Theme 2:
Socio-Culture & Community Empowerment
Hi gh
Chapt er1
Chapt er2
Conc eptI dent i t y Li v i ngLoc at i on ofBaj au
Rank i ng
Meani ngof “ SamaBaj au”
Low
Ont heSea
St at el es s
Saf et y
NoNat i onal i t y
Pi r at es
Conf l i c t
BySeas on
Wat er
War
Ki dnappi ng
Lac kofNut r i t i on
Af f ec tT our i s m I ndus t r y
Hy gi eneI s s ue
Ec onomi c( No i nc ome)
Oppr es s i on
Nomad
Pol i t i c al I s s ues
Hi s t or y
Lac kofEduc t at i on Heal t hI s s ues
Runawayf r om Phi l i ppi nes
Chapt er3
Land
Los tJ obs
Spi r i t ual Char ac t er s
Cul t ur al
T ak ec ar eofs ea c r eat ur es
Womengi v i ng bi r t h
Food getmor al v al ues s our c es : Fi s h For
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Mov i ngf ol l ow Gi v i ng t hedi r ec t i onof pr ot ec t i v et o t hepi r at es t hemot her
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Chapt er4
Cul t ur al Ac t i v i t i es Fes t i v al :Regat t a LepaFes t i v al
Keepst r adi t i onof mak i ngl epaal i v e
Boat
Dec or at i on c ol our f ul
Danc e-I gal I gal
Wel c omi ngVi s i t or s
Mar r i age
3Boat sl i nk ed Bedr oom s t andi nt he t oget her mi ddl e
Dead
Chapt er5
Spi r i t ual ofboat
BoatMak i ng
Meangi v ebi r t ht oc hi l d
Connec t i onof Repr es ent ed c omponentwi t h mus c ul arpar tof s equenc e humanbody
Lepal epa
Us east r ans por t at i on/ Shel t er
Component=c hi l dr en
HeadofBoat= mal e( l eadi ng)
Mi ddl eofBat= Femal e ( c ook i ng)
Mr Shamsul’s group 2: Jarod Yap Soo Mei Jin Wee Xin Lei Chia Chen Kit Chin Kuan Wei
Chapter 1: Social Identity
Chapter 2: Illegal Immigration
Chapter 3: Lifestyle Culture
Chapter 4: Cult Activities
tural
Chapter 5: Rituals on Boats Our model is influenced into 5 different chapters regarding to our researched theme which is related to the “Socio-Culture & Community Empowerment� which we are tasked to study in depth into the Bajau community group. We have split into 5 chapters which narrates their lifestyle and culture onto the physical model as well. The model above is done in an abstract form which there are 5 parts of the areas tells each different narratives.
Chapter 1:
Social Identity
Chapter 1: Social Identity
Bajau people social identity and their origin By Chia Chen Kit
The Bajau Laut people, or sea gypsies is a huge group of etnik that located at the ocean between Sabah and Sandakan. The Case of the Bajau Laut is predicted upon their condition of dejure statelessness, being longstanding interiorpers between the big islands of Borneo and Mindanao. During 1970s, huge amount of Bajau community fled to Sabah to escape the war between the Philippine government and the independent movement by the Moro National Liberation Front, resettling in many parts of the state such as Lahad Datu, Semporna and Sandakan. Because of their nomadic nature, the issue of the Bajau Lautis currently one of undocumented residency or even illegal immigration.
The model is created to narrate a part of the historical period when back in the 1970s the Bajau community fled to Sabah to escape the conflict issues that has happened in the Philippines. This causes an amount of people from the community migrated to Semporna which referring to the model above shows an arch with boat representation by using aluminium tin can cap to show the density of the boat population coming into Semporna.
The story is translated into this model by using the arch to narrate the Bajau community migrating into the Semporna areas. Where the model shows the settlements are slowly growing rapidly as more of the community coming in. The arch act as a bridge connecting the Bajaus and Semporna together.
In this narrative we decided to highlight the high and low ranking of the community named Bajau. In the community these people are often classified into rankings whereby the low ranking communities are preferred to be located at the sea area while the high ranking communities are mostly located at the land. This creates a hierarchy between these two communities whereby we narrate this story into our models.
Chapter 2:
Illegal Immigration
Chapter 2: Illegal Immigration
The stateless of Bajau community in Semporna, Sabah By Soo Mei Jin
The stateless of Bajau people who run away from Philippines due to the conflict and oppression by Mindanao war in 1970s cause the perennial problem of illegal immigration in Semporna, Sabah. The kidnapping cases by pirates in Semporna bring an alarm on the saftness of most Bajau people. The lack of education caused the insufficient of knowledge on taking care of their health and hygiene. This condition resulted in Bajau people easily to infect by disease.
The Bajau people are often called “illegal immigrates� due to their lack of identification because most of these people from this community they don’t have any resources to identify them such as passports or identification card. This causes them alot of difficulties on not being able to do what they want due to the restrictions of having a nomadic lifestyle. The community also have issues on being kidnapped by pirates where they are often being enslaved and work for free for the pirates. The community also lacks education this issues provides a simultaneous loop for the community by being in poverty.
The flag narrates the political part of the Bajau community whereby they are often assumed to be pirates or being kidnapped by pirates.
The ring of flags narrates the different countries that the people of Bajau have visited in the past or they have migrated to these places besides from staying in Semporna.
The aluminium tin cap represents the pirate ships invading the area causing mayhem and kidnapping the people of the Bajau community.
Chapter 3:
Lifestyle Culture
Chapter 3: Lifestyle Culture
The dark side in the community of the Bajau people By Chin Kuan Wei
A researcher has involved with an insight following a girl in the community named Langka. Where the girl allowed the researcher to join her in her hidden illegal activities around the community. In the community Langka has showed us most of the fishermen of the community are in debt to the people they have borrowed money from to help pay for their financial problems. These people who they have borrowed money from in exchange they will ask the fishermen to use illegal ways to help them make money to repay their debt. These activities are often like using explosives for being able to catch fish faster and in a larger quantity. Also they required insight intel upon their economical rivals that are in the community.
In the community of Bajau, they are often labelled as the sea guardians. In their lifestyle culture they do fishing very often and also this is one of their main source of income to provide for their family. From young they are trained to dive into the deep water without any diving equipment and they using their handmade fishing spear to hunt in the water. They are also a very spiritual community whereby they believe in alot of animistic culture and also they worship their ancestors.
In this model it narrates the sto- In the Bajau community, the communities’ homes are often built with ry of th Bajau community using raw materials that they have around their area where they source. The illegal ways to catch fish due to model above is inspired by their nomadic lifestyle by being able to build their debts that they needed to simple structures and live in it for a period of time. pay. The model represents the elements that we have extracted from the analysis as well by using raw materials to present it.
Chapter 4:
Cultural Activities
Chapter 4: Cultural Activities
Bajau people activities in our National Tourism in Semporna, Sabah By Wee Xin Lei
The Regatta Lepa water festival is one of the longest-running and most unique celebrations of its kind in Malaysia and Borneo. Every year in April there is a water festival held in Semporna, a small town in the eastern coast of Sabah, called the Regatta Lepa, one of the major important events in our National Tourism Calendar. The event pays homage to the unique lifestyle of the nomadic Bajau Laut whose cultural legacy has been handed down many generations. The unique product such as the igal-igal dance on colourful lepa ships, food and handicrafts during the Regatta Lepa which also has made Semporna the focus of the world and certainly a factor in attracting tourists to continue visiting the area.
In the area of Semporna, every year in the month of April there is a water festival held which is known as the “Regatta Lepa�. The Bajau community often celebrate this festival because the people are seaferers at heart and they are well known for their Lepa, which is the traditional single-mast sailing boat used in their daily lives.
The model is used to represent Another part that we used to narrate the festive season is by using the the festive vibes that we have aluminium tin that is coloured to represent the boats which are also extracted and researched on by known as lepa that are taking part of the festive season also where it is showing vibrant colours and located near the hotspot communities around the coloured blocks. multiple colours. The colours are also located at the most festive hotspots around the area.
Chapter 5:
Rituals on Boat
Chapter 5: Rituals on Boat
Bajau people had completely ceased building lepa in Kg. Bangau- Bangau By Jarod Yap
Boats may be treated with spells (haligmun) before the owner embarks on a long journey, to render them invisible to pirates or to make them impervious to bullets (panglias). In this tradition, there are two main rituals associated with boat construction, one performed in conjunction with the joining of the bow and stern posts to the keel, and the other, with the drilling of the boat’s navel. The forward area of the lepa is associated, in particular, with men and male activities, while the stern is associated with women and female activities. In 1979, although lepa were still occasionally built, they were rapidly being replaced at the time as the main fishing boat by the pomboat, a plank-constructed vessel powered by a small inboard engine of 10-16hp.
The Bajau has a spiritual entity towards their boats. Often times they worship their boats as a sacred place because the boat also known as “Lepa� is their first home and transportation. They also often travel in a dangerous environment whereby they cannot predict how the waves is gonna be like and how rough the waves will be. They also do alot of activities on their boat such as they eat, cook and sleep on their boat basically their whole home is on a boat. Even giving birth are sometimes on the boat because it is quite hard for them to have the accesibility to hospitals to give birth.
The model narrates the whole The settlement plays a very import role in the narrative whereby the story of the rituals on boat boats travels to the settlement area where the people are able to hold whereby the arch shows the con- their ritual by being able to reproduce their population and holds their nectivity that the boats have prorespect towards their boats. From a journey to the end. vided for the Bajau people.
The diagram shows referring back to Chapter 1, narrating the Bajau people how they started to migrate to Semporna from the Philippines. The two circles indicate the areas that are filled with the Bajau community that are on is a group that inhabits on the land and the other group that inhabits on the water.
For this diagram, it narrates the stateless people that are in the Bajau community. As you can see the cirlces are in different thickness and sizes indicates the amount of density of the stateless people in the map.
The diagram shown represents the areas that are active with festivals. As you can see most of the boxes that are at the outlined in between the land and shore which refers back to the Regatta Lepa festivals where is it celebrated on water and land.
In this diagram shows the places that are located in Semporna where there are practices on boat making. In Bajau community one of their interest is boat making so these places are map out and linked to form a narrative.
For this diagram, it narrates the lifestyle hotspots of the area whereby the circle maps indicates on the lands tells us on the natural man made structure made locally by the Bajau community. The circles on the water indicates the fishing activities.
War of th
The war of the reborn tells a story of the Bajau commu equality life living among us. Where they have faced alo shows that their community is one of the most flexible This story narrtes the focuses on
he Reborn
unity having a on-going war for being able to have an ot of difficulties and issues along their journey but this e, self-sustained and resilient group around the world. where we should be looking at.
Work Distribution: Model making: Jarod Yap Soo Mei Jin Wee Xin Lei Chia Chen Kit Compilation and Illustrations: Chin Kuan Wei