The Charles Wilcox Papers belong to the Keene, New Hampshire resident who was a Union soldier during the Civil War and was captured and imprisoned in Confederate internment camps as well as prisons from 1864-1865. These papers include Wilcox’s diary, correspondence, and official documents. The papers are part of the archival holdings of the Historical Society of Cheshire County in Keene, New Hampshire, and were included as part of the NH Citizens Archivists' Initiative.
In the early 1970s, Malay farmers sometimes commissioned Batek Teh living at Post Lebir to make thatch for their houses. This trade soon dried up as corrugated metal roofing became readily available. Here some Batek Teh have set up a camp near an abundant supply of thatch palms (Calamus castaneus) and are making rolls of thatch to trade.
This woman is making thatch from fronds of the common thatch palm (Calamus castaneus). She first flips all the leaflets on each frond to the same side of the stem, so water will all drip in the same direction. For thatching lean-to shelters, she will then make shingles of three fronds, two facing in one direction and one in the other.
Blowpipe darts consist of a shaft of palm wood, a cone of pith on the butt, and a coating of poison on the point. Here a man is smoothing a splint of palm wood and sharpening the end to make a dart.
In the middle 1970s, Batek De lived in temporary camps along many of the low-elevation rivers and streams in the area shaded by diagonal lines. Now the area north of the border of the National Park (Taman Negara) has been logged and turned into rubber and oil palm plantations, so most Batek have moved into the still-forested National Park and immediately adjacent areas, with a few living at the government-sponsored settlement at Post Lebir on the middle Lebir River in Kelantan.
Most lean-to shelters consist of a single sloping panel of thatch, which is supported by a horizontal pole on the open front side and falls to the ground in the back. During especially wet weather, triangular side-panels may be added, and low platforms of logs and split bamboo or bark are made to raise the sleeping mats above the ground. This lean-to shelter has two sleeping platforms, one in back and the other in front under a small roof extension.
This man is pounding the husks off a species of nut (Pangium edule). Each grapefruit-sized husk contains several nuts in separate shells. Because the nuts are poisonous in their natural state, people boil them in their shells, then split them open, slice up the nut meats, and leach the slivers of nut meat in a stream before eating them. The nut meat is oily and highly nutritious.
Groves of durian fruit trees (Durio spp.) a highly esteemed fruit throughout Southeast Asia remained at the sites of former Malay villages along the Lebir River in the 1970s. (The government resettled the villagers on the lower Lebir in the late 1940s to remove them from the influence of Communist terrorists.) Here a Batek man climbs a durian tree to cut down the unripe fruit, which can be eaten like a vegetable. He does not use any climbing aids, but simply grasps the trunk with his arms and feet and climbs up.
Here is dry rice growing in a hillside swidden. Weeds are already starting to encroach on the lower edge of the field. In this instance, wild pigs, monkeys, and birds ate most of the rice before it could be harvested, always a risk when farming in a forested area.
People occasionally buy or trade for circular casting-nets with lead chain weights around the perimeter. Here a man throws a casting-net into some shallow water, hoping to trap some fish under it.
When moving large amounts of supplies or trade goods, Batek use bamboo rafts whenever possible. This one has a platform to keep the cargo dry and a fire on board (foreground). They propel the rafts by means of wooden poles.
Blowpipes are effective at killing small arboreal game. Here a man shoots at a monkey in a tree overhead. Because the darts are silent, they do not scare off the game if they miss. Hunters try to hit an animal more than once to increase the amount of poison in the victims blood and thus to increase the probability of killing it. The hunters bamboo dart quiver and his bushknife are fastened to his waist with rattan straps.
Women, but not men, have their ears pierced so they can wear decorative flowers, leaves, and so forth in them. The girls themselves decide when to have the piercing done. Here a man pierces a girls ear using a porcupine quill. He previously cooled her ears with water over which he had said a spell (in the bowl on the left).
To get through rapids, people sometimes take the cargo off the raft and carry it down to a safe landing place. Then they ride the empty raft through the rough water, as these young men are doing here, and reload the cargo below the rapids. Relai River, Kelantan.
After piercing the girls ears, the man puts tiny pieces of medicinal plant stems on the quills to prevent infection. The quills and stems are left in place until the holes heal. Here he examines his handiwork.
Usually Batek move from one camp to the next on foot, carrying their possessions on their backs, but sometimes they use bamboo rafts. Bamboo grows in clumps here and there along the main rivers. Here two men are making a raft by tying lengths of bamboo to wooden cross-pieces using split rattan bindings. The raised platform is to keep the cargo dry.
Instead of skinning game, Batek burn off the hair and cook the skin with the meat. Here two men are scraping singed hair off a leaf monkey with a stick. Then they will gut it and roast the carcass over the fire. Finally, they will butcher it and distribute portions to all families in camp. Batek share all food if needed, but they make a special point to share meat, which they obtain less regularly than vegetable foods.
Fruits that do not fall when ripe must be harvested. A common method of harvesting is for someone to climb the tree and cut off the fruit-bearing branches. Here a man has cut most of the branches off a fruit tree. This looks bad, but it does not necessarily kill the tree.
Some species of plants have roots or bark containing latex that can asphyxiate or kill fish. Batek sometimes poison fish in small streams with these substances. Here some women are pounding poisonous tree bark (species unknown) and then wringing the poison out in the water. They will simply pick up the fish that float to the surface.
Rattans (Calamus spp.) are closely related to palm trees, but many rattan species have vines instead of trunks. The crown of the rattan clings to the upper branches of forest trees, and the vine trails down to the ground. Some of the small-diameter rattans can simply be pulled down, tearing the crown loose from the supporting branches. The harvester then cuts off the crown and leaf sheathes, cuts the vine into standard trade lengths (nineteen feet for thin rattan), ties the sections into bundles, and then drags them out to a river or other collection place. In the 1970s, Malay traders used rafts to carry large loads of rattan downriver to their villages, where they processed the vines to preserve them and then shipped them out by train or truck. Thin rattan is made into fish traps or is split and used for caning and lashing in furniture. Here a man is pulling down the vine of a thin rattan.
Here a man has tied together a bundle of twenty-five lengths of thin rattan. He is folding the bundle in the middle to make it easier to drag it through the undergrowth. Middle Lebir River, Kelantan.
Women and men often decorate themselves just for fun with flowers, leaves, and pigments. This woman has put shredded fragrant leaves (probably from wild gingers [Zingiber spp.]) in her ear holes, a garland of flowers on her head, and has painted a line of white lime paste (obtained by trade) across her forehead.
