By the end of the year 2007, the Bajau Palahu people were seen mooring their wooden boats behind the shop buildings in Sabah’s Lahad Datu District.
The community of seafarers had returned to the land to earn a living by selling salted fish behind the Lahad Datu Wet Market.
They moved from island to island, hunting sea turtles and collecting sand worms, shellfish and clams for food.
But paradox of paradoxes, they avoided the main fruit of the sea – fish! Sea-slugs were the closest they came and even these creatures were collected only to be sold to the public at Lahad Datu Wet Market.
The Bajau Palahu would pursue the schools of fish, with the first group scouring estuary habitats and the second sifting through coral reefs and mangroves.
Clearly, the sea represents life to them.
Children are born on houseboats, never on land. They play either on the strands or swim around the boats.
Women would never think of cooking ashore, even during the rainy season when their boats are moored along beaches.
However, death and illness would lure them back to the land. All of the sea people go ashore to seek medical treatment or to bury their dead.
Today, it is increasingly rare to find the Bajau Palahu at their habitual moorings.
Once again, they are fleeing. From what? From the onslaught of “blast-fishing”, from the conversion of traditional fishing and collecting grounds into industrial production plants.
Will they survive this time?
The Bajau Palahu have been given fishing gear by the Bugis to catch fishes in the Sulu Sea.
Bugis from Indonesia were banned by the British before September 6, 1963.
But for several decades, the influx of the Bugis was uncontrolled by the state government. They are not listed among the 32 ethnic groups under the Sabah constitution. They have become the economic threats to the locals in Sabah.
The presence of Bajau Palahu in Lahad Datu District since December 2007 has brought some changes to their lives. The Bajau Palahu mingle with the people on the land but would return to their wooden boats in the evening and sail further from the coastline to catch fish during the night. They only come back to the shore when they have an abundant catch.
After two years, the Bajau Palahu people are able to adapt to the way of life of the people on land.
Their clothes have changed from old materials to colourful ones. However, it will take longer for the Bajau Palahu to really become a modern community.
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