We are not saying that these kids will become Aquamen, but there is definitely a common theme here: they are very adept at going underwater and seeing as clearly as if they were on the surface.
The Moken are a tribe native to the archipelago of Mergui, south of Myanmar and along the east coast of Thailand, who claim their children learn to swim before they start to walk. This close relationship to the water is also what makes them one of the last nomad people on the planet, and although they are a nation, they don’t have a set territory, and just like the Roma in Europe, they are constantly persecuted by the governments of the countries where they live, in this case, Myanmar and Thailand.
Photo: Alamy / BBC.
The Moken’s territory issues worsened after the 2004 tsunami that hit the coastal line of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, among other countries. Although there were 275,000 dead as a consequence of the waves and flooding, only one person from the tribe died -someone who was bedridden- all thanks to their millenary wisdom and close relationship with the sea.
“The Moken live in close contact with nature. Their lives depend on and revolve around water, and thus, they have developed an acute instinct to read its signs and warnings. They have plenty of knowledge that we can learn from.”
Photo: Cat Vinton / The Guardian
Their knowledge helped them know when to go to elevated terrain and even help those who were trapped in the mud after the tsunami hit. However, they became trapped inland. Several humanitarian aid groups and the authorities in Thailand began searching for a site where they could establish themselves permanently, but those who could not give proof of their nationality became trapped and were forbidden to leave Thailand.
They became then prisoners because, if they tried to return to their home, in the sea, they would lose all help, and their host countries also criminalized their millenary fishing tradition.
Photo: Alamy / BBC.
From then on, their lifestyle changed completely: they also face bans on wood-cutting activities and, therefore, cannot rebuild their boats —kabang—, traditionally made with bamboo and rakam, a type of tree whose wood swells as soon as it touches the water. This, in turn, has caused the lost of ancient knowledge of how to work with this wood and build the boats.
However, there is one specific ability that has survived all of these changes: the children and young people of the tribe are so used to swimming that they can see underwater with ease, and they can also be underwater and hold their breath for longer than anyone else.
Photo: Alamy. / BBC
This characteristic has been noted by biologist Anna Gislen, who, after visiting the area, noticed how Moken kids could swim with their eyes wide open and retrieve mollusks and small seashells from the bottom. To test this ability, she devised an experiment in which they set an object with lines of different width -the deeper, the thinner, and thus, harder to spot. Much to the researcher’s surprise, the Moken kids could easily spot the lines, while the control group -European kids who were on vacation- had issues to spot them at first, but over time, began to develop this same ability and visual acuity.
The Moken’s ability to see underwater has to do with the fact that they can constrict their pupil size to the maximum known for a human eye. Plus, they also have the ability to move the crystalline -the inner eye lens that allows the human eye to focus near objects.
Photo: Sofie Olsen / The Guardian
“We had to do some math calculations in order to figure out how much their crystalline was adjusting to allow them to see as far as they were seeing. Usually, when you are underwater, it all looks blurry, so the eye won’t even try to adjust; it’s not a normal reflex. But the Moken kids are able to do both —they can contract their pupils and also adjust the crystalline. This is something similar to an adaptation seen in seals and dolphins,” Gislen said in an interview with the BBC.
Gislen could not replicate her experiment with older Moken because they were shy and wouldn’t willingly participate, but judging from their lifestyle and our knowledge of human anatomy, she estimates that adults lose these abilities because, as we get older, the crystalline loses its flexibility, and this would explain the fact that adult Moken hunt on the surface or fish without going underwater. Still, she believes that they retain better abilities to see underwater than most humans.
Recently, the circumstances and the government’s positions have led to radical changes in the lives of the Moken, and thus, some of their old teachings, stories, and myths, as well as some of their abilities, are being forgotten.
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