The Bajau or Bajaw , also spelled Bajao, Badjau, Badjaw, or Badjao, are an indigenous ethnic group of Maritime Southeast Asia. Due to escalated conflicts in their native Sulu Archipelago, and discrimination in the Philippines with regards to education and employment, most of the Bajau have migrated to neighboring Malaysia over the course of 50 years. Currently they are the second largest ethnic group in the state of Sabah, making up 13.4% of the total population. Groups of Bajau have also migrated to Sulawesi and Kalimantan in Indonesia, although figures of their exact population are unknown. They were sometimes referred to as the Sea Gypsies, although the term has been used to encompass a number of non-related ethnic groups with similar traditional lifestyles, such as the Moken of the Burmese-Thai Mergui Archipelago and the Orang Laut of southeastern Sumatra and the Riau Islands of Indonesia. The modern outward spread of the Bajau from older inhabited areas seems to have been associated with the development of sea trade in trepang.
The Badjao are popularly known as "Sea Gypsies" of the Sulu and Celebes Sea. The name "Badjao" is a Malay-Bornean word which connotes "man of the seas" or Orang-Laut in Bahasa Malayo. Their Sama and Tausug neighbors call them by pejorative names such as Samal Palau (outcast Samal). The badjao call themselves as Samal Laus (Sea Sama). Many badjaos live most of their lives in houseboats, which occasionally cluster in moorings near certain strands and beaches, so as to do business in nearby market places of the land-dwelling Sama and Tausug. In the markets they barter their sea products for such farm produce as fruits and cassava. On the shore they also fetch drinking water, gather firewood and gather materials needed in the construction and repair of their houseboats.
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