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The Guardians of the Jungle
The survival of many indigenous peoples around the globe depends on preserving their cultures and their natural environment, where they can show their ancestral traditions. Above all, when we think about the tight connection between nature and a tribe, we can blindly refer to the Orang Rimba.
"The family is matrilocal, with husbands generally residing with the wife’s extended family and parents"
Today the estimated 5,700 Orang Rimba are nomadic hunter-gatherers living in the central part of Sumatra island. Most of them live in two national parks in Jambi and Riau provinces – Bukit Duabelas (Twelve Hills) with approximately 2,500 Orang Rimba, Bukit Tigapuluh (Thirty Hills) with four hundred people and along the Trans-Sumatran Highway with 1,200 people.
The communities are not in regular contact, and marriage usually occurs within the clan. The family is matrilocal, with husbands generally residing with the wife’s extended family and parents preferring daughters rather than sons.
A STORY TO TELL
The forest is the most sacred place where they can perform, and it is divided into several types of areas: living, birthing, farming, burial, religious rituals, and place for good and bad spirits.
The Orang Rimba believe that the forest has many gods who exert a powerful influence on their lives. Gods can be benign or malevolent, but many Orang Rimba regards their gods with fearful respect, believing that most misfortune is due to behavior that angers the gods. They also believe that gods move about the forest through rivers and creeks and thus emphasize the cleanliness of waterways. Particular areas are designated as the preserve of gods, and Orang Rimba does not live or cultivate such areas. Only shamans (dukun godong) have the power to intercede with gods and dispense natural remedies and mantras to cure illness or to counteract evil spirits.
Since the Orang Rimba believe they are part of nature, part of the forest, sometimes they go so far as to sleep under the stars, unprotected. Despite living and depending on the forest this way, we haven’t heard any stories of the Orang Rimba coming into conflict with animals like the Sumatran tiger or hunting them for their fur. They are indeed the most peaceful tribe we would ever meet.
The Orang Rimba believe in the existence of God. However, their view of this entity and their descriptions of it could be more abstract and specific. If asked to describe their God, they might reply that their God is more agile in movements than a tiger and faster in speed than the selalayaq bird (hornbill). The Orang Rimba believe in ethereal beings in nature, which can be in the form of gods, the spirits of dead people, and those they refer to as malaikot (or angels) and silom or silumon ( shapeshifters). The gods or dewo, as they call them, as well as malaikot and silom, live in the realm of the gods, which they call halom dewo (the god realm). The Orang Rimba believe that these gods possess certain things in the forest; these can be certain animals or plants that are sacred or the guardianship of specific locations.
Bad behaviors causes curses
The Orang Rimba usually describe silumon as if they are referring to Orang Melayu. Silom are described as wearing clothes, living in houses and villages, and using various tools just like Orang Melayu. To the Orang Rimba, silom are ethereal beings that watch over certain places that they consider to be sacred; but they are evil, and if a person does not maintain proper behavior then they may become sick from the curses of the silom.
Descriptions of the god realm are provided to Orang Rimba through the visions of a shaman through certain rituals. These visions can also come to the shaman’s inner eye as he experiences kamimpi’on (dreams). A shaman’s dream is never insignificant, as it always come with a meaning.
"Dreams come to find a solution in real life"
Dreams usually occurs after a shaman performs berdeki, a prayer that involves chanting specific mantras. The activity is generally performed when a community member requests a shaman to find a solution for his or her problems, or if a shaman sees a peculiar incident that requires an elucidation from the gods; for example, if an odd illness has befallen someone
To reach the state of a dream, a shaman needs to venture into the woods and prepare himself through a process called bersudungon, namely building a tent to sit in, before performing a prayer ritual called besaleh. Later at night, the shaman will climb on a stage with several other people and begin dancing to the accompaniment of chants until one participant experiences a trance or possession. In such a state, they believe to be channeling to their gods. Some may act like an animal (monkey, tiger, elephant, etc.) or display other uncommon behaviors. To the Orang Rimba, the highest god is the elephant god or dewo gejoh. They believe that the elephant god can possess only certain people with special powers, and the term for such possession is tergejoh. As they dance or act according to what possesses them, these people eat flower petals.
Crowds at the side of the stage continue to watch the spectacle. This activity may take place over several days depending on the shaman’s inner reading, and whether he has received an answer to the problem at hand. The descriptions of their rituals and forest-related belief system show that the Orang Rimba internalizes the forest as an integral home where everything is connected.
"The secular Orang Rimba's traditions hide a deep knowledge about natural medicines"
The Orang Rimba are being forced deeper and deeper into the forest, restricting their ability to exist off their traditional lands. Monoculture plantations, predominantly palm oil, threaten their safety and living spaces and change the land and biodiversity within the community’s ancestral forest land. Besides that, outsiders increasingly come to them as government officials, doctors and nurses, teachers or non-governmental organizations (ngo) activists, miners, loggers, surveyors, and illegal hunters. These events are rapidly deleting the existence of their families, cultures, traditions, and knowledge.
Teeris supports worldwide tribes. We can only fund cultural organizations to preserve their culture, art, and secular traditions by raising awareness.
Gamila Mostafa
A Rome-based travel artist, founder of Teeris , oceans and nature lover.
