32 Chapter 3 | INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ PERSPECTIVE OF LAND móh’óng (source of a river), hépléy (both disturbed and undisturbed forest with which the other categories are compared with).51 3.63 A Batek dialect group is usually associated with a particular area. If a person moves to a different area, because of marriage or for some other reason, he or she would normally adopt the dialect spoken there and would eventually come to identify with that dialect group, as would any children born and brought up there.52 Kawasan Rayau and Territoriality 3.64 Orang Asli territoriality is thus not merely a relationship between people and their land or resources, but also between people and other people. The implicit recognition of a community’s traditional territory by other (especially neighbouring) communities is in itself testimony to the historical presence and occupation of an Orang Asli community to their customary land. 3.65 Territorial ownership confers on the owner, the right to be asked for permission to enter and for the owners to be accorded due respect. Equally important is the facts that over this traditional territory, the Orang Asli exercise autonomy and control. This is their manifestation of ‘self-determination’. 3.66 For this reason, the occupation, use, ownership and enjoyment of a traditional territory and its resources found therein is always subject to the customs, rules, and traditions of the indigenous group in control of it. 3.67 A traditional territory is also one where its constituent geo-cultural components are known and identifiable to the inhabitants. When an individual enters the resource area, it is for a specific purpose – whether to hunt, forage for food, locate a certain medicinal plant, and gather resource materials or to conduct a spiritual activity. 3.68 Foraging areas or what is often referred in Malay as kawasan rayau are precise areas within an Orang Asli traditional territory, which are non-residential or non-cultivated. The size of a foraging area will depend on the degree in which a particular Orang Asli community rely on the forests for food and other needs, and the overall size of their traditional territory. GAPS BETWEEN ORANG ASLI CUSTOMARY TENURE AND THE ABORIGINAL PEOPLES ACT 3.69 The Aboriginal Peoples Act is the only law that specifically refers to the Orang Asli. The Act regards the Orang Asli as a homogenous people, subject to control and administration by the State, rather than treating them as autonomous social units. 3.70 This is particularly so in its treatment of the Orang Asli’s ownership and tenure of their customary lands. The traditional interpretation of the Act has been that, while the Orang Asli may reside in their traditional areas or reserves, this is not a permanent right, but rather one that is no more than that of a tenant-at-will – that is, at the will of the State authority.53 51 Lye Tuck-Po (2005), Changing Pathways: Forest degradation and the Batek of Pahang, Malaysia. SIRD, Petaling Jaya. 52 Kirk Endicotti & Karen Lampell Endicott (1988), op cit. 53 Section 8(2)(c), Aboriginal Peoples Act 1954. chapter 3_a4.indd 32 7/5/13 6:43 PM