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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

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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