The Legends of Indigenous People

The Orang Asli (‘aborigine’ or ‘the original people’) are the native minority groups living in the forests of Peninsular Malaysia. As of 2019, a population survey concluded that the Orang Asli numbered 210, 611 and consisted of only 14 percent of the total Malaysian population of 33.45 million.

The Orang Asli comprise 18 ethnically defined subgroups. Each of the these groups has its own unique culture and language. The groups residing in the north of the peninsula speak languages resembling the indigenous tongues of Burma, Thailand and Indo-China. The Orang Asli who live in the south share a language rooted in the native languages of the Indonesian islands, because of the language pattern, linguists and historian argue that two separate waves of Orang Asli arrive at Peninsular Malaysia: one from mainland Southeast Asia, and the other from the islands of the Western Pacific.