‘The forest is our inheritance’: An introduction to Semai Orang Asli place‐naming and belonging in the Bukit Tapah Forest Reserve |
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| Authors: | Karen Heikkilä |
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| Institution: | Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, , Finland |
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| Abstract: | The forest realm of the Gòòl‐War watershed of southeast Perak, Malaysia holds much socio‐cultural significance to the Semai Orang Asli communities living along these rivers. Notwithstanding its present‐day location within the Bukit Tapah Forest Reserve, the forest continues to be where Semai conceptions of history and lore are encoded in the geographical particulars of the landscape. A thriving forest‐dependent lifestyle maintains and transmits Semai place knowledge, observed in this research through people's command of ancestral place‐names. This paper provides an introduction to Semai toponymy and considers the implications of indigenous place‐names on the protection of indigenous homelands and ways of life. |
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| Keywords: | critical toponymy cultural landscape indigenous Orang Asli oral tradition place‐names |
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