Salam malam 29 Ramadhan, malam ganjil terakhir bagi bulan puasa. Dikatakan kalau tidak bertemu lagi malam kebesaran Lailatul Qadir yang harus jatuh pada malam ganjil pada 10 hari terakhir Ramadhan maka malam inilah peluang terakhir. Saya pula bercadang untuk membuat cerita terakhir siri tentang 4x4 atau kenderaan pacuan empat roda ini sebelum tengah malam. Ingatkan boleh menyambung terus daripada artikel Kenangan 4x4 tahun 1997 - Mempromosikan Perak ke mata dunia yang ditulis sebelum berbuka puasa siang 28 Ramadhan tadi. Tengok-tengok ditemukan maklumat yang menyebabkan mungkin pagi esok baru boleh menutup siri.
Satu gambar yang ditemui setelah membuat Google Image Search "Orang Asli Temiar Perak"...
Setelah membuat artikel Kenangan 4x4 tahun 1997 - Mempromosikan Perak ke mata dunia saya fikir boleh menyambung cerita dengan point atau butiran seterusnya daripada artikel pertama siri iaitu Kenangan 4x4 tahun 1997 - Butiran yang harus dilanjutkan cerita. Ini adalah :-
10. Pada hari ketiga (Isnin 22 September) kami mengambil jalan balak yang berliku-liku turun naik bukit lalu diadakan dua special stages di kem-kem balak dalam perjalanan ke Kampung Sungei Dala. Di kampung itu diadakan satu pertandingan malam (night circuit test).
11. Pada hari keempat (Selasa 23 September) ada special stage petang yang menimbulkan sedikit kontroversi. Katanya ada peserta menyusahkan peserta selepasnya dengan cara sengaja menyebabkan kawasan berlumpur yang perlu dilalui semua orang menjadi semakin dalam.
12. Baki special stages diselesaikan pada hari kelima (Rabu 24 September). Sekitar waktu tengah hari kami meninggal Sungei Dala lalu menyeberang Sungai Perak dengan menaiki feri besi.
13. Selepas itu kami ke majlis sambutan rasmi di Kuala Kangsar diikuti satu lagi majlis sambutan rasmi di Ipoh.
14. Pertandingan dan perjalanan meliputi jarak 500 km di negeri Perak termasuk 200 km off-road (dalam hutan, jalan tanah merah dan sebagai). Nampaknya ini tidak termasuk jarak perjalanan dari KL sehingga masuk ke sempadan negeri Perak dan keluar.
Tetapi disebabkan sibuk mencari kedudukan Pos Poi dan jarak-jarak berkenaan ketika menulis bahagian penghujung artikel Kenangan 4x4 tahun 1997 - Mempromosikan Perak ke mata dunia teringat seperti ada menulis satu artikel khas melibatkan komuniti Orang Asli di Pos Poi untuk akhbar The News Straits Times. Saya pun mencari dalam blogspot BERPETUALANG KE ACEH. Tengok-tengok ada. Dikongsikan atas tajuk Experience with orang Asli pada 21 November 1996. Ini adalah lebih sebulan awal berbanding artikel 4x4 yang isinya digunakan untuk membentuk butiran seperti dilihat di atas. Sebetulnya akhbar saya lebih menghargai artikel Orang Asli itu berbanding artikel tentang acara. Padahal ia dibuat secara sukarela atas inisiatif sendiri berbanding artikel tentang kenderaan pacuan empat roda yang mana memang saya dihantar untuk meliputinya.
Dengan itu biar dikongsikan teks berkenaan tanpa membuat terjemahan. Cukuplah untuk diambil beberapa butiran penting untuk diceritakan kembali dalam bahasa Melayu...
DEEP in the haze-free hills of the Perak jungle are the Temiars, who make up the main portion of the State's Orang Asli. Clustered in small kampungs throughout the jungle, they live a precarious existence, balancing between the demands of the modern world and a rustic jungle life.
My first encounter with these shy but friendly people was at Kampung Tonggang, a few kilometres from Tanjung Rambutan. I was part of a 50 four-wheel-drive convoy for the recent National 4x4 Challenge. From Ipoh, we drove past Hospital Bahagia before turning right into a riverside logging track, twisting and turning into an uphill route before arriving at the kampung, which was on top of a hill.
We were greeted by smiling kampung folks, young and old, already gathered at the open area in front of the main gate, clearly excited at having so many visitors, including Perak Menteri Besar Tan Sri Ramli Ngah Talib, who was with our convoy. A festive mood was in the air as the Temiars, sporting their best clothes, simple and rural by city standards, and garlands on their head ushered us into the biggest hut there, the community hall where traditional dishes - petai, ikan bakar and umbut bayas - awaited.
The visit was capped by the sewang, a traditional dance accompanied by traditional percussion, a set of bamboo sticks hammered in a rap-like beat on a log, and a song in their language, which managed to get some of the visitors, including Ramli, to dance on the bamboo floor.
However, the brief visit did not give me a chance to get to know them better. As it was also an official visit by the Menteri Besar, they were understandably showing their best form, which was perhaps not reflective of their daily lives.
Still, from their clothing - the men in simple baju Melayu and women in batik and T-shirt - and Ramli's pledge that he would introduce more amenities such as public telephones into the kampung, one can gather that they were eager to embrace civilisation as we know it, although preferring to stay near the jungle.
I had to wait for the next day to get a better insight into the Orang Asli attitude towards modernity, this time at another settlement in Pos Poi, some 50km from the nearest town of Sungei Siput. Sitting on the banks of nearby Sungei Piah, some friends and me were enjoying a smoke when a group of six young Temiars in school uniform appeared at the opposite side before stepping into the water.
Keeping their clothes above water level - the boys' blue trousers folded up to their knees while the girls' long skirts held at the tips - they waded across the stream, avoiding the deep end.
Their books held on their head or tucked under the arms, they soon put on their socks and shoes and made their way to Sekolah Kebangsaan Pos Poi, where the rest of the National 4x4 Challenge members had camped for the night.
It was not long before a boy was seen walking half-naked through the stream with only his white shirt on, his face puzzled by the onlookers, including the TV3 camera crew who quickly switched on its camera to get the rare footage of a teenager raring to go to school despite the watery obstacle. Upon reaching the sandy banks, he got into his trousers and shoes and coolly walked to the nearby school.
But not everyone is as eager to go to school as these youngsters. A teacher, who wants to be known as Cikgu Ahmad, said out of the 126 pupils registered there, slightly more than half attend classes regularly.
"Some question the virtue of education, saying it did not provide them with any tangible means of getting food," he said.
Instead, they preferred to join their parents to hunt monkeys, birds and other small animals, abundant in the jungle that is their home, following the footsteps of their grandparents and those before them.
However, they were not totally immune from the trappings of the outside world as shown by the T-shirts, bearing pictures of popular Western rock groups, worn by some of the youngsters.
According to village elder Abus Yong, 60, many teenagers work for timber companies operating in the surrounding forest or find menial jobs in small towns such as Sungei Siput to get enough money to sample city life.
"It's kind of a balance. We sometimes go and join the mainstream public. At times, we go hunting in the jungle," he said, exhaling smoke from his kretek cigarette.
While students of Pos Poi had to wade to school, those at Kampung Sungei Dala need only cross the two hanging bridges that connect the different parts of the Orang Asli resettlement area, about 60km from Grik.
The area, which was opened in 1983 to accommodate the Temiars along Sungei Perak, especially those affected by the opening of the Kendering Dam, is home to some 600 people in four kampungs, each with its own headman.
Orang Asli Affairs Department officer Azhar Yahya said the Kampung Sungei Dala resettlement scheme, which has the best facilities within that part of the Perak jungle, was also set up to modernise the Orang Asli.
"So far the results have been encouraging. Here they can mix better with the outside world while maintaining their identity at the same time."
Directly under the department's supervision, the area has amenities ranging from a surau, a small administration complex and a primary school. It also receives a twice-monthly medical visit from Grik Hospital staff.
The National 4x4 Challenge members who spent two nights at the settlement also joined the Temiars for what was the highlight of their normal weekends, the weekly film show by the Information Department. Set on a field, also the venue for most community activities, the Ahmad Albab movie, featuring the late P. Ramlee, had everyone, even toddlers cuddled by mums, in stitches until the end.
While the facilities and services offered for the Temiars were lacking and rudimentary compared to modern rural villages, all the signs point to progress for the community. Like the Malay kampungs of the '60s which also received periodical film shows and medical visits before graduating to better things, the settlement area and perhaps all other Orang Asli settlements will eventually pick up, taking its citizens into the fold of modern Malaysia and its vision of a developed nation.
Artikel ini secara rata menceritakan apa yang dapat dilihat dengan mata kepala sendiri tentang kehidupan Orang Asli ketika mengikut acara pacuan empat roda National 4x4 20-24 September 1997. Kami singgah lalu bermesra dengan mereka di tiga buah penempatan di pendalaman Perak - Kampung Tonggang, Pos Poi dan Sungai Dala. Sudah diceritakan dalam artikel Kenangan 4x4 tahun 1997 - Mempromosikan Perak ke mata dunia bagaimana kami disambut begitu mesra di Kampung Tonggang yang terletak paling dekat dengan bandar berbanding yang lain. Disebut isteri Menteri Besar iaitu Raja Puan Sri Noora Ashikin ikut sama menari Tarian Sewang dengan Orang Asli atas balai buluh. Entah kenapa boleh terlupa suami beliau iaitu Menteri Besar Perak (ketika itu) Tan Sri Ramli Ngah Talib ada sama. Bila dah baca kembali artikel Experience with orang Asli barulah teringat.
Dengan itu juga baru menyedari Kampung Tonggang pada tahun 1997 dicapai dengan mengambil jalan balak tepian sungai (menghulu Sungai Kinta sebenarnya) yang mendaki bukit, selepas mengambil simpang berdekatan Hospital Bahagia. Jaraknya lebih kurang 7.4 km. Pemerhatian terhadap paparan satelit melalui Google Map menunjukkan ia lebih mudah dicapai kenderaan biasa sekarang berbanding dua dekad lalu.
Seterusnya kami pergi ke Pos Poi (Menteri Besar dan isteri tidak ikut lagi). Ia disebut artikel sebagai terletak sekitar 50 km dari bandar terdekat iaitu Sungai Siput. Di Pos Poi inilah saya dapat melihat bagaimana sesetengah pelajar Orang Asli begitu gigih untuk pergi ke sekolah sehingga sanggup meredah sungai dengan pakaian sekolah diangkat tinggi atau buka dahulu supaya tidak basah. Namun saya diberitahu daripada 126 pelajar berdaftar kcuma lebih sedikit separuh selalu pergi ke kelas. Yang lain lebih suka mengikut kehidupan tradisi berburu ke hutan kerana tidak nampak bagaimana pergi ke sekolah boleh membantu mereka mencari makan.
Selepas semua peserta acara menginap satu malam dalam khemah kami bergerak lebih jauh ke utara untuk ke Sungai Dala. Letaknya sekitar 60 km mendekati pekan Grik sedangkan pekan pula terletak 131 km ke utara Ipoh (menurut Google Map berdasarkan jalan sekarang yang lebih lurus berbanding dahulu selain mengambil Lebuh Raya PLUS lalu tidak perlu mengambil jalan lebih jauh melalui Sungai Siput). Ia sebetulnya adalah penempatan baru Orang Asli yang dibuka tahun 1983 untuk menggantikan kampung-kampung mereka yang ditenggelami air akibat pembukaan Empangan Kendering (hasil empangan terhadap Sungai Perak). Disebut dalam artikel yang saya tulis hampir 25 tahun lalu itu bahawa ia menempatkan lebih kurang 600 Orang Asli yang dibahagikan kepada 4 kampung. Setiap satu ada ketuanya sendiri. Ia adalah penempatan paling moden Orang Asli sekurang-kurangnya bagi negeri Perak di sekitar sit.
Di sana anak-anaknya tidak perlu masuk ke sungai untuk ke sekolah kerana ada dua jambatan gantung menyambungkan semua tempat. Artikel menyebut kami menginap dua malam. Sempatlah menonton filem Ahmad Albab lakonan arwah P. Ramlee secara wayang pacak di sebuah padang. Namun ingatan yang masih meletak dalam fikiran cuma satu sahaja- Kampung ini terletak dekat tasik yang bersambung dengan Perak (Empangan Kendering lah itu). Setelah mendapat tahu jalannya saya ada beberapa kali ke sana semata-mata untuk berehat seorang diri menikmati keindahan tasik.
Oh. Semua Orang Asli yang ditemui ini adalah daripada suku Temiar. Apabila melihat Kampung Tonggang terletak ke hulu Sungai Kinta teringat cerita bahawa pemerintah tradisi Ipoh dan Lembah Kinta iaitu pembesar turun temurun yang dikenali sebagai Panglima Kinta dikatakan berasal daripada keturunan Sultan kedua Perak, Sultan Mansur Syah (memeritah 1549-1577 Masihi) dengan seorang gadis Orang Asli. Tetapi saya mendapat tahu baru ini bahawa bapa kepada gadis tersebut sebenarnya berasal daripada keturunan Sultan Malikus Saleh yang mengasaskan kerajaan Samudera dan Pasai lebih 700 tahun lalu. Hmm. Cukuplah kalam tentang perkara.
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