BATANG HARI, INDONESIA // Indonesian tribesman Muhammad Yusuf believes his conversion from animism to Islam in a government-supported programme will eventually make his life easier.
“Thank God, the government now pays attention to us; before our conversion they didn’t care,” he says.
Mr Yusuf (the Islamic name he has adopted) is a member of the “Orang Rimba” tribe. His original name was Nguyup until his small community converted to Islam and gave up their nomadic ways in January in a bid to improve livelihoods that have been devastated by the expansion of palm oil plantations and coal mines into their forest homelands.
The authorities insist the move is positive but critics say it amounts to a last throw of the dice for indigenous groups driven to desperation by the government’s failure to properly defend their rights against rapid commercial expansion.
Indonesia is home to an estimated 70 million tribespeople, more than a quarter of the total 255-million population, from the heavily tattooed Dayaks of Borneo island to the Mentawai who are famed for sharpening their teeth as they believe it makes them more beautiful.
But as a nomadic group, the Orang Rimba — whose name translates as “jungle people” -- are a rarity.
The 200 who recently converted in the Batang Hari district of Jambi province — a handful of the approximately 3,500 Orang Rimba — decided to turn to the Muslim faith after being approached by an Islamic NGO, and the social welfare ministry has helped with the process.
Community leader Mr Yusuf conceded the reason they converted had less to do with deeply-held beliefs than with the increasing difficulty of finding food and the constant disputes with companies on whose lands they hunt.
The tribesman also said that he and his family — he has 10 children — wanted to get national identity cards, which would allow them access to public services including education and health care. Converting to Islam and settling in one location means they can get the cards.
The decision has meant big changes.
The converts now live in basic wooden huts on stilts and no longer move to a new location every few weeks. They are fully-clothed in items donated by the government and NGOs, having abandoned the simple loincloths and sarongs they wore in the past.
“It’s nicer living in a village like this, our lives are better,” said M Yusuf.
They have not completely abandoned their animistic traditions however. The tribe believes spirits inhabit the trees and their wavy-bladed daggers. They view Islam as a religion that overlays their own, ancient beliefs.
Not all of the Orang Rimba are keen to convert however.
Just a couple of hours drive away, a group of about 300 Orang Rimba dressed only in loincloths live under blue, plastic tarpaulins propped up on sticks and subsist on the few animals they can find to hunt with their homemade rifles amid the palm oil plantations.
They move on average three times a month in the hunt for new prey, and every time one of their number passes away, as required under tribal customs.
They look thin and malnourished and life is undoubtedly tough, but they remain firmly against conversion.
“According to our tradition, conversion is not allowed,” said Mail, the leader of the group. Superstition comes into it too. “We’re afraid if we break our oath, we will be captured by tigers,” Mail added.
Conversion of tribespeople to Islam is not uncommon in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, and the government insists it benefits them as it is easier to provide for them if they are not moving around. .
Nor are their traditions endangered.
“It’s a creative culture which has local wisdom we need to preserve,” said Hasbullah Al Banjary, director of indigenous communities at the social affairs ministry.
But some feel the tribespeople have no option but to convert.
“I view this as a result of the state failing to protect them,” said Rukka Sombolinggi, secretary general of leading Indonesia indigenous rights group AMAN. “They turn to clerics or the church in some areas, because they offer protection.”
Mr Yusuf said he feels a sense of “tranquillity” after converting. But his group have still not received the coveted identity documents.
“It’s now up to the government — if they care about us they will work on our ID cards,” he said.
* Agence France-Presse
