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H D Noone, Ethnographer And Protector Of Aborigines On An Elephant In Perak
This photograph reproduced from the 'Rape of the Dream People', shows H.D. Noone on an elephant, shortly after he arrived in Malaya.
H D Noone, better known as Pat Noone, was a Cambridge graduate who assumed the post of field ethnographer of the Taiping Museum. He quickly became known as the expert of Senoi speaking people.
He was later appointed as the Protector of Aborigines, due to mounting conflicts over Senoi rights and state interests. He drafted the country's first laws to protect the Orang Asli. The Aboriginal Tribes Enactment - Perak No.3 of 1939 provided for Senoi rights to self-determination in relation to issues such as preserving their culture and gaining access to land. He also called for the establishment of large Senoi land reservations where the Senois would be free to live according to their own tradition and laws. He therefore marked out on maps areas as 'Sakai Reserve' and 'Sakai Ladang' and printed them together with the name of the Penghulu of each of the Senoi areas.
Noone spent a lot of his time with the Temiars, and took a Temiar wife. However, he was killed probably by his wife's lover, a young Temiar, during the Japanese Occupation.
To find the details of The Kinta Valley Book: Pioneering Malaysia's Modern Development, click here.
To read more about a brief history of elephants, click here.
To read more about the background of the Orang Asli people, click here.