 2School of Social Welfare, Tokyo University of Social Welfare, Isesaki, Japan Received 2 July 2003; accepted 1 August 2005 Abstract After a long interruption due to the Pacific War and Malayan Emergency, anthropological research on the foraging populations of southern Thailand and northern Malaysia was resumed with renewed vigor by Thai, Malaysian, and international scholars. However, the link between recent find- ings and those reported by earlier workers in the region is often not made explicit. One difficulty in constructing a clear linkage is the lack of unambiguous identities or ‘names’ of the foraging groups under investigation. The present paper addresses this problem, examining the ‘names’ of the Sakai and Semang subgroups reported in the literature, evaluating the status of their referents, and discussing the reasons why subgroup names have been obscure. Key words: Sakai, Semang, tribe, identify, foragers Introduction all three of them as a single entity in his times, ‘Sakai’, a much maligned term for its residual meaning of servitude, One of the difficulties a field researcher encounters in the was used to refer to non-Muslim aborigines of the peninsula study of Orang Asli, the aboriginal peoples of Malaysia, is in pre-colonial Malaya. ‘Sakai’ in this sense continues to be the name of the people under study. Who are these people heard occasionally in Malay kampongs (or villages).
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