The
Buginese people are an ethnic group - the most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of
South Sulawesi, in the southwestern province of
Sulawesi, third largest island of
Indonesia. The
Austronesian ancestors of the Buginese people settled on
Sulawesi around 2500 B.C.E. There is "historical linguistic evidence of some late
Holocene immigration of Austronesian speakers to South Sulawesi from
Taiwan" - which means that the Buginese have "possible ultimate ancestry in South China", and that as a result of this immigration, "there was an infusion of an exogenous population from
China or
Taiwan." Migration from South China by some of the paternal ancestors of the Buginese is also supported by studies of
Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups. The Bugis in 1605 converted to
Islam from
Animism. Some Buginese have retained their pre-Islamic belief called Tolotang, and some Bugis converted to
Christianity by means of marriage; but they have remained a minority.