After taking this photograph the Peace Corps nurse, the Orang Asli Field Staff and myself were invited to a Ronggeng - an evening of dancing - with music performed on homemade instruments made from such materials as bamboo.
Most rattan work is done by men, but women also do some, usually before they have children or after their children are independent. Here a middle-aged woman drags a bundle of thin rattan to the place where the Malay traders will pick it up.
While on my way to visit a nearby kampong I was surprised to come across this rubber tapper's lone home. I chatted to him in malay and learned that he was a tamil indian and made a living by selling his sheets of latex to visiting chinese traders. He had his own small plantation of rubber trees. You can see the latex sheets hanging below his house. Note also the large banana tree to the right of his roof.
The "Batin"(headman) is receiving his Mantoux test. The Orang Asli of the Satah area had always been very reluctant to come forward for Tuberculosis testing and immunization in the past. However, that was not the case this time. Their curiosity got the better of them as a "white woman" was at the Medical Post this time. Many had never seen one before. The "Batin" then ordered everyone to attend!
This middle-aged woman is wearing the basic garment worn by Batek women in the 1970s and earliera long plaited rattan cord (nem) wrapped many times around her waist and supporting a loincloth. In the 1970s the loincloth was cotton cloth obtained through trade, but earlier it would have been barkcloth. She also wears flowers in her pierced ears. When in contact with outsiders, women usually wore cloth sarongs over their nem, knotted above their breasts. Nowadays younger women usually wear panties and bras obtained by trade, and they dispense with the nem.
Weaving pandanus leaf sleeping mats and baskets is a specialty of women, but occasionally men also join in. Here a man helps his mother work on a sleeping mat.
