Bisaya

This article is about the Bisaya peoples of the Philippines. For the Bisaya peoples of Borneo, please see Bisaya (Borneo). There is also a popular Cebuano magazine named Bisaya.

Bisaya or Visayans
Total population	40 million (est.)
Regions with significant populations	Philippines: Kabisay-an Mindanao; Metro Manila; Masbate, Mindoro, Palawan, Rizal, Romblon, Sorsogon ----- United States ----- Elsewhere</br>
Language	Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a, Waray, other Visayan languages, Tagalog, Filipino, English
Religion	Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, others <tr> <th style="background-color:#fee8ab;">Related ethnic groups</th><td style="background-color:#fff6d9;">Bicolano, Tagalog, Tausug, other Filipino peoples, other Austronesian peoples</td> </tr>

The Bisaya or Visayan people is an ethnic group from the Philippines. They primarily live in the Visayas and northeastern Mindanao but others have migrated elsewhere in the Philippines, including Manila. Several linguistic groups in the Philippines are primarily of Bisaya descent. The largest of these groups are the speakers of Cebuano, Illongo and Waray-Waray. These languages, which many times are mistakenly referred to as dialects, are all classified as Austronesian, although they are all mutually unintelligible. More than 40% of Filipinos have Visayan ancestry. When understood in terms of ancestry, the Bisaya is generally considered to be part of the Malay race.^[1]

Background

Visayans commonly identify themselves based on language or ancestry. For instance, a Cebuano of Chinese or Spanish ancestry may call himself Bisaya because his mother tongue, Cebuano, is a Visayan language. Others base their Visayan identity on their ancestry; a Manileña of Visayan parentage, for instance, may identify herself as Bisaya in spite of not speaking any of the Visayan languages. Ancestry could also be seen as the basis for having several Visayan languages. From this point of view, one is not a Bisaya because the language one speaks is Binisiya. It is the other way around; the language one speaks is Binisaya because one is Bisaya. Thus, several ethnolinguistic groups can equally claim that their language is Binisaya since they are all equally Bisaya.

Society

Language

Main article: Visayan languages

Kabisay-an

The Bisaya all refer to their respective languages as Binisaya (see Visayan languages). Binisaya literally means "the way of the Bisaya" and is used to refer to bisaya-style cooking and indigenous herbal medicine, aside from the languages. There is some confusion to the usage and meaning of Bisaya and Binisaya. This probably stems from the inadequacy of English and Tagalog, the two languages with official status in the Philippines, to translate Bisaya and Binisaya accurately. Bisaya and Binisaya are both translated as "Visayan" in English and "Bisaya" in Tagalog.

The table below lists the Philippine languages classified as Bisayan by the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Although all of them belong to the same language family of Bisayan, not all speakers identify themselves as Bisaya. The Tausug for instance, only use Bisaya to refer to Christian Visayans.

Kabisay-an (The Visayas)

Main article: Visayas

Map of the Philippines showing the geopolitical Visayas, Luzon, and Mindanao

Kabisay-an refers both to the Bisaya people collectively and the lands occupied by them. The English translation, Visayas, is used only to refer to the latter. From a geopolitical standpoint, the Philippine region of the Visayas is comprised of the following islands: Panay, Romblon, Guimaras, Negros, Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor, Leyte, Biliran and Samar.

History

Pre-Hispanic Era

The most popular legend on the origins of the Bisaya is the migration of the Ten Bornean Datus to Panay. This legend corroborates the theory that the Bisaya migrated from the lands which are now called Malaysia and Indonesia. The legend of the Ten Bornean Datus, has been doubted by recent scholarship due to the migration theory placing the origins of Austronesian Filipinos, including the Bisaya, in Taiwan. However, it is unknown whether there was inter-island migrations within the Malay Archipelago.

Some scholars have proposed that the identity of the Bisaya has roots in an ancient political unity—that of the Srivijaya empire, a thalassocracy which came to power in the coastal areas of Southeast Asia between the 5th and 15th centuries AD. Many scholars however question this theory due to the scarcity of historical records and archaeological evidence.

Muslim traders brought Islam to Southeast Asia in the 12th century. By the 14th century, Islam had rapidly made inroads in the Visayas. There have also been economic ties between Visayans and the Chinese since the 9th century.

Hispanic Era

Blessed Pedro Calungsod

The Bisaya first encountered Western Civilization when Magellan reached Samar in March 16, 1521. The Visayas eventually became part of the Spanish colony of the Philippines, and from then onwards, the history of the Bisaya is intertwined with the history the Philippines. With the four centuries of contact with Spain, Mexico and the United States, a common low-land Christian Filipino culture emerged. The Bisaya share this culture with the Ilocanos, Kapangpangans, Tagalogs, and Bicolanos. These ethnolinguistic groups form the bulk of the Filipino nation, and have embraced Democracy, Christianity, western ways of dressing and education, and Spanish and English as a secondary languages.

The 16th century also marks beginning of the Christianization of the Visayans, with the baptism of Rajah Humabon and 800 Cebuanos. The Christianization of the Visayans, and Filipinos in general, is commemorated by the Sinulog mardi gras and the feast of the Sto. Niño, the brown-skinned depiction of the Child Jesus given by Magellan to Rajah Humabon’s wife, Queen Juana. By the 17th century, Visayans already took part in evangelical missions; in 1672, Blessed Pedro Calungsod, a teenage Bisaya catechist, was martyred in Guam during a mission to catechize the Chamorros.

The Philippine Revolution and American Period

Some prominent characters of the Philippine Revolution in the late 19th century are Visayans. Among leaders of the Propaganda Movement is Graciano Lopez-Jaena, the Ilonggo who established La Solidaridad. A Cebuano from Negros Oriental, Pantaleon Villegas, under the nom de guerre of Leon Kilat, led the Cebuano chapter of the Katipunan in the battle of Tres de Abril. One of Leon Kilat’s successors, Arcadio Maxilom, is a prominent general in the Philippine-American War in Cebu. Prior to the Philippine Revolution, the most popular battles between Visayans and Spaniards are those of Lapu-lapu, the datu of Mactan who killed Magellan in 1521; Juan Ponce Sumuroy, the Waray who led a revolt in Samar in 1649; and Francisco Dagohoy, the Bol-anon who led an 85-year revolt in the island of Bohol which began in 1744.

Post-Philippine Independence

There have been three Philippine Presidents from the Visayas: the Cebuano Sergio Osmeña (1878—1961); the Ilonggo Manuel Roxas and the Bolhano Carlos P. Garcia (1896—1961).

Throughout the centuries, many Chinese and Spaniards have migrated to major Visayan cities like Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, Davao, Dumaguete, Iloilo and Ormoc. Many of them have intermarried with Visayans and their descendants have taken-on Binisaya as their primary language (see Chinese Filipino and mestiso). Many high-land Negritos have also been assimilated into mainstream Bisaya society.

Migrations

There has also been a lot of migrations of Visayans to other parts of the Philippines and abroad. A large part of Mindanao is now populated by Visayans (In the pre-Christian era, Visayans were concentrated in Northern Mindanao. Most of Mindanao, outside of Muslim territory, was then scarcely inhabited). In Manila, a large percentage of the population is of Bisaya ancestry. The Visayans have also followed the pattern of migration of Filipinos abroad; many have migrated to the United States since the early 1900’s, and a lot are working as contract workers in the Middle East and as seamen aboard transoceanic vessels.

Notes

See also

• Binisaya or Visayan languages
• Bisaya, a genus of beetles
• The Bisaya, a tribe of people living in Brunei and Sarawak.

External links

• Volunteer for the Visayans is a non-profit organization seeking to uplift the condition of the Bisaya or Visayans

• Lunsayng Binisaya. Dali atong sulayan!

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