Tausūg

The Tausūg are an Austronesian people of the Sulu Archipelago between Mindanao and Borneo; their name means people of the sea current. They trace their origins to migrants from northeastern Mindanao in the thirteenth century, and before Islam they lived in independent village-states called banwa under chiefs titled panglima.

A Muslim missionary reached Simunul in 1380 and built its first mosque, and around 1450 the Arab-born Sayyid Abubakar married the daughter of the local ruler and founded the Sultanate of Sulu, a sea power whose dominions reached from Zamboanga and Palawan to Sabah and which broke from Brunei in 1578.

From that same year the Tausūg resisted repeated Spanish expeditions and kept their sultanate independent throughout the period. Their crafts include the pangalay dance with brass fingernails and ukkil carving on boats, houses and kris blades.