Akar Nusa
A boat slips along a mangrove channel on the coast. In the village behind it, a grandmother speaks one language at home and another at the market. Her language and her ancestry both carry roads from the island world and from the mainland.
The story
Peninsular Malaysia's Orang Asli ("original people" in Malay) are officially grouped into three: Negrito (Semang), Senoi, and Proto-Malay. The Centre for Orang Asli Concerns says there are 18 official subgroups. In 2010 they numbered 178,197 people, about 0.6 percent of the country.
The third grouping is called Proto-Malay. It includes peoples such as the Temuan, Jakun, Semelai, Temoq, Orang Laut and Orang Seletar. COAC says the Orang Laut and Orang Seletar live near the coast and are mainly fishing communities. Please note that the name itself is old. It came from an early twentieth century idea that people arrived in "waves". Many scholars now consider that idea outdated, and historical linguists see little basis for the neat split. So we use the label only because official lists still do. Each community has its own name and its own story.
Languages show part of the picture. COAC says Proto-Malay dialects belong to the Austronesian family, like Malay, except for Semelai and Temoq, which belong to the Austroasiatic family. So even the languages carry more than one road.
DNA tells a similar story. A 2015 study on more than two million genetic markers found that Proto-Malay and Senoi peoples may be mixtures of Negrito and East Asian ancestry. It found signs of gene flow with Austroasiatic-speaking peoples across Southeast Asia and south China, before the later Austronesian expansion. The authors estimated that these populations split from East Asians between 14,500 and 8,000 years ago, and describe several waves of migration into Southeast Asia.
A 2006 mother-line study found the "Aboriginal Malays" more varied than the other groups. They have links to island Southeast Asia, but also carry rare mother lines. One of these, R9b, seems to have come from Indochina around the Last Glacial Maximum, then moved through the Peninsula into the islands in the early Holocene.
Where you can still see it today
- In forests and on the coast. Some communities offer visits that they run themselves. Ask first and follow their rules.
- In the languages. Temuan, Jakun and others are living languages. Semelai and Temoq show the Austroasiatic side.
- In daily work. COAC says some Temuan and Jakun now manage rubber, oil palm or cocoa farms, while others still depend on the forest and fishing.
- In books. The 2015 book edited by Kirk Endicott surveys the Orang Asli, with contributions from Orang Asli and other writers.
What DNA can tell, and what it cannot
Mother lines in this region include some, such as R9b, that point to a road from the mainland to the islands. Father lines and region estimates may show both island and mainland links. Because the peoples here are a blend, results can look mixed.
DNA cannot tell you whether a person belongs to an Orang Asli community. It also cannot decide race, religion or bumiputera status. Belonging is decided by communities and by law. DNA only shows that the roads of the Peninsula joined.
