History of Moken

History of Moken

 

      The anthropologist Jacques Ivanoff assume that the name of the Moken people stems from the words "Lamor (Moken language is drown) and" Ken "which is the name of the Queen's sister in the legend of the Moken where her sister after grabbing her sister's lover, was cursed to drift in the Sea along with her friends. (For more information see Ivanoff's book Rings of Coral ).

        The Moken is a group of fishermen who derive from the Proto Malay that have been drifting around in the Andaman Sea for more than 100 years. They live on the islands and along the coast from Marid in Myanmar to the islands in the Zulu Sea in Philippines as well as along the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia . The Marid Islands in Myanmar has a Moken population of about thousand people.

The Burmese call the Moken “Selon” and assume that this name comes from the word “Chalang” or “Tlang” that is an ancient name of Phuket (Junk Selon) which is where the fishermen gathered in the past. The Moken people respect the holy things and spirits in nature as well as the ancestor spirit with "Lor-Bong" or the soul pole of the ancestors as male(Ae-Bab) and female (A-Boom) is a symbol.

The Moken people's most important celebration of the year is "Hnear-En-Lor-Bong" or the celebration of the ancestor spirit pole. In this ceremony, which may have leeway to exorcises similar to the U-Lak-La-Woy in Phuket or Li-Pae that call the leeway "Pla-Jak " as the Moken call this "Hla-Jung". The purpose of leeway is to take the damned, unhealthy, and the melancholic in distress away from the community. The celebration of ancestor spirit pole of the Moken people is held on the day of the waxing moon, in the fifth lunar month.

The Moken people will not go outside in a period of 3 days and 3 nights, and during that time they will have a festival where they drink, play music, dance, and communicate with the spirit to fortune the fate of the village. Relatives from different islands will also come to join the festival.

When they migrated to Thailand .
        The migrations into Thailand of the Moken people are not evident because there are several groups and waves of migration. Migration is still going on.

The areas where they live.

        The Moken who live in Marid Islands in Myanmar still has a population of about thousand people. The Burmese people call Moken Selon, assuming that this word come from the word Chalang or Tlang an ancient name of Phuket (Junk Selon), which is where the fishermen gathered in the past.

http://moken.hilltribe.org