Buton

Butonese is the collective name for the related seafaring peoples of Buton and neighbouring Southeast Sulawesi islands, whose small vessels sailed throughout the Malay archipelago. Around the 1300s chiefdoms united at Wolio, the future Baubau, under their first ruler Wa Kaa Kaa, whose husband was said to descend from Majapahit; the islands had earlier been listed as Majapahit tributaries in the Negarakertagama and Palapa oath.

The kingdom converted to Islam in the mid-sixteenth century under King La Kilaponto, later Sultan Murhum, guided by a Johor scholar and Ternate's influence. It became an unusual constitutional monarchy with a written constitution, the Murtabat Tujuh, formalized under Sultan La Elangi (1597-1631).

Walled Baubau became one of the region's best-fortified centres, its palace fortress the largest of its kind, while farmers grew rice, cotton and coconuts. Most Butonese are Muslim, though Bajau nomads are sometimes mistakenly counted among them.