Thus The Guardian today. “Ten years after Indian Ocean tsunami, Thailand’s indigenous sea gypsies are facing a new threat to their way of life—tourism,” elaborates the newspaper. The tsunami came to Mo Ku Surin, a small group of isolated islands that form a national park in southern Thailand, on Sunday morning, December 26, 2004. The Mokun tribe who live on Surin remember it very well. There was no wind and the sea was calm. Hermit crabs were moving to the forest while dolphins headed for the deeper sea. And then some of the tribesmen saw the white crest of a huge wave approaching. At first they thought it was a ship, but then they hurried to the village, a cluster of stilted huts, to consult the elders. Many of them evacuated at once. The tribe’s chief, Salama, was shouting warnings left and right: “This is laboon, an ancient thing that has swallowed whole islands before!” He faced the sea. His sister, Misia, the tribe’s last shaman, was stripped naked by the first wave as she clung to a tree. Knowledge of the laboon, or “seventh wave,” was passed down for thousands of years through many generations of the Moken. All together, they ran for higher ground. Although close to a quarter of a million people perished by the tsunami, it was a relatively small event for the Moken. They all survived. Now there are about four-thousand of them in Thailand and Burma. They are famous for foraging and freediving. In exchange for fish, they get rice. Brought to fame as survivors of the tsunami, they are now facing growing interest by journalists and tourists. Salama has become a star. All of their current problems have to do with their sudden fame. But the end of the article grabbed my heart. Apparently, young Moken people have learned a great deal from the tsunami. The superiority of literate over oral cultures is now questioned. The elders’ knowledge has saved them, for the seventh wave was the real killer.