Moken Tribe

Moken Tribe in Thailand

     Some of the Moken, traditionally a seafaring tribe, have settled on the islands in southern Thailand . They have their own way of life: with a unique culture; traditions; values and beliefs; a nomadic lifestyle; and making their livelihood from the Andaman Sea . Most Moken live on boats called “Gam-Bang”, roaming the sea in search of food - such as shellfish, fish, crabs and other marine creatures. The main food is Taro, a root vegetable considered as a staple in oceanic cultures. The lifestyle is influenced by the seasons - in the northwest during monsoon season (May-November) when there are many storms, the Moken move onto the islands, building houses, or moor in sheltered bays, protected from the waves and storms.

        The search for food is the same importance today as it has ever been, but it is made more difficult because they are a minority group with no nationality. The Moken are largely uneducated, with little knowledge of the outside, land-based world, which creates further difficulties when communicating with others.

        The Moken have an annual ceremony to celebrate the ancestor's pole (Hnear-En-Hlor-Bong), with tribe members coming together to worship to the spirits to protection them. During this time, Moken people stop work. The ceremony includes casting lots, playing music, singing and dancing, and also have leeway the models to pensive and distress as illness from families, community. Moreover, the Moken have traditional beliefs that emphasize the spirits, including the spirits of their ancestors, and those found in natures, which have the power to protect individuals or cause illness. Therefore, they make sacrifices and offerings to the spirits. The Moken are also adept at using herbs for treating disease. In society, weddings often occur when the couples are teenagers, and are monogamous for life. They will not separate or change partners unless the wife or husband dies or have severe marital problems. Having children is an important part of life, so generally Moken families have 2-5 children - because they usually live in remote areas, or on the sea, they are far from basic services leading to a higher mortality rate which makes the Moken population a fairly constant number.

        The name, Moken, derives from "La-Mor" and " Kan " which is the name of the Queen's sister in an old legend of the Moken people. The younger sister stole the boyfriend of the Queen, who then cursed her and her friends promising them a life in which they could never settle in one place.

        Moken are also known as the Sea Gypsies - Descendents of the Porto-Malaysians who wandered the Andaman Sea for more than 100 years, living on islands and off the coast of the Mergui Islands in Myanmar, as far south and east as the islands of the Zulu sea in the Philippines, and including the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia. In the Mergui islands in Myanmar, the Moken population runs into the thousands. The Burmese people call the Moken, ‘Selon', which is believed to have come from the word ‘Cha-Lang' or ‘Tha-Lang', an ancient name of Phuket province (Junk Selon) - the place that many fishermen lived before moving to live on the sea. This is the legendary tale of the Moken people.

http://moken.hilltribe.org/english/

The Moken – sea gypsies

The Moken – sea gypsies

 

The Moken – sea gypsies These wandering sea dwellers are believed by some experts to have been the first inhabitants of the Andaman coastal regions of Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia. Today only several thousand of them remain here, with few still living the traditional life that took them to sea in their small boats for seven or eight months of the year.
    The Moken are related to other ‘sea gypsy’ peoples inhabiting island archipelagos all the way to the Philippines. Their language appears unrelated to any other, and their real origin is unknown. Some experts believe it was the ancestors of the Moken who drew the paintings found in caves in Phang Nga Bay and at other locations.

There is a lot of conjecture and little concrete information about their origins and history. The Moken are without doubt the masters of the sea, able to forage a living from it by exploiting an amazing number of organisms here. During their seven or eight months at sea each year those still living traditionally wander from island to island in groups of a half dozen or more boats, each holding one family, usually of three generations.

They use nets, traps and spears to catch fish and other creatures, and spend a lot of time diving with primitive gear. In this manner they collect or spear shells, sea cucumbers, lobsters and any other marine organism they can find. Some is for their own consumption, the rest for sale in town markets where they come from time to time to buy rice, cooking oil, fuel, nets, cooking utensils and the few others bits and pieces their simple lives require. The thatched roofs of their boats are often covered with fish, sea cucumbers, squid and other sea produce being dried for market.

During the monsoon from June to October the Moken move ashore, building temporary huts from poles, bamboo and grass at the back of remote beaches. During this time they repair and build boats, while still prying a living from the surging, inhospitable ocean. Thailand’s Moken have been settled into permanent villages, two of which are found on Phuket, with another on Phi Phi. These villages are poor, dirty and bathed in an atmosphere of depression. Some uncaring companies use the Moken village at Rawai as a human zoo, bussing in tourists to gawk and point cameras at the sunburnt, scrappily dressed people.

The children beg from the tourists, even grabbing things from them. It is the sight of a people dispossessed of their traditions and dignity. Government officials have tried to draw the Moken children into school, an effort that has been largely unsuccessful. As soon as conditions are right for fishing the children desert the classroom to join their parents at sea. Only in the Mergui archipelago of Myanmar are Moken found living their traditional life in boats at sea. The myriad islands here shelter perhaps a few thousand of them. Here again the authorities have begun an effort at settling Moken into a permanent village at Pu Nala island.

 http://www.phuketmagazine.com/the-moken-traditional-sea-gypsies/

Nomenclature

Nomenclature

 

They refer to themselves as Moken. The name is used for all of the proto-Malayan speaking tribes who inhabit the coast and islands in the Andaman Sea on the west coast of Thailand, the provinces of Satun, Trang, Krabi, Phuket, Phang Nga, and Ranong, up through the Mergui Archipelago of Burma [1](Myanmar).

The group includes the Moken proper, the Moklen (Moklem), the Orang Sireh (Betel-leaf people) and the Orang Lanta. The last, the Orang Lanta are a hybridized group formed when the Malay people settled the Lanta islands where the proto-Malay Orang Sireh had been living.

The Burmese call the Moken Selung, Salone, or Chalome.[2] In Thailand they are called Chao Ley (people of the sea) or Chao nam (people of the water), although these terms are also used loosely to include the Urak Lawoi and even the Orang Laut.

In Thailand, acculturated Moken are called Thai Mai (new Thais).  The Moken are also called Sea Gypsies, a generic term that applies to a number of peoples in southeast Asia. The Urak Lawoi are sometimes classified with the Moken, but they are linguistically and ethnologically distinct, being much more closely related to the Malay people

Moken language

Moken language

 

Moken language is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by Sea Gypsies living in the western coastal waters of Burma and Thailand. The people refer to themselves as Mawken or Moken. They are called Selung or Salon by the Burmese.

There are six dialects of Moken;

• Dung
• Jait
• Lebi
• Niawi
• Jadiak
• Moklen

The Moken Alphabet

There is an existing Burmese-based ortography. There have also been at least two earlier ortographies:

• Pwo Karen -based, and
• Roman-based 

Sample Verbs

The sample verbs are written in phonetic script.

• bəje, to stand in a group
• gilen, to roll up
• məchu, to raise the hands
• məlan, to swallow
• məŋam, to eat
• məŋap, to catch
• məŋɛ̌aŋ, to walk
• məpeŋ, to rest
• məthu:n, to carry on the head
• ŋəpoy, to jump into
• phalo, to tease

 http://wiki.verbix.com/Languages/Moken

Sea Gypsies of Myanmar

Sea Gypsies of Myanmar

The world is closing in on the Moken way of life.

On the horizon we see them, their flotilla of small hand-built boats, called kabang, like a mirage beneath the setting sun. They are wary of strangers: At our approach they split up and scatter. We close in on one boat, and I call out reassuring words in their language. The boat slows and finally stops, rolling on the swell in heavy silence. I jump aboard, a privileged trespasser and rare witness to another world.

That world belongs to the Moken, a nomadic sea culture of Austronesian people who likely migrated from southern China some 4,000 years ago, and, moving through Malaysia, eventually split off from other migrant groups in the late 17th century. Their home is the Mergui Archipelago, some 800 islands scattered along 250 miles (400 kilometers) of the Andaman Sea, off Myanmar (formerly Burma).

For decades piracy and Myanmar's military dictatorship kept outsiders away. With special permits to work in the area, I too am a nomad on these waters, having followed the Moken for years to hear their stories and learn more about their culture.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2005/04/sea-gypsies/ivanoff-text

Moken song

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