Sama-Bajau - The Supernormal Tribe That Can Hold Breath For 13 Minutes 🇵🇭🇲🇾🇮🇩🇧🇳
Have you ever heard about someone who can hold his breath for 13 minutes under 70 meters deep water? Yes. it is true. There are some people who have this extraordinary breath-holding ability. And the name of this tribe is Sama-Bajau.
The name collectively refers to related people who usually call themselves the Sama or Samah; or are known by the exonyms Bajau. They usually refers to several Austronesian ethnic groups of Maritime Southeast Asia with their origins from the southern Philippines.
These people remain immersed in the water for several minutes without any diving equipment (underwater breathing apparatus). These people usually live a seaborne lifestyle and use small wooden sailing vessels such as the perahu, djenging, balutu, lepa, pilang and vinta.
Sama-Bajau have sometimes been called the "Sea Gypsies". The Sama-Bajau tribe people are traditionally from the many islands of the Sulu Archipelago in the Philippines, coastal areas of Mindanao, northern and eastern Borneo, the Celebes, and throughout eastern Indonesian islands.
Some Sama-Bajau groups native to Sabah (Sabah is a state of Malaysia located on the northern portion of Borneo Island) are also known for their traditional horse culture. British administrators in Sabah classified the Sama-Bajau as "Bajau" and labelled them as such in their birth certificates. Thus the Sama-Bajau in Malaysia may sometimes self-identify as "Bajau" or even "Malay" for political reasons.
Total Population 1.1 million worldwide:
- Philippines: 470,000
- Malaysia: 436,000
- Indonesia: 345,000
- Brunei: 12,000
The Bajau have been a nomadic, seafaring people for most of their history. Many Bajau still practice that same lifestyle to this day, which explains why they are still commonly called "sea gypsies." They chart particularly the waters of the Sulu Sea, off the southwestern coast of the Philippines, and the various seas that surround the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, and Brunei Darussalam.
These are among the most dangerous waters in the world with sporadic policing at best and a very high incidence of open piracy. Yet these Bajau claim never to have wielded weapons — preferring to simply flee from potential attack. They come ashore only to bury the deceased and to live temporarily while making new boats.
Of course the seafaring Bajau make their living from fishing. Those who have abandoned that lifestyle have become farmers and cattle rearers, earning them the local nickname, "cowboys of the east." Indeed their equine skills are well known in this part of the world, and are always to be found displayed in Bajau ceremonial events. Still other Bajau live a lifestyle between nomadic and sedentary, housed in villages on the water, but not far from land.
Freediving associated with these people life on the sea appear to have endowed the Bajau with several genetic adaptations to facilitate their lifestyle. After a long research on them, scientists claim that they have this amazing breath-holding ability because of the changes in genes.
The spleens of these people have become quite large with time. A recent study showed that Bajau spleens are about 50 per cent larger than normal people which letting them store more haemoglobin-rich blood, which is expelled into the bloodstream when the spleen contracts at depth, allowing breath-holding dives of longer duration.
The boat-dwelling Sama-Bajau see themselves as non-aggressive people. They kept close to the shore by erecting houses on stilts, and travelled using lepa, handmade boats which many lived in. These people dive in the sea every day in search of food. Usually they go down to 70 meters in the sea without oxygen. At that depth, they can walk or swim for 13 minutes in one breath. These divers spend 60 percent of their daily activities inside the sea.
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