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Pays de mer et gens de terre: logique sociale de la sous-exploitation du domaine maritime en Asie du Sud-Est continentale
... In a land with two large deltas and an important fluvial network, where coastline and land border are almost equal in length and where water represents 21,140 km 2 of the country (CIA, 2008), the connection to the water is fundamental and watercraft play an integral part in daily life, being an essential means of transportation until the end of the last century (Huard and Durand, 1954;Aubaile-Sallenave, 1987). Although fleets of seagoing vessels were never developed (Robinne, 1994;Reid, 2000;Wheeler, 2003) and Vietnamese people are generally not considered important as sailors or seafaring merchants, boats greatly contributed to the ancient connectivity of the region (Hall, 1986;Manguin, 1993;Hall, 2006) and are present in various aspects of daily life, forming a component part of modern-day Vietnamese identity. Vietnamese history records key events such as the great naval battles of Bach Dang, which ended 1000 years of Chinese occupation in 938 AD and pushed back the great Mongol empire in 1288 AD, as well as the skilled Cham 'pirates' and navigators of the first millennium AD (Manguin, 1984b;Hall, 1986;Manguin, 1993;Tana, 2006). ...
This paper addresses the material boat culture of Vietnam both in its current context and more specifically through an assessment of how the boats of Vietnam have been studied in the past. It presents a comprehensive summary of past publications describing the construction, use and variety of boats in the region, from the earliest volumes to modern research projects, including the work of the US military. It highlights the rich diversity of construction approaches and boat-types that are still built and used, and demonstrates the need for further field research to record the fast-disappearing traditional boats of Vietnam.© 2010 The Authors
The loñ hle, monoxyla fishing boats of the Tenasserim are found all over the seas of the Mergui Archipelago furrowed by the Moken sea nomads, the Karen and Burmese seamen. They are between 8 and 24 meters long and are carved out of the large boles of the hopea odorata, heritiera javanica and teak trees. Their elegant tapered sterns, vertical, concave or notched, prows, their former small bulwarks and the plankings of their hulls which are used today with three planks are the most remarkable characteristics of such boats. The origin of the loñ hlè is an avatar for the sea of the pin ko, a river boat. The great ancestors remain the ritual pirogues and those used for races. Each boat possesses its own spirit, nat, situated in the stern of the boat, most often U Shingi. But there are other nats that live on the boat, in other symbolic technically strategic parts, notably in the ribs; other nats (and even sometimes the same ones) are transmitted from one generation to another of the same family; they are the domestic spirits that recall the relation the boat has to the home. Finally, these nats often have a two fold function in the boat and are associated to salted water and fresh water, an ambivalence that reminds one of the Burmese historical and naval evolution.
A symbolic system under construction. The example of Burmese shipsTraditionaly, Burmese do not have got a sea culture, they were involved in rice growing and fresh waters. But the new and recent development of fishing have lead them to new socio-economic relations. After six months fieldwork, J. Ivanoff previous’work can be completed. The identity, the social and technical role of the boat and related myths need to be studied. I present here an hypothesis on a symbolic system under construction which is linked, in the Mergui Archipelago, to man, environment, myths and more generally to supernatural world. The boat, and the nat(s) (spirit) living in it, are considered as the main elements of this system and the main means for the appropriation of the marine and insulary environment.
L'Asie du Sud-Est offre à l'historien un terrain à la fois privilégié et complexe ; on sait qu'en ce carrefour, le « substrat » a largement subi les influences de l'Inde, de la Chine, de l'Islam et de l'Europe et l'on est a priori en droit de se demander si le phénomène urbain n'y porte pas, de façon originale, la marque des diverses cultures qui s'y sont ainsi croisées. Il s'en faut malheureusement que nous disposions déjà des monographies élémentaires qui permettraient de donner à cette question une réponse certaine ; sauf exceptions, les études archéologiques ont principalement porté sur des édifices religieux (hindouistes ou bouddhistes) et, pour la période antérieure à l'arrivée des Européens, l'histoire économique et sociale reste pour ainsi dire à écrire.