kubu people
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Kubu people
The term Kubu is a Malay exonym ascribed to mobile, animist peoples (Orang Batin
Simbilan and Orang Rimba) who live throughout the lowland forests of Southeast Sumatra.
In the Malay language, the word Kubu can mean defensive fortification, entrenchment, or aplace of refuge. It is metaphor for how the majority and dominant Islamic Melayu villagers
believe them to use the interior forests as a means for resisting inclusion in the larger Malay
social and Islamic religious world. As is the case with other forest peoples in the region, the
term Kubu is associated with very negative connotations.
Following Malay classifications, early Europeans divided the Kubu into two categories:
'tame' or 'civilized' Kubu, who were predominantly swidden farmers, and 'wild' Kubu, who
lived deep in the forests, and made much stronger efforts to avoid close relations with the
outside world. While closely related Malay speaking peoples, these peoples represent two
separate cultural groups, which have different economic and socio-religious systems.
Ficture 1. A group of Kubu people in the 1930s in Jambi, Sumatra.
Orang Batin Simbilan
Traditionally referred to as civilized Kubu, the Orang Batin Simbilan are a larger population
of swidden-based peoples who live in the central and eastern lowland forests of South
Sumatra (pop~3-5000) and Jambi (pop. ~10,000). Like other people in the region, these
people traditionally use the swidden field as a base camp from which to exploit resources in
the forests, particularly when collecting forest products for trade.
Orang Rimba
The Orang Rimba ('people of the forest') are a much smaller population of people (~3000)
who live in the upstream regions of Jambi and South Sumatra. They have a unique, diverse
economy, which shifts in and out of two base subsistence strategies: swidden farming and avery nomadic life based on foraging wild yams. This is traditionally combined this with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malays_%28ethnic_group%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orang_Batin_Simbilanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orang_Batin_Simbilanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orang_Rimbahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatrahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatrahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orang_Rimbahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orang_Batin_Simbilanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orang_Batin_Simbilanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malays_%28ethnic_group%29 -
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hunting, trapping, fishing, damming and poisoning rivers, and the collection of forest
products for trade. For many, part-time rubber tapping and participation in logging has
gradually replaced the collection of forest products.
Orang Rimba life is characterized by small and changing camps, which can be the size of a
nuclear family when digging for wild yams, but more commonly is based around an extendedfamily, and can include several extended families whenever swidden farming. Their social
relations are very egalitarian, while hierarchies are largely based upon age, gender and
knowledge of religion and adat law.
Deforestation and government settlements
Since the 1970s, many of these peoples have been displaced from their traditional lands by
logging companies and palm oil plantations, and for some time have been the target of
government settlement projects.
Language
The various Kubu languagesbelong to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian
language family. They are isolects of the Malay language (Bahasa Melayu) spoken in the
upstream regions of Palembang and Jambi, Sumatra. All are similar to Bahasa Indonesia,
which is based upon a variant of Malay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubu_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_languageshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_languageshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_languageshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_languageshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubu_language
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