Culture lifestyle in malaysia assignment1(1)

UNIVERSITI KUALAL UMPUR MALASIA FRANCE INSTITU MPU3343-CULTURE AND LIFESTYLE IN MALAYSIA Teacher: MR. KAMARUZZAMAN BIN ISMAIL ASSIGNMENT 1: ORANG ASLI STUDENT NAME

STUDENT ID

AMMAR YASER MOHSEN ABDULQAWI

50213217190

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CONTENTS Page 1-Introduction

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2-Early Indigenous People in Malaysia

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3-Orang Asli Religion

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4-Orang Asli Marriage and Family

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5-Orang Asli Society

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6-Orang Asli Life

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7-Orang Asli Hunting and Gathering

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8-Conclusion

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9-References

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Orang Asli – The Original People of Malaysia Introduction The term Orang Asli (Malay for “original people” or aboriginals) is the term used to describe the tribal or recently tribal people that live in peninsular Malaysia.

‘Orang Asli’ are divided into three main tribal groups: Negrito (Semang), Senoi and Proto-Malay. The Negrito usually live in the north, the Senoi in the middle and the Proto-Malay in the south. Each group or sub-group has its own language and culture. Separating the Orang-Asli into three official “groups” is a bit misleading.

There are in fact, 18 ethnic group are pressed into one collective term, and their cultural appearance is quite diverse. Some are fishermen, some farmers and some are semi-nomadic. In many cases these people were in present-day Malaysia long before the Malays but became subordinate to the Malays and in some cases, were enslaved by them after Malays took control of the peninsula.

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Early Indigenous People in Malaysia The indigenous groups on the peninsula can be divided into three ethnicities, the Negritos, the Senois, and the proto-Malays. The first inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula were most probably Negritos. These Mesolithic hunters were probably the ancestors of the Semang, an ethnic Negrito group who have a long history in the Malay Peninsula.

The Senoi appear to be a composite group, with approximately half of the maternal DNA lineages tracing back to the ancestors of the Semang and about half to later ancestral migrations from Indochina. Scholars suggest they are descendants of early Austroasiatic-speaking agriculturalists, who brought both their language and their technology to the southern part of the peninsula approximately 4,000 years ago. They united and coalesced with the indigenous population.

The Proto Malays have a more diverse origin, and were settled in Malaysia by 1000BC. Although they show some connections with other inhabitants in Maritime Southeast Asia, some also have an ancestry in Indochina around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000 years ago. Anthropologists support the notion that the Proto-Malays originated from what is today Yunnan, China. This was followed by an early-Holocene dispersal through the Malay Peninsula into the Malay Archipelago. Around 300 BC, they were pushed inland by the Deutero-Malays, an Iron Age or Bronze Age people descended partly from the Chams of Cambodia and Vietnam. The first group in the peninsula to use metal tools, the Deutero-Malays were the direct ancestors of today's Malaysian Malays, and brought with them advanced farming techniques. The Malays remained politically fragmented throughout the Malay Archipelago, although a common culture and social structure was shared.

Anthropologists traced a group of newcomer's Proto Malay seafarers who migrated from Yunnan to Malaysia. Negrito and other Aborigines were forced by 4

late comers into the hills. In this period, people learned to dress, to cook, to hunt with advanced stone weapons. Communication techniques also improved.

Archaeological finds from the Lenggong valley in Perak. Dating to 10,000-5,000 years ago- Neolithic (New Stone Age), show that people were making stone tools and using jewellery. In the Bronze Age, 2,500 years ago, more people arrived, including new tribes and seafarers. The Malay Peninsula became the crossroads in maritime trades of the ancient age. Seafarers who came to Malaysia's shores included Indians, Egyptians, peoples of the Middle East, Javanese and Chinese.

Ptolemy named the Malay Peninsula the Golden Chersonese.

Orang Asli Religion Orang Asli have no religious authority or scripture and beliefs vary from group to group and even individual to individual. Even so there are similarities found among them. Most groups tend to see the world as a disk resting on the back of a snake or turtle. Above the earth is a paradise filled with flowers and trees. It is connected to the terrestrial world by stone pillars.

They believe that a number of immortal superhuman beings live in the stone pillars and below the earth. Some were once humans and they occasionally return to earth and appear in people’s dreams. Many of these beings are grouped and linked with natural phenomena such as wind or fruiting trees. Important figures 5

include the thunder god, who has the power to topple trees on Semang who break taboos; the “Grandmother” of the underworld, who helps the thunder god; and the snake that supports the earth, who can produce devastating floods.

Semang shaman are known as hala. They can be either male or female and often act as healers and receive some training through their dreams. These shaman use songs, massages, herbal medicines and spells to cure illnesses. Sometimes they go into trances in their healing ceremonies to cure diseases. The “big hala” is a supernatural being that can take the form of a tiger and scare off ordinary tigers.

Upon death, most groups believe the shadow-soul goes to an island in the afterworld in the western horizon. Before the shadow-soul departs it sometimes lingers as a malevolent ghost. Most Orang Asli groups bury their dead in shallow graves. Much of a traditional funeral involves going through rituals and setting up protective measures to protect people from the malevolent spirits. Some groups practice tree burial, in which the dead are buried on a platform in a tree.

Sometimes shaman is buried with their head above the ground.

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Orang Asli Marriage and Family couples come together on their own accord; parents have little influence. There are some rules that discourage marriages of close relatives. A marriage is often defined when a couple starts living together. Sometimes there is a small feast and the groom gives some gifts to the bride’s family. Among more settled groups, the husband sometimes does a bride service for a year or two to the bride’s family.

Couples may join the camp of the groom’s family or the bride’s family or alternate between both.

Polygyny and polyandry are sometimes practiced but are rare. Divorce is acceptable in most cases, especially if the couple has no children. In most cases, the couple simply stop living together. For the most part the break ups are ultimately amicable and often divorced people remain in the same camps together.

In most cases parents and their preadolescent children share a lean-to.

Adolescent girls stay in an adjacent lean-to. Adolescent boys from several families sleep together in their own lean to. Children are brought up by both parents although women usually devote more time to childrearing than men. Children tend to pick up skills through casual observation and participation rather than formal training.

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Orang Asli Society The conjugal family is the most important social unit in Orang Asli society. There are no descent groups and no bands that always camp together the camps are made of families that come together and break up as necessity and convenience apply.

They are very egalitarian. Camp groups traditionally have not had head men or leaders and the individual autonomy of families is respected. Social control is exerted through informal social pressure. Some taboos are enforced by the belief that if they are broken the offender will be punished by the thunder god. The abhor violence. Disputes are generally settled through negotiations or public airing of a grievance and seeking a decision by the group. Individuals who are not on friendly terms join different camps.

Most activities and chores are done by both men and women and work is often done in mixed groups or husband and wife teams. Although both groups dig for tubers women spend more doing this than men. Men do most of the hunting and heavy chores such as felling large trees.

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Orang Asli Life They have traditionally lived in temporary camps lasting from one night to six weeks. The camps are comprised of a cluster of lean-tos with frames made from branches and covered in palm thatch. Each lean-to is home to a conjugal family, a widow and widower or a group of unmarried boys and/or girls. Each camp has two to 20 shelters with six to 60 people.

The nomadic western groups live in lean-to that are arranged in two rows, facing each other and forming a kind of tunnel. Many of them have settled, often have done so under pressure from the Malaysia government. They live in Malay-style bamboo and thatch houses, or cinder block houses built by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. Many of the groups that live in government settlements use their houses as bases from which the groups go into the forest.

Many have been displaced by dam projects, development and logging. The Department of Aboriginal Affairs has attempted to persuade them to take up commercial crop production and has trained them do so. Many of them have resisted this.

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They enjoy singing. Both sexes sometimes put on flowers, leaves and pigments when the hold singing sessions. They don't like to say thank you when receiving a portion of meat because it is considered rude to express surprise at a hunter's generosity or to size up the piece of meat received.

Orang Asli Hunting and Gathering Traditionally, they hunted and gathered wild foods and traded forest products for cultivated food and manufactured goods. Even the ones considered nomadic plant a few crops from time to time and work for outsiders. Often, they help Malays harvest their rice crop in return for a portion of the rice crop.

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The staple of the nomadic Orang Asli diet is wild yams, which come in 12 varieties and are valuable year-round. Wild foods consumed include bamboo shoots, nuts, seasonal fruits. Hunters have traditionally used blowguns and poison darts to catch monkeys, gibbons and birds, their primary sources of wild meat. They also dig bamboo rats out of their burrows and fish with nets, poison, spears and hooks and lines. They used to hunt large game with bows and arrows but gave that up.

The seldom used traps. Groups had loose claims to a particular area but these claims were not so strong and they were difficult to enforce.

When they raised crops, they practiced slash-and-burn agriculture and grew dry rice, cassava, maize, and sweet potatoes. Food is generally shared after the harvest. Sometimes dogs are kept as guard animals. They are relatively useless in hunting monkey and birds. Some of them settled raise chickens for food and keep dogs and monkeys as pets.

They make blowpipes, cooking vessels, water containers and sleeping platforms from bamboo. Mats are baskets are made from pandanus, Belts and ladders are made from rattan. Cloth used to made from bark. Metal tools such as knives, spear points and digging blades and things like tobacco, flour and rice and cloth are obtained through trading forest products such as rattan, beeswax, herbal medicines, honey and resinous woods with Chinese and Malay traders.

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Conclusion Orang Asli is a very old tribe and they are the first people who lived in Malaysia.

They have their own language and life. They live in jungles their life is simple but they don't like to engage with strangers and they don't want to live in the city but recently many of them change their life they start to go to school living in towns most of them having a modern life all this is provided from Malaysia Government in spite of that I hoped if the government didn't change Orang Asli life and let them live their own life because by changing them you are destroying their culture. Finally, it is hoped that Orang Asli will have a good life and let them to choose what kind of life they want.

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References 1- National Museum(Malay: Muzium Negara) Jalan Damansara Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2-Wikipedia.

3- Gomes, Alberto G. "The Orang Asli of Malaysia" (PDF). International Institute for Asian Studies. Retrieved 2 February 2008.

4-Nicholas, Colin. "Orang Asli and the Bumiputra policy". Center for Orang Asli Concerns.

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