Ma\' anyan

The Ma' anyans form an ethnos group Daya lying in the oriental party of the province indonésienne of Kalimantan Centers ( Tengah ), in the back country. The principal city of Ma' anyan is Tamiang Layang.

Demography

In 2000, the number of Ma' anyan was about 70.000 people. They represent the ethnic independent group of the whole known as of the Barito Oriental, at sides of other groups to the members fewer dispersed in particular in the east of their territory (such in particular that the Dusun Deyah, the Samihim, etc).

The group known as " barito" is one of the groups of the branch Malayo-polynésienne of the Langues austronésiennes. Certain linguists include in this group the Malgache.

History

According to their traditions, Ma' anyan would result from coastal groups of the area of current the Banjarmasin which they would have given up towards the XVe or 16th century, at the moment when this one became malayophone and Moslem. And indeed, the traditions of the Banjar, as the Malais are named southern part of Borneo, recognize readily a component ma' anyan in the formation of their group, at the sides of Malayan external contributions, Javanese or Bugis. This old coastal presence also seems to be corroborated by the fact that their language (with the unit to which it belongs) maintains a narrow relationship with those spoken in the island Madagascar, as work of comparison with in particular the merina shows it (between 50 and 54% of the basic vocabulary of the two languages correspond). One can deduce from it that before becoming a population " daya" , the ancestors of Ma' anyan were sailors, practitioner even the ocean navigation.

If this tradition were proven, that would mean that it would be with Ma' anyan that Java in XIVe century traded. Indeed, Banjarmasin appears among the " regions tributaires" kingdom of Majapahit in the east of Java which Nagarakertagama quotes, a poem epic writes in 1365 at the time of the king Hayam Wuruk (reign 1350-89). One in any case found vestiges of the Majapahit time in the province of Southern Kalimantan.

After having practiced centuries during the culture on denshering, Ma' anyan now became of the sedentary farmers, specialized in particular in the Riz iculture and the exploitation of the Hévéa. In their large majority, they converted with Protestantism during the first decades of the 20th century. A small minority, about approximately 10% however continues to remain faithful to the ancestral worship, through what the official jargon describes as religion Kaharingan , to indicate all the worships " païens". Like the Ngaju S, their powerful Western neighbors to which they are rather closely bound, Ma' anyans count among the most occidentalized daya groups southernmost part of Kalimantan.

External bond

ethnologue.com Languages barito

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