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Free Will of Sea Nomads

Name: Free Will of Sea Nomads
Uploaded: 2022-08-16T03:56:43Z
Duration: 20 min 32 s
Description: Akub, whose hair has all turned white, does not remember when he was born. However, he estimates that he is now more than 70 years old.

Akub, whose hair has all turned white, does not remember when he was born. However, he estimates that he is now more than 70 years old.

PANDU WIYOGA

· 7 minutes read

Not far from the world's busiest trade route, the Malacca Strait, survives one of the old Malay tribes. On a canoe with a pandan leaf roof, the tribe’s members live a nomadic life following their free will on the high seas.

Dozens of wooden houses on stilts line the coast of an unnamed island. Several canoes with kajang roofs – of woven forest pandan leaves – were moored to the poles of houses that stuck into the sea.

On one of the porches of the house, a man with white hair was solemnly smoking a kipal (cigarette pipe). He was surrounded by red-eyed people with curly hair, who were well-built and dark skinned.

The old man was Akub, the head of the Sea Tribe group in the Air Bingkai kampung. There were 17 families there. Their residence is in the administrative area of Tajur Biru village, Temiang Pesisir subdistrict, Lingga regency, Riau Islands.

However, he estimates that he is now more than 70 years old.

Akub, whose hair has all turned white, does not remember when he was born. However, he estimates that he is now more than 70 years old.

Sea tribes like the Akub group used to serve as sea defenders from the Sriwijaya era to the Riau-Lingga Sultanate. They were given a mandate by the kings and sultans to oversee the vast waters that stretched from the east coast of Sumatra to southern Thailand.

On the Malacca Peninsula, sea nomads are known by various names. In Thailand, they are called the Urak Lawoi tribe. In Malaysia, the ethnic group is better known as the Moken tribe.

The Urak Lawoi tribe, the Moken tribe or the Sea Tribe have the same nomadic lifestyle, namely moving around by boat.

The sea nomads are one of the proto-Malay ethnic groups. The Urak Lawoi tribe, the Moken tribe or the Sea Tribe have the same nomadic lifestyle, namely moving around by boat.

“In the past, I used to row all the way to Batam and even continued [rowing] to Singapore as well – but not anymore, because I think the world was different. I am afraid of being caught if I go far away,” said Akub, on Saturday (16/7/2022).

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Until around 2010, Akub was moving around with his wife and seven children. Their entire family lives in three canoes, each approximately 9.5 meters long.

The sampan kajang canoe is both the home and the small world of the Sea Tribe. All activities – cooking, sleeping, catching fish, even giving birth – are carried out on canoes.

The Sea Tribe relies on serampang (traditional spears) to catch fish. This spear consists of several types, with one, three and five points. The tribe uses the spears to catch fish, squid and turtles.

Apart from catching fish, the Sea Tribe also goes ashore to hunt pigs and porcupines. When hunting on land, they use javelins or single-edged spears.

In the canoe, the Sea Tribe keeps a koyok (dog) or a bayan bird, a kind of parrot. The dog is helpful for them to hunt on land. Parrots are believed to be able to read natural signs and give warnings when bad weather will occur at sea.

In addition to hunting pigs and ducks, the Sea Tribe also comes ashore to collect fresh water and bury the dead. However, they do not like to spend long on land. For them, land is a place for the dead. As for those who are still alive, they must continue to wander on the high seas.

In the Riau Archipelago, it is estimated that there are 44 Sea Tribe groups totalling around 12,800 people. Most of them, 30 of them, are scattered on small islands around Lingga regency.

Marginalized

In the early 1970s, the New Order administration initiated a massive development project on Batam Island, Riau

Islands. Together with Singapore and Johor, Batam was envisioned as contributing to a golden triangle of economic growth in the Malacca Strait.

At that time, the government launched the Welfare Development Program for Isolated Communities for the Sea Tribe in Batam and its surroundings.

The Sea Tribe, who lived nomadic lives at the time, were regarded as underdeveloped citizens. At that time, the government launched the Welfare Development Program for Isolated Communities for the Sea Tribe in Batam and its surroundings.

The government provided housing assistance to thousands of sea nomads so that they left their canoes and settled on land. This is where the conundrum of the Sea Tribe's life began, whether they should turn into a fully modernized one or persist in their ancestral customs with all the consequences.

Now, the Sea Tribe, which still maintains a nomadic lifestyle, tends to limit its movement in waters away from crowds. They are more often located on small islands around the Lingga coast, south of Batam Island.

There also live Akub and his group. The houses they live in were provided by the government during the time of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Now, they live in transition, half settled and half nomadic.

The village in Air Bingkai will be empty during August-October. During that period, Akub and his group wander to the northern waters, toward Batam Island, following the direction of fish migration.

“In other months, in fact, we often also berkelam [travel by canoe]. It's just that it doesn't take long like in the past, just a week or two, and then we come back here," said Akub.

Most of the Sea Tribes in Air Bingkai are now semi-nomadic. However, there were some people there who chose to return to full-fledged nomadic life on a canoe.

They live on the move across the straits between hundreds of small islands around Lingga and Batam.

One of them is Acung. Every day, he travels in a canoe with his wife and one child. They live on the move across the straits between hundreds of small islands around Lingga and Batam.

Every now and then, Acung and his family return to Air Bingkai village. However, they do not stop by the house at all. The family only stopped briefly in the village to sell fish and buy supplies. "It's better [living] on a canoe, it's easy to move if you're bored. The house [provided by the government] has been damaged. We are afraid to enter,” said Acung.

Hope for customary territory

But how long will the Sea Tribe be able to roam freely? Members who rely on nature now have to face environmental damage due to mining at sea, the felling of mangrove forests and overfishing.

Sea nomad researcher from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, Wengki Ariando, hopes that the state will provide legal recognition and protection to the Sea Tribe. This can be initiated by the regional administration by incorporating the customary territory of the Sea Tribe into the Zoning Plan for Coastal and Small Island Regions (RZWP3K).

“Unfortunately, in the Riau archipelago, not a single Sea Tribe area is included in the RZWP3K. As a result, the Sea Tribes in the Riau Archipelago lose their right to be prioritized in the use of marine space that is actually their customary territory,” said Wengki.

On 17 July, the Sea Tribe from Lingga left for the capital of the Riau Islands province in Tanjung Pinang, which is about 122 km away. They complained to the governor of the Riau Islands about the emergence of a number of quartz sand mines that damaged mangrove forests and polluted the sea.

“Our people think that the sea is the mother and the forest is the father. That's where we complained. If the forest is no longer there and the sea has been damaged, where should we go?” said Tinong, a member of the Sea Tribe on Linau Island, North Lingga subdistrict.

The typical life of the Sea Tribe is part of the wealth of the country, its maritime cultural heritage. The free will of the nomads in the vast ocean must still be given space. It is everyone's responsibility to firmly protect the sea that is their natural home.

(This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswo)

Editor:

NASRULLAH NARA

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