Deep Jungle!

Just surfacing from a new trip to Malaysia as the final part of my Churchill Fellowship 'Arts and Older People'.  The final part of the trip was to the Temiar tribe who live in the rain forest. When I had visited them before I was focusing on their child rearing, now I wanted to see older people and how they related to the rest of the community.  

Children and teenagers that had been in my previous study, were now parents and grandparents themselves.  They take on the roles of responsibility for transmission of culture to the young.  They made garlands and head-dresses woven from palm and decorated with hibiscus flowers.  The older women showed the younger ones, and me, how the plait and weave in their traditional style.

Older people are still respected for their healing and midwifery skills, and for their opinion in what has become a very political situation.  There are now test cases in the courts for Temiar land rights, as logging companies cut down even more forest, and yet more oil palm is planted by large conglomerates.

The Temiars are a very inclusive people so there isn't a question of rejection because of age, either for the very old or the very young.  How much could be learned by western societies as well as other groups in Malaysia, that there are alternatives!