#oranglaut

Evil people can poison you by offering you food and drink spiked with poison. If you wear this bangle and hold a glass of beverage spiked with poison, this bangle will crack immediately to warn you of the impending danger. 

Although turtles are prized items for the Orang Laut, they will always release and return to the sea a turtle whose shell is inscribed with a person’s name. The inscription on the turtle’s shell serves as a sign of someone else’s claim on the turtle. It would be dosa (‘sinful’) for anyone else to kill such a turtle, and misfortune would befall them. 

The Orang Laut also collect by hand, scratchers, traps and snares what they identified for me as 17 varieties of crustaceans, including several varieties of crab, shrimp, prawns and lobsters. [...] Another 46 varieties of molluscs and other edible sea creatures such as octopus, cuttlefish, squid and jellyfish were identified as forming part of their catch. Squid and octopus are caught by using spears, nets and wooden prawn-lures, and several varieties of giant rays are hunted with harpoons. Besides fish, crustaceans and molluscs, the Orang Laut diet also includes sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea grapes and seaweeds.

The number and variety of marine resources that are harvested is ever increasing. New resources are continually being identified by these marine experts. During my first stretch of fieldwork in 1991, they showed very little interest in jellyfish. However, four years later, they informed me that jellyfish had become a lucrative trade item for them because a Chinese merchant from Singapore arrived and and informed them that he would buy jellyfish. The Chinese value jellyfish for its peculiar tender, crunchy and elastic texture. They are particularly eager to buy this marine product which is sold in dried disc form measuring as wide as 35 centimetres in diameter.