Minahasa

The Minahasans (alternative spelling: Minahassa) are an ethnic group native to the North Sulawesi province of Indonesia, formerly known as North Celebes. The Minahasa people sometimes refer to themselves as Manado people. Although the Minahasan pre-Christian creation myth entails some form of ethnic unification, before the nineteenth century the Minahasa region was in no way unified. Instead, a number of politically independent groups (walak) existed together, often in a permanent state of conflict. Minahasans are the most populous ethnic group in the Minahasan peninsula of North Sulawesi, a Christian-majority region in a Muslim-majority country (Indonesia). The indigenous inhabitants of Minahasa are Austronesian people who are the descendants of earlier migrations from further North. Prior to contact with Europeans, people living in the Minahasan peninsula primarily had contact with the people of North Maluku and with Chinese and Malay traders from within the Indonesian archipelago. From the 1500s onwards, the region had contact with the Portuguese and Spanish. Ultimately, however, it was the Dutch who colonized the region; firstly through the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and, from 1817 onwards, through the administration of the Dutch nation state. There are nine languages that are indigenous to the Minahasan peninsula. All languages belong to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, and five of these (Tondano, Tombulu, Tonsea, Tontemboan, and Tonsawang) comprise the Minahasan microgroup, while three (Bantik, Toratan, and Sangir) are part of the Sangiric group. Another language (Ponosakan) is considered moribund and is part of the Gorontalo-Mongondow microgroup. The language of wider communication, Manado Malay (also known as Minahasa Malay), contains numerous loan words from Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch - a result of contact with European powers from 1523 onwards. While Manado Malay bears some similarities with other varieties of Malay spoken in eastern Indonesia, it also displays many differences.