Material Culture of Batek Hunter-Gatherers in Pahang State Malaysia

Today, Batek number around 1500 people in total, across the states of   Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan. They are one of the approximately culturally   and linguistically distinct groups who make up the Indigenous population of   Peninsular Malaysia, commonly referred to as Orang Asli.
 

Traditionally dwelling in lowland rainforests, Batek livelihoods have   centred on hunting forest meats, foraging for wild tubers, plants, and   mushrooms, tourism work, and trade. Today, most people also have some level   of involvement in oil palm plantation labour, and some engage in small-scale cultivation of rubber or subsistence crops. Though some of their rainforest   is protected by Taman Negara (the national park that spans the three states   in which Batek people dwell), much of their ancestral forest has been lost.   This loss is felt acutely.
 

The peoples who refer to themselves as Batek include diverse linguistic   groups, but the research for this project was conducted among Batek De’   speakers. Research was conducted solely with groups in Pahang State.
 

For those groups, pandanus weaving is an absolutely central part of   everyday material culture. While today it is more common to buy plastic   sleeping mats and bags from the shop, items woven properly with pandanus from   the forest are much loved – as are the activities of making them. Weaving has an important part to play in the maintenance of the fruit season, and is   embedded in Batek forest knowledge. However, as many children now attend   missionary boarding school, spending most of their time away from the forest   and their families, many weavers often worry that their children will not   learn how to weave and the knowledge will be lost.

 Weaving is not knowledge hoarded by a select group of people. Anyone who   wants to learn can, and most older women know how to weave – even if just a   little. Some people are experts, and are sought after for their advice, but   weaving tends to be a communal and egalitarian activity. While it is almost   entirely women who conduct weaving, there are some men who know how to   process and weave, and who will help their wives out. Pandanus, like any   other forest product, is often shared – in its raw, processed or woven form –   with bundles and finished items being shared, given away, or sometimes bought   and sold. Importantly, though these items are much loved, they are not considered to be long-lasting, or treated as such. Rolled out on the floor,   sleeping mats soon rot. Carried to the forest, bags soon tear. This is to be   expected – you can always make another one!
 

Methodology
 

The project builds on long term relationships with the weavers involved as   project collaborators built as part of two years of participant observation   fieldwork between 2014 and 2018. Part of this fieldwork was informal   apprenticeship, in which the PI (Alice Rudge) was taught to weave by some of   the women also participating in this project. Based on this background   knowledge of some techniques and processes, more detailed and focused   documentation of specific weaving processes was able to take place. Data   collection involved recording videos, taking photos, and making notes based   on the weaving activities undertaken by the weaver-collaborators on each   working day. Data were stored on hard drives and backed up on cloud storage   when visiting the town every week. Images were later selected to represent   the corpus of important techniques and processes, and edited for focus and   clarity using Adobe Premiere Pro. Summary assets were transcribed using ELAN   and translated into English from the original Batek. Media are organized in   the metadata spreadsheet.
 

The equipment used (a Nikon D5600 and an Acer Enduro laptop, with a Rhode   shotgun microphone) will be owned by the Batek. Each participant has been   provided with an SD card containing the recordings and photos from the   project in formats playable on their mobile phones.
 

Part of the project involved a collaboration with Gerimis Gallery, a   Malaysian Indigenous-focused art and archiving project. The output of this   collaboration was a booklet containing photos and information from the   project, which was disseminated widely among Batek in each of the two fieldwork locations. It was translated into both English and Bahasa Malaysia.   A PDF of this booklet in both languages is included in the collection.
 

Project Outcomes

1.The first in-depth documentation of the process of Batek pandanus   weaving
2. Data shared with research collaborators
3. Booklet shared among Batek communities as a physical copy