ETHNOLOGICAL ATLAS OF THE ORANG SUKU LAUT (SEA NOMADS)
THE INDIGENOUS MALAYS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

By Cynthia Chou

The Orang Suku Laut (Sea Nomads) or indigenous/ aboriginal Malays of what is
presently the political territories of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia
belong to the endangered ethnic minorities of Southeast Asia. They are
currently facing immense pressures exerted by respective national policies and
a wider community to change every aspect of their life. I am therefore
propossing a comparative and multy-disciplanary study to develop "An
ethnological atlas of the Orang Suku Laut". No such study has ever been
undertaken of the Orang Suku Laut. It is intended to provide the basis for:
Language-based schemata
To look at linguistic data with findings from other fields of investigation
to opening discussion on the pre and proto-history of the Malay-dom.
Archaelogical schemata
To analyse artefacts for a documentation concerning the development in
technology, settlement patterns and cosmological orientations. Anthropological
data on current modes of production, settlement patterns, oral histories,
religious orientations etc., would provide important complimentary and
comparative data to analysing the Orang Suku Laut's identity that is under
transition.
Socio-historical schemata
To examine the cultural and social traditions in relation to the concept of
sacred space and the claims to land/sea rigths. In addition, a sociological
schemata is intended to analyse the ways in which the incorporation of the
Orang Suku Laut into the world economy has taken place and what this means for
the Orang Suku Laut and the wider community around them.

C. Gek-Hua Chou (1963) was awarded the degree of Master of Social Sciences by
the National University of Singapore in 1990 for a thesis based on fieldwork
entitled 'Farmers in Singapore: the rural sector in transition'. She was
awarded the British Council Fellowship for PhD research in Great Britain. In
1992 she received the J.E. Cairnes Graduate Scholarship. She did
anthropological fieldwork among the Orang Suku Laut of the Riau Archipelago.