Last week I met Bang Leman, a tribal dancer and ring leader from the Mah Meri tribe of Pulau Carey in Selangor. He was in KL with his team of other dancers made up of young Orang Asli boys and girls to perform at a Tourism event I happen to attend to promote cottage industries - esp homestays. Their "tarian puja busut" directly translated into the dance of anthill worshipping caught my attention with its animistic traits. After their performance, I approached Bang Leman to ask him more about his tribe. A snippet of how it went. Me: What makes tonight special Bang? / Bang Leman: That we have our boys dancing too. Our boys don’t usually like to perform in public unless the payment is good. Haha. And they would prefer to move to the city once they are capable to. So it's up to the young girls to keep this tradition alive / Me: And you're the one who teaches them? Don't they have the same kind of ambition as the boys to move to the big city? / Bang Leman: Yes, I am the one who teaches them. At our village, we prefer to keep our girls where they belong and we do not encourage them to move to the city. These kids, they're brought up different from you. They don't have proper education. Some do not know how to read. They are without any religion and were brought up to believe in the energy of our natural habitat - the jungle. They are immensely shy. If they move to the big city, these girls would more often than not came back home pregnant. Tinggal di kampung lebih bagus, tak ada yang kacau. / Bang Leman then proceeded to invite me to his village for the Puja Pantai and Puja Moyang celebrated in Feb annually / Bang Leman: Kalau datang, bawak baju lebih sebab kita pagi pagi lagi dah kena masuk laut. Kita kena habis sebelum tengahari (If you are coming, please bring with you an extra change of clothes. This ceremony would require you to go into the sea and we will have to finish everything by noon)/ Me : And why is that Bang? / Bang Leman: Because our tribe believe that there's only 12 hours in a day and not 24. So with everything that we do, we have to finish by 12 noon. // These are our neighbours. Yet there's so much that we do not know about them. So fascinating.