Intergroup Trade. In a fascinating account from the 1950s, R. O. D. Noone
(1954) described how buloh seworr (Bambusa Wrayi), the rare long-internode
bamboos prized for making the inner tubes of blowpipes, were traded and transported
among groups of Orang Asli in northern Peninsular Malaysia. This bamboo
has a restricted distribution, growing in scattered clumps at high altitudes within
the territories of certain Temiar and Semang (Kintak Bong and Jahai) groups in
The bamboos and/or finished blowpipes traveled from each community to
their buyers along well-established trade routes. Recipient communities fell into
two groups: neighbors that could buy directly at source, and people from farther
afield, who may or may not have been known to the sellers and either traveled in
or conveyed their orders through intervening communities. In the latter case, the
trade routes would extend across several ethnic territories, thus necessitating a kind
of collective collaboration to make exchanges possible. For example: