Semang

The Semang are an ethnic group of the Malay Peninsula in present-day Malaysia. The Lowland Semang tribes are also known as Sakai.

The Semang have grown smaller, dark-skinned and curly-haired than the majority of the population in Malaysia. Due to these features they are, together with other ethnic groups in South and Southeast Asia, including the Mani in southern Thailand, referred to as " Negritos ". Traditionally, they lived primarily inside the mountain as hunters and gatherers in the tropical rain forests. The Semang speak today Mon-Khmer languages, but originally they should have had their own languages ​​, some of which elements have been preserved in their vocabulary. Until the 19th century Semang lived in the area of present-day Thailand. At this time, the Malays made ​​slave raids to the Semang.

Name

For the indigenous people of the Malay Peninsula, who still live as hunter-gatherers today, there have been various names: Semang, Senoi, Jakun, Bla, Bila or Wila. As a result of the establishment of the Malaysian state they are called in official parlance Orang Asli, which initially meant primitive people, but is now translated as aboriginal. While Bla, Bila and Wila no longer used as a designation of ethnic groups today, Semang increasingly became the name of the hunter-gatherers in the peninsula.

Of life of the Semang in 1925

The Semang are nomadic and place great value on freedom of movement, they object to the settled life.

Your diet and rituals are very strongly oriented to plants. They live a traditional way of life and seek in the forest their food, such as wild ( monkeys), roots, fruits and honey. Women carry bamboo combs and necklaces.

The Semang see blood as a symbol of fertility (see religious practices ).

Gender roles

The Semang women and men have equal rights. The tasks in the food supply are evenly divided: The women gather plant food, the men hunt smaller animals. The right to property, political influence and leadership are equally distributed.

Unmarried women are stuck beads and flowers in the earlobe.

Religious practice

The ritual practices of the Semang are strongly oriented to the plants. Blood plays an important role for the Semang, as it is a central symbol of fertility. For this reason, the Semang bring blood sacrifice. During this religious practice intersect the Semang esp. women, first in the leg, then the drops of blood are taken on a bamboo stick and thrown together in the air. The ritual is usually held during thunderstorms and has the purpose to calm evil spirits to bring together important deities and thus increase the yield of the crop.

The Semang know four kinds of spirits: (1) Ya, the human soul, which is separated from the body; ( 2) Rob, the human soul that wanders during sleep; ( 3) Semanat, a special spirit that frightened people; and (4) Badi, a demon who is descended from animals. These are held by shamans by a medicine at a distance.

The dead are not buried deep, and the burial will leave and guarded by spirits and tigers, which are supposed to eat the corpse.

The mythology of the Semang

The world of men was created by the grandmother of the inhabitants of heaven, cause thunder and lightning. Her name is Manoij.

At first the world was in a lake, on which rode the grandmother on a raft with her two grandchildren. She asked one of the grandchildren, to get her a branch, and thus hurt the monster that lived on the bottom of the lake. Thus, the water could flow.

A hedgehog now raised his only covered mountains of earth out of the mud. Shortly afterwards, a bird flew past and smoothed with beating of its wings the earth and made it habitable.

Now the grandmother wanted a child and asked one of her grandchildren to create her one. So both grandson went into the forest and one of the two formed a figure of clover, which he wrapped in a mat. After one day, the figure into a girl. He repeated the same thing and this time a boy was born. These children were no people, but they turned a flower in a real girl.

When the girl grew up, it wanted a man. So you went into the woods and plucked a flower, which she then turned into a man.

The two fell in love and thus became the ancestor of all men.