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Introduction Even before the first European penetration of Island Southeast Asia, the maritime boat people of the region were already heavily engaged in trade and in many areas were incorporated in state-based political and economic systems. This paper examines one particular group, the Bajau Laut, or Sama Dilaut, of southeastern Sabah, seeing them as players in a historical circulation of goods. Different modalities of exchange, within and outside the group, involving both gifts and commodities, helped to define the embedded nature of the Bajau Laut community and its place vis-a-vis more settled populations in a hierarchical division of economic and political labour. Here I look in particular at the symbolisation of exchange, especially in local mythic discourse, in order to understand better the role that nomadism played, down to the beginning of the last century, in sustaining this circulation and in reproducing the contrasting identities of its different players, including the sea nomads themselves. Commodities and Commoditisation In this paper, I follow the example of Appadurai (1986: 3-7), at least provisionally, and define `commodities' very broadly as `objects of economic value'; essentially, `anything intended for exchange'. Commodities, in Appadurai's (1986: 13) terms, are not particular kinds of things, but, rather, `things', as he puts it, `in a certain situation'. A `commodity situation' is one `in which [an object's] exchangeability for some other thing is its socially relevant feature'. In this sense, `many different kinds of things, at different points in their social lives', may assume commodity status to the extent that exchangeability becomes their salient attribute. Viewed in this way, commodity exchange is a feature of all societies. Some societies, however, are more thoroughly commoditised than others. Similarly, while some things represent quintessential commodities, being readily exchangeable for others in a multitude of different situations, at least a few things in every society, even in the most highly commoditised, are culturally excluded from exchangeability and so precluded from commodity status (Appadurai 1986: 22; Kopytoff 1986: 73). (1) The commodities that are of primary concern to us in this paper are those that historically circulated through a major trading network that, geographically speaking, extended from the southern coast of Mindanao, through the Sulu Archipelago of the Philippines, to the adjacent eastern coast of Borneo, a region aptly termed the `Sulu Zone' by the social historian James Warren (1981). At the centre of this zone, navigational crossroads converged to link the region to distant markets well beyond its geographical frontiers, to China and mainland Southeast Asia to the north, and, to the south and west, the islands of eastern Indonesia and the western Malay world. The sea nomads were significant players in this network and supplied some of its most highly valued commodities. Some of these products, notably trepang or dried sea-cucumbers (bat), were quintessential commodities, produced exclusively for external trade, and were never consumed by the sea nomads themselves nor by any of their immediate neighbours. Ultimately, trepang supplied Chinese culinary markets well outside the Sulu zone. A number of other commodities, such as mother-of-pearl, pearls, tortoiseshell, sea-turtle eggs and sharkfin, while produced mainly for external trade, also enjoyed a degree of regional demand. Finally, the most ubiquitous and quantitatively important of all these commodities, dried fish, was supplied chiefly to local land-based trading partners and through them entered into regional exchange circuits, some eventually finding its way to upland and interior peoples in the bordering as of Borneo and Mindanao. In exchange for these commodities, the sea nomads received from their shore-based trading partners externally manufactured goods, such as cloth; local craft products, such as earthenware cooking hearths and metal implements; and cultivated produce, including fruit and cassava (panggi kayu), the latter their main dietary staple. …

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Jusqu’au milieu des années cinquante, les Bajau Laut du district de Semporna (Sabah) vivaient complètement sur leurs bateaux. Ces derniers, appelés lepa étaient à la fois un espace de vie familial et le principal moyen de production. Récemment encore, le bois d’oeuvre nécessaire à la construction navale était abondant à Semporna. Les Bajau Laut pouvaient donc construire des lepa pour eux-mêmes, mais aussi, avec l’aide de leurs voisins du littoral (de langue sama), à des fins commerciales. Il est probable cependant que l’origine du lepa soit le fait des constructeurs du littoral. Cet article décrit les processus de fabrication, les différents usages des lepa, leur structure interne et les liens que l’on peut établir avec les catégories sociales, en relation, en particulier avec les ancêtres (mbo’). Seront également brièvement examinés les récents changements apparus dans la forme des bateaux depuis que les Bajau-Laut ont cessé de vivre sur l’eau, et depuis la déforestation dûe à l’exploitation commerciale. Until the mid 1950s, the Bajau Laut of the Semporna district, Sabah, lived entirely on boats. These boats, called lepa, served both as a family’s living quarter and as its principal productive asset. Until recently boat-building timber was comparatively plentiful in Semporna, with the result that not only did the Bajau Laut build boats for themselves, but they, and neighboring shore-dwelling Sama-speakers, also built lepa for trade. It seems probable, indeed, that the design of the lepa originated with local shore-living boatwrights. This paper describes the process involved in building a lepa, the use of boats, their internal features, and the association of these features with social categories and ideas relating in particular to the ancestors (mbo’). The paper also discusses briefly changes in boat design that have occurred as the Bajau Laut have ceased to be full-time boat-dwellers and as the coastal lowlands have been deforested as a result of recent commercial logging. Hasta mediados de los años cincuenta, los Bajau Laut del districto de Semporna (Sabah) vivían permanentemente en sus barcos. Estos últimos, llamados lepa, eran a la vez un espacio de vida familiar y el principal medio de producción. Todavía recientemente, la madera necesaria para la construcción naval era abundante en Semporna. Los Bajau Laut podían pues construir sus lepa para ellos mismos y también con la ayuda de sus vecinos del litoral (de lengua sama), para fines comerciales. Sin embargo es probable que el origen del lepa provenga de los constructores del litoral. Este artículo describe los procesos de fabricación, las diferentes utilizaciones de los lepa, su estructura interna y las relaciones que pueden establecerse con las categorías sociales, en relación, en particular, con los ancestros (mbo). Serán igualmente examinados brevemente los cambios aparecidos en la forma de los barcos desde que los Bajau Laut han dejado de vivir sobre el agua, y desde la deforestación, desbida a la reciente explotación comercial.