Black People : Black family in Asia

Batek

Beliefs that Foster Peacefulness. The Batek believe that one of their diseases, ke'oy, consisting of fever, depression, shortness of breath, and weakness, is caused when someone is angry with another without justification. While there are some spells that may help, the cure for the disease is for the person who is angry to control his or her feelings so the victim can recover. The person responsible for the problem treats the victim with various folk remedies, tells the victim's heart to be cool, blows on his or her chest for the cooling effect, and grasps and throws away the disease. This belief in ke'oy helps ensure that the Batek treat each other well, since victims receive group backing and angry people, who cause disease, may lose social support and be ostracized.

Avoiding and Resolving Conflict. While they do not resolve conflicts in a formal manner, people frequently have public discussions of disputes in attempts to gain supporters for their arguments. When conflict resolution strategies fail, one of the parties to a dispute will often leave the group for a while to let feelings of anger dissipate.

Gender Relations. Men normally hunt while women gather vegetables, but both foods are valued equally and both sexes are part of the food-sharing network in their camps. Men sometimes gather vegetables, and women sometimes (though rarely) hunt—they have no Batek man threading tubersrigid rules separating their sex roles. Both sexes gather the rattan that they trade for outside goods, and men and women both participate in government-sponsored agricultural activities. Marriages are based on equality, compatibility, and affection; couples make joint decisions about their activities. They normally have close, companionable relationships while they work together and enjoy their leisure time with one another. If the warmth of the relationship erodes, either spouse can divorce the other and count on the support of the band to assist with child-support and food sharing.

Raising Children. Batek fathers as well as mothers spend a lot of time cuddling, holding, and talking with infants of either sex. Parents are quite relaxed about discipline: one two-year old child used a bamboo flute his father had just finished making as a hammer. The father didn't care since he could easily make another. Parents rarely strike a child or use physical force on them, since their word sakel means both to hit and to kill, an abhorrent concept to them. Parents may discipline children by warning them about tigers, strangers, or the thunder god that punishes people who violate religious prohibitions. Children play actively but not aggressively, and they lack competitive games.

Social Practices. Their camps consist of autonomous families that share enough interests to prompt them to converge together. They schedule and informally coordinate group activities such as fishing. They discuss group issues extensively and rely on natural leaders for their experience, judgment, and advice. These leaders can only be persuasive—they have no authority. The Batek tolerate the occasional lazy individuals, since their spouses often make extra efforts as if to compensate.

Sense of Self. The Batek identify themselves as forest people; the forest is their true home. Their shelters are scattered about wherever they decide to camp, with no symbolic defenses from the forest. While the thatch is still fresh and green, it is almost impossible to see a camp from even a few feet away. They prefer the forest because it is cool and, they feel, healthier than living in the heat of the clearings. They also prefer the forest because it gives them a refuge from other people.

Sharing. The Batek have a firm expectation that all food, including game that is killed and vegetables that are gathered, will be shared. When different groups come back to their camp near the end of the day, after the tubers and pieces of meat are carefully shared, the families cook their meals and then send their children carrying plates of food to others, despite the fact that everyone already has enough. This teaches the youngsters the importance of their sharing ethic. They also share other goods freely, whether they are obtained as gifts or purchased through their trading. Except for the elderly or infirm, each person can share without causing a strain and whatever is given will presumably come back at some point.

Strategies for Avoiding Warfare and Violence. The Batek are totally opposed to any interpersonal violence—they flee from enemies instead of fighting. The anthropologist Kirk Endicott (1988) once questioned a man about the Malay slave raids that lasted until the early 20th century: why didn’t his ancestors shoot the attackers? “Because it would kill them,” the man answered in shock. Violence, coercion, aggressive behavior, and physical retribution are so totally unacceptable to the Batek that they would ostracize anyone who was belligerent. Batek women, as well as men, are free from the threat of physical violence because of these beliefs.

But How Much Violence Do They Really Experience? Kirk Endicott implies (1988), though he does not come right out and say so, that there is very little if any violence among the Batek. Karen Endicott (1992) does describe the way one woman, who was evidently quite unstable emotionally, struck her children at times when she got very angry with her husband.
What a beautiful society. Absolutely beautiful. As are the people.
 
She was talking about the Batek people of Malaysia,not the Khmers.Check out the previous page.

Okay. I have no problem with that. Actually, I am not much into anthropology. I generally appraoch these type issues from the perspective of history. So, while I do not know that their name is Batek, I know that all of those islands in the area have large numbers of black peoples of several different tribal names. I guess my main point is that the Khmers are just one of these many groups. But, beyond that point, if we look at geography, we will see that an unbroken link of peoples from Afrrica to the Indian sub-continent are black. This includes all the Islands, including Japan and the Philipines.

Most recently, I learned that the black people of Tamil Nadu of India are probably related to the others in the islands because the lands of the Tamils once reached almost to the African continent. What we have now in terms of islands are the mountaintops of land that is now submerged below the sea. So, they are all African to some extent. But, more importantly, there have always been trade and commerce between Africa and Asia along these island links. So, now that we are into Economic Decvelopment, we must restore our ties with our people in the islands, the Indian Sub-Continent and Camabodia, Vietnam, China, etc.
 
Aboriginal Indigenous spirituality and beliefs

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Aboriginal spirituality is inextricably linked to land, "it's like picking up a piece of dirt and saying this is where I started and this is where I'll go. The land is our food, our culture, our spirit and identity."

Dreamtime and Dreaming are not the same thing. Dreaming is the environment the Aboriginal people lived in and it still exists today "all around us". None of the hundreds of Aboriginal languages contains a word for "time".

Spirituality is expressed by ceremony, rituals or paintings. It can change and has absorbed elements of other beliefs.

Too many white people have tried to explain Aboriginal spirituality. I don't want to follow. I'd like to let Aboriginal people express what they feel Aboriginal beliefs and spirituality are all about.

What is Aboriginal spirituality?

Our spirituality is a oneness and an interconnectedness with all that lives and breathes, even with all that does not live or breathe.—Mudrooroo, Aboriginal writer [1]

Aboriginal spirituality, Mudrooroo continues, "is a feeling of oneness, of belonging", a connectedness with "deep innermost feelings". Everything else is secondary.

Aboriginal spirituality and the land

Aboriginal spirituality is invariably also about the land Aboriginal people live on. They experience a connection to their land that is unknown to white people. A key feature of Aboriginal spirituality is to look after the land, an obligation which has been passed down as law for thousands of years.

A powerful explanation of the spiritual connection of Indigenous people to the land can be found in a publication of the now abolished ATSIC [13]:

We don't own the land, the land owns us. The land is my mother, my mother is the land. Land is the starting point to where it all began. It's like picking up a piece of dirt and saying this is where I started and this is where I'll go. The land is our food, our culture, our spirit and identity.—S. Knight [13]

Aboriginal author and Yorta Yorta woman Hyllus Maris (1934-86) expressed this connectedness with the land beautifully in her poem Spiritual Song of the Aborigine [6]:
Spiritual Song of the Aborigine

I am a child of the Dreamtime People
Part of this Land, like the gnarled gumtree
I am the river, softly singing
Chanting our songs on my way to the sea
My spirit is the dust-devils
Mirages, that dance on the plain
I'm the snow, the wind and the falling rain
I'm part of the rocks and the red desert earth
Red as the blood that flows in my veins
I am eagle, crow and snake that glides
Thorough the rain-forest that clings to the mountainside
I awakened here when the earth was new
There was emu, wombat, kangaroo
No other man of a different hue
I am this land
And this land is me
I am Australia.


How Aboriginal people express spirituality

Indigenous people express and identify with their spirituality in different ways. These include

* ceremony (corroborees),
* rituals,
* totems,
* paintings,
* storytelling,
* community gathering,
* dance,
* songs,
* dreamings,
* designs.

[Aboriginal] spirituality is preoccupied with the relationship of the earth, nature and people in the sense that the earth is accepted as a member of our family, blood of our blood, bone of our bone. —Mudrooroo, Aboriginal writer [17]
Read more: http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/spirituality/index.html#ixzz0s5Muo3VD
 

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