Ancient Philippine Boat Re-created to Sail the Malay World... and Africa?

It's good to hear of this news (link below) where Filipino Badjao /Bajau boat-builders have built a sea-worthy replica of the traditional Balangay boat using methods handed down from generation to generation. The Filipinos, like the native Malay of Malaysia, are basically the same ethnic Malayo-Polynesian family as us in Indonesia. These modern nations are just artificial political divisions created by the Colonial Dutch, British and Spanish - curse them all.

Any triumph of the Filipinos, especially of things prior to the colonial interference, is a triumph of Indonesians as well, as we were one region peacefully connecting and trading with each other for millennia until the colonial disruption. The Bajau seafaring people are found in all three Malay-based countries; Philippines south, Malaysia (Sabah) and Indonesia's north-eastern Kalimantan coasts.

The balangay ship may even travel to Madagascar island (once also known as Malagasy Republic) off Africa's east coast. Malaysian researchers have confirmed that the Madagaskars' ancestors came from the Malay Archipelago, quite likely Borneo via Sumatera from the linguistic roots, at least 1000 years ago if not much earlier. They may have even sailed from the Malay world using ships or boats like the Balangay or the Borobudur-inspired outrigger replica 'Samudra Raksa' below, which already made the journey to Africa in 2003-2004.


Why don't we have even more of these historic and anthropological research or efforts from Indonesians themselves, since we are the biggest Malayo-Polynesian country? Even that Borobudur-inspired ship was spearheaded by Westerners, although there were Indonesians involved (including the main ship-builder Pak Assad Abdullah Al-Madani) but not leading the overall project. Sigh, we are too embroiled in our own problems just to survive daily...

Anyway, long live the Balangay, and the Malay!

May we endure like the Borobudur.

Balangay link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31596466/ns/technology_and_science-science/