Semelai agricultural patterns: Toward an understanding of variation among indigenous cultures in southern peninsular Malaysia

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Volumn 40, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 153-185

  Gianno, Rosemary ^a   Bayr, Klaus J ^a  

^a KEENE STATE COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY; AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION; INDIGENOUS POPULATION; LOWLAND ENVIRONMENT; SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURE;

ASIA; EURASIA; MALAYSIA; SOUTHEAST ASIA;

MANIHOT ESCULENTA;

EID: 67749116151     PISSN: 00224634     EISSN: 14740680     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463409000071     Document Type: Article

References (187)

1. In this paper, 'southern peninsular Malaysia' is defined as a mostly lowland region that extends south and west from the downstream eastward stretch of the Sungai Pahang, and includes Melaka, Johor, southern Pahang, and Negeri Sembilan.
2. Narifumi Maeda Tachimoto, The Orang Hulu; A Report on Malaysian Orang Asli in the 1960's (Subang Jaya: Center for Orang Asli Concerns, 2001), p. 35.
3. David Henley, 'Population and the means of subsistence: Explaining the historical demography of island Southeast Asia, with particular reference to Sulawesi', Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 36, 3 (2005): 337-72
4. ed. Peter Boomgaard, Freek Colombijn and David Henley, Paper landscapes: Explorations in the environmental history of Indonesia (Leiden: KITLV, 1997)
5. Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells, Nature and nation: Forests and development in peninsular Malaysia (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005).
6. Paul Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese: Studies in the historical geography of the Malay peninsula before A.D. 1500 (Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Universiti Malaya, 1980)
7. F.L. Dunn, Rain-forest collectors and traders: A Study of resource utilisation in modern and ancient Malaya, Monographs of the Malaysian Branch, Royal Asiatic Society (1975). Mined metals (gold, tin and iron) were also major trade items from the interior but derived mostly from mountainous regions to the north.
8. Lesley M. Potter, 'A Forest product out of control: Gutta percha in Indonesia and the wider Malay world, 1845-1915', in Paper landscapes: Explorations in the environmental history of Indonesia, ed. Peter Boomgaard, Freek Colombijn and David Henley (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1997): 281-308.
9. There was also no tradition in the area of surplus rice production for sale.
10. Geoffrey Benjamin, 'In the long term: Three themes in Malayan cultural ecology,' in Cultural values and human ecology in Southeast Asia, ed. K.L. Hutterer, A.T. Rambo and G. Lovelace (Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia, 1985): 219-78
11. R.D. Hill, Rice in Malaya: A Study in historical geography (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1977).
12. Kathirithamby-Wells, Nature and nation: Forests and development in peninsular Malaysia, p. 63.
13. H.D. Collings, 'A Temoq list of words and notes', Bulletin of the Raffles Museum, Series B 4 (1949): 72.
14. Elizabeth H. Moore, 'Inventory of the Williams-Hunt Collection', vol. 2 in 'The Moated Mu'ang of the Mun River Basin' (Ph.D. diss., Institute of Archaeology, University of London, 1986).
15. Ibid
16. Duncan McGregor et al., 'Mapping the environment in Southeast Asia: The Use of remote sensing and geographical information systems', in Environmental change in Southeast Asia: People, politics, and sustainable development, ed. Michael J.G. Parnwell and Raymond L. Bryant (London & New York: Routledge, 1996): 190-224.
17. McGregor et al., 'Mapping the environment in Southeast Asia': 208.
18. Klaus J. Bayr, Rosemary Gianno and Stephanie Derrick, 'An Analysis of aerial photographs of peninsular Malaysia from the Williams-Hunt collection' (paper presented at the Proceedings, New England - St. Lawrence Valley Geographical Society, Keene, New Hampshire, 2005). Copies of the aerial photos (NA48 MALAYA:3C PR118=TF3001-TF3018) at a scale of 1:8,000 were obtained from E.H. Moore, University of London, and are now housed in the Orang Asli Archive at Keene State College.
19. Gerard Diffloth, 'Les langues mon-khmer de Malaisie: Classification historique et innovations', Asie du sud-est et monde insulinde, 6, 4 (1975): 1-19
20. Geoffrey Benjamin, 'Map with "peninsular Malaysia"', in Language atlas of the Pacific area, ed. Stephen Wurm and Shiro Hattori (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 1983), p. 37.
21. But see Alberto G. Gomes, Looking for money: Capitalism and modernity in an Orang Asli village (Subang Jaya, Malaysia and Melbourne, Australia: Center for Orang Asli Concerns and Trans Pacific Press, 2004).
22. Benjamin, 'On being tribal in the Malay world', pp. 10-1.
23. 'It has also been suggested that non-Malayic Austronesians may have introduced Austronesian cultural and linguistic elements prior to the Malayic expansion 2,000 years ago. Geoffrey Benjamin, 'On being tribal in the Malay world,' in Tribal communities in the Malay World; Historical, cultural and social perspectives, ed. Geoffrey Benjamin and Cynthia Chou (Leiden, Singapore: International Institute for Asian Studies; Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002), p. 63
24. Peter Bellwood, Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian archipelago, revised ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997).'
25. Kirk M. Endicott, 'The Economy of the Batek of Malaysia: Annual and historical perspectives', Research in Economic Anthropology, 6 (1984): 29-52.
26. David Bulbeck, 'Hunter-gatherer occupation of the Malay peninsula from the Ice Age to the Iron Age', in Under the canopy: The Archaeology of tropical rain forests, ed. Julio Mercader (New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), pp. 119-60.
27. Benjamin, 'On being tribal in the Malay world', p. 39.
28. Ibid., p. 40.
29. Miklucho-Maclay, 'Dialects of the Melanesian tribes in the Malay peninsula', Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1 (1878): 38-44.
30. For example, J.R. Logan, 'The Orang Binua of Johore', Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, 1 (1847): 242-93
31. Harry W. Lake and H.J. Kelsall, 'A Journey on the Sembrong River from Kuala Indau to Batu Pahat', Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 26 (1894): 1-23
32. A.D. Machado, 'A Vocabulary of the Jakuns of Batu Pahat, Johore, together with some remarks on their customs and peculiarities', Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 38 (1902): 29-33.
33. N. von Miklucho-Maclay, 'Ethnological excursions in the Malay peninsula - Nov. 1874 to Oct. 1875 (Preliminary communication)', Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2 (1878b): 211-2.
34. Banseng Hoe, Semelai communities at Tasek Bera: A Study of the structure of an Orang Asli society (Subang Jaya: Center for Orang Asli Concerns, 2001).
35. Unless otherwise indicated, ethnographic information presented derives from Gianno's fieldnotes.
36. Austro-Asiatic languages probably extended into Sumatra and Borneo as well. K. Alexander Adelaar, 'Borneo as a cross-roads for comparative Austronesian linguistics', in The Austronesians: Historical and comparative perspectives, ed. Peter Bellwood (Canberra: Department of Anthropology, Australian National University, 1995), pp. 75-95.
37. Leong Sau Heng, 'Jenderam Hilir and the mid-Holocene prehistory of the west coast plains of peninsular Malaysia', Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, 10 (1991): 150-60
38. Leonard Y. Andaya, 'Orang Asli and Melayu relations: A Cross-border perspective', Antropologi Indonesia, 67 (2000).
39. This does not explain the persistence of the foraging Semang, but see Bulbeck, 'Hunter-gatherer occupation of the Malay peninsula from the Ice Age to the Iron Age', pp. 150-2.
40. Bellwood, Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian archipelago, p. 164.
41. Gerard Diffloth, personal communication by email, orangasliahoogroups.com (the Orang Asli research distribution list) on 3 May 2004.
42. J.E. Spencer, 'The Migration of rice from mainland Southeast Asia into Indonesia', in Plants and migrations of Pacific peoples, ed. Jacques Barrau (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1963).
43. Michael Dove, 'Development of tribal land-rights in Borneo: The Role of ecological factors', Borneo Research Bulletin, 12, 1 (1980): 3-18.
44. Marie-Andree Couillard, 'Les rapports sociaux dans la société Malaise pré-coloniale: Hypothèses et commentaires', Anthropologie et Sociétés, 10, 2 (1986): 145-62
45. Spencer, 'The Migration of rice from mainland Southeast Asia into Indonesia', pp. 83-9.
46. Walter William Skeat and Charles Otto Blagden, The Pagan races of the Malay peninsula, Memoir 1 (1966 [1906]), p. 340.
47. F.A. Swettenham, 'Note on the Jacoons', The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 23 (1894): 89.
48. Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maklai - Papers, 1873-1975, 'Journeys in the Malay peninsula', (Sydney: Mitchell Library, 1873-1975), p. 122.
49. D.F.A. Hervey, 'The Endau and its tributaries', Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 8 (1881): 122.
50. Robert K. Dentan, 'Some Senoi Semai dietary restrictions: A Study of food behavior in a Malayan hill tribe' (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1965): 60.
51. Hill, Rice in Malaya: A Study in historical geography
52. Benjamin, 'In the long term: Three themes in Malayan cultural ecology'
53. Geoffrey Benjamin, Between isthmus and islands: Reflections on Malayan palaeo-sociology, Working Papers (Dept. of Sociology, National University of Singapore, 1986)
54. Benjamin, 'On being tribal in the Malay world'.
55. Hill, Rice in Malaya: A Study in historical geography, p. 12.
56. Semelai also have a story. 'The Discovery of rice' also implicates royalty in the adoption of rice cultivation. In this case, both the baten ('chief') and the raja ('king') lead their people to see the virtues of this new grain, but instead of millet, wild yams are superseded.
57. Hood Mohamad Salleh, 'Semelai rituals of curing' (Ph.D. diss., St. Catherine's College, Oxford, 1978), pp. 316-9.
58. Harry Lake, 'Johore', The Geographical Journal, 3, 4 (1894): 283-8
59. Lake and Kelsall, 'A Journey on the Sembrong River from Kuala Indau to Batu Pahat': 1-23
60. Miklucho-Maclay, 'Journey in the Malay peninsula', p. 4
61. Logan, 'The Orang Binua of Johore': 242-93.
62. Tachimoto, The Orang Hulu; A Report on Malaysian Orang Asli in the 1960's, pp. 27-8, 39-40.
63. P. Favre, 'An Account of the wild tribes inhabiting the Malayan peninsula, Sumatra and a few neighboring islands', Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, 2, 1 (1848): 259.
64. I.H.N. Evans, 'Notes on the Besisi of Tamboh, Kuala Langat, Selangor', Journal of the Federated Malay States Museums, 5 (1913): 4.
65. Skeat and Blagden, The Pagan Races of the Malay peninsula, p. 343.
66. J.R. Logan, 'The Superstitions of the Mintira, with some additional remarks on their customs, & c.', Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, 1 (1847): 331.
67. Skeat and Blagden, The Pagan Races of the Malay peninsula, pp. 344-57.
68. Ibid., p. 358.
69. Anthony Reid, 'Inside out: The Colonial displacement of Sumatra's population', in Paper landscapes: Exploration in the environmental history of Indonesia, ed. Peter Boomgaard, Freek Colombijn and David Henley (Leiden: KITLV, 1997), pp. 61-89.
70. Ibid.
71. Peter Bellwood, First farmers: The Origins of agricultural societies (Blackwell, 2005), p. 139.
72. George Appell, 'Systems of land tenure in Borneo: A Problem in ecological determinism', Borneo Research Bulletin, 3 (1971): 17-20
73. Dove, 'Development of tribal land-rights in Borneo: The Role of ecological factors': 3-18.
74. W.L. Dale, 'The Rainfall of Malaya, Part I', Journal of Tropical Geography, 13 (1959): 27.
75. Ibid.: 37.
76. Ibid.: 29.
77. Ibid.
78. Peter Boomgaard, 'In the shadow of rice: Roots and tubers in Indonesian history, 1500-1950', Agricultural history, 77, 4 (2003): 597.
79. Rosemary Gianno, Semelai culture and resin technology, Memoir 22 (New Haven: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1990), p. 33.
80. B.K. Maloney, 'Man's impact on the rainforests of west Malesia: The Palynological record', Journal of Biogeography, 12 (1985): 553.
81. Raphael A.J. Wust and R. Marc Bustin, 'Vegetation classification for a sedge=forest wetlands system, Tasek Bera (peninsular Malaysia) based on Landsat-TM imagery and aerial photo-based field mapping', Asian Journal of Geoinformatics, 4, 1 (2003): 62.
82. 2.
83. Raphael A.J. Wust and R. Marc Bustin, 'Late Pleistocene and Holocene development of the interior peat-accumulating basin of tropical Tasek Bera, peninsular Malaysia', Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 211 (2004).
84. Stewart Wavell, Lost world of the east: An Adventurous quest in the Malayan hinterland (London: Souvenir Press, 1958), pp. 152-3
85. Harry Miller, Menace in Malaya (London: George G. Harrap, 1954).
86. Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese: Studies in the historical geography of the Malay peninsula before A.D. 1500. Because of conflicts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries between the Dutch, Portuguese and Achehnese, eastern traders preferred the relative safety of the inland route to reach Melaka.
87. After the Portuguese defeat in 1641, the sea route became safe again. W. Linehan, 'A History of Pahang', Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 14, 2 (1936): 39, 189.
88. However, interior peoples continued to use the inland route (John D. Leary, 'Orang Asli contacts with the Malays, Portuguese and Dutch in peninsular Malaya from 1400 to 1700', Asian Studies Review, 18, 2 (1994): 102).
89. Charles Gray, 'Journal of a route overland from Malacca to Pahang, across the Malayan peninsula', Journal of the Indian Archipelago, 6 (1852): 369-75
90. D.D. Daly, 'Surveys and explorations in the native states of the Malayan peninsula, 1875-1882', Proceedings of the Geographical Society, London (n.s.), 4 (1882): 393-412.
91. Collings, 'A Temoq list of words and notes': 70-1
92. Rosemary Gianno, 'Malay, Semelai, Temoq: Semelai concepts of ethnicity in south-central Malaya', in Politics, land and ethnicity in the Malay peninsula and Borneo: Non-Malay indigenous groups and the state ed. R.L. Winzeler (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies Monograph, 1997), pp. 69-70.
93. R. Cardon, 'A Malay tradition', Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 18, 2 (1940): 145.
94. Lake, 'Johore': 293-4.
95. E.C. Foenander, 'A Trip up the Bera River', Malayan Forester, 1 (1931).
96. Peter Bellwood, 'Cultural and biological differentiation in peninsular Malaysia: The Last 10,000 years', Asian Perspectives, 32 (1993): 44.
97. Leonard Y. Andaya, 'A History of trade in the sea of Melayu,' Itinerario, 1 (2000): 87-110.
98. Andaya, 'Orang Asli and Melayu relations: A Cross-border perspective': 60.
99. J.E. Nathan and R.O. Winstedt, 'Johol, Inas, Ulu Muar, Jempul, Gunong Pasir and Terachi: Their history and constitution', in Papers on Malay Subjects, ed. P.L. Burns (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 391-468.
100. Linehan, 'A History of Pahang': 40, 189.
101. William D. Wilder, Communication, social structure and development in rural Malaysia: A Study of Kampung Kuala Bera, Memoir 56, Monographs on Social Anthropology (New Jersey: Athlone Press, 1982).
102. 'Intermarriage between Minangkabau men and local women in the rantau resulted in the children adopting the adat or customs of their mothers and thus modifying Minangkabau identity' (Leonard Y. Andaya, 'Unravelling Minangkabau ethnicity', Itinerario, 2 (2000); 24).
103. Kirk M. Endicott, 'The Effects of slave raiding on the aborigines of the Malay peninsula', in Slavery, bondage, and dependency in Southeast Asia, ed. A. Reid (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1983), pp. 216-45.
104. Logan, 'The Superstitions of the Mintira, with some additional remarks on their customs, & c.': 329.
105. Logan, 'The Orang Binua of Johore'
106. I.H.N. Evans, 'Notes on the aborigines of the Ulu Langat and Kenaboi districts of Selangor and Jelebu,' Journal of the Federated Malay States Museums, 5, 2 (1914): 75
107. Endicott, 'The Effects of slave raiding on the aborigines of the Malay peninsula', p. 233.
108. Endicott, 'The Effects of slave raiding on the Aborigines of the Malay peninsula', pp. 233-4.
109. Hill, Rice in Malaya: A Study in historical geography, p. 27.
110. R.J. Morley, 'Origin and history', in Tasek Bera: The Ecology of a freshwater swamp, ed. J.I. Furtado and S. Mori, pp. 12-45.
111. Maloney, 'Man's impact on the rainforests of west Malesia: The Palynological record': 555.
112. Wust and Bustin, 'Late Pleistocene and Holocene development of the interior peat-accumulating basin of tropical Tasek Bera, peninsular Malaysia': 241-70.
113. Ibid.
114. H.D. Collings, 'Aboriginal notes', Bulletin of the Raffles Museum, Series B, 4 (1949)
115. Hoe, Semelai communities at Tasek Bera; A Study of the structure of an Orang Asli society, pp. 3-4
116. Hood, 'An Ethnographical investigation of the Semelai of Malaysia'
117. Gianno, Semelai culture and resin technology, pp. 134-5.
118. Daly, 'Surveys and explorations in the native states of the Malayan peninsula, 1875-1882': 400.
119. Note that, according to both Daly and Charles Gray ('Journal of a route overland from Malacca to Pahang, across the Malayan peninsula', p. 372), during the nineteenth century, the Sungai Serting emptied into Tasek Bera and not into the Sungai Bera as it does today.
120. Gianno, Semelai culture and resin technology.
121. This contrasts with conflicts that developed when Iban were pioneering in Borneo (Christine Padoch, Migration and its alternatives among the Iban of Sarawak (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982), pp. 15-17).
122. Gianno, 'Malay, Semelai, Temoq: Semelai concepts of ethnicity in south-central Malaya', pp. 51-83.
123. Temoq agriculture in the Jeram River valley more closely resembled Semelai practices with swiddens three to five acres in size but hill rice only the fourth most important cultigen (Peter Laird, 'Ritual, territory and region: The Temoq of Pahang, west Malaysia', Social Analysis, 1 (1979): 54-80).
124. Kathirithamby-Wells, Nature and nation: Forests and development in peninsular Malaysia, p. 176.
125. Logan, 'The Orang Binua of Johore', 261: 88-9.
126. Iskandar Carey, Orang Asli: The Aboriginal tribes of peninsular Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 251.
127. Hood, 'An Ethnographical investigation of the Semelai of Malaysia', p. 34.
128. Gianno, Semelai culture and resin technology.
129. G.H. Luce, Phases of Pre-Pagan Burma (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 3
130. Charles Higham, 'Languages and farming dispersals: Austroasiatic languages and rice cultivation', in Examining the language=farming hypothesis, ed. Peter Bellwood and Colin Renfrew (Cambridge: McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research, 2003).
131. Gerard Diffloth, 'The Contribution of linguistic paleontology to the homeland of Austro-Asiatic', in The Peopling of East Asia: Putting together archaeology, linguistics and genetics, ed. Laurent Sagart, Roger Blench and Alicia Sanchez-Mazas (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), pp. 77-80.
132. Gianno, Semelai culture and resin technology, p. 35.
133. Collings, 'Aboriginal notes': 89-90
134. Hoe, Semelai communities at Tasek Bera; A Study of the structure of an Orang Asli society, pp. 19-21
135. Hood, 'An Ethnographical investigation of the Semelai of Malaysia', pp. 34-8.
136. Gianno, Semelai culture and resin technology, pp. 32-7.
137. Collings, 'Aboriginal notes': 87.
138. I.H.N. Evans, 'Further notes on the aboriginal tribes of Pahang', Journal of the Federated Malay States Museums, 9 (1920): 17.
139. Hood Mohamad Salleh, 'Semelai rituals of curing' (Ph.D. diss., St. Catherine's College, Oxford, 1978), pp. 316-24.
140. Gianno, Semelai culture and resin technology, p. 123.
141. Evans, 'Further notes on the aboriginal tribes of Pahang': 18-9. Evans' description of a Semelai ('Bera Tribe') rice harvesting regimen is similar.
142. Collings, 'Aboriginal notes': 89.
143. Given the El Niño Southern Oscillations (ENSO), while this may not strictly be true, it is what people say.
144. J.I. Furtado, 'Conservation survey of the Tasek Bera, Pahang' (A report to the Malaysian Wildlife Conservation Foundation, 1987), not paginated.
145. Collings, 'Aboriginal notes': 89.
146. Hoe, Semelai communities at Tasek Bera; A Study of the structure of an Orang Asli society, p. 20.
147. Collings, 'Aboriginal notes': 89.
148. Gianno, Semelai culture and resin technology, p. 33.
149. In Borneo, 'such unconservative practices as the making of many fields contiguously, the cutting of very large fields. are reported for Baleh Iban groups' (Padoch, Migration and its alternatives among the Iban of Sarawak, p. 61).
150. P.D.R. Williams-Hunt, 'Jungle clearings',
151. P.D.R. Williams-Hunt Collection, School for Oriental and Asian Studies (Mimeographed guide disseminated by the Royal Air Force, 1948), 1.
152. Hoe, Semelai communities at Tasek Bera; A Study of the structure of an Orang Asli society, p. 21.
153. Ibid., p. 33.
154. Gianno, Semelai culture and resin technology, p. 33.
155. Collings, 'A Temoq list of words and notes', p. 72.
156. Semelai did buy and sell fish from each other, however, and traded for monkey and gibbon meat from Temoq.
157. Jumbalang is a Minangkabau variant of jembalang in Malay and means 'gnome of the soil' or 'hantu tanah'. 'The j. are the spirits to whom offerings are made when the soil is disturbed for planting or to provide foundations for a house; and ill-luck about a house or building is put down to them,' R.J. Wilkinson, A Malay-English dictionary (Romanised), (Mytilene, Greece: Salavopoulos and Kinderlis, 1932), p. 458.
158. Hoe, Semelai communities at Tasek Bera; A Study of the structure of an Orang Asli society, pp. 141-2.
159. Ibid., p. 20
160. Hood, 'An Ethnographical investigation of the Semelai of Malaysia', p. 36.
161. Hoe, Semelai communities at Tasek Bera; A Study of the structure of an Orang Asli society, p. 20.
162. Hood, 'An Ethnographical investigation of the Semelai of Malaysia', p. 36.
163. Some Semelai subsequently swiddened intermittently, commuting from the Pos Iskandar settlement complex. In a 1987 survey of Kampong Bapak households, 17 of 34 were swiddening, but in secondary forest. The average size was 2.6 acres, ranging from 1 to 5.5 acres. The average household had 6.8 individuals. On occasion, households have, at least temporarily, returned to their old ways: Planting rice and cassava in primary forest and matured secondary forest and then rubber after the harvest.
164. Another, more direct way of measuring rice production, commitment, and skill is to compare the ratio of rice produced relative to rice seed used. Along those lines, according to one Semelai man, 'Before with five gallons of rice, you got over 100 gallons of rice. Now you get much less'. This 1:20 ratio is similar to yields obtained by Iban households. Refer to J.D. Freeman, Iban agriculture: A Report on the shifting cultivation of hill rice by the Iban of Sarawak (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1955), p. 110.
165. The gallon in Malay is gantang, the unit in which rice is usually measured. See, for example, Freeman, Iban agriculture, p. 142.
166. P.D.R. Williams-Hunt, 'A Technique for anthropology from the air in Malaya', Bulletin of the Raffles Museum, Series B, 4 (1949): 63.
167. P.D.R. Williams-Hunt, 'Anthropology from the air', Man, 49 (1949): 50.
168. Williams-Hunt, 'A Technique for anthropology from the air in Malaya': 52.
169. Ibid.: 49.
170. According to Semelai, the communists there did not grow crops. Also, because the communists bought only cassava, which is plentiful, from them, swiddens were not enlarged.
171. Williams-Hunt, 'Jungle clearings', p. 3.
172. Bayr, Gianno, and Derrick, 'An Analysis of aerial photographs of peninsular Malaysia from the Williams-Hunt collection'.
173. While these kinds of data can lend themselves to population density estimates, space limitations prohibit that discussion here.
174. Williams-Hunt, 'A Technique for anthropology from the air in Malaya', p. 51.
175. Williams-Hunt, 'Anthropology from the air', p. 50.
176. Ibid.
177. While the article dates the clearing to 1941, based on the incipient regrowth visible in the aerial photos, 1947 seems more likely.
178. Because they occur at the beginning of a flight line, only 20 per cent of Swidden 3 and none of Swidden 4 could be viewed stereoscopically.
179. Only the eastern section could be viewed stereoscopically.
180. R. Cole, 'Temiar Senoi agriculture: A Note on aboriginal shifting cultivation in Ulu Kelantan, Malaya', The Malayan Forester, 22, 3, 4 (1959): 203.
181. Mohamad Nazir Safian bin, 'Kampung Temakah: A Temiar community in Perak', in Provisional Research Report, 4, ed. Anthony R. Walker (Penang: Social Anthropology Section, School of Comparative Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 1976), pp. 122-3.
182. Tachimoto, The Orang Hulu, p. 37.
183. Freeman, Iban agriculture, p. 93.
184. Dove, 'Development of tribal land-rights in Borneo', pp. 3-18.
185. Semelai at Bukit Rok did adopt wet rice cultivation from nearby Malays at Kuala Bera.
186. Padoch, Migration and its alternatives among the Iban of Sarawak.
187. Mr Cole was interviewed by the reporter of the following article: Anonymous, 'Men are midwives for aborigines in Negri Sembilan', Malay Mail, 22 Nov. 1956.