The demise of the Urak Lawoi, one of three ancient “sea gypsy” clans that have roamed and lived on the coastlines and islands of Southeast Asia’s Andaman Sea for the past five centuries, has been predicted since historians started recording their existence in the 19th century.

Obviously the resilience of these gentle and shy sea nomads has been under-estimated. Today, however, after 500 years of discreetly packing up and floating away to a new, isolated island or cove whenever their unique animist beliefs and unusual ma-triarchal society is questioned, the Urak Lawoi may have finally run out of places to hide.
One has to strain to hear the haunting sounds of 83-year-old Pa Maawee Talae Luek’s violin over the thumping disco beat coming from the festival’s main stage. On Lanta Island, in the southern Thai province of Krabi — acknowledged by the Urak Lawoi as their original “home” in the Andaman Sea — elders struggle to save an ancient culture threatened by a modern world.

The Loy Rua Festival, “Boat Releasing Ceremony”, is a twice-yearly traditional event the Urak Lawoi celebrate to ward off bad luck and appease the sea spirits. The festival also reveals how outside cultures have affected the Urak Lawoi’s simple way of life. Elders gather around a sacred shine to perform traditional chanting and dance rituals, preparing the model boat with clippings of their hair and nails for the ceremonial launch. Across the field, sea gypsy teenagers — the cultural lifeline of the Urak Lawoi — dance to the boom-boom of popular Thai music and gather in nearby stilted houses to watch television, not interested in the important ceremony being performed just 20 metres away.
“Our unique culture could all disappear within five years,” Pa Maawee says sadly. “Some children want to learn traditional Rong Ngeng instruments and to practise the pan dancing, but most have tourism-related jobs and don’t have the time.”

Pa Maawee, a cultural icon frequently studied by famous Thai and international musicians, acts as manager and violin player for the local rong ngeng band. He admits he won’t be able to teach his craft to young people much longer because of his age, and points to an 80-year-old lady, the youngest member of the traditional pan dance group, waltzing around the sacred shine. Saving their rong ngeng performance art, says Pa Maawee, is the key to preserving their culture as the music, and dance speaks of a history never properly recorded.

The true origins of the approximately 4,500 living Urak Lawoi is sketchy at best. The Urak Lawoi are one of three groups of chao lay (“Sea People”), which also include the Moken and Moklen clans, who have roamed the Andaman Sea and other waterways in the Southeast Asia for centuries. The Urak Lawoi on Koh Lanta are close kin to the Chao Lay living in the Phuket villages of Rawai, Sireh, Sapam, the Krabi islands of Phi Phi and Koh Jum and the Sutun islands of Koh Lipeh and the Adang Islands. Elders on Koh Lanta suggest they all originated from Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and journeyed through the Gunung Jeri, Kedah Peak on the coast of Lawoi Kedah, north of Penang in the Saiburi State of Malaysia, and then eventually onto Lanta.

Legends and historical anecdotes also confirm that the Urak Lawoi culture has prevailed despite the efforts of Buddhist, Muslim and Christian missionaries to change their ways. David Hogan, a Christian missionary and historian, recorded a local legend from a 70-year-old Urak Lawoi on the island of Adang that told of God sending people to “persuade the Urak Lawoi ancestors to give reverence to God” and, when they refused, God laid a curse on them so they had to move away to another island.
In fact, God’s people did eventually catch up with some of the Urak Lawoi. In 1997 United Bible Service, after 20 years of hard translation work, introduced a native-language Urak Lawoi Bible in Phuket. The group claims to have already baptized 50 Urak Lawoi members.

In the aftermath of the 25 December 2004 tsunami, with the inevitable arrival of religious, government and non-government organizations offering assistance, the Urak Lawoi have become a hot cultural commodity worth preserving.
In April, the Thailand Bible Society distributed survival bags for the Urak Lawoi of Koh Lanta containing “daily necessities” such as instant noodles, soup, towels, toothpaste and toothbrushes, and including booklets entitled Is There Any Hope For My Future? According to the pastors working on Lanta there’s a chance that a village church may be “planted” on the island in the next couple of years.

On 13 May, the United Nations Development Fund (UNDF) launched an ambitious “groundbreaking development strategy” for Lanta that plans to help with the preservation of its cultural history by involving locals as “the prime movers of their own future development”. Pa Maawee, the Urak Lawoi cultural leader, has yet to be contacted.
“These people are very skeptical now,” says Sawang Waiprib, a Chinese-Thai businessman born on Koh Lanta, whose family has worked and lived with the Urak Lawoi for three generations. “Everyone says they want to help, but they’ve heard it all before.”
Sawang knows better than most about problems associated with helping to save this unique culture. Two years ago he donated 5 rai (0.8 hectares) of beachfront land and over 3 million baht to establish the Sea Gypsy Home, a non-profit cultural centre set up, with direct involvement of the Urak Lawoi elders, to help preserve their culture by teaching (and paying) the young to learn their traditional arts and crafts and rong ngeng music. Unfortunately, due to poor finances brought on by the wave and the subsequent lack of tourism, the programme was stopped, the youth were sent back to their villages, and the centre is now on the verge of closing.

“I think many groups will come forward to help the Urak Lawoi,” says Sawang. “I’m just not sure that’s what they want or if it means the end of the Urak Lawoi culture for good.”