Orang Seletar Digital Resource

Videos

Documentaries

And also these:

Interviews

Also these:

Other Clips

Orang Seletar selling bait: https://youtu.be/usfbtGIVptc

Orang Seletar Collecting Mengkuang Leaves and making coasters:

Podcast

  • Podcast with Tok Batin Kais of Kampung Bakar Batu

https://podcasts.apple.com/rw/podcast/01-ep-seletar-tok-batin-kais-berkongsi/id1550961520?i=1000511450674

or

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/baroka-blessed/episodes/01-EP-SELETAR-TOK-BATIN-KAIS-BERKONGSI-erct4c

Summary:

  • Long ago, the ancestors were nomadic (merantau), until they reached Singapore, the ‘Seletar’ name in Singapore is Orang Seletar history
  • Role of Batin
  • Language of Seletar does not differ much with Malay, many don’t speak it, speak Malay
  • Beliefs:
    • the use of ilmu, ilmu about the sea and land
    • ilmu laut, hantu laut
    • in dreams gain ilmu, hantu laut teach the ilmu
    • good and bad ilmu
    • people of before use ilmu, fire etc.
    • now they are muslim, don’t use ilmu
    • use ilmu to avenge / revenge enemy
  • Legends/myths
    • He says he doesn’t remember
    • only history told to him by elders
    • in the beginning there were no malays, no chinese, no indian, no sultans, but there were already orang seletar, orang asli
    • says the sultan is descendant of pirates (lanun), and the orang seletar learned to be friends with him, and cooperate with him to make cities etc.
    • in ancient Johor, no malays, no chinese, only orang seletar, a lot of orang seletar
    • in the old history, the world sank? (air bumi kita tenggelam), it is said that some boats sank, some boats broke, lots of them were, their whereabouts unknown and so the numbers that are left are few
    • tie boat at gunung pulai, tie into a long line, that’s the history of the ancestors
      • (see Seletars in Singapore Chew’s description of the way the Orang Seletar might tie their boats together to prevent drifting)
  • Lived in boats
    • nomadic, live anywhere
  • this place where we are, this is seletar place
  • dunia kitani tenggelam (our world sank)
  • Orang asli = orang asal
  • The language of the Orang Seletar is the same as those living in Sungai Rumput, Gombak, Selangor
  • Long ago the Orang Seletar were a lot, but when the water came, their world sank, the boats broke, people were lost
  • In the past, used axe to build the city
  • No land anymore as people keep digging
  • people of the past had a lot of children, all lived on boats
  • People in the past lived in pondoks
  • People in the past *merayau (*wander around) to find food
  • Orang Seletar made friends with Chinese, and Indian, and after Seletar convert to islam then mix with Malay
  • In the past the Malay considered the Orang Asli are dirty, they eat anything (snakes, deers etc.)
  • He only knows about **sin (dosa) after practicing islam, says the Orang Seletar have lots of sin
  • His dreams were messy?? so he joined islam?
  • he became imam, tok batin
  • Fishermen don’t know about business
    • But Kais knows what to do to develop
  • Fish catch have decreased, livelihood depend on the catch
  • in the past, there were mangroves, no city, the rivers were clear
  • He hopes the city people know about the orang asli, their history, understand them
  • The orang asli history is even longer than the Malay, Chinese, Indian
    • city people sit in silence and do not care about the issues of the orang asli, the impact of their livelihood
    • doesn’t give help
    • don’t think that you live on orang asli land that it is yours
  • The land is nature’s
  • the land development, filling sand, making a hill, destroying the habitat
  • According to history, a dragon made the rivers, all the rivers that zig zag
    • not human making river, but the dragon
    • supernatural forces gave the dragon power to make the rivers
  • everywhere is flooding, everything will return to before (when the world was flooded)
  • Ask for help, ask for people to stop taking land
  • the department give grant to other people, give the land to other people
  • the government can take away the lands the orang seletar have anytime
  • The orang seletar are the ones that made Johor in the past, that built Johor, before Johor became a city
  • In the end, everything will return to what it was

  • Podcast with Ilya Katrinnada (one of the researchers from Orang Seletar oral history project, mentioned as “Chan et al. interviews” in previous sections)

https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/podcast/orang-seletar/

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