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Y
YAKAN The Yakan are one of the Muslim groups of the southern Philippines
who are part of the Sama people. They are practically all Sunni Muslim of the
Shafi school and number 116,000. A homogeneous group which has only slight
local variations in living and language, they live on the island of Basilan, predominantly
in the interior. Information about them traces back only to the latter
part of the nineteenth century and is scarce. Probably the Yakan were the original
inhabitants of Basilan, but today they comprise less than one-half the population,
now sharing the island with later arrivals: Christian Filipinos, mainly living in
and around the two municipalities of Isabela and Lamitan, and the Muslim Tausug
and Sama, mostly in the coastal villages (see Sama; Tausug).
Basilan is a volcanic island just off the southwestern tip of Mindanao, 495
square miles in area. The interior contains numerous peaks interspersed with
undulating hills and tablelands. The climate is tropical with rather equable temperatures
and with an adequate rainfall, most of the rains falling from April to
November. The rest of the year is relatively dry.
These geographical conditions are suitable for agriculture and therefore of
great importance to the Yakan, who are agriculturalists, growing various crops
on their individually owned fields. The preferred crop is upland rice, which is
grown in nonirrigated fields and harvested once a year. Other important crops
are camote and cassava as well as several kinds of vegetables and fruits.
Both men and women, often working together, do the field work. Their
combined efforts go toward planting, weeding and harvesting, but men alone
tend to the plowing and post-harvest job of cutting and burning off the fields.
The Yakan have no compact villages; houses are scattered among the fields.
The dwellings are rectangular pile buildings, with wooden or bamboo walls and
a rather steep thatched roof. Apart from the kitchen, the house has only one
room and a porch. Although the Yakan are Muslims, they have no special quarters
for women. Both men and women—the family as well as guests—gather in the
same room or on the porch.
A house is occupied by a family consisting of husband and wife and their
unmarried children, perhaps also a newly married son or daughter with spouse.