Outcasts of the Islands: The Sea Gypsies of South East Asia Book

Sebastian Hope's book Outcasts of the Islands proves that while the world's tribes, from Amazon jungle-dwellers to Kenyan bushmen, appear to have been so documented that they've become a clichés, there is still unknown territory. The life of Southeast Asia's Bajau Laut "sea gypsies" remains enigmatic. They exist in the ocean nowhere-land between Borneo's Sabah and the Philippines, a place harder than most for the prying curiosity of tourists and anthropologists to reach. The closest most visitors get are Malay kampung air, water villages "on stilts over tidal flats", or diving trips to coral reefs around Pulau Sipadan (where visitors marvel at exotic sea creatures that are in fact everyday sustenance for the sea people). This book is something special, for the author actually manages to become part of a nomadic sea-gypsy family--living, fishing, eating and sleeping under the tarpaulin of their tiny rickety boat for some two months. Malay land dwellers are disbelieving, "You can eat cassava? You can stand lice?" Yet his relationship with his hosts becomes so emotional that he will end up desperately searching for them again years later. "We throttled back as we passed the lead boat, dropped the anchor, killed the engine and became part of the floating community," writes Sebastian. "It felt unnerving no longer to have a destination." However, Sebastian's story is no happy-go-lucky traveller's tale. He becomes deeply involved with tribal-chief Sarani's family and their troubles and tragedies. These include a lack of nationality and ID papers, the competition pump-boats illegally "bombing" fish with home-made explosives, depleting fish stocks, fatal diseases and the lack of modern medicine. He finds a people so disenfranchised from modern land-life that such things as contraceptive pills, antibiotics and condoms are only rumours. Instead, they rely on a mysterious ceremony called Mbo' Pai. The Bajau Laut are people beyond time, with little clue of their ages or of, "clocks and calendars, border controls and exchange rates". Their lives are measured by "two tides a day, a full-moon every twenty-eight nights, and a change of prevailing wind every six months". Travellers to Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines will find in this book an inspirational "other" world. --Sarah ChampionRead More