Paper short abstract:

Recently Batek hunter-gatherers have become tourist attractions in the National Park (Taman Negara) in Peninsular Malaysia. This paper explores how Batek represent their culture to outsiders without compromising their values or revealing the true meanings of their beliefs and practices.

Paper long abstract:

The Batek De' are a group of about 800 hunter-gatherers and traders of forest products living in the tropical rainforest in Peninsular Malaysia. The Batek, like other Semang, have a long tradition of trading with farming peoples, including other Aboriginal (Orang Asli) groups and Malays, but they have also maintained social and cultural barriers between themselves and outsiders. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries especially, when they were subject to slave-raiding by Malays, they avoided contact with outsiders, except trusted trading partners, while living in small, nomadic groups deep in the forest. They also deliberately concealed their beliefs, customs, and even their names from outsiders.

Although logging since the 1980s has destroyed the forest in much of the Batek's traditional territory, many of them still live in the National Park (Taman Negara), where the forest has been preserved. There they come into contact with local and international tourists, especially near the park headquarters at Kuala Tahan. Over the last several decades, Malay tourist guides began including Batek camps in their tours of the wonders of the rainforest, and recently Batek established a special camp on the Tembeling River just above Kuala Tahan where they demonstrate their bush skills, such as making fire with sticks, and sell handicrafts, such as miniature blowpipes, to parties of tourists. In this paper I explore how the Batek represent themselves and their culture to outsiders for profit without compromising their own values or revealing the true meanings of their beliefs and practices.