ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the way in which violence manifests itself in one of the three Orang Asli subgroups, the Semang-Negrito, with particular reference to the Batek and Jahai ethnic groups. The Orang Asli makes up 0.6 per cent of the entire population and is divided into three large subgroups: the Senoi, the Aboriginal Malay and the Semang-Negrito. The chapter examines the violence of non-violence and its symbolic and non-symbolic representations in shamanic context and ideology. It presents the six Semang-Negrito groups in Peninsular Malaysia: the Batek, Jahai, Mendriq, Kintak, Lanoh and Kensiu. Batek and Jahai cultures, like Orang Asli cultures in general, are intricately connected to the world of the rainforest, considered a safe maternal womb. They do not believe in the existence of evil other-than-human persons and they often repeat that in the jungle nothing is evil.
