The
Orang Laut, or
Bajau Laut are a group of
Malay people living in the
Riau Islands of
Indonesia. Broadly speaking, the term encompasses the numerous tribes and groups inhabiting the islands and estuaries in the Riau-Lingga Archipelagos, the Pulau Tujuh Islands, the
Batam Archipelago, and the coasts and offshore islands of eastern Sumatra and southern Malay Peninsula.
The
Malay term
orang laut literally means the sea people. The Orang laut live and travel in their boats on the sea. Other Malay terms for the orang laut were
Lanun,
Celates or
Orang Selat (literally 'Straits People').
Historically, the
orang laut were principally pirates but they also played important roles in
Srivijaya, the
Sultanate of Malacca, and the
Sultanate of Johor. They patrolled the adjacent sea areas, repelling real pirates, directing traders to their employers' ports and maintaining those ports' dominance in the area. Eda Green wrote in 1909, "
The Lanuns, supposed to have come from the Philippines, are Mohammedans and are dying out; they were one of the most aggressive tribes in their wild piracy, raiding not only the coasts, but stealing away the children of the Dusuns and Ida'an."
In the story "
The Disturber of Traffic" by
Rudyard Kipling, a character called Fenwick misrenders the Orang laut as "Orange-Lord" and the narrator character corrects him that they are the "Orang-Laut".
See also
