Sama-Bajau
indigenous group originating from Maritime Southeast Asia.
The Sama-Bajau include several Austronesian ethnic groups of Maritime Southeast Asia. The name collectively refers to related people who usually call themselves the Sama or Samah (formally A'a Sama, "Sama people"); or are known by the exonym Bajau (, also spelled Badjao, Bajaw, Badjau, Badjaw, Bajo or Bayao). They usually live a seaborne lifestyle and use small wooden sailing vessels such as the perahu (layag in Maranao), djenging (balutu), lepa, and vinta (pilang). They also use medium-sized vessels like the jungkung, timbawan and small fishing vessels like biduk and bogo-katik. Some Sama-Bajau groups native to Sabah are also known for their traditional horse culture.
The Sama-Bajau are the dominant ethnic group of the islands of Tawi-Tawi. They are also found in other islands of the Sulu Archipelago, coastal areas of Mindanao and other islands in the southern Philippines; as well as northern and eastern Borneo, Sulawesi, and throughout the eastern Indonesian islands. In the Philippines, they are grouped with the religiously similar Moro people. Within the last fifty years, many of the Filipino Sama-Bajau have migrated to neighbouring Sabah and the northern islands of the Philippines, due to the conflict in Mindanao. As of 2010, they were the second-largest ethnic group in Sabah.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Sama-Bajau” as indigenous group originating from Maritime Southeast Asia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as indigenous group originating from Maritime Southeast Asia. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q804127. The Library of Congress control number is sh85011051. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sama-Bajau” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.