The Bajau Laut have always been regarded as “Guardians of the Sea” for more than 1000 years. They have fished and traded in a vast maritime zone of Southeast Asia.
They use a wide range of fishing techniques and they are known for their diving and spear-fishing skills. The Bajau Laut (or Sama Dilaut) are underwater hunter-gatherers.
The Bajau Laut one of the most wide-spread indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia and has been living on the sea for more than 1000 years.
Historically, all Bajau have been sea nomads. The earliest mention of peoples identifiable as Bajau goes back to the 16th century.
For a long time they were employed as navigators and divers in the Sulu Sultanate, which was a Tausug kingdom in the south-western part of the Philippines for several centurie
s.
It is also known that they played a key role in the lucrative spice trade in which they transported spices from the “Spice Islands” in the Moluccas to the Straits of Malacca, from where they were sent to the Middle East in the 16th and 17th
century.
However, The Spanish king of that time, Charles I of Spain, wanted to find the “Spice Islands” so he sent the captain Ferdinand Magellan with a crew of more than 200 men across the Pacific Ocean. Ferdinand Magellan died in the Philippines in the year 1521 but his remaining crew found the “Spice Islands” only months later – changing the spice trade completely. Bajau Laut lost their key position in the trade, and colonial powers started to violate the area.
The Badjao tribe are nomadic Sea Gypsies. They can be found in SE Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with numbers around 100,000. Traditionally, the Bajau, even today, live mostly on t
he sea.
Badjao divers descend 20 meters (65feet) to the seafloor, hearts slow down to 30 beats per minute, squeezes its lung to 1/3 of its initial volume, even without weights he is negatively buoyant enough to strive across the bottom of the sea as if like hunting on land, 2 1/2 minutes of hunting under pressure. He can still manage to stay as lon
g as 5 minutes!
The last centuries more and more Bajau Laut have settled on the land, but a majority are still closely connected with the sea, either on still houses or on houseboats.
Still today there are at least 1 000 houseboats remaining, located in isolated areas of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
