Orang Asli Museum

The museum was the idea of Dr Baharon Azhar bin Raffie'i, the fourth director-general of the government department for Orang Asli affairs, who served from 1969 to 1986. He proposed turning the official residence of a former director-general in Gombak into a museum of Orang Asli history and culture. Converting the house and gathering artefacts took six years, and on 29 September 1987 the Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, opened it to the public. The museum is run by the Department of Orang Asli Development (JAKOA), whose predecessor, the Jabatan Orang Asli, was established in 1954 under the Aboriginal People Ordinance.

As the collection grew, the department, then known as JHEOA, proposed a purpose-built replacement at the end of the Sixth Malaysia Plan. Construction began in 1995 and was completed on 19 June 1998, and acquiring and installing the exhibitions took almost two more years. The new museum was officially opened on 2 March 2000 by the 11th Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah. JAKOA describes it as an informal place of learning and a centre for research into Orang Asli history and culture. The site also houses the Orang Asli library and an auditorium used for meetings, recordings and cultural performances.

Displays cover cultural traditions, customs and beliefs, taboos, healing and herbal medicine, wedding ceremonies and hunting, with dioramas such as a small-animal trap. Among the artefacts JAKOA highlights are a Jah Hut wood carving of a man-eating spirit (Hantu Makan Orang), a carving of a chained tiger, blowpipes, a carved hair comb, bark-cloth clothing, Temiar ornaments such as woven gelang simpai bracelets, tempok headdresses and bead necklaces, and musical instruments including the Temiar genggong and pensol flute and a Semelai rebak. A uniform of the Senoi Praaq, the Orang Asli unit formed in 1956 during the Emergency, recalls their part in the security forces.

JAKOA counts 215,215 Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia as of 2023, in three main groups, the Negrito, the Senoi and the Proto-Malays, each made up of six ethnic communities, from the Bateq and Jahai to the Temiar, Semai, Jah Hut, Temuan and Jakun. The museum opens Saturday to Thursday, including public holidays, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, closes on Fridays and charges no admission. Organised group visits have been welcomed with gongs, blowpipe demonstrations and performances by the Bah Bola cultural group. Visits to Orang Asli villages themselves need the approval of JAKOA's director-general.