ofthe SAME TREE

downstream by the ruler to defend the kingdom from attack. 25 Similar duties
would have been expected of other groups, such as the Batin Sembilan (the
Nine Batin), 26 who generally live east of the Tembesi River in Jambi.
The degree of contact between the forest groups and the Malayu was
greatest in the nineteenth century. A dipati of the Orang Batin Sembilan in
Jambi informed a Dutch expedition sent to the interior of Sumatra in 1877–9
that he, his father, and grandfather had always spoken the language of the
Malayu. He even admitted that he could not understand the “Forest Kubu”
(Orang Rimba), whose language, he said, was “purer.” 27 The dipati lived only
some twenty miles from Jambi, and members of his community could speak
Malayu. It was noted, too, that in Palembang the Forest Kubu had already
adopted Malayu clothing and cuisine to a great extent. When a Kubu family
dressed as Malayu went to Jambi to sell rubber, they were indistinguishable
from the Jambi people. For the Orang Batin Sembilan groups, becoming
Malayu was not difficult since it was not an uncommon practice for Malayu
men from Jambi and Palembang to take one and sometimes even two Batin
Sembilan wives. 28
While the Jambi and Palembang men would have appreciated the value
of such marriages in assuring a successful exchange with the local community,
the Orang Batin Sembilan families would have regarded the addition of a foreign
trader favorably, as a useful mediator with the outside world. Although it
was necessary in international trade to have intermediaries who could operate
comfortably and profitably in two or more cultural worlds, there would
have been strong pressure to maintain ethnic boundaries between the forest
people and the Malayu to assure the continuing success of the trade in forest
products. A change occurred in the relationship by the late nineteenth century
when forest products were no longer a major source of revenue for the
Malayu kingdoms or the British and Dutch colonial states. The rationale for
the maintenance of ethnic boundaries between the forest groups and the outside
world came to be less a function of economic benefits and more a matter
of ethnic pride. Among the Orang Rimba today, there is a strong avoidance
pattern in the culture, which makes any intimate relationship with an outsider
a contravention of customary law (adat) punishable by both supernatural
sanction and societal rejection. 29
The Orang Rimba live west of the Tembesi River in the Bukit Duabelas
region and north to the borders of contemporary Riau province. 30 They pursue
a lifestyle based on hunting wild animals with spears and dogs, fishing,
and the gathering of wild fruits and roots, while the Orang Batin are more
likely to be semisedentary swidden agriculturalists. In the past, however,
they were reported to have used camouflaged pits to hunt large game, and
it was believed that their intensive hunting activities might have contributed
206 Chapter 7