Sama-Bajau
The Sama-Bajau include several Austronesian ethnic groups of Maritime Southeast Asia. The name collectively refers to related people who usually call themselves the Sama or Samah ; or are known by the exonym Bajau. They usually live a seaborne lifestyle and use small wooden sailing vessels such as the perahu, djenging, lepa, and vinta. They also use medium-sized vessels like the jungkung, timbawan and small fishing vessels like biduk and bogo-katik. Some Sama-Bajau groups native to Sabah are also known for their traditional horse culture.
The Sama-Bajau are the dominant ethnic group of the islands of Tawi-Tawi. They are also found in other islands of the Sulu Archipelago, coastal areas of Mindanao and other islands in the southern Philippines; as well as northern and eastern Borneo, Sulawesi, and throughout the eastern Indonesian islands. In the Philippines, they are grouped with the religiously similar Moro people. Within the last fifty years, many of the Filipino Sama-Bajau have migrated to neighbouring Sabah and the northern islands of the Philippines, due to the conflict in Mindanao. As of 2010, they were the second-largest ethnic group in Sabah.
Sama-Bajau have sometimes been called the "Sea Gypsies" or "Sea Nomads", terms that have also been used for non-related ethnic groups with similar traditional lifestyles, such as the Moken of the Burmese-Thai Mergui Archipelago, the Orang Laut of southeastern Sumatra and the Riau Islands of Indonesia along with Singapore, and the Tanka people of Southern China. The modern outward spread of the Sama-Bajau from older inhabited areas seems to have been associated with the development of sea trade in sea cucumber.
Ethnonym
Sama-Bajau is a collective term, referring to several closely related indigenous people who consider themselves a single distinct bangsa. It is generally accepted that these groups of people can be termed Sama or Bajau, though they never call themselves Bajau in the Philippines. Instead, they call themselves with the names of their tribes, usually the place they live or their place of origin. For example, the sea-going Sama-Bajau prefer to call themselves the Sama Dilaut or Sama Mandilaut in the Philippines; in Malaysia, they identify as Bajau Laut. Sea-going Bajau are given the pejorative name Pala'au or Palauh by other Bajau groups, which has been adopted by Malaysian mainstream media.Historically in the Philippines, the term Sama referred to the more land-oriented and settled Sama–Bajau groups, while Bajau referred only to more sea-oriented, boat-dwelling, nomadic groups. Even these distinctions are fading as the majority of Sama-Bajau have long since abandoned boat living, most for Sama-style piling houses in the coastal shallows.
Sama is believed to have originated from the Austronesian root word sama meaning "together", "same", or "kin". The exact origin of the exonym Bajau is unclear. Some authors have proposed that it is derived from a corruption of the Malay word berjauh or in Indonesian word it means boat dwelling. Other possible origins include the Brunei Malay word bajaul, which means "to fish". The term Bajau has pejorative connotations in the Philippines, indicating poverty in comparison to the term Sama, especially since it is used most commonly to refer to poverty-stricken Sama-Bajau who make a living through begging.
British administrators in Sabah classified the Sama-Bajau as "Bajau" and labelled them as such in their birth certificates. Thus, the Sama-Bajau in Malaysia may sometimes self-identify as "Bajau". The Malaysian government recognizes the Sama-Bajau as legally Bumiputera under the "Bajau" subgroup which guarantees easy access to the special sociopolitical privileges also granted to Malaysian Malays; to a point of them identifying as "Malay" for political reasons. This is especially true for recent Moro Filipino migrants. The indigenous Sama-Bajau in Malaysia have also started labelling themselves as their ancestors called themselves, such as Simunul.
In the 17th-century, the Spanish priest Francisco Combés calls the Sama-Bajau as the Lutao in his Historia de las Islas de Mindanao, Iolo, y sus adyacentes, and describes them as building houses on the sea because they "hate land". They were described as being the subjects of the Sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao, and they were esteemed for their shipbuilding skills and were commonly hired as crews of warships.
History and origin
For most of their history, the Sama-Bajau have been a nomadic, seafaring people, living off the sea by trading and subsistence fishing. The boat-dwelling Sama-Bajau see themselves as non-aggressive people. They kept close to the shore by erecting houses on stilts and travelled using lepa, handmade boats which many lived in. A 2021 genetic study shows that some Sama-Bajau have Austroasiatic ancestry.Oral traditions
Most of the various oral traditions and tarsila among the Sama-Bajau have a common theme which claims that they were originally a land-dwelling people who were the subjects of a king who had a daughter. After she is lost by either being swept away to the sea or being taken captive by a neighbouring kingdom, they were then supposedly ordered to find her. After failing to do so they decided to remain nomadic for fear of facing the wrath of the king.One such version widely told among the Sama-Bajau of Borneo claims that they descended from Johorean royal guards who were escorting a princess named Dayang Ayesha for marriage to a ruler in Sulu. However, the Sultan of Brunei also fell in love with the princess. On the way to Sulu, they were attacked by Bruneians in the high seas. The princess was taken captive and married to the Sultan of Brunei instead. The escorts, having lost the princess, elected to settle in Borneo and Sulu rather than return to Johor. This legend is popular among Sabah Sama-Bajau as it legitimises their claim to "Malay-ness" and strengthens their ties to Islam, which puts them in a favourable position in the Bumiputera laws of Malaysia.
A second version of the oral stories is told among the Bajau Kubang of Semporna where two siblings named Haklum Nuzum and Salingayah Bungsu from Sulu compete in a boat race to marry a beautiful princess from Johor Sultanate. The boat race was held by Sultan Mahalikul Alam of Johor where the brothers need to sail all the way to Pulau Angsa which is located near the coast of Johor. During the race, the boat sailed by Salingayah Bungsu broke, which led to his defeat. He then promised to not return to Johor and continue his journey all the way to "Sambuanga" in southern Philippines where he married a woman and was blessed with a son and daughter later on. It was believed that his children committed the act of incest which led to him leaving them and sailing to "Omaral" out of shame. On the island, his descendants continue to spread and eventually moved to Bum-Bum Island which is located beside mainland Semporna and the place where they gather is named "Kubang" which means "assemble or gather". This migration from Omadal Island to Bum-Bum island caused them to lose their nomadic culture and identity which led to the creation of a new Sama-Bajau sub-ethnic group called Bajau Kubang, Bajau Darat or Bajau Sampulna.
Among the Indonesian Sama-Bajau, on the other hand, their oral histories place more importance on the relationship of the Sama-Bajau with the Sultanate of Gowa rather than Johor. The various versions of their origin myth tell about a royal princess who was washed away by a flood. She was found and eventually married a king or a prince of Gowa. Their offspring then allegedly became the ancestors of the Indonesian Sama-Bajau.
However, there are other versions that are more mythological and do not mention a princess. Among the Philippine Sama-Bajau, for example, there is a myth that claims that the Sama-Bajau were accidentally towed into what is now Zamboanga by a giant stingray. Incidentally, the native pre-Hispanic name of Zamboanga City is "Samboangan", which was derived from the Sinama word for a mooring pole, sambuang or samboang.
Modern research on origins
The origin myths claiming descent from Johor or Gowa have been largely rejected by modern scholars, mostly because these kingdoms were established too recently to explain the ethnic divergence. Whether the Sama-Bajau are indigenous to their current territories or settled from elsewhere is still contentious. Linguistically, they are distinct from neighbouring populations, especially from the Tausūg who are more closely related to the northern Philippine ethnic groups like the Visayans.foraIn 1965, the anthropologist David E. Sopher claimed that the Sama-Bajau, along with the Orang Laut, descended from ancient "Veddoid" hunter-gatherers from the Riau Archipelago who intermarried with Austronesians. They retained their hunter-gatherer lifestyle, though they became more maritime-oriented as Southeast Asia became more populated by later Austronesian settlers.
In 1968, the anthropologist Harry Arlo Nimmo, on the other hand, believed that the Sama-Bajau are indigenous to the Sulu Archipelago, Sulawesi, and/or Borneo, and do not share a common origin with the Orang Laut. Nimmo proposed that the boat-dwelling lifestyle developed among the ancestors of the Sama-Bajau independently from the Orang Laut.
A more recent study in 1985 by the anthropologist Alfred Kemp Pallasen compares the oral traditions with historical facts and linguistic evidence. He puts the date of the ethnogenesis of Sama-Bajau as 800 AD and also rejects a historical connection between the Sama-Bajau and the Orang Laut. He hypothesises that the Sama-Bajau originated from a proto-Sama-Bajau people inhabiting the Zamboanga Peninsula who practised both fishing and slash-and-burn agriculture. They were the original inhabitants of Zamboanga and the Sulu archipelago, and were well-established in the region long before the first arrival of the Tausūg people at around the 13th century from their homelands along the northern coast of eastern Mindanao. Along with the Tausūg, they were heavily influenced by the Malay kingdoms both culturally and linguistically, becoming Indianised by the 15th century and Islamised by the 16th century. They also engaged in extensive trade with China for "luxury" sea products like trepang, pearls, and shark fin.
From Zamboanga, some members of these people adopted an exclusively seaborne culture and spread outwards in the 10th century towards Basilan, Sulu, Borneo, and Sulawesi. They arrived in Borneo in the 11th century. This hypothesis is currently the most widely accepted among specialists studying the Austronesian peoples. This would also explain why even boat-dwelling Sama-Bajau still practice agricultural rituals, despite being exclusively fishermen. Linguistic evidence further points to Borneo as the ultimate origin of the proto-Sama-Bajau people.
A genetic study of three groups—the Derawan of Northeast Borneo, the Kotabaru of Southeast Borneo, and the Kendari of Southeast Sulawesi—suggested that their origin was in southern Sulawesi. Their ethnogenesis is estimated to have dated back to around the 4th century AD by an admixture event between the Bugis people and a Papuan group. The authors suggest that the Sama moved to eastern Borneo at around the 11th century AD, and then towards northern Borneo and the southern Philippines at around the 13th to 14th centuries AD. They hypothesize that they were driven to migrate during the increase of influence and trading activities of the Srivijaya Empire. Genetically, the Sama-Bajau are highly diverse, indicating heavy admixture with the locals or even language and cultural adoption by coastal groups in the areas they settled. However, the study is restricted to the Indonesian Bajo subgroup, and the authors recommend additional studies from Sama-Bajau groups in neighbouring regions.
A 2021 genetic study discovered a unique genetic signal among the Sama-Bajau of the Philippines and Indonesia. This genetic signal identifies them as descendants of an ancient migration of Austroasiatic-affiliated hunter-gatherer groups from mainland Southeast Asia via the now sunken land bridges of Sundaland around 15,000 to 12,000 years ago. These populations admixed with both the preexisting Negrito populations, and later on, the incoming migrations of the Austronesian peoples. They are genetically clustered with the Lua and Mlabri peoples of mainland Southeast Asia, as well as the Manobo people of mainland Mindanao. The study also identifies minimal South Asian gene flow among Sama populations starting at around 1000 years ago. Sama ancestry was highest among the Sama Dilaut, followed by more land-based Sama. But it was also detected among other ethnic groups that do not self-identify as Sama in Palawan, Zamboanga, Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi.