to adapt to a new way of life associated with the monetary economy. The construction of highways and the development of the plantation economy cause the relocation of the indigenous population to cities and new villages, specially built for them by state governments. The government's policy is to convert the indigenous people to Islam and to integrate them into the main population of the country as settled peasants. At the same time, the Orang Asli would prefer to modernise without becoming Malays, even when converting to Islam. After joining the mainstream society, Orang Asli occupy the lowest rungs of the social ladder. Even their status as the first indigenous people of the peninsula is now being challenged on the almost incomprehensible grounds that they were not carriers of "civilisation." The political state in Malaysia is largely organised around the idea of preserving the special ethnic status (Malay supremacy) of the Malays as the natives (bumiputera in Malay language, literally means "son of the soil") of the land to equal among the indigenous communities. Although the more dominant Malays, the Orang Asal of East Malaysia and the Orang Asli are considered as bumiputera, they do not enjoy the same equal ranking nor the same rights and privileges. In practice, this has profound implications for the rights of the Orang Asli to the land they have held for a millennia, and which are now largely threatened with transfer to other hands. Prolonged litigation related to these issues is conducted in several states of Peninsular Malaysia, and often ends in favour of the Orang Asli especially those that received public attention. Economy Around 1950, most Orang Asli groups followed a traditional way of living, with a subsistence economy supplemented by trade or sales of jungle produce. The main occupation for most groups of Senoi was a primitive form of manual slash-and-burn agriculture. Senoi grows upland rice, cassava, corn, millet, vegetables and a few fruit trees. Within their customary lands, people cleared a plot of jungle area and used it for agriculture for four to five years, and then moved to another area. The old plots were simply abandoned, and were left to be overgrown with jungle again. The clearing of the new field took from two weeks to a month. The main tools were a peg for planting and a parang. Senoi fields suffered from weeds, pests (rats, birds) and wild animals (deer,