Maguindanao

The Maguindanao are an Austronesian Muslim people of the Cotabato Valley in southwestern Mindanao; their name means people of the flood plain or lake, and its Spanish rendering gave Mindanao its name.

Their tradition remembers the brothers Mamalu and Tabunaway: when the preacher Sharif Kabungsuwan brought Islam in the early 1500s, Tabunaway's followers became the Maguindanao while Mamalu's people withdrew into the mountains as the Teduray. Kabungsuwan founded the Sultanate of Maguindanao, which contested the island with the principality of Buayan. Spanish expeditions of 1579 and 1596 failed to conquer it.

Spanish forces seized Zamboanga in 1635 and defeated Sultan Kudarat in 1637, but withdrew in 1663, after which Maguindanao power reached its height. Renewed Spanish fort-building in 1719 and civil war in the 1730s weakened the sultanate. The Maguindanao forged wavy-bladed kris swords and gongs.