In 1862, Hillsborough, NH, native Willard Templeton enlisted in the 11th NH Regiment and went off with his fellows to fight the Civil War. He was wounded at Spotsylvania, VA, on May 12, 1864, and served as part of the color guard at the Battle of the Crater during the siege of Petersburg, where he was killed in the mine explosion on July 30, 1864. During the time he was in the army, Templeton wrote several letters to friends and family at home, and 140 of these fascinating accounts are held in collection at the New Hampshire State Library. The documents represented in KSCommons were digitized and transcribed as part of a Keene State College class project called "Letters of Secessia" organized in 2014 by History Professor Graham Warder and College Archivist Rodney Obien. The class project served as a model for the NH Citizen Archivists' Initiative.
Batek believe that thunderstorms are sent by a superhuman being, Gobar, as punishment for people breaking certain prohibitions. To stop the storm, they scratch their shin with a knife, mix the blood with water, and throw some of the mixture on the ground, for the earth deity, and into the air, for the thunder-god. Women do this more often than men, in part because they tend to take responsibility for their childrens transgressions. Here a woman is cutting her leg. She will then rub the blood on the leg of her son, who committed the prohibited act of laughing at butterflies, to pick up his smell. Then she will mix the blood with water in a metal bowl (bottom) and throw it to the deities while reciting a ritual formula.
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.
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.
Men also attend to the daily needs of their children. Here a man bathes his young daughter (whose head is mostly shaven) and an older son. The son was afflicted with spinal tuberculosis. In later years his father had to carry him from camp to camp until he died.
Children learn to swim from older children, without adult instruction. Here some young children are jumping off a log into a pool. Parents seldom worry when children are playing in the water.
By the 1970s, traded cotton cloth and clothing had almost entirely replaced barkcloth garments, but some people still remembered how to make barkcloth by pounding the inner bark of certain tree species into a soft felt. Cloth made from the bark of the dart poison tree (Antiaris toxicaria) was favored because it is pure white. Here two girls, following instructions from their parents, demonstrate how to pound and wash the soft inner bark of the tree to remove the poisonous latex and particles of wood.
Many women are good at climbing trees and vines, though men usually do the most strenuous and dangerous climbing, such as climbing the towering bee trees to cut down bees nests. Here a woman climbs a vine to get some fruit from the treetops.
Since the 1980s, Batek have obtained swimming masks, rubber tubing, and metal rods from traders. They make spear-guns consisting of a carved wooden stock and a strap of rubber tubing that is used to propel a metal spear several feet at high speed and force. The fisherman swims under water to find the fish, usually shooting them from point blank range. This man has just shot a good-sized fish with his spear-gun.
About 1980 a road was built connecting Post Lebir and Kampung Macang with the Malay villages and towns down the Lebir River. Batek De and Batek Teh from those settlements began buying supplies at the weekly markets at the nearest village, Kampung Lalok, hiring rides with Malay traders. Here a group of Batek women and children shop at Kampung Lalok. Batek always wear Malay- or western-style clothing when visiting villages or towns.
Batek living at Kampung Macang in 1990 still used blowpipes for hunting. Here some men are making new blowpipes from blowpipe bamboo that they collected on their motorbikes.
All Batek learn to cook in early childhood, and both husbands and wives cook for their families, although women do so more often. Here several bachelors who share a shelter prepare to boil a bunch of wild mushrooms.
After all vegetation was removed from the land, plantation contractors bulldozed horizontal terraces around the hills to provide level bases for rows of oil palm trees. Some terraces can be seen in the background.
Here a new oil palm plantation (foreground) lies beside some uncut forest (background). The bare earth and smoke on the forest edge suggest that loggers are now removing the remaining forest.
Mature oil palms have now replaced the forest in the Relai River Valley. Here two young men in western dress look over an oil palm plantation where their parents once lived by hunting and gathering in deep rainforest.
Oil palms are planted in rows to facilitate care and harvesting. Workers suppress seeds and insect pests with massive applications of chemical herbicides and insecticides, some of which wash into streams and poison the water.
By 1990, logging roads and plantation roads connected the upper Aring settlement and Post Lebir/Kampung Macang, the government-sponsored settlement on the middle Lebir River. Travel by road supplanted most river travel. Here two young men prepare to return from the upper Aring camp to Kampung Macang, where they had houses, on their motorbikes.
Beginning about 1980, a great demand developed for Aloes wood or Eagle woodthe dense, resinous pieces of diseased wood found inside some, but not all, Aquilaria trees. The diseased wood and resin are highly fragrant and are in great demand in the Middle East for use in incense and cosmetics. The highest gradethe darkest and densest woodwhich is very rare, could be sold for as much as US$260 per kilogram in 1990. People get the wood by cutting down Aquilaria trees and chopping them into small pieces, separating the valuable diseased wood from the worthless healthy wood. Here two traders discuss the grade of some Aloes wood with the Batek collector. They will then weigh it in their portable scale and calculate its value.
This woman is bathing her baby in the stream before fetching some water in a cooking pot. The baby has two rings and a protective amulet suspended from her neck.
