Reminiscences of Batek friends: taʔKaŋkoŋ and yaʔKaŋkoŋ

25 March 2025

yaʔKaŋkoŋ (holding granddaughter Tey), 1995

I first met taʔKaŋkoŋ and yaʔKaŋkoŋ (above) back in 1995. I had started dissertation fieldwork about six weeks earlier and was trying to visit as many subgroups as possible. I didn’t yet know taʔKaŋkoŋ, his wife yaʔKaŋkoŋ, or any of their children. They were said to be living in a forest camp “up there,” somewhere on the Trenggan River or its tributaries. I was eager to meet them.

One of their cousins was going up and invited me along.

We arrived in the late afternoon after a few hours’ trek. Daylight was fading fast. There was a lot of rainfall at the time and the vegetation was dark with damp. The guys walked into the campsite area first and walked straight through to the other side. But I had no family to visit and no place to stop. The lean-tos were arranged in a semi-circle and all were filled with people. Everybody stopped talking when they saw me. I felt shy. I shoved my backpack against a tree, sat on a log in the middle of camp so that everyone could get a good look, took out my cigarettes, and smoked my way through the awkwardness.

Soon, people were chatting back and forth across the lean-tos. Darkness came on and I was still sitting there. Eventually, I hailed Anuk, who had brought me there, and asked him what I should do. An older couple called out from their lean-to... “Sleep here... Backpack there... Eat what... Drink tea...” Later I came to know them as yaʔKaŋkoŋ and taʔKaŋkoŋ, parents of most of the adults, and two of the most engaging Batek people I ever met.

taʔKaŋkoŋ with young relatives, photographed by another one of their young relatives, 1996

In truth, yaʔKaŋkoŋ was the more engaging, anthropologically speaking. Know the feeling when you meet someone who seems to speak your language? That was her. She’d produce these little bons mots that I could translate almost literally into English, idiomatically. She certainly helped me to see the danger of making people seem exotic. She articulated good sense and wisdom, but these were thoughts that I would expect any intelligent person, anywhere, to express.

I came to see them as parents and liked to stop at their lean-to, flopping my body all over their space like a porpoise out of water, just like their own children (who are my contemporaries). Especially when I was feeling low and isolated.

Both of them had a terrific sense of humour, which they’ve passed on to their children. I can still see the twinkle in taʔKaŋkoŋ’s eyes whenever someone told a humorous story about me (which were legion). He’d look at me with that twinkle in his eyes: it’s all right, he seemed to say. They’ve also passed on their fierce independence. They seemed a wholly self-sufficient couple, needing only each other and their children around them. They worked hard, going into the forest everyday, either with relatives or with each other only. They resisted joining big groups and disliked quarrels and greediness.

They’re in Kirk Endicott’s 1971 Kuala Tahan census. At that point, they were parents of three young children. I can imagine what they’d have been like as young parents, because I’m pretty sure their (six) children today are as their parents were: fun, affectionate, attentive, watchful.

yaʔKaŋkoŋ died first. I don’t exactly know when. It’d have been some time after 2004, when I visited them together with Kirk Endicott. As yaʔKaŋkoŋ made her way towards us, I tried not to show my feelings but her son ʔeyKaŋkoŋ knew that I was moved: “yes, she’s grown old,” he said quietly.

I had one more chance to see taʔKaŋkoŋ. That was at Tɔm Təmpan in Taman Negara, February 2010. The deterioration was heart-breaking. He was fragile, and did not stand up.

After arriving at the camp, I rushed to see him. As I approached his lean-to, he gave my legs a sideways glance and then looked away. “Don’t you remember me, your old friend?” I said as I sat down. “Yes, I remember you,” he said.

But I couldn’t look at him either. I sat with my back to him. We looked out at the forest as we glossed over old times and new people. He caught me up on news; his mind was absolutely clear. I looked him in the eye only once, to share an old joke—and, of course, to take photos. That’s the Batek (and Orang Asli) way: hide your emotions in case you lose control.

This was our final meeting. They tell me taʔKaŋkoŋ died three weeks later.

UPDATE: Since I wrote the above, one of their sons has died. So has the remaining members of taʔKaŋkoŋ's sibling set, ʔeyBəgok and ʔeySəmey. With ʔeySəmey's death comes the end of the Batek ʔigaʔ, a small group from Kuala Tahan. Of course their descendants are all over the place, but none can reproduce the ʔigaʔ dialect.