Waray

The Waray people are a Visayan ethnolinguistic group of the Eastern Visayas, occupying most of Samar, northern Leyte and Biliran. Their Waray language is also called Lineyte-Samarnon. They descend from Iron Age Austronesian seafarers who built trading societies in contact with Chinese, Bornean and Malay merchants.

In 1521 they became the first Filipinos encountered by Europeans, when Ferdinand Magellan's expedition met fishermen near Suluan Island, as recorded by Antonio Pigafetta. Jesuit missionaries reached Leyte in 1595 and within a decade had gathered much of the population into Catholic mission villages. The Spanish called these tattooed islanders Pintados, meaning the painted ones, and Bisaya; their martial reputation survives in the saying that a Waray never retreats from a fight.