Sama (Samal) Tribe of the Sulu Archipelago: History,

Culture and Arts, Customs and Traditions [Mindanao

Indigenous People | Philippines Ethnic Group
 The Sama, also called Samal or Isama, is one of three ethnic groups in the Sulu
Archipelago, the others being the Yakan and the Tausug. The etymological origin of the
word is not yet clear, although one conjecture is that “Sama” may have derived from the
word sama-sama, meaning “togetherness.”
 The language of the Sama is Siama or Sinama, also called Bahasa Sama, Bisla Sinama,
and Pamong Sinama. Other groups speaking the Sinama language or variations thereof
are the Sama Dilaut, also known as Badjao, the Jama Mapun (West Sama) of Cagayan
island, the Yakan, and the Balangingi of the Samales Island group.

The Livelihood of the People of the Sama

The most important occupation among most Sama groups is fishing. At the same
time, shell and seaweed gathering for the international market has become a primary
occupation for some communities

 Traditional sea products that are still gathered are pearls, mother of pearl, tripang,
seashells, and tortoise shell. Besides cassava, which is their staple food, tenant and small
landowning farmers produce rice, coconut, and hemp.
 Some women in communities far from central markets have resorted to retail trading of
dry goods in makeshift stalls. Otherwise, Sama retailers concentrate on the fish market.
Other occupations are logging, hunting, small entrepreneurship, and private or
government employment.
 Some Sama communities have become identified with their particular economic
activities. For example, the Sama Simunul are known for buras (rattan mat with painted
designs) and pottery making; the Sama Sibutu, for boat building and wood carving; the
Sama Balimbing, for drying food and sea products; the Sama Tapul, for producing atis
(sugar apple) and mandarin oranges; the Sama Laminusa, for tepo (pandanus mats)
weaving, bag making, and pearl diving; and the Sama Manubul, for fishing.
 Sama farmers consult the constellations when they are planting crops. The appearance of
saloka (the coconut constellation) marks the season for planting coconuts. The
appearance of batik, which represents a spear trap used in hunting wild pigs, indicates
when it is time to set the dates for clearing the fields for kaingin farming.
Sama Tribe Culture, Customs and Traditions

 Traditionally, the Sama social structure had three classes: the barbangsa (aristocracy),
which was subdivided into the kasalipan and kadatuan;
 the mahardika (free people); and the
 Ipun (slaves).
 Vestiges of this structure remain in the present system, which consists of two classes—
the elite minority and the lower-class majority. The elite’s sources of wealth are the
following: inheritance of the property of the traditional ruling class, trade with north
Borneo, and education as a means of entry into a profession. The last two factors allow
for some social mobility.
 The mataan (nuclear family) usually lives initially with the husband’s family as a
dependent unit, especially if the couple are young.
 A couple that lives as a separate unit builds a home near the family of the wife or the
husband.
 Most celebrations such as the pag-gunting and weddings have a maligai as the
centerpiece. This is a small replica of a wooden house, with its roof made of native cakes
into which The magdanakan is a household consisting of more than one mataan.
 Pag-islam (male circumcision) is done between ages seven and 10, and as the term
suggests, signals the boy’s entry into the Muslim fold.
 Courtship may be enhanced by the parkata-an manusiyah, which is a boy or girl’s ilmuh
to win the loved one’s attention. A girl, however, can counteract the power of the boy’s
ilmuh with a habay, a piece of white cloth on which verses are written. This is wrapped in
black cloth and worn like a belt. Its power is strengthened if it is exposed to incense
smoke on an early Friday evening.
 A young couple’s marriage plans are made with the parents’ consent, but other relatives
are involved as well. The boy’s relatives, bringing along some food, make the first visit to
ask for the girl’s hand formally. Each family chooses a spokesperson skilled in
negotiating for the aheka or ungsug.

Sama Tribe Religious Beliefs and Practices

 The Sama’s belief system has been described as folk Islam because it is a combination of
Islamic and folk beliefs. Like other Muslims, they believe in the Five Pillars of Faith,
celebrate Islamic holy days, and congregate at designated times of the year to listen to the
khutba (imam’s sermon).
 They also believe that the world is divided into Dar-al-Islam (Muslim territory) and Dar-
al-Harb (non-Muslim territory), and that if Dar-al-Islam is invaded, every Muslim is
obliged to defend it, to the extent of waging jihad (holy war).
 They also do, ramadan - a month-long period of fasting, when Muslims abstain from
eating, drinking, and any other form of pleasure from sunrise to sunset.

Sama Tribe Traditional Houses and Community

 A Sama kinship group of 100 to 500 members lives in a cluster of houses, usually
standing on wooden pilings on the seashore. Each group is affiliated with the nearest
mosque. This Sama community may be located within a larger non-Sama town.
 The space below the house serves not only as a shelter for the boat and fishing
paraphernalia but also as the bathroom and laundry room. Nipa and corrugated iron are
used as roofing material. Rainwater from the roof is collected because it is the Sama’s
main drinking water. Wood for walls, floors, and planks, which used to be hand-cut by
the Sama from local trees, are now bought from stores.

Wood Carving Tradition of the Sama People

 The dominant art form in the Sulu Archipelago is called ukkil, which may mean the act
of carving wood or the design which characterizes the people’s textile, wood carvings,
mats, and metal engraving. The ukkil design is a “curvilinear design which combines
stylized scroll, leaf, and vine elements in a seemingly in

finite range of abstract variations”

 The Sama are best known for their ukkil designs on their tepo, buras, and sunduk (grave
markers), the pako rabong being the favorite motif.
 The Sama generally prefer to make realistic, rather than stylized or abstract, designs. In
spite of the extensive use of these motifs, each work is unique, for Sama artists create
variations.
 Ukkil carving is done on the wooden handles of knives. The gayang’s handle is
cylindrical with cord wrapping.
 “densely carved with fish, frogs, dogs, and goats, often in the act of swallowing one
another”

Sama Tribe Traditional Costume

 The traditional attire of the Sama consists of either everyday wear or elaborately
embroidered costumes for special occasions. The patadjung, a ubiquitous tube-shaped
cloth found in Mindanao and the Visayas, is large enough to fit any person, and is worn
by both men and women. It has many uses. It is worn either as a skirt or a gown tucked in
place at the chest level. It can serve as putung (head cover), waistband, sash, blanket,
hammock, shoulder bag, cradle, pouch, hood, or pillow.

 The Sama are known for weaving two types of mats: the tepo and the buras.
 Tepo is a pandan sleeping mat with four types of dyed and inwoven designs: jali (stripes),
tabanas (varicolored squares), kusta (checkered pattern in white and another color), and
biyu-biyu (zigzag). These four basic designs may be combined to make more complex
variations such as the palang borus (varicolored rectangles), kabang (large squares in
alternating colors), binaliku (complex zigzag pattern), kusta sina (combination stripes and
diamonds), balintung (combination zigzags and diamonds), malasa (small hexagons), and
tinibi (boat form). Colors are green, orange, red, violet, and blue.
 Buras is made of rattan stitched together by a man to make a mat 1.2 to 1.5 meters long
or 2.3 to 6 meters long. It is then painted with designs by a woman. She begins by
outlining the design in black and white paint using a rattan stick. Then she fills in the
pictures with red, yellow, green, white, black, pink, orange, and blue. It is used as a wall
screen or a floor mat for special occasions. A smaller buras is used as a prayer mat in the
mosque.
 The samal mat uses the leaves of pandanus plant which grows abundantly in the area. It
has four general patterns. 1. Stripes 2. Multi-colored patter 3. Checked pattern of white
and other colors. 4. Zigzag pattern
 The dyes used is chemical dyes. They used a color of green, red, orange, violet, blue and
yellow. After dyeing they are place in the shade to dry and again gently beaten to further
soften the materials. These preparations usually a week, while weaving can take from two
to five weeks.
 The samal mats are muted in color and are softer to touch. These is achieved by repeated
beating during the preparatory phrase. The slightly glossy effect on the surface is
achieved by diluting the dye with some coconut oil.

Some rituals perform by the sama people

 Before fishing or hunting excursions, a ritual called dugsoon is conducted, presided over
the balyan, using material such as buyo (betel nut), apog (pounded limestone) and tabako.
Freshly caught fish would be spread on the big rock and prayed over the balyan.
 In hunting the liver of an animal caught y the hunters would be placed over the fallen tree
trunk and the balyan would as for the permission of magbabaya before the animals is
brought home for food.
 the sama uses various fishing method and tools. A biyawo fruit is peeled, slice into small
pieces and placed inside the chunk a camote for fish bait. When eaten by fish, the bait
explodes, paralyzing the fish.
Yakan

 The yakan is one of the muslim peoples of the southern Philippines. They live in the
island of the Basilan, just off the southwestern part of Mindanao.
 The typically physical characteristic of this tribal folks, tall, a brown skin, slanting eyes,
black hair and high bridged noses, distinct them from other ethnic Filipino groups.
 The yakan have no compact villages, the houses are scattered among the fields, and there
are vegetables and fruits tress around the houses.
 The yakan are agriculturist who practice dry farming, with water buffalo drawn flows.
The main crops upland rice, harvested once a year, but camote and cassava are also
important.
 The Yakan are basically agriculturists whose products include rice, coconut, cassava,
abaca, lanzones, cacao, and corn.
 The farm knife that they use for cutting and digging is the duhung, which has a sharp
blade that widens from the handle toward its pointed end.
 The Yakan are also good hunters; they use spears and sophisticated traps. They use the
leppas for trapping birds, niyas for trapping wild chickens and rooster, and bubu for
catching fish from the river.
 Yakan community: Sovereignty in a Yakan community is believed to emanate from
Allah. A traditional Yakan community is ruled by law made by the people as well as the
Sharia or God’s law. The Yakan believe that the consensus of the people must be
achieved in the formulation of laws that should also be consistent with Islamic tenets.
 Traditionally, marriages are arranged by the usba-waris. In marriage negotiations, men
have more rights than women. Women have almost no voice whatsoever. The girl’s
parents, particularly their descendants from the patrilineal line, have the final decision.
Marriages between cousins are common because they keep the family wealth within the
group or clan. However, marriage between second cousins is prohibited because this is
believed to cause misfortune to the community. This is consistent with the Yakan belief
that the number two divides rather than unites. In the past, marriage with non-Muslims or
non-Yakan was prohibited since such unions would bring impurity to indigenous
traditions. However, this is no longer strictly followed.
 The Yakan adat (custom law) recognizes various types of marriages: muli (with parental
consent), magtambul bay (the shotgun; Fil. pikot), magpasumbali (suicide), magpalah’i
(elopement), and ngalahi (abduction).
 Magbutas (divorce) is allowed in Yakan society for reasons ranging from long-term
suffering to a spur-of-the moment decision.
 “Folk Islam”—a combination of Islamic principles and traditional beliefs—best describes
the Yakan belief system. The Yakan classify various spirits in heaven and in the natural
environment into good angels and bad angels.
 There are believed to be 99 angels roaming around the earth.
 he bad angels or saytan were created to occupy hell. There are four known types of
saytan: samaaniya, chief of the saytan; malikidjabaniya, abductor of babies born in the
month of Sapal; idjadjus, cause of temptation; and the hawiya, caretaker of captured
angels brought to hell.
 There are different types of traditional Yakan houses: luma, the Yakan residence; payad,
the guard house; kamalig, the granary; and luma hadji, the imam’s grander house.
 The Yakan have pagpeneh (designs or motifs) used repeatedly in all their visual arts and
crafts. The pussuk labbung is a sawtooth design used for cloth baskets and the kris. The
bunga sama, used for table runners, monuments for the dead, and trunks, is a symmetrical
design made of rectangular figures. The kabban buddi is a set of triangles, squares, and
other geometric shapes used for cushions, pillows, casings, mats, and hats. The baggang
kettan combines incised triangles and rectangles, and is used to decorate the kris. The ukil
lagbas consists of a combination of various lines—wavy, crossed-wavy, and straight—
used on shirts, windows of houses, and boats.

 The basic garment for men and women consists of a tight-fitting shirt called badju and
tight-fitting trousers called sawal. The badju is open in front from lapel down to the
waist, with up to 40 sequined or golden buttons. To close the shirt, a long string is
crisscrossed from one button to the other so that when tightly drawn, the shirt closes from
top to bottom. It is embroidered on the front and back, with cuffs decorated with batawi
(gold buttons), which are status symbols. Usually the men’s shirt remains open because
the string is often lost. The shirt is decorated with a pair of jambu, tassels of silk threads,
sewn at the collar. The women wear the white, short-sleeved blouse, which is closed by a
string tied to buttons or with a pentagonal chest covering. The blouse has a wide collar
called lambung.

 The Yakan trousers display a below-the-knee joinery line called bakiyaq. Sapid, a braid
made of intertwined threads, is stitched at the section where the woven cloth is sewn
together and around the part of the leggings that reach the ankle. At the lower portion of
the pants, the jambu are attached to represent the horse.

 The difference in male and female apparel lies in accessories. Men wear a handwoven
pis, a square headcloth measuring a meter or more, and a 15-meter-long kandit (belt or
sash) made of red cloth called gilim. The kandit serves as “protection” from spears and
knives during combat. The women wear olos, a short tubular skirt over the trousers, over
which seputangan, a square, meter-sized, woven cloth with geometric designs, is worn.
This cloth is the most expensive part of their garments because it is woven with silk
threads on a cotton background.
 The Yakan also wear functional gadgets. The pegupaan is a bamboo container for all the
betel chew paraphernalia.

 The Yakan weaving production and the wearing of traditional garments have undergone
significant changes over the years because of the scarcity of raw materials, technological
advancement, and tourism. The traditional garments are now worn only for festive
events. For informal occasions, the men may combine traditional clothing with Western
clothes. The women wear loosely-hanging thin blouses, either with a long skirt or loose
pants.
Yakan Traditional Dance

 The only traditional dance that originates from the Yakan is the tumahik war dance. It is
performed at pegkawin (weddings), where the pangantin lella (groom) dances to simulate
a fight against an imaginary enemy who is there to ruin the wedding ceremony. If the
groom does not have the skill to perform, any wedding guest may dance in his place.