Maritime Peoples Research Articles

Human Rights and the Periphery: Righting the Deprivation of the Sama Dilaut as Indigenous Maritime Peoples in the Southern Philippines

The Sama Dilaut identify their source of homeland and identity as peoples of the sea. Despite their procedural rights guaranteed under international and domestic legal instruments, they remain in the periphery within the informal hierarchy of ethnicities, not because they are resource-poor but because they are capability- and freedom-deprived. As opposed to material deprivation, this study focuses on rights deprivation, that is, the alienation of their indigenous context and perspective in human rights interpretation and fulfillment. Using qualitative methods specifically phenomenology and key informant interviews, it first queries their lived experiences of deprivation on land, at sea, and horizontal (community) and vertical (State) levels. Second, it critically examines pathways and solutions to enjoy their rights and freedoms fully. The results focus on their concept of human rights (kapatut manusiya) and their communally-identified four significant lived deprivations vis-à-vis desired freedoms. These are related to knowledge and education (pangalaman or panghati), indigenous culture and spirituality and religious beliefs (pangaddatan and pag-omboh or pag-paybahau), traditional and diversified economic life (pag-usaha or pagkalluman), and socio-political leadership and participation (panglima or nakura). This study contributes to putting the international human rights landscape into perspective through the lens of the Sama Dilaut, who are freedom-deprived yet rich in (maritime) culture and worldview.

Citizenship and statelessness among mobile maritime populations: the case of the Moken in Thailand

ABSTRACT Mobile maritime peoples have lived itinerant lifestyles across Southeast Asia for centuries. In times where non-state spaces are diminishing and individual rights depend increasingly on a recognised legal identity, their livelihoods and traditions are affected by state practices surrounding citizenship. Drawing on fieldwork in southern Thailand, this paper explores how the lives of the Moken have been affected by the way state-based legal identity and citizenship regimes are enacted. In doing so, this article presents views held by Moken communities about their life and the challenges they face in accessing Thai citizenship despite legal reforms in the recent years. More than other populations, mobile peoples allow us to see the ‘problem of citizenship’ and the effects arising from its practice in different localities. Our research highlights the importance of considering the agency and choices of (formerly) mobile peoples in the implementation of state-based citizenship and legal identity regimes.

Producing Knowledge of the Sea Coast: Marine Life and a Tang Geographical Miscellany of Lingnan

Abstract This article focuses on a collection of writing about the Lingnan region (present-day region of Guangdong and Guangxi) that grapples with a world beyond the shore in south China in the late medieval era. The Records of the Unusual from Lingnan (Ling biao lu yi 嶺表錄異) by Liu Xun 劉恂 (fl. 880s) details abundant marine life in the coastal Lingnan area (including Hainan Island), features several extensive accounts of seafaring and shipwreck, and is interspersed with entries on the crafts of boat-making, ethnography of coastal dwellers and other maritime peoples. This article places this collection in the context of a larger process of producing geographical knowledge, and investigates the sources and orientations for such evolving knowledge of the coastal world and its connection to the sea.

An Ethnography Study in Korkai by Joe D Cruz

The novel, or novelty form of literature, is very popular among people. Its purpose is to use language to convey life's facts, events, and problems. Through this novel, Joe D. Cruz’s "korkai" has a special place in the realm of writing. In this novel, one can learn about the economic issues faced by marine dwellers, the Bharatas' fishing technique, and other topics through this kind of unique innovation, including crafting, conch shelling, pearling, fish processing, etc. When the marine community is examined more closely, it becomes clear that there are numerous large and minor economic activities occurring that are hidden from the general public. The cultural life of the maritime peoples has also been rich in vegetable products. These characters demonstrate how frequent it is for maritime people to adopt new names that have been influenced by their religious beliefs. The educational status of Bharatavar people has changed over time. Joe D Cruz’s Korkai, which depicts the lifestyle of such an honourable seafaring person, got the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2009. This article examines the maritime people's cultural and economic life messages that emerge in this novel.

Elements of Life of the Pandvar People in the Novel Korkai

Joe D. Cruz titled the novel Korkai, which travels through time more than a century. Korkai is an ancient port city ruled by the Early Pandyan Kingdom. It tells the long history of the Pandavas of Tuticorin. It is also a great resource to learn about the life of the marine fisher folk. This book, which accurately and artistically explains the changes brought about in the Bharatava society by the domination of foreigners, the arrival of Christianity, the liberation struggles, the changes that took place in independent India, and the arrival of modernity, is also a document that includes all the elements of a race's identity, culture, life, and history. The events of the novel begin in 1914 and conclude in the year 2000. During this period, over two hundred Pandavar social men of Korkai came and went over four generations. The story is shaped by the subtle depiction of various events and different faces of people, as well as the astonishing spheres of change. This novel tells the stories of three generations of thirty thousand families through the language of the coast as a beautiful fiction about the changes in the lives of the people who own the woven land after European arrival. It starts with the death of the Pandava community leader and unfolds before us countless scenes before the flood of eighty-six years and ends with the death of the character Philip. The novel not only talks about the people but also the social, economic, and cultural changes that took place during these times. After the Portuguese and the British left the country and the native government came, the ‘Korkai’ novel is an excellent source to explore how the Pandava community that lived in Korkai established itself and cane beyond the flood of time. The purpose of this article is to identify the richness of the woven land, the pride, the valor, characteristics, beliefs, elements of worship, and the activities that hinder the development and progress of the people of the maritime people.

Joe D. Cruz's Aazhi Soozh Ulagu, Korkai Novels Emphasis on Seafarer’s Life

The Tamil language has a very ancient grammatical and literary practice. It is worth noting that these grammatical and literary texts have given Tamil the status of a classical language and that these books have recorded people from all walks of life. However, modern literature is no more than traditional literature in the form of close observation of specific ethnic groups. In this way, in some specific records of the society, the condition of the maritime people belonging to the ancient natives has been identified in modern times and what is the living environment of the people, their occupation, culture, identity, culture, and rituals have been divided into types and sums and described to the world by Jodigurus's novels Aazhi Soozh Ulagu, Korkai. Among the five types of land with economic connotations in the Tamil literary tradition, uncertainty can be seen only in the Neytal tinaiyil. The next phase of development embraces great change in all other tinaiyil and lifestyles. But Neytal land has failed to reach such a level. In the last two thousand years of literature in Tamil, maritime records are very rare. Perumanal ulakam is not the as Tolkappiyam makes it out to be. Here and there we can hear about Paratavar hunting sharks by throwing them in such a way that the sea is agitated. But no Sanga poet tried to make the background of the turbulent sea in the shark hunt and imprint it in the mind of the Tamil speaker as an experience. But this is recorded by Joe D. Cruz in his novels.

Sea Country: Plurality and knowledge of saltwater territories in Indigenous Australian contexts

AbstractThere are distinct bodies of cultural knowledge attached to the sea. In this paper we orient the focus towards the nature and extent of cultural framings of sea territories, as inclusive of submerged landscapes, for Indigenous maritime peoples in northern Australia. This approach is distinguished by a pluralist methodology and reorients the primal focus of a human geography and broader geographical scholarship concerning submerged landscapes to begin with an Indigenous perspective. Engaging ethnographic accounts of Indigenous Australian knowledges of Sea Country, as inclusive of ancient pre‐inundation landscapes that lie out‐of‐sight on Australia's continental shelves, highlights the potential for a more expansive vision of human connections to the past and present continental landmass of Australia. Indigenous oral traditions, Dreaming Ancestor narratives and songlines provide extensive detail to assist in understanding these parts of the greater Australian landmass and in this paper are brought into relation with recent sea floor mapping efforts which operate to draw back the water and reveal commensurable geographies upon which to envision possibilities for socialised realms of human emplacement. Both bodies of knowledge generate information of submerged landscapes that call for an expansion of thinking on where the land ends and the sea begins and how submerged terrestrial landscapes are understood across cultures as part of human geography. The approach outlined here calls for a habit of bringing principled systems of understanding to stand together as part of an explanatory schema for a world populated by and yet differentially known by people.

Earliest Evidence for Geophyte Use in North America: 11,500-Year-Old Archaeobotanical Remains from California's Santarosae Island

There is growing evidence for human use of geophytes long before the advent of agriculture. Rich in carbohydrates, geophytes were important in many coastal areas where protein-rich marine foods are abundant. On California's Channel Islands, scholars have long questioned how maritime peoples sustained themselves for millennia with limited plant resources. Recent research demonstrates that geophytes were heavily used on the islands for 10,000 years, and here we describe geophyte and other archaeobotanical remains from an approximately 11,500-year-old site on Santa Rosa Island. Currently the earliest evidence for geophyte consumption in North America, our data extend geophyte use on the Channel Islands by roughly 1,500 years and document a diverse and balanced economy for early Paleocoastal peoples. Experimental return rates for a key island geophyte support archaeological evidence that the corms of blue dicks (Dipterostemon capitatus) were a high-ranked staple resource throughout the Holocene.

Java in Discord

In the late sixteenth century, thriving private maritime trade brought forth maritime trouble to the late Ming state. In times of rampant “Japanese” piracy and Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea, Chinese literati composed unofficial histories and vernacular fiction on China’s foreign relations. Among them, Yan Congjian 嚴從簡 wrote Shuyu zhouzi lu 殊域周咨錄 (Records of Surrounding Strange Realms) (1574), He Qiaoyuan 何喬遠 compiled Wang Xiangji 王享記 (Records of the Emperors’ Tributes) (1597–1620), Luo Yuejiong 羅曰褧 penned Xianbin lu 咸賓錄 (Records of Tributary Guests) (1597), and Luo Maodeng 羅懋登 composed a vernacular novel Sanbao taijian xiyangji tongsu yanyi 三寶太監西洋記通俗演義 (Vernacular Romance of Eunuch Sanbao’s Voyages on the Indian Ocean) (1598). This article examines how the imminent maritime realities reminded the late Ming authors of one cross-border war and two genocides in Java and Sanfoqi during Yuan and early and mid-Ming times. These transgressions that violated Chinese official tributary order became memorable and made Sino-Java relations a definite point of comparison for the late Ming maritime piracy problems. This article argues that the cultural memory of Sino-Java military and diplomatic exchange enabled the authors to lament and condemn the executed pirates Wang Zhi and Chen Zuyi. The four authors imbue their narratives with personal anxieties and nationalistic sentiments. While the historical narratives tend to moralize and idealize China’s tributary world order, the vernacular fiction paints a more realistic picture of the late Ming state by involving heterogeneous voices of the “other.” Collectively, the four narratives represent various images of the Ming Empire, revealing the authors’ deep apprehension of the Mings’ identity, their political criticism of the state, and their divergent and even self-conflicted views toward maritime commerce, immigrants, and people of different races.

SAMA’-BAJAU INFLUENCES IN MAKIANG MUSICAL CULTURE

Situated along upper portions of the Kinabatangan River of eastern Sabah, from beyond Tongod upriver to below Kota Kinabatangan downstream, the Makiang speak a dialect of the Upper Kinabatangan language, one of five languages in Sabah’s indigenous Paitanic Family of Languages. Known as the Milian in the Makiang dialect, the Kinabatangan is said to be Sabah’s longest river. Over hundreds of years, it has provided a link between indigenous peoples in its upper reaches and east coast maritime peoples. The river has enabled trade between the many different interior communities with coastal peoples, leading to the diffusion of objects, ideas and practices. This paper discusses instruments and genres of Makiang group music that suggest evidence of diffusion from Sama’-Bajau and also Suluk musical practices, including the morunsai vocal dance genre as well as the performances of the ensembles sampasang no gabang and sampasang no kulintangan. It illustrates evidence for the processes of cultural convergences through which east coast Sama’-Bajau musical practices that have been absorbed into interior cultures and transformed over time. Keywords: group music, morunsai, sampasang no gabang, sampasang no kulintangan, Makiang, Paitanic language family, Sama’-Bajau, eastern Sabah, diffusion, cultural convergence

A Bajau Tradeswoman: Between Trade Networks and Marine Conservation Issues (Review of Amphibious Anthropology: Engaging with Maritime Worlds in Indonesia by Annet P. Pauwelessen)

This paper drawn the case study of Langkah, the Bajau tradewoman, to show how maritime people perform informal networks of exchanges and interdependencies acroos the sea. Its sheds light on a world that often escapes the attention of maritime research and policy making both in terms of scale and complexity. There is a persisting disparity between the relational performance of this sea-based Bajau world and the way in which it is captured and approached in maritime governance, including conservation policy and practice

Seas, oceans and cosmologies in Southeast Asia

This article discusses the changing spirit world of maritime communities in Southeast Asia by differentiating ‘oceans’ from ‘seas’ and by linking historical evidence to modern anthropological studies. Since the lives of seagoing peoples are fraught with unpredictability, propitiation of local sea spirits was a traditional means of ensuring good fortune and protection. As long-distance voyages expanded in the early modern period, the global reach of the world religions, extending beyond familiar seas into the more extensive ocean environment, held out particular appeal. Not only were the gods, deities and saints attached to larger religious systems themselves ocean travellers; in contrast to the unpredictability of indigenous spirits, they were always amenable to requests for help, even when the suppliant was far from home waters. At the same time, as world religions were incorporated into indigenous cosmologies, maritime peoples gained greater agency in negotiating relationships with the local spirits that still wield power in Southeast Asian seas.

清代中期広東沿海住民の活動,1785〜1815年 : 「吏科題本」糾参処分類を中心に

清代中期広東沿海住民の活動,1785〜1815年 : 「吏科題本」糾参処分類を中心に

The types of marine economies and economic potentials of the shore areas of South Vietnam - a cultural ecology approach

We apply the theory of cultural ecology to understand the adaptation of fishing communities and residents to the natural ecology of the southern region (of Vietnam). Cultural ecology describes the process of adapting between the social environments of an individual community to surrounding natural environment. Through reproducing rational interpretations of natural ecological environments, humans select a series of production methods and forms of residence, establishing patterned behaviors interacting with the natural world. American anthropologist Julian H. Steward used this concept to explain the adaptive behavior of human cultures and their interactions with the natural environment. By applying this theory we can examine the types of marine economy and economic potential of the shores and the islands of the southern region of Vietnam. Regarding the typology of marine economy, our islands demonstrate a range of issues such as: Means of fishing and gathering seafood along the waters of the islands of the southern region of Vietnam Aquaculture. The salt production industry The production of handicrafts along the shore areas of the southern region of Vietnam The travel industry of the southern region of Vietnam From the perspective of maritime anthropology, there is a need to understand the relationship between marine environment and the survival of active populations, from which we have gathered a new desire for policies to facilitate sustainable development of fisheries for workers and local residents. The concept of ‘marine space’ is closely related to the concept and potential of sovereignty over marine resources. For fishermen, the existence of marine resources are also the source of survival. Therefore, the study of maritime peoples is crucial in the fostering of core concepts, as the current status of these populations demonstrates a lack of social awareness toward economic exploitation and the concept of environmental sustainability. Sustainable development of maritime crafts and environmental issues should be considered as development principles. Accordingly, the management of these sectors should have policies and measures for better management of marine resources to ensure the regeneration of the environment and ensure a more sustainable habitat for humans.

Ecology of the Kelp Highway: Did Marine Resources Facilitate Human Dispersal From Northeast Asia to the Americas?

ABSTRACTWe explore the ecology of Pacific Rim marine ecosystems and the idea that the broad geographic range of many nearshore food resources facilitated a dispersal of maritime peoples from Asia to the Americas. Geographically, a coastal route offered less ecological resistance than interior routes, providing a linear corridor entirely at sea level and essentially free of major obstructions after about 16,000 years ago. We show that North Pacific nearshore ecosystems—from Japan to Mexico—contained hundreds of species of edible shellfish, fish, marine mammals, birds, and seaweeds distributed more or less continuously over vast stretches of coast. A coastal route, including kelp forests and estuaries, would have provided a rich mix of marine, estuarine, riverine, and terrestrial resources. A maritime dispersal following Pacific Rim shorelines could have moved relatively rapidly from northeast Asia into the Americas, leaving behind ancestral populations who followed the aquatic corridors of major river drainages deep into the interior. This model, recognizing the importance of aquatic and terrestrial resources, as well as the behavioral flexibility of Homo sapiens, can account for a relatively rapid dispersal of humans throughout the Americas and the full range of diversity of Paleoindian adaptations found in the Americas.

Musicking Home in the Southeast Asian Island World

The so-called ‘gong-chime’ belt of Southeast Asia is home to great cultural diversity. Various communities, sometimes occupying borderland areas that stretch over national boundaries, are connected to one another through their practice of different but yet related styles of gong playing. Such groups ‘music’ their home. Importantly, locale is not necessarily a primary reference for all of these groups. The Sama Dilaut, for instance, a maritime people who inhabit a heartland of the gong-chime belt of the Southeast Asian islands, understand their place in the world not by maps and historiographies but by itineraries, relationship networks and chains of events. This paper investigates Sama Dilaut conceptions of space, specifically their concept of home, and that concept's relationship to tagunggu.

Oxygen isotope analysis of California mussel shells: seasonality and human sedentism at an 8,200-year-old shell midden on Santa Rosa Island, California

To evaluate coastal settlement and land use strategies among maritime hunter-gatherers, we analyzed oxygen isotope (δ18O) data from 131 marine carbonate samples from 21 California mussel (Mytilus californianus) shells obtained from a large ∼8,200-year-old shell midden (CA-SRI-666) on California’s Santa Rosa Island. Seasonal distributions of the isotopic data were assigned using a paleo-sea surface temperature model created by comparing modern sea surface temperatures (SST) to a fully profiled ∼8,200-year-old shell. For 20 additional shells, we used two sampling strategies to compare season-of-harvest inferences and explore whether the Early Holocene site occupants were sedentary. Estimated season-of-harvest differed by 35 % between the two sampling methods, corroborating recent isotope analysis of an 8,800-year-old shell midden on San Miguel Island. Shellfish appear to have been collected year-round at CA-SRI-666 from intertidal or subtidal water temperatures similar to modern SST in the vicinity of eastern Santa Rosa Island. The isotope results are consistent with other evidence from CA-SRI-666 that suggest that the site served as a residential base for relatively sedentary maritime people.

Indonesia. Madurese seafarers: Prahus, timber, and illegality on the margins of the Indonesian state. By Kurt Stenross. Singapore: NUS Press (in association with the Asian Studies Association of Australia), 2011. Pp. xxvi + 315. Maps, Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Madurese seafarers: Prahus, timber, and illegality on the margins of the Indonesian state By KURT STENROSS Singapore: NUS Press (in association with the Asian Studies Association of Australia), 2011. Pp. xxvi + 315. Maps, Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index. It has been remarked by some that Indonesia might be the only large economy in the world that would not grind to a complete and utter halt if oil suddenly dried up and became unavailable across the globe. The reason for this, the truism says, is that the sailing fleet of the country has such a long history, and such comprehensive coverage of the island nation's ports, that Indonesia's economy would continue to function, albeit at a slower pace. No one knows when these words were first uttered, and they probably are no longer precisely true for Indonesia. But this does not take away from the geist of the statement, or the sentiment; Indonesia is an archipelagic nation, and it is still very much dependent on its ships. Today most of these ships run on gasoline, even if many do indeed still have sails to use for times that the winds are blowing in the correct direction. Kurt Stenross has been an avid chronicler of these shipping traditions in one particular part of the archipelago, the island of Madura (off northeast Java) and its attendant small islets. It is fair to say that there is no living person who knows more about these craft--their history, construction, viability and design-than Stenross. Over several decades, he has returned again and again to Madura, and has even sailed with the Madurese in a number of directions. What MacKnight, Pelras and Ammarell, among others, have collectively done for the Bugis, Stenross has done on his own for the shipping traditions of the Madurese. His new book tells that story, and gives an exhaustive account of the Madurese as sailors, traders and smugglers in the central waters of the Java Sea. The book is organised into seven chapters. The first chapter outlines who the Madurese are as a maritime people, while the second looks at the main cargoes that make their journeys profitable and worthwhile. Chapter three looks at the ships themselves, and the places they come from on the island of Madura proper. Chapter four looks at what Stenross calls 'opportunity and illegality', while chapter five analyses the profits from such activities. Chapter six then studies entrepreneurship and risk as part of this overall equation, placing the maritime Madurese in a long line of ethnic minorities who seem to be drawn to taking chances with illegal cargoes in complex markets. The seventh chapter acts as a conclusion, though this section could have been usefully expanded into a longer meditation about the aims and conclusions of the book as a whole. …

Canoe Journeys and Cultural Revival

For the state of Washington's one-hundredth birthday, in 1989, Native peoples there decided to revive a distinctive mode of transportation—long-distance journeys by canoe—along with an entire culture associated with it. Born as the "Paddle to Seattle," during the past two decades these canoe journeys have become a summertime staple for Native peoples as well as for thousands of non-Indians who follow the "pullers" in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. The Tribal Canoe Journey has become a metaphor for community, drawing peoples together over a large area. The annual Canoe Journey also represents a revival of indigenous culture and, to some extent, indigenous languages. The canoe journeys (and the land-based events associated with them) might be compared with powwows in other areas. The carving of canoes has been revived, along with the structures of canoe families that maintain them, along with songs, clothing, and other aspects of traditional culture. The Tribal Canoe Journey is neither a race nor a contest, although it is something of a feat of physical endurance, recalling a time when canoes were one of the central attributes of Coast Salish cultures. Canoes were vital for the gathering of much of people's food, the conduct of social relations, and the waging of war. Like many maritime peoples around the world, seaborne transport framed culture and invoked deep spiritual beliefs in life and death. Canoe culture also teaches respect for ancestors' survival skills to city-bred youth, forging bonds between generations. Young people are learning how to get along with others and how to stay clean and sober during journeys in which they represent their peoples. The young people also learn how to deal with conflicts that arise from living in close quarters and pulling canoes for hours at a time, day after day. The Tribal Canoe Journey thus revives culture while sustaining and improving modern Native life in the Pacific Northwest.

Younger Dryas environments and human adaptations on the West Coast of the United States and Baja California

On the Pacific Coast of the United States and Baja California, the Younger Dryas was one component of dynamic Late Pleistocene and Holocene environmental changes. Changing climate, sea level rise, and shifting shorelines created ecological challenges for ancient coastal peoples and daunting challenges for archaeologists searching for early coastal sites. This paper reviews the evidence for ecological change in this ‘West Coast’ region, including shoreline changes that may have submerged or destroyed archaeological sites from this time period. Examining the regional record of human occupation dating to the Younger Dryas, well-dated coastal sites are limited to California’s Northern Channel Islands and Isla Cedros off Baja California. A small number of fluted points found in coastal areas may also date to the Younger Dryas, but their context and chronology is not well defined. Review of the implications of these two data sets considers whether the early but discontinuous Younger Dryas archaeological record from the West Coast might result from a migration of maritime peoples from Northeast Asia into the Americas.