MALAYSIA’s first peoples have attracted much media attention in recent weeks all for the wrong reasons. We have had reports of tragic deaths due to a mysterious illness and unscrupulous loggers and miners encroaching into Orang Asli lands. And alarming exposés of forced religious conversion and involuntary female sterilisation. Along with the fact that Orang Asli fare miserably in almost every socio-economic indicator relative to the national average, what we are presented with is an utterly grim picture of Orang Asli life in general. The risk with such media attention is that people may become wearily accustomed to such dismal news, leading to the possibility of being de-sensitised to their woes. To foster empathy for Malaysia’s first peoples, I would like to narrate a sad story of a child I met in a Semai village where I lived for 14 months in the early 1980s.

One day while visiting a home in the village, I noticed a sick boy of about four years old in the main room of the hut. When I asked what was wrong with the child, his father replied that his son was suffering from “soul loss”.