page_title: Jakun people
section_title: Traditional economy
hierarchical_section_title: Jakun people / Traditional economy
caption_attribution_description: English: Jakun Hunting Party Blowpipe Malaysia Mongoloid
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: In the past, the Jakun people were hunter-gatherers. The nutritional diet are based on fish and wild animals. Animals such as wild boars, indigenous deer species (pelandok, kancil and kijang), lizards, monkeys and other small animals are hunted. Blowguns (sampit) are employed in hunting; which is usually made of bamboo tubing with sharpened tip bamboo darts that are pre-dipped in poison. Jakun hunters can shoot their blowgun with deadly precision of 30 meters.
  Cage traps (bubu) made of bamboo and bounded by rocks are used to catch fish in rivers or streams. The type and shape of the cage trap depends on the size and type of fish they are going to catch.
  Jungle produce such as wild fruits, rattan, wood, rubber, wax, camphor and herbs are gathered. A significant portion of these produce are then exchanged for other commodities.
  In some areas, the Jakun people also engage in primitive agriculture. They had small farms in the jungle. For this purpose, the land was cleared by slash-and-burn method. Rice and tuber-based crops like sweet potatoes are grown. They practice shifting cultivation where after two seasons of land cultivation had passed, they would move on to another plot of land and start everything again from the beginning. They will only returned to the old plot of land after many years.
  However, most Jakun people prefer not to engage in farming but to exchange foods from the Malay and Chinese people with their jungle produce such as kemenyan, gaharu, dammar gum and rattan by barter. Thus they also received clothing, tobacco, salt, gambier and areca nut palm.
  In using natural resources, the Jakun people must take into account the ownership of specific communities in a certain territory. Although they do not physically demarcate it, everyone knew well the limits of the possessions of their neighboring communities. People hunted animals, caught fish, cultivated farms, or collected grass only within their own territory. In addition, they do not take anything superfluous in regards to using natural resources, because they understood that the jungle should not be harmed.
  The traditional house of the Jakun people is hut made of bamboo flooring, tree bark or wooden plank walls and Nipah roofing.
  In the past, Jakun people wore loincloth around the hips made from the bark of trees with their own hands and did not buy clothes.
caption: Jakun blowgun hunting party, 1906.
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