An Ontological Framework to Preserve Malay Indigenous Health Knowledge

In the society, science and technology are intimately linked to the studies and expansion in the general progression of the society. However, the Indigenous Knowledge (IK) which holds the same weight-age as the development of the society with science seems to be forgotten. IK is a knowledge that being used by the people in certain environments in making their living such as health, spiritual and agriculture. It is important because if the knowledge is not being preserved, the extinction will be faced with this valuable knowledge. Ontology intends to capture consensual knowledge in a nonspecific way which in can be reused and shared among the software applications and by the group of people. There is no specific way to preserve the knowledge itself but an appropriate search and retrieval mechanism such as an ontological model is important and needed to describe the concept of the Indigenous Knowledge which is scattered and unorganized. The scope of the Indigenous Knowledge in this paper is within on the Malay culture in Malaysia. The focus is on the Malay confinement dietary. This research targeted towards a better insight of the Indigenous Health Knowledge in Malay culture and society which focus on the Malay postpartum dietary. The ontological framework is divided into four main classes which is the food pyramid levels, allowed and not allowed food, nutrients lack, and preventive and permissive reasons. The classes will be linked to each other to see which foods are allowed or disallowed based on their permissive and preventive reasons. Besides that, the allowed food also will be relates to the food pyramid levels and the nutrients lack in the mother " s body in the postpartum period. By preserving this kind of knowledge, it is not only able to value but preserve their knowledge for future generation use.