Fabulous story about Seletar’s original residents…

kon seletar or orang seletar is now classified as an orang asli tribe in malaysia. they were named after the seletar area in singapore (or it could be the other way around), where about 800 of them once lived. these people could be considered sea gypsies or orang laut. however, they did not belong to the same group that raffles met when he stepped shore. the orang seletar were descendants of the orang laut from the spice islands of indonesia.

are there still orang seletar in singapore? i believe there are. some have assimilated into the malay community and some have even inter-married with the other races. i read about two orang seletar women who had chinese husbands. most, however, had migrated to sungai pulai in south-west johor.