1Following shortly after a first volume on the Moken: Sea-Gypsies of the Andaman Sea (1997), who migrated from the Malacca Straits in the south to the Mergui Archipelago in the north, this remarkable monograph features the Moken’s identity through the symbolism contained in the structure of their boats. A review of this beautiful book cannot begin without first remarking on the high quality of the many pictures (black-and-white and color) and drawings. More than a mere representation duplicating the text, the iconography strengthens and completes the demonstration; in particular, great care was taken to show gestures. As the case is rare in academic publications, one must stress that this book is as beautiful to look at as it is pleasant and interesting to read.

2It is divided into two major sections. The first concerns more especially boat-building techniques, with detailed descriptions of the monoxylon’s construction – including the cooperative stages of tree felling, hollowing out the hull, and stretching it – and of the three main tools used in the construction of the broadsides and hull: the adze, the gouge-adze, and the modern ax. The second section is an analysis of the boat symbolism and of flotilla grouping, following the rules of exogamy and uroxilocality, the rules of nomadism, according to which the Moken, by choice rather than unfitness or incapacity, do not accumulate; it ends with an analysis of the various souls of the boat and of the rituals accompanying them. The book includes a very useful botanical glossary, with precise identification and use of the plants involved in boat construction (Appendix 2), an English-French lexicon of maritime terms and techniques (Appendix 3), and a glossary of Moken maritime terminology.

4All along his demonstration, Ivanoff links, back and forth, the technical and symbolic dimensions, in a constantly meaningful way. Linguistically and symbolically, the boat reproduces a body: its prow is a mouth that eats the sea and its stern an anus; “The fissures in the bark, which make it possible to see the heart and the soul of the tree, are called nyawa, a term which is used also for the human soul; the veins are called olat, ‘ligaments,’ and so on” (p. 118) ; “the ropes, which enable to control the wind, are the unalterable flux of life,” the reason why the wind is linked to the blood (p. 120). Moreover, “the monoxylon speaks of man’s condition, while the superstructure speaks of social organisation and, consequently, of the differences in age and sex” (p. 68): Chapter 7 is entitled “To have a boat is to have a woman,” after a vernacular expression.

5The structural tie between the material and the symbolic dimensions is expressed by constant reference to myths, partly the settled Moklen’s myth of Sampan, but mainly the Moken’s myth of Gaman: “If it cuts into the bark it will enter my body and break my bones,” says Kèn (p. 31) ; the traditional “plus one,” po, is understood as Kèn’s request for the sake of the beauty of the boat’s measurements; the ingenious mo broadsides recall “the judgement made by Sibian when she condemned her sister Kèn to be immersed, lemo kèn” (p. 53); again, it was Gaman who allocated specific places to the boat equipment on the deck (p. 75). (Long extracts from the epic poem of Gaman are given in Appendix 1.) The myths refer to foreign contacts, last of which was with the Burmese; undoubtedly, the name of “the tyrannical Prince Pugam [who] took Gaman and the Moken to Thailand and then brought them back to Burma” (p. 54) is derived from the old Burmese kingdom of Pagan (9th-14th c. A.D.), which extended far to the south (Puga is the transliteration form of Pagan).

8For particular sociological reasons clearly explained by the author, it appears that the symbolic prevails on the technical. Those among the Moken who do not perpetuate the primordial symbolic dimension of the various parts of their boats, even if these become technically useless, forsake their ethnic identity: “The Moken who remain in the Phuket area have themselves destroyed their culture, and the Burmese Moken, by filling in the holes of their boats and destroying their notches, have ­committed cultural suicide,” Ivanoff concludes (p. 135).

9Considering these various aspects of symbolic technology, he points out in a final and brilliant demonstration three levels of analysis by which the kabang grants access to an understanding of Moken society viewed as a whole: “a) the monoxylon, symbol of the human body and the physical reflection of the mythical epic poem; b) the level of daily: the deck with its kitchen, diving gear, spears, water jars, and so on; c) the historical level: the carved poles on the deck, which remain of the Malay past” (p. 126).

11Finally, let us hope that, like the three carved masts on the kabang, which symbolize a couple of Malay guardian spirits and their daughter, Ivanoff’s two books are heralding a third volume of the same quality, to complete a comparative triptych on the sea-nomad societies of Southeast Asia.