Drifting with Burma's Sea Gypsies (Part 3)
Paddling with the Mergui Archipelago’s Moken Boat Nomads
Blue Magazine March 2003

MOKEN

Floating colony ... ethnologist's quandary, census-takers enigma, naturalists Mecca.

A sea gypsy "land village" lies on the southern tip of Lampi Island, in Makyone Galet (pronounced "Mah Jun"; Galet means channel), located in the southern midst of this island chain. Actually a Moken resettlement project - developed to homogenize them with the rest of land-based society - and also home to a few Burmese fishing families.
 

Maintaining their survival and creeds has been and seemingly will always be a matter of alien arrival and their fleeing to the sea. The strong cultural identity they developed on the water is being forced to adapt to new environments - rows of thatched huts elevated on stilts driven into the mud. Still, they seldom venture any distance inland from the beach.

Before resettlement, they went ashore only during monsoon season. They migrate between temporary moorings along side beaches, in lagoons, and near the leeward edges of islands. They move from island to island hunting sea turtles and collecting sand worms, shellfish, and clams for food. Curiously, they overlook fish.

Boat dwellers don't have much business on land. Traditionally they only gathered sea creatures and harpooned fish for subsistence. When the Chinese began sailing through, they started diving for pearls and sea cucumbers to trade with the Chinese who enjoy them as aphrodisiacs.

Anthropological study of these timid people by outsiders was precluded until recent times, because the numerous government "closings" of the region prevented ongoing study. The advanced naval technology of traditional Moken kabangs has mystified sea traders, pirates and anthropologists through the centuries. Their gypsy creed explains how a detached nomadic tribe mastered boat building using techniques that metaphorically link culture and design. They travel by the stars.

Typically, 'houseboaters' have no concept of rent or "meet you in three days." Though certainly not inconsiderate, they don't make (or keep) appointments. Like their mythical kin, the turtle, they often subsist between water and land - in tidal flats, simultaneously safe from coastal predators and dangerous currents.

The land resettlement is grounding their roots - but these are not rootless people. The family is tightly connected and it revolves around the boat, just like our family and family activities revolve around the house. The only difference is that their homes move. But, even though they live on the move, they live connected. Connected to the water, connected to the stars, connected to the seasons, and connected to each other - similar to early Native Americans and their teepees.

Universally, sea people of the world went ashore to heal or to bury their dead. Elders who sense that they've outlived their usefulness to such communes often discreetly ask to be left on a deserted isle to die.

I encountered the very reserved Moken people at sea and on land. Historically, their contact with land dwellers has invited misfortune. Their songs and folktales recall how they became sea cucumber and pearl divers for the Chinese. Today, the pull toward commercial fishing and Buddhism is taking hold.

A kabang houseboat approached, smoke rising from the stove at the front of the boat. The nose of the boat pulled up between my kayak and the dugout canoe, and, presently at a halt, a man emerged from beneath the thatched roof with a curious glance - a quiet exchange ending with a smile. Tham, our guide, looked over at us but said nothing.

This sea-going tribe granted a simple interaction showing there is more to bind us than separate us. We were, after all, floating. And even in western culture, disrespect for the earth harkens spirits that bring sickness, strife and dismay.

A gesture is made. Tham translates it as a beckoning for peace. I was invited to board the kabang. The one room interior resembled a live-aboard boat belonging to a marine boat mechanic - basic but prepared. I pointed to various apparatus - stove, bed, fishing spear - mimed their uses and received nodding smiles to each guess.

A member of a small, non-chronicling culture follows the light. A camouflaged hero ready with another dose of magic. We are both alien and acquainted, disparate and, yet, one. The sunrise is a stronger symbol than the sun setting on Burma's departing sea gypsies. The winds are watching.

Is this an intermittent phase in the Moken arc of identity, or the end of it? Could they be visionaries realizing that one can mold days as they wish? Life at sea may outlast life on land - automobiles have now killed two million people, another war we neglect.

New technology often leads to new rules of etiquette, oft unfortunately. Today, they also use long-tail engines. Another government (In this case the government of Myanmar) turns its back on the gravity of historical consensus that indigenous people are vital. On the brink of cultural genocide, a tribe of floating nomads reaffirms that courtesy never goes out of style - a virtue often more understood by "illiterates" than by the educated.

This symbolism is the polar opposite oft lost by western materialism.

Many cultures under the gun of genocide persist, impossibly, because genetically they don't know when to quit. We may never know the secrets they hold about their water world. Mariner tradition passes on ocean-going tales. Hopefully, the Moken sea-nomad folklore will not wash ashore. Perchance, frontier justice will prevail and the waves will continue to rock their gypsy souls, and the kabang flame won't go out.

In this lonely dockside of farther Asia, knotty vitality breathes, despite being on the fringe of a country at war with itself. The optimists and pessimists are both correct about Burma - pick your reality. The Moken kabang floated away, before disappearing into the horizon I began to understand that you won't behold the sea until you turn your back on the shore.