Samal - Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. Sama adaptation is varied, typically combining, with differing local emphasis, fishing, farming, seafaring, and trade. For island and strand communities, fishing is generally a major economic activity. Virtually all locally available fish are exploited, using a wide range of equipment—hand lines, longlines, lures, jigs, fish traps, spears, spear guns, drift nets, and explosives. In addition, shellfish, crustaceans, turtle eggs, sea urchins, and edible algae are collected. The crews formed for drift netting and handline trolling are generally recruited from among the net or boat owner's cluster members. Today nearly all fishing is market-oriented, with catches sold through local vendors, or through wholesalers, most of them Sama, or to carriers for transport to local retail markets. Some fish is sold (either dried or salted) to larger-scale dealers for export to areas outside Sulu and eastern Sabah. Cassava, dry rice, maize, and bananas are the principal food crops, with yams, beans, tomatoes, onions, ginger, sugarcane, and fruit being the main secondary crops. Throughout much of Sulu and eastern Sabah copra constitutes the major cash crop, providing both markets and capital for a variety of other commercial activities such as storekeeping and interisland transport. Copra holdings are small, however, and few families own enough palms to support themselves entirely from copra sales.

Industrial Arts. Historically, different Sama groups have specialized in different lines of trade and craft production. The Laminusa Samal are well known, for example, for their especially fine pandanus mats, while the Sibutu Samal enjoy a reputation as expert boat builders. Other groups specialize in pottery making, which, in Sulu, is entirely a Samal craft. Historically, in most regions, specialization was linked to patterns of intercommunity trade. For example, in the Semporna District of Sabah, the Sama Banaran community traditionally produced kajang matting and gathered boat-caulking resin for local trade with other groups, while Sama Kubang villages specialized in boat building, ironworking, and the manufacture of tortoiseshell combs and ornaments and carved wooden grave markers.

Trade. Trade has long occupied a central place in Sama life. European accounts as early as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries describe Sama communities as being dependent on trade for even basic foodstuffs. Throughout Sulu and eastern Indonesia, sea-oriented groups historically were valued for their navigational skills and as seafarers and suppliers of trepang, dried fish, pearls, pearl shell, and other marine commodities of trade. In addition, specialized Sama groups historically engaged in intercommunity barter, exchanging, for example, fish for kajang matting, cassava, and seasonal fruit. Such trade involved, in some regions, both Sama and non-Sama groups. Today trade in fish, farm produce, fruit, and craft goods is channeled almost entirely through regularly constituted local markets, while copra and, to some degree, dried and salted fish are handled by larger-scale wholesalers. Along the Zamboanga coast, Samal traders historically dominated the external coastwise trade of the Subanun, while in Palawan the Jama Mapun maintained similar relations with swidden cultivating groups inhabiting the interior of the island.

Division of Labor. Both sexes share in agricultural labor; fishing, boat building, and ironworking are primarily male occupations. Both men and women engage in trade, while women weave pandanus mats and make and market pottery.

Land Tenure. Farm and residential land is subject to individual use and/or tenancy rights. Fish-trap and lift-net sites and coral fish corrals may be owned individually; otherwise fishing grounds are available for common exploitation.