ABSTRACT
This chapter is based on a re-study, undertaken from December 1998 to March 1999, in the same location and among the same Tamilian people as my initial field investigation in Malaysia (then the Federation of Malaya) in 1962-3. The unit that I studied originally carried the pseudonym of ‘Pal Melayu’. It was a large rubber estate on the west coast of Malaya owned by a European company, situated about 35 kilometres from the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. In this chapter I use the same name, Pal Melayu, for the unit of my original investigation. But in deference to the wishes of my respondents during the re-study, I refer to the region where Pal Melayu is located by the real names of the towns – Kuala Selangor (earlier called ‘Bunga Raya’), Batang Berjuntai (earlier called ‘Bintang Emas’) and Bukit Rotan (earlier called ‘Baku Baku’). Furthermore, unlike in the earlier publication, I use real names rather than pseudonyms for all the persons referred to in this text.
