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 the Semang 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' ...

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 t ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

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 b ...

. 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 fin ...

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 . 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, trans ...

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 Jahai (Jehai) is an aboriginal Mon–Khmer language spoken by the Jahai people living in the montane rainforests of northern Peninsular Malaysia and southernmost Thailand. It is the largest Northern Aslian language. Though spoken by only a li ...

, a trait also shared among the Maniq people in

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

* Sungai Rual, Jeli District,

References

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