Ade Amelia¹*, Albertus Bobby Widagdo²**
¹²Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia
*[email protected], **[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Building is often associated with constructing materials on the land. It is unlikely to live on the sea. However, Indonesia is an archipelago country, that 2/3 part of it covered by sea water. Bajau, a nomad tribe, lives in the World Coral Triangle which includes some Indonesian territory. Thus, they have a strong connection to the marine life. Bajau tribe willing to do anything to keep their tradition, living in the sea. This sea-wanderer tribe developed their dwelling over the time. The authors interested to see how they keep living on the sea and how they developed their dwelling forms, from a houseboat to the “coral-column-house”. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of Bajau’s dwelling type and to study about Bajau’s connection to the sea as the important part of their life cycle.
Keywords: sea, dwelling, settlement, nomad, type INTRODUCTION
Indonesia is inhabited by people from thousands of ethnics. Surprisingly, on the other side of these various people inhabits the islands, there is a tribe who actually prefer to stay on the ocean. Bajau tribe lives and has the living depend on the sea, scattered across the archipelago. Basically, the existence of Bajau spreads in the “world coral triangle”, including the sea of Indonesia, Sabah (Malaysia), the Philippines, and the Pacific Islands.
Bajau tribe relies heavily on the existence of coral, because in these places fishes are easily found as their primary source of food commodities.
Currently, Bajau has already covered 21 provinces in Indonesia. Bajau
main settlements are found in Sulawesi and Nusa Tenggara (Priantono in Uniawati, 2007). The significant number of its distribution pattern proofs the existence of the tribe.
Nowadays, most of Bajau community has chosen to leave their past nomadic lifestyle. The development of their settlement is also based on government’s purposes to improve the public services. Sopher (1977) revealed that their efforts to “settle” Bajau have started since the Dutch East Indies civilization (1820 to 1920), which is still continued until now.
The various intervention of government programs, also affects the Bajau community life both in terms of physical settlement and traditional values.
On the other hand, the establishment of Bajau settlements as an ethnic community is strongly influenced by their sea traditions. Bajau’s “culture of constructing” is inseparable from their everyday life, life cycle of various age groups, and social roles. In a strong society tradition like Bajau, the
“culture of constructing” means a self-declaration (Tjahjono, 2013).
Although there are differences with the inland communities, their culture which related to the sea produce a form of living culture that can not be separated from the elements of vernacular architecture.
The collaboration between government’s influences in resettling the Bajau community with their traditional values, produce spatial life patterns as a character of each Bajau settlement. This heterogeneous nature allows the connection between life on the sea and on the land. Their variant responses to the problems experienced according to their villages, where the situation is also different (Zacot, 2002). If we look at the Sama Bahari village’s conditions, there has been a various interventions affected the pattern of people’s daily life in the settlement
IDENTITY OF BAJAU TRIBE AS THE SEA DWELLERS
Bajau tribe also known as sea people. That predicate pinned to community groups who sustainably living inside the boat and wandering on the sea.
Meanwhile, foreign writers used to call them by Sea Nomads, Sea Gypsies, Sea Peoples, Peoples Boat, Boat Nomads, Nomadic Peoples Boat, etc.
(Sembiring in Koentjaraningrat, et al, 1993).
They preserve the pattern of nomadic life from their inheritance. Based on historical records and ethnographic at the end of Srivijaya period (around 14th century) according to Chou Chu Fei, sea nomads have been known since 1178. But according to Chia Tan, it was already happened since
the year 800 (Wolters, 1975; Hall, 1960) . Meanwhile, Magellan noted the Bajau have lived as the sea people since the beginning of the 16th century (Ahimsa, 1995). According to the description of Ir. Abdul Manan, M.sc, as President of the Kerukunan Keluarga Bajau Indonesia and District Head of Planning Agency. Wakatobi, Bajau tribe is the sea people with many versions of stories and myths about their origin. Bajau tribe or Sama tribe, has similar life patterns and language, eventhough their settlements are scattered. Bajau tribe is also famous for their openness to the outside influences.
Fig. 1 World Coral Triangle Where Bajau Tribe Lives Source: Ekskursi Arsitektur FTUI, 2013
Bajau tribe conceived the sea as a liaison in life. The sea connecting Bajau people who are separated from each other across archipelago.
Dependence on nature to support themselves and their families, caused Bajau people who were born, lived, and died at sea to equip themselves with the ability to read the weather and the movement of fish based on experience.
“Orang Bajo, terutama yang hidupnya paling sederhana, benar- benar gelisah dan jengkel bila mereka tak mempunyai perahu,
yang merupakan satu-satunya alat pengangkutan. Mereka tak dapat dipisahkan dari perahu. Perahu merupakan satu-satunya harta yang berusaha mereka dapatkan mati-matian.” (Zacot, 2002)
Bajau’s daily life also inseparable from the boat. Boat is interpreted as their own feet. ‘Feet’ that created their existence on the sea as their homeland. Boat naturally used as both of a transportation media and living place. Initially, Bajau tribe was not settled in the form of village. They are scattered across the sea.
TRACING THE DWELLING DEVELOPMENT
Researching for traditional residential development is often faced with obstacles. Usually it is caused by a lack of oral and written information.
Difficulties were also encountered when the authors arrived at the Bajau settlement in the Sama Bahari village, Wakatobi. Our findings showed that occupancy has been already developed with the influences of land settlement. Eventhough the house form in this settlement is similarly same, there are some significant differences between house material usage.
There are various ways to trace the dwelling development. The authors try to study the type of Bajau’s dwelling, focusing on the usage of building materials and spatial functions to determine the phases of their dwelling development. Argan (1963) in Nesbitt (1996) argues:
“Aldo Rossi and Rafael Moneo investigated Quatremere de Quincy’s definition of type: “the idea of an element which should itself serve as a rule for the model.” Moneo interpret it as the inherent structural and formal order that allows architectural objects to be grouped together, distinguished, and repeated.”
Typology is the knowledge of the type study for tracing the development of architecture product (Argan in Nesbitt, 1996). The search for meaning in the type study can generate continuity within history, in which in the context of traditional settlements such data is lost.
The aims for typing the material is to find patterns that appear on the settlement. Alexander (1964: 5) explains that various environmental variables in a complex society are interconnected with each other. In this case, the relation between the environment and society context is seen as a reference to reveal the forming elements of dwelling area. Individuals