How do the Temuan endure environmental and climate change? Songs of the Temuan: Rhythms and Echoes of Land and Life Along the Lower Langat River is an ongoing project and upcoming songbook by Kumpulan Chentak Chentong, the sewang group of Kampung Orang Asli (KOA) Bukit Tadom together with Gerimis Art.
The project documents Kumpulan Chentak Chentong’s ancestral songs and their meanings as a way of understanding the role of sewang in the community’s endurance of and response to rapid environmental and developmental changes.
Sewang today means different things. They are songs and dances traditionally performed during celebratory and healing events, but these have evolved into performances for cultural and tourism events today.
Together with Kumpulan Chentak Chentong key members, elders and youth, we are documenting their performances, key songs and dances, instruments, costumes, lyrics and dance moves through videos, photos, illustrations, and interviews about the origins and meanings of the song lyrics and dance moves.
As the Temuan of Bukit Tadom face rapid development, land encroachment and increasingly unpredictable floods that threaten their lives and livelihoods, this project endeavors to answer the question above via the lens of sewang.
Sewang is a living, expressive archive of community histories, environmental knowledge, and deep connections to their ancestral lands and rivers. Innovations in instrumentation, lyrics, and materials are also stories in themselves of how the community is encountering and adapting to environmental and developmental change.
New songs also narrate memories of a cherished past, and hopes for the future. Through these, sewang serve as assertions and affirmations of the community’s rights to self-determination, and rights to their land. The Temuan offer these songs as lessons for their current community, future generations and the broader public.
The Temuan are one of the 19 culturally and linguistically distinct Orang Asli (Indigenous people) groups in Peninsular Malaysia. They constitute the fourth largest Orang Asli community in the peninsula. Temuan communities mainly inhabit the western parts of Peninsular Malaysia, mostly living in the states of Selangor and Negeri Sembilan, as well as in Pahang, Malacca, and Johor.
KOA Bukit Tadom is located in Banting, Kuala Langat, Selangor, Malaysia, which consists of three villages of Bukit Tadom, Paya Rumput, Mutus Tua, as well as Sungai Kelembau, their agricultural area. KOA Bukit Tadom is part of a peat swamp ecosystem situated on the floodplains of the Langat River, and their ancestral lands extend all the way to the South Langat Forest Reserve.
Since the 1980s, the surrounding areas were developed by the government and private corporations, and the Langat River mined for sand. As a result, the Langat River and its tributaries began to be polluted. Today, the village is surrounded by oil palm plantations, housing developments, factories, a landfill, a solar farm, KLIA and many connecting highways.
This project is supported by the ASEASUK Research Impact Award 2025–2026 and led by our collective member, Sara Loh.
