LIVING IN THE FORESTS OF THE SUN –
THE STORY OF AN OPPRESSED MALAY MINORITY
Introduction
Itak could be quickly gripped by his feelings. His tribal history is to him sacred, but he knew of it no more than the basic established belief that his people, the Orang Asli, had come from Pagar Ruyung, the heart of the Minangkabau Malay. ‘We were the elder brother (abang) and the Melayu (Malays) the younger (adik).’
He is Malay. ‘But there was disagreement from the days we were in Pagar Ruyung. As a result our ancestors decided to live by the forests in the hills, while the rest lived along rivers and the coasts, becoming farmers and traders.
‘My father told me this. But I was a small boy when my father died. I cannot remember the names of our ancestors (moyang) at Pagar Ruyung.’
He was a Temuan, living with his sons and a son-in-law on a perch along the road from Hulu Langat to Kuala Klawang, the jungle slipping into a deep valley before it rises once again into the other side of the Malayan Main Range, Banjaran Titiwangsa.
It is likely the Aslis have altogether forgotten the legends of their genesis. But there was an exception inside the Jerantut forests in Pahang 36 years ago. He was Batin Talib of Sungai Kiol, himself not merely a story-teller but a “weaver”, a creative soul that was undeterred by the failure of the tribal collective memory to retain its legends and myths.
I met him in 1972 and recorded on a Grundig tape for the Malaysian National Archives his story of the Jah-Het and Jakun in a shortened version, the whole story requiring seven nights to be told from beginning to end. His story in the subsequent parts of this writing is based on what was taped and on the notes I took when asking him to explain or elucidate his narrative. I kept in touch with him for many years after.
Invasion
My arrival at his village was inopportune. I ran right into an invasion of his environ. A timber company had been licensed to assault with impunity the sanctified reaches of his forest in the sun. He was distraught and incensed.
‘Why do you wake up every morning from your sleep?’ he asked, looking at me expectantly in the hope I shared his beliefs and his worldview to state the desired answer clearly, as an Asli would. I wasn’t as daring then as I am now to audaciously attempt crushing the unknown and so I surrendered the question back to him.
If he had been disappointed he carefully kept it to himself. ‘To see the sun once again,’ said he, ‘and seek from Her forests the joys of another day of life (bahagia nyawa untuk sehari lagi).’
He knew I was taken. I was stunned and could not hide it. He had become a heliotrope. Life to him was finally Existence, Consciousness/Knowledge, and Joy or Bliss, in such a context that was all his own. He was to the forest what the forest was to him, a symbiosis between Keeper and Sustainer of Life (Nyawa). The forest had been to him the richest and most manifest Life Form, sustaining other living forms that were countless, like the stars.
Talib would later speak of Ebrahil and Peruman the way his father had done in his declaration of the creation myth. [see Ratos, Anthony, 1960] It was about a contest between Ebrahil and Peruman in which Ebrahil would win hands down every round, attesting to the coming of Islam as it overtook the earlier Hindu-Buddhist beliefs in the Malay world. (see Ratos, Anthony, 1960, passim.] The Ebrahil, or Raja Brahil, was quite clearly the Archangel Jibrail (Gabriel), a common acceptance among Malays and Jakuns. [see Skeats, 1900, p.630]†
In Hikayat Raja Pasai a yogi insisted Sultan Malikul Mahmud should be called Sultan Ahmad Perumudal Perumal, whereupon the sultan vowed to free Pasai from India. He had earlier driven off a Siamese invasion. [Jones, Russell, 1999, p.35-36] Islam evidently first established itself in the Malay Archipelago in Samudera-Pasai, in the 11th century.
The passage to the dominance of Islam had not been easy. Harder still was the blow that thundered upon the Aslis in the interchange. They were to find being Muslims wasn’t enough. Islam clapped them in an iron-grip of a senselessly suppressive legalism that the choice they had to make was simply between being psychological captives or living freely as Sakai Pangan. His life trapped in that metaphysical and legal confrontations, Batin Talib culled himself from his own wisdom a manner of living in joy, cusped in words that could not have been neater to express the reality of an intermediary between the forests and the “Sun”. We wake up from our sleep each morning to see the “Sun” once again and seek from Her forests the joys of another day of life (bahagia nyawa untuk sehari lagi).’
Talib knew the story of Brahil and Peruman well, of course, but this was not a time of creation. He was facing the forces of destruction (construction and development?), directly assaulting his sacred environment by the money-culture he knew would one day claim the right to tyrannize the whole of his collective being, and his total sense and purpose of existence.
Even if he had tried his best to fight the monstrosity, his community was being immediately impoverished and the enfeeblement it caused was final.
Less than a couple of decades away a swath of his tribal forest would be completely removed and the undulating space would be turned into a full-scale international golf course ‘with circles of tiny green grasses seeking to secure a hole in which was a thing that looked like a very hard bird’s egg you cannot eat.’
No creation myth could include that kind of a transformation of the forest. It was metaphysically absurd. Who would be playing golf in Jerantut District anyway? The nearest airport was more than 120 kilometers away and the closest decent hotel was in Termeloh, some 50 or 60 kilometers to the south.
Jakun
Batin Talib was a Jah-Het chief. He hailed from Temuan country in Triang on the Negeri Sembilan side. The Jah-Het and Temuan are Jakun clans. His family was displaced by the Rawa War, from Hulu Triang.
Hulu Triang was founded by the son of Maharaja Alif, one of the two earliest personalities mentioned in the Teromba (Legend) of Jelebu’s beginning. He was Shah Alam Raja Sahari. In one version of the Teromba, he was a son of Alexander The Great. [see Wilkinson, R. J., 1971, pp. 368-69]
It was this Shah Alam Raja Sahari who acted as Regent after the demise of a Yam Tuan (the Sovereign) in Sri Menanti and he installs the new Sovereign.
The other was Batin Terjali, the grandson of Mertang, the Great Magician who married his own sister, begot a daughter, Tok Etah, and went to Pagar Ruyung. Tok Etah begot Batin Terjali in Pagar Ruyung and returned to Jelebu. This was long before Moyang Salleh became the first Muslim Undang of Jelebu a sniff sooner than Jelebu’s breakaway from Johor in 1757. [ A. Samad Idris, 1994, pp. 4-5; 11]
It was a story in Time that had its warps, when the bygone could be transmuted into tomorrow and the early years were merely a memory away.
The earliest settlers of Jelebu were several clans of the Jakun and other Asli communities. The Asli founded Johol, Jelebu, Sungai Ujong and Kelang. [A. Samad Idris, 1994, p.8]. We may add to that list Rembau. [see Buyers,Christopher, http://4dw.net/royalark/Malaysia/rembau.htm]
That’s Batin Talib’s heritage. His ancestors founded the better parts of Negeri Sembilan, and Naning which is now in Malacca. Apart from the Negritos who were Melanesian, most of the other Orang Asli tribes were Malays. But the Negritos had been a part of the Malay community from the earliest period of Malay history, in Funan. K’ang T’ai, who wrote the first extant recorded account of Funan between 245 and 250 AD described the people of the kingdom as black and frizzy-haired. [see Hall, D.G.E., 1955, p. 25] Parameswara’s wife in Palembang was believed to have been Puteri Rambut Selako, a Negrito.
Obviously the Malay had not been bothered by skin color or natural hairstyle. It was from such a heritage that the family of Batin Talib was displaced by the Rawa War.
He had meant the Rawa War of 1848 when the troubles that brewed in Sungai Ujong (now Seremban) between the Dato’ Klana and the Mendailing had involved the Rawa and Mendailing from as far as Pahang and Sumatra, the war raging until 1863 when it then burst into the Pahang Civil War and into the disturbances in Selangor until the British intervened and established the Residential System in the 1870s.
It had been several generations since, and several stops before he found himself succeeding his father as Batin (headman) of the community in Sungai Kiol.
The traditional Asli Batin wasn’t merely leader and magistrate of his community. He was also shaman. In the case of Batin Talib, his clan, the Jah-Het, belonged to the exclusive family of Muntah Lembu (lit. Bull’s Vomit), which made him a herald, giving him the right to retain, to “recover”, or even to determine the personality and character of his tribe by deciding on the Adat.
Muntah Lembu! The Bull’s Vomit was yet another matrix from which the celestial rose through Nature in a human form. Malay princes and princesses had emerged from the Buluh Betong (a specie of bamboo). The royal household of Champa had begun from a boy found inside a bunch of areca-nuts. It was about notifying the people to respect the special space distancing the royal and priestly from the common, even more imaginative than using a spacecraft from Krypton from where Superman had come to planet Earth. The blood of Malay royalty was white. It must have been awesome. The Adat needed that intervention of the supernatural to root.
The Adat is defined by Wilkinson as ‘“right procedure. In all matters there is a right way of doing and a wrong way of doing things” Adat is the right way…Adat includes the laws of nature, the convention of society, the rules of etiquette and even the doctrines of common sense. Adat is right action in matters of everyday life as well as in obedience of the laws of the land…Law lies at the very heart of Adat but is not coextensive with it.’ [Wilkinson, R.J.,1971, p. 392]
Batin Talib
Batin Talib was from Bat of the Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals). He was a descendant of the herald who was born of the foamy vomit of the White Bull ridden by the three hypostases from the Alexandrian cosmic custody to Bukit Siguntang in Palembang, to become the Malay rulers.
This is about epiphanies (terjali), as we are told in the Teromba of the Minangkabau. An earlier Alexandrian triad who landed on the peak of Gunung Merapi in Sumatra had become the rulers of the Malay world, of Persia-Ionia (Rum) and of China. The White Bull was the Bull of Gayomart, the Persian Adam. Sultan Idris of Perak had told Wilkinson he was a descendant of that Gayomart. [see Wilkinson, R.J., 1971, p.368]
Minangkabau was a part of Srivijaya and Srivijaya was a Buddhist centre of learning. The Hindu element had come when Srivijaya was conquered by Rajendra Chola in the 11th century and then when Majapahit became Palembang’s suzerain in the 14th century. The Buddhism was of the Sailendra, the dynasty that founded Funan. It was the Sailendra that built the grand and enchanting Borobudur.
Bat
Bat and his descendants, said the Sejarah Melayu, were the origins of those who retained the memory of the Malay genesis and culture. On them depended the fineries and niceties of the Malay Court [Adapun Bat itulah daripada anak cucunya asal orang yang membaca ciri dahulukala;† Shellabear, W.G., 1981, p.18; also see p. 58]
Had he been in Melaka during the Sultanate, Talib could have been the Seri Bija Diraja, of whom it was said he was ‘a Malay from the beginning, Tun Hamzah was his name, his origin the [clan] of Muntah Lembu (Bull’s Vomit); he was known as Datuk Bungkuk…’ [Shellabear, W.G., 1981, p.71]
The menhirs found in the Minangkabau territory of Negeri Sembilan and Naning are known to the elders till today as Moyang Bungkuk. The Muntah Lembu families presided over the installation ceremony of the Malay kings, and still do in Perak [see Raja Iskandar, http://themalaynobat.blogspot.com/]
The same musical instruments as those that are used in the installation of Malay Rajas are to be found in the Orang Asli Museum at Gombak. There is the nafiri (trumpet), the serunai (reed shawm), the gendang (drums) and the nengkara (kettledrum), making a complete ensemble.
Talib was a Malay of Minangkabau. Some would say he was “proto-Malay”, meaning the Malay before he became Buddhist, Hindu-Buddhist or Muslim. Talib had a different view. He believed his people, the Orang Asli, would have remained Muslims if Islam could be friendlier and not amuse the power-appetite with the violence of the religious laws. ‘We uphold the laws of Abraham and as we were told, it has only seven things that are forbidden. We strictly forbid adultery, theft, lying, being unjust, to oppress, breaking promises and to favor one’s relatives or cronies.’
The Sejarah Melayu referred to the law of Abraham, but did not elucidate. [see Shellabear,W.G., 1981, p.5] The laws of Batin Talib were strongly suggestive of the Persian Sassanian. More likely they were republican Kamboj or Saka of Central Asia, or the Jati number which was a mix of the Parthians and Scythians, or maybe of the Palas and Kamboj of Bengal.
The basic nature of Adat Perpatih had long baffled scholars because of its republican persuasion. The Yam Tuan (Sovereign) had no land nor had he any power beyond being the appellate. He had hardly a civil list. [see Wilkinson, J.R., 1971, p. 371]
Minangkabau was given into two distinct Adat. The Perpatih did not apply Islamic criminal and family laws. Those laws were gradually incorporated into the Adat Temenggong which governed the coastal cities, whereas the Adat Perpatih governed the people of the hills and forests. [see Harun Mat Piah, 1989, pp. 430-31; also see Wilkinson, J.R., 1971, p. 392-395].
It is easier to simply accept the Aslis as Malays but no longer, because in the Malaysian Constitution the Malay must be a Muslim. In other words, the Orang Aslis are non-Muslim Malays, but that is something which is constitutionally a nonentity in Malaysia. They were legally made “Non-Existent Malays”, a new metaphysical category of the existential and consequently of a unit of reality – ‘a non-existent reality’! But it is law in Malaysia. Should they embrace Islam they would reacquire normalcy, and once again become ‘Melayu’ (Malay), an ‘existent reality'.
Batin Talib’s ancestors could have belonged to the first wave of Minangkabaus that arrived in the Malay peninsular in 1338 (A.H. 773) according to legend. [Cave, Jonathan, 1996, p. 44]. That would be about the historical time when the curtain was raised for Adityawarman to make his debut in Malayu (Jambi). This Tantric Hindu-Buddhist from Majapahit-Jambi parentage founded Pagar Ruyung. He ruled to around 1375. In Indonesia he is more commonly recalled as a Tantrayana Buddhist rather than a Hindu or Hindu-Buddhist.
Most Minangkabaus and other Malays were not Muslims even after Melaka had fallen to the Portuguese in 1511. Tome Pires wrote, ‘The Kings of Menamcabo are three. The chief one is called Raja Cungo [Sungai] Teras, the second Raja Bandar who was the brother of the king, and the third Raja Bonco [Bongsu]. The first was Muhammadan for almost 15 years, the other two heathens. [Cave, Jonathan, 1996, p. 18] Pires noted Sultan Mansur Shah married his sister to the Minangkabau king and converted him to Islam.
Tome Pires also wrote to say Mansur Shah “was a Moor with a hundred of his men, but the others are still heathens to this day”. [Cave Jonathan, 1996, p. 18].
In the Sejarah Melayu the Bendahara of Raja Kecil Besar (later Sultan Muhammad Shah) knew nothing of Islam at the time of the conversion of the raja. [Shellabear, 1981, pp. 55-7]
Islam as we know it today in Malaysia is a new phenomenon. There’s little that was Arab-Islamic in the Malacca Laws (Undang-Undang Melaka). There’s hardly anything that was Arab-Islamic in the 99 Laws of Pahang.
It had been a soft and tolerant sort of Islam that finally rooted in Melaka, an Islam that looked much deeper for existential reality than the offering of the fundamentalists. Sultan Mansur, for instance, had sent to Pasai a delegation to ask the scholars there two simple questions: Would the souls in paradise remain in it forever? Would the damned stay in hell eternally?
Pasai answered positive on both counts but quickly withdrew and altered the answers to the satisfaction of Melaka. [see Shellabear, W. G., 1981, pp.117 -8]. We are all from God, says the Holy Qur’an, and our final place of repose is in Him.
Revisit
I revisited the Sungai Kiol village in 2004. Batin Talib who had left the world a long time ago was still fondly remembered by the elderly. The small two-classroom wooden school in 1972 had given way to a much larger concrete Primary School and then a larger-than-life school complex was being built in 2004. That is certainly modernization and development.
The path that led to the village was partially covered with bitumen. The Balai Adat where he held council or would talk with me into the wee hours of the morning appeared still the same. But there was now a small sundry shop-cum-house attesting to the fact that the change that had hit the village after the golf extravaganza was built had been inconsequential. There was already a contractor among the Jah-Het of Sungai Kiol in 1972 and by 1975 he was driving a Fiat 1200, no less.
Change had been perceptible from the 1950s, during the Emergency. Some members of the community had joined the Senoi Praak (regimental contingent) and they would have to prepare to earn a living in the money-economy or vegetate after retirement. A few became businessmen, some as contractors. The Kiol Valley, alas, hasn’t yet housed a single manufacturing industry. But it has a golf course, yahoo! –a. ghani ismail, 21 Feb. 2008
Notes†
†Pendinding
Allah ‘kan payung-ku!
Nabi Muhammad Mimbarku!
Raja Brahil di kananku!
Serafil di kiriku!
Rasulullah di hadapanku!
Turun mala’ikat yang berempat,
Terkunci terkancing pintu bahayaku. [Skeats, W.W.1900, p. 630]
†Telah orang bergelar itu datang ke dalam, maka dihentikan di luar. Maka cirri yang amat indah-indahbunyinya dibaca orang di hadapan raja. Daripada anak cucu Bat itulah yang membaca ciri itu. Adapun yang menyambut cirri itu daripada kaum keluarga orang bergekar it juga… [Shellabear, 1981, p.58]
References
1. A. Samad Idris et al., Luak Jelebu, Muzium Negeri dan Kerajaan Negeri Sembilan Darul Khusus, 1994
2.Buyers, Christopher, Rembau, http://4dw.net/royalark/Malaysia/rembau.htm , 2007
3.Cave, Jonathan, Naning in Melaka, monograph No. 16, JMBRAS, 2nd impression, ed. Dr. Mubin Sheppard, 1996
4.Harun Mat Piah, 1989, Puisi Melayu Tradisional: Satu Perbicaraan Genre dan
Fungsi, Dewan Bahasa Dan Pustaka, Kuala Lumpur
5. Jones, Russell, Hikayat Raja Pasai, Yayasan Karyawan dan Fajar Bakti, Kuala Lumpur, 1999
6. Raja Iskandar, http://themalaynobat.blogspot.com/
7. Ratos, Anthony, Origins of The World According to the Jah Hut (as narrated by
Batin Hitam), Kuala Lumpur, Private Circulation, 1960]
8. Shellabear, W.G., Sejarah Melayu, Fajar Bakti, ed. 3, Kuala Lumpur, 1981
9. Wilkinson, R. J. ed.,Papers On Malay Subjects, OUP, London, 1907-1916, reprint
1971
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