BUGIS RELIGION. The Bugis, sometimes referred to as the Buginese, are an Indonesian people numbering about three million, most of whom live in their homeland of Celebes (South Sulawesi). Bugis is an archaic form of their name retained by the Malay/Indonesian language; in fact they call themselves Ugi' or ToUgi'. Bugis emigrants have also established significant, mostly coastal, settlements throughout the Indonesian archipelago. They speak a language of the Western Austronesian family, the same family as their national language (Malay or Indonesian).

After a long period of contact with Muslim, mainly Malay, traders who had settled in their main trading harbors, and after some spontaneous but aborted attempts to adopt Christianity during the middle of the sixteenth century, the Bugis officially became Muslims between 1605 and 1610 under the initiative and pressure of the neighboring kingdom of Goa. But although they soon came to be considered among...