SURIN ISLANDS, Thailand (AP) — When Hook was a child, he started his days by jumping off the boat that his family lived on and into the ocean. By age 3, he could already swim and dive in shallow waters. His home was a kabang, a boat, that his family sailed in Thailand’s southern waters. The ocean was his backyard.
Now Hook, whose full name is Suriyan Klathale, lives on land like the rest of his community, a people known as the Moken.
The community, indigenous people from Thailand and Myanmar, came to worldwide attention for its members’ understanding of waves when the Indian Ocean tsunami struck in December 2004, killing more than 200,000 people. The few tourists who happened to be on the islands inhabited by the Moken survived because locals knew, when they saw the water recede, that people needed to get to higher ground.
Today, this once free-sailing people has been grounded by powerful forces of change.
The Moken are one of the various tribal groups and indigenous communities not formally recognized by the Thai government. For years, activists from these communities have pushed for formal recognition with a bill that would help them hold on to traditions.
But as recently as October, the latest draft of this proposed bill, called the Protection and Promotion of Ethnic Groups’ Way of Life, was tabled by Parliament. The bill would legally guarantee these communities’ basic rights, such as health care, education and land, as well as government support to preserve their ethnic identities.
For the Moken, the kabang and their way of living on the ocean are something they hope the law could help preserve. The wooden boat, with a distinctive curve that juts out from its bow and a pavilion set in the middle, is central to the Moken’s identity. “It’s like a lifetime of a person, of a family,” Hook said. “In the past, we lived and died on that boat.”
Today, though, almost no one lives on a boat. Narumon Arunotai, an associate professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok who has worked with the Moken and other indigenous communities for decades, said the shift toward permanent dwelling on land had already started more than 40 years ago.
It was a gradual shift, driven both by stricter border controls as well as the inability to get the wood necessary to build the kabangs. Further, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 destroyed many of the boats. Other communities known as sea nomads have also changed to dwelling on land.
The Moken are scattered across an archipelago of some 800 islands off the coast of Myanmar and Thailand. In the days when they lived on boats, Moken stayed on land only during the monsoon season, which started around May. They’d stay on land until the winds shifted, usually around December, and then return to the sea. For food, they fished and foraged.
Many of the older generation were born on boats and sailed regularly amongst the islands.
“We could move freely without having to worry about the Myanmar government or the Thai government,” said Tawan Klathale, Hook’s older brother, who was born on a boat and is better known by his nickname Ngui. All Moken in Thailand use the surname Klathale, given to the community by one of Thailand’s former queens.
Freedoms began to constrict, and by the time he and Hook were teenagers, they no longer lived on a boat full-time. Moken started settling in the Surin Islands, off the Thai coast, where they had always stayed seasonally. Some came from Myanmar to Thailand, looking for jobs and safety from pirates.
The Surin Islands meanwhile had become a national park in Thailand in 1981, meaning the trees were now protected by law.
To make a kabang, one needs a good strong tree, at least 1 meter (3 feet) wide and 10 meters (33 feet) tall. The trunk must be straight and be free of defects. Over the course of months, men would hollow out the trunk and carve it into a boat’s hull, while also using fire to make the wood pliable.
Ngui and other members of an informal group called Moken Pa Ti’ao, concerned they were losing the knowledge of boat-building, said they approached the park now and then across the years to get a tree to build a boat. They were refused years ago by the chief of Mu Ko Surin National Park, and haven’t asked since.
Today, the village in Surin only has one kabang, built by Tat, an elder, and used mostly to ferry tourists and take children out on day trips. Hook, who lives on the Thai mainland, also has a kabang built with funding from a private donor from Norway after a filmmaker made a documentary about his journey to make one such boat in 2014. But his kabang is built with planks of wood, rather than a single hollowed-out tree.
Aside from the boat building, Tat and Wilasinee Klathale, a teacher on the island, also take village children out on the boats to teach them about the ocean as well as about music and dance. They are among the few keen to remember the traditions.
Today, young Moken are more worried about their livelihoods and finding jobs. Most only make money during Thailand’s peak tourist season when the national park is open to visitors, from November to April, and have to live on that money for the rest of the year, by either working for the park or on boats ferrying tourists.
Boyen Klathale, a young Moken man, wasn’t able to find a job this year during the peak season, and he didn’t want to leave behind his family to find work on the mainland.
The future holds some hope. In 2024, the Mu Ko Surin National Park appointed a new chief, Kriengkrai Pohcharoen. In a shift, he said he was open to collaborating with the Moken on a kabang — as long as it was a tree that fell over on its own, and on increasing their income.
“I want them to have a good quality of life,” he said.
The Moken are realistic about their permanent switch to land. These days, most prefer it. But some still remember the old ways — and an aquamarine bay filled with handmade kabangs.
“The world is changing and that’s the way it is, if you ask me,” Ngui said. “I think everything is bound to be lost at some point, but I just want it to stay as long as possible.”
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