Jakun people or Orang Ulu/Orang Hulu (meaning "people of the upstream") are an ethnic group recognised as Orang Asli (indigenous people) of the Malay Peninsula in Malaysia.
The Malaysian government recognises 18 different sub-groups of Orang Asli, including three broad divisions: the Negrito (Semang), Senoi and aboriginal Malays (Proto-Malay). The Jakun people are the largest sub-group in the Proto-Malay division, and the second-largest Orang Asli sub-group overall, after the Semai.
In the past, the name Jakun was used as a term that encompasses all sub-groups in the Proto-Malay division, including the Temuan people of the southwest and centre of the Peninsula and several coastal communities of the south of the Peninsula, including the Orang laut (Orang Seletar, Orang Kuala) and Orang Kanaq.
In terms of anthropological characteristics, the Proto-Malay are southern Mongoloid, generally taller and having lighter skin than other groups of Orang Asli.
In standard Malay, the name "jakun" carries a derogatory connotation meaning "slave" or unsophisticated person.
Settlement areas
Jakuns are mostly located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, in the interior of the southwest Pahang and north JohorOrigins, Identity, and Classification , Centre for Orang Asli Concerns All Jakun settlements are located near the jungle, and their population is more or less dependent on jungle resources. The geography of this region varies from a wet swampy area to dense tropical jungles. The local climate is determined by high humidity and seasonal monsoons.
Jakun live in villages belonging to different categories. This development is the Rancangan Pengumpulan Semula (RPS, "Regrouping Plan") settlement, a regrouping scheme for undeveloped settlements and those that are developing. In RPS settlements, all residents have individual house, built by the government where they are provided with electricity and water supply, communication facilities, public halls, shops, schools, children's and medical institutions, asphalted roads are laid for them. People from different settlements located in or near the jungle were moved to such villages. Much of the people still continue to live in old settlements. Usually there is no electricity there, water is taken from natural sources, and there are only a few houses built out of durable building materials. Access to these villages are through earthen roads and jungle paths.
Some of the settlements that the Jakun people are located includes:- Kampung Sayong Pinang, Kota Tinggi District, Johor Kampung Semangar, Kota Tinggi District, Johor Kampung Pasir Intan, Kota Tinggi District, Johor Kampung Peta, Endau-Rompin National Park, Johor Kampung Batu 10, Gunung Arong, Mersing, Johor Bekok, Segamat District, Johor Kampung Cendahan, Chini Lake, Pekan District, Pahang Kampung Buluh Nipis, Muadzam Shah, Kuantan, Pahang Kampung Langkap, Rompin, Pahang Kampung Batu Tiga, Rompin, Pahang
Population The Jakun people are the second largest ethnic group among the Orang Asli and the largest among the Proto-Malay people group. They are numbered at 31,577 people as of 2010.
The population dynamics of the Jakun people are as the following: Year 1960 1965 1969 1974 1980 1991 1993 1996 2000 2003 2004 2010 Population 6,786 7,331 8,995 8,719 9,605 17,066 16,637 16,637 21,484 27,448 27,448 31,577
Distribution of the Jakun population by states (1996, JHEOA statistic): State Jakun people Total Orang Asli Percentage of Jakun people Pahang 13,113 33,741 38.9% Johor 3,353 7,379 45.4% Selangor 157 10,472 1.5% Negeri Sembilan 14 6,188 0.2% Total 16,637 92,529 18.0 %
Appearance The Jakuns are taller than the other aboriginal peoples of the Malay Peninsula, the Semang and Sakai tribes. Jakun people typically have olive-brown to dark copper skin color. Some have intermarried with ethnic Malays or Chinese. Those who marry or assimilated with Malays usually adhere or convert to Islam, and end up abandoning their culture and traditions. While families with Chinese heritage may practice Chinese folk religion in addition to Jakun customs.
Language Jakuns speak Jakun language, a Malayic language of the Malayo-Polynesian languages group, closely related to Malay. Perhaps it should be considered as one of the archaic dialects of the Malay language. It does not have its own written language, is gradually replaced by Malay and is under threat of disappearance.
The Malaysian radio on the Asyik FM channel broadcasts separate Jakun programs daily.
History
It is traditionally believed that the ancestors of Jakun people, like other Proto-Malay people, arrived in the Malay Peninsula from the southern Chinese province of Yunnan some 5,000 years ago. The ancestors of the other two groups of Orang Asli were living here are the Semang and Senoi people.
The first Malay people arrived on the peninsula much later, probably around 1,500-2,000 years ago from Taiwan. Initially, the Malay people initially established trade relations with the local population, but later began to dominate the land. The Malay people often mixed with the Jakun people, and the aborigines became part of the Malay population. Those indigenous people who opposed the outsiders were eventually moved to the interior regions and retained a significant part of their traditional culture.
For a period of long time the Jakun people continued to live mostly in isolation from the outside world.
Jakun people living along the Endau River in Johor recall with horror how during the Second World War, pillars of Japanese soldiers were passing their jungle.
The active penetration of the state government and individuals into traditional Jakun areas began in the mid-1980s, and intensified in the 1990s. In 1987, there was a land conflict between local Jakun settlers and the other settlers in Pasir Asam, near Kota Tinggi, Johor. The state government was favouring the settlers and offered the Jakun settlers to move to a new settlement specially built for the indigenous people.
The state government regards the Orang Asli as poor and marginalized ethnic minorities that are far from center of developments. Their socioeconomic activity, which is closely linked to the surrounding natural resources, is considered to be backward. For a better life, they are offered to move to permanent residence in villages based on the model of Malay peasants. As a result of the implementation of government programs under the resettlement scheme, most Jakun people were forced to leave their traditional villages and found themselves in specially constructed for them new state-owned so-called RPS (Rancangan Pengumpulan Semula, the "Regrouping Plan") sites whose settlers are provided with basic amenities. Although they were placed in new state-funded houses in already existing villages, the provision of amenities and infrastructure is noticeably lagging behind. Jungles that are cut down near Jakun villages were replaced with other commodity crop plantations that are not theirs, but the Jakun people still receive revenues from these plantations.
The resettlement of Jakun people to new settlements has often occurred in relation with some natural disasters. Such as the villagers of Selingkong and Meranti in Pekan District, Pahang moved here after a major flood in 1971. Another group of Jakun people living in the jungles of Endau, left their native land through a cholera outbreak settled in the Segamat District and Kota Tinggi District in the state of Johor, as well as in Rompin District in the state of Pahang.
Now their villages are far from the forest, they are deprived of their native environment, where they collected rattan, root crops, looked after their forest plants. This is also added with a significant depletion of the remaining natural resources.
There are areas of Jakun settlements that found themselves in the areas of attention in the tourism industry. Tourists are attracted primarily by "untouched nature" of the locals. A popular place for ecotourism, particularly Lake Chini, with its legend about the immersion of an ancient city of Khmer Empire under water. However, due to the depletion of the local natural resources, the flow of tourists has decreased. In 2007, they managed to attract only 17,000 people.
Traditional economy
In the past, the Jakun people were hunter-gatherers. The nutritional diet are based on fish and wild animals. Animals such as wild boars, indigenous deer species (pelandok, kancil and kijang), lizards, monkeys and other small animals are hunted. Blowguns (sampit) are employed in hunting; which is usually made of bamboo tubing with sharpened tip bamboo darts that are pre-dipped in poison. Jakun hunters can shoot their blowgun with deadly precision of 30 meters.
Cage traps (bubu) made of bamboo and bounded by rocks are used to catch fish in rivers or streams. The type and shape of the cage trap depends on the size and type of fish they are going to catch.
Jungle produce such as wild fruits, rattan, wood, rubber, wax, camphor and herbs are gathered. A significant portion of these produce are then exchanged for other commodities.
In some areas, the Jakun people also engage in primitive agriculture. They had small farms in the jungle. For this purpose, the land was cleared by slash-and-burn method. Rice and tuber-based crops like sweet potatoes are grown. They practice shifting cultivation where after two seasons of land cultivation had passed, they would move on to another plot of land and start everything again from the beginning. They would only return to the old plot of land after many years.
However, most Jakun people prefer not to engage in farming but to exchange foods from the Malay and Chinese people with their jungle produce such as kemenyan, gaharu, dammar gum and rattan by barter. Thus they also received clothing, tobacco, salt, gambier and areca nut palm.
In using natural resources, the Jakun people must take into account the ownership of specific communities in a certain territory. Although they do not physically demarcate it, everyone knew well the limits of the possessions of their neighboring communities. People hunted animals, caught fish, cultivated farms, or collected grass only within their own territory. In addition, they do not take anything superfluous in regards to using natural resources, because they understood that the jungle should not be harmed.
The traditional house of the Jakun people is hut made of bamboo flooring, tree bark or wooden plank walls and Nipah roofing.
In the past, Jakun people wore loincloth around the hips made from the bark of trees with their own hands and did not buy clothes.
Beliefs
Most Jakun people adhere to their animistic beliefs that are closely related to their natural surroundings. They believe that not only people have souls but animals, plants, and even inanimate objects (mountains, hills, settlements, rivers, rocks, caves, and so on) as well.
The personality of Orang Asli is closely linked to the nature and the land on which they live. It is the basis of their material and spiritual being, as well as the source of their physical and emotional nourishment. Jakun people do not consider themselves as a higher being higher than animals. They speak with animals too, as if they can understand them. There is great respect for every living thing, from the big elephant to the tiny cicada.
Jakun people are very superstitious, as they believe that misfortune awaits due to violations of rules established by nature for people.