The story started 1000 years back
when the princess of Johar state in South East Asia Dayang Ayesha was being
taken to Sulu kingdom to get married with the Sulu King. The royal fleet was
travelling through sea. The princess was being guarded by a tribe called Bajau
who knows the sea like their palm. The Sultan of Brunei wanted to marry the
princess and he suddenly attacked the fleet and after a long fight, arrested
the princess and took her to Brunei and married her.
The danger for the Bajau tribe
started when they realised that they cannot go back to Johar as the Johar king
would not spare them. They decided to settle down on the sea and, sea became
their livelihood, sea became their country and sea became their destiny. They
became the Sea Nomadic and Sea Gypsies without any country.
Till today the decedents of the Bajau
Community stays in the sea. Between Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean between Brunei,
Malaysia , Thailand and Indonesia there are a few small Bays like Sulu ,
Celebes , Banda , Maluku , Java , & Savu. The Bajau tribe stays inside
their specially built boat called Lepa Lepa on these bays and have built up
their temporary village on the blue sea water. They build their homes on these
boats and these houses are specially built which were not even affected during
the Tsunami. The houses are build within half a Kilometre of the sea shore on
log huts and they use ladders to move through.
There are people in this
community who has never even stepped on land throughout their lives. They don’t
know their age, they don’t know what Electricity is and are in the primitive
age. They hunt fishes from the sea and burn fish Oil to get light. Few generous
people from land provide them with drinking water , wood for fuel and dress
material in exchange of fish. Bajau Children learn to swim from the childhood
and all of them are exceptionally good divers. The Bajau child goes to play
underwater just as our children goes to play on the ground.
The Bajau men go underwater to
hunt fishes. They make their own water goggles and fish hunting gun. They dive
underwater and hunt fish, squid , Octopus etc. They can stay underwater at
a stretch of 10 minutes which may seem
unbelievable but the Bajau men can go up to 200 Meters underwater and them come
up to breathe after 8-10 Minutes.
Many researchers have been
researching on this Bajau Tribe and it has been found that years after year
their ever changing genetic characteristics have made them natural swimmer and
underwater divers. When they dive underwater their pulse rate lowers to an
extent of 30 per minute and the heart beats slows down to save oxygen in the body.
After all the examinations it has been found that to maintain their daily
lifestyle to hunt underwater , Bajau tribe people had their genetic changes and
changes in different body organs specially the lung. They can hold back Oxygen
50% more than a normal man living on ground.
Bajaus have no country, no identity.
They roam about the Sulu Sea like nomadic and sea Gypsies . They cannot go to
hospitals when they fall ill because once they come up on ground, police may
arrest them. Once a Bajau dies, his or her dead body is left on the sea. The child
of the sea goes back to the sea after life ends.
#Bajau , #SuuSea
#Bajau , #SuuSea
Bajau Child Playing with fish
