The indigenous versus the acculturated: Jo'oh and joget style songs of the Mah Meri of Carey Island, Selangor (original) (raw)

The Mah Meri are one of the eighteen indigenous minorities in peninsular Malaysia. Their ancestors were hunter gatherers and maritime people who traversed the southern coastal plains of the peninsular encountering a variety of cultures such as the Malays, Mandailing, Rawa, Javanese, Chinese, Indians, Arabic, Portuguese and Dutch. The Main Jo’oh, the songs of the Mah Meri embody the history of their travels, cultural interaction, belief system, and environmental surroundings. Through ethnographic fieldwork, participant-observation and musical analysis, this paper compares two significant song styles of the Main Jo’oh in the late 1900s until present: the indigenous jo’oh style versus the acculturated joget style songs. These two genres demonstrate differences in melodic range, rhythm patterns, texture, and singing styles. This paper argues that while the Mah Meri accept their identity as Malaysians, their conscious distinction between the indigenous and the acculturated suggests a str...