page_title: Jakun people
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Jakun people / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Description: Malayan Peninsula. Group of Jacoons at Blanja. Straits Settlements June 1874. Location: Blanja, Malaya Date: June 1874 Our Catalogue Reference: Part of CO 1069/484. This image is part of the Colonial Office photographic collection held at The National Archives. Feel free to share it within the spirit of the Commons. Please use the comments section below the pictures to share any information you have about the people, places or events shown. We have attempted to provide place information for the images automatically but our software may not have found the correct location. For high quality reproductions of any item from our collection please contact our image library
context_page_description: Jakun people or Orang Ulu / Orang Hulu are an ethnic group recognised as Orang Asli of the Malay Peninsula in Malaysia.
  The Malaysian government officially distinguishes 18 different ethnicity of the Orang Asli group, uniting them into three categories namely the Negrito, Senoi and aboriginal Malays. The Jakun people belong to the third of them. They are the largest group of the Orang Asli; in the Proto-Malay division, and the second-largest Orang Asli group overall after the Semai.
  In the past, the name Jakun is used as a term that encompasses all native Malays, including the Temuan people, Orang laut and Orang Kanaq. At the same time they were divided into two groups, the actual Jakun people living in the interiors and the Orang laut living by the coastal areas.
  In terms of anthropological characteristics, the Proto-Malay differs from other Orang Asli groups. Just like the Malay people; they belonged to the southern Mongoloid, where they are noticeably higher in height and have a lighter skin.
  They are closely related to the Malay people and are probably a branch of the Proto-Malay, whom the 19th century researcher A. R. Wallace called "savage Malays".
context_section_description: It is traditionally believed that the ancestors of Jakun people, like other Proto-Malay people, arrived in the Malay Peninsula from the southern Chinese province of Yunnan some 5,000 years ago. The ancestors of the other two groups of Orang Asli were living here are the Semang and Senoi people.
  The first Malay people arrived on the peninsula much later, probably around 1,500-2,000 years ago, and this was due to the expansion of the Malay empire of Srivijaya, and with its center located on the island of Sumatra. Initially, the Malay people initially established trade relations with the local population, but later began to dominate the land. The Malay people often mixed with the Jakun people, and the aborigines became part of the Malay population. Those indigenous people who opposed the outsiders were eventually moved to the interior regions and retained a significant part of their traditional culture.
  For a period of long time the Jakun people continued to live mostly in isolation from the outside world.
  Jakun people living along the Endau River in Johor recall with horror how during the Second World War, pillars of Japanese soldiers were passing their jungle.
  The active penetration of the state government and individuals into traditional Jakun areas began in the mid-1980s, and intensified in the 1990s. In 1987, there was a land conflict between local Jakun settlers and the other settlers in Pasir Asam, near Kota Tinggi, Johor. The state government was favouring the settlers and offered the Jakun settlers to move to a new settlement specially built for the indigenous people.
  The state government regards the Orang Asli as poor and marginalized ethnic minorities that are far from center of developments. Their socioeconomic activity, which is closely linked to the surrounding natural resources, is considered to be backward. For a better life, they are offered to move to permanent residence in villages based on the model of Malay peasants. As a result of the implementation of government programs under the resettlement scheme, most Jakun people were forced to leave their traditional villages and found themselves in specially constructed for them new state-owned so-called RPS (Rancangan Pengumpulan Semula, the "Regrouping Plan") sites whose settlers are provided with basic amenities. Although they were placed in new state-funded houses in already existing villages, the provision of amenities and infrastructure is noticeably lagging behind. Jungles that are cut down near Jakun villages were replaced with other commodity crop plantations that are not theirs, but the Jakun people still receive revenues from these plantations.
  The resettlement of Jakun people to new settlements has often occurred in relation with some natural disasters. Such as the villagers of Selingkong and Meranti in Pekan District, Pahang moved here after a major flood in 1971. Another group of Jakun people living in the jungles of Endau, left their native land through a cholera outbreak settled in the Segamat District and Kota Tinggi District in the state of Johor, as well as in Rompin District in the state of Pahang.
  Now their villages are far from the forest, they are deprived of their native environment, where they collected rattan, root crops, looked after their forest plants. This is also added with a significant depletion of the remaining natural resources.
  There are areas of Jakun settlements that found themselves in the areas of attention in the tourism industry. Tourists are attracted primarily by "untouched nature" of the locals. A popular place for ecotourism, particularly Lake Chini, with its legend about the immersion of an ancient city of Khmer Empire under water. However, due to the depletion of the local natural resources, the flow of tourists has decreased. In 2007, they managed to attract only 17,000 people.
caption: A group of Jakun people at Blanja, Perak Tengah District, Perak, June 1874.
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