Tausūg people
The Tausūg (Tausug: Tau Sūg), are an ethnic group of the Philippines and Malaysia. A small population can also be found in the northern part of North Kalimantan, Indonesia. The Tausūg are part of the wider political identity of Muslim Filipinos of western Mindanao, the Sulu archipelago, and southern Palawan, collectively referred to as the Moro people. The Tausugs originally had an independent state known as the Sultanate of Sulu, which once exercised sovereignty over the present day provinces of Basilan, Palawan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Zamboanga City, North Kalimantan and the eastern part of Sabah (formerly North Borneo). They are also known in the Malay language as Suluk.
Etymology[edit]
"Tausug" (Tausug: Tau Sūg) means "the people of the current", from the word tau which means "man" or "people" and sūg (alternatively spelled sulug) which means "[sea] currents",[3] referring to their homelands in the Sulu Archipelago. Sūg and sulug both mean the same thing, with the former being the phonetic evolution in Sulu of the latter (the L being dropped and thus the two short U's merging into one long U). The Tausūg in Sabah refer to themselves as Tausūg but are called "Suluk" (the final "k" in Malay is a glottal stop) in official government records in Sabah.
History[edit]
Pre-Islamic era[edit]
During the 13th century, the Tausug people began migrating to present-day Zamboanga and the Sulu archipelago from their homelands in northeastern Mindanao. William Scott (1994) calls the Tausugs the descendants of the ancient Butuanons and Surigaonons from the Rajahnate of Butuan, who moved south and established a spice trading port in Sulu. Sultan Batarah Shah Tengah, who ruled in 1600, was said to have been an native of Butuan.[4] The Butuanon-Surigaonon origin of the Tausugs is suggested by the relationship of their languages, as the Butuanon, Surigaonon and Tausug languages are all grouped under the Southern Visayan sub-family. Consequently, the Tausug language is closely related to other Southern Bisayan languages like the Butuanon language, which is still spoken in northeastern Mindanao to this day.[5]
Prior to the establishment of the sultanate, the Tausug lived in communities called banwa. Each banwa was headed by a leader known as a panglima along with a shaman called a mangungubat. The shaman could be either a man or a woman. Each banwa was considered an independent state, like other city-states in Asia. The Tausug of the era had trade relations with neighboring Tausug banwas, the Yakan people of Basilan, and the nomadic Sama-Bajau.
The Tausug were Islamized in the 14th century and established the sultanate of Sulu in the 15th century,[6][7] and eventually dominated the local Sama-Bajau people of the Sulu archipelago,
Traditional political structure[edit]
The political structure of the Tausug is affected by the two economic divisions in the ethnic group, mainly parianon (people of the landing) and guimbahanon (hill people). Before the establishment of the sultanate of Sulu, the indigenous pre-Islamic Tausug were organized into various independent communities or community-states called banwa. When Islam arrived and the sultanate was established, the banwa was divided into districts administered by a panglima (mayor). The panglima are under the sultan (king). The people who held the stability of the community along with the sultan and the panglimas are the ruma bichura (state council advisers), datu raja muda (crown prince), datu maharaja adensuk (palace commander), datu ladladja laut (admiral), datu maharaja layla (commissioner of customs), datu amir bahar (speaker of the ruma bichara), datu tumagong (executive secretary), datu juhan (secretary of information), datu muluk bandarasa (secretary of commerce), datu sawajaan (secretary of interior), datu bandahala (secretary of finance), mamaneho (inspector general), datu sakandal (sultan's personal envoy), datu nay (ordinance or weapon commander), wazil (prime minister). A mangungubat (curer) also has special status in the community as they are believed to have direct contact with the spiritual realm.
The community's people is divided into three classes, which are the nobility (the sultan's family and court), commoners (the free people), and the slaves (war captives, sold into slavery, or children of slaves).[65]