Forest Reserves as Frontiers of Indigeneity: Semai Orang Asli Investments of Work, Cultural Use, and Identity in the Bukit Tapah Forest Reserve

ABSTRACT

At less than one percent of Malaysia’s total population, the Orang Asli (Peninsular Malaysia’s Indigenous Peoples) lack political clout; state nonrecognition of their land rights constitutes a fundamental reason for the economic and social ills faced by their communities. This article examines the protection of Semai Orang Asli customary territories from a cultural heritage perspective. Drawing on a study of traditional place-names and oral history, it describes how forests, other than existing as the Semai ancestral domain, continue to be the lifeblood of Semai culture and economic production. The paper examines state-owned forest reserves and the role these play in Semai cultural continuity, including traditional livelihoods such as agroforestry and swidden agriculture. Forest reserves are on the frontier of resource extraction and forest conservation in Malaysia; however, because these comprise the customary territories of Orang Asli, they also signify the frontier of forest-dependent Indigeneity. The paper weaves a narrative of Semai forest dependence, and concludes with a discussion of the prospects for a World Heritage Cultural Landscape (WHCL) designation as a possible avenue for protecting Semai customary territories.

KEYWORDS:

• Semai
• Orang Asli
• forest reserves
• Indigenous livelihoods
• heritage

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the organizers of the 2022 Southeast Asian Frontiers (SEAF) workshop for the chance to present and obtain feedback on our ideas. An anonymous reviewer and the editor are thanked for their generous and helpful comments. This paper is dedicated to all Semai and especially to the memory of Tok Baluuq, Kin Padiil, Bah Tebu, Tok Isap, Ajok Atoor, Ajok Guni, as well as Bah Ayur, who left this world too soon and whose love of family and lengriiq lives on in his three young sons.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 JAKOA 2018.

2 Dentan 1975.

3 Gomes 1988, 100–101.

4 For a similar point, see Lima and Kmoch 2021.

5 Personal communication, Bah Ayur, November 9, 2010.

6 Manokaran 1992.

7 Heikkilä 2018.

8 In its most recent report, the Perak State Forestry Department estimated the area of the forest reserve to be 61,131 hectares. See Jabatan Perhutanan Negeri Perak 2022.

9 Heikkilä 2018; Heikkilä 2014; Edo, Williams-Hunt and Dentan 2009; Gomes 2004, 1988; Edo 2002, 2000, 1998; Benjamin 2002; Endicott 1983; Dentan 1968, 1999. Both local and Sumatran Malays were perpetrators in the enslavement of Orang Asli, the former, likely occurring for centuries and the latter, during British rule (until slavery was abolished by the British in the 1880s). In general, Orang Asli enslavement was present at least since the formation of the pre-modern Malay state (see Benjamin 2000, 31), during which period trade with Europeans began to intensify. The rise of the Malacca Sultanate (c.1400-1511) and the establishment of permanent British strongholds on the Malay Peninsula (in the late 1700s and early 1800s) are milestones that mark the pre-modern era (see Drabble 2000). Firsthand accounts from Semai were collected by a number of colonial government servants and ethnographers, including Miklucho-Mackay (1879), Maxwell (1880, 1890), Annadale and Robinson (1903), Wray (1903), Skeat and Blagden (1906),Cerruti (1908) and Evans (1923), who all reported on the remote, secluded, and scattered nature of Semai settlements as a defense against being hunted down and enslaved by Malays (cited in Endicott 1983 and Gomes 2004). These writers also provide accounts of how the Semai were driven off their ancestral lands from the time of earliest contact with Malays. Gomes claims that “Malay slave-raiding on Semai could have taken place any time from the sixteenth century onwards” (2004, 29). This seems reasonable given that the state of Perak began to be settled in large numbers by Malays in that century, following the establishment of the Perak Sultanate. Dentan (2000), who recorded oral histories of slave raids, reports that in the distant past Semai communities were found even along the mouth of the Perak River until they were attacked by Malay slave-raiders. This has been confirmed by Juli Edo (1998), who compiled an ethnohistory of Semai communities inhabiting a different region of the Semai homeland.

10 See Joseph 2008.

11 Harper 1997.

12 See Heikkilä 2016; Dentan 1999.

13 Williams-Hunt 1988, 36.

14 Williams-Hunt 1988, 93.

15 Subramaniam and Endicott 2022, 99–100.

16 This infamous act empowers JAKOA to control the lives of Orang Asli by dispossessing them, relocating them, converting them into Malay-Muslim peasants, and finally, selling or leasing their customary territories to enrich state coffers.

17 Subramaniam and Endicott 2022, 99.

18 See Dentan and Ong 1995, 77–78.

19 Dentan and Ong (1995, 79) underscore the tokenistic nature of this status: “getting land [enacted as an Aboriginal Reserve ] normally takes a good deal longer than growing an orchard … ”

20 Wook 2017.

21 Nicholas 2010.

22 Ibid.

23 Orang Asli self-determination aspirations do not imply secession from Malaysia but rather the tandem goal of Orang Asli reclaiming ownership and control over their customary territories and reestablishing their own cultural systems in their communities, including Indigenous governance structures (Nicholas, Engi, and Teh (2010, 94–95). Indigenous land titles are vital for exercising autonomy and control, which “is [the Orang Asli] manifestation of ‘self-determination.’” (ibid, 24). For a similar argument, see Morton and Baird 2019, 9.

24 Personal communication, Tok and Ajok Duni, December 29, 2011.

25 Cf. Jagger et al. 2022; Miller and Hajjar 2020; Nerfa, Rhemtulla and Zerriffi 2020; Shyamsundar, et al. 2020; Babulo et al. 2008; Li 2007; Angelsen and Wunder 2003.

26 Personal communication, Bah Anang, December 2, 2010.

27 See Heikkilä 2013 for a discussion of this.

28 Sayer 2011; Aiken and Leigh 2011; Li 2007; Castree 2004.

29 Dentan 1965.

30 Drabble 1991, 2.

31 Edo, Williams-Hunt and Dentan 2009.

32 Heikkilä 2018; Robarchek 1980.

33 Gomes 1998.

34 Personal communication, Bah Smail, December 13, 2011.

35 RPS refers to regroupment (rancangan pengumpulan semula) and resettlement (rancangan penempatan semula) programs. This acronym is used to refer to both programs, suggesting conflation. Both result in the removal of Orang Asli communities from their ancestral territories and engender drastic transformations to their physical, social, and economic wellbeing. These programs group together several independent, geographically distinct and, in certain cases, culturally dissimilar Orang Asli communities into one permanent village. The process presupposes first the dispossession and then the resettlement of different Orang Asli groups in another Orang Asli group’s customary territory. There is, consequently, a total dislocation of life for members of the incoming groups and the recipient community. For an exhaustive account of RPS programs, see Nicholas 2000. For more on land conversion instruments, see Dentan and Ong 1995; Williams-Hunt 1995.

36 Nicholas 1994, 80–82.

37 Ibrahim 2000; Dentan and Ong 1995; Williams-Hunt 1995; Talalla 1984.

38 Nor 1989.

39 Mohammed Denin 2022; Chu 2019; Ibrahim 2016; Gomes 2015; Nicholas 1994; Khor 1994.

40 Nicholas 2021, 49–55; Chu, The Star Malaysia, 30.4.2019.

41 The current exchange rate is RM 4.78 = $US 1.00.

42 See Kari et.al 2016; Lim 1997, 122-124; Krishnasamy 2018, 320.

43 Krishnasamy 2018, 140, 146. While Krishnasamy does not comment on the problem of income arrears in RPS programs, the problem recently has surfaced in the media. Cf. The Sun Malaysia, August 2, 2023; The Star Malaysia, April 24, 2019; Utusan Borneo, January 18, 2019; Utusan Borneo, November 19, 2018.

44 Krishnasamy 2018, 148.

45 JKOASM 2010.

46 Kari et al. 2016, 10, 12.

47 Cf. Aiken and Leigh 2015; Hamzah 2012; Williams-Hunt and Dentan 1999; Dentan and Ong 1995; Nicholas 1994.

48 Cf. Majid-Cooke and Johari 2019.

49 Personal communication, Bah Tony, August 24, 2012.

50 See UNESCO 2021, 20–23.

51 Nicholas 2007.

52 Heikkilä 2016; Heikkilä 2014; Dentan 1999; Williams-Hunt 1995.

53 Heikkilä 2018, 40.

54 See Moore 2010; Williams-Hunt 1948.

55 See Hill et al. 2011, 584, 586.

56 Hill et al. 2011; Lemelin and Bennett 2010.

57 See Disko 2016.

58 Gfeller 2013, 500–501.

59 Smith 2016.

60 McBryde cited in Gfeller 2013, 499.

61 Although beyond the scope of this article, the compatibility of other types of protected area mechanisms (e.g., RAMSAR sites, Biosphere Reserves and Geoparks) with Indigenous perspectives on biocultural conservation should be scrutinized. Many such mechanisms prioritize nature over culture or overshadow Indigenous landscape values by foregrounding a region’s mineral wealth. Cultural landscapes, on the other hand, “ are more closely linked to [Indigenous] landscape perspectives and an ethic of conservation based on sustainable development rather than wilderness preservation” (Lemelin and Bennett 2010, 174).

62 See e.g., Bain, Sunday Star-Times, 5.3.2023; Otago Times; 11.2.2023; Cameron 2016; Elder, Australian Geographic, 25.6.2020; Kunthear, Phnom Pehn Post, 21.3.2022; Beangstrom, DFA, 29.9.2017; Daily News, 14.7.2017; Cape Times, 12.7.2017.

63 Van Oers 2016, 312; Ndoro 2016, 398.

64 Ndoko 2016; Hill et al. 2011.

65 Pocock and Lilley 2017; Smith 2016. This is highly relevant, given that Indigenous heritage landscapes elsewhere in Malaysia such as Gunung Mulu National Park and Archaeological Heritage of the Lenggong Valley, have been designated World Heritage sites solely on the basis of their natural characteristics or prehistoric significance, without taking into account contemporay Indigenous perspectives. Yearly reports for Gunung Mulu National Park, for instance, cite the marginalization and exclusion of Indigenous people as “factors affecting the property” whereas the description and related documents for the Lenggong Valley heritage site are devoid of any references to Lanoh Orang Asli, whose ancestral lands comprise the site.

66 Koch and Gillespie 2022; Coombe and Baird 2016; Hill et al. 2011.

67 See Otago Times; 11.2.2023; Pocock and Lilley 2017, 184; Beangstrom, DFA, 29.09.2017; Daily News, 14.7.2017; Cape Times, 12.7.2017.

68 See Lemelin and Bennett 2010; Hill et al. 2011.

69 PLAN Malaysia (Bahagian Rancangan Pembangunan Pejabat Projek Zon Tengah), PLAN Malaysia Perak and Majlis Daerah Perak n.d.

70 See Majid-Cooke and Johari 2019.

71 Hill et al. 2011.

72 See Wardana 2022, 277, 279.

73 See Pocock & Lilley 2017, 176.

74 UNESCO 2021.

75 Pocock and Lilley 2017; Smith 2016; Hill et al. 2011.

76 Pocock and Lilley 2017; Ndoro 2016; Coombe and Baird 2016.

77 See Utusan Borneo, August 28, 2023; The Star Malaysia, July 24, 2022.

78 Ndoro 2016, 395.

79 Wardana 2022, 277.

80 Sen 1999.

81 Maru, Fletcher and Chewings 2012, 7.

82 See Wires and LaRose 2019; Middleton 2011; Brewer 2003.

83 Personal communication, Bah Mahat Akiya China, December 13, 2016.

84 Disko 2016, 361.

85 See sections on World Heritage Sites in UNESCO 2018.

86 UNESCO 2021, 7.

87 The concept is Gerald Vizenor’s (1999, vii); an amalgamation of ‘survival’ and ‘resistance’, survivance captures the sense of Orang Asli renunciations of “dominance, tragedy and victimry”, by continuing to live out their Indigeneity on their customary territories.

88 Gomes 2013; Tuhiwai-Smith 2004.

89 Baque 2020; Paul 2018.

90 Heikkilä and Williams-Hunt 2016; Hill et al. 2011.

91 To view some images of the Semai homeland, please visit https://medium.com/people-nature-landscapes/semai-country-an-indigenous-cultural-landscape-in-peninsular-malaysia-dd4a6c5686fe.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karen Heikkilä

Karen Heikkilä holds a Finnish Cultural Foundation postdoctoral scholarship. She is affiliated with the Orang Asli Archive and Department of Environmental and Sustainability Studies at Keene State College, and the Global Development Studies program at the University of Helsinki. Her post-doctoral research, involving ethnographic and archival data, seeks to understand Semai place history, particularly patterns of migration and settlement in the forest. She is currently examining the evolution of Semai land tenure and the formalization of conflict resolution institutions associated with land-sharing arrangements. Indigenous geographical knowledge and oral tradition continue to be focus areas for her, specifically in relation to Indigenous heritage documentation, cross-cultural comparisons, and for use in education.

Anthony Williams-Hunt

Anthony Williams-Hunt or Bah Tony is Semai and has roots in Bareh Ciik and the War nengriiq. After earning an economics degree from the University of Malaya, he worked in the banking sector for twenty-seven years before studying law. He was admitted to the Bar in 2010 and continues to defend Orang Asli communities in their quest for land and economic justice. Kenraak, the NGO he is part of, provides legal advice and support to Orang Asli communities, as well as community and self-development projects. He served as president of the Peninsular Malaysia Orang Asli Association from 1987 until 1991 and is currently a member of the Malaysian Bar Council’s Committee for Orang Asli Rights.