Hello, this is Zhi Xuan.
This is a site meant to compile information about the Orang Seletar. I originally collected information and research on the Orang Seletar as part of my bachelor’s thesis, and these were stored as notebook entries in notion.
I could not fit everything about the Orang Seletar into my Bachelor and Masters thesis as it was mainly based on language and linguistics. So I decided to organize my notes into a digital resource for easier browsing, researching and reading for a wider audience.
The site hopes to share information about the Orang Seletar who are a small group of indigenous people living on the southern coast of Johor, from their history, cultural practices, language to beliefs and folklore.
Information about the Orang Seletar is scattered, and can be found in several languages. Not all information is available online. Some are in physical books, other in archival journal entries from colonial times, and some materials such as newspaper archives, audio and video archives require trips to the National Library of Singapore and the National Archives of Singapore. (side noteː I believe there might be somethings I had missed in the Johor Archives, but alas I have yet to uncover them….)
My personal journey with the Orang Seletar started when I was 13 (2010). I went to school in Foon Yew High School, Johor Bahru, literally across the Singapore – Johor causeway. Every morning, the road infront of the school, which was the beach, would be lined with Orang Seletar selling their catch to the public. However, I didn’t know at the time who these hardworking people were. The Chinese people only knew them as Hai Fan ‘海番’ (‘sea people’ in Hokkien, 番 is now seen as derogatory to natives).
Only about a decade later did I find out more about them, and their importance to the Johor Strait, Johor and Singapore.
Reader, I hope you don’t take as long as I did!
This site is dedicated to the indigenous Orang Seletar, stewards of the mangroves, creeks, rivers and the sea.
*a note on the style this site is written in. Some sentences are not grammatically correct. As the site was originally a place I stored all my research and field notes while doing my theses, I wrote the information in vernacular language (mostly Singlish). Some missing subjects, inaccurate tenses and erroneous subject-verb agreements are present. You have been forewarned!
Orang Seletar Digital Resource 