THE BATEK OF MALAYSIA
“An Original People”

Carolyn Holmes
Cultural Anthropology
Prof. Kathryn Cohan
July 1, 2013

Introduction
In this peaceful society, lives a tribe called the Batek, an Orang Asli society in Malaysia, meaning “Original People”. This tribe is known for being peaceful, and consider themselves as forest people because the forest is their home, and if any form of violence should occur; the person or persons will be ostracized from their community. Their belief is that if you become ill, it is because someone is angry with you without cause, and that person should make it right. Their gender relations consist of men and women working together. The men hunt while the women gather, as in most cultures where there are various foraging bands and tribes. Their social change is their sense of self and sharing. They strongly believe in sharing, and teach their children the importance of their ethics. They believe not only food, but other goods as well. Based on the Batek cultural beliefs and value, gender relations, and social change, how different is their culture from that of ours? Considering they are an egalitarian society.

The Batek of Malaysia is a foraging community of people from a nuclear family that live a nomadic lifestyle. They maintain their way of life through hunting, gathering, and trading forest products. The Batek tribe is known for being a peaceful society. In some societies, the people are more violent than others but this is not the case of the Batek. They believe it to be inappropriate to resolve differences with violence, thus making any act of violence unacceptable for any reason. In the Batek society if a person causes conflict among the tribe they will be fined and/or ostracized from the community. In our society violence is a crime and the consequences in some cases are jail time and fined. The Batek tribe has no formal leader, but has a designated person called the “headman” to advise the tribe on certain matters, but everyone is free to make their own decisions. As foragers, the Batek follow a nomadic lifestyle within a defined territory and lives a subsistence economy, this mean they gather only what they need. Foragers, according to Sahlins (1972) are an original affluent society, meaning they have material items in abundance relative to want and needs. He points out two paths to affluence, with the first involving limit wants and needs which make desire easy to satisfy. The second path being wants are great but the ability to fulfill them is limited. Where as, in our society, we have the luxury of satisfying and fulfilling our wants and needs. We have homes, land, big flat screen TV’s, computers, two-three cars and other material possessions we want because our society allow us this luxury though we have to work hard to keep them. The Batek and other foraging communities do not many material things but are satisfied with what they do have therefore, this makes their wants unimportant. They do not strive for wants because they have enough food to sustain them and lots of time to do what they want to do, and this is what labels the Batek, “of an original affluent society”. An outdated view of foragers was that they struggled to survive, but this was not the case and (Lee, 1979) with others that studied hunters and gatherers confirmed this to be a false. Foraging communities as the Batek have what is called an immediate return system. This is a system used to avoid storing foods. The catch of the day is an example: they fish or hunt and whatever is caught, is eaten that day, with no leftovers to be stored. What they hunt and gather is for immediate use. They are a mobile tribe and want to be able to move around therefore, they have no need for storage, because what is not used is shared with others in the community.
The Batek of Malaysia beliefs and values are somewhat as ours. They value freedom, and ours is a free society Their freedom is valued by their foraging way of life, that they can move around freely wherever they wish and can engage in any activities. They believe strongly in sense of self, sharing, peace and avoiding conflict. There sense of self provide them means of identifying themselves as forest people because this is their natural home, the rainforest regions with other nuclear families. The nuclear families consist of mother, father, their children and other relatives. Their shelters are scattered wherever they decide to camp. They choose sites in the forest because of the coolness and a healthier feeling, and they stay there for short periods of time then move so that the grounds can replenish, and furthermore, it give them refuge from other tribes. The Batek never owned land or any type of property because they believed it was there to be shared and enjoyed by all and not owned by one tribe. The day will come when they will no longer be able to forage for a living. They will have to settle into new accommodations and a new life in the Malaysian society. The JOA has been trying to educate and prepare them for the change. The Batek have an even stronger belief of sharing and is a form of generalized reciprocity in which Sahlins (1965-1972) describes as exchanges in which there is no expectation for the immediate return of an item or food in exchange for something else. The Batek share if no thought of getting anything in return. They give freely because it is their nature not to be selfish. As in our society, these forms of sharing are called Christianity, giving from the heart and expect nothing in return. Sharing in our society is not this intense, and there is very little form of generalized reciprocity because we live in a society that gives and expect something in return. Our society also consists of people wanting back what they give and not giving freely what is needed. Our society believes in storing and sheltering for hard times but we do not realize that those times may never come for us. We are to live one day at a time freely. We would rather food spoil than to give to someone in need, and we allow our children to waste food when somewhere in the world people are actually starving. We do not have the sense of sharing that of the Batek because the Batek are for all, and we are for one, our self, and their sharing applies not only to family but to other relatives, friends and neighbors. Can we as a free society say the same? The Batek is a peaceful tribe, and they are of an egalitarian society and it is their belief that everyone should be treated equal. The egalitarian doctrines is that all humans are equal to one another in worth and moral status. Therefore, they do not believe that one individual should hold title over another. The Batek tribe has no formal leader, certain people are designated to give advice on matters or to guide the tribe but this has no authority over them; and this person because of their experience and wisdom can be either man or woman, they are still free to make their own decisions. The gender relations are that men and women play equal rolls. Gender differences do not discriminate because both sexes do the same thing even in raising the children. They both are part of the food supply in their camp. Their marriages are based on equality, compatibility, and affection. The husband and wife decide on everything together as well as do everything together. They play reversal rolls, the men will gather the fruit and vegetables while the women hunt. The men cuddle the children and teach them to make and use different hunting tools. Parents rarely spanked their children. They used different approaches to discipline them. In our society we have to spank our children to teach discipline to a degree, because now days every form of discipline involving children is said to be child abuse, therefore, allowing our children to have the control over the parents The Batek social change is that material possessions are becoming more important. They are discovering that they can collect and save things for themselves. Many foraging cultures such as the Batek are struggling with change, but are adapting to it. They are learning to work within the National System where they get help from nonprofit groups that work to ease foragers (Nowak & Laird). Another change is knowledge based change, which include the transformation toward a change. The knowledge based changes consist of knowledge based readiness. For the Batek tribe to be ready for a change to take place using the readiness process they must be aware of their foraging way of life, become involved in a way to change it and finally. They must contribute time, resources and what ever is available to help them to get prepared for the transformation. The attitudes and habits of the Malaysians can develop a knowledge based economy successfully. Though foragers, such as the Batek of Malaysia lived a nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering, with their sense of sharing and their beliefs as a guide to help them through the paths of the rainforest, they are the perfect example of God’s creation. They were always content with what little they had, and were always willing to share them with others. They valued the freedom that was given them and made good use of it by believing that everyone should be equal and treated as such. In spite of their foraging way of life I do not feel that our society could measure up to their peaceful society and to me that is what makes “An Original People” that one special ingredient they possess.
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