The Jahai or Jehai people are an indigenous people (

Orang Asli Orang Asli (''lit''. "first people", "native people", "original people", "aborigines people" or "aboriginal people" in Malay) are a heterogeneous indigenous population forming a national minority in Malaysia. They are the oldest inhabitants of ...

) of the

Semang The Semang are an ethnic-minority group of the Malay Peninsula. They live in mountainous and isolated forest regions of Perak, Pahang, Kelantan and Kedah of Malaysia and the southern provinces of Thailand. The Semang are among the different eth ...

people group found in

Perak Perak () is a state of Malaysia on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. Perak has land borders with the Malaysian states of Kedah to the north, Penang to the northwest, Kelantan and Pahang to the east, and Selangor to the south. Thailand's ...

and

Kelantan Kelantan (; Jawi: ; Kelantanese Malay: ''Klate'') is a state in Malaysia. The capital is Kota Bharu and royal seat is Kubang Kerian. The honorific name of the state is ''Darul Naim'' (Jawi: ; "The Blissful Abode"). Kelantan is located in the ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

and parts of

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. They have dark skin, often

curly-hair Hair is a protein filament that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals. The human body, apart from areas of glabrous skin, is covered in follicles which produce thick terminal and ...

and Asiatic facial characteristics, and are stockily built. They are

hunter-gatherers A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

and they occasionally practice

swidden agriculture Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a Field (agriculture), field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an ar ...

. The Jahai people believe in a

religious system Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, tr ...

with Karei (pronounced "Karεy") as a supernatural force that oversees their actions and behaviours. In order to avoid attracting Karei's attention negatively, there are taboos and avoidance rules to follow. They believe Karei can be scared away or attracted to by various odors depending on Karei's preferences, for example, the unpleasant smell of a burnt crayfish. Therefore this led to a rich odor lexicon in the Jahai language, a trait also shared among the

Maniq people The Maniq or Mani are an ethnic group of Thailand. They are more widely known in Thailand as the ''Sakai'' ( th, ซาไก), a controversial derogatory term meaning'barbarism'. They are the only Negrito group in Thailand and speak a variety of ...

. The Jahai people, who are traditionally nomadic, live in permanent settlements in parts of the

Royal Belum State Park Belum-Temengor is the largest continuous forest complex in Peninsular Malaysia. Specifically, it is located in the Malaysian state of Perak (Hulu Perak) and crosses into Southern Thailand. Belum-Temenggor is divided into two sections. Belum is lo ...

as part of the tourist attraction. They lived in isolation, and most likely lacking of infrastructure such as roads, schools, health services, and so on. This resulted in exhaustion of resources. The mortality rate of the Jahai people in villages along the Kejar River was as high as 50% in children due to '' Serawan'', which caused the population there to dwindle from 600 to 400. Geographical location of Orang Asli communities recruited in the study

Geographical location of Orang Asli communities recruited in the study

The population dynamics of the Jahai people in

are as the following:- Other settlements of the Jahai people in

are:- * RPS Air Banun,

Gerik Gerik ( Jawi: ڬريق; ; Tamil: கிரிக் ; alternate spelling: Grik) is a mukim and the district capital of Hulu Perak District, Perak, Malaysia. The town is also known as Rest Town owing to its strategic location next to East-West ...

* Sungai Rual,

Jeli District The Jeli District (Jawi: جلي) is a district and a parliamentary constituency in western Kelantan, Malaysia. As of 2010, the district's population is estimated to be 42,150. Jeli is administered by the Jeli District Council. Jeli is bordered b ...

References

Indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia Ethnic groups in Malaysia Orang Asli {{Malaysia-stub