[Terrapreta] Fw: The People

[David Yarrow]

The People

excerpts from

Original Wisdom

Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing

Robert Wolf ©2001

Inner Traditions, Rochester VT

www.innertraditions.com



They call themselves Sng'oi, the People (also spelled Senoi, though Sng'oi, with its glottal stop, sounds more like they themselves pronounce it). Others have different names for them. Anthropologists and government people call them aborigines, some people call them Sakai, and others call them the Little People. They are elusive and shy. The people of the country among whom they live call them Orang Asli, the Ancient Ones, because they are thought to have lived on the Malay Peninsula from ancient times.

I had heard of the aborigines, of course, when we moved to Malaysia-they were a mystery. Few people actu­ally knew them; they hardly ever came down from the mountains and the deep jungle where they lived. The gov­ernment estimated there were no more than thirty thou­sand of them left-and I was told that this was probably a grossly exaggerated number. Government people showed me a map that illustrated where the three aboriginal tribes were. It indicated fairly large areas right through the mid­dle of the country. There were no roads anywhere near.

I first met a few of these aborigines when I visited anthropologists who" were studying their language. This Sng'oi village was large, just off the highway. It was quite different from those I would visit later. This was a show­place. There were perhaps thirty or more people living in the community-at least twice the normal population of an aborigine settlement. The Sng'oi, as is true of many aborigines, do not have settled villages; they are semi nomadic, moving every few years.

The people in this particular village were used to having visitors. They had lost some of their shyness. We had din­ner, a mixture of imported canned food and rice (not the usual fare, I would learn later). I noticed that very few of the People were eating-the meal had been prepared for the two anthropologists and myself, it seemed.

During and after the meal the anthropologists talked ani­matedly with their informant, a bright, older man with a wonderful twinkle in his eye. The little house in which the anthropologists lived was quite dark and crowded with peo­ple. The scientists' voices sounded loud in the small space. Sometimes I felt husband and wife were competing with each other to make points. I did not listen to what they were saying because it sounded very technical. Although I was not interested in the fine points of linguistics, later I wished I had learned some of the language when I had the chance!

The people of the village were soft-spoken and-the strangest thing-there was usually a little pause before one of the people in the group would say something. I had the odd feeling that they consulted with each other, and per­haps designated one person to speak for all of them.

After dinner the conversation became even more ani­mated; the hut reverberated with talk. I looked around and noticed that altogether only three people spoke: the anthropologists and the informant. The village people seemed to have disappeared, or perhaps they were invisible against the dark walls of the little hut.

One tiny village woman was cleaning up after the meal. She scuttled here and there, collecting plates and the cook­ing pot, sweeping the mats on the floor. She was so silent and unobtrusive, however, that it was a few minutes before I realized what she was doing. She did not make a big show of her work; she made herself almost invisible. When she came close, I whispered to her. She hunkered down near me, with a cup in one hand and the soot-black pot of rice in the other. I asked if she lived in this house.

She smiled a radiant smile and said, "Oh, I live in the house over there." She motioned with her head over her shoulder, pointing with her lips. "I always clean up. If I did not clean up for them, the house would be eaten by ants and other animals. But don't tell her-she thinks she is keeping house."

When I first arrived, the anthropologists had mentioned how much work it was to live as the natives do because everything was so primitive, but, the wife added, it made her feel close to the women.

 

I should have lost interest in the People. My first visit had been rather boring and frustrating. It had confirmed my perception of anthropologists as people who argue fine points of Western scientific theory without learning much about the people they are studying. I had learned almost nothing about the aborigines during that visit, and yet I was strangely drawn to them.

A few days later I met a schoolteacher whose mother was an aborigine. He allowed that he did not usually advertise his connection with the aborigines, but he sometimes acted as a sort of liaison. If I were interested, he could tell me some things about them.

We talked about his mother's people, and very hesi­tantly he told me where there was a real settlement-most aborigines live deep in the jungle, never close to a road. He gave me directions and told me to park the car at a little Chinese store about one hundred miles from where we lived. ''Ask at the store," he said, "and they will tell you where to find the path that leads to the settlement."

I asked a friend to accompany me. We found the store easily and asked about the path. It would be about an hour's walk, they said, but simple to find.

After walking perhaps an hour and a half, we knew we were approaching a village when we heard voices, laughter, and people singing. We were tired and hot from our trek through the jungle but felt refreshed when we heard those joyful sounds.

When we arrived, however, the village was totally deserted. Not a soul was to be seen; not a sound could be heard. Six empty huts stood randomly around a clearing. Since the People moved around, these shelters were mini­mal structures, built high off the ground and accessed by a steep ladder. Sng'oi shelters are used only for sleeping. Life is lived outside, in the open during daylight.

Because we were tired, we decided to wait, thinking the people of the village would return soon. We talked softly-neither of us wanted to break that reverberating silence. An hour passed, then two hours. We waited the rest of the day. Shortly before sunset we saw the face of an old man peek­ing around a hut. He came forward very shyly, and we looked at each other for a while. I said, in Malay, hoping he would understand, "We came to visit. I have met other Orang Asli and wanted to learn more." I mentioned the teacher who had told us about this village.

He motioned for us to sit down while he sat across from us. He smiled the sweetest smile, and very softly he made it known that since it was dark, it was too late for us to leave anyway, so we might as well stay the night.

He welcomed us in a mixture of Sng' oi-a language has a fascinating rhythm and many glottal stops-a few words of Malay, and signs.

The man was not really old, I discovered-perhaps in his early forties-but very wrinkled. He was a perfect host: self-possessed, calm, dignified. When he stood up he gave a hand sign and suddenly from all around us a dozen or so people came out, including some children.

By this time it was dark. Someone made a little fire. They cooked some rice-which, I learned later, is not their staple, but they had some in this settlement for special occasions. We had brought some cans of sardines (my teacher friend had told us to bring food and that sardines would be especially appreciated). Someone put some veg­etables on top of the rice that was cooking.

In the anthropologists' village someone had made a speech to us before dinner, apologizing for the poor fare, for the poverty of the village-a common enough cere­mony in that part of the world, and a ritual that usually precedes a meal with important visitors. Here, the old man simply motioned for us to sit around the little fire and eat. They ate rice and vegetables; we, the visitors, ate rice and sardines. I tried to make them understand that we had brought the sardines for them, not for us. It took quite a while for them to understand-and accept-that we did not bring the sardines because we did not trust the food they would prepare for us.

On subsequent visits to this and other villages I did not bring sardines or other gifts of food-or if I did, I did not offer them until after the first meal.

 

We stayed most of the next day at the little village and had a wonderful time. The second day they all sang again, laughed, and made jokes. I felt honored to be so accepted. But, then, I had hopelessly fallen in love with them. They were the most unusual people I had ever known. They had no neuroses, no fears (except of strangers, perhaps). They had an immense inner dignity, were happy and content, and did not want anything.

At that first settlement, communicating in a mixture of words and gestures that people use when they do not know each other's language yet, we learned about who they were. I should also get to know others of the Sng' oi, they said, and then told us how to walk to another settlement, not too far away.

And when, later, we did go to that other village, someone there suggested yet another. We were passed along, from one village to the next. That first settlement, however, I would return to many times. The people there became special friends.

* * * * *

I could not, however, spend all my time walking from one village to another. I was working and wanted to spend time with my family. But there were weekends, or days, that I could make free.

On one of my visits I was accompanied by the teacher. We went to a far settlement that neither of us had been to before. It was quite a walk, at least four hours, and included much climbing. The settlement was located high in the mountains.

Until then, there had always been someone who would be sitting by the side of the path as we arrived at a settle­ment. But when we approached the mountain village, no one was there to welcome us, and even when we got to the little settlement itself, it was remarkably quiet-no singing, joking, laughing. The few people who were around did not hide from us, though, and when we asked them what was going on, they told us that a small baby-only two days old-had died that morning. Everyone in the village was very sad, they said.

My friend the teacher suggested we go to the home of the baby. I did not want to intrude on someone's grief, but he assured me it was all right. When we came to the hut where the little baby had died, there were people standing outside who made room for us.

In this settlement, the houses were built quite high. There was a steep notched bamboo that one climbed to get to an open porch, maybe two feet wide and four feet long. As my head came above the floor of the porch there was a gasp from the four or five people sitting there. Then the teacher climbed up behind me and said, "It is all right; he is one of us." They made room. We sat around the tiny body lying on a little pillow.

Nothing was said.

       It was obvious who the parents of the little baby were. They seemed no older than sixteen, perhaps. The mother sat in what was almost a fetal position, all closed in. Tears rolled down her face every now and then. She made no effort to hide them or to wipe them away. The boy, the father, sat next to her. He looked at his dead girl child with an expression of such sadness that it wrenched my heart. Occasionally he would lean over and stroke his wife's hair, or hold her hand.

We were allowed to share their grief. It was a gentle grief-no loud sobbing, or tearing out of hair, but obviously a deeply felt pain that would leave a scar on their memories. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have to return the gift of a first child a few days after her birth.

Finally, perhaps an hour after we had sat down on the porch, a middle-aged man sat up straighter and asked whether someone had a box to bury the little body in. Someone handed up from the bamboo ladder what looked like a shoebox made of split bamboo. A few people left the little porch and others came up, among them an older man and woman, the parents of the young mother.

There was some talk I could not follow. The teacher softly interpreted for me: the baby had to be buried with something that had been close to her during her two days of life. The only thing that had been close was the pillow she was lying on-a square about twelve inches on a side, woven of very fine matting.

"Too bad to bury that new pillow," someone said. The pil­low was new; it could be used again.

In the end someone suggested that actually it was not the pillow that had been close to the dead baby, but the little cloth that had covered the pillow. With a feeling almost of relief at this solution, the baby was laid in the box (it had no lid) and someone picked up the cloth to put on top of the grave.

The middle-aged man, obviously a priest or shaman, car­ried the box through the village. We followed in a ragtag pro­cession behind him until we came to the edge of the village, where some teenaged boys stood around a hole they had dug. The shaman, carrying the box, waited until all of us-­maybe a dozen people-had assembled around the little grave. Then he stepped into the hole, the box under one arm, and he talked to the little child:

"You. We are sad to say good-bye to you. You made such a long journey to come to us, nine months in the dark. And then, when you come out, you have to leave so soon. Here"-he reached into the earth to scoop up a little soil-­"this is dirt. Dirt is what the world is made of. You have never tasted dirt, but that is what this world is." He gently put some dirt on the lips of the tiny body. "Here, taste it. At least you will have had a little taste of this world, before you go back again. Your mother is sad to see you go so soon. Your father is sad. We are all sad, but we know that you have to go." There was a pause. Then, "We let you go."

The shaman, who had been stooped over the box, straightened up. He looked at the three or four boys who stood at the edge of the grave and addressed them. The tone of his voice changed, becoming strong and loud: "You, boys, listen well to what I am saying. Remember this because when I am gone, you have to carry on. Do you hear me? Are you listening? Pay attention, you who have to carry on."

He put the box in the grave and quickly covered it with a little dirt. The boys shoveled more dirt with their bare hands, until the hole-a small hole for such a small body ­was filled. The handkerchief sized cloth that had been close to the baby was placed on top of the dirt. More dirt was put on the cloth, then stones were put on top of the little mound. We left.

* * * * *

The People are ancient. They are pre-industrial, pre-agricul­tural. They are semi-nomadic and rarely plant crops. Instead they harvest what they need from what grows wild in the jungle around them. When the little clearing they make for a settlement becomes too overgrown, and when the jungle in the vicinity no longer provides what they need, they move.

Their ways have not changed much in a long time. They have few of what we call material goods; they do not need them and they do not want things they would have to carry when they move. Those I knew seemed healthy, although they do not live long, according to our standards. They die from diseases they never knew before, diseases for which they have no natural immunity.

Those I knew kept themselves apart, although the world intruded. The jungle they felt themselves a part of was being clear-cut and planted in rubber trees and other cash crops. Every year the jungle they lived in grew smaller.

 

Once, when I walked with a young man from one village to another, we talked about their shrinking world. I asked him about the changes he had seen in his twenty-three years. At some point in the discussion, when the difficulties and problems he listed seemed overwhelming, I blurted out, "But what can be done?"

He smiled that achingly sweet smile that I associate with the People-we who are civilized do not know such smiles anymore-and he said, simply, "Oh, we are dying out."

That is what I sensed he said. Literally, what he said was, "We are dead," or, perhaps, "We died." We were speaking a very simple version of Malay, in which there are no clear tenses. Whether a speaker means past, present, or future is for the listener to determine from the context. I sensed that he meant We are dying out.

* * * * *

Today I reflect on the peoples of the world who are extinct. I am saddened to think that humankind entered a new century leaving behind the cultures, the creativity, the wisdom, and the smiles of people we have so thoughtlessly exterminated.

      Whether we know it or not, we are their heirs. We must not squander that heritage.

      We can't forget; it is we who have to carry on.
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