1 Orang Asli and Melayu Relations

1 Orang Asli and Melayu Relations: A Cross-Border Perspective (paper presented to the Second International Symposium of Jurnal Antropologi Indonesia, Padang, July 18-21, 2001) By Leonard Y. Andaya In present-day Malaysia the dominant ethnicity is the Melayu (Malay), followed numerically by the Chinese and the Indians. A very small percentage comprises a group of separate ethnicities that have been clustered together by a Malaysian government statute of 1960 under the generalized name of Orang Asli (the Original People). Among the “Orang Asli” themselves, however, they apply names usually associated with their specific area or by the generalized name meaning “human being”. In the literature the Orang Asli are divided into three groups: The Semang or Negrito, the Senoi, and the Orang Asli Melayu.1 Among the “Orang Asli”, however, the major distinction is between themselves and the outside world, and they would very likely second the sentiments of the Orang Asli and Orang Laut (Sea People) in Johor who regard themselves as “leaves of the same tree”.2 Today the Semang live in the coastal foothills and inland river valleys of Perak, interior Pahang, and Ulu (upriver) Kelantan, and rarely occupy lands above 1000 meters in elevation. But in the early twentieth century, Schebesta commented that the areas regarded as Negrito country included lands from Chaiya and Ulu Patani (Singora and Patthalung) to Kedah and to mid-Perak and northern Pahang.3 Most now live on the fringes rather than in the deep jungle itself, and maintain links with Malay farmers and Chinese shopkeepers. In the past they appear to have also frequented the coasts. Excavations in the early part of the twentieth century of a settlement site on the Perak coast believed to be dated to “Hindu times” (most likely sometime in the early first millenium AD), revealed the presence of skeletons “showing distinct Negro affinities”.4 The Semang appear to have had a long association with farmers and merchants, and were active participants in international trade.5 They were thus favorably placed to exploit the resources of both the jungle and the lowlands. In addition to maintaining their livelihood from the jungle, they collected forest products to trade or sought wage labor with the lowland communities.6 Unlike their Malay and Senoi neighbors, who focus primarily on farming with a little hunting and fishing, the Semang adapt themselves to whatever ecological “space” left by surrounding communities. This fact was also noted early in the twentieth century by Schebesta who commented that “it is a condition of Negrito life that they should be able to attach themselves at will to their technologically more dominant neighbours whenever there is some bounty to be gained.”7 1 The origin of the term “Semang” is most likely the northern Aslian “semaaq”, meaning “people” or “human being”. Senoi in Temiar and Seng-oi in Semai both mean “people”. Semai is a term which the Temiar use for their southern neighbors, though the Semai themselves refer to their group collectively as “Seng-oi”. There has been a variety of names applied to the Semai in the literature, but the practice is for the group to call themselves by the name of their village or territory. Edo, “Claiming our Ancestors’ Lands”, pp. 10, 17-8. 2 Logan, “Orang Benua”, p. 247. 3 Schebesta, Among the Forest Dwarfs. 4 Evans, Semang, p. 13. 5 Rambo, Primitive Polluters, p. 44. 6 Rambo, Primitive Polluters, p. 38; Evans, Semang, pp. 11, 13. 7 Quoted in Benjamin, “Introduction” to Schebesta, Among the Forest Dwarfs, p. viii. 2 The Senoi comprise the largest of the Orang Asli population and are divided into the Temiar and the Semai. The Temiar occupy the upper reaches of the rivers in the remote interior mountains of the Main Range and have limited contact with the lowlands, while the Semai live mainly in the plains and the foothills of Perak. The Orang Melayu Asli are found principally from Selangor southward. Perhaps through long association with their dominant Melayu neighbors, they are seen as far more acculturated to Malay culture than the others. A common misleading conception of the Orang Asli is that they practice a nomadic lifestyle and roam the jungles without any fixed territorial base. Observers have remarked that the Semang do not wander randomly in the jungle but as far as possible remain within their own territories.8 The Negrito Batek do move beyond their territories in search of spouses, but they tend to remain within their own familiar territory where they know where food and other resources can be found and where they have close kin.9 In the late nineteenth century Swettenham observed that a Senoi group kept exclusively to its own valley and was frequently at odds with neighbors on either side.10 In 1915 Evans cited an example from the Senoi on the Kampar river in the Kinta district of Perak, who moved within a small radius of the foothills and regarded the Pahang border area as an unknown, unexplored land.11 The Orang Asli practice of remaining for generations within a specific bounded territory regarded as their field of exploitation enables them to gain an intimate knowledge of the resources of their traditional lands. Such knowledge is indispensable in locating and extracting the valuable resins, aromatic woods, and rattans for international trade. Moreover, association with a specific territory nurtures physical and emotional well-being among the Orang Asli.12 The marginal role of the Orang Asli in modern Malaysia reflects the rapid transformation beginning in the early twentieth century of the predominantly jungle landscape into one of cleared lands for plantation agriculture. In the past the Orang Asli had an economically important function in international trade as collectors of jungle products. The decline in demand for these goods, coupled with new interests in timber, rubber, and palm oil, had a disastrous effect on the livelihood of the Orang Asli. Not only did they lose a major source of revenue, but their way of life was threatened by the rapid denuding of the jungle. Unable to bargain from a position of strength as in the past, they became increasingly marginalized in Malay(si)an society. Nevertheless, the Melayu have had to acknowledge the special place of the Orang Asli in Malaysian society because they can legitimately claim to be bumiputera (sons of the soil), a term created by the Malaysian government to justify special privileges to the “original” inhabitants of the land. The Orang Asli themselves view the term cynically and continue to stress that they and not the Melayu were the original people in the land. A reconstruction of the early history of the Orang Asli in the Peninsula supports this contention and highlights the changing relationship between the Orang Asli communities and the Melayu over the centuries. Early Habitation of the Peninsula According to one reconstruction of the Orang Asli past synthesized by Peter Bellwood, over the last 40,000 years there were two major races which occupied the Peninsula: the 8 Schebesta, Among the Forest Dwarfs, pp. 83, 149. 9 Endicott, “Batek History”, p. 49. 10 Quoted in Skeat & Blagden, Pagan Races, vol. 1, p. 521. 11 Evans, “Notes on the Sakai”, p. 23. 12 Nicholas, “Becoming Orang Asli”, p. 3. 3 Australoid and the Southern Mongoloid.13 The Negrito population stemmed from the former, while the Senoi were descendant of the later Southern Mongoloid migration. The archaeological record becomes more detailed on the Peninsula with assemblages found in Hoabinhian sites dated between 16,000 and 8,000 BC. The hunting and gathering Hoabinhians were ancestral to the Semang and to a lesser extent to the Senoi. The latter’s biological affinity was more with the Neolithic Southern Mongoloid population which migrated into the Peninsula about 2000 BC. There appears to have been a rather sharp transition from the Hoabinhian to the Neolithic, with the change marked by the introduction of agriculture and Austroasiatic languages.14 The Semang adopted Austroasiatic languages, and so today both the Semang and the Senoi speak Austroasiatic languages in the subgroup Aslian, which has distant relationships with Mon and Khmer.15 The Semang, however, continued to maintain their hunting and foraging lifestyle and did not adopt the agricultural developments of the Neolithic. In this regard they were much more descendants of the Hoabinhians than the Neolithic Southern Mongoloids associated with the Senoi.16 Geoffrey Benjamin, on the other hand, argues that the present distinction of three major Orang Asli categories is not the result of migration but of conscious choice of groups refusing to become part of a state. These so-called “tribals” then proceeded to adopt certain lifeways, thus creating three “institutionalised societal patterns—the “Semang”, “Senoi”, and “Malayic”. The Semang maintained their principally foraging activities; the Senoi adopted swidden agriculture and a more sedentary lifestyle, while engaging in some trade and trapping; and the “Malayic” (which includes the Orang Asli Melayu or the Aboriginal Malay) combined a basic farming or fishing subsistence with the more important collection and trade of forest and marine products.17 By a comparative analysis of Aslian languages, Benjamin suggests that there was a split between the ancestors of the northern Aslian-speaking Negrito (Semang) and the central Aslian-speaking Senoi some 5000 years ago, thereby demonstrating a common ancestry.18 Bellwood more recently has acknowledged the possibility that both processes—migration and internal peninsular developments—contributed to the differences.19 The hope that historical genetics may help determine the early history of the Orang Asli has largely been dampened by the warning that “the history of genetic loci is not equitivalent to the history of populations and may tell us nothing useful about recent human history.” The findings regarding possible links of the Orang Asli 13 As Bellwood points out, the use of such terms is for heuristic purposes, and the reality is the intergrading of both.

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