Exploring orang asli culture
The orang asli Museum in Jalan Gombak, 24km away from Batu Caves, is an impressive and informative centre showcasing the history, customs and traditions as well as the social and economic development of the peninsula's early inhabitants.
Managed by the Orang Asli Affairs Department (Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli), the museum displays models and exhibits highlighting the lifestyle of the tribes including their dwellings, personal adornment, arts, costumes, musical instruments, hunting and agricultural tools, animal traps and traditional medicine.
The museum, fully air-conditioned, is a three-level building that was completed at a cost of RM3.3mil in 1998.
On the lower level is a mini-theatre where briefings are given to visiting officials and schoolchildren. It has seat 100 and is equipped with an audio-visual system.
The orang asli population in the peninsula is divided into three main ethnic groups – Negrito, Senoi and Proto-Malay - of which there are six tribes each.
A map shows areas where the three main groups are distributed. The map is near a small cannon and wireless set from the Senoi Praaq, a term that means fighting people.
This refers to the two battalions of the Police Field Force whose members are almost exclusively orang asli and were originally formed in 1957 for jungle warfare against communists.
Other exhibits include models of bamboo and bark dwellings, bamboo rafts and dugout canoes and utensils like long wooden spoons and forks.
A section also displays various hunting and fishing equipment like blowpipes, rattan squirrel traps, underground mousetraps and bamboo spears.
Here, fishing equipment of varying shapes and sizes ranging from big “Heart Traps” to smaller crab baskets are also found.
Equally interesting is a section showcasing how crops are protected from pigs or wild boars by planting sharpened bamboo spikes into the ground on the inner side of fences that enclose plots of cropland.
In the arts section, hand-tooled wooden sculptures from the Jah-Hut tribe in the Krau Game Reserve, Pahang and wooden facemasks made by the Mah-Meri tribe of Carey Island in Selangor can be found.
There are also music instruments like a two-stringed fiddle called rebab, favoured by the Proto-Malays, drums, violins, gongs and a jaw harp known as genggong, a favourite among the Temiar tribe.
Of particular interest here are the bamboo layer flutes used by the Semai and Temiar tribes to produce melodies when wooing women
Other accessories such as rattan caps, bamboo combs and hairpins as well as mengkuang handbags are interesting enough, but what catches the eye are the bark shirts and loincloth.
The traditional clothing of deep jungle orang asli from ages past has been made from bark of trees including the terap (artocarpus elasticus).
On the upper floor, there are small models of graves and structures like the Sangkak and a Sewang house, used traditionally to treat the ill and for ceremonial events.
Two major sections on this floor have agricultural tools like wooden pickaxes, antan (rice pounder) and mengkuang padi baskets and domestic tools including a wooden “lighter” to start fires, bottle gourds and bamboo cups on display.
Another building within the compound houses a small library where students and academicians conduct research on the orang asli. However, permission has to be obtained before reading material can be taken out.
There is also a small handicraft centre with items made by the orang asli such as masks and wooden sculptures from the Mah-Meri tribe available for sale. Other items include the mengkuang baskets called changor, made by the Jakun tribe, rattan bird traps, bamboo blow pipes, traditional medicinal herbs, massage oil and honey from wild bees.
According to museum spokesman Zakaria Sulaiman, about 2,500 people visit the centre every month. There is no entrance charge and visiting hours are from 9am to 5pm from Saturday to Thursday. The museum is closed on Friday. For details, call 03-6189 2113 ext 216 (museum) or 03-2161 0577 (Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli).
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