Sociocultural Change, Development and Indigenous Peoples

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53706.14W •f.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOUTHEAST ASIAN ETHNOGRAPHY Number 11, September 1997

SOCIOCULTURAL CHANGE, DEVELOPMENT AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES Edited by Tan Chee-Beng

Editor’s Introduction: Change, Development and Indigenous Peoples

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Tan Chee-Beng

Articles *

Working for Money among the Orang Asli in Kedah, Malaysia Shutchi Nagata

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The Ibans of Sarawak: The Nature ofJheir Peripherality and its Political and Economic Consequences Jayum A. Jawan and Victor T. King

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The Ecological and Social Consequences of Conversion to Christianity among the Rungus of Sabah, Malaysia G.N. Appell

61

Culture and Mental Health: An Illustration from Three Malayo-Polynesian Groups in Taiwan Hsu Mutsu

101

Craftsmanship Amidst Change in Southern Nias Yoshiko Yamamoto

119

Religion, Politics and Change at Makatian, Yamdena, Eastern Indonesia: A Preliminary Investigation Harald Beyer Broch

145

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: CHANGE, DEVELOPMENT AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

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All over the world, people have been brought into increasing contact with, one another and todayare exposed to global influences through inter-state politics, the mass media, the global market and education in modem science, technology, management, social studies, etc. Even the indigenous peoples in remote regions of the globe are increasingly influenced by national and international politics, a Vnarket economy -and the general process of modernization.' These developments have brought about many changes.

Indigenous peoples were in contact with neighbouring peoples even in the remote past, b‘ut in most places, it was the arrival, of Europeans—and their subsequent colonization—that had tfie greatest'Impact' often more disruptive than beneficial, on ’the livelihoods of indigenous peoples. In the case of the indigenous peoples of North America, for example, not only did they lose their lands, but many were simply exterminated during the so-called “frontier years”. The aborigines of Australia suffered a similar fate. In Southeast Asia, the situation has been more varied. In Malaya (now Peninsular Malaysia), the British rulers left the aborigines (now called Orang Asli, literally “original peoples”) in the deep forests, interfering minimally in their lives until the Communist insurgency that began in the late 1940s. -In Sarawak (now part of East Malaysia), the .English rulers, the. Brookes, at first used the Iban of one river basin against those (and other indigenous peoples) of another, as a strategy for as,serting their control over the whole of their newly-acquired Borneo domain. ThuSj before the new regime suppressed the head-hunting proclivities of the Iban. if .first encouraged them for its own -advantage (cf. Morrison 1993.62, Pringle 1970>I04). To this day the Badeng Kenyah recall how the Brooke government sent Iban to raid them, bringing havoc to the interior of Sarawak (Tan 1993). Once the Brooke government had “pacified” the indigenous peoples*of Sarawak, it adopted a paternalistic attitude towards them. With the establishment of the independent “new states”* of Southeast Asia, the riew governments here, as elsewhere in the 'ex-colonial world, proceeded to establish even greater control over the indigenous peoples within their sovereign boundaries than the former colonial rulers had ever contemplated; often this has been achieved by means of the “politics of development”.

In this number of Cqniributions we discuss some of the issues.relating to change and development as* they affect several indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia. It is not possible, of course, to cover every aspect of change and development in a collection- such as this, but the papers do highlight certain significant socio-cultural concomitants of the political incorporation of indigenous peoples into the modem nation state.

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The- people v^'e discuss in this collection of papers 'range from* the littleknown -inhabitants of Makalian in. the southern Moluccas, Indonesia, to aboriginal peoples of Taiwan, ethnologically Southeast Asians even if politically within the orbit of Sinitic civilization. Three of the papers foc.us on indigenous peoples of Malaysia: Shuichi Nagata writes on a community of Orang Asli in the western state of Kedah in Peninsular Malaysia, Jayum Jawan (himself an Iban) and Victor King write of the Iban of Sarawak, and George Appell discusses the Rungus people of Sabah. In this editor’s introduction to the collection, more substantial than is usual for this journal, I shall both highlight some,of the major points raised by individual contributors and introduce certain of my own field observations during research among indigenous peoples of Malaysia. My thanks are due to all the contributors to this eleventh number of Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography^ some of whom have had to wait patiently for a number of years to see th? publication of their papers. I am grateful, also; to Anthony Walker for his editorial assistance with this collection, and to ‘Pauline Walker for her additional editorial advice and proof-reading skills.

n All indigenous peoples live within states, whose'laws, government policies and ‘nationat development programmes now have a great impact on their livelihoods. In Southeast Asia the' national 'governments, whether they be democratically-elected or installed by military decree, respond primarily to the needs of the majority peoples. Indigenous peoples like, fof example, the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia, are numerically so small'as to be jjdlitically insignificant in the eyes of the national government. Consequently, they' have tended to become marginalized in'the modern nation state that is Malaysia, •especially since State laws do not even recognize their'traditibnal land rights.

The plight of indigenous peoples is in large part due to the fact that they, neither command political power pen se^ nor do they have access tq the political power that could initiate change and development in their favour—or at least in a manner that is not detrimental to their interests. In the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sa^rawak, Iban and Kadazan, respectively, represent the largest ethnic categories. But neither Iban nor Kadazan constitute a simple njajority of the state population and so find themselves unable to form a government, unless allied with at least one other ethnic group. Take, for example, the situation in Sabah where the Kadazari-dominated state government, headed from 1985 to 1994 by Kadazan leader Joseph Pairin Kitingan, collapsed after the wooing by the Federal- Government in Kuala Lumpur of some prominent Chinese leaders in Pairin Kitingan’s Parti Bersatu.

Editof^’s Introduction

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In Sarawak, the first two Chief Ministers Iban; but since the 1970s the state government has been headed by Muslim Chief Ministers, who have had the support of the Federal Government as well as Sarawak’s principal Chinese political leadership, the Iban have.not found this situation .to their liking. As Jayum ^Jawan and Victor King discuss in their contribution to this volume, the Federal Government’s support of the Muslim leadership in Sarawak, the lack of unity among the Iban leaders themselves and the largely rural constituency of Iban politicians are some of the factors that have resulted, since the 1970s, in the political and, consequently, socio-econgmic marginalization of Sarawak’s largest single ethnic category. The Iban and other Dayak (non-Muslim indigenous groups in Sarawak) certainly have legitimate reasons for complaint. The New Economic Policy (NEC), introduced in 1971 in order to-promote programmes that benefit buthiputera (all the indigenous peoples-of Malaysia, though the policy was especially aimed at improving the economic Tot of the Peninsular Malays), provoked considerable antagonism between Malays and- non-Malays in PenirtSulaf Malaysia; in East Malaysia, on the'other hand, the greatest concern of the non-Muslim indigenous peoples has been what exactly is to accrue to them through this developmental programme (cf. Tan 1994).

Overall, the indigenous minorities of East Malaysia do have some opportunity for political participation and the consequent articulation of their interests. The unique situation of all ethnic categories constituting minorities that is found‘in both of the East Malaysian-states helps to make this possible. But -in Peninsular Malaysia, where Malays are numerically and politically dominant and’where national politics are played-out along the lines.of Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnicity, the Orang Asli firfd themselves in a very ^different situation. Apart from the symbolic appointment of an Orang Asli senator, these people have -no political representatives to speak of, nor ‘do they control the political influence that they might use to determine the direction of their own future. There- is now an Orang Asli association, the Persatuan Orang Asli Semenanjung Malaysia (POASM), but as yet it has been insufficiently assertive to-gain substantial political influence. ,

in The rhetoric of development is a ubiquitous characteristic of post-colonial nation states. But development as espoused -by planners and politicians often does not bring benefits to minority populations,, especially if they are politically marginal. Jndeed, it is not uncommon for pational developmental schemes to be brought to fruition at the expense of minority populations. For example, in recent years Malaysians in general have benefited greatly'from the development of the nation’s highways; but, few people have shown any concern pver the number of Orang Asli who have, as a result, lost their traditional lands (never

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legally recognized by the State) and who have not received adequate compensation for their losses. At the forum “Towards the 2020 Vision: Views of the Orang Asli” that was organized by the Malaysian' Social Science Association in 1994, an Orang Asli speaker said that “development frightens us”. He went on to explain that, while Orang Asli certainly welcome development that benefits them, too often government and.private development projects deprive Orang Asli of their traditional lands and compel them -to relocate their communities. A recent example of such relocation concerns Temuan communities near the small urban centre {pekan) of Salak in Selangor state, whose villages were compelled to move to an area on the fringes of the jungle in order to make way for a new international airport. In May 1994, I visited the place to which these Orang Asli had been relocated, Kampung Busut Baru,'Kuala Langat, Selangor. The houses had been-set up on swampy land resulting, among other things, in malfunctioning toilet facilities that forced the people to use an area of swampy woodland instead (cf. Chong 1995). It was frustrating, enough for these Orang Asli to have to move from a near-urban situation to a remote area; it was worse still for them that they had to tolerate houses built on waterlogged land. And all this happened despite the presence of the Government agency supposed to protect Qrang Asli interests, the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli, or Department of Aboriginal Affairs. This event is a perfect example of what can'happen to a people who are unempowered and have been marginalized by the state.

The situation of the Orang Asli in general also shows how, even in a country like Malaysia, which has adopted protective legislation to assist the development of indigenous peoples, a minority like the Orang Asli may still be excluded from state-sponsored affirmative action programmes. As a matter of fact, with regard to Peninsular Malaysia, the concept of indigenous peoples, so far as the political process is concerned, refers to the Malay population rather than to the Orang Asli; the Malaysian constitution is at best ambiguous as to whether or not Orang Asli are to benefit from projects designed for the bumiputera (cf. Tan 1987: 259). This is why a situation such as Shuichi Nagata describes in this volume can occur, wherein the Forest Department in Kedah issues rattan-collection permits only to workers who are “one hundred percent bumiputera'\ but still manages to exclude the local Orang Asli. The Orang Asli’s present situation is only worsened by the existence of a separate administrative unit, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, for this leads other government agencies to believe that the Orang Asli are not their responsibility, since they have their own agency to take care of them.

For most indigenous communities, the most crucial issue they have to face relates to their traditional lands. Everywhere, in the name of development, individuals and agencies are found to be encroaching on lands that the indigenous peoples have traditionally regarded as theirs. Worse still, as in the case of Malaysia’s Orang Asli, the indigenous peoples’ rights to their traditional

Editor's introduction

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lands have received no recognition in the modem laws of the'state. For the Orang Asli, it seems clear, the best development strategy is to provide' legal recognition of the people’s land ownership, thus ensuring that they are not furtherxlisempowered and economically marginalized.

In Sarawak, it is true, the “Native Customary Rights” (NCR) system does offer some guarantee that the indigenous peoples of the territory can occupy and work their traditional lands. Nonetheless, such lands remain “untitled”. In law, therefore, they may only be occupied at the will of the Government and Statfe law specifies that the right of occupancy may be terminated if the government so decides, although, in this event, the occupiers are to receive monetary compensation-.

IV The penetration of a market-base^ monetary economy and the depletion and/ or destruction of the indigenous pebples’ -natural resource base (such 'as by timber extraction, road building, etc.) often has the'consequence of pressuring the indigenous peoples into wage labour, ^huichi Nagata documents.this process for a resettled community of Orang Asli in Kedah and it is worth repeating here Nagata’s concluding remark:^ “The alienation of women from subsistence production, the decline of. nearby forest resources and an increasing tendency among the younger villagers to seek wage-work opportunities outside of the village are all factors that are contributing .... to the creation of a reser/oir of unskilled wage labourers.” Robert Dentan (1995), another anthropologist with long term research interests in the Orang Asli, has also voiced his concern over the proletarianization of these peoples, which has rendered them powerless to control their own lives and ensured their dependency on the State. The negative impact of programmes designed for the economic development of a region is often the consequence of failure to consider .the interests of the minority peoples whose homelands are to be “developed”. Even when projects are undertaken that are specifically aimed at the indigenous peoples, they often provide little -or no benefit to the target.population because they do not take into account the indigenous culture- or tap the initiative of the indigenous peoples themselves. Yoshiko Yamamoto’s paper, pointing out the effect of tourist development on the indigenous Nias islanders, is a useful demonstration of this observation. Yamamoto maintains that government-planned tourism does little to help the Nias people, who are not given the” opportunity to 'determine for themselves the directions that cKahge should take within the context of their own rich cultural heritage. The message is clear: planners, government personnel and politicians should not imagine that they know best what kind of development is suitable for indigenous peoples without ascertaining the views of the people themselves. Anthfopologisfs too have a crucial role to play in highlighting the cultural' dimension of development and bridging the gap

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.bgtw^en governments’^ en^usjasgi for change and the legitimate needs and wishes of,X^^ indigenous peoples themselves. Mbch -development planning in Southeast Asia favours large-scale agricultural projects. In Sarawak,'for”example, some politicians have called for indigepous,fanne,r5 tQ -accept large-scale oil-palm plantations in place of their •tr^itional rice,-farming agricplture.^UnderstandaJbly, the indigenous peoples are teluc^ant to ,participate in.such schemes that necessitate, beyond economic change, hugexulturataqd social adaptation as well. Most indigenous people, it 3eems,"prefer to.b^Jndependent farmers rather than wage labourers beholden to some, state agency .or,statutory body. Planners may choose to label such an attitude uninnovative and resistant to change, but it is high time politicians and developmeht professionals recognize the importance of developing schemes that can assist rural people to be more productive farmers on their own lands, rather than turning them into a rootless rural proletariat.

, In tt|e wage I^our maricet, the indigenous peoples are often judged inefficient workers, incapable of sustained hard work and given to absenteeism. Shuichi N0ata ^documents wide-spread absenteeism among Orang Asli wage workers from fiis* study community in Kedah. Probably, though Nagata does not specifj^^illy mention this, a cultural factor is involved. The Semang Orang Asli thpt he sfudied \yere traditionally nomadic forest foragers; as likely as not they still view wage work in traditional terms, namely as just one aspect of their oyerall. foraging‘*strategy, in this case foraging for cash rather than for forest prociucts*. .it, this indeed is the case;”tt is neither irrational nor improper to be al?s^nt frorjijvage work in order to hunt or collect fruits in the forest. Seldom do .employers consider such cultural differences in work ethics. A Chinese towkay (bpss), for, example, is used to operating on a patron-client basis. He expects his workers to labour hard for him, even to the extent of putting in overtime, if that is what it takes to get a job done. In return the iowkay expects to provide each Avorker^with a reasonably generous ang pau (Hokkien, gift of money in aied phcket)Zm the occasion of Chinese New Year, and to help them in other ways, if and’when the need arises. Within the Chinese context an employer who provides 4nsuffrCient patronage*runs the risk of losing’his workers. But non-Chinese, like Orang Asli, ot Malays for that matter, do not perceive work within this cultural context, unless they happen to have been socialized into Chinese work culture.

There is, too, the question of the low wages that most entrepreneurs are prepared to pay indigenous peoples. Considering Semai Orang Asli work ethics, Dent^, (1995:84) puts the case very succinctly when he writes, “There is no .way in which hard work can produce advancement for a Semai day labourer wo^kin^ for Chinese or Malay entrepreneurs, so there is no reason for him to learn ^ood work habits’.” Clearly, the most meaningful development strategy m respect of such people as the Semai is not Xo them into a pool of cheap labour, but rather to provide legal recognition of their lands, agricultural pssis&nce and modem educational and health facilities.

Editor's Introduction

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The introduction of a market-based economy brings many changes to indigenous communities. New goods are introduced and new demands created, with consequences both for modernization and for traditional culture. The need for cash becomes imperative, while commercialization affects almost every aspect of life. With increasing commercialization and reliance on a market economy, cultural change is inevitable. New tools increase productivity, or make work easier. But traditional technology and creativity may also be sacrificed when the market offers cheaper products than can be produced by traditional craftsmen.

V The Christian religion has had considerable success in attracting converts among indigenous minority peoples all over the Southeast Asian region (including aboriginal Taiwan). Such conversion is usually accompanied by major changes in.traditional cultural values and.practices. In this collection, the papers by George Appall on the Rungus of Sabah and by Yoshiko Yamamoto on southern Nias both describe negative aspects' of religious conversion so far as traditional cultures are concerned; in addition, Appell demonstrates the deleterious consequences of conversion to Christianity for the natural environment of the Rurigus of Sabah, contributing to the degradation of the forest ecology and the deterioration of the hydrological cycle. Traditionally the Rungus preserved certain sacred groves, believing that, if these were cut, the spirits would be offended. Such groves are found around water sources. When old religious constraints vi&re removed, the Rungus began to fell these sacred groves, bringing as a result unwelcome aridity to the countryside. Appell charges that the “ loss of reverence for life, specifically the natural world, is a product of the Christian missionaries’ attitude towards the Rungus and their cultural ecology.” For southern Nias, Yoshiko Yamamoto demonstrates, inter alia, the negative impact that conversion to Christianity has had on the people’s wood-carving tradition that was so thoroughly linked to pre-Christian ritual practices. The extent of Christianity’s negative impact on indigenous cultural traditions seems to depend very much on the particular sect of Christianity into which the people are inducted. Some Christian- denominations are^much more intolerant of past practices than others. In this respect, Roman Catholicism appears more accepting ofpre-Christian ways than are many of the Protestant denominations. Harald Broch, in his paper on Makatian village in Yamdena, eastern Indonesia, notes that Catholicism, unlike the rival Protestant sect, actually has promoted a certain cultural continuity, especially where traditional practices can be adjusted to the Catholic religious calendar and its associated ritu^s. ‘

I have encountered a similar situation in Sarawak. Working among Kenyah and Kelabit, I discovered that the pastors of the local Protestant church, the

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Sidang Injil Borneo, or Borneo Evangelical Church, would, now and again, remind their congregations to be rid of traditional objects having associations with pre-Christian ritual activity. But today, at least some converts (including a Kelabit pastor of the Borneo Evangelical Church to whpm 1 spoke) are able to look back and admit that their forebears need not have given away so much of their cultural heritage when they accepted the Christian religion. Among Roman Catholic congregations in Sarawak, such as those of Kenyah Badeng at Long Geng and the Iban at Belong, I found much greater tolerance of indigenous traditions. In fact, among Iban Catholics some of the pre-Christian rituals are still observed, prompting some people to jocularly describe these folk as “Christian pagans”. In discussing Christian conversion, it should be noted that it is no accident that Christian missionaries have had greater success among indigenous peoples of the interior than they have had among those living closer to urban centres. The peoples of the interior were, in general, in much greater need of medical and social assistance than those inhabiting less remote areas. But, while it is true that Christian missionaries brought with them medical and educational facilities, it is misleading to assume that peoples like the Lun Bawang and Kelabit (who often talk of how Christianity has saved them from drunkenness and social disintegration) could not have adjusted to the modem world without Christianity.

Above all, within the Southeast Asian context, an indigenous minority’s conversion to Christianity serves to draw a rigid socio-cultural boundary between it and the majority people, who are generally, not Christians. Thus, while Christianity contributes to the erosion of traditional culture, at the same time it serves to reinforce an indigenous minority people’s ethnic identity vis-ivis the ethnic majority. For the sake of national integration; government agencies may prefer that the ethnic miniorities adopt the religion of the majority, but efforts to achieve this have not been notably successful. In Peninsular Malaysia, for example, the government is pressing for the conversion of the Orang Asli to Islam. Indeed the director of the Islamic affairs section of the Prime Minister’s Office has talked about the government’s hopes to Islamize the 80,000 Orang Asli within ten years. And, to this end, funds have been allocated for building Muslim prayer halls in Orang Asli settlements as well as for sending Islamic missionaries to convince the Orang Asli to embrace this relision (BH 1993:8). '

VI While anthropologists may bemoan the loss of indigenous cultural traditions as a consequence of religious conversion and other factors; it has to be admitted that some traditional ways may well be inconvenient to present-day life and could hinder economic advancement. Indeed, in many societies one may find

Editor's Introduction

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reformers who seek cultural change in the name of socio-economic advance. Nicholaisen (1986) provides a nice example of tradition as impediment to economic advance* in modem Sarawak. In large part, she writes, the economic backwardness of the Sekapdn people is due to -the continued dependence of commoners on aristocratic leaders, who are more concerned to secure their own economic-gain and advance their own political power than they are to benefit their people as a whole. In other words, the Sekapan are trapped in a traditional systern of social stratification that has become maladaptive to their modem situation. As in this case, the anthropologist may identify the problem, but it should be for the people thepiselves to decide whether to reform, eradicate or preserve aspects of their traditional culture. •Traditions, once - they become inconvenient, may provide a powerful incentive for change. Yamamoto tells how the building of traditional Southern Nias houses requires much expenditure of ritual activity, communal labour and feasting, while putting up a modem, Malay-style house allows a family to eliminate most of the traitional burdens. Again, some of my elderly Kenyah informants told me how troublesome it was to have to observe bird omens and other ritual prohibitions during the farming enterprise. And this was not just Christian rhetoric. Indeed, the very period when Christianity was advancing among the central Borneo Kenyah also saw the rise of a reformed traditional religion, called Bungan, 4hat eradicated many of the more clumsy and inconvenient ritual prohibitions.

VII The psychological consequences of development and change among indigenous peoples have been less well studied within the Southeast Asian region than have-political, economic, social and cultural changes. But in this collection we have a contribution to this very topic by Hsu Mutsu. Hsu reports the findings Of his field research among Ami and Atayal, two of the Austronesian-speaking peoples’ of Taiwan island. 'Hsu has_ discovered that the Ami, who have had greater success in keeping their traditional social institutions intact than have the Atayal. have also been better able to adapt psychologically to the fast-changing world all around them. Among the Atayal, the disintegration of traditional kinship structures has resulted in the.people having less social support (especially as youth flock to ^e cities in search of work) and, consequently, increasing mental health problems. The major theoretical import of'Hsu’s paper lies in its demonstration of the great importance of cultural factors in accounting for the condition of a community’s mental health.

The papers in this collection raise many important issues with respect to economic development and socio-cultural change among the indigenous eftnic minority peoples in the Southeast Asian region. Discrimination, political marginalization, economic underdevelopment, damaged ecosystems, mental

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maladjustment and the loss of traditional artistic skills are some of the problems that are raised in this issue of Contributions. It is imperative that the majority populations of modem Southeast Asian states understand the plight in which a section of their fellow citizenry finds itself. Ultimately, however, it must be for the indigenous peoples themselves to articulate just how they wish to advance. In this regard, well-organized community associations seem to offer the best means for effective dialogue between indigenous peoples and those agencies of government and private oraganizations that seek to inculcate new ideas and new lifeways.

This number of Contributions to Southeast Asian Ethnography hopefully will serve also to emphasize the importance of continued anthropological investigation, not pnly pf traditional cultural ways, but also of change and development among indigenous peoples within the wider conteptt of the national societies of the Southeast Asia region. Tan Chee-Beng Department of Anthropology The Chinese University of Hong Kong

September, 1996 REFERENCES

BH \^Berita Harian] 1993 265 Pagawai Agama Bimbing Orang Asli (265 Religious Personnel to Lead Orang Asli]. Berita Harian (Kuala Lumpur), 24 July, p.8.

CHONG Slew Kook,

1995

Pembangunan dan Minoriti Pribumi: Satu Kajian Kes Orang Asli Suku Etnik Temuan di Kampung Busut Baru, Kuala Langat, Selangor Darul Ehsan [Development and Indigenous Minorities: A Case Study of Temuan Orang Asli in Kampung Busut Baru, Kuala Langat, Selangor] Academic Exercise, Department of Anthropology and Soctolo^, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.

DENTAN' Robert K. and ONG Hean Chooi 1995 Stewards of the Green and Beautiful World: A Preliminary Report on Semai Arboriculture and its Policy Implications. 'In, Dimensions bf Tradition and Development in Malaysia, Rbkiah Talib and Tan CheeBeng, eds. Petaling Jaya: Pelapduk Publications. Pp. 53- 124. MORRISOH Alastair 1993 Fair Land Sarawak: Some Reflections of an Expatriate 'OJflcer. Ithaca (MY): Cornell University Southeast Asia Program.

Editor‘s Introduction

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NIGHOLAISp^, Ida 1986 Pride and Progress: Kajang Response to Economic Change. Sarawak Museum Journal 36 (NS 57): 75-116. PRINGLE, Robert 1970 Rajahs and Rebels: The Ibans ofSarawak under. Brooke Rule, 1841-1941. London: Macmillan.

TAN Chee-Beng 1987 Ethnic Dimensions in the Constitution. In Reflections on the Malaysian Constitution. Penang: Aliran. Pp 245-64.

1993

Introduction: Badeng Migration and Ethnogenesis. In The Migration of Kenyah Badeng: A Study Based on Oral History, by Vom Roy, edited with an Introduction by Tan Chee-Beng. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya, Institute of Advanced Studies. Pp. xiii-lii.

1994 '^''Qommunal Associations of the Indigenous Communities of Sarawak: A Study on Ethnicity and national Integration. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya, Institute of Advanced Studies.

EDITORIAL NOTE The editors wish to apologize to the Contributors of this issue of Contributions for the inordinate production time, occasioned in large part by their removal to new academic locations, in Fiji and Hong Kong respectively.

Anthony R. Walker Tan Chee-Beng

WORKING FOR MONEY AMONG THE ORANG ASLI IN KEDAH, MALAYSIA SHUICHI NAGATA* CONTENTS 1. 2. 3.

Introduction The Orang Asli of Kampung Lubuk Legong The Need for and the Uses of Money

4. 5.

Acquiring Money Conclusion

1. INTRODUCTION

In their classic work The Material Culture and Social Institutions of the Simpler Peoples, Hobhouse, Wheeler and Ginsberg (1930: 19-20) briefly describe what they call “Dependent Hunters”, “hunting and gathering peoples who^e economy was closely linked to settled villages, where the hunters from time to time could exchange their surplus produce and sometimes sell , their •’labour”. Such hunters, Hobhouse et al. say, are “found chiefly in Malaya and India”. Recent “revisionist” debates on hunting-and-gathering societies aside (cf. Lee 1992), the Semang foragers in the western part of Peninsular'Malaysia have long been known to engage in various transactions with the peoples around them; Senoi horticulturalists, Malay peasants and Chinese merchants. The nature of such transactions, however, has never been stable and, as time went on, the Semang position changed from a more or less autonomous one in which they themselves chose the terms of the transactions to suit their own needs, to one of increasing dependence, in which they have little choice but to accept the terms imposed from outside their own society. As the Malaysian state has become increasingly integrated, with complex governmental and industrial organizations, the Semang have become more and more subject to these forces of national integration. Some of them have been denied their independent nomadic life in the forests and, instead, have been compelled to subsist by working for others and earning money. There are a number of Orang Asli groups in Malaysia whose lives are closely tied to the market, and the studies by Couillard (1980), Endicott (1974), Gomes (1986), Kuchikura (1987) and Naim (1987) have documented several aspects of change resulting from market integration. In this paper I describe the various ways by which the Orang Asli villagers of Kampung (Kg.) Lubuk Legong, a *Ph.D. (University of Illinois), Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto.

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Shuichi Nagata

government-establishment village in Kedah, earn their subsistence income.* In so doing, I take Gomes’ (1986) study of the Semai in Tapah, Perak, as a model. 2, THE ORANG ASLI OF KAMPUNG LUBUK LEGONG The 130 or so Orang Asli villagers of Kg. Lubuk Legong (Pl. 1), belonging to several Western Semang groups, but predominantly Kensiu and Kintak, abandoned their life in the forests three decades, ago and are now mostly dependent on a cash economy. The village is located in Mukim Siong, about two kilometres north of the district centre. Baling, in Kedah State (Map 1). In 1967, on the initiative of the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (JHEOA), or Department of Orang Asli Affairs, a village settlement was created at the western edge of the approximately 480-acre Orang Asli reserve that had been gazetted by the State Government in 1960. Initially, the settlement consisted of about fifteen peneroka (“pioneer” in Malay)-type wooden houses, such as are commonly found in Malaysia’s land development areas. These houses accommodated a few groups of Kensiu from Sik and Siong and Kintak from Kupang, south of Baling. As time went on, however, the settlement attracted other Semang groups from south Thailand and Perak. Some of these people arrived in the village in the early 1970s to avoid Communist insurgency in the area, the tail-end,of the so-called “Emergency” that is officially dated from 1947

' With the pennission of the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli and the Socio-Economic Research Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department, Government of Malaysia, I conducted field research at Kg. Lubuk Legong in 1986-87 and again in 1991-92. My research was supported financi^ly by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of CangHa (Grant Nos. 410-86-0842 and 410-91-0060) and by Research Leave grants from the University of Toronto. During my research, I was affiliated to Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang. Towards the end of the first phase of research, I was assisted by three students from Universiti Sains Malaysia: Ahmad Tajuddin bin Mansoor, Azhari bin Abdul Rahman and Por Beng Keong. All three submitted to me typescript reports (Azhari 1987; Por 1987; Tajuddin 1987), the data from which I have used extensively in the present paper. Dr. Mohd Razha Rashid and Professor Wazir J. Karim of Universiti Sains Malaysia provided both accommodation and research facilities throughout the course of my two trips in Malaysia. The then Director of the JHEOA, Encik Jimin bin Idris, was instrumental in allowing me to stay in Kampung Lubuk Legong. I am grateful to the staff of RISDA, Baling, the JHEOA office in Grik and the District Office, Baling, for helping me to analyze the data on the two Lubuk Legong “mini-estates” and for otherwise facilitating my research. While in Baling, Encik Abdullah Sani was generous enough to let me use his house, both for my recuperations and as a base for discussion with the student assistants. I owe thanks also to Encik Gan Tcik Chee for many a night of discussion and debate on my research, while he allowed me to occupy a space in his house in Penang. The Semang settlers of Kampung Lubuk Legong tolerated my curiosity and food habits alien to them. I thank all these and numerous other individuals and organizations for their cooperation and assistance. Finally, my thanks to Kirk Endicott, for his detailed comments on an earlier draft of the present paper.

H^orking for Money among Ike Orang Asli

Map 1: Kg. Latang and Vicinity

15

6

Shuichi Nagata

to 1962. Consequently, the village population, now fluctuating between 100 and 150, is linguistically and culturally quite heterogeneous, making it difficult for the villagers to hold ritual events, such as community-wide nightly singing. This heterogeneity in residential composition, characteristic of Kg. Lubuk Legong from the beginning, has been further emphasized by the people’s bilateral classificatory kinship system, as well as by their strict taboo against marrying close relatives, which compels young people to search for their spouses outside of the village.

Pl. 1. A Section of Kg. Lubuk Legong

As the groups of Western Semang gathered in Kg. Lubuk Legong, they abandoned the surrounding areas that were once their activity spheres. For some time now, the most important interactions between the people of Kg. Lubuk Legong and other Semang communities have been limited to those with the Kintak Bong of Bukit Asu, near Klian Intan, the Semenam of Tawai, near Grik (both in Upper Perak), and. to a lesser extent, the Kensiu in Thanto district, in the southern Thai province of Yala. All these people, with the exception of those living on the Thai side of the border, come under the care of the Orang Asli Department located in Grik, the administrative centre of Upper Perak district. It takes almost three hours by bus to reach Grik from Lubuk Legong. Today Kg. Lubuk Legong, along with the reserve on which it is situated, is almost entirely surrounded by Malay villages. The village is within a short walking distance of Lalang town, where both national and Chinese primary schools enroll children from Mukim Siong, and where numerous shops serve the needs of the local, mostly Malay, farmers. Lalang Town (before the Second World War, a centre for the Chinese logging activities further north) has long

Workingfor Money among the Orang Asli

17

held a Tuesday market and recently has been designated a focus for regional development. The Orang Asli of Kg. Lubuk Legong, as I shall discuss below, visit the town almost daily and share in its local history, which is closely tifcd to the lives of the local Malay and Chinese communities.

3. THE NEED FOR AND THE USES OF MONEY

The people of Kg. Lubuk Legong now’purchase most of their subsistence foods at grocery shops in town. The only major wild foods they consume are a few forest plants (primarily palm cabbages and petal [Parkia speciosa], a kind

PI. 2. Wives and Children

of edible green bean), which they collect while gathering rattan and which they mostly consume on the spot, and animals (turtles, civets, iguanas, squirrels, frogs, fish and wild boar), which the men occasionally catch, or, in the case of the boar, receive from their neighbours, Malay trappers (who, as Muslims, are unable to eat them) and Chinese estate workers (who shoot the animals when they enter the nearby Chinese-owned oil palm estate). As for the economic importance of such game animals to the local Orang Asli, some say they help alleviate household expenditure by reducing, at least for a time, the need to buy relishes (enteh in Kcnsiu); but the supply is irregular and undependable and those Orang Asli who crave a meat relish usually have to purchase chicken, fish and tinned sardines from the town shops.

18

Shuichi Nagata

These Kg. Lubuk Legong Orang Asli cultivate a few domestic plants, mostly tapioca (which they sometimes eat with game meat). But, for the past twenty years or more, their principal staple has been purchased rice. Indeed, it is not unusual for a daily meal to comprise rice only, with no relish of any kind The villagers also collect coconuts from the trees planted on the settlement site, but most of these they prefer to sell rather than consume themselves; such also is the case with the fruit of their durian, rambutan and langsat trees. Even that much­ loved Malaysian fruit, the durian, the Orang Asli seldom eat themselves, but rather they lease their trees to Malay acquaintances, who pay them from 300 to 500 ringgit per plot for exclusive right to all the produce therefrom. The Kg. Lubuk Legong Orang Asli probably have a greater need for cash than do their Malay neighbours, since the latter usually own small orchards or house gardens, from which they obtain various fruits and root crops; a few Malay households even grow some coffee for sale. Orang Asli house lots are, by contrast, more or less devoid of such cultigens. Only two households have small stands of papaya, while another owns a few durian and rambutan trees. The wife in a fourth household is except­ ional in that she has fenced off a plot beside her house in order to plant bananas, Pl. 3. Lubok Legong men lined up with towkay (fourth from tapioca, ginger and right) before departure to a FELDA scheme betel palms. But because this plot is so small, its produce cannot make a substantial contribution to the household budget. The Lubuk Legong villagers need cash in order to purchase their basic foodstuffs, especially rice. They also need money to buy cooking oil, batteries, candies and cookies for their children. Moreover, their practice of drinking, smoking and eating in town eateries, practically every time they return from work, accounts for a large percentage of their total cash outlay. They also need cash to pay for transport, it now being usual for them to ride buses and taxis to reach their principal hunting and collecting areas (their blowpipes occasionally can be seen sticking out of a taxi’s windows).

J

Working for Money among the Orang Asli

19

These Orang Asli villagers do not keep the cash they have earned for very long. In fact, they spend most of their earnings on payday itself. One can easily know when it is payday on one of the rubber mini-estates established on the Orang Asli reserve by the large crowd of people going into town, on foot or by bicycle. To shop on paydays is common enough among most of the area’s wage-earners, but the Kg. Lubuk Legong people are notable for their inability to exercise economic discretion, either by limiting what they purchase or by saving a part of their wages for later use. Furthermore, whenever a villager receives his wages, he at once distributes varying amounts of cash to his immediate relatives, usually his wife, parents and parents-in-law. Young wage-earners often complain that they run out of money quickly, simply because they have to give so much to their relatives. And, once they have handed over the money, they are not expected to borrow any part of it back, even from parents (though they may eat at the latter’s home). Many Orang Asli workers buy brand-name cigarettes (Benson or Dunhill are old favourites and when Perillys were put on the market, they too became popular). Paydays are also the occasion for men to spend long hours drinking in the company of fellow villagers, sometimes keeping their wives and children waiting until past 8 p.m., or even later, for their return. Men treat each other to drinks, and this is how even those who have not worked, and hence have no money, can get drunk. Drunkenness is most frequent on payday nights and it is not uncommon for these Orang Asli to have spent their whole wage even before they get back home. The Kg. Lubuk Legong folk are aware that some people are spendthrifts, while others are more careful. Those who both make and spend money easily are said to have cas pedih (“hot hands” in Kensiu), while those who are more cautious with their hard-earned cash are those with cas hegeic (“cold hands”, as Kensiu say). The Kg. Lubuk Legong folk’s need for cash is also reflected in one of their most frequently-heard complaints, namely the tardiness of their employers in paying their wages. They complain that though rubber tappers may be paid an advance of 50 ringgit (one Malaysian ringgit = approx. 39 U.S. cents), usually two or three weeks prior to the monthly payday, wages for rattan collecting are not paid on any fixed day; moreover, it sometimes happens that the man who hired them is not available on the promised payday. Parents, wives or siblings of the young men working in far-off plantations or land schemes are placed in a particularly difficult position, since the men do not send them any remittances and they themselves have no means of earning cash. Relatives of the absent workers often ask the labour contractors, when they happen to drop by the village, for the wages of their working men. The contractors almost invariably refuse at first, on the ground that wages must be paid directly to the workers themselves; nonetheless, they do, on occasion, hand over small amounts of money to the women, which they later subtract from the workers’ earnings. Because the Orang Asli of Kg. Lubuk Legong depend so heavily on cash for their subsistence, they tend to demand higher wages than do the local Malays.

20

Shuichi Nagata

Thus, for example, the rubber estate office on the Orang Asli reserve was able to hire a young village Malay to perform the irregular work of tidying up the area around its premises for only nine ringgit per day, whereas an Orang Asli would have demanded from ten to fifteen ringgit, as well as meals, for the same work.

4. ACQUIRING MONEY There are four major means by which the Kg. Lubuk Legong folk can earn cash: by obtaining a salaried job, through self-employed work, by contracting with middlemen and by performing daily-rated wage work. Of these four, the last is probably the most common.

4a. Salaried Work Salaried employment is limited, so far as these Orang Asli are concerned, to working for the Department of Orang Asli Affairs (JHEOA), or for the Senoi Pra’aq, established as a paramilitary Orang Asli regiment in the 1950s (cf. Jones 1968:301), but now reorganized as a police field force. Two men in the village are employees of the JHEOA, one working mostly out of the Department’s Grik office, while the second, whom the villagers call the pengarah (“director” in Malay), stays in Kg. Lubuk Legong, where he is expected to look after village affairs. Besides these two men, the penghulu, or official government headman (Pl.4), also receives a monthly allowance from the JHEOA. Altogether, five men from Kg. Lubuk Legong were serving with the Senoi Pra’aq in 1987, being based either in Ulu Kinta or Keroh (both places in Perak State).

4b. Self-Employed Work (Direct Sale of Forest Products) The Kg. Lubuk Legong folk collect for commercial purposes such minor forest products as medicinal herbs, petai, kayu depa (incense wood) and rattan seeds, as well as rubber scraps from old stands of rubber trees. These activities entail no prior contracts and sales are accompanied by tawar-menawar (“haggling” in Malay), in which the Orang PI. 4. Village headman dressed for Asli are almost always the losers. In the past, photo session people also used to catch young animals, such as gibbons, pig-tailed macaques and honey bears, for sale to dealers; but the present Government restriction on trade in wild animals has largely put an end to this source of cash.

lyorking for Money among the Orang Asli

21

The Orang Asli usually take the forest products that they collect to customers with whom they are familiar; but since 1970, some buyers have been visiting the village to purchase medicinal herbs and incense wood from a small number of older villagers. Such people, middle-aged of both sexes, Malays, Chinese or Indians, may come from as far away as Alor Setar. In the 1960s, a Chinese middleman purchased blowpipes for export overseas, but his venture did not last more than two years because of the difficulty of preventing damage during transit. Even now, however, Malay villagers occasionally ask their Orang Asli acquaintances to have blowpipes or bamboo combs made for them. But the sale of such craft goods is intermittent and does not constitute a significant source of cash income for the villagers. As a matter of fact, the production of craft items at Kg. Lubuk Legong, even for domestic use, has declined drastically in recent years; 1 know of only one old lady who still weaves baskets for her own use. The villagers told me of an old resident who is able to make bamboo flutes. But, despite my repeated requests, this man n6ver managed to produce one for me. 4c. Working for Middlemen

One of the two primary means by which the Lubuk Legong Orang Asli earn cash is by working for middlemen, who buy the rattan or wild animals (especially turtles) that they bring back from the forest. It is unclear how and when these Orang Asli first came to depend on middlemen for a cash income. In the past, they would barter their forest products at Malay shops in rural areas, but in recent years dealings with middlemen (both Chinese and Malay) have become much more frequent than before. This trend has certainly been greatly encouraged, since the 1970s, by the increasing international demand for minor forest products (cf. Wong and Manokaran 1985:221-31). Concomitantly, the more stringent government regulations regarding the extraction of forest products have also encouraged the Orang Asli to operate through middlemen, who are able to master the paperwork involved in obtaining the necessary permits more easily than can the Orang Asli themselves. Rattan is by far their most important source of cash income, a situation which seems to have developed since the late 1960s. As early as 1967, according to one informant, some “forty to sixty” Lubuk Legong villagers were mobilized to collect rattan, but demand increased greatly during the mid-1970s. An official of the Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority (RISDA) in Baling told me that 1981 was the year of “rattan fever”, when his office was prompted to interplant rattan seedlings with rubber on the two mini-estates set up on the Orang Asli reserve lands. In order to understand the engagement of the Orang Asli villagers in the rattan-collecting business, it is necessary first to examine the modem legal context in which they have to work. Bpth the capture of wild animals and the collection of forest products now require government licenses, the Orang Asli say that this stipulation does not apply to them as Orang Asli, and their

22

Shuichi Nagata

contention is confirmed by the Forestry Department officials. Such discrimination in their favour is doubtless useful to them when they collect forest products for domestic consumption, but it does not help them when, as at the present time, their principal motive for collection is to raise cash. This is because the middlemen to whom they sell their rattan are themselves obliged to obtain government permits in order to engage in this trade. The Federal Government’s Forestry Department within the Ministry of Primary Industries is responsible for the management of forest resources, whose extraction is subject to various rules that are enforced by the Department. First, after surveying its rattan resources, the Department designates a three to four thousand hectare area of forest as a potential collection area and asks for competitive bids for the right to extract the rattan. The successful bidder is then issued with a permit to harvest the rattan in the designated area. The permit is valid for one year and, at the time of my 1986-87 research, cost a hundred ringgit. It can be extended for another six months by paying an additional fifty ringgit, provided that a forest ranger reports further extraction to be justifiable. The permit holder has also to pay sewa tanah, a monthly land rent, for the duration of the permit, as well as cukai (duty) on the harvested rattan, at a rate that is fixed by the Department and which varies according to the different varieties of rattan that have been harvested. Before harvesting may begin, the licensee must deposit -wangpertarohan, or security money (later deducted from duty charges), at one of the five inspection offices in Kedah. In addition, the Kedah State authorities require that a police permit be obtained if the area falls within the security zone. This permit is good for three months and is renewable. Once a permit is issued, the holder must ensure that all his workers have official documents that permit them to enter the designated forest area to harvest rattan. Each such “sublicense” is valid for one year. An obvious consequence of these rules is the limitation of the number of people to whom the Orang Asli can sell their rattan. In theory at least, only a person with a valid license may engage in the rattan business, a ruling that further encourages the Kg. Lubuk Legong villagers to maintain close ties with those middlemen who have acquired the necessary documentation. By an act of Parliament, a regional development authority, the Lembaga Kemajuan Wilayah Kedah or Kedah Economic Development Authority (KEDA) was formed under the Ministry of Land Development in March, 1981. One of the aims of this organization is to modernize the traditional rural economy by encouraging rural industries that use local resources. To this end, in 1982 KEDA initiated a rattan development programme by setting up a rattan products manufacturing plant in Naka, for which it collects both manau {Calamus manam} and masam {Calamus ornatus) canes in several areas (Abd. Rauf and Wong 1981:5). The rattan products subsequently are exported to Japan. Typically KEDA applies for a rattan permit as a “Class C licensee” and the Forestry Department issues a permit to it as a priority applicant, while

IVorkingfor Money among the Orang Asli

I

,

t ,

, I

1

23

simultaneously offering sublicenses to the individual workers, who must sell the rattan they collect exclusively to KEDA. In addition, a license issued to KEDA specifies that the workers are to be “100% kalangan Bumiputra (Orang-orang Melconif, which means “100% indigenous people (Malays)”. In the 1960s and 1970s, a number of Chinese “contractors” were able to obtain rattan-extraction permits and engaged the Orang Asli of Lubuk Legong as their collectors. But now, as a consequence of KEDA’s entry into the rattan business, the situation has changed. Non-Malay dealers can no longer be assured of permits and one Chinese rattan dealer mentioned that the Forestry Department in Kedah had not opened the tender to non-Malays since 1984. The entry of KEDA into the rattan business, with the purpose of engaging rural Malays and improving their income, placed the Orang Asli villagers of Kg. Lubuk Legong in a competitively unfavourable position. One Kensiu youth expressed his resentment by declaring that, since the Malays already had bendang (padi fields), kebun (vegetable and fruit tree gardens) and lembu (cattle), they should leave the rattan work to the Orang Asli, to whom it is “co 'menf' (Kensiu, “mark of the aboriginal peoples”). The new regulations make it practically impossible for the Orang Asli of Lubuk Legong to act as independent agents in the rattan industry, as they do not have the necessary capital to apply for a permit. In this respect, they are much like ordinary village Malays. One way to obtain a permit is to lend their names to some rattan dealer who may be willing to put up the necessary funds. But a dealer will surely stipulate in return that the produce be turned over exclusively to himself. The only other option available to these Orang Asli is to work for those who do have permits. Either way, the Orang Asli have to depend on others who might be willing to engage them to work in the forests. The Orang Asli villagers, when working for a permit-holding rattan “contractor”, must confine their collecting activities to the area of forest designated in the permit. Consequently, since 1985, when the Kg. Lubuk Legong people began to work for a Malay who holds a KEDA permit, the majority of them have had to commute daily by taxi to points nearest to the designated rattan-collecting area in Sik Tengah. All in all, with regard both to legal and physical access to forest resources, the Orang Asli villagers are now subject to far more stringent restrictions than was ever the case in the past and, as such, hav6 become more and more dependent on middlemen for their rattan-collecting activities. In the mid-1970s, when the demand for rattan rose, several Malays, many of whom did not have sufficient capital to pay for workers, received rattan­ extracting licenses. A Chinese shopkeeper in Lalang Town seized the opportunity to contract with a number of these Malay licensees to extract the rattan in their names, paying them a commission for the favour. This shopkeeper then engaged several Kg. Lubuk Legong Orang Asli (who regularly frequented his shop) to do the actual collection for him. This arr^gement lasted for around five years, until about 1983. Also, in 1976, a local Malay shopkeeper began to employ Orang Asli (along with a few Malays) to collect rattan for him

24

Shuichi Nagata

from Rimba Telor and Ulu Muda, an arrangement that lasted until 1981. From 1979 a number of the Kg. Lubuk Legong folk joined fellow Orang Asli, (mostly Kintak) from Bukit Asu in Perak to work for a Chinese shopkeeper based in Tasek. Most of the middlemen for whom the Orang Asli work are themselves agents for dealers in rattan or wild animals who are based in large towns like Sungei PI. 5. Hauling old sugar canes in a Kedah sugar plantation Petani, Bukit Mertajam and 1O-J1 .z , . . . Penang. For example, in 1971 the Kg. Lubuk Legong folk were collecting rattan for one of the shopkeepers in Lalang Town, who resold the canes to a dealer in' Bukit Mertajam. As a matter of fact, apart from one dealer in Sik, those middlemen to whom the Orang Asli supply rattan do not themselves have the facilities to process it. One may say that the forest-products exchange system takes the form of what Wolf (1966:42) has termed a “network market” which is “inherently subject to the entry of third parties.” The number of con­ tractors for whom the Kg. Lubuk Legong Orang Asli have worked in the past clearly demonstrates that the relationship between villager and contractor is by no means a permanent and stable one. The contractors engage the villagers mainly for their skill and knowledge of working in the forests and for their strength in carrying from inside, the forest huge rattan bundles on their shoulders over long Pl. 6. Hauling rattan bundle distances. Because of their

Workingfor Money among the Orang Asli

25

skill and strength, according to the Chinese contractor located in Tasek, these Orang Asli workers ought to be able to earn much higher wages than do the Malays or Siamese. That they did not do so, he opined, was because they were so lazy. Another — and invariable — complaint against Orang Asli workers concerns the debts that they accumulate by obtaining advances to purchase provisions before a collecting trip. Once in the forest, the contractors complain, the Orang Asli too often do not bother to collect rattan at all, but waste their time in hunting turtles, or shooting squirrels with their blowpipes. Moreover, they often return from the forest short of the required number and lengths of rattan; when this is pointed out to them, they will offer some excuse such as heavy rainfall having interrupted their work, or paucity of rattan in the forests.

4d. Wage Work Many of the men and women of Kg. Lubuk Legong have had some experience of working for wages as casual contract labourers outside the village. They have worked for neighbouring Malay peasants in harvesting ^rice, collecting bamboos for fence construction, making attap thatch and tapping rubber trees. Some of these jobs they have also performed for Chinese patrons. In the past, the compensation they received for their labours was mostly in kind. For instance, Malay patrons would present them with one-fifth of the rice that they harvested. The forest products they collected they also exchanged with the Malays for the foodstuffs they needed. In those days, the Orang Asli were not accustomed to the use of money and it is not clear just when they began to receive cash rather than kind in return for the goods and services that they, supplied. More recent types of wage work that the Kg. Lubuk Legong people have undertaken include forest clearing, construction and labouring in a sugar plantation. By 1991-92, these Orang Asli seem to have been accepting wage work outside the village more frequently and for longer periods of time than they had ever done before. And, as in the late 1980s and early 1990s Malaysia became increasingly dependent on foreign labourers for unskilled work, the Kg. Lubuk Legong villagers often found themselves recruited to perform the same kind of work as that for which Indonesian and Thai immigrant labourers have been engaged in large numbers. Jobs in Perak State and along the Malaysia-Thailand border, in the oil palm estates, in Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) land schemes and in durian plantations, frequently call for a stay of more than a month or two in a kongsi (“association”) house, where these Orang Asli live alongside immigrant workers. Some of the Kg. Lubok Legong people have worked in Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur, mostly in construction, though one man became a security guard and another, a restaurant waiter. It is normally only the men who accept daily-rated wage work outside of the village and they often have to leave their wives and children at home for relatively long periods of time. One consequence of this has been a rise in the

26

Shuichi Nagata

number of disputes concerning marital matters and the care of children left behind in the village, and some young married men now take their wives and children to stay in kongsi houses with them. Here, the women tend to domestic chores and, occasionally, take part in the wage-work as well. Government statutory bodies like FELDA and the Federal Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (FELCRA), as well as the managers of large plantations, leave responsibility for field jobs to labour contractors. Many of the latter come to visit Kg. Lubuk Legong to recruit labour, some of them calling upon the services of Lalang shopkeepers, who know these Orang Asli well, to act as their intermediaries. Whatever its length, the workers are not paid their wages until the contract has expired. Moreover, if the contractor feels it necessary, he may extend the contract, delaying payment of wages until the extended period is over. This situation effectively traps the workers on the worksite itself, where they live in the kongsi houses, accumulating debts but always hoping to recoup gaji tebu (“fat wages”) when they leave. Some, unable to withstand a long period away, decide to return home by demanding a partial payment of their wages to pay for bus and taxi fares. After returning to the village, they are unable to reclaim the remainder of the wages unless they go back to the worksite, a trip they often cannot afford. The contractors refuse to pay their wages to the friends of departed workers, insisting the latter come in person to claim their money. • Perhaps because of the long periods of absence from the village, not many married men take up this type of wage labour; they prefer to work locally as forest product collectors, or else as rubber tappers in the nearby mini-estates. In response to an application by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, in 1978 the Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority set up two small rubber plantations on the Orang Asli reserve near Kg. Lubuk Legong. The first, named “Phase One”, comprises 48.3 ha and the second, “Phase Two”, 42.6 ha. Both RISDA and outside contractors cleared the forest, hiring Orang Asli labour for the purpose. A rubber plantation comes into production when 70% of its trees reach a girth of eighteen inches. Phase One matured in June 1988, when 12,000 to 13,000 of its 16,500 trees reached the required girth, but it was not until July 1990 that 70% of Phase Two’s 16,000 trees reached similar maturity (RISDA 1992: 23). Before the trees in Phase One mini-estate came into production, RISDA — with advice from the JHEOA — selected several people from Kg. Lubuk Legong to attend a five-day training course on rubber-tapping at its training facility in Padang Rengas (RISDA 1992:2). But due to the heavy turnover in tapping labour (see below), several Orang Asli tappers who had not received such training were eventually employed. Each tapper was assigned two blocks (500 trees per block) and had to harvest the latex from each block on alternate days. With 1,000 trees per tapper, Phase One estate hired thirteen labourers and Phase Two, sixteen. As more trees reached the tapping stage, more labourers were hired.

Workingfor Money among the Orang Asli

27

At first, only Orang Asli were employed as tappers, but their frequent absenteeism made it necessary to hire Malay workers from nearby villages in order to ensure the proper tapping schedule. Malay labourers are provided with a schedule of their assigned blocks and start their daily work of their own accord. But Orang Asli workers receive daily instructions from a mandur (from Portuguese through Tamil, “a foreman”), who arrives at their settlement each morning at about 6.30 a.m. Ensuring the attendance of Orang Asli tappers is one of the most difficult tasks faced by the management of these mini-estates. If the mandur discovers that some of the regular tappers are not available for work on this particular day, he must immediately recruit replacements, who are frequently Malay villagers, so as to have the correct number of tappers for the number of trees that must be harvested. Attesting to the skill of the estate mandur, daily variation in the number of tappers appears to be negligible, though this situation is achieved only by hiring many different Orang Asli workers, from day to day and from month to month, and by opening up the ranks of the workers to neighbouring Malay villagers, whose attendance is much more regular than that of the Kg. Lubuk Legong-folk. During 1991-92, sixteen Orang Asli and thirteen Malays worked as tappers on Phase One estate and eighteen Orang Asli and fourteen Malay on Phase Two. The details are given in Table 1. Table 1: Number of Tappers and Work Days (1991-1993) Phase One Estate Male

Days

Female

Worked

Orang Asli Malay

Phase Two Estate Days

Male

Days

Female

Worked

Worked

Days Worked

II

1078

5

1384

15

1447

3

159

7

1613

6

1405

12

1405

2

130

Of the eleven male Orang Asli workers in Phase One estate, only one name appears for the entire twenty-six month period surveyed, while four of the names are recorded as having worked for only two of these twenty-six months. In contrast, three of the male Malay tappers reported for work throughout the entire survey period. As for Phase Two estate, of the seventeen Orang Asli tappers only two worked throughout the period from the time they were hired, once again in contrast to their Malay counterparts, of whom three worked for the entire period. The record of Orang Asli female tappers, it should be noted, is significantly better than that of their menfolk. In Phase One estate, four out of five female tappers worked there for twenty months or more, three of them throughout the period in question. Moreover, in this mini-estate, though female Orang Asli comprised less than half the number of their male counterparts, their work days surpassed those recorded by the latter. As for the Malay female

28

Shuichi Nagata

workers, three of the six worked throughout the twenty-six months period. Fewer women, either Orang Asli or Malay, worked in Phase Two estate during 1 the survey period. But of these, one of the three Orang Asli female tappers had the longest record of service of any of the women. ' Since the volume of the latex flow tends to be greater in the early morning, slowing down as the sun rises, some of the Malay workers begin to tap the trees that have been assigned to them before dawn, using torches attached to their caps to guide their work; but most tapping begins about 7 a.m. Around 11 a.m., a pickup truck delivers a metal container to each tapper. The latex collected from each block is transferred to this container, which, around noon, is transported by the truck to the central collection point. Each tapper is required to « accompany the latex from his block to the collection point, where the estate penyelia or “supervisor”, or-else the mandur, weighs it for its dry rubber content and records the weight against the name of the tapper. The latex is. then transferred to one of two vats, each with a storage capacity of 80 kg. (Since January 1991, all the latex produced by the various mini-estates in Baling District has been sold to the Malaysian Rubber Development Corporation (MARDEC), which sends a truck to make the round of all the mini-estates in the district and brings the latex to its processing plant in Jeniang, Kedah [RISDA 1992: 5]). In addition to the newly-tapped latex, each worker collects any scrap rubber that may have accumulated on the trees since the previous day’s tapping. This scrap is also taken to the centre, where it is weighed and and the weight recorded by the supervisor in favour of the worker. Finally, the metal containers used by the tappers are cleaned and stored in a room attached to the collection centre, tasks in which all the tappers are expected to assist. 'Die daily routine of work at the centre is completed around 1 p.m. or, on rare occasions, by 2 p.m. • The income from work in the mini-estates comprises two major components, i income derived from latex and that from scrap rubber. In addition, an incentive payment is awarded according to the number of days a tapper has pqt in during the previous month. I surveyed the monthly earnings of seven Orang Asli workers: four males and three females, during the period 1991-93. During the survey period, the average male monthly wage was 217 ringgit, with a range of 186 to 237 (compared to 424 ringgit for a Malay male [n=5]). 1 By contrast, the average monthly earnings of an Orang Asli female tapper were 241 ringgit, with a range of 210 to 280 (compared to 290 ringgit for a Malay ’ female [n = 3]). (I should note here that 1 discovered no significant difference between the daily, as opposed to monthly, earnings of the Orang Asli and Malay ■ tappers. We may assume, therefore, that the reason for the overall lower . earnings of the Orang Asli workers has to do with their irregular attendance, not , with any lack of skill or effort while on the job itself.) j Earnings, according to official instructions (RISpA 1992:5), should be ’ disbursed “before the 7th day of each month”; in practice (as acknowledged in | the RISDA report [ibid ]), fifty-n«gg// advances are often provided when ‘ previous work records indicate a worker’s dependability, the money being , deducted from his or her monthly pay. Orang Asli workers are frequently liable

Working for Money among the Orang Asli

A

to further deductions from their monthly earnings when they have made purchases on credit at one of the grocery shops in Lalang Town, an arrangement initiated by the mini-estates’ supervisor. In the opinion of the RISDA administrators in Baling, the Legong mini­ estates have proved to be a success. Phase One estate had already by November 1990 cleared the debts incurred to RISDA, while Phase Two had done so by July 1992. The estate supervisor mentioned that the Legong estates were the first in the whole countrv to pay off their debts to RISDA. 5. CONCLUSION For the past decade, the most prominent characteristic of work among the Orang Asli villagers of Kg. Lubuk Legong has been its diversity, ranging from the hunting and collecting of wild animals to daily-rated wage work in plantations, mini-restates, land schemes and, occasionally, even in factories. The geographical area that these villagers cover in their search for work is extensive, extending as far as Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur, Kelantan and the Malaysia^hailand border. On the other hand, apart from two Police Field Force members and two JHEOA employees, there is no Orang Asli from Kg. Lubuk Legong who holds down a stable job. This situation has arisen not as a result of dismissals, but rather from an unwillingness on the part of the Orang Asli workers themselves to remain at the same job for any long period of time. They either quit in the middle of a work contract, or do not return to the same job after completion of a contract, even when renewal is offered. This tendency not to stick to the same job is apparent also in the mini-estates. Absenteeism and truancy are the most frequently heard of complaints from their employers. While the geographical sphere for jobs has greatly expanded, camp life at the edges of forests near the village had almost disappeared by 1991-92. The New Straits Times of 25 December, 1986, reported a complaint by the spokesman of the Perak/Kedah Orang Asli Department that the Legong people “refuse to occupy the houses we built for them” in the village. This remark was made at a time when practically all the Kg. Kubuk Legong people had been living for almost two months in a camp near Sik to collect rattan, leaving only the penghulu and pengarah in the village. During my 1991-92 field work, I observed such prolonged residence in forest camps only twice. Almost all of the forest-product collecting work was now being done either on a daily basis, returning to the village each night, or, at most, with a single overnight stay in the forest. At the present time middle-aged married men tend not to leave Kg. Lubuk Legong for any extended period to seek work in far-off places. A few, on the contrary, have become more-or-less regular rubber tappers in the adjacent mini­ estates. Orang Asli women also tend, increasingly, to stay within the confines of the village. Two wives accompanied their husbands in 1991 to out-station work in a FELDA scheme at Canglun, Kedah, but this was exceptional. The Kg. Lubuk Legong women occasionally go to nearby forests to collect rattan or

Shuichi Nagata

30

bamboos, but never accompany their husbands to hunt or collect turtles. Since 1988, rubber tapping in the mini-estates has been a major source of cash income for a few women. But, apart from these, most adult females now depend largely on the earnings of their siblings, husbands, or children; their contribution to household subsistence is far more limited than it was in the past. In his discussion of the economy of a Semai community in Tapah, Perak, Gomes (1986: 245) argues that the diversity of production activities gives these Orang Asli considerable protection against economic risks or failures. In a somewhat similar vein, Benjamin (1973: ix) noted, some twenty years ago, that the Semang foragers “will readily ‘forage’ off the larger society in a wholly acceptable manner if allowed and encouraged to undertake wage labour of various kinds.” The Orang Asli villagers of Lubuk Legong, both old and young, have in recent years been taking advantage of variegated work opportunities to earn wages, but without committing themselves to any fixed jobs. At the moment the majority of the Orang Asli villagers treat the two mini-estates on the reserve as offering them one among several such opportunities for earning money. The village itself, therefore, continues to be a residential site, rather than a base for productive activities. The cash-earning activities of these Lubuk Legong Orang Asli are certainly reminiscent of the economic strategy that Benjamin terms “opportunistic ‘foraging’ Consequently, the results of a quarter of a century of Government effort to create a sedentary agriculture-based group of people out of these former forest nomads are at best ambiguous. The alienation of women from subsistence production, the decline of nearby forest resources and an increasing tendency among the younger villagers to seek wage work opportunities outside the village are all factors that are contributing, not to the evolution of a sedentary and agriculture-based community, but to the creation of a reservoir of unskilled wage labourers.

REFERENCES AZHARI bin Abdul Rahman 1987 Laporan Mengenai Agensi-agensi Kerajaan yang lelibat dengan Orang Asli

Kedah (Kg. Lubuk Legong) [Report on Government Agencies involved

with the Kedah Orang Asli (Lubuk Legong Village)]. Typescript report submitted to Shuichi Nagata. 13 pp.

BENJAMIN, Geoffrey 1973

Introduction. In

Among the Forest Dwarfs of Malaya,

by Paul Schebesta.

Singapore: Oxford University Press. Pp.v-xiv. COUILLARD, Marie-Andree 1980

Tradition in Tension: Carving in a Jah Hut Community. Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Penang: Penerbit

31

Working for Money among the Orang Ash

ENDICOTT, Kirk 1974 Batek Negrito Economy and Social Organization. Ph.D. dissertation,

Harvard University. GOMES, Alfred G. 1986 Looking-For-Money: Simple Commodity Production in the Economy of

the

Tapah

Semai

of Malaysia.

Ph.D.

thesis,

Australian

National

University.

HOBHOUSE, L.T., G.C. WHEELER and M, GINSBERG 1930

The Material Culture and Social Institutions of the Simpler Peoples: An Essay in Correlation. London: Chapman and Hall (= London School of Economics and Political Science, Monographs in Sociology no. 3).

JONES, Alun 1968

The Orang Asli: An Outline of their Progress in Modem Malaya.

Journal

ofSouth East Asian History 9(2):286-305. KUCHIKURA. Yukio 1987 Subsistence Ecology among Semaq Beri Hunter-Gatherers of Peninsular Malaysia. Sappora (Hokkaido): Department of Behavioral Science, Faculty

of Letters, Hokkaido University (= Hokkaido Behavioral Science Report, Series E, No.l).

LEE, Richard B. 1992

Art, Science, or Politics: The Crisis in Hunter-gatherer Studies.

Anthropologist 94(1):

American

31-54.

NAIM, Haji Ahmad 1987 The Film “Nomads of the Jungle” (NOTJ - Malaya, 1948): A Review and a

Comparative Study of the Nomadic Group’s Lifestyle as Portrayed in the Film

as Observed

and

in

the

Present.

Ph.D.

dissertation,

Indiana

University. POR Beng Kong 1987 Kajian Orang Asli di Lubuk Legong [A Report on the Orang Asli of Lubuk

Legongj. Typescript report submitted to Shuichi Nagata. 48 pp.

RISDA 1992

Mini Estet Lubuk Legong PR.I, Mukim Siong, Baling.

Baling (Kedah);

RISDA. (5 pp. + 3 folded tables, mimeographed.)

TAJUDDIN, Ahmad, bin Mansoor 1987 Report on Kampung Ulu Legong. Typescript Report Submitted to Shuichi

Nagata. 52 pp. WOLF, Eric R. 1966

Peasants.

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

WONG K.M. and N. MANOKARAN, eds.

1985

Proceedings of the Rattan Seminar, 2-4 October 1984. Kuala Lumpur; Rattan Information Centre, Forest Research Institute, Malaysia.

The

THE IBANS OF SARAWAK: THE NATURE OF THEIR PERIPHERALITY AND ITS POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES JAYUM A. JAWAN** and VICTOR T. KING ** CONTENTS

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Introduction Ethnographic Background Thejban Dilemma The Numerical and Legislative Strength of the Ibans and the Dayaks Factors of Iban (Dayak) Peripherality Consequences of Iban or Dayak Peripherality The Ethnic Dimension and the New Economic Policy The Problem of Iban Unity: Some Observations ' Conclusion

1. INTRODUCTION Much has been written about Peninsular or West Malaysian politics and political development since the Federation of Malaya was granted its independence from Britain in 1957. One vitally important element' in many of these studies has been the analysis of the influence of ethnic considerations in Malaysian politics, particularly in terms of-the distinction between the indigenous Malays (or bumiputera'. lit. “sons of the soil”), the Chinese and the Indians. One common assumption is that the structure and content of the politics of the^two East Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah, which gained their independence in 1963 and were incorporated along with Malaya into the wider Federation of Malaysia, are more, or less the same as those of West Malaysia. There is some truth in this assumption, because ethnicity has indeed been an increasingly crucial dimension in Sarawak’s and Sabah’s political development since 1963. However, there are two further considerations which need to be borne in mind in any study of East Malaysia. First, the ethnic composition of these states is more complex than that in the Peninsula, * Ph.D. (Hull), Lecturer in Politics, Department of Social Development Studies, Universiti

Pertanian Malaysia, Serdang. * * Ph.D. (Hull), Professor of South-East Asian Studies and Dean of the School of Social and Political Studies, University of Hull.

34

Jayum A. Jawan and Victor T. King

particularly because the indigenous population comprises several non-MusIim, non-Malay groups^ collectively known as “Dayaks”', and because Muslim and Malay natives are in a minority in Sarawak. In Sabah, the Malay population constitutes an insignificant proportion of the state population, but its Muslim grouping (including indigenous Malays and Dayak Kadazans) is about half the state population.^ Secondly, and most importantly, the Malaysian Borneo

Map 1. Distribution of Main Ethnic Groups in Sarawak

territories were brought into the Federation as less economically and politically developed states, subordinate to the more advanced Peninsula, which had achieved its independence some six years previously. It is this marginality and its persistence, and the dominance of the federal authorities in Kuala Lumpur, largely made up of Peninsular Malays, which has constantly to be referred to in any attempt to understand the political and economic fortunes of Malaysian Borneo, and their relationship to ethnic affiliations. 1 Strictly, the term Dayak comprises the Sea Dayaks (Ibans) and Land Dayaks

(Bidayuhs) (Federal Constitution of Malaysia, Article 16(A[7]); however, since 1987, it

has become increasingly common to refer to the Ibans, Bidayuhs -and Orang Ulu (the

various smaller non-Muslim indigenous groups) as Dayaks.

2 See Michael Emban (1993) and H.M. Dahlan (1993) for the classification of indigenous groups in Sabah by ethnicity and religion.

r I

I j

I I

I I I I

The Ibans of Sarawak: The Nature of their Peripherality

35

In this pa’per, we are specifically concerned with the state of Sarawak, and within this the most important non-Malay indigenous group, the Ibans. It is noticeable that, although there is a substantial literature on native cultures, religions, social oi^anisation and traditional economies in Sarawak, not much is available in the way of descriptions and analyses of modem politics since independence in 1963. The major studies, which cover at least some of the field but which only take us up to the 1970s, are Michael Leigh’s The Rising Moon: Political Change in Sarawak (1974) and Peter Searle’s Politics in Sarawak 1970-76: The Iban Perspective (1983). Some attention to East Malaysian politics, although necessarily cursory, is also to be found in general texts that examine Malaysia-wide politics and federalism, such as R.S. Milne’s and K.J. Ratnam’s Malaysia—New States in a New Nation (1974), Margaret RofFs The Politics of Belonging (1974) and Bruce Ross-Larson’s The Politics of Federalism (1976). Much more detailed analysis is needed of modem political and economic processes and changes in Sarawak and Sabah, and this contribution, along with Jayum Jawan’s-recently completed doctoral thesis (1991), from which the present material is largely taken, begin to fill the gap in our knowledge. Before examining Iban politics in more detail, it is necessary to present some background data to provide a context within which we can-better understand what we shall call “the Iban dilemma”. These introductory remarks, which are confined to a very brief outline, are concerned with the fact and issue of Iban marginality, which is itself, in part, a product of Sarawak’s peripheral position within Malaysia. Sarawak’s marginality is also the-product of two sets of internal factors: environmental and historical (King 1990). First, the inhospitable Bornean environment characterised by, until recently, dense equatorial rainforests and a terrain dominated by coastal swamps and interior hilly and mountainous regions, poor soils and high rainfall, has presented problems for economic development. There are few suitable sites for intensive, settled agriculture, and therefore population densities are low and settlements are dispersed, apart from some concentration in a few favoured coastal locations. This small and scattered population also probably helps explain the existence of considerable ethnic diversity in Borneo. Secondly, and given these environmental constraints, the period of European colonialism in Southeast Asia was characterised by general neglect and a slow pace of development in Borneo. One expression of this lack of interest was that the British government did not intervene directly in Sarawak’s internal affairs until 1946, when Sarawak became a Crown Colony yntil its eventual independence in 1963. Along with the sultanate of Brunei and the state of North Borneo (renamed Sabah after independence), Sarawak was granted only British protectorate status tn 1888. Internally it was subject to the personal rule of the English Brooke family — the Brooke Raj — for about one hundred years, which was not a situation which was likely to lead to much political and economic change. The Brookes had neither the resources nor the desire and temperament to “develop” Sarawak, or to equip the native populations, in particular, for eventual independence. Nor

36

Jayum A. Jawan and Victor T. King

during the seventeen years of post-war colonial rule was much done, especially in the desperately needed area of rural development. Britain. looked for ways of divesting itself of its commitments in northern Borneo as painlessly as possible and the proposed Federation of Malaysia offered the best prospects. Thus, on the eve of independence in 1963, Sarawak, and indeed Sabah, were poorly equipped economically and politically to survive in and cope within a Malaysia dominated by the numerically larger and more politically conscious populations of the Peninsula. To make this arranged marriage at all workable, Sarawak and Sabah Were given special constitutional protection. Yet the constitutional provisions are relatively weak, and, as it has been amply demonstrated, the federal authorities can, to a significant degree, override state wishes and interests. Although we refer to Malaysia as a “Federation”, the constitution and governance of the country is remarkably “centralised”, at the expense of the position of its constituent states. Aside from the constitutional powers enjoyed by Kuala Lumpur, the federal authorities have considerable control over the nation’s financial and economic affairs. This ensures that such a state as Sarawak, already marginal in a number of respects, has little political and economic leverage, and finds it difficult to resist the direction of federally-generated policies and programmes. Now this status is not an absolute one; Sabah, in contrast to Sarawak, has managed to secure some room for manoeuvre, and the non-MusIim Dayaks there, particularly the Kadazans, have recently fully entered and now control the arena of the state-level decision-making.’ Therefore, in the case of the Ibans of Sarawak, there are both external forces and internal factors and processes that have acted, and continue to act, to perpetuate their subordinate position. It is these considerations that form the main part of this paper, and to which we shall turn after providing brief ethnographic data on the Ibans.

2. ETHNOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND In this section, we will briefly discuss Iban ethnography in terms of population, legislative status, social structure and main economic activities. 2a. Population

According to a 1988 population report, the Ibans, or Sea Dayaks as they were sometimes known, are the single largest native group (bumiputera) in Sarawak. They comprised about 30% (or about 470,000) of Sarawak’s total population 3

The Dayak Kadazan-dominated multi-ethnic Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) came to

power in 1985. In February 1994, the party won its fourth mandate to rule Sabah. But due to the small margin of majority that the party secured (25 out of the 48 state seats),

the PBS government formed after the election soon collapsed, when some PBS assemblymen crossed over to the state-level Barisan coalition in what many believe to

have been a move orchestrated by the latter.

The /bans ofSarawak: The Nature of their Peripherality

37

(ASBS 1989). A large proportion of them is found in the Sri Aman area of the former Second Division, where about 25% of the Ibans reside (Table 1).

Table 1: Concentration of Ibans by Division, 1980 Division

Numbers

Kuching

21,648

5

Sri Aman

99,595

25

Sibu

76,131

19

Miri

43,797

11

Bintulu

29,812

8

Sarikei

47,902

12

Kapit

48,475

12

Samarahan

22,130

6

6,790

2

396,280

100

Limbang All Divisions

Source:/g=l^nchantcd Forest: Folk Belief in Femome Spirits

the Resources of the Amazon Jungle.

SUTUVE, Vinson

^”^983

Natural History 92 (8). 14-20.

Arlington Heights (IL.): AHM Publishing Corporation.

Duration of Stream Temperature Increases Following Forest Cutting

International Symposium on Hydro-meteorology of the American Water. Resources Association. Pp. the Southern Appalachian Mountains. In

273-75.

The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.

Science

155:1203-6.

and Symbols of Social B—tton: A^ EthnograpSc Study of the Kenyah Dayak of East Kalimantan. Ph.D.

Dissertation: Michigan State University.

Y*^*^1993^°'HMb'Found to Share Water with Neighbors.

October, pp. Cl &C10.

New York Times. 26t}\

CULTURE AND MENTAL HEALTH: AN ILLUSTRATION FROM THREE MALAYOPO LYNE SIAN GROUPS IN TAIWAN HSU MUTSU* CONTENTS

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Introduction The Indigenous People of Taiwan A Study of Culture and Menial Health Social Integration Disintegration Cooperation Independence Gender Differences in Three Aboriginal Groups Conclusion

versus versus

I. INTRODUCTION

Culture has long been perceived as a powerful determinant of human behaviour. Many impressive anthropological works that appeared between the 1880s and 1950s, such as those by Sir Edward Tylor (1871), Margaret Mead (1928), Ruth Benedict (1934) and Clyde Kluckhohn (1954), stressed its importance. But it is only since the 1950s that the real significance of this concept began to be carefully evaluated. Some outstanding examples of such studies are those of Whiting et al. (1958) on the function of the initiation ceremony, and Ember and Ember (1971) on the factors influencing different types of residence. Our understanding of cultural power owes much to these and other pioneer works; nevertheless, the concept remains less than fully explicated. Very few studies provide solid evidence to indicate just how important it is to human behaviour. One of the rare exceptions is the study by the Whitings (Whiting and Whiting 1975) of child rearing practices in the six cultures that they studied. My own research in urban northern Taiwan (Hsu 1979) on the impact of father absence on sons’ behavioural adjustment in school is another example. This ambiguity concerning cultural power exists also in the field of mental health research. Culture, according to Marsella (1985:284), has long been asserted as a factor “inextricably linked to the etiology, distribution, manifestation, and course and outcome of mental disorders.” This view accords with the prevailing perspective in social psychiatry. On the basis of long-term studies of Taiwan aborigines, Hsien Rin (1978:25) proposed that socio-cultural “nature” is an important determinant of mental manifestations among minorities *Ph.D. (University of California, Berkeley); research fellow. Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan and Professor of Anthropology at the National Tsing-hua

University, Taiwan.

102

Hsu Mutsu

living in a pluralistic setting. However, little else has been revealed about how to what extent the “nature” of a society’s socio-cultural system influences Its people s mental health. In this paper I shall first summarize the findings of the two studies that I carried out in cooperation with Cheng Tai-ann. a psychiatrist at the National Taiwan University Medical School and the Institute of Biomedical sciences Academia Smica, Taiwan. Next I shall present the data, gathered by statistical and ethnographic methods. It is my conviction that the logical inference and empirical findings are strong enough to demonstrate the strength of culture in shaping human mental conditions. ‘^at the influence of culture can be measured at about 21/0 in psychiatric manifestations in two aboriginal groups in Taiwan. IS datum not only sheds light on the presumptive impact of culture on mental pan K "f’ represents a successful example of interdisciplinary collaboration between anthropology and psychiatry.

2. THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF TAIWAN All Taiwan aboriginal groups are Austronesians; they are distinguished from the majority Han Chinese by phenotype, geographic distributiion and sociocul ural traditions. It has long been recognized that these people were the eadiest of today’s inhabitants to arrive in Taiwan (Hsu 1982:201) Verv different from the Han Chinese, Taiwan aborigines share a much greater number of u“ T ** Indonesian cultures of Southeast Asia. Examples of such shared cu tural traits include slash-and-bum. agriculture, bacLtrap weaving, jew s harp, gerontocracy, an age-grade system, men’s houses, and ttoomg. l^ese traits, together with archaeological findings (Lien 1989), point o e possibility that the Taiwanese aborigines may have migrated to the island from different places, some coming directly from the Chinese mainland and others, from Southeast Asia. In other words, their origins may be diverse and their migrations multiple (Wei 1954). With a present-day population of about 340.000 (1.7% of the total population Taiwan [cf Hsu 1991:12]), Taiwan aborigines occupy the island’s central mounrams, eastern valley region, and Orchid Island, off the south coast of the mam island, ^lere are nine distinct groups of aborigines in Taiwan: Atayai Ami, Bunun, Saisiat, Paiwan, Rukai, Puyuma. Tsou and Yami (Map I). These can be distinguished one from another, not only by geographic distribu ion. but also according to differences in phenotypfe, language and

tradv Ta of family structure and kinship, tradit ona Ami society ,s the only matrilineal group with characteristics of a matrilineally-extended family structure, matrilocal residence and a superior stat^for matrilateral kin (Wei 1961:1). The Bunun, Tsou and Saisiat in XT d 7 X characterized- by a patrilineally77 patn’ocal residence and a superior status for patrilineal km (Wei 1956:51-52). Then again, the Rukai, Paiwan and Puyuma

Culture and Mental Health among Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan

Map I. Distribution of the Aboriginal Peoples of Taiwan

103

Hsu Mutsu

104

are characterized by a stem family structure, an equal status for both patriand matri-lateral kin, and an alternative residence pattern (Shih 1976; Wei 1958:6). The Athyal and Yami, finally, are characterized by nuclear family units, patrilocal residence and parallel status for both bilateral kin (Li etai. 1964:684-5).

Pl. I. Traditional Atayal settlement: a mountainous ecology shaped Auyal’s nuclear family

type

Prior to the seventeenth century, aborigines presumably occupied all parts of Taiwan and, despite Han Chinese migration from the mainland to the western parts of the island, were able effectively to maintain their indigenous traditions. During more than 300 years of modem emigration, Han Chinese expanded into the northern and eastern parts of Taiwan. Most aborigines living on the plains were then forced to withdraw into the mountains (Chen 1958:1). Throughout the Qing dynasty, the Chinese people and local governments attempted to strictly isolate Taiwan aborigines from the Han population. Inter-ethnic conflict between Han and aborigines nevertheless continued to occur in those areas where government control was weak (Hsu 1991). Japan took over Taiwan immediately after defeating China in the so-called Sino-Japan War of 1895, forcing the Qing government to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Japanese troops successfully stepped onto Taiwan soil without any serious armed resistance. The policy of ethnic separation continued during the fifty years of Japanese rule. Tribal areas were soon designated as reservations and put under the control of a special administrative department (Hsu 199?). Before Taiwan was returned to Republican China in 1945, all nine aboriginal groups maintained their own territories and a great deal of their indigenous

Culture and Mental Health among Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan

105

socio-cultural heritage. During the first thirty years of the cunent Chinese rule, this picture did not change dramatically. During the 1970s, when economic development in Taiwan began to Uke off, tremendous pressure was^placed on aboriginal communities for socio-cultural change; since that time, indigenous

Pl. 2. Traditional Atayal hunting

peoples have found it difficult to maintain the stability of their traditional social institutions (Hsu 1987). While government policies have mostly favoured the indigenous peoples and have been applied equally to all of them, patterns o adaptation have nevertheless differed from one group to another. As 1 will discuss later, the traditionally matrilineal Ami society seems to have been able to adjust relatively well to the mainstream society of Taiwan, cermmly when compared to other indigenous groups, such as the Atayal. T^e differences o adaptation among Taiwan aborigines in various psycho-cu tural dimensions illustrate the significance of culture to human adaptation in a pluralistic setting.

3. A STUDY OF CULTURE AND MENTAL HEALTH The first of our two studies was carried out in two aboriginai viilages, one of them Atayal and the other Ami, both located about 15 to 20 kilometres sou o the city of Hua-lien, on the east coast of Taiwan. Sixty-four persons living in these two villages were randomly selected for a psychiamc screening test ^d questionnaire. To ensure the validity and reliability of the mental hea th dau psychiatrist Cheng Tai-ann identified types and degree of mental heal* disorders. Certain procedures have been adopted to reduce, as far as.Possible unintentional bias for or against particular hypotheses. Through careful

J 06

Hsu Mutsu

?r.

(Hsu

™'“k “

"'.1 ?,"£“'•

2-4 for minor .0 serious cases

^x=a"BS=~s~*

normal fH ,^liinaetaluo Hlllgeho ^x^Bawodobara •/tltOCundi ® ■Bawolowelazit Bo.t&iTlitBnd Onohondro

HlXlslmaetanB

Ki^uoetaalha Hllltobara

Map 2. Southern Nias Showing Principal Settlements

sufficient to define the culture of the Nias people as a whole. Only further with t°" ‘o determine similarities and differences With greater clarity than is at present possible. TellkVaZ‘tT“’ ‘’“"""8 S'"’’’ "°«h and ^so t be A T *’>' fishermen, who claim also to be ono „,ha though the majority of the latter are now Christians There are also communities of merchants: Buginese from Sulawesi. XglXu

Craftsmanship Amidst Change in Southern Nias

123

people from Sumatra and Peranakan (locally-born) Chinese. Many of the Buginese and Minangkabau are only temporary residents of Nias, who, now and again, return to their permanent homes in Sulawesi and Sumatra; but the Chinese are more permanent urban settlers, though they enjoy considerable mobility, frequently visiting their relatives or business associates in other Indonesian cities. Most of these Chinese are storekeepers, but a few own shipping companies.

2.

SOUTHERN NIAS: THE TOWN OF TELUK DALAM AND ITS HINTERLAND

At the time of my field work, the town of Teluk Dalam (Map 2, inset) was very small.The permanent businesses along the main street mostly comprised grocery stores (at which some regular and trustworthy Nias customers could buy goods on credit and where transactions were conducted not only in cash but also in kind), motorcyle repair shops, clothing stores and the business offices of shipping companies. There were also a few stores selling gasoline and kerosene oil and a single automobile repair shop. There were two inns, one of which also ran a small business selling sweetened ice in small plastic bags. The local headquarters of tlie district government, the police department and a missionaryoperated high school are also located in this town. There was no restaurant in town before 1983. The slow pace of life at Teluk Dalam quickens on market days and when a ship casts anchor. Early in the morning on market days, villagers from all around begin to arrive at the market place, located on the edge of town. They carry agricultural produce and handicrafts on their heads, on bicycles, or on wooden balanced bars (Pl. 7), locally known as a fanosanoro. These villagers are often anxious to be rid of their loads, particularly if they are heavy ones, just as soon as possible. Consequently, town residents can often obtain a good bargain by purchasing their needs directly from the roadside before the seller even reaches the market place. On market day, both sides of the main street are full of people selling produce and handicrafts, mostly originating in nearby villages. Small amounts of produce are spread out on banana leaves, burlap sheets, mats and in baskets. Locally-handicrafted knife blades and wooden handles are spread on the ground for sale. Any cash that is earned is immediately spent on the purchase of such commodities as Indo-mie (instant Indonesian noodle packages), salt, sugar, hot chilli peppers, rice, cooking oil, matches and a few candies; and to pay for the return bus ticket or motorcycle fee. Whenever a ship docks at Teluk Dalam, bringing in freight, merchants, tourists and some local passengers, the town becomes busy. The harbour connects southern Nias with the northern Nias port of Gunung Sitoli, with several small islands in the Nias District of northern Sumatra, with Padang in western Sumatra and with Sibolga in central Sumatra. The small ships that

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arrive in port are privately owned by non-Nias people, but the larger ones are operated by the Indonesian government. Because the schedules of the government-operated vessels are rather irregular, the smaller, privately-owned boats are popular, despite the frequent accidents in which they are involved, mostly due to overloading. On the other hand, although sea transport is available to them, few Southern Nias villagers have ever availed themselves of the opportunity to travel outside their home island, even to nearby Sumatra. Once a year, at least during my stay in southern Nias, a Dutch cruise ship would visit Teluk Dalam, bringing in a number of tourists. While in harbour, this ship was open for public viewing, which gave the Nias people a rare opportunity, as one of them said to me, “ to have a glimpse of Western Culture.” By the time of my most recent field trip in 1983, the increasing pace of change in Teluk Dalam was clearly evident. Within a single year a movie theatre, a restaurant and a second inn were added to the town’s facilities. Tourists - mostly Australians, Dutch, Germans, Swiss and Americans — were beginn­ ing to arrive in increasing numbers. Their interests lay in surfing, hiking to villages and general sight-seeing. As the town had few eating places, tourists bought cookies, drinks and fruits to take along with them and they patronized the mini-buses, jeeps or motor­ cycles in order to reach their destinations. But there was still no store in town that sold souvenirs. However small Teluk Pl. I. ThcvillagcofLahusainsouthernNias;villagechurch Dalam appears to outsiders, in background for the village folk of southern Nias it is a big town and one that is not always accessible to them. Many think twice before paying the fare into town, which they consider a luxury. Most villagers spend their day tending their fields and collecting forest products. Most of their day-to-day needs can be met by the local village store, where they may purchase betel leaves and arecanuts, soap, matches, mosquito coils, coffee, tea, salt, sugar and some canned food. Moreover, some of the villages sponsor their own weekly market, to which people come, not only to

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buy and sell, but also to enjoy drinking tea and coffee 'with friends and acquaintances, while discussing such matters as the latest price of pigs in terms of gold, nei^bouring villages’ disputes, and other local gossip. News of conflicts between villages is important information for Nias people and may affect their choice of travel routes, most people avoiding travel between conflicting villages where they have relatives. Non-Nias merchants also attend these village markets, bringing with them for sale several different commodities, fresh fish being among the most popular in remote villages, where people are not enthusiastic about travelling to town. As a visiting merchant walks along the village path, people sitting on benches next to their house windows hail him and begin to bargain for the goods they want to purchase. At the same time, the villagers are aware that many of these visiting vendors are also antique dealers, on the lookout for anybody who might be interested in making some extra cash by selling family treasures. At the time of my research, there was one such local village market at Hilige’o, about 4.5 km northwest of HilisimaetanO. On market day a jeep belonging to the Lutheran missionary of the BNKP (standing for Banua Niha Keriso Protestan in the Nias language) would ferry HilisimaetanO villagers to and from Hilige’o. Apart from farming produce and manufactured goods, local handicrafts, such as hats, winnowing trays and mats, were occasionally sold at this market. Prices for manufectured goods were more expensive than in town, but local produce, such as pork and live chickens, was cheaper and always of good quality. In the 1970s and 1980s, the majority of the permanent settlers in southern Nias were ono niha, living in villages that are located on hills and connected to one'another by narrow dirt paths, passable only by one person at a time. The villagers practise a basically subsistence economy that involves swidden and some irrigated agriculture, silviculture and animal husbandry. A 1984 agricultural report (DDN 1984: Map 5) revealed that about 60 per cent of the land area of southern Nias was at that time still covered with forest (though not necessarily in a climax state). Indeed, southern Nias villages are usually almost buried in forest and, from a distance, it is often only the smoke from the house fires that reveals their location. -(By contrast, much of the coastal land is covered with cogon grass [imperata cylindrica] and cane grasses [locally termed called o’o].) The ono niha cultivate dry rice on swidden land, which they prepare by felling most of the vegetation with axes and long, sword-like, machetes (generally called balatu in southern Nias); the bigger tree trunks are left intact. The fallen debris is later burned, just before the rainy season begins. The rice seeds are planted with the use of roughly fashioned dibbles, called tebu in the Southern Nias dialect; they are simply lengths of wood carved to a point at one end and used to punch seed holes in the groimd. The sharp machetes, it should be noted, have many other functions besides their use in clearing swiddens.- The balatu is a highly-valued, multi-functional tool (used for cutting wood, slashing weeds, removing withered leaves from

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banana plants and coconut palms, opening up ripe coconuts, slaughtering pigs and, on occasion, even for committing murder); the manufacture of these machetes represents a major business for Nias ironsmiths. Irrigation had already been introduced in some parts of southern Nias by the time of my research and a few villagers have experimented with the cultivation of a high-yielding wet rice variety, though with no notable success. These people obtained a slight increase in yields, but, although this excited some farmers, it turned out that the increase was insufficient to cover the cost of their investment. An irrigation dam near HilisimaetanO remained half finished, the project having been abandoned. No explanation was available as to why construction had been halted, but I suspect bad engineering and the wrong mixture of concrete had caused the dam to collapse even before it had been completed. The villagers were never able to produce sufficient quantities of rice (their preferred staple food) to meet their year-round subsistence needs. Therefore, they were compelled to supplement their rice supplies by collecting sago starch (also fed to the pigs). The technique for collecting sago starch is simple. After felling a sago palm and splitting its trunk, the villagers use an adze to rasp the fibrous interior. The flakes thus obtained are then washed in a water trough made from a' hollowed out tree trunk. Once the starch settles, it is taken out of the -.water, dried and the resultant flour is then ready to be cooked. With only one or two Pl. 2. Wooden mortar and pestle, HilisimaetanO village, washings, the flour is pinkish southern Nias in colour, but with repeated washings it becomes steadily whiter. The Nias villagers produce boiled or fried dumplings from the sago flour, eating them for at least one of their two daily meals. Cassava and sweet potatoes are cultivated in swiddens as supplementary foodstuffs, while stands of bananas, papaya and coconut trees are grown around the village site. The coconut palms are a particularly important part of the villagers’ economic assets, the nuts being harvested both for home consumption and as a

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cash crop. With regards to home use, coconut milk (mixed .with crushed turmeric root and chili pepper) is a regular ingredient in the preparation of Nias meals, which are otherwise quite bland. Cassava leaves and pork are also cooked in coconut milk, along with spices and salt. The grated coconut flakes, after the milk is extracted, are fed to the pigs (along with any food scraps left over from the meals). Coconut oil is used for cooking and as lamp fuel as well. Coconut husks are burned as fuel in kitchens and the hardened shells, once polished, are made into necklaces called kalabubu, which are worn mostly by men. (It is said that kalabubu were once only to be worn by the men who had taken human heads; in recent times, however, they have been considered an indispensable ornamental piece to accompany traditional dancing attire.) As a source of cash income, Nias coconuts are highly prized for their flavour by people in Sumatra. Copra as well as coconut oil also brings in some cash for the villagers. As for their domestic animals and fowl, sows and piglets are allowed to scavenge, but boars are kept most of the time in a pig pen; the chickens are left to roam during the daytime, but in the evening they return to their openwork basket coops hung underneath the houses. At the time of my field work, despite the often short distances, communi­ cations between the inland villages and Teluk Dalam were by no means easy. For example, though the town is only thirteen kilometres away from HilisimaetanO, the villagers frequently found it difficult to travel there, as landslides caused by the heavy rains often blocked the road. At such times, the usual thirty-minute motorcycle trip could take hours to accomplish. Even at the best of times, public transport seldom ran according to schedule, for a bus would not leave town unless well packed with passengers and cargo, the latter including live fowl and pigs, and services were frequently suspended due to damaged bridges and blocked sections of the road. As a result, motorcycles were very popular among those villagers who were in a hurry, or whose settlements lay off the bus route. Moreover, for his capital investment, the owner of a motorcycle not only solved his own transport problems, but was able to earn some additional cash by offering it for hire. Motorcycles were frequently used to transport up to three passengers at a time, along with their not inconsiderable loads of cargo. Even after heated bargaining, the owners of private motorcycles were usually able to charge more for transportation than did the public transport authority; most people thought their money well spent when it enabled them to ride to places that the bus did not or could not reach.

3. SURVIVING CRAFTSMANSHIP Many of the surviving craft traditions of southern Nias have to do with the manufacture of artefacts that are needed by the farmers to carry out their subsistence activities and to prepare their foodstuffs; some are associated with the building of traditional dwellings and communal village structures and yet others with persisting traditional ritual activity. I shall discuss the crafts associated with all of these spheres of activity in turn.

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Machetes and short-bladed knives, axes, small knives for cutting betel nuts and pandanus strips For plaiting, and serrated coconut graters are all still produced by southern Nias ironsmiths, whose workshops are found not only in each village but also at the roadside for the convenience of passersby. An ironsmith’s workshop contains cylindrical bellows, an imported iron anvil, called efata in the southern Nias dialect, and a wooden bucket for water. Southern Nias ironsmiths also repair some old tools. Pl. 3. Woman preparing hat from sago palm leaves, HilisimaetanO village, southern Nias Villagers might commisa t X 1r . ironsmith to produce smitXi I " to kind, by providing the smith with firewood or nee in place ofcash. An offer to help with beating or DC’'"'P

fee. After he had

wonW hd d fro™ two pieces of wood fastened together with braided The sheath nrod^ rings produced by a specialist in such work. ® the feX^of d '"’P'""’""'’ ‘t’^ott'ttted with rice farming, sago processing and A ,h d T'T These include bolobolo (flat boards made from a light wood that are used for leveling the soill too and 2). which are mortars and pestles used for milling® the padi

1 f^Id

r”’

P^'"*

to rasp sago trunks) ”“8'* 'tee trunk and used as

pi^ rccocrs).

bamboo b I .'"d-^ ® implements are made from wood, rattan and cookin? ‘■"‘'"'‘’"f' Pf'^- “lied bo^^oa, still being manufactured as ooking u ensils at the time of my field work, though threatened by commercially-produced metal vessels. ron?"?? technique is employed to make the clay pots. Women fashion the Ire nai? ^7 ‘"‘f “ ">'- - J—"mt-f

----

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Trochus snails are gather­ ed for sale. These mollusks are found among corals and there is no suitable habitat for them nearby Makatian. But the Matinen claim ownersjiip of the tiny island ofBabawan its surrounding coral reefs, to the north of Makatian. Here they search for trochus snails and sea cucumbers (teripang}. These are much sought-after resources and the Matinen are on continuous alert for. intruders, who appear not to recognise their exclusive right to this marine harvest. 5c. Forest Hunting

The Matinen have a repu­ tation for being — and regard themselves as — expert hunters. To be a skilled hunter is indeed part of the Matinen male identity. Girls and young women may climb Pl. 9. Giri with Matinen delicacy: a large marine snail coconut palms to harvest nuts, many acquiring a reputation for their skill (though boys and men also tell stories about girls who have fallen down from tbe palm trees; boys and men, they declare, never fall down). But no girls or women can, or are permitted, to hunt. Even if a girl, unlikely as it might be, wished to try, she would not be allowed to do so. \Vomen are not permitted to own spears or bows and arrows. Also the dogs that, are used for hunting are the property of men, not women.Spiilingly, informants told me that there is sometimes a conflict between men and women in relation to the dogs. Matinen regard dog meat as a delicacy and the womenfolk may be eager to cook the flesh while their husbands are reluctant to slaughter their hunting companions. 10 I was interested to note that men, especially young ones, treat their dogs very well, rhe animals are led. sometimes petted and even permitted to share their master’s sleeping mat.

By contra.st. 1 saw several young wives kicking, spanking and scolding their husbands'dogs.

I gained the distinct impression, during my short stay in Makatian, that at least some young wives proiected their aggression towards their husbands onto the men’s dogs.

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The most frequent­ ly-hunted animals are wild hogs and hog­ hunting is most effective during the rainy season, when the animals gather at elevated locations and when hunters can move more quietly through the bush. Men leave the village in the morning, acco­ mpanied by three to five dogs, to search for hogs. They may hunt alone, but more often go out in pairs, or else three together. The hunters are equipped with bows and arrows, or with spears. The dogs are let loose to search for the wild hogs and the hunters know when D. .n u are on the PI. 10. Hunters bu.clw.ng wild hog track of game animals by the sound of their barking. When the dogs bring the hog to a halt, the hunters hurry to the location to get a shot at the game. During the day the hunters keep contact with their dogs by whistling signals to them. When, during my stay in Makatian, hunters left the village on hunting expeditions, they always returned with game. Wild buffaloes are hunted in much the same way as are the hogs. But the best time of the year for buffalo-hunting is during the end of the dry season, when the animals gather to drink at the river bank during the nighttime. The strategy is, in this case, one of stalking. The hunters try to get as close as possible to the buffaloes without disturbing them. When close, they make use of flashlights in order to blind the animals. The buffaloes are either shot with arrows, speared, or, occasionally according to Matinen, their heel sinews are cut with a bush-knife. In the latter instance the buffaloes are unable to move and Qre easily killed. When buffaloes are with calves the latter are often captured^ tied up and brought back to the village to be fed there. These buffaloes are kept in ropes and become semi-tame after a month or so. During my stay in Makatian, five young buffaloes were kept in the village. When they are grown

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they are sold alive at a good price to merchants from Saumlaki or, lately, to the crews of shrimp-trawlers operating in the waters close to Makatian. Besides the occasional birds and iguanas that are also hunted, crocodile­ hunting must be mentioned. Although crocodiles are becoming scarce, the Ran Armoi is still one of the best locations on Yamdena island in which to hunt for them. During my stay at Makatian only one young crocodile was captured. The price that a lucky hunter can get for the crocodile skin makes the attempt to hunt this reptile well worth the effort. Matinen are saddened because crocodiles are becoming scarce; at the same time they are happy, because they are afraid of these reptiles, regarding them as dangerous man-eaters. Especially during the rainy season, people said, the- shore, all the way from the river outlet and extending beyond the village of Makatian, used to be dangerous. And even today, in the rainy season, there remains the possibility of encountering a crocodile close by the village, though some years have now passed since the last time one was seen. The Matinen are sad that there are now fewer crocodiles, because no other, activity can compare economically to a successful crocodile hunt. The reptiles are caught by means of large bamboo hooks, with hog meat being regarded as the best bait. Approximately fif­ teen years ago, ten to twenty crocodiles could be caught during a month, the villagers told me. This number was also affirmed by a Chinese merchant in Saumlaki, who used to go to Makatian to buy crocodile skins. Currently, the villag­ ers say they catch approximately ten to fifteen crocodiles during the course of Pl. -M. Matinen hunter displaying his buffalo skull trophy an entire year (1987).

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Harald Beyer Broch

6. ASPECTS OF LOCAL-LEVEL POLITICS IN A CHANGING WORLD

Given the short duration of my stay in Makatian, it was not possible for me to obtain a firm grasp of Matinen politics. But it is clear that traditional ways to handl| questions of ownership of resources in the forest, such as valuable timber;“-or rights to cultivate certain areas, are handled within the framework of the traditional codes that are based on clan organisation. In other areas of political negotiation, strategies were well hidden and much more field work is urgently needed to obtain the necessary insight to describe and analyse the relevant processes. I did, however, observe explicit ten­ sion in political affairs during my stay in Makatian. That tension was related to such diverse matters as the sale of copra, fission of the village, inter-ethnic relations, the authority of the Church as represent­ ed by the pastor, rules regulating gen­ der relations, and sorcery. I shall des­ cribe how these tensions, which I believe to be related to the process of modernisation and to conflicting models of political authority, were manifested. Traditionally Mati­ Pl. 12. Makatian’s Kepala desa (village headman) playing chess nen chose their lead­ er, or headman, from among the male members of the largest and most important clan, the Hunin hattu (“stone house”). When the Government authorities introduced “democracy” to Makatian in 1981, the old authority structure was changed. Political authority and leadership were now ascribed to the kepala desa, who was chosen on the basis of his popularity and his demonstrated skills in rhetoric, knowledge of modernity, and fluency in Bahasa Indonesia (the national language). Such criteria imply, in turn, the importance of formal education in order to achieve political leadership.

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The political authority and power of the kepala desa, as understood by the villagers, are, inter alia, related to his connections: the potential support from his superiors in Saumlaki, including the camat (head district civil authority), the police and army officals. When Matinen sometimes disagree with the decisions of their kepala desa (or orang kayo" as they usually call him), they find it futile to protest because of the strong support they believe he can mobilise from among his omnipotent superiors. Also, at the local level, the kepala desa has the power to carry out negative sanctions against those who oppose his proposals. One way he can control his opponents is to burden them with ever more community service (including services to the headman himself). Another means of sanction is to deny people the right to resell such commodities as cigarettes, soft drinks, liquor or flashlight batteries. Most men buy such items for resale when they visit Saumlaki or other villages with shops. Unpopular decisions made by the orang kaya are of many different kinds. Some of them, such as the demand for communal labour in connection with the construction of the new church, or obligatory work at the landing place on the sea-front and repairs on the village guest house are, in turn, imposed on the kepala desa from above. The villagers understand this and, although the tasks may be unpopular, they do not blame their headman for their having to undertake such work. The situation is, however, different when the orang kaya demands that the villagers sell their copra, trochus snails, sea cucumbers (teripang) and jUm/n-nuts to him at lower prices than those they could obtain if they were to sell these products to others. The most fnistrating episode of power abuse of which I heard occurred approximately two years before my visit to Makatian and was related to water scarcity. During the dry season water is indeed scarce in Makatian. Drinking water must be carried from wells fifteen minutes walk and more away. Also, the long distance to the swiddens that are situated to the north of Makatian is sometimes felt to be burdensome by those cultivating the land there. The members of two of the larger clans of Matinen therefore decided to move permanently to their northern fields. They explained that, not only would they themselves have a shorter distance to walk to their swiddens and a far better supply of water, but those who remained in Makatian would also benefit by the reduction of pressure on the scarce water resources available to the villagers. When the kepala desa learned that a segment of the Matinen seriously intended to establish a new permanent village, he first told them to rescindftheir decision. Then, according to informants, when he could not succeed in prohibiting their move, he hurried to Saumlaki, where he received the support of the camat. A police patrol was sent to the new settlement, which proceeded to force the fissionrmakers to return to Makatian. At the time of my stay in Makatian, the desa administration regulated the villagers’ agricultural schedule in such a manner as to encompass in relative detail almost all of their economic activities. Thus labour on distant swiddens was coordinated so as to take place at time-specified intervals. At the end of the 11

Orang kaya (Bahasa Indonesia) literally means “big man,” “rich man."

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stipulated period for a particular task, all had to return to Makatian. Only elderly people, if they wished, might remain at the swiddens. for a longer time. ^en I ^ked why the kepala desa appeared to regard it as so essential to prohibit fission, people suggested it must be related to his need for easy control over the villagers. Many people thought that the kepala desa enjoyed being at the head of a large population. I did not tell the headman that I already knew of the.episode concerning the aborted attempt to establish a new settlement, but 1 once asked him why he did not promote a division of the village in order to obtain a shorter distance to the swiddens and better access to water He responded that these were no real problems. The Matinen. he declared were used to the situation and, besides, one large village was better than two’small ones. He justified his statement by pointing to such institutions as the school and church which would have to be duplicated should another Matinen village be established.

7. THE CHURCH AND INTER-ETHNIC RELATIONS

If there is a general need for people to locate scapegoats or define common enemies, and if Matinen share such needs, they have indeed localized their target population. It is impossible to stay long in Makatian before one hears references to the “villains of Labobar”. The reputation of these Muslims from the small island of Labobar, to the north of Makatian, is indeed bad. For the Martinen the people from Labobar seem to be they object of firm group fantasies. Almost all negative human qualities one can think of are projected upon these Muslims. They are religiously ignorant, pirates, thieves lazy cowards and untrustworthy brutes. These group fantasies also seem to be shared ; Yamdena’s peoples than simply the Matinen. Typical is the story old about an incident that happened a year ago or so. One morning some Labobar people arrived at Makatian. They said that they had come to trade fish for agricultural products. But, before long, arguments developed into brawls because the visitors refused to pay a decent price for the products they were given. Before nightfall the fighting calmed down, as the antagonists agreed to settle their disputes next morning. But the visitors left the village during the dark of the ni^t. When Matinen had recovered from this disappointment they discovered to their disgust that the Labobar people had also found the time to raid some of their near-by swiddens and steal many coconuts. In 1988, I was told, the sailors of Seira had had enough of Labobar thieves and set out in twenty boats on an expedition to seek revenge for what they regarded as serious thefts of marine resources by Labobar islanders. Their intention was to bum down a village on Labobar, but when they arrived at the island, they found that police and military personnel had been called in to protect the,village. The boats were compelled to return to Seira. their mission uncompleted. Matinen claim ownership to marine resources on the coral reefs surrounding Babawan island. Here they fish and, more importantly, gather sea urchins

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(leripang) and trochus snails (Iola). These resources are stationary and have to be harvested with care; they must not be overexploited. Matinen handle this problem by defining special gathering seasons, closing the area for exploitation during the rest of the year. Because the distance from Makatian to Babawan is considerable — approximately three hours by large outrigger canoes if the wind is good ■— it is difficult to make sure that intruders do not violate the rules that the Matinen set for this ethnically-exclusive harvest. Members of other ethnic groups, among them the Muslims from Labobar, refuse to accept Matinen ownership to these marine resources. On their part, the Matinen outfit weekly expeditons to guard the waters and so protect these commercially important

Pl. 13. Visitors leaving Makatian

reefs. Every Monday morning eleven men, armed with spears and bows and arrows, set out for Babawan. They return to Makatian the following Saturday, late in the evening. According to what the guardsmen say, they are well aware that as soon as they leave the site, Labobar pirates enter the reefs to search for the valuable trochus snails and sea cucumbers. There is little the Matinen can do about this, since their schedule is well known to ali. As Protestant Christians they are forbidden to work on Sundays and attendance at the Sunday sermon at the church in Makatian is obligatory. Neither the pastor nor kepala desa could be moved to change that decision. When the Martinen guards return from their mission, part of the general story they usually tell is of seeing Labobar thieves disappearing from the site just as they had arrived at Babawan on the previous Monday. Martinen also say that it is dangerous to be alone in these waters. Unless several men dive together they say they are likely to be robbed, or even

j ( 1 J -j J i

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Harald Beyer Brock

u P'? ‘ "’sn working theywaited regard to as to! ? th fr°"’ *0 Labobar pirates. together But nobody involve the police or military in this ongoing dispute. '**" T"“* '*«’ “ttled by deTth o^m?of th^'’ ? " i" ‘ho sXmai? Armed combats have ceased, but land disputes □UH 1 cinain.

'

the°v?nX"‘’?' « Makatian, a small delegation arrived in bv Aha?® “> ‘*'0 north. The delegation was led stato? f ’o™ rumoured that the visitors’ mission was not simply for social purposes. On Sunday Makatian’s pastor informed his sermon that the people of Abat claimed he right to cultivate land that Matinen regarded as. their own. The pastor urged he Villagers to remain passive and on no account to resort to weapons in order

th

P?r P“'°r declared that there wre documents that clearly showed the

forth o h-? °f Makatian. But this revelation brought forth only bitter protests, especially from the older members of The congregation who did not understand how the Church could own this land nor ment 1 ' “i documents that -the pastor had "boned. In general it was a furious congregation that left church that Sunday b?th th? f ? M">mon were not appreciably calmed by the information that both the kepala desa and the pastor would leave for Saumlaki to sort out the p oblem in cooperation with the camat. An old man grunted that there was little bm f?om K?i®r°" ? matters since, after all, he was not a Matinen but from Kei (an island in the far eastern part of the archipelago).

*■

all §“oNs ™ traditions are threatened from Modern times have influenced social relations within the village of Makatian

schools emphasise knowledge unknown to the pupils’ parents and grandparents-

aJ

nr«nr y-- '*8°’ peop'e ?ay. ? atou? hroirt remind each er about the old days. They recount important events that took place when they were young; they speak about how proud they once used to be how fierce m combat and how skilled at hunting. As the night wears on, they become merry to?v oft' “PPortunities and r fl -®? u hefore retiring to their homes to ho'h new and old, emerge while the elders drink, but few solutions are found to bring them to an end. Times have indeed changed they '*“* ““J” punishment from Lord Jesus, if you want to know about the past, about our traditions and our way of

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life, you must drink sopi with the old people”, 1 was told. “When we are sober, we forget about the past. Only when we drink sopi can we endure to remember.” Even gender role relations are threatened. The young generation and outsiders (such as the teachers and the pastor) do not respect the traditional norms that once regulated behaviour between the sexes. While 1 visited Makatian the kepala desa arranged a feast to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the establishment of democracy among the Matinen. At first 1 was puzzled by the fact that the members of many households that I knew to have received invitations did not show up. After numerous speeches in praise of democracy

PI. 14. Transporting coconuts to Makatian

and the singing of gospel songs, delicious food and lots of sopi were served. Then somebody produced a tape recorder and modem tunes filled the night air. It was time for dancing; the pastor and one of the teachers were the first to step onto the dance floor. I was asked to join them, but hestitated. Then I discovered that few of my own age, except people from other communities, danced. After a while an old man came up to me and asked, since I was not dancing, whether I did not like the women of Makatian. I returned the question and asked why he himself did not dance. The old man did not answer, so I asked if it would be correct for me to join in, since I was married and had children at home. At first he looked at me with surprise, but then confirmed that indeed I should not dance. “This is for the youth; there are other occasions when married people

Harald Beyer Brock

J

dance, but this is not the time,” he told me. When I observed those on the floor that night, 1 noticed that even young, recently married men and women from Makatian refrained from dancing. The following morning several people complimented me for paying heed to the old man’s advice. “Our traditions are threatened from all directions,” they said.

REFERENCES

et al. Ethnic Groups of Insular Southeast Asia. Volume I: Indonesia, Andaman Islands, and Madagascar. New Haven; Human Relation Area Files Press.

LEBAR. Frank M, 1972

MCKINNON, Susan 1987

The House Altars of Tanimbar: Abstraction and Ancestral Presence.

Bulletin of the Association of the Friends of the Barbier-Mueller Museum 1:3-16. 1988

Tanimbar Boats. In

. Asia,

Islands and Ancestors: Indigenous Styles of Southeast

Douglas Newton and Jean Paul Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pp. 152-67.

Barbier,

eds.

New

York:

CONTENTS OF PREVIOUS NUMBERS NUMBER 1 (1982) STUDIES OF ETHNIC MINORITY PEOPLES • Anthony R. Walker, ed.

Editor’s Introduction

The Mirek: Islamized Indigenes of Northwestern Sarawak—Part One Tunku Zainah Tunku Ibrahim Bolo Agriculture and Subsistence Production in Upland Mindoro: The Case of the Buhid Mangyan Violeia Lopez-Gonzaga Jah Hut Musical Culture: Context and Content Marie-Andree Couillard. M. Elizabeth Cardoza and Margaret R. Martinez American Perceptions of Hmong Ethnicity: A Study of Hmong Refugees in Missoula, Montana Susanne Bessac and Frank B. Bessac Economic Systems and Ethnic Relations in Northern Thailand William Y. Dessaint and Alain Y. Dessaint

Basic Themes in Akha Culture Paul W. Lewis Lahu Nyi (Red Lahu) Village Officials and their Ordination Ceremonies Anthony R. Walker The Meithei of Manipur and their Rajput Affiliations: A Study in CulturalHistory Kamalesh Guha A Lun Dayeh Engagement Negotiation B.Crain

NUMBER 2 (1983) STUDIES IN CHINESE FOLK RELIGION IN SINGAPORE AND MALAYSIA John. R. Clammer, ed. Editor’s Introduction Chinese Spirit Mediums in Singapore: An Ethnographic Study Ju Shi Huey Chinese Divination Choong Ket Che . The Sam Poh Neo Neo Keramat: A Study of a Baba Chinese Temple Cecilia Ng Slew Hua

170

Ideology, Authority and Conflict in a Chinese Religious Movement in West Malaysia RaymondL.M. Lee andS.E. Ackerman Automatic Writing in Singapore Ruth-Inge Heinze Postscript; Chinese Religious Studies Today Harry Parkin Confucianism as Folk Religion in Singapore; A Note Leo Juat Beh and John Clammer NUMBER 3 (1984) ETHNICITY AND LOCAL POETICS IN MALAYSIASIX CASE STUDIES Tan Chee Beng, ed. Editor’s Introduction

Sea and Shore People: Ethnicity and Ethnic Interaction in Southeastern Sabah Clifford Sather Elements of Ethnic Ranking in Urban Malay Society M. Jocelyn Armstrong Native but Not Bumiputera: Crisis and Complexity in the Political Status of the Kelantan Thais After Independence Roger Kershaw

Chitty Melaka: Hindus, ‘Indians’ or Marginal Malaysians? David Yearns Kin Networics and Baba Identity Tan Chee Beng Old Antagonisms, New Rivalries: Politics in a Rural Malay Community ShamsulA.B. NUMBER 4 (1985) STUDIES OF RESOURCE UTILIZATION Anthony R. Walker, ed.

Editor’s Introduction

Resource Utilization at Miang Tuu, A Village on Bonerate Island in the Flores Sea Harald Beyer Broch The Diversified Economy of the Orang Kanaq of Southeastern Johor, Malaysia Omar bin Abdul The Movement of Lahu Hill People towards a Lowland Lifestyle in North Thail^d: A Study of Three Villages Peter W.C:Hoare

171

Opium: Its Cultivation and Use in a Lahu Nyi (Red Lahu) Village Community in North Thailand Anthony R. Walker Plough Agriculture and Cash Crop Production in Upland Mindoro: The Case of the Buhid Mangyan Violeta Lopez-Gomaga Boat Crews and Fishing Fleets: The Social Organization of Maritime Labour among the Bajau Laut of Southeastern Sabah Clifford Sather The Mirek: Islamized Indigenes of Northwestern Sarawak—Part Two Tunku Zainah Tunku Ibrahim NUMBER 5 (1986) STUDIES OF RELIGIONS WORLDVIEWS Anthony R. Walker, ed.

Editor’s Introduction The Mlabri People of Northern Thailand: Social Organization and Supernatural Beliefs Jesper Trier The Religious Life of the Yao People of Northern Thailand: Some Introductory Remarks Chob Kacha-Ananda Transformations Of Buddhism in the Religious Ideas and Practices of a Non­ Buddhist Hill People: The Lahu Nyi of the Northern Thai Uplands Anthony R. Walker Religious Syncretism among the Buddhist Chakma of Southeastern Bangladesh Md. Habibur Rahman The Besisi and their Religion: An Introduction to the People, the Beliefs and the Ritual Practices of an Aboriginal Community of Coastal Selangor, Malaysia Satkuna Mathur The Mirek: Islamized Indigenes' of Northwestern Sarawak—Part Three Tunku Zainah Tunku Ibrahim NUMBER 6 (1987) STUDIES IN URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY John Ctammer, ed.

Editor’s Introduction Urban Anthropology in Southeast Asia: A Brief Overview John Clammer Mechanical and Organic Solidarity in Bangkok Richard A. O'Connor

172

Fieldwork and Face-Work in Urban Malaysia Raymond L.M. Lee The Role of Christian Churches in the Integration of Southeast Asian Migrants in Toronto Judith Nagata

De Jiao: A Study of an Urban Chinese Religion in Thailand Kazuo Yoshihara Cities and Migrants in Southeast Asia: A Case Study of Minangkabau Migrants in Jakarta Tsziyoshi Kato NUMBER 7 (1988) FUTHER STUDIES OF RELIGIONS AND WORLD VIEWS Anthony R. Walker, ed. Editor’s Introduction

The Spirit of Laws: A First Presentation of Data on the “Customary Laws” of the Indochinese JOrai People Jacques Dournes Lisu World View Alain Y. Dessaint

Exorcising the Jaw and Meh Spirits: Three Lahu Nyi (Red Lahu ) Ritual Texts from North Thailand Anthony R. Walker Hxak Hmub: An Introduction' to an Antiphonal Myth Cycle of the Miao in Southeast Guizhou Mark Bender

The Garo of Bangladesh: Religion, Ritual and World View Kibriaul Khaleque

Meri’Anak Mandf-. The Ritual First Bathing of Infants among the Iban Clifford Sather Apes and Dugongs: Common Mythological Themes in Diverse Southeast Asian Communities Gregory Forth

Review- Article: A Collection of Research Papers on the Tai Lue of Chiang Kham, Northern Thailand Ngampit Jagacinski

NUMBER 8 (1989) BETWEEN WORLDS:'STUDIES OF SACRED ELITES ’ Tong Chee Kiong and Anne L. Schiller, eds. Editorial Note. Guest Editors’ Introduction

173

Shamans and Seminarians: Ngaju Dayak Ritual Specialists and Religious Change in Central Kalimantan

Anne L. Schiller Parallel Worlds: Healers and Witches in a Balinese Village Abby Ruddick Versions of Eternal Truth: Ulama and Religious Dissenters in Kedah Malay Society ’ Sharifah Zaleha Syed Hassan Child Diviners: Religious Knowledge and Power among the Chinese in

Singapore. Tong Chee Kiong Locating Religious Specialists in Singapore’s Hindu Nexuses Vineeta Sinha Creating the Experience of a Sacred Elite: An Examination of the Concept of Shiji in Southern Ryukyuan Religion Yoshinobu Oia NUMBER 9 (1990) THE PRESERVATION OF TRADITION: STUDIES OF CHINESE RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA Tan Chee-Beng, ed. Editor’s Introduction Chinese Religion and Local Chinese Communities in Malaysia Tan Chee-Beng The Cult of Mazu in Peninsular Malaysia Soo Khin Wah Religious Syncretism among the Chinese in the Philippines Teresita Ang See and Go Bon Juan Chinese Clan Associations and Religious Activites in Penang Soh fVei Nee Death Rituals and Ideas of Pollution among Chinese in Singapore Tong Chee Kiong Agama Buddha Maitreya: A Modem Buddhist Sect in Indonesia lem Broyvn Pavilioned in Splendour: Interregional and Intrasectarian Dynamics in a Singaporean Planchette Society Richard Fox Young

174

NUMBER 10 (1994) RICE IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN MYTH AND RITUAL Anthony R.Walker, ed. Ethnography in the

btudy 01 Myths of Origin B.J. Terwiel The Traditional Rice Culture of the Lahu (Including Kucong) of Southwest vnlltd £«/ Huihao

^“North Thailand

”

Anthony R. Walker ^'"‘’'‘'Miioriivp’ f Cycle among Selected Ethnic Minority Peoples of Yunnan Province, Southwest China Yang Yiociang The One-Sided One; Iban Rice Myths, Agricultural Ritual and Notions of Ancestry Clifford Sather Cuddling the Rice: Myth and Ritual in the Agricultural Year of the Rembong of Northern Manggarai, Indonesia ® Maribelh Erb The Rice Scattering Ritual in Austronesia; Instances from the Nage of Central Flores (Eastern Indonesia) Gregory Forth

B89065622151A

NOTES TO CONTRIBUTORS Each number of Contributions is devoted to a specific theme. Therefoie, before dispatching a manuscript, authors are requested to submit the title and brief synopsis to the editors.

While the editors are determined to maintain for Contributions the standards of professional anthropology, they welcome papers from anyone with extensive knowledge of the peoples of the region, provided the author submits a manuscript that conforms to the normal standards of international scholarship. All manuscripts should be in double-spaced typescript; they must be written in English, following British usage (unless prior arrangement for translation from an Asian language has been made with the editors). Contributors must follow, exactly, the style of presentation to be found in the articles in this issue of Contributions. Footnotes are to be typed, also with double spacing, on separate sheets of paper and must be numbered consecutively throughout the _ • article. Authors will receive twenty free offprints and one copy of the complete issue of Contributions in which their article appears.