Fishing and sea peoples

Lesson 4 of 6 in "Ways of living", about 5 minutes

For coastal, river and island peoples, water is what land is to a farmer: the source of food, the road to the neighbours and the home of ancestors and spirits. Fishing peoples have built detailed knowledge of tides, currents, winds, breeding seasons and the habits of hundreds of species. Many have also developed rules about who may fish where and when, which keep stocks from being exhausted.

Sea nomads of South-East Asia

Three groups of peoples in South-East Asia have traditionally lived on boats. The Sama-Bajau, often called Bajau, live around the southern Philippines, eastern Malaysia and Indonesia. The Moken live in the Mergui Archipelago off Myanmar and Thailand. The Orang Laut, a Malay phrase meaning 'sea people', live around the Riau islands and the Malay Peninsula. Many families now live in stilt houses over the water.

Navigators of the Pacific

The peoples of the Pacific settled islands spread over a vast ocean, from New Guinea to Hawaii, Rapa Nui and New Zealand. They did it in double-hulled and outrigger canoes, without compass or chart. Navigators found their way by the rising and setting points of stars, the direction of ocean swells, the flight of birds and the colour of clouds over distant land.

This skill, called wayfinding, nearly died out in much of Polynesia. In 1976 the voyaging canoe Hōkūle'a sailed from Hawaii to Tahiti using traditional methods, guided by Mau Piailug, a master navigator from the island of Satawal in Micronesia. He went on to teach Hawaiian students, and the voyage helped to start a revival of canoe building and navigation across the Pacific.

Salmon peoples

On the north-west coast of North America, salmon return from the sea each year to the rivers where they were born. Peoples such as the Coast Salish, Haida, Tlingit and Yurok built their economies on these runs, catching fish with weirs, traps and nets and drying or smoking them for winter. A First Salmon ceremony welcomes the first fish of the season and asks the run to continue.

Fishing rights were written into treaties signed in the 1850s in what is now Washington State. When the state later restricted tribal fishing, tribes went to court. In 1974 a federal judge ruled, in what is known as the Boldt decision, that the treaties entitled the tribes to up to half of the harvestable catch. Tribes now manage the fisheries jointly with the state.

Lakes, rivers and marshes

• The Uros of Lake Titicaca in Peru live on floating islands that they build from totora reeds.
• The Marsh Arabs, or Ma'dan, of southern Iraq build reed houses in the wetlands of the Tigris and Euphrates.
• The Vezo of south-western Madagascar are sea fishers who define themselves by their skill with boats.
• Torres Strait Islanders, between Australia and New Guinea, are seafarers who hunt turtle and dugong under customary rules.
• The Nicobarese of India's Nicobar Islands fish and travel in outrigger canoes.

Rules of the water

Many fishing communities hold customary rights over stretches of reef, lagoon or river, just as farmers hold fields. In the Pacific, chiefs or clans can close an area to fishing for a time so that stocks recover. In Fiji such a closure is called a tabu. Conservation scientists now work with communities across the Pacific to set up locally managed marine areas on this model.

Pressures today

Industrial fishing fleets, dams that block fish from migrating, pollution and coastal tourism all cut into the catch. Sea nomads face a further problem: without a fixed address or papers, many are not recognised as citizens of any country. Rising seas and warming water threaten reefs and low islands. Fishing peoples are responding by asserting their rights in court and by taking the lead in managing their own waters.

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