Busu, a Semai woman had returned from Kuala Lumpur where she had undergone surgery. She was taught to walk again using a zimmer walking frame donated by a UK womens organization.
Although men do most blowpipe hunting, some women, especially young ones without children, hunt for fun. This young woman was an active hunter. She had her own blowpipe, made by a male friend, but no dart quiver, so she stored her darts in her hair. Here she is carrying her blowpipe and two lengths of unprocessed blowpipe bamboo.
Busu, a Semai woman had returned from Kuala Lumpur where she had undergone surgery. She was taught to walk again using a zimmer walking frame donated by a UK womens organization.
Women are skilled at plaiting strands of natural materials into necklaces and armbands. Here a woman plaits a necklace from black rhizomes of a fungus that grows on rocks. Such rhizomes are thought to ward off disease. Batek wear the necklaces themselves or trade them to Malays.
Dart poison kills by stopping the victims heart. It can kill all kinds of monkeys and apes up to the size of pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina), which weigh as much as 30 pounds for a mature male. This is a small dusky leaf monkey (Presbytis obscura) that has been killed by blowpiping.
Along was a longstay patient at Gombak. He was paralysed from the waist downwards and used a wheelchair. When the hospital telephone exchange was installed he and Apong, another paraplegic patient, were taught to operate it. They then became members of the hospital staff and received a wage. Until then, they earned a little pocket money by weaving baskets etc to order.
A popular musical instrument with the Orang Asli is the pensol or nose flute. It is made from locally grown bamboo and then patterns are carved on it. It is often possible to tell what tribe the carver belongs to by looking at the design and patterns on it. Sometimes the carver will incorporate his name into the design as well.
Hair lice are a constant nuisance for Batek. Men sometimes shave their heads to get relief, but women usually depend on friends and relatives to pluck out the lice and crush them. Here a woman is delousing her mother using a thin bamboo spatula made especially for this purpose, a common scene during leisure hours in Batek camps.
