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A Semang Native At Sungai Batu, Batu Gajah
During Sir Hugh Low‘s administration, he appointed Leonard Wray Junior, who was a botanist (and a dedicated collector of flora and fauna), geologist and chief officer for Larut Garden, as the first curator of Perak Museum, who in his geology role conducted excavations around Perak where he identified land shells, animal bones, pounders, grinders, burial sites and edge-ground stone implements. Being a keen photographer as well he soon established a name for himself and the museum. This photograph by Wray, is captioned Semang standing outside of Hut (near Sungai Tapah) at Batu Gajah, Kinta, Perak. The hut shows one of the methods of interweaving palm leaves.
In the 1890s, Wray collected a series of ethnographical photographs of aborigines of the Malay Peninsula and also produced an album of public works in progress in Perak during 1892-93. His photos formed a good collection in the Perak Museum
The Orang Asli at the settlement of Sungai Batu at Batu Gajah were identified as lowland Senois by H D Noone, who was also working at the Perak Museum, in 1936. The community lived on a small reservation, where they planted rubber and worked on a lampan (ground sluicing) tin mine. Thus, unusually, they paid cash for their food instead of planting their own padi.
To read more about Sir Hugh Low, click here.
For a short introduction to the Malayan Aborigines, click here.
To read more about H D (aka Pat) Noone, click here.
To find the details of The Kinta Valley Book: Pioneering Malaysia's Modern Development, click here.