The Sea People of Sulu

The Sea People of Sulu This paper will examine the lives of a small group of boat dwellers of the Philippine nation. These unusual people are found scattered abroad the insular Southeast Asia. The data for this book was collected over a twenty-four month period of field research among the Bajau, specifically with the Bajau of southern Sulu. There are only a few of these boat dwellers left within the Mergui Islands, Celebes and Sulu. This book covers, in-depth, the Tawi-Tawi Island group and the Sibutu Island group. The Sibutu Island group is found twenty miles southwest of Tawi-Tawi. These groups have been depicted as wanderers because of their movements over time. There will be some insight into this untrue notion. The Sibutu Island group has left their boats to build homes on land. These people still use boats for fishing but now prefer to live on land rather than the sea. This paper will attempt to go over these changes that the boat dwellers have faced and are facing that have made t! hem more partial to dwelling on land. This paper will also give some insight on the similarities and differences between the boat dwellers and the land dwellers. These similarities and differences include their way of life, modes of subsistence, social and political structure, roles of women, religion, kinship system and their relations with each other as well as the other moorages. There are five different moorages that are recognized by the Bajau. The Bajau represent four percent of the Tawi-Tawi population. The boat-dwelling Bajaus household consists of a nuclear family. If a nuclear family is broken a person is added to make up for the loss. This could entail the head of the household dying and another man comes into to take his place or it could be a family adopting a child to fill the gap. In a turnabout, if a family has to many children than they can afford to take care of or if th...