This is actually a huge area which consists of nine villages. We visited the first village in the particular area and met with Batin Alis. The Batin is appointed after the death of the former Batin who died due to alcohol addiction.
The people there are animists, Muslims and Christians. They live
together and it seems that they are not so much keen on religious
matters. I personally believe that they would be better spared from any
religion as to avoid conflicts that happened worldwide. Religions would
be followed by politics and ideologies. Being animists does not mean
that they have no beliefs, rules or norms at least at the core or basic
level.
According to Mazni, the people here are reluctant to adapt to modern
lifestyles. It depends to their Batin. Based on my first
impression, I think the current Batin is lazy but I could be wrong. The
village receives electric supply from the TNB. Some of the houses there
were cut off from electricity and water because they refused to pay the
bill.
I could see that there is a laundry project initiated by a professor
from the Agriculture University of Malaysia (UPM). The people conduct
the service manually without any modern washing machine. The Batin said
that they prefer to work manually and using fresh water flowing from the
mountain rather than using water supplied by government agencies. They
would have to pay the bills. Most of them are jobless and illiterate.
