| Abstract: |
Introduction: Island Southeast Asia has perhaps the greatest variety of watercraft of any culture area in the world. Through centuries of adaptation to tropical riverine and maritime environments, the people of this island world have created hundreds-indeed, probably thousands-of different kinds of boats. The primitive rafts that first transported the early inhabitants to offshore islands evolved into the sophisticated sailing vessels that allowed this population to become the most far-flung on earth before the expansion of European cultures. By the time Europeans began to venture beyond their shores, Austronesian speakers had spread throughout all of Island Southeast Asia, west to Madagascar, north to Taiwan, and east to Micronesia, parts of Melanesia, and the outposts of Polynesia. Perusal of a map of Island Southeast Asia explains the proliferation of watercraft in this area. Thousands of islands make up the modern nations of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia, and one can sail within sight of land throughout the entire area before reaching its outer limits. The lure of these islands to the always curious human mind as well as the abundant food resources in their surrounding waters were doubtless prime motivators for the first boat-builders-as indeed they continue to motivate contemporary boat-builders. Virtually all islands large enough to accommodate human populations are inhabited, and some have been so for millennia. The separation of human populations by expanses of water, as well as the diverse currents of history that have moved through the area, has resulted in a rich mosaic of distinctive cultures. All coastal cultures of Southeast Asia are oriented to the sea, one of the prime shapers of their world view and history. Of all these peoples, however, no other is so totally committed to the sea as the boat-dwelling populations, the so-called sea nomads. These nomadic boat-dwellers were reported by the early Chinese chroniclers who visited the waters as well as by the first European voyagers to Southeast Asia. At one time they were found in the Mergui Islands of southern Burma, near the coasts and islands of southern Malaya, along the coasts of Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi in Indonesia, in the coastal regions of eastern Borneo, and throughout the Sulu Islands as far north as the Zamboanga Peninsula in the Philippines (Sopher 1965). Linguistic relationships are found among most of these populations (excepting the peoples of the Mergui Islands [Pallesen 1977]), although their more precise historical relationships remain unknown. Most of these peoples have abandoned full-time boat-dwelling within this century, with the exception of the Mergui Islands people, scattered communities in Sulawesi, and the Bajau, a group of Sama-speaking people in the Tawi-Tawi Islands of the southern Sulu Islands. Few data are available on the Mergui Islands and Sulawesi people, but considerable field research has been conducted among the Bajau ofTawi-Tawi. To state the obvious, boats are central to their lives, and not surprisingly a variety of boat types is found among them. This paper<sup>l</sup> is a description of the boats built by the Tawi-Tawi Bajau, and it includes discussions of boat construction and sailing. My intent is to add to the growing documentation of contemporary, historic, and prehistoric watercraft in the Austronesian culture area. Data were collected during six months of field research in 1963, nine months in 1965-1966, a month in 1967, a one-week visit in 1977, and a month's stay in 1982. The following discussion describes Bajau boats as they existed in the 1960s. I began writing this paper with great reluctance. While visiting Tawi-Tawi in 1982, I realized that much of the culture I had studied in the 1960s was gone. I left with a strong sense of responsibility to write up my unpublished data on the Bajau since my data represent a bygone chapter in their history. My reluctance to write this paper stems from the realization that my data on Bajau boats are far from complete. But rather than leave the record entirely blank, I offer the following discussion of the boats of the Tawi-Tawi Bajau.
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