The Kensiu Negritos of Baling, Kedah
Iskandar Carey, who served as Commissioner for Aboriginal Affairs (head of the Department for Orang Asli Affairs) from 1955 until his retirement in August 1969, published this ethnographic study in 1970 based on fieldwork conducted in 1968 and early 1969. The article examines the Kensiu Negritos of Kampong Lalang, a small village approximately 11 miles north of Baling in Kedah near the Thai frontier, and argues that this settlement represents a unique compromise between the traditionally nomadic Negrito way of life and a partially settled existence, with the 1967 rural development scheme illustrating both the possibilities and the structural limitations of government intervention among a people who had lived as pure nomads for millennia.
Summary
Carey’s study addresses a central dilemma in Orang Asli policy: how to assist a people whose entire economic and social organisation is predicated on nomadism when they have been partially settled. The Kensiu of Baling are exceptional among Western Malaysian Negritos because they have maintained a permanent village (Kg. Lalang) since before the Japanese occupation, yet their economy remains fundamentally extractive and mobile. The able-bodied men periodically leave the village for weeks to collect rotan and other jungle produce, which they sell to Chinese middle-men at Baling, while the elderly and young children form the permanent residential core. The rubber land allocated by the Government is insufficient and poorly cultivated, making jungle collection the true economic mainstay. This hybrid existence produces individualistic and irregular working habits that clash with the expectations of a settled rural development programme.
The article also provides a compact account of Kensiu social structure, kinship, and religion. The kinship system is bilateral and egalitarian, with a distinctive terminological pattern in which the term NYANG covers both the third ascending and third descending generations, reflecting the limited social distance the Kensiu bother to recognise. Marriage is arranged by mutual consent of the couple, with the bride’s father receiving symbolic presents (now cash rather than the traditional knife, flints, tobacco, and cloth). Divorce is easy and frequent, typically by mutual agreement. Religiously, the Kensiu recognise a creator deity (Ta Pedn), a more active punisher of taboo breaches (Karei), and tiny benevolent spirits (chinoi) who assist in fruit ripening, with a shaman (halak) who enters trance to intercede with the spirit world—though this role has diminished with the availability of modern medicine.
The most analytically rich section concerns the 1967 rural development scheme, which Carey assesses with unusual candour given his position as the Department’s head. The scheme replaced squalid shacks with tin-roofed timber houses, built a community hall, installed a piped water supply, and introduced fish ponds, goats, chickens, and citrus seedlings. Yet within months, the chickens were dead, goats had perished, the water pump was not working, and the village compound was dirty. Carey attributes this comparative failure to weak local leadership (the headman’s authority is nominal), the remoteness of the supervising office in Ipoh, the fundamental inadequacy of the allocated land, and the villagers’ perpetual indebtedness to middle-men which removes any incentive to generate cash income.
Key Findings
- The total Negrito population of Western Malaysia was approximately 2,000 according to the 1969 census, compared to a total Orang Asli population of about 53,000; the Kensiu and Kintak Bong each numbered roughly 100 people (p. 144).
- Kg. Lalang’s total population was about 120, with Kensiu constituting roughly two-thirds, the remainder being Kintak Bong and a few Jahai (p. 143).
- The 1967 development scheme included new timber houses for all families, a community hall, a diesel water pump with water tank, two fish ponds, a goat stable with a large number of goats, chickens for every family, and citrus fruit seedlings planted on a neighbouring hill (p. 151).
- By March 1969, all chickens were dead, some goats had died, the water supply was not working, fruit trees had not been manured, and the village compound was very dirty (p. 152).
- The field assistant’s salary was approximately M$220 per month (Division III Officer), and the village was controlled from an office in Ipoh, making frequent visits impossible (pp. 152, 154 n.16).
- The village was permanently indebted to Chinese middle-men who provided credit for marriages, funerals, and other purposes; the Department had tried for many years to break this dependency without much success (p. 145).
Conclusion
Carey’s definitive takeaway is that the Kg. Lalang scheme, while a comparative failure in terms of the specific agricultural and livestock components, nonetheless achieved a significant and perhaps more lasting transformation: the physical infrastructure of village life was greatly improved, the villagers gained a new sense of pride, and—perhaps most importantly—the surrounding non-Orang Asli population, impressed by the visible changes, extended a new respect to the Kensiu, improving inter-ethnic relations. Carey closes with the argument that a people who have lived as pure nomads for thousands of years cannot be expected to transform rapidly, and that patience, sympathy, and sustained assistance may yet make the settled Kensiu a model for their nomadic compatriots in the deep jungle.
Context
- Carey was the Commissioner for Aboriginal Affairs at the time of writing and explicitly acknowledges that his unfavourable remarks about the Kg. Lalang scheme constitute self-criticism of his own department’s work (p. 152, n.15).
- The study draws on Carey’s direct fieldwork (1968–1969), the 1969 Department for Orang Asli Affairs census, and his own diary; it also engages with the earlier ethnographic tradition of Pater Schebesta on Negrito religion and with Brandt’s work on the South East Asian Negrito (p. 154).