ofthe SAME TREE

deliberate effort to emphasize their nomadic lifestyle by using boats and technologies
distinct from those found among the inhabitants on land. As one
scholar noted, despite the use of metal tools in the building of their boats, the
Moken retain the long-held tradition of lashing the planks with rattan. The
metal blade of the adze is also bound with rattan, and the design of the adze is
the same as the stone implements found in museums. 108 They also consciously
avoid using various modern means of catching fish and reject accumulation
and storage. All these are technically within their means and capability, but
they refuse to employ them, preferring to maintain their ethnic boundary
with the more sedentary coastal dwellers. 109 Even the deprecatory views of
outsiders are repeated because they reaffirm the Urak Lawoik/Moken’s chosen
way of life. 110
For the sea peoples in general the seascape remains the source of knowledge
for survival in their environment and a living history of their past.
Each of the islands provides not only shelter and sustenance, but represents
a group’s specific storehouse of information for present and future generations.
Inhabiting an island claimed by an Orang Laut group, or preventing
that group from visiting its islands, is tantamount to denying the Orang Laut
access to their ancestors, their history, and their source of knowledge. These
form the building blocks of their ethnic identity and distinguish them from
others.
Because of the crucial role played by the Orang Laut (and most likely
the Urak Lawoik and Moken in the period when the northern Sea of Malayu
routes were favored by traders) in maintaining the power of a Malayu ruler,
the ruler sought to bind them closer to him through intermarriage, the linking
of traditions, and the awarding of titles. All three methods were used in
the establishment of Melaka and continued to be the policy of the Malayu rulers
in subsequent centuries. So important were the Orang Laut to the Malayu
ruler that in the Sejarah Melayu the Orang Laut remind the Permaisura that
“[w]e too belong to thy ancient lordship of Palembang; we have always gone
with thee.” 111 In this Malayu document there is no evidence of the denigration
of the Orang Laut, which is so often found in more recent accounts.
Moreover, many of the Orang Laut leaders were granted spouses from the
Malayu royal family and presented with major offices in the Melaka kingdom.
Intermarriage as a policy continued to be a strategy pursued by wealthy, landbased
patrons seeking the services of the Orang Laut. 112
As the Orang Laut became less useful to the Malayu or the land-based
societies, this avenue for establishing strong relationships disappeared. While
in earlier centuries they could bargain from a position of strength and therefore
preserve a much more equitable relationship with the Malayu, the readiness
with which they are willing to recite self-demeaning tales to outsiders is
200 Chapter 6