ofthe SAME TREE

46. Barnard, Multiple Centres, 73–4; Netscher, De Nederlanders in Djohor en Siak,
59–61.
47. Rijn van Alkemade, “Reis van Siak,” 133–5. As an interior people, the Petalangan
would not have been summoned to participate in overseas campaigns. This task would
have been allocated to the kingdom’s Orang Laut groups.
48. Barnard, Multiple Centres, 158–63.
49. Suparlan, Orang Sakai, 214. The Ma’ Betise’ (a group that has been called
Btsisi’, Besisi, and Mah Meri) tell a tale of the powerful magic of their shaman, who
was able to make stone float and coconut husk sink, thus helping to preserve the group
from the depredations of the Siak people from Sumatra. Nowak and Singan, “Btsisi’,”
308. The Ma’ Betise’ call themselves Ma’ Heh, “We, People.” For a discussion of the
various names of the group, see Wazir, Ma’Betisék, 13–4.
50. Effendy, “Orang Petalangan of Riau,” 369–70, 377–9.
51. Effendy, Bujang Tan Domang, 27.
52. Effendy, “Petalangan Society,” 632–3.
53. Porath, “When the Bird Flies.”
54. Porath, “When the Bird Flies,” 4–5.
55. Porath, “When the Bird Flies,” 5. This concept is the underlying argument in
Barbara Andaya’s work To Live as Brothers.
56. Porath, “Developing Indigenous Communities,” 110. It is tempting to see this
reference to the “magical left hand” as a residual notion stemming from the association
of Adityawarman with Kalacakra or Left-Handed Tantric Buddhism (see chapter 2).
57. Brown, Sejarah Melayu, 26–7; Cheah, Sejarah Melayu, 86–7.
58. Barnard, Multiple Centres, 43.
59. Lye argues, however, that the Batek on the Malay Peninsula do not fit this
label because their foraging patterns are well planned and structured. Lye, Changing
Pathways, 11–3.
60. Dentan, “Potential Food Sources.”
61. In the past there would have been groups that practiced both foraging and
swidden agriculture. As the forested areas in both the Malay Peninsula and interior
Sumatra begin to disappear, the nomadic foraging is being increasingly replaced by the
semisedentary swidden agriculture.
62. Persoon, “De Kubu,” 454–5.
63. A striking example of this economic symbiosis is the relationship of the many
different nomadic Punan groups in Borneo with their sedentary Dayak neighbors. The
interdependence between these special pairings is so well established that when one
partner moves it is often expected that the other will also relocate. The partners tend
to have similar customs and language and regard themselves as one people. Many of
the “Punan” have nothing but their label and a nomadic lifestyle in common and feel
no affinity with each other, making the whole issue of ethnic labels highly problematic.
Hoffman, The Punan, 56–63.
64. There is no comparable study of the early prehistory of the Suku Terasing
in Sumatra. Studies on the Orang Asli are far more numerous and in general of a
Notes to Pages 210–213
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