An archive can be like a “safe house” particularly for indigenous peoples who struggle to preserve their culture and traditions, a senior archivist once said. This is the case of the Orang Asli Archive at Mason Library.
The Orang Asli Archive, or OAA, is one of the world’s largest collections of research materials on the Orang Asli, the indigenous peoples of Peninsular Malaysia. The collection is known internationally and has attracted many researchers, most recently visiting scholars from Wales and Finland.
But the OAA is relatively unknown to many on the college campus. Every day hundreds of students, faculty and community members stroll by not knowing that when it comes to the Orang Asli, the world comes to Keene State College. “I had no idea this collection existed,” said Nate Diers, senior history major and student assistant at the college archives. His first job was to photograph and catalog a donation of Orang Asli sculptures.
“It was quite an experience to handle the sculptures and learn about the culture,” Diers said.
The OAA was established in 2000 through a collaboration between the Mason Library and the Anthropology department and a grant from the Wenner Gren Foundation.
Today, the OAA includes over 42 linear feet of research material, books, unpublished papers, photographic material, audio-visual material, and artifacts, dating from the early 20th century to the present. Among the groups represented are the Batek, Jahai, Ja Hut, Kedah, Semai, Semang, Semelai, Sengoi, and Temuan.
The OAA focused originally on archiving the papers of senior scholars in the research community. Then it became apparent that the Orang Asli had no archive of their own and the materials being collected were of great legal value. Advocates of the Orang Asli use the research materials as evidence to prove the Orang Asli’s indigenous ties to their ancestral lands.
The OAA was meant originally to be a traditional repository for the papers of senior scholars in the research community until it became clear that the Orang Asli had no archive of their own in Malaysia. The OAA is an archive with a purpose to be open and accessible to the larger Orang Asli community.
Dr. Adela Baer, a founder of the OAA, remarked, “Because of chronic political problems in Malaysia, the [OAA] is a haven for information on [Malaysia’s] most downtrodden people. . .” The holdings include the research papers of several important anthropologists and researchers, such as Banseng Hoe, Robert Dentan, Rosemary Gianno, Kirk & Karen Endicott, and Shuichi Nagata.
The materials cover subjects from the environment, ethno-botany, hunting and gathering practices to linguistics, medicinal practices, and mythology.
The largest expansion in the OAA has been in the digital realm. There are over 8000+ digital images available on KSCommons.
To many researchers the OAA also serves a project of social justice.
Anthropologist Dr. Kirk Endicott commented, “[The Orang Asli] are currently facing the prospect of losing their histories and identity. Orang Asli societies are changing rapidly under the impact of economic development and the Malaysian government programs to assimilate them into the majority Malay ethnic group.”
“Orang Asli memories and oral traditions are quickly fading in the face of these disruptions,” Endicott continues, “The only durable records of their earlier ways of life are the written records, photographs, videos, and sound recordings made by historians and other scholars, particularly foreign and Malaysian anthropologists.”
Dr. Yoges Subramanian, a legal advocate for the Orang Asli, commented on how heavily he relies on archival information from Western scholars. The archive serves as evidence, according to Subramanian, to prove indigenous rights and protect their ancestral lands.
The OAA regularly hosts an annual online symposium to bring scholars and advocates of the Orang Asli together to share research and information. In 2022, the symposium attracted over 300 participants from 4 different continents.
In the future, the OAA plans to work directly with the Orang Asli communities to train them how to preserve and set up their own community archives.
There is an on-going exhibition of Orang Asli artifacts on display in Mason Library. The OAA digital archive is available on KSCommons at https://commons.keene.edu/oaa.
Rodney Obien can be contacted at
robien@keene.edu
