Bisayan Culture ID

The Bisayan culture belongs to the peoples of the Visayas, the central islands of the Philippine archipelago. Seafaring and Austronesian, they built a society oriented toward the surrounding seas.

Bisayan communities were organised into local chiefdoms, and lived by a mix of farming, fishing, and a vigorous maritime trade that linked the islands to one another and to the wider region.

Pre-colonial Bisayan culture was known for its seafaring, its traditions of personal adornment and tattooing, and a religious life centred on nature spirits and ancestors served by ritual specialists.

Maritime and island-dwelling, the Bisayan formed one of the central cultures of the pre-colonial Philippines.