During this year’s village-level celebration of the World Indigenous Day, the young Jakuns of Kampung Peta, on the eastern border of the Endau-Rompin National Park in Johor, decided to go back to the old days and reenact how their forefathers dressed then.
For the Orang Asli here, it was a affirmation of their identity as indigenous Jakuns, and a assertion of their culture and traditions.
This is a promising sign since in recent years they were made to be ashamed to acknowledge that they were like that before, and to dress as such was taken to mean that they were regressing to their pagan days.
As they say, just as the Malays have their baju Melayu, and the Chinese their cheongsams, they too have their distinctive traditional costume.
CN-COAC | 18 August 2015