Buruans

The total number is about 48 thousand, most of them on the island of Buru. They are the most numerous of the indigenous peoples of Buru, constitute more than a quarter of the modern population of the island (about 165 thousand people in 2012 ). Outside of Buru, the most significant number of Buruenians live on Ambon Island - about 2,000 people, several hundred each live on some other islands of the Indonesian province of Maluku and in the capital, Jakarta . There is a small community of Buruans in the Netherlands - mainly descendants of the soldiers of the Republic of South Moluccas ( Indonesia. Republik Maluku Selatan ), who emigrated after joining this self-proclaimed state to Indonesia in 1950 ^{[3] [4]} .

The Buruans fairly evenly live throughout the entire territory of Buru, except for some parts of the northern coast - despite the fact that in the central, mountainous part of the island, the density of their settlement is, of course, much lower than on the flat coast. In many areas of the island form the majority of the rural population. Significantly, the proportion of Buruans among urban residents, but in the largest settlements - in particular, in Namrol and Namlea - it gradually decreases due to the settlement of people from other regions of Indonesia ^{[3] [4]} .

In the initial period of the Dutch colonization of the island of Buru - in the middle of the XVII century - a significant part of the Buruanian tribal nobility was resettled on the eastern tip of the island, where later became one of the components in the ethnogenesis process of the Kayeley people ^{[7] [8]} .

In the composition of the Buruanian ethnic group, several ethnic groups are distinguished by their way of life and linguistic specifics - wound (14,258 people mainly in the central part of the island), masaret (about 9,600 people mainly in the south of the island), vaesam (6,622 people mostly in the south-east of the island), Fogi (about 500 people mostly in the west of the island) ^{[3] [4]} .

A native of the nationality is the Buruenian language , belonging to the Central Moluccan branch of the Central Malay-Polynesian languages ^[4] . The language is divided into three dialects, whose carriers are the same-name ethnic groups of Ranan , Masaret and Vaesam . In addition, part of the wound (according to various estimates, 3-5 thousand people), along with its main dialect, uses the so-called “secret language” of the ligahans . The phogi dialect that existed earlier in the west of the island is now considered extinct ^[4] . The linguistic difference between the Burumanian dialects is relatively small. Thus, the lexical community between Masaret and Vaesam is about 90%, between Masaret and the wound - 88%, between Vaesam and the wound - 80% ^[4] .

Despite the fact that in everyday life most of the Buruvans use mainly native dialects, a significant part of them, especially in coastal areas and large populated areas, at one or another level speaks Indonesian's official language. On the coast, there is also the Ambon dialect of Malay , the so-called Ambala ( Indonesia. Melayu Ambon ) - widely used in the Moluccas as a lingua franca (in fact, it is a simplified Indonesian language with some local vocabulary) ^{[1] [ 4]} .

From a confessional point of view, the Buruans are not a homogeneous community: about 30% of them are Sunni Muslims (mostly residents of the southern part of the island), about 12% are Christians , mostly Protestants (mostly northerners) ^[3] . At the same time, more than half of the nationality in one way or another adheres to traditional local beliefs. In the central regions of the island, part of the Buruans openly confesses the cult of the supreme deity Opo Hebe Snulat and his envoy Nabiata ^[1] .

In the late 1990s - early 2000s , in the context of a severe socio-economic crisis and a general exacerbation of ethnic and religious relations in Indonesia, inter-religious conflicts, often superimposed on traditional inter-tribal conflicts, became more frequent among Buruans. At the same time, their fellow believers on the side of the Muslim Buruans often spoke of numerous migrants from Java , while their opponents were supported by representatives of Christian ethnic groups from other Moluccan islands, who also lived in significant numbers on the island. The conflict reached its greatest intensity in the village of Vainibe ( Indonesia. Wainibe ), where in just a few days of December 1999 43 people were killed and at least 150 houses were burned ^{[5] [6]} .

The basis of the traditional social organization of Buruans in mountainous and lowland areas is different. In the first case, this is the patrilineal localized genus of fen , in the second - the neighboring community of Negri ^[1] .

Most of the Buruans are engaged in various branches of agriculture , primarily in agriculture . The most common crops are rice , maize , sago , sweet potatoes , and spices — cloves , nutmeg, and eucalyptus , from whose shoots aromatic oil is produced ^{[1] [2]} .

Hunting is widely practiced in inland areas (the main commercial species is the wild pig-babirusa, deer , couscous ), on the coast - fishing (the main commercial species is tuna ) ^[1] . With the economic modernization of the island of Buru, a growing number of Buruans are employed in the service sector and in industrial enterprises ^{[2] [9]} .

Buruana’s traditional dwellings are bamboo houses, often on stilts . Roofs are covered with palm leaves or reeds, now more and more common tile . The national costume of the Buruanians is similar in style to the clothing of most of the peoples of Indonesia - a sarong and a long shirt for men, a sarong and a shorter jacket for women. At the same time, the colors of clothes and décor elements at Masaret, Vaasam and the wound differ quite significantly ^[1] .

The traditional weapon of the Buruans is a straight parang and a small spear . In the past, the Buruans used the glory of skillful spear throwers ^{on the} Molucchi ^[10] .

• Peoples and religions of the world / V. Tishkov (editor-in-chief). - M .: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 1998. - 928 p. - ISBN 5-85270-155-6 .
• Thomas Reuter (editor). Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land: Land and Territory in the Austronesian World . - Canberra: ANU E Press, 2006. - 385 p. - ISBN 9781920942700 .