Yakan

The origin of the Yakan is debated, but the people's own tradition points to roots in Borneo and the Malay region, from which they are said to have migrated to Basilan in ancient times. Conversion to Islam took place around the thirteenth century, when the faith reached the region along with trade and the political networks of the Sulu Sultanate, and from then on the Yakan came to be part of the broader group of Muslim peoples of the Philippines known as the Moros.

Unlike seafaring neighbors such as the Tausug and the Sama, the Yakan have always been a people oriented toward the interior of the land, and for centuries they were the main suppliers of rice to the coastal peoples of the Sulu Archipelago region.

Most Yakan live off farming, cultivating rice with plows pulled by water buffalo, work that shapes the community’s calendar and daily life. The harvest is often not enough to last until the next growing season, making each season a source of uncertainty for families’ livelihood.

Yakan women are known for the tennun, the weaving of fabrics in colorful geometric patterns that carry their own meanings and are taught to girls from an early age. The nuclear family, made up of husband, wife, and unmarried children, is the most common domestic unit, and it is within it that the people’s values and trades are passed down.

The Yakan are Muslim, and Islam permits a man to have up to four wives, with divorce common and initiated by either husband or wife. But the faith practiced day to day carries much of the people’s older religion: belief in spirits that inhabit trees and specific places and that can bring sickness or attack those who offend them, which keeps many families on guard against unseen harm.

To deal with this spiritual world, the Yakan turn to their own figures, such as the bahasa, a kind of shaman who invokes spirits to heal illness or reveal the future, and the tabib, who assists in ceremonies and health care. These practices are not seen as separate from Islam, but as part of it.

The New Testament in Yakan was completed in 1984 and is available together with the Jesus Film and audio recordings in the people’s language. Even so, Scripture circulates little outside of occasional initiatives: orality is strong among the Yakan, and hearing is the most natural way for the Word to reach families, more so than reading a printed book.

For the Yakan, being Muslim and being Yakan are one and the same: abandoning Islam means breaking with family, clan, and ancestral land. Beliefs in spirits that inhabit trees and specific places keep many families in a state of constant vigilance against evil, and it is the traditional shaman, not a sacred text, who addresses everyday fear. Distance from major cities and a life centered on farming and weaving leave little room for contact with any outside message.

Food insecurity marks much of the year for families whose rice harvest is not enough to last until the next season, and marriage and divorce, lived out under the people’s own rules, bring instability to many women and children who depend on the land and the clan to survive. What is also missing is someone who lives nearby, speaks the language, and lives alongside the Yakan so that the gospel stops being a distant idea and becomes a real encounter within family and clan.