Orang Asli Contacts with the Malays, Portuguese and Dutch in Peninsular Malaya from 1400 to 1700

Asian Studies Review

Volumn 18, Issue 2, 1994, Pages 89-104

  Leary, John D ^a  

^a LA TROBE UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

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EID: 6044274879     PISSN: 10357823     EISSN: 14678403     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03147539408712999     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. P.D.R. Williams-Hunt, An Introduction to the Malay Aborigines (Kuala Lumpur: Government Press, 1952), pp. 14–18. (Except where otherwise indicated all future references to Williams-Hunt will be to this work.) Williams-Hunt was the Federal Adviser on Aborigines, married to a Semai woman, Wah Draman. I met him in 1952. He died after an accident in the jungle in 1953. I met his widow near Tapah in 1988. Their son Anthony, together with his step-father, Tiah Sabak, helped me a great deal with my research in Malaysia.
2. See G. Benjamin, “Between Isthmus and Islands: Reflections on Malayan Palaeo-Sociology”, Working Papers (Singapore: University of Singapore, 1986), pp. 2–9.
3. H.D. Noone, “Report on the Settlements and Welfare of the Ple-Temiar Senoi of the Perak-Kelantan Watershed”, Journal of the Federated Malay States Museums X1X, Part 1, Singapore (1936), 29–33. Arkib Negara, Selangor Secretariat 1411/1950, “Facts and Information on the Malayan Aborigines”, Williams-Hunt, op. cit., pp. 16–17. I. Carey, Orang Asli: The Aboriginal Tribes of Peninsular Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 12.
4. M.V. del Tufo, A Report on the 1947 Census of Population (London: Crown Agents, 1949), p. 117; Williams-Hunt, ibid., pp. 11–13. Also see Williams-Hunt, “A Technique for Anthropology from the Air in Malaya”, Bulletin of the Raffles Museum, Series B, 4 (December 1949). Carey, ibid., p. 11; Pernloi Gah. Orang Asli News, Petaling Jaya, March 1993.
5. W. David McIntyre, “Malaya from the 1850's to the 1870’s, and its Historians, 1950-1970: From Strategy to Sociology”, in C.D. Cowan and O.W. Wolters (eds.), South East Asian History and Historiography (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1976), p. 264. Melaka is the modern Malay spelling for Malacca; where Malacca or Malaca is used in a reference it will also be referred to as such in the text.
6. B.W. Andaya and L. Andaya, A History of Malaya (London: MacMillan, 1982), p. 7; S.D. Goitein, Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1966), pp. 279–94.
7. O.W. Wolters, The Fall of Srivijaya in Malay History (London: Lund Humphries, 1970), passim; Andaya and Andaya, ibid., pp. 7–31.
8. Williams-Hunt, op. cit., pp. 91–93.
9. This comes from personal observation and experience among the Senoi groups in the main range area in the 1950s.
10. John Slimming, Temiar Jungle. A Malayan Journey (London: John Murray, 1958), p. 35.
11. Armando Cortesao (ed.), The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires, Vol. 2 (London: The Hak Luyt Society, 1944), pp. 229-38; C.C. Brown (trans.), “Sejarah Melayu” (“Malay Annals”) (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 42. This version is based on the text known as Raffles MS18, edited by Sir Richard Winstedt, held in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society, London. Tome Pires was born in Portugal c.1468. He arrived in India in 1511. Afonso de Albuquerque despatched him to Malacca to be controller of the drugs, scriviner and accountant at the Factory. In 1513 he sailed as the Factor of a fleet to Java and back. The greatest part of The Suma Oriental was written in Malacca but finished in India between 1515 and 1516 when he was sent in 1516 as Portuguese Ambassador to China where he was unfavourably received by the Chinese authorities. He was imprisoned and died in Chinac.1540.
12. Orang Laut-Malay — sea people. Celates is a derivation of Orang Selitar = sea gypsy. They inhabited the coastal areas of the Malay and Indonesian Archipelagoes and were very strong in the Riau (Rhio)-Lingga Archipelago south of Singapore (Temasek) Island.
13. Pires, F.O.L. 165r, p. 233, in Cortesao’s edition. Also see David E. Sopher, The Sea Nomads. A Study on the Literature of the Maritime Boat People of Southeast Asia (Singapore: Raffles Memorial Museum, 1964).
14. Raja Ali Haji Ibn Ahmad, Tufat al-Nafis (The Precious Gift), translated by Virginia Matheson and Barbara Watson Andaya (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 42–49. The original text in Jawi was compiled in the early nineteenth century. Although the Tufat al-Nafis is acknowledged as being factually accurate and tries to record sources, this work and The Sejarah Melayu centred around royalty and aristocratic lineages, making both of limited value to the history of the Orang Asli.
15. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Buginese had assumed an important part in the affairs of Johor (where the Melakan royal family eventually settled after the fall of Melaka to the Portuguese in 1511). The prowess of the Buginese warriors became essential to the successors to the original royal family. The Bendahara (first minister) had committed regicide on the Sultan of Johor in 1699 and had usurped the throne. The influence of the Orang Laut waned in contrast to the increasing importance of the Bugis.
16. Kassim Ahmad, Hikayat Hang Tuah (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1964). This is a romanised edition of the epic of Hang Tuah, a collection of oral traditional tales about this Malay hero which were believed to have been collected, and written initially in Jawi, in the seventeenth century. The first clear reference to this text was in 1736. One episode refers to a mythical Melakan queen, fleeing from the Portuguese invaders, who seeks asylum among the Batek, a Semang group in northern Malaya. Hang Tuah also retreats northwards where he joins an Orang Asli Melayu group, who are referred to in the text as the Orang Biduanda (see p. 14 in Hikayat Hang Tuah). Hang Tuah finally resided with the Batek when he retired from active life. Despite these tales of supposedly friendly contacts the bulk of the Orang Asli remained outsiders.
17. Raja Kecil Besar was reputed to be the first Muslim ruler of Melaka around 1430. In Tuhfat al-Nafis it is recorded that”… he was the first Malay king to adopt Islam”, p. 14 (folio 5:11 in original). Also see Tomé Pires, op. cit., pp. 240–242.
18. Mark Dion, “Sumatra Through Portuguese Eyes”, extracts from Joao de Barros, “Decadas da Asia”, Indonesia, 9 April 1970, p. 143.
19. F.L. Dunn, “Rain-Forest Collectors and Traders: A Study of Resource Utilisation in Modern and Ancient Malaya”, Malayan Branch Royal Asiatic Society, Monograph No. 5 (Kuala Lumpur: MBRAS, 1975), pp. 104–39.
20. Tsuyoshi Kato, Matriliny and Migration: Evolving Minangkabau Traditions in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982); also J.S. Kahn, “Matriliny and Change Among the Minangkabau of Indonesia”, Bijadragen tot de Taal-Land en Volkenkunde 132 (1976), 64-95; and D.K. Lewis, “The Minangkabau Malay of Negri Sembilan: A Study of Socio-Cultural Change”, PhD thesis, Cornell University, 1962, pp. 16-23
21. Kato, ibid., p. 75.
22. Lewis, op. cit., pp. 16-23; C.W.C. Parr and W.H. Mackray, “Rembau, One of the Nine States: Its History, Constitution and Customs”, Journal of the Straits Branch Royal Asiatic Society (JSBRAS) vi (December 1910) 2; James N. Anderson and Walter T. Vorster, “Diversity and Interdependence in the Trade Hinterlands of Melaka”, in K.S. Sandau, P. Wheatley (eds.), Melaka: The Transformation of a Malay Capital c. 1400–1980, Vol I (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 439–453.
23. Carey, op. cit., pp. 245-246; Andaya and Andaya, op. cit., p. 73.
24. Parr and Mackray, op. cit., pp. 1–5, 26–29, 51.
25. Lewis, op. cit., p. 17.
26. J.M. Gullick, Indigenous Political Systems of Western Malaya (London: Athlone Press, 1958), p. 7; also in “Sungei Ujong” he claimed “the Sakai would always prefer to withdraw into the hills in face of competition” (Journal of the Malay Branch Royal Asiatic Society (JMBRAS) xxii (1949), 10). Some of this information about Temuan ancestry was substantiated by me from personal contact with Temuan and Malay people in the Jelabu and Kuala Pilah areas of Negri Sembilan in the early 1950s. Some were non-committal about their alleged Temuan connections, others preferred not to be reminded of what they considered to be dubious backgrounds. The Orang Asli treated their Malay neighbours with suspicion.
27. In his synopsis to Chapter 31 of the Sejarah Melayu, Brown refers to Sultan Muzaffar Shah of Pahang making obeisance to Sultan Ala'u'd-din Ri'ayat Shah (c.1550) and requesting that the tribesmen of his murdered follower Pateh Adang (Ludang) be given him on his return home. Brown refers to these tribesmen as Sakai which is the only reference to Orang Asli, other than Orang Laut, in this chronicle. Why he uses the expression Sakai is not clear as the Malay text refers to suku which means tribe or racial group.
28. Those goods were probably very similar to those I saw traded during an overnight stop at the Perak Aboriginal Auxilary Constabulary (PAAC) fortified encampment at Lasah on the Sungei Plus in Perak in early 1951. A group of Temiar men and women on three bamboo rafts, laden with goods for sale, poled into Lasah where they quietly haggled with Malay and Chinese middlemen over the sale or barter of the bamboo in the rafts and the cargo. There I saw rattan, damar (resin), blowpipes, mats, baskets, decorated pouches, a small amount of jelutong (wild rubber) and other items I was unable to identify. With some variation in the goods on the rafts I was observing a scene that had taken place for hundreds of years between the Orang Aslis' ancestors and whichever middlemen were available to buy their goods.
29. Andaya and Andaya, op. cit., p. 56.
30. Wolters, op. cit., pp. 136–144. It is not clear in Sejarah Melayu if the overlords of Bentan (Riau) were of Malay or Orang Laut stock.
31. J.V. Mills, translated from the Portuguese with Notes, “Eredia’s Description of Malaca, Meridional India, and Cathay”, JMBRAS viii (1930), pp. 22–23, 30–31, 40–41, 46–49. The weretiger is a common factor in Orang Asli and Malay mythology. See P. Schebesta, Among the Forest Dwarfs of Malaya (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1973) (reprint of original published work of 1928), pp. 226–29, 238–39, 280-81; also Carey, op. cit., p.101, passim.
32. Revd. P. Favre (Apostolic Missionary, Malacca), “An Account of the Wild Tribes Inhabiting the Malayan Peninsula, Sumatra and a Few Neighbouring Islands”, The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia (Singapore) II (May 1848), 238. R.O. Winstedt, “Negri Sembilan. The History, Polity and Beliefs of the Nine States”, JMBRAS xii (1934), 43.
33. MacHacobian (trans.), “The Siege and Capture of Malacca from the Portuguese”, eyewitness accounts, letters and reports by Dutch soldiers and administrators in and around the time of the siege of that city (JMBRA xiii (1936), 111–56). Pieter van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oosindische Compagnie, F.W. Stapel (ed.), Second Book, Vol. I (’s-Gravehage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), p. 330.
34. See Benjamin, op. cit., pp. 13-16; Dunn, op. cit, p. 57, passim.
35. W.E. Maxwell, “The Dutch in Perak”, JSBRAS vii-xx (1881–1885), 245–68. The Dutch attitude to the Malays is covered in Maxwell's paper taken from official Dutch and British sources.
36. This could just as well have been an apt description of many Orang Asli bands in the remoter parts of Malaya in the early 1950s.
37. Bezoar stone is a concretion with a hard nucleus found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals.
38. M.J. Bremner (trans.), “Report of Governor Balthasar Bort on Malacca”, JMBRAS v (1927) pp. 52–57.
39. Benjamin, op. cit., pp. 27-31; Dunn, op. cit., Chap. ix.
40. K. Endicott, “The Effects of Slave Raiding on the Aborigines of the Malay Peninsula”, in A. Reid (ed.), Slavery, Bondage & Dependency in South East Asia (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1983), pp. 216–245.
41. L. Andaya, The Kingdom of Johore 1641–1728 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 51–52.
42. Raja Ali Haji, op. cit., pp. 46–65.
43. Maxwell, op. cit., pp. 245-268; Andaya and Andaya, op. cit., pp. 90–91.
44. A.M. Skinner, “Outline History of the British Connection with Malaya”, JSBRAS x (1882), 270–279.