Country or people · Self-governing peoples of Island Southeast Asia · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Buton and Muna

Buton, Muna and their neighbours, with the Tukangbesi (Wakatobi) islands to the south-east.

Buton is a limestone island guarding the corner where the Flores Sea, the Gulf of Bone and the Banda Sea meet, with a good harbour on the strait it makes with Muna. The Tukangbesi are low coral islands whose people live off the sea (board). The peoples are later called Wolio, Cia-Cia and Muna on land and Bajau on the sea; the walled hill town of Wolio and the sultanate are later.

Who holds it

Title
No overall chief shown for 1200: harbour and village chiefs
Since
not pinned
Born
not known
Family
not known
Confidence
low

Nothing is written about the rulers or headmen of this country for 1200. The structure is read from geography and from ethnography of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

What it holds

  • The strait harbours
  • The Tukangbesi reefs
  • Limestone-island villages

Allies and rivals

The Buton chiefs (Buton chiefs) and the Tukangbesi town record (Tukangbesi islands).

How things stand that morning

Not described for 1200; the villages are presumed to be farming, fishing and selling what the rivers and forests give.

Wealth

Provisions for ships, sea products, timber; no figures.

Military

Not known; boats, spears, shields and blowpipes in the later record. No numbers.

Threats

  • Feuds and raiding between villages
  • Flood, drought or fire
  • A change in the trade that comes by sea

Places of note

  • Baubau: Strait harbour.
  • Wangi-wangi: Tukangbesi (position approximate).

Where the sources disagree

  • The ethnic names used here (Dayak, Kayan, Kenyah, Iban, Ngaju, Banjar and the rest) are later outsiders' or ethnographic names; the ethnic map of 1200 is not known and differs from the modern one.

Evidence: Geography and later ethnography only; no text of the period describes this country.

On the map: A rough outline of the people's country; the real extent of any village group in 1200 is not known, and nothing here is a border.

Sources and studies

  1. Background knowledge of Southeast Asian history (Wolters; Hall; Bellwood; Scott; Junker; Reid), recalled and not re-read in this pass
  2. The OMNIA board (September 2026) note for this place: a lead only, not a source
  3. Wikipedia, 'Nagarakretagama' (read in this pass): the cantos 13 and 14 lists of Borneo and the eastern islands, written 1365

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.