12 Facts About Batek people

Batek people are an indigenous Orang Asli people ; belonging to the Semang group, who live in the rainforest of peninsular Malaysia.

The Batek people are nomadic hunters and gatherers, so the exact location of their settlements change within the general confines of the area that they inhabit.

Batek people were first documented by Europeans in 1878, when explorer-naturalist Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai of Russia wrote about them.

Since it is possible to harvest the trees in that region, the Batek people are largely confined to Taman Negara National Park and the surrounding region.

Batek people language belongs to the Eastern Jahaic sub-branch of Aslian languages which is part of a wider Mon–Khmer language family.

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Batek people is mostly an oral language with few written records, but it is usually written in a modified Latin alphabet.

Each encampment generally has control of the land immediately around it, but since the Batek people do not believe in the concept of private land ownership, the encampment considers it to be the caretaker of the land, rather than its owner.

Batek people economy is very complex, with some things such as land, having no right of ownership.

Batek people do not consider this sharing of resources to be an act of kindness, they believe that all food items belong to the forest, so that the person who happens to be in possession of food has a moral obligation to share it.

The Batek people believe that if a requested favor is refused, the person who was turned down, will likely suffer misfortune, and when the misfortune happens everyone in the camp will be angry at the person who was unkind.

Since they do not have leaders or a military, the Batek people are generally at the mercy of the Malaysian Government.

One of the Batek people summed up the situation by saying: “We Batek people are rich if we have a cooking pot, digging stick, bush-knife, lighter, tobacco, salt and fishing pole.