Remarkable ‘Melanesians’ found in Malaysia jungle
13 September 2019
GARRY ROCHE
DUBLIN, IRELAND - Earlier this year, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation published an article by Caroline Tiriman in Tok Pisin entitled, ‘Ol Melanesian Pipal blong Asia’ ['The Melanesian People of Asia'].
I was struck by the resemblance of the Batek people of Malaysia pictured in the article to the Melanesian people we know in Papua New Guinea and nearby countries in the Pacific.
Tiriman’s piece included this photograph of a group of Batek people, who live deep in the hinterland of Malaysia.
“If you see these people, they look identical to the people of Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu,” Tiriman wrote [translation].
More recently The Guardian had an article that told of many deaths among the Batek people, which also included some photos of them.
The Batek started to die after being forced from their land and journalist Hannah Ellis-Petersen wondered whether they were poisoned by the plantations and mines that replaced their homes.
“The [Malaysian] government is in no hurry to find out,” she wrote.
You can read Ellis-Petersen’s complete article here, ‘Out of the jungle and into a death trap: the fate of Malaysia’s last nomadic people’.
These other photos are from The Guardian article, and to my mind the Batek people do indeed look very much like people from Melanesia. I would be interested to know if readers know of other places where where the people have a Melanesian appearance.
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Caroline Tiriman also wrote in her article [translated]:
The Melanesian people of the Southwest Pacific have a similar group of people who live in an Asian country.
So says Dr Patrick Pikacha, a scientist from Solomon Islands who is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland in Brisbane.
A very old Batek village man, Johan Tahun (Hannah Ellis-Petersen)Dr Pikacha said that in October 2018 he and his family travelled in Malaysia and went to the Taman Negara National Park where they saw and talked to some Melanesian people.
They talked with these people about the history of the Negrito-Melanesian people who left Africa in ancient times and eventually settled in the Southwest Pacific.
Dr Pikacha said this Malaysian tribe is called the Batek and they are one of the original people’s who settled in Peninsular Malaysia.
He said that, as a Melanesian man, who wanted to find out more about these people and that’s why he and his family went into the Malaysian jungle to meet them.
Dr Pikacha also said the homes of the Batek people are the same as Melananesians build.
I read a lot of history. Dark pigmented people were the most dominant race in the ancient world. Great civilisations and monuments were built by them.
But it's so unfortunate and pitying that the existence of dark pigmented people cannot be tolerated by gods and men.
Starting from the so called Zionist campaign against the seven most powerful nations of Canaan, the invasion of Africa, the Americas, Australia, the Pacific and other parts of the world continues to this day as experienced by brutal racism against dark pigmented people. Dark pigmented people are always cheated and forced to be on the disadvantage.
If there's life after this one, I will live in a world where only dark pigmented people live. If all peoples have to live together, then, I will consent to live in a world where what is happening today is reversed and the dark pigmented people are the masters.
I will refuse, for all eternity, to live in a world where all other people have equal status with the dark pigmented people and are living in harmony.
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Britannica cites the eight largest empires in history as the Persian (spread from modern day Iran), Han (from China), Umayyad (from Arabia), Mongol (from central Asia), Ottoman (from Turkey), Spanish (from Spain), Russian (from Russia) and British (from England).
There have been a number of great black African empires emanating from Africa including Kush, Punt, Aksum, Mali, Songhai, Ghana and Zimbabwe.
Empires, dynasties, kingdoms and caliphates come and go. They can be of any colour. Keep reading, Aku. You'll find them - KJ
Posted by: Aku Uvire | 08 October 2021 at 08:57 PM
Wow! Fascinating to learn about that. More anthropological studies need to be made to learn more about their livelihood, cultures, traditions and customs.
Maybe the Batek people were part of the first wave of migration into the Pacific who settled the island of New Guinea.
Posted by: Derrick Dalle | 14 September 2021 at 12:36 PM
This is very true. There a mixture of people living in this part of Malaysia. Mostly Melanesian and African features.
They do things like we do, especially the betelnut chewing and singsings.
This could be people misplaced during the blackbirding era in Melanesia or slavery on the African continent by explorers.
Posted by: Chris Usuka | 08 September 2021 at 03:17 PM
Reading through historical sources, the early migratory routes and resemblance in features among inhabitants of the Pacific Islands is clearly notable.
This historical information on the early migration is not an isolated piece of information but there is great substance in it as it correlates with the biblical history of human origin and eventual migration.
Posted by: Eliud Uwasenko | 14 November 2019 at 07:24 PM
The Batek, West Papuans, PNGeans, Solomon Islanders, New Caledonians, we all came from in the direction of Africa.
The Malaysian government should make it a priority to try and find out about those unexplained deaths.
Gold and silver is nothing compared to human life
And the genocide in West Papua perpetrated by the Indonesian military must stop.
They must be set free to determine their own future.
For interest shake where did the Javanese and other Asiatic peoples come from?
Posted by: Daniel Kumbon | 13 September 2019 at 10:56 AM