People usually go on foraging expeditions looking for tubers, but they take the opportunity to harvest any other food they might find along the way. Here a woman set out with her digging stick, but came back with some turtle egg fruits (species unknown), instead of tubers.
This Orang Asli man had been in hospital for a long time and was likely to remain so. He occupied his time weaving baskets from rotan that we collected from the nearby jungle. Also he was able to repair chair seats with strips of rotan. His baskets were usually made to order from requests from the local "ex-pat" community, Air Force personnel and other folk interested in the hospital. This provided him with some money to spend in the hospital kedai (shop).
Along fell from a tree while searching for food and sustained a serious injury resulting in permanent paralysis of his lower limbs. He became one of the hospital's longterm patients and eventually learned to use a wheelchair. When a telephone exchange was installed in the hospital Along and another paraplegic patient were taught to operate it. This gave then full time employment and a wage, and they became very important and valued members of the hospital community.
A readily-available snack food in the rainforest is palm hearts, the soft pith at the center of the stem where new leaves develop. Palm hearts are similar in texture and taste to young celery shoots. Here some boys are snacking on hearts of the common thatch palm (Calamus castaneus), which grows throughout the lowland forest.
Apang contracted polio in her kampong and later brought to Gombak. As Occupational Therapist I was asked if I could do anything for her as she was very depressed. She was only interested in learning to walk again. This was considered to be unrealistic, but I tried to show her what her limitations were and that she would never walk again unaided. It was a hard lesson for a young girl to learn, especially as her family had originally abandoned her in the kampong when they discovered that she could not walk.
The characteristic long belt (nem) worn by women is plaited from fine fibers of a certain species of rattan. When one fiber ends, a new one is braided in, so the finished belt can go many times around a womans waist. Here a woman plaits a nem. When it is finished, she will dye it red by boiling it with berries from a rattan bush. A finished nem can be seen around her waist. She is also wearing a cloth sarong, a necklace and bracelet made of black fungus rhizomes, and flowers in her ears. Some thin strips of pandanus leaf dry on the right; she will later make them into baskets like the one on the left.
The main meal of the day is in the late afternoon or early evening, and usually families eat that meal together. During the rest of the day people eat left-overs and newly obtained food whenever they get hungry. Here a baby is eating honey out of a metal cooking pot.
People of both sexes and all ages fish with hook and line, the most frequent method used for catching fish. The metal hooks and monofilament lines are obtained by trade; the rods are made from the midribs of palm fronds; and the bait is worms or insects dug out of the riverbank. Here a boy and girl fish while some other children look on.
