The main food is Taro, a root vegetable considered as a staple in oceanic cultures. The lifestyle is influenced by the seasons - in the northwest during monsoon season (May-November) when there are many storms, the Moken move onto the islands, building houses, or moor in sheltered bays, protected from the waves and storms.
The search for food is the same importance today as it has ever been, but it is made more difficult because they are a minority group with no nationality. The Moken are largely uneducated, with little knowledge of the outside, land-based world, which creates further difficulties when communicating with others.
The Moken have an annual ceremony to celebrate the ancestor's pole (Hnear-En-Hlor-Bong), with tribe members coming together to worship to the spirits to protection them. During this time, Moken people stop work. The ceremony includes casting lots, playing music, singing and dancing, and also have leeway the models to pensive and distress as illness from families, community. Moreover, the Moken have traditional beliefs that emphasize the spirits, including the spirits of their ancestors, and those found in natures, which have the power to protect individuals or cause illness. Therefore, they make sacrifices and offerings to the spirits. The Moken are also adept at using herbs for treating disease.
In society, weddings often occur when the couples are teenagers, and are monogamous for life. They will not separate or change partners unless the wife or husband dies or have severe marital problems. Having children is an important part of life, so generally Moken families have 2-5 children - because they usually live in remote areas, or on the sea, they are far from basic services leading to a higher mortality rate which makes the Moken population a fairly constant number.
The name, Moken, derives from "La-Mor" and " Kan " which is the name of the Queen's sister in an old legend of the Moken people. The younger sister stole the boyfriend of the Queen, who then cursed her and her friends promising them a life in which they could never settle in one place.
Moken are also known as the Sea Gypsies - Descendents of the Porto-Malaysians who wandered the Andaman Sea for more than 100 years, living on islands and off the coast of the Mergui Islands in Myanmar, as far south and east as the islands of the Zulu sea in the Philippines, and including the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia. In the Mergui islands in Myanmar, the Moken population runs into the thousands. The Burmese people call the Moken, ‘Selon', which is believed to have come from the word ‘Cha-Lang' or ‘Tha-Lang', an ancient name of Phuket province (Junk Selon) - the place that many fishermen lived before moving to live on the sea. This is the legendary tale of the Moken people.
The anthropologist Jacques Ivanoff assume that the name of the Moken people stems from the words "Lamor (Moken language is drown) and" Ken "which is the name of the Queen's sister in the legend of the Moken where her sister after grabbing her sister's lover, was cursed to drift in the Sea along with her friends. (For more information see Ivanoff's book Rings of Coral ).
The Moken is a group of fishermen who derive from the Proto Malay that have been drifting around in the Andaman Sea for more than 100 years. They live on the islands and along the coast from Marid in Myanmar to the islands in the Zulu Sea in Philippines as well as along the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia .
The Marid Islands in Myanmar has a Moken population of about thousand people. The Burmese call the Moken “Selon” and assume that this name comes from the word “Chalang” or “Tlang” that is an ancient name of Phuket (Junk Selon) which is where the fishermen gathered in the past. The Moken people respect the holy things and spirits in nature as well as the ancestor spirit with "Lor-Bong" or the soul pole of the ancestors as male(Ae-Bab) and female (A-Boom) is a symbol.
The Moken people's most important celebration of the year is "Hnear-En-Lor-Bong" or the celebration of the ancestor spirit pole. In this ceremony, which may have leeway to exorcises similar to the U-Lak-La-Woy in Phuket or Li-Pae that call the leeway "Pla-Jak " as the Moken call this "Hla-Jung". The purpose of leeway is to take the damned, unhealthy, and the melancholic in distress away from the community. The celebration of ancestor spirit pole of the Moken people is held on the day of the waxing moon, in the fifth lunar month. The Moken people will not go outside in a period of 3 days and 3 nights, and during that time they will have a festival where they drink, play music, dance, and communicate with the spirit to fortune the fate of the village. Relatives from different islands will also come to join the festival.
When they migrated to Thailand .
The
migrations into Thailand of the Moken people are not evident because
there are several groups and waves of migration. Migration is still
going on.
The areas where they live.
The
Moken who live in Marid Islands in Myanmar still has a population of
about thousand people. The Burmese people call Moken Selon, assuming
that this word come from the word Chalang or Tlang an ancient name of
Phuket (Junk Selon), which is where the fishermen gathered in the past.Read More http://mokentribe.blogspot.com
backside
of a piece of cloth. If one wants to know what the finished designs
look like, one has to turn and look at the other side. The cross-stitch
technique which has become more popular this day was introduced only
50-60 years ago.