The Jahai or Jehai people are an indigenous people (

Orang Asli The Orang Asli are a Homogeneity and heterogeneity, heterogeneous Indigenous peoples, indigenous population forming a national minority in Malaysia. They are the oldest inhabitants of Peninsular Malaysia. As of 2017, the Orang Asli accounted f ...

) 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 (; Perak Malay: ''Peghok'') is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, 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, Kel ...

and

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

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

and parts of

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

. They are

hunter-gatherers A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, especially w ...

and they occasionally practice swidden agriculture. The Jahai people believe in a

religious system Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

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

. 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'', a mystery illness 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 (alternate spelling: Grik) is a mukim and the district capital of Hulu Perak District, Perak, Malaysia. The town is also known as Rest Town due to its strategic location next to East-West Highway Federal Route 4, the main route linkin ...

* Sungai Rual, Jeli District,

References

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