Seafarers can refer to ethnic groups living by the sea in Southeast Asia, and also other sea-living ethnic groups in the world. The ethnic group name refers to a large distribution area, reaching from the islands of Indonesia to Burma. This group is sometimes known as Sea Gypsies.
In the South China Sea area, the ethnic group name is called as Orang Laut, which literally means "the sea people" in Malay. These malay peoples of Southeast Asia trace their forbears to Yunnan (now a province of China) some 5000–10000 years ago. They were seafarers that migrated along rivers such as Mekong and Irrawady to the Andaman Sea, South China Sea and various locations in the Malay archipelago. In the 15th century, large numbers of Malay Seafarers converted to Islam.
Along the west coast of Thailand and Burma, the ethnic group is referred as the Moken. Their knowledge of the sea enables them to live off its organisms by using simple tools such as nets and spears to forage for food. What is not consumed is dried atop their boats, then used for trade at local markets for other necessities. During the monsoon season, they build additional boats while occupying temporary huts. Many of the Burmese Moken are still nomadic people who roam the sea most of their lives in small hand-crafted wooden boats called Kabang, which serve not just as transportation, but also as kitchen, bedroom, living area. Much of their traditional life, built on the premise of life as outsiders, is under threat and appears to be diminishing. The Sea Gypsies are a minority group that number only a few tens of thousands in Andaman Sea and Thailand. They maintain a nomadic sea-based culture and live almost entirely on boats and practice shamanic rites.
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an American expatriate poet, critic and a major figure of the early modernist movement. His contribution to poetry began with his promotion of Imagism, a movement that derived its technique from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity, precision and economy of language. His best-known works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his unfinished 120-section epic, The Cantos (1917–1969).
Working in London in the early 20th century as foreign editor of several American literary magazines, Pound helped to discover and shape the work of contemporaries such as T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Robert Frost, and Ernest Hemingway. He was responsible for the publication in 1915 of Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and for the serialization from 1918 of Joyce's Ulysses. Hemingway wrote of him in 1925: "He defends [his friends] when they are attacked, he gets them into magazines and out of jail. ... He writes articles about them. He introduces them to wealthy women. He gets publishers to take their books. He sits up all night with them when they claim to be dying ... he advances them hospital expenses and dissuades them from suicide."
I tasted salt air when I saw the Seafarer,
He came from nowhere,
I tried hard not to stare,
And into the night air he laid my heart bare.
I felt the warm sand under my cold hands,
And seeped in his sun tan,
It wasn’t what I had planned.
‘Cause he has the heart of a good man,
A heart I don’t understand but I’m gonna learn about
I want to keep this man; I want to sing about it,
I want to call his name; I want to swim into it.
Please, let him have me,
For all that I’m worth and all that I know.
Please, let him have me,
For all that I’m worth, he’s at the centre of my earth.
I tasted salt air when I kissed the Seafarer,
And into his arms deeper,
I fell from old keepers.
And under the warm sand I buried my cold hands,
And into the sea I swam,
Leaving those old plans.
‘Cause he has the heart of a good man,
A heart I don’t understand, but I’m gonna learn about
I want to keep this man; I want to sing about it,
I want to call his name; I want to swim into it.
Please, let him have me,
For all that I’m worth and all that I know.
Please, let him have me,
bap-ba-bap-pab-ba (x4)
oo-woah-oh
It was a summer day,
When you took my cares away
When you whispered to me,
And it was so sweet,
She can blow us off track, so marry me,
You found the weathered boat,
Ocean baby you would know,
When you feel the bow cutting through the waves
No other motion can pass the day
Seafarer look what you've done
Got me chasing after the sun
I've left my home and friends behind
You've driven me clean out of my mind
Don't tell me when you've set sail
You'd face a number if you could scale
I know I never learned to set the oar
Nothing left for me back on shore
Will you call on me when you're living on the sea?
Will you call on me when your living on the-
Oh-oo-oo-oh-oo-oo-ohoh-o (x2)
Seafarer I must love you,
Why else would I follow you
I've left my home and friends behind
You've driven me clean out of my mind
Seafarer, oh-o-oh, you and I belong together
Seafarer, oh-o-oh, you and I belong oh-o-o-oh-woah
Seafarer, oh-o-oh, you and I belong together
Never safe from a tormented heart.
Battered by the crushing waves.
To All-Father, I pledge my sword of war.
To thee, I have sworn to slay all that be.
I will slay all that will be.
On a voyage to outlands, glory beyond the waves.
With hammers high we'll blast and hail the North.
Leaving homeward shores behind.
To horizons abound, our sails filled with Northern breeze.
On longships we will cut across the sea.
Never fearing death or the power of storms.
Granted safe passage by the blessings of Njord:
"No harm shall find you on your voyage across my seas".
Lands divide beneath the ocean's tide.
To reveal a fate much like my own...
Dragons of the North will cross the sea.
Upon oak and winds we ride.
Distant lands now in sight.
Mountain tops, forests of green.
Day and night, unknown perils fly.
Silent is a North man's calm.
To horizons abound. Our faith is solid and true.
"I will carry you to great wealth and fame,"
Promised great bounty by the blessings of Njord.
"Vast wealth awaits you in the land across my seas."
Wind fills the sail, oars pound the water.
Under sun and rain's flight, glory and fame.
A rewarding horizon, time will proclaim.
Lands divide beneath the ocean's tide.
To reveal a fate much like my own...
Lands divide beneath the ocean's tide.
To reveal a fate much like my own...
To All-Father, I pledged my sword of war.
To thee, I had sworn to slay all that be.
I will slay all that will be.
To claim promised glory.
Bring these shores misery.
Hammers high we blast and hail the North.
To honor the warlord's sign.