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The Moken (also Mawken or Morgan; Burmese: ဆလုံလူမျိုး; Thai: ชาวเล, chao le, sea people) are an Austronesian people of the Mergui Archipelago, a group of approximately 800 islands claimed by both Burma and Thailand. Most of the 2,000 to 3,000 Moken live a semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle heavily based on the sea, though this is increasingly under threat.
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The Moken identify in a common culture, and speak the Moken language, a distinct Austronesian language . Attempts by both Burma and Thailand to assimilate the Moken into the wider regional culture have met with very limited success. However, the Moken face an uncertain future as their population decreases and their nomadic lifestyle and unsettled legal status leaves them marginalized by modern property and immigration laws, maritime conservation and development programs, and tightening border policies.
Nomenclature
The people refer to themselves as Moken. The name is used for all of the Austronesian 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 (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". 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.
Way of life
Their knowledge of the sea enables them to live off its fauna and flora by using simple tools such as nets and spears to forage for food. What is not consumed is dried atop their boats, then used to barter for other necessities at local markets. During the monsoon season, they build additional boats while occupying temporary huts. Because of the amount of time they spend diving for food, Moken children are able to see better underwater due to accommodation of their visual focus.
Some of the Burmese Moken are still nomadic people who roam the sea most of their lives in small hand-crafted wooden boats called kabang, which serve not just as transportation, but also as kitchen, bedroom, and living area. However, much of their traditional life, which is built on the premise of life as outsiders, is under threat.
Aside from ancestor worship, the Moken have no religion.
Governmental control
The Burmese and Thai governments have made attempts at assimilating the people into their own culture, but these efforts have met with limited success. Thai Moken have been permanently settled in villages located in the Surin Islands (Mu Ko Surin National Park), in Phuket Province, on the northwestern coast of Phuket Island, and on the nearby Phi Phi Islands of Krabi Province.
The Andaman Sea off the Tenasserim coast was the subject of keen scrutiny from Burma's regime during the 1990s due to offshore petroleum discoveries by multinational corporations including Unocal, Petronas and others. Reports from the late-1990s told of forced relocation by Burma's military regime of the sea gypsies to mainland sites. It was claimed most of the Salone had been relocated by 1997, which is consistent with a pervasive pattern of forced relocation of suspect ethnic, economic and political groups, conducted throughout Burma during the 1990s.
In Thailand, the Moken have been the target of land grabs by developers contesting their ownership of ancestral lands. Although sea gypsies have resided in Thailand's Andaman coastal provinces for several centuries, they have historically neglected to register official ownership of the land due to their ignorance of legal protocol.
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
The islands the Moken inhabit received much media attention in 2005 during the recovery from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. As they are keenly attuned to the ocean, the Moken in some areas knew the tsunami that struck on 26 December 2004 was coming and managed to preserve many lives. However, in the coastal villages of Phang Nga Province, like Tap Tawan, the Moken suffered severe devastation to housing and fishing boats in common with other Moken communities.