Semang

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The Semang are an ethnic group on the Malay Peninsula in what is now Malaysia . The lowland tribes of the Semang are also called Sakai .

The Semang are shorter, darker skinned, and curly haired than the majority of the population in Malaysia. Because of these characteristics, they are called " Negritos " together with other ethnic groups in South and Southeast Asia, including the Mani in southern Thailand . Traditionally, they lived mainly in the interior of the mountains as hunters and gatherers in the tropical rainforests . The Semang speak Mon-Khmer languages today , but originally they are said to have had their own languages, some elements of which have been preserved in their vocabulary. Until the 19th century, Semang lived in what is now Thailand . At that time the Malays were hunting the Semang with slaves .

Surname

For the indigenous people of the Malay Peninsula, who still live as hunters and gatherers today, there were different names: Semang, Senoi, Jakun, Bla, Bila or Wila. As a result of the establishment of the Malay state, they are officially called Orang Asli , which initially meant indigenous people, but is now translated as indigenous people. While Bla, Bila and Wila are no longer used to designate ethnic groups, Semang has increasingly become the name of the hunter-gatherers on the peninsula.

Semang way of life in 1925

The Semang live nomadically and attach great importance to freedom of movement, which is why they reject sedentarism.

Their diet and rites are very plant-based. They live an original way of life and look for food in the forest, such as B. Game (monkeys), roots, fruits and honey. Women wear bamboo combs and necklaces.

The Semang see blood as a symbol of fertility (see religious practices).

Gender roles

Women and men have equal rights at the Semang. The food procurement tasks are evenly divided: the women collect vegetable food, the men hunt smaller animals. The right to property, political influence and leadership are equally distributed.

Unmarried women stick pearls and flowers in their earlobes.

"Life-affirming society"

The social psychologist Erich Fromm analyzed the willingness of 30 pre-state peoples, including the Semang, to use ethnographic records to analyze the anatomy of human destructiveness . In conclusion, he assigned them to the “life-affirming societies”, whose cultures are characterized by a pronounced sense of community with great social equality, friendly child rearing, tolerant sexual morality and a low tendency to be aggressive. (see also: "War and Peace" in pre-state societies )

Religious practice

The ritual practices of the Semang are strongly based on the plants. Blood plays an important role for the Semang as it is a central symbol of fertility. It is for this reason that the Semang make blood sacrifices . During this religious practice, the Semang, v. a. the women, first in the leg, then the drops of blood are picked up on a bamboo stick and thrown into the air together. The ritual usually takes place during thunderstorms and has the purpose of calming down evil spirits in order to bring important deities together and thus increase the yield of the harvest.

The Semang know of four types of spirits: (1) Ya , the human soul separated from the body; (2) Rob , the human soul who wanders during sleep; (3) Semanat , a special spirit that scares people; and (4) Badi , a demon descended from animals. These are kept at a distance by shamans using medicine.

The dead are not buried deep, and the burial site is abandoned and guarded by ghosts and tigers who are supposed to eat the corpse.

Creation myth

The world of men was created by the grandmother of the inhabitants of heaven, who cause thunder and lightning. Her name is Manoij . At first the world was in a lake on which the grandmother rode on a raft with her two grandchildren. She asked one of the grandchildren to get her a branch and with it injured the monster that lived at the bottom of the lake. Thus the water could drain away. A hedgehog now lifted the earth, which was only covered by mountains, from the mud. Shortly afterwards a bird flew by and smoothed the surface of the earth with its wing beat and made it habitable. Now the grandmother wanted a child and asked one of her grandchildren to create one for her. So both grandchildren went into the forest and one of the two formed a figure out of clover, which he wrapped in a mat. After a day, the character turned into a girl. He repeated the same thing, and this time a boy was born. These children weren't human yet, but they turned a flower into a real girl. When the girl grew up, she wanted a man. So she went into the forest and picked a flower, which she then turned into a man. The two fell in love and thus became the ancestors of all humans.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Hajek: Unraveling Lowland Semang . In: Oceanic Linguistics . 35, No. 1, Jun 1996, pp. 138-141.
  2. Shuichi Nagata: Subgroup names of the Sakai (Thailand) and the Semang (Malaysia): a literature survey . In: Anthropological Science , Vol. 114, 2006, pp. 45-57
  3. Paul Schebesta: The Sĕmangs of Patalung. In: Man , Vol. 25, 1925, pp. 23-26
  4. Erich Fromm: Anatomy of human destructiveness . From the American by Liselotte et al. Ernst Mickel, 86th - 100th thousand edition, Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-499-17052-3 , pp. 191-192.
  5. Schebesta, op. Cit.