page_title: Moken
section_title: Way of Life
hierarchical_section_title: Moken / Way of Life
caption_attribution_description: A Moken boat at Surin Island, Thailand Photographer: Ronnakorn Potisuwan
context_page_description: The Moken 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.
  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 leave them marginalized by modern property and immigration laws, maritime conservation and development programs, and tightening border policies.
context_section_description: 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, which allows them to impact the environment more minimally than other more intensive forms of subsistence. Furthermore, their frequent movement in kin groups of between two and ten families also allows the land to rest and prevents overuse. Moken are considered hunter-gatherers due to their nomadic lifestyle and lack of material good accumulation. They also believe strongly in the idea that natural resources cannot be owned individually but are rather something that the entire community has access to without restrictions. Their egalitarian society follows into their ancestral worship as they regularly present supernatural beings with food offerings. More recently, they have reached out and begun trading some food (sea cucumbers and edible bird nests) as well as marine products like pearls for other necessities at local markets. Trading and epidemics (cholera and smallpox) also lead to their nomadic lifestyles in order to collect a variety of products to trade and to avoid the spread of deadly diseases. If an epidemic begins to spread, the infected members will remain at the location with a small amount of provisions, while healthy members will depart to a new location. The hope is that the provisions will allow the sick enough time to recuperate while not endangering the rest of the kin group with their sickness. The nomadic lifestyle can also reduce group conflict as affected parties may leave one kin group and enter another to give some distance and allow the feud to die down. After some time has passed and the arguing parties see each other once more, the intensity of the argument will have decreased leading to more amicable relationships.
  During the dry north-east monsoon season (when the sea is relatively calm), the Moken live on their boats called kabang, which serve not just as transportation, but also as a kitchen, bedroom, and living area. Previously the Moken used a Kabang koman, “a dug-out boat equipped with a salacca gunwale [where] Salacca is a light wood with a long stem”. To construct the boat, the different pieces are fitted into each other with the natural resources the Moken can find on land. The boat’s usage was discontinued more than 40 years ago as the salt water eroded the wood within three to sixth months, therefore new techniques were devised to create more robust boats. The kabang last longer and one anthropologist, Jacques Ivanoff, suggests that the boat with its bifurcated bow and stern represent the human body. In monsoon season, which falls between the months of May and October, they set temporary camps on the mainland.  During the monsoon season, they build additional boats and forage for food in the forest.
  Some of the Burmese Moken are still nomadic people who roam the sea most of their lives; 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.
caption: A Moken boat
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