This is the story of a Temiar community in the Kelantan hinterland. Never before has it been told in such detail and clarity, even though anthropologists have been intrigued with the Temiars for over a hundred years. It is a story of their survival in the deep rain forest of the Malayan Peninsula, from time immemorial to the present, living according to a ritual and social system taught to them through dreams, whereby they could placate the adverse spiritual entities of the wild and live peaceably as part of a strong ethnic group. Their dependence on natural resources has bonded them to the forest for millennia, and this is the lifestyle they seek to preserve today. Ten years of interaction with these true guardians of the forest has enabled David P. Quinton to piece together the facets of an unseen belief system and learn what makes them at one with their environment. He has also uncovered a wealth of knowledge that the Temiars possess of natural species and their uses.
VOL. 2:
- The origins of the Puyan River Temiars, with their ancestry and detailed, GPS-plotted maps showing hundreds of old settlements, with mountains and rivers.
- How their peaceful equilibrium was turned upside-down by the Communist Insurgency of the 1950s-1970s and how their way of life has been severely challenged by wide-scale logging and the introduction of new religions.
- Almost 100 herbal medicines cataloged with colour pictures and their uses.
- 1000 place names from the Puyan Valley with their origins categorised.
Author Bio
In 2007, David P. Quinton made his first acquaintance with the Temiar people, at Kuala Betis, in Kelantan, Malaysia. Later, in 2010, he reached the hinterland Temiars of Pos Simpor and Pos Gob. His fascination with their way of life and the knowledge of the environment they held, being so isolated from the outside world, not to mention their gentleness and deep beliefs, led David to begin a journey of investigation into their origins. In 2016, David settled down at Pos Gob, where he began writing this book.
David's wife, Ella, and her family, have been an invaluable source of information regarding Temiar culture, providing a wealth of knowledge that would have been impossible to discover otherwise. David has planted over 50 fruit trees at his home and each year he plants manioc and peanuts. But with elephants on the rampage at night, David has experienced first hand the difficulties that now face the Temiars in their endeavor to find food for their families.
This book project was supported by the GEF Small Grants Programme in Malaysia (UNDP).
The book was largely updated in May, 2023, before this hardback edition was published.
