Friday, December 24, 2004

The Marine Folk

In Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery, the author explores widespread testimony of ancient water beings that were usually part human or humanoid and part fish, serpent, dragon. Often the human part was replaced by a bull or horned goat.

These creatures were nearly invariably linked with the sea. While there are theories that these marine fish folk might even have come from other star systems, the most logical terrestrial explanation cannot avoid the Austronesian hypothesis.

The shell mound culture belonged to the marine people par excellence. At the end of the last Ice Age, the shell mound folk in Asia were mostly harvesting around shallow intertidal areas or in freshwater rivers and streams near the seacoast. With the coming of rising sea levels, the shellfishing gathering activities moved more into mangrove estuaries and the coral reefs.

The archaeological evidence suggests they became skilled at fishing and sea mammal hunting producing a wide range of gear -- net sinkers, spindle whorls, fish-hooks, harpoon heads, etc.

I mentioned previously that there is early Paleolithic evidence of beyond-the-horizon navigation. Toward the beginning of the Nusantao period, the evidence appears again in apparent voyages from mainland Southeast Asia to the Philippines and Taiwan. The latter was, at the time, a much smaller target than today as most of the island was still underwater.

Unfortunately it is difficult to reconstruct the earliest ships of the Austronesians, although some good basic clues exist. We do have fairly good knowledge of their vessels by about the 3rd century thanks to archaeological finds, Chinese texts and the famed Borobodur relief.

According to historian Pierre-Yves Manguin the largest ships could carry up to 1,000 people and 250-1,000 tons. The ancient Chinese writer Wan Chen wrote that the ships stood from 15 to 23 feet above the water and resembled 'flying galleries,' possibly a reference to the appearance of outriggers as "wings." The author describes ships with four obliquely set sails that allowed sailing in strong winds and high waves.

The boats used to this day by the Badjau, Samal and other "sea gypsies" of Southeast Asia are both lashed-lug and bifid. The lashed-lug construction gives tensile strength to boats as the frames are flexibly tied to cleats on the hull's planks. Instead of nails, wooden pegs or bindings are used again to decrease rigidity in the structure.

The bifid construction involves the use of a dugout as the base of the ship upon which the lashed-lug plank-built boat is added. This design results in "split" or bifid ends.

Lepa-lepa boat, Sabah, with bifid and lashed-lug construction

Many of the sea gypsies like the Badjau continue to live on their boats or on houses suspended over the water on stilts along the coast. They depend on fish and other marine life for sustenance moving from place to place according to tide and season.

Strongly linked with the tales of marine folk are the Fisher Kings. These watery monarchs figure largely in various Grail bloodline scenarios of the "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" type.

What we clearly see though in the various cultures that possess this motif is that the Fisher Kings are ultimately traced to sea peoples. The kings themselves often arise out of the sea dressed in fish costumes or portrayed as part fish. And they tend to have a fish diet and/or to teach fishing.

What is indicated is the extreme maritime adaptation mentioned by Oppenheimer.

Paul Kekai Manansala