Myanmar sea-gypsies, the nomadic hunter-gatherers of South East Asia harpooning in the traditional way, from a boat prow.
The people shown in these photographs are Moken, the nomadic sea-gypsies found off the South-West coast of Myanmar. They are found in transient villages throughout the Islands known as the Mergui Archipelago, located in the Andaman Sea. They live an almost entirely sea-related existence, hunting and gathering from the ocean rather than living as conventional fishermen. This style of life, fishing an area for a short time and moving on ,prevents depletion of sea life and has been a highly successful sustainable way of life for hundreds of years. The Moken are incredibly comfortable in the water and their children, in particular, grow up playing in it almost every day. This is a typical scene from their life, a man harpooning rays or turtles. They leap off the boat driving the spear into their prey as it coasts along the surface. While this may seem cruel, the Moken never stay in one place for long and and are relatively few in number, so populations of creatures have time to recover.
Size: 3366px × 5050px
Location: Andarman Sea, Mergui Archipelago, South-East Asia, Myanmar (Burma)
Photo credit: © Justine Evans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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