Batek
Nietzsche versus the Batek
A blog post published last week by Psychology Today compared the beliefs of the nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche with the way of life of the Batek. The author, Matthew J. Rossano, a professor of psychology at Southeastern Louisiana University, made it clear that many people would profit from gaining a greater understanding of […]
A Batek Village Hosts Tourists
The ancient forest in Malaysia’s Taman Negara National Park has long been an international tourist attraction, but lately some Batek families in the park have also been attracting visitors. A journalist writing for the Malaysian national news agency Bernama, Kisho Kumari Sucedaram, wrote an article last week about a press tour on February 23 that […]
The Batek and the Forest
A news report from the U.K. last week described the recent visit of the British photographer Joshua Gray to the Batek living near the Taman Negara National Park in Malaysia.
Batek Knowledge of Medicinal Plants [journal article review]
The Batek are highly dependent on the diverse life forms that surround them, especially the forest plants that they use for medicinal purposes, and as a result they have accumulated a vast knowledge of local natural resources.
Concerns for Batek Gender Equality
Although gender equality has long been a hallmark of the Batek people, the status of women in that society may be starting to fray, according to a report published last week. Patrick Mills, the author of the scholarly report, observes that recent developments, such as the employment of Batek men, may be threatening their traditions. […]
A Malaysian Newspaper Revisits a Batek Village
Last week, Utusan Online, a Malaysian news service, made a return trip to a Batek community that the paper had visited a year ago while reporting on logging in the nearby forest. The story published last week is an update to the three articles carried by the paper in January 2014. Many of the Batek […]
The Batek Anger a Malay Politician [journal article review]
When a group of about 15 Malay men visited the Batek village of Kampung Ki Ying, the women quickly fled into the forest. Though it was only days before the 2013 national election in Malaysia, the women feared that such groups of visitors sometimes were only intent on attacking and raping. This time, the visitors […]
Children Learn to Be Peaceful the Batek Way [anthology chapter review]
The central, organizing spirit of the highly peaceful Batek society, at least in the mid-1970s, was a moral commitment to sharing any and all foods with everyone else who happened to be in camp. This “moral unity,” as Karen and Kirk Endicott so evocatively put it, required children to be constantly scampering about carrying meals […]
Batek Suffering from Logging
A Malaysian newspaper published a series of three articles early last week analyzing the harm that rampaging logging is causing to the Batek people. They live on the fringes of the world famous Taman Negara National Park in northern Peninsular Malaysia, which also is being impacted by the lumbering activities. Using the Google translation service, […]
Batek Cope with Globalization [journal article review]
The Batek experiences with globalization, which bring violence and the fear of violence into their lives, have prompted many to move out of their forests into sedentary villages. In a journal article released a few months ago, Ivan Tacey carefully explains why global economic, social, cultural, and religious forces are so destructive to the Batek, […]
