The religious problem among the Orang Asli
Dr. Iskandar Carey, serving as Commissioner for Orang Asli Affairs, published this brief paper in the JMBRAS in 1970, examining the impact of world religions—Islam, Christianity, and the Bahá’í faith—on Malaysia’s indigenous Orang Asli population. His central argument is that while missionary activity has produced a small number of conversions, the more serious problems arise not from conversion itself but from the social fragmentation and cultural disruption that partial conversion inflicts on small, isolated communities.
Summary
Carey explicitly disclaims any interest in traditional Orang Asli religion, which he characterises as varieties of animism, and directs his attention instead to the “problem” created by the introduction of alien religious beliefs. He surveys the state of missionary activity across the three major faiths, noting that the apparent numerical superiority of Muslim converts is deeply misleading: the vast majority of Orang Asli Muslims are Orang Laut, a coastal people of Johore who were already Muslim before their migration to the Malay Peninsula. The genuinely new conversions to Islam over the preceding century are a small fraction of the total, dwarfed by Christian and Bahá’í conversions. Carey then diagnoses why Muslim missionary efforts have been comparatively unsuccessful, pointing to the state-by-state organisation of religious departments, minimal financial resources, and the practical demands of Islam—circumcision, dietary restrictions, five daily prayers in Arabic, and fasting—which present genuine obstacles for a people whose lifestyle does not accommodate rigid schedules.
He contrasts this with Christian missions, which became more effective after the strategic shift from European missionaries to educated Orang Asli appointed to the work, and which bundled religious instruction with education and medical services. The most critical portion of the paper addresses the social consequences of partial conversion within small villages. Carey documents how Christian conversion has split communities into hostile segments, generated conflicts over marriage customs such as pre-marital chastity and the impossibility of divorce, and produced inter-tribal quarrels without facilitating any compensatory integration with the Malay majority. He is particularly scathing of small obscure sects that offer no material benefit but project a distorted and incorrect view of the outside world to an intelligent but socially isolated people, which he condemns as a form of brain-washing.
Key Findings
- The 1969 Department for Orang Asli Affairs census recorded approximately 53,000 Orang Asli in Malaysia, of whom about 60% lived in the deep jungle and the remainder in accessible rural areas, mostly in southern Western Malaysia (p. 155).
- January 1968 data: 1,600 Orang Asli Muslims (of whom 1,400 are Orang Laut of Johore, long-established Muslims), approximately 700 Christians (50 Catholic, 230 Methodist, 360 Lutheran, 15 “Church of the Gospel”), and about 350 Bahá’ís—totaling roughly 2,600 adherents of world religions against some 50,000 traditional believers (p. 155).
- Only about 200 Orang Asli have been genuinely converted to Islam in the last 100 years, a small figure when compared to Christian and Bahá’í converts (p. 156).
- The Batak Lutheran missionary Napitoepoloe, working in Perak before the Second World War, married an Orang Asli woman, converted six villages, established the first primary school for Orang Asli children in the country, and produced three books on Christianity in the Semai language still widely circulated (p. 158).
- In a Negri Sembilan Temuan village, approximately half the population converted to Catholicism, splitting the village into two largely hostile segments and creating conflicts over marriage customs, including the Catholic prohibition on divorce (p. 158).
- Carey’s diary entry of 17 March 1964 records a visit from an American missionary of the “Church of the Glorious Coming” who wished to work among the Jah Hut of Pahang, carrying an “evilly-printed pamphlet” depicting Darwin and other scientists in hell (p. 159).
Conclusion
Carey’s definitive historical takeaway is that the religious “problem” is ultimately a minor one in numerical terms—the great majority of Orang Asli remain traditional animists and this position is likely to persist—and that the more pressing issue is the social fragmentation caused by partial conversion within small communities. He argues that government policy should concentrate on improving the material conditions of the Orang Asli rather than pursuing religious assimilation, invoking a loose translation of a Marx aphorism: “first fill your belly, then worry about philosophy.” He considers a successful Muslim missionary effort to depend on a wholesale reorganisation of the state-based religious departments, which he judges unlikely in the foreseeable future.
Context
- The author was serving as Commissioner for Orang Asli Affairs at the time of writing, giving the paper an official administrative perspective; his data derive from Department for Orang Asli Affairs records and information supplied by State Protectors of Orang Asli (p. 155, fn. 5).
- The paper contributes to the small body of mid-20th-century administrative literature on Orang Asli policy, offering a rare insider critique of both Muslim and Christian missionary approaches from the vantage point of the government official responsible for their welfare.