History and Profile of the Orang Asli at Tasik Chini

History (until Malaysia's independence in 1957)

Not much is known about Tasik Chini in the time before the big flood of 1926, except that it was surrounded by dense forest inhabited by Jakun families who probably practised shifting agriculture. A plot in the forest was turned into a belukar (clearing) to grow rice and other crops. When the soil in one place had been exhausted, they moved to another place. Surplus crops was sold to Malays or exchanged for goods. Food was obtained further by:

• fishing -- Tasik Chini is home to many fish species and is the breeding place of many Sungai Pahang fish;
• hunting for animals such as rusa (deer), kancil (mousedeer), babi hutan (wild pig), or monyet (monkey);
• gathering plants (herbs and vegetables), roots (like ubi kayu, i.e., cassava or tapioca), and fruits in the forest.

During World War II, the Japanese occupiers confiscated rice and livestock, and they forced the Jakun to work for them to clear land, build huts, make log-rafts, and the like. According to Jakun story, this situation changed after a bomoh (sjaman) charmed a blowpipe and shot an arrow all across the lake into a tree near the Japanese camp at the entrance of Sungai Chini. No rifle could carry that far. The Japanese became afraid of the powers of the Jakun and started to provide them with food to appease them (for more stories, see Stories of the Lake).

During the communist emergency after World War II, the Jakun were not harassed but were restricted in their freedom of movement. They were told to stay close to their quarters, and so could hardly go into the forest or trade with Malays to get supplies. They therefore had to resort to ubi kayu and the like as their basic food.

Many things have changed since then -- environmentally mostly for the worse and infrastructurally mostly for the better -- but not so much in the way the Jakun make a living. Only in recent years, things changed at a quicker pace.



Profile

Some, mostly older, people still prefer to live at their belukar, but most people now live in permanent residences. The first one, before World War II, was the now abandoned village Kampung Jeranking near the place where Sungai Chini and Tasik Chini meet (see Satellite Photo) and near Alur Jeranking, one of the five tributaries that enter the lake from the forest. Such an alur is convenient for washing and bathing and, also nowadays, permanent residences can be found near them.


The main village nowadays is Kampung Gumum (near Alur Gumum), but people also live at nearby Cokura (near Alur Cokura) and at remote Melai (near Alur Serodong). Some families have lived at Cok (near Alur Jemerau) where they worked in a stone quarry (formerly a iron ore mine) that was closed in the early 1990s. Since the late 1990s, a few families live at Tanjung Kuput and at the shore of Laut Cendahan, which are not near an alur but, then again, these families also moved there to make a living of tourism (see Tourism). Also the families at Hulu Gumum, a few kilometers north of Tasik Chini, are considered to be part of this Orang Asli community which consists of about 600 people divided over about 120 families.



Kampung Gumum

In the past, Tasik Chini could be reached only by boat or by walking through the forest. Later, Kampung Gumum could be reached along a path that, in the 1970s, was turned into a dirt road. Mid 1990s, this dirt road was tarred. This tarring was done by the government to promote tourism in the area, but it had a more profound impact on the daily life of the people in Kampung Gumum.

Be it for the better or for the worse, but the pretty inaccessible, peaceful, and quiet, village became the center of much more interaction with Malays and others. The villagers could go more easily to the market in the nearby Malay town of Bandar Chini (built in the 1980s for workers in the palm oil fields). Taxis and traveling salesmen started to enter the village. The forest-and-village sounds, that dominated in the past, faded -- which is one of the reasons why some people prefer to stay at (or move to) their belukar or other more remote places around the lake.

Along with the tar road, electricity entered Kampung Gumum and replaced the oil candles (pelita) that were used to light the houses at night. Also in the other villages, more easily fetched butane gas replaced gathered wood as cooking fuel. Telephone lines are not available and, due to the hilly surroundings, mobile telephones could not be used until the spring of 2005 when, in a new military training camp near the lake, a telecommunication mast was erected. The 1990s showed several further changes that are next sketched separately.



Primary education

In the 1970s, there was not yet a primary school in the area. Only very few children (about 10 over those years) went to primary school in Pekan at the east coast, where they stayed in an Orang Asli asrama (boarding school). Starting with a 7 kilometer walk along a path through the forest, the 60 kilometer travel to Pekan took so long that these children (age 7 years and older) could return home only about three times a year during school holidays. Only about 50% of them entered secondary school. Only one studied further and became teacher at the primary school in RPS Betau (an Orang Asli Semai regroupment scheme near Kuala Lipis).

In the 1980s, the Department of Orang Asli Affairs (JHEOA or, nowadays, JAKOA) built a small school in Kampung Gumum for only the first three years of primary school, with volunteer teachers. Only a few more children went to this school, and still very few children went to Pekan to complete their primary education.

In the mid 1990s, the Department of Education built a regular primary school with modern facilities in Kampung Gumum. It now has a library, a colorful pre-school kindergarten, and a computer room equipped with a wireless internet connection, for instance. Local boatsmen fetch children from the other Jakun settlements around the lake, and nearly all children (about 80) of the Jakun community now go to school. An increasing number of them go on to secondary school in Pekan, even though they still have to stay in this asrama and can return home for a short weekend only once every two weeks.

Health care

Before the 1990s, in a case of emergency, a helicopter could bring sick people to the Orang Asli hospital in Gombak, near Kuala Lumpur. For the rest, however, the Jakun at Tasik Chini relied predominantly on traditional healing methods (berobat cara kampung), which may be sketched as follows.


The bomoh (who does not use medicines and who is therefore not a medicineman but rather a priest or sjaman) takes care of major disorders believed to be related to the spiritual world and of any other disorder that cannot be remedied otherwise. Furthermore, for minor disorders, knowledge about healing charms and healing herbs is, in varying degrees, present in many other men and women in the community, in particular in tukang urut (physiotherapists) and bidan (midwives).

In case of minor disorders and after deliveries, healing herbs are gathered in the forest and administered, either or not in combination with healing charms. Sometimes, for a baby with stomachache for instance, a short ceremony involving only a healing charm may be considered enough to improve the health condition of the patient. Physiotherapy usually is performed in combination with healing charms, takes several sessions, and is concluded with a closing ceremony (memutus).


In case of major or otherwise-irremediable disorders, one or more healing sessions are performed by the bomoh, usually involving long evening ceremonies that are attended by a representative part of the community. In a devoted yet relaxed atmosphere, healing charms are uttered in combination with music (drums) and songs to invoke the good spirits, and in combination with rituals that visualize the removal of (the cause of) the disorder that bothered the patient. To avoid disturbance of the rituals, it is not allowed to record these bomoh sessions -- but listen to the lagu berobat (healing song) Dayang Wani that invokes the good spirit Wani, performed by bidan Lonjong binti Samad (song) and batin Awang bin Alok (music) on another occasion.

Diseases, including mental disorders, usually are not seen as devine punishment or the like but are seen as being caused by factors external to a patient, who is thus seen as a victim. Healing charms aim at eliminating these external causes, hoping that the patient then will recover automatically. The only effort required from a patient is, after a treatment, to abide temporarily by some abstinence rules (pantang) that usually comprise a diet without things the patient likes. In general, rules may also precautionary. For instance, around 1990, a woman and her child died in the last days of the pregnancy, due to a heavy bleeding which occurred when the husband was hammering a fence; from that moment on, it became a local pantang rule to not make loud noises near pregnant women.

Nowadays, the traditional healing methods are still practised, but are complemented with modern healing methods. In the 1990s, the governmental medical clinic and health center in the nearby Malay town of Bandar Chini became better accessible to the Jakun and started to give better regulated health care. The Jakun still resort to berobat cara kampung in case of minor temporary disorders, mental disorders, and otherwise-irremediable disorders, but they do not hesitate any longer to go to the clinic in case of infectious diseases, for instance. To illustrate the change in health care in another way:

• in the early 1990s, children died of diarrhoea-caused dehydration or meningitis, without ever having seen a doctor;
• nowadays, all pregnant women go to the clinic for check-ups and all newborns enter the official vaccination program.

The health conditions improved not only by this change in health care but, as is sketched next, also by a change in water supply.



Water supply

In the early 1990s, drinking water was obtained by fetching it in buckets (kandar air) from the alur near a settlement or, as in Kampung Gumum, from wells. The alur water was (probably) polluted by chemicals used in nearby palm oil fields, and the well water contained (probably) more rain water flowing in from above than ground water entering from below.


Some families were strict in boiling the water before drinking it, other families were not so strict (unboiled tastes better). In the dry season (May/June), water could become scarce to the point that it not only had to be rationed but also became unsafe to drink -- but people had no other choice. In the dry season of 1991, for instance, about 30 children (age under 5) simultaneously suffered from diarrhoea-caused dehydration; two of these children died, and it took other children several years to recover fully.

In 1992, a government project to install water pumps in Kampung Gumum failed: holes were dug, but (clean) water could not be pumped up. Later, several families started to use generators to pump water from wells to their houses. This improved the water supply but not the water quality.


In the mid 1990s, a pipe for fresh drinking water entered Kampung Gumum, but not the water itself. Due to the hilly surroundings, a booster had to be placed halfway to get the water into the village. It took a few years to place this booster, but even this did not change much: only the school and a restaurant got connected. The yearly costs to get healthy water from this pipe were less than the yearly costs (e.g., for generators) to get unhealthy water from wells, but the grinding point was that the once-only connection costs were so high that families hesitated to get connected or simply could not afford it.

Only in July 2001, years after the water pipe had entered the village, the first family got connected -- with the hands-on help of the new and involved local Malay head of the water company. Within a few weeks, several other families followed this example and, nowadays, most families in Kampung Gumum are connected or are working on it. The water is drinkable (German standard) at its production point but, after arrival in the village, it still should be boiled before drinking it. Even so, boiled or unboiled, the water thus entering the houses made life not only more easy but also a lot more healthy.



Tourism

In the 1970s, Pak Laksa and a few others started to give blowpipe demonstrations (tunjuk menyumpit) in Kampung Gumum and Cokura to groups of foreign day-tourists. These tourists visited the lake for a boat tour that started in the Malay village Kampung Belimbing at the other side of Sungai Pahang (see Satellite Photo). During these tours, the tourist guides presented the Jakun as hardly more than one the attractions of the lake. To show off to the tourists, the guides pretended to be friends with the Malay-speaking Jakun, but told less friendly things to the English-speaking tourists. This situation continued until the 1990s, without the Jakun benefitting much from it.


In the 1980s, a Malay-tended resort was built on the lake shore at Tanjung Kelantan (see Satellite Photo). Jakun were contracted to help building this resort, but after that, they never have had much dealings with it. Nowadays, this resort is visited mainly by domestic tourists, for lake tours, canoeing, fishing, and other activities. One tender introduced water-scooters, but these were dismissed when it became clear that, among other things, newborn Toman fish suffered from them. Ikan Toman is the main fish of Tasik Chini, both as food for the Jakun and as target for recreational fishermen. It is a fish that lays its hatch at the water surface; the tourist boats already had forced it to move closer to the shores, and the water-scooters disturbed its hatches even there.

Also in the 1980s, individual back-packers started to come to Kampung Gumum and nearby Cokura for a short stay (a couple of them got hooked much longer or even permanently). In the late 1980s, simple facilities for back-packers were arranged by Rajan, an Indian resident of Kampung Gumum. He still makes a living of small-scale ecotourism for foreign tourists (mainly back-packers and individually traveling families), to which end he occasionally contracts villagers to help him with transport or as guide. On behalf of the villagers, he also sold blowpipes to day-tourists who came ashore at Cokura, but in the course of the 1990s, Cokura became too modern to serve as a tourist attraction any longer.

All in all, tourism was there to stay but the Jakun realized that they hardly had grip on it. This became painfully clear when, in 1994, a dam (6 ft above dry-season level) was built in Sungai Chini to prevent tourists from getting wet feet. The dam was built without consulting the Jakun and despite their warning in the media that it would bring ecological disaster to the unique flora and fauna of Tasik Chini. In 1996, this ecological disaster became visible in the form of a ring of dead trees around the lake. In 1999, the dam was lowered (to 3 ft above dry-season level) and complemented with a water lock, but this did not restore the original conditions. Though less than originally, Tasik Chini and Sungai Chini are still enchanting and tourists continue to come, but bets are on whether the lake will ever regain its original beauty.

During the 1990s, selling blowpipes to tourists showed to be profitable once the blowpipes had been adapted to the tourists. Whereas the blowpipes were made first in the traditional style (functional but hardly attractive), they were gradually decorated more with colors and carvings. Several craftsmen and cratfswomen can now make some money with it.

Blowpipes and other handicrafts are nowadays sold mostly at Tanjung Kuput and Cendahan (see Satellite Photo), which are the places where the day-tourists now go ashore. A few Jakun families moved to these two places, partly because they preferred a traditional life-style, and partly to make a living of tourism. They give blowpipe demonstrations, make and sell their own handicrafts, and get commission for selling the handicrafts of others. Tanjung Kuput and Cendahan can thus be said to serve as permanently inhabited cultural villages, so that tourism now has a place that is beneficial and not intrusive to the rest of the Jakun community around Tasik Chini.