Bisaya (Borneo)

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Bisaya People
Orang Bisaya
Bisaya Beaufort.jpg
Sabah Bisaya traditional costume
Total population
c. 140,000
Regions with significant populations
Flag of Brunei.svg  Brunei: 45,000 [1]

Flag of Malaysia.svg  Malaysia
Flag of Sarawak.svg  Sarawak: 7,000 (1984) [2]
Flag of Sabah.svg  Sabah: 74,000 [3]

Flag of the United States.svg  United States: 14,000 [4]
Languages
Sabah Bisaya, Brunei Bisaya, Sabah Malay, Sarawak Malay, Brunei Malay, Standard Malay, English
Religion
Majority Islam (Sabah and Brunei) and significant minorities of Christianity and Animism (Sarawak)
Related ethnic groups
Lotud, Dusuns, Murut, Lun Bawang/Lundayeh, Kadazan-Dusun, Dayaks, Other Indigenous peoples of Brunei

The Bisaya are a group of indigenous people from the northwest coast of East Malaysia, on the island of Borneo. Their populations are concentrated around the towns of Beaufort and Kuala Penyu in southern Sabah (where they are included under the Kadazan-Dusun group of peoples), Labuan Federal Territory, and in Limbang District of Sarawak (in which they are grouped under the Orang Ulu designation). The Bisaya tribe bears many similarities to the Tatana Dusun tribe, especially in terms of language, as there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the two groups. Nowadays, most Bisaya in Sabah are Muslim, while those living in Sarawak are mostly Christians. In Brunei, they are referred to as Dusun, Jati Dusun, and Bisaya. [5]

Contents

Origin and etymology

Several theories have been put forward by various researchers regarding the origins of the name of the Bisaya people. H. Otley Beyer in 1926, Hester E.D. in 1954, and Harrison in 1956 suggested that the name may have come from the Sumatran empire of Srivijaya (Sonza, 1972). However, in 1960, Eugene Vestraelen (professor of linguistics at the University of San Carlos, Cebu City, Philippines) cautioned that the linguistic derivation of Vijaya would not be Bisaya but Bidaya, or Biraya. [6]

Another theory was suggested by John Carroll: [7]

According to John Carroll (1961:499–541), the term Visaya might be the Sanskrit Vaisya, denoting the 3rd caste of the Hindu caste system. The Philippines Bisaya were first referred to by the general term Pintados ("the painted ones") by the Spanish, in reference to the prominent practice of full-body tattooing (batok). The word Bisaya, on the other hand, was first documented in Spanish sources in reference to the non-Ati inhabitants of the island of Panay.

John Carroll, The word Bisaya in the Philippines and Borneo, Sarawak Museum Journal, 1960

Culture and practices

Agriculture and hunting

Restored traditional Bisaya house in the Heritage Village of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah Bisaya House.JPG
Restored traditional Bisaya house in the Heritage Village of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

The Bisaya people are skilled in agriculture, particularly in the areas of paddy planting, ginger, sago, ginger, tapioca, banana, yam, pepper, and coconut. They also hunt animals and breed others, such as chicken, ducks, geese, goats, buffalo, and cows. They also catch fish, either from the river or the sea.

Language

The Bisaya language of Sabah shares 90% intelligibility with Tatana, a Dusun dialect. It also has 58% lexical similarity to Sarawak dialects of Bisaya and 57%–59% with the Brunei dialect. [8]

Music

Traditional Bisaya musical instruments include the kulintang as well as various gongs.

Weapons

Bisayas weapons include the sumpit, parang, and keris.

Beliefs

The majority of Bisaya in Sabah are Muslims, while those in Sarawak are mostly Christians. [9]

Festivals

Babulang

The annual Babulang festival includes music, dance, the wearing of traditional costumes, and water buffalo races.

Notable people

See also

References

  1. "Tutong, Bisayan in Brunei". Joshua Project . Retrieved 25 August 2015.
  2. Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. SIL International. ISBN   1-55671-159-X.
  3. Project, Joshua. "Bisaya, Sabah Bisaya in Malaysia". Joshua Project . Retrieved 25 August 2015.
  4. "Bisaya, Sabah Bisaya in United States". Joshua Project . Retrieved 25 August 2015.
  5. Ooi, Keat Gin (2004). Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor. ABC-CLIO. p. 272. ISBN   978-1-57607-770-2.
  6. Verstraelen, Eugene; Trosdal, Mimi (1974). "Lexical Studies on the Cebuano Language". Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society. 2 (4): 231–237. ISSN   0115-0243. JSTOR   29791163.
  7. Rausa-Gomez, Lourdes (1967). "Sri Vijaya and Madjapahit". Philippine Studies. 15 (1): 63–107. ISSN   0031-7837. JSTOR   42720174.
  8. Ethnologue (ed.). "Bisaya, Sabah" . Retrieved 2 July 2012.
  9. Viray, Bryan Levina; Rann, Shanny (2022). "Troubling the Training: A Reflexive Dialogue on Decolonizing Performance Pedagogies in the Philippines and Malaysia". Global Performance Studies. 5 (1–2). doi: 10.33303/gpsv5n1-2a113 . ISSN   2574-027X.

Further reading