This is the first visual ethnography of the Batek of Pahang, Malaysia, covering the period from 1993 to 2023. To the general public, the people are Orang Asli (“original people”), indigenous ethnic minorities of Peninsular Malaysia. To missionaries, they are heathens who should be Christian or Muslim. To government administrators, they are among the country’s so-called hardcore poor, despised nomads who should be settled for their own good. To anthropologists, they are ethnic minorities, but they are also forest collectors and traders, egalitarian peoples, and one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer societies left in the world. In their own view, they are Batek—batɛk həp, the “people of the forest.”

This book sets out to portray the Batek through photographs, selected from the 15,300 or so images in my collection.