Jakun people

Jakun people
Orang Ulu
Jakun blowgun hunting party, 1906.
Total population
31,577 (2010)[1]
Regions with significant populations
 Malaysia (Johor and Pahang)
Languages
Jakun language, Malay language
Religion
Traditional religion, Chinese folk religion, Christianity, Islam
Related ethnic groups
Temoq people, Malay people

Jakun people or Orang Ulu / Orang Hulu (meaning, "people of the upstream") are an ethnic group recognised as Orang Asli (indigenous people) of the Malay Peninsula in Malaysia.

The Malaysian government officially distinguishes 18 different ethnicity of the Orang Asli group, uniting them into three categories namely the Negrito (Semang), Senoi and aboriginal Malays (Proto-Malay). The Jakun people belong to the third of them. They are the largest group of the Orang Asli; in the Proto-Malay division, and the second-largest Orang Asli group overall after the Semai.

It should be noted that in the past, the name Jakun is used as a term that encompasses all native Malays, including the Temuan people, Orang laut (Orang Seletar, Orang Kuala) and Orang Kanaq. At the same time they were divided into two groups, the actual Jakun people living in the interiors and the Orang laut living by the coastal areas.[2]

In terms of anthropological characteristics, the Proto-Malay differs from other Orang Asli groups. Just like the Malay people; they belonged to the southern Mongoloid, where they are noticeably higher in height and have a lighter skin.

They are closely related to the Malay people and are probably a branch of the Proto-Malay, whom the 19th century researcher A. R. Wallace called "savage Malays".[3] They are also related to the Orang Laut, another indigenous group that lives along the coasts and depends on fishing.

Ordinary Malaysians know little about the Orang Asli and the Jakun people in particular. Traditionally, they are perceived as backward and primitive tribes, and the very name itself, "jakun" carries a derogatory connotation meaning "slaves".[4] The attitude of the Malay people toward the Jakun people is ambiguous. On one hand, they consider them to be benighted people and dabbles in black magic. On the other hand, the Jakun people are part of the Proto-Malay and is evidenced that the Proto-Malay have always been inhabiting the country and is therefore a justification of the Malay rights and the special status of the indigenous people of Malaysia.

Population

The Jakun people are the second largest ethnic group among the Orang Asli and the largest among the Proto-Malay people group. They are numbered at 31,577 people as of 2010.[1]

The population dynamics of the Jakun people are as the following:-

Year 1960[5] 1965[5] 1969[5] 1974[5] 1980[5] 1991[6] 1993[6] 1996[5] 2000[7] 2003[7] 2004[8] 2010[1]
Population 6,786 7,331 8,995 8,719 9,605 17,066 16,637 16,637 21,484 27,448 27,448 31,577

Distribution of the Jakun population by states (1996, JHEOA statistic):-[5]

StateJakun peopleTotal Orang AsliPercentage of Jakun people
Pahang13,11333,74138.9 %
Johor3,3537,37945.4 %
Selangor15710,4721.5 %
Negeri Sembilan146,1880.2 %
Total16,63792,52918.0 %

Demographic data obtained during fieldwork among the Jakun people near Chini Lake, showed that the local population was relatively young people aged 30 to 40 years (30%) outnumbering the age group of 40 to 50 years (15%) and the largest age group was the 5 to 12 years old. There were also more women than men. Most of the respondents were married, the size of the family ranged from 8 to 12 members.[9]

Appearance

The Jakuns are taller than the other aboriginal peoples of the Malay Peninsula, the Semang and Sakai tribes. Jakun people typically have olive-brown to dark copper skin color. Some have intermarried with ethnic Malays or Chinese. Those who marry or assimilated with Malays usually adhere or largely convert to Islam; families with Chinese ancestors may practise Chinese folk religion in addition to Jakun customs.

Language

Jakuns speak Jakun language, a Malayic language of the Malayo-Polynesian languages group, closely related to Malay.[10] Perhaps it should be considered as one of the archaic dialects of the Malay language. It does not have its own written language, is gradually replaced by Malay and is under threat of disappearance.[11]

The Malaysian radio on the Asyik FM channel broadcasts separate Jakun programs daily.[12]

History

A group of Jakun people at Blanja, Perak Tengah District, Perak, June 1874.

It is traditionally believed that the ancestors of Jakun people, like other Proto-Malay people, arrived in the Malay Peninsula from the southern Chinese province of Yunnan some 5,000 years ago. The ancestors of the other two groups of Orang Asli were living here are the Semang and Senoi people.

The first Malay people arrived on the peninsula much later, probably around 1,500-2,000 years ago, and this was due to the expansion of the Malay empire of Srivijaya, and with its center located on the island of Sumatra. Initially, the Malay people initially established trade relations with the local population, but later began to dominate the land. The Malay people often mixed with the Jakun people, and the aborigines became part of the Malay population. Those indigenous people who opposed the outsiders were eventually moved to the interior regions and retained a significant part of their traditional culture.

For a period of long time the Jakun people continued to live mostly in isolation from the outside world.

Jakun people living along the Endau River in Johor recall with horror how during the Second World War, pillars of Japanese soldiers were passing their jungle.[5]

The active penetration of the state government and individuals into traditional Jakun areas began in the mid-1980s, and intensified in the 1990s. In 1987, there was a land conflict between local Jakun settlers and the other settlers in Pasir Asam, near Kota Tinggi, Johor. The state government was favouring the settlers and offered the Jakun settlers to move to a new settlement specially built for the indigenous people.[6]

The state government regards the Orang Asli as poor and marginalized ethnic minorities that are far from center of developments. Their socioeconomic activity, which is closely linked to the surrounding natural resources, is considered to be backward. For a better life, they are offered to move to permanent residence in villages based on the model of Malay peasants. As a result of the implementation of government programs under the resettlement scheme, most Jakun people were forced to leave their traditional villages and found themselves in specially constructed for them new state-owned so-called RPS (Rancangan Pengumpulan Semula, the "Regrouping Plan") sites whose settlers are provided with basic amenities. Although they were placed in new state-funded houses in already existing villages, the provision of amenities and infrastructure is noticeably lagging behind. Jungles that are cut down near Jakun villages were replaced with other commodity crop plantations that are not theirs, but the Jakun people still receive revenues from these plantations.

The resettlement of Jakun people to new settlements has often occurred in relation with some natural disasters. Such as the villagers of Selingkong and Meranti in Pekan District, Pahang moved here after a major flood in 1971.[13] Another group of Jakun people living in the jungles of Endau, left their native land through a cholera outbreak settled in the Segamat District and Kota Tinggi District in the state of Johor, as well as in Rompin District in the state of Pahang.[14]

Now their villages are far from the forest, they are deprived of their native environment, where they collected rattan, root crops, looked after their forest plants. This is also added with a significant depletion of the remaining natural resources.

There are areas of Jakun settlements that found themselves in the areas of attention in the tourism industry. Tourists are attracted primarily by "untouched nature" of the locals. A popular place for ecotourism, particularly Lake Chini, with its legend about the immersion of an ancient city of Khmer Empire under water. However, due to the depletion of the local natural resources, the flow of tourists has decreased. In 2007, they managed to attract only 17,000 people.[5]

Traditional economy

In the past, the Jakun people were hunter-gatherers. The nutritional diet are based on fish and wild animals. Animals such as wild boars, indigenous deer species (pelandok, kancil and kijang), lizards, monkeys and other small animals are hunted. Blowguns (sumpit) are employed in hunting; which is usually made of bamboo tubing with sharpened tip bamboo darts that are pre-dipped in poison. Jakun hunters can shoot their blowgun with deadly precision of 30 meters.[15]

Cage traps (bubu) made of bamboo and bounded by rocks are used to catch fish in rivers or streams. The type and shape of the cage trap depends on the size and type of fish they are going to catch.[16]

Jungle produce such as wild fruits, rattan, wood, rubber, wax, camphor and herbs are gathered. A significant portion of these produce are then exchanged for other commodities.

In some areas, the Jakun people also engage in primitive agriculture. They had small farms in the jungle. For this purpose, the land was cleared by slash-and-burn method. Rice and tuber-based crops like sweet potatoes are grown. After two seasons of land cultivation had passed, they would move on to another plot of land and start everything again from the beginning. They will only returned to the old plot of land after many years.

However, most Jakun people prefer not to engage in farming but to exchange foods from the Malay and Chinese people with their jungle produce by barter. Thus they also received clothing, tobacco, and areca nut palm.

In using natural resources, the Jakun people must take into account the ownership of specific communities in a certain territory. Although they do not physically demarcate it, everyone knew well the limits of the possessions of their neighboring communities. People hunted animals, caught fish, cultivated farms, or collected grass only within their own territory. In addition, they do not take anything superfluous in regards to using natural resources, because they understood that the jungle should not be harmed.

The traditional house of the Jakun people is hut made of bamboo flooring, tree bark or wooden plank walls and Nipah roofing.[17]

In the past, Jakun people wore loincloth around the hips made from the bark of trees with their own hands and did not buy clothes.[18]

Beliefs

Most Jakun people adhere to their animistic beliefs that are closely related to their natural surroundings. They believe that not only people have souls but animals, plants, and even inanimate objects (mountains, hills, settlements, rivers, rocks, caves, and so on) as well.

The personality of Orang Asli is closely linked to the nature and the land on which they live. It is the basis of their material and spiritual being, as well as the source of their physical and emotional nourishment. Jakun people do not consider themselves as a higher being higher than animals. They speak with animals too, as if they can understand them. There is great respect for every living thing, from the big elephant to the tiny cicada.

Jakun people are very superstitious, as they believe that misfortune awaits due to violations of rules established by nature for people.

Jakun people believe that the forces that "live" in natural objects are so powerful that they can bring about inconceivable things at first glance. In their beliefs, one could only just touch a leaf of a certain plant, and it can heal a sick person or make one crave a certain desire, because that leaf has the power of the spirit. For that reason, the Jakun people believe in the strength found in traditional medicine based on herbs and roots that they find in the wild.

Lifestyle

Jakun teenagers playing pick-up sticks in a community centre.

Before the colonial era, many Jakuns would enter the jungle on a seasonal basis to harvest forest products. Most Jakun communities in the modern age have a settled lifestyle and stay in permanent villages practising agriculture. Like many other Orang Asli groups, however, they suffer from inadequate access to public schools, which can be far away from the communities.

Racism

Non-Orang Asli Malay language speakers occasionally use the word "Jakun" as an insult for an unsophisticated person. This is considered by some as derogatory and racist.[19]

Settlement areas

The area circled in red indicates the location of the Jakun people in southern Peninsula Malaysia.

Jakuns are mostly located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, in the interior of the southwest Pahang and north Johor[20] All Jakun settlements are located near the jungle, and their population is more or less dependent on jungle resources. The geography of this region varies from a wet swampy area to dense tropical jungles. The local climate is determined by high humidity and seasonal monsoons.

Jakun live in villages belonging to different categories. This development is the Rancangan Pengumpulan Semula (RPS, "Regrouping Plan") settlement, a regrouping scheme for undeveloped settlements and those that are developing.[21] In RPS settlements, all residents have individual house, built by the government where they are provided with electricity and water supply, communication facilities, public halls, shops, schools, children's and medical institutions, asphalted roads are laid for them.[22] People from different settlements located in or near the jungle were moved to such villages. Much of the people still continue to live in old settlements. Usually there is no electricity there, water is taken from natural sources, and there are only a few houses built out of durable building materials. Access to these villages are through earthen roads and jungle paths.

Some of the settlements that the Jakun people are located includes:-

References

  1. 1 2 3 Kirk Endicott (2015). Malaysia's Original People: Past, Present and Future of the Orang Asli. NUS Press. ISBN 978-99-716-9861-4.
  2. ↑ "Jakun people". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
  3. ↑ Hugh Chisholm (1911). The Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information, Volume 15. Encyclopaedia Britannica.
  4. ↑ Johannes Nicolaisen & Jens Yde (1986). Folk: dansk etnografisk tidsskrift, Volumes 28-29. Dansk etnografisk forening. p. 216.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Nobuta Toshihiro (2009). "Living On The Periphery: Development and Islamization Among Orang Asli in Malaysia" (PDF). Center for Orang Asli Concerns. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  6. 1 2 3 Colin Nicholas (2000). The Orang Asli and the Contest for Resources. Indigenous Politics, Development and Identity in Peninsular Malaysia (PDF). Center for Orang Asli Concerns & International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. ISBN 978-87-90730-15-4. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  7. 1 2 "Basic Data / Statistics". Center for Orang Asli Concerns. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  8. ↑ Alberto Gomes (2004). Modernity and Malaysia: Settling the Menraq Forest Nomads. Routledge. ISBN 978-11-341-0076-7.
  9. ↑ A. Habibah; J. Hamzah; I. Mushrifah (September 2010). "Sustainable Livelihood of the Community in Tasik Chini Biosphere Reserve: the Local Practices" (PDF). Journal of Sustainable Development, Vol. 3, No. 3. Retrieved 2018-09-27.
  10. ↑ Kamila Ghazali (2010). "National Identity and Minority Languages". What is the UN Academic Impact?. United Nations Publications. ISBN 978-92-110-1231-6.
  11. ↑ "Jakun". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-09-27.
  12. ↑ Geoffrey Benjamin (July 2014). "The Aslian languages of Malaysia and Thailand: an assessment" (PDF). Language Documentation and Description. ISSN 1740-6234. Retrieved 2018-09-27.
  13. ↑ Rosta Harun; Azizah Sulong; Yip Hin Wai; Tengku Hanidza Ismail; Mohd Kamil Yusoff; Latifah Abdul Manaf; Hafizan Juahi (January 2010). "Impacts of Forest Changes on Indigenous People Livelihood in Pekan District, Pahang". Special Issue, 3, Environmentasia: 156–159. doi:10.14456/ea.2010.55. Retrieved 2018-10-01.
  14. ↑ Kamila Ghazali; Sakina Suffian; Khatijah Shamsudin (2010). A Jakun Sense of Identity. PPZ. Koleksi Persidangan. OCLC 969588228.
  15. ↑ A. Terry Rambo (1984). "Chapter 15: Orang Asli Interactions With The Malaysian Tropical Rain Forest System" (PDF). University of Hawai'i at Manoa. p. 244. Retrieved 2018-10-11.
  16. ↑ Siti Aminah Mohd Sam & Seow Ta Wee (2013). "Practice Cultural of Orang Asli Jakun at Kampung Peta" (PDF). University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia. Retrieved 2018-10-11.
  17. ↑ Mustaffa Omar; Zanisah Man; Ishak Yussof (January 2011). "Strategi Tradisional Komuniti Jakun Tasik Chini, Pahang Mengurus Sumber Semulajadi Secara Lestari". Jurnal e-Bangi, Volume 6, Number 2. p. 241. ISSN 1823-884x Check |issn= value (help). Retrieved 2018-10-11.
  18. ↑ Thomas Athol Joyce & Northcote Whitridge Thomas, ed. (1911). Women of All Nations: A Record of Their Characteristics, Habits, Manners, Customs and Influence, Volume 1. Cassell. p. 190. OCLC 314475794.
  19. ↑ R. Elangaiyan (2007). "Foundation for Endangered Languages". Vital voices: endangered languages and multilingualism : proceedings of the Tenth FEL Conference, CIIL, Mysore, India, 25-27 October, 2006. Central Institute of Indian Languages. ISBN 978-09-538-2488-5.
  20. ↑ Origins, Identity, and Classification, Centre for Orang Asli Concerns
  21. ↑ "Structured Settlements Development Programme". Department of Orang Asli Development. Retrieved 2018-09-25.
  22. ↑ "The Development Of The Orang Asli Community In Peninsular Malaysia: The Way Forward". Ministry of Rural and Regional Development Malaysia. 2005. Retrieved 2018-09-25.
  23. 1 2 3 Rokiah Abdullah (23 December 2016). "Orang Asli menang kes saman RM37 juta". Utusan. Retrieved 2017-04-10.
  24. ↑ Dinesh Kumar (29 September 2015). "The last guardians of the jungle". The Malay Mail Online. Retrieved 2017-04-10.
  25. ↑ Loh Foon Fong & Kathleen Ann Kili (4 June 2015). "Orang asli homes torn down". The Star. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
  26. ↑ Kathleen Ann Kili (29 September 2015). "Malaysia: Orang asli are highlighting their plight on social media". Asia One. Retrieved 2017-04-10.
  27. ↑ Maria J. Dass (18 November 2016). "Can a dying lake in Pahang be revived?". Star2. Retrieved 2017-04-10.
  28. ↑ Yusliza Yakimir Abd Talib (28 June 2016). "Berbuka bersama orang asli". Harian Metro. Retrieved 2017-04-10.

Notes

  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Jakuns". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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