Orang Asli
Autor: ummar18 • May 7, 2015 • Essay • 314 Words (2 Pages) • 1,001 Views
Orang Asli
Religion
The orang Asli are traditionally animist. Animism believes that that there is a soul lives in each object and they viewed that non-human entities such as animals, plants, and inanimate objects or phenomena possessed a spiritual essence. But after the British colonial era many of them started embraced monotheistic religion such as Islam and Christianity. It was the work of state sponsored Christian missionary and also the Dakwah by the Muslim community that are the one that converted them. Some of still practice Animism but a majority of them converted to Islam and Christianity.
Animism Characteristic
Animisms believed there consists of two sides of a proposition which is all living and non-living thing have a spirit and a essence and those essence need to be appease by performing rituals. Their perspective is so fundamental that mundane everyday task that are taken for granted that most indigenous don’t have the word in their vocabulary.
Taboos in Animistic culture
The Orang Asli are mostly self-supporting, practicing shifting cultivation, hunting, and fishing. They have very complicated food taboos that affect the pregnant women and the children. Those are affected by the taboos are dependent upon small rodent, frogs, and fish as their main sources of animal protein. The orang Asli have a taboo that they can’t eat small rodents such as rabbits. This taboo has cause the Orang Asli community to suffer from the lack of protein that they need. This has cause a crisis within the orang Asli community
Location and Religion
Most of orang Asli are located in the Peninsula of Malaysia where they live in perfect harmony with Nature. They has grown very accustomed to living in the jungle. While they haven’t been progressing much as a culture compared to the rest of Malaysia they are still have some minor advancement in village such as electricity and even having running water.
Sources
http://jueayucath.blogspot.com/2012/11/languages-lifestyle-and-religion-of.html
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/25/8/789.abstract
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