Article

Negritos

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Negritos

The Negritos of the Malay Peninsula

The Negritos are the oldest known inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, a small group of forest-dwelling peoples who, according to most authorities, arrived in present-day Western Malaysia approximately 25,000 years ago, a date derived from archaeological inference rather than any written record [1, p. 144]. They constitute the smallest of the three major categories of Orang Asli (the Malay term for “aborigines,” preferred in official usage over the English word “aborigines” for its lack of pejorative connotation), numbering approximately 2,000 individuals in Western Malaysia according to the 1969 census, against a total Orang Asli population of about 53,000 [1, p. 144]. The Negritos are distinguished from the Senoi and Proto-Malay groups by their physical appearance, which has led to their historical classification alongside the pigmy peoples of other regions, and by their traditional mode of existence as true nomads who do not normally construct buildings more permanent than wind-shelters [1, pp. 144–145]. Their distribution is confined to the northern part of the peninsula, with tribes found in Perak, Kelantan, Kedah, and Pahang, and some groups crossing the border into Thailand [1, p. 144].

Scope and Historical Definition

The term “Negrito” itself implies a physical resemblance to the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, and many individuals might easily be mistaken for East Africans in appearance [1, p. 144]. In older anthropological texts, the names “Semang” and “Pangan” were also used to describe these peoples, but these terms are now considered confusing and have fallen out of use [1, p. 144]. The Negritos are the only true nomads among the Orang Asli of Western Malaysia, and they are socially and economically the most primitive of the three categories, making it very difficult to get them to adopt a more settled way of life [1, p. 145].

The various Negrito tribes of Western Malaysia are all found in the north. In Perak there are two fairly large tribes: the Lanoh, consisting of about 400 people, and the Jahai, with about 600 people. In Kelantan there are two main tribes, the Batek and the Mendrek, in addition to some groups of Jahai. In Kedah there are two small tribes, each numbering about 100 people: the Kintak Bong and the Kensiu, mainly found around Baling, with some groups crossing the border to Thailand and some Kintak Bong living in the Kroh district of northern Perak [1, p. 144]. Earlier census data from 1952, recorded by Williams-Hunt, placed 382 Negritos in Ulu Kelantan, 559 in Lipis (Pahang), and 161 in Kemaman (Trengganu) [2, pp. 182–183]. Schebesta, writing in 1927, listed the Menri Negritos at approximately 400 souls in south-eastern Kelantan and northern Pahang [2, pp. 182–183].

The Negritos move about in a vast circle, some ranging from northern Kelantan through northern Perak to southern Thailand and back again [1, p. 145]. As they move, they hunt small animals and gather jungle roots, and occasionally find work for a few weeks in remote Malay villages [1, p. 145]. They do not normally make any attempts at cultivation [1, p. 145].

Economic and Social Organisation

The basic economic unit among nomadic Negritos is the wind-screen group: the people who normally live under the roof of one temporary shelter, consisting of a man, his wife, and their very young children [1, p. 148]. Older boys, after the age of seven or so, build a shelter of their own, while girls continue to live with their parents, separated by a fire-place [1, p. 148]. The next largest unit is the band, comprising people who trace descent from an older man over three generations or so, and whose residential equivalent is the group living in one camp and travelling together [1, p. 148]. The leader of the band, usually the oldest male, is called ketua (elder), and while he largely decides how long a group should stay in one place and where to move next, the system is very democratic: all older group members are normally consulted before a decision is made, and the ketua is regarded as a chairman rather than an autocratic leader [1, p. 148].

The economy of the forest-nomadic Negritos rests entirely on hunting and wild-tuber collection [2, p. 188]. The wau tuber, the most common staple, takes only two months to grow to a size large enough for consumption, and most tubers must be eaten the same day they are dug or they turn black and become inedible [2, pp. 188–189]. The Negritos lay exclusive territorial claims to the areas they exploit, and they share all food equally within the group [2, p. 188]. Begng estimated the maximum viable group size at about 10 families, or 50 individuals [2, p. 191].

Among the Kensiu of Baling, who represent a partial departure from the purely nomadic pattern, the economy has been modified by settlement. They own a few acres of rubber land obtained from the Government, but this is insufficient for their needs and their cultivation of it is indifferent [1, p. 145]. The collection of jungle produce, particularly rotan (rattan), remains the main-stay of their economy, and they would not be able to survive without it [1, p. 145]. The village as a whole is permanently indebted to Chinese middle-men, who provide credit for marriages, funerals, and other purposes; the Department for Orang Asli Affairs has for many years tried to break this dependency without much success [1, p. 145].

Socially, the Kensiu system is very egalitarian, with little stratification and no possibility or incentive to accumulate wealth [1, p. 146]. Kinship becomes the primary factor of social organisation, and the system is bilateral, counting descent through both the mother’s and the father’s line [1, p. 147]. The most important form of individual property consists of trees, particularly durian and Ipoh trees (the latter yielding a poison used for blowpipes, which have long replaced the traditional Negrito bows and arrows) [1, p. 147]. Marriage is arranged by mutual agreement between the young couple, followed by the presentation of gifts to the bride’s father; traditionally these consisted of a knife, flints, tobacco, and cloth, though cash has now substituted for these items [1, pp. 145–146]. Divorce is easy to obtain, brought about by mutual agreement, and is fairly frequent [1, p. 146].

Religion and Material Culture

Religious beliefs among the Negritos have been discussed in great detail by Pater Schebesta, the best-known authority in this field [1, p. 149]. The Kensiu, like other Negrito tribes, believe in a large number of supernatural beings called orang hidup (the Malay term for “the people who live forever”), which are usually personified natural forces symbolised by living animals or plants [1, p. 149]. Supreme among these are two beings regarded as more or less equal: Ta Pedn, the creator of everything, and Karei, his chief helper, who takes a direct interest in human affairs and ensures that tribal taboos are observed, punishing breaches by sickness, minor accidents, or, in serious cases such as incest, by sending lightning or dispatching a tiger [1, pp. 149–150].

Beneath the orang hidup is another category of spirits, the chinoi, who are regarded as human in form but extremely small, dwarf-like beings that cannot normally be seen by the human eye [1, p. 150]. The chinoi are always well-disposed towards men and their main function is agricultural: they ensure that fruit and jungle produce ripen at the proper time [1, p. 150]. The religious specialist, called halak, is a shaman who enters a state of trance or possession to contact the chinoi and intercede on behalf of human beings [1, p. 150]. Among the settled Kensiu at Kg. Lalang, the position of the halak appears to be less important than among nomadic Negritos, a change attributed partly to their reduced dependence on the vagaries of nature and partly to the provision of modern medical treatment [1, p. 150].

Research and Documentation

The scholarly record on the Negritos spans nearly a century of publication in the Society’s journal, reflecting shifting priorities from early physical anthropology to applied ethnography. The earliest contribution in the archival record is a 1933 osteological analysis by Gordon Harrower, Professor of Anatomy at Singapore, who examined skeletal remains recovered from canoe burials at the Kuala Selinsing site in Perak [3]. Drawing on comparative craniometry against reference values for Malay, Semang, Dyak, Tamil, Javanese, Fukien, and Burmese skulls, Harrower argued that the buried individuals were of Negrito or Protomalayan origin rather than Malay or Indian [3]. The Association 2 skull, in particular, showed a constellation of features—low vault, broad flattened nose, rectangular orbits, microcephalic capacity, and pronounced platycnemism—that aligned it closely with the Semang type and decisively excluded it from the brachycephalic Malay or mesorhine Tamil categories [3]. The estimated cranial capacity of 1,236.5 ccms and cephalic index of 76.98 placed it in the microcephalic, mesaticephalic, platyrhine group most closely comparable to Schebesta’s Menri Semang skull [3]. Harrower proposed that the Association 1 skull, substantially larger but sharing the same morphology, represented a hybrid individual, possibly a cross between Semang and Dyak [3]. The presence of two pigmy individuals among three skeletons was taken as evidence of a dominant Negrito element rather than an adventitious occurrence [3]. Evans, who had excavated the site, proposed that Proto-Malayan sea-roving peoples may have conducted the bead trade across the Malay Archipelago under Indian influence, with Negritos present as dependants or through intermarriage—a hypothesis that reconciled the Indian cultural material with the Negrito skeletal remains [3].

The mid-twentieth century saw a shift towards field-based ethnography. Rodney Needham’s 1976 article, based on an unsuccessful two-week search in May 1955 for nomadic Negritos on the Gunong Tahan massif in northern Pahang, demonstrated the value of fragmentary field reports to later researchers [2]. Although the party found only abandoned camps and old tuber-diggings, the corroborating evidence assembled from local Malay, Siwang, and Semelai informants confirmed that the Kenyam people were indeed Negritos (Bateg) [2]. Physical descriptions, a small vocabulary list, and a set of kinship terms that aligned with those recorded by Schebesta and Evans for other Negrito groups all converged on this identification [2]. Needham further established that the Negritos’ economy rested entirely on hunting and wild-tuber collection, that they laid exclusive territorial claims to the areas they exploited, and that they shared all food equally within the group [2]. He argued that, despite Evans’s generalisation that Negritos prefer river valleys and foothills, the people on the Gunong Tahan massif were forest nomads who had been progressively driven up the steep flanks of the mountain by the encroachment of Malays and other groups [2].

The most substantial ethnographic treatment in the archival record is Iskandar Carey’s 1970 study of the Kensiu Negritos of Baling, Kedah, based on fieldwork conducted in 1968 and early 1969 [1]. Carey, who served as Commissioner for Aboriginal Affairs from 1955 until his retirement in August 1969, examined the settlement at Kampong Lalang, one of the very few places in Western Malaysia where Negritos have been settled more or less permanently [1, p. 143]. The village, with a total population of about 120, included Negritos of three different tribes: the Kensiu (about two-thirds), the Kintak Bong, and a few Jahai [1, p. 143]. Carey argued that the settlement represented a unique compromise between the traditionally nomadic Negrito way of life and a partially settled existence [1, p. 143]. His account of the 1967 rural development scheme, which included new timber houses, a community hall, a piped water supply, fish ponds, goats, chickens, and citrus fruit seedlings, provided a candid assessment of both the possibilities and the structural limitations of government intervention among a people who had lived as pure nomads for millennia [1, pp. 151–152]. By March 1969, all chickens were dead, some goats had died, the water supply was not working, and the village compound was very dirty [1, p. 152]. Carey attributed the comparative failure to weak leadership, insufficient land for cultivation, the villagers’ individualistic and irregular working habits shaped by a nomadic economy, and their perpetual indebtedness to middle-men [1, p. 152]. He concluded that the scheme had nonetheless been worthwhile, having given the Kensiu a new pride and improved their relations with surrounding non-Orang Asli neighbours [1, pp. 152–154].

The historiographical trajectory from Harrower’s physical anthropology through Needham’s distributional ethnography to Carey’s applied social study reflects a broader shift in the discipline: from questions of racial classification and antiquity to questions of subsistence, social organisation, and the practical challenges of integrating a nomadic people into a settled national framework. The Negritos remain, as Carey observed, an intelligent but economically and socially very backward people, a tribe which has lived a purely nomadic existence for many thousands of years, for whom improvements are bound to be slow and much patience will be required [1, p. 154].

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. I. Carey (1970). The Kensiu Negritos of Baling, Kedah JMBRAS 43(1): 143–154.
  2. R. Needham (1976). Minor reports concerning Negritos in Northern Pahang JMBRAS 49(2): 184–193. Read on JSTOR
  3. Harrower G (1933). Skeletal remains from the Kuala Selinsing excavations, Perak, Malay Peninsula JMBRAS 11(2): 190–210.