About this Book

Until 1955 the community described in this book was sea nomadic, its families living entirely in boats. Although comprising only a small minority of the total Bajau-speaking population, sea nomads formed for centuries an integral part of the coastal society of south-eastern Sabah. The Bajau Laut traces the history of a single community from the early nineteenth century to the present, treating in particular a fifteen-year interval of rapid transformation during which time members of the community abandoned sea nomadism and adapted to a coastal market centre as commercial fishermen and labourers. The book looks in detail at the processes of change, at the social constitution of the community - the nature of family and marriage relations; house groups and house-group clusters; village leadership, factionalism, and conflict; Islam and village mediums - and at the underlying cultural premises that give coherence to village life, notably the notions of fate, debt, compassion, and ancestry.