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Friday, February 1, 2008




The Hunter-Gatherers of Indonesia

Hi, I'm Francis and I'm going to present to you some information about the Hunter-Gatherers in Indonesia.



Basic Background Information:

They are a group of people in Indonesia who speak the Austronesian language and have adapted to the tropical rainforest environment they inhabit.

The two best-known groups are the Kubu of Sumatra and the Punan of Kalimantan. There is no reliable information about their population, but a safe guess would be that it is not more than 10,000 people.

Those usually referred to as Kubu are located in Palembang and Jambi area of southern Summatra.

Those usually referred to as Punan usually dwell in the headwater regions of Bornean rivers.


The Type of People They Are.

Their names do not refer to their groups, but they are terms which are used by coastal and lowland populations to refer to small, mobile groups with live in forests, and are sadly sterotyped as primitive or backward.

However, it is not true as they comprise a culturally and linguistically(Language) diverse of groups. Peope see them as the remnant populations of lower stage of evolution from which we have developed. This is misleading, as recent research suggests that people actually live in the forest to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the rainforests.

How did they survive?

They traded Southeast Asian forest products to India and china. These forest-gatherers played an important part in supplying these items, in return for metal tools, beads, brassware, ceramics, textiles, salt, tobacco etc, which were products they could not produce themselves.

They mostly ate wild sago, wild pig and deer, and also some fish, where they used spears and packs of dogs to hunt these.

Fishing was done with a hook and line, cast-nets and poisoned derris root. These people generally would also have collected shellfish and forest fruits and vegetables.

They lived in convenient caves, or simple shelters made of saplings, bamboo, palm-leaves, and tree
bark.

These nomadic tribes were sometimes more mobile than others, with some moving from one base to another, but others organised themselves by establishing base-camps, then sending out groups of a few families each to exploit different areas of the forest, returning periodically to camp. The leaders were generally older men, with age being an important social principal, much like it is today.

So what is the future like for them?

Unfortunately, not good. Forests, which are their homes, are being exploited and cleared for roads and plantations and mines, and the resources on which these nomads depend on have decreased and in some cases, disappeared altogether. Governments have had policies to resettle these groups into permanent communities with clinics and schools being provided. It seems as if there is no room for hunters in the modern world, unless something is done about this.


Some Pictures:


An Asmat war shield.


Hunting Trip


Wood Carving.


I hoped you enjoyed and found this information helpful, bye for now ^^



[5:10 PM]


Posted at 5:10 PM, 7 Comment(s)


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