Bashi, egy újonnan felfedezett nép a Fülöp-szigeteki tenger két partján
Bashi, a Recently Identifi ed Ethnic Group on Both Sides of the Philippine Sea

A Late Review on The Song of the Ancestors (1991) of Dezső Benedek

Summary/Abstract: Dezső Benedek, Cluj-Napoca-born American cultural anthropologist, folklorist and linguist spent four years of fieldwork in the 1980s in South East Asia. One of the indisputable merits of the research is that it has identified an ethnic group (the Bashi) that has for centuries been regarded as two distinct fragments of people: the Yami (also known as Tao) on the Taiwanese Orchid Island and the Batan on the Northernmost archipelago of the Philippines. Benedek began collecting the mythological treasures and epics of the Bashi people at the very last moment. There is no doubt that this discovered folklore can greatly help the Bashi in their search for 21st century identity. I am sure that many other contemporary anthropological texts will sink into oblivion when the epics collected by Dezső Benedek are still, or increasingly (in the course of a few generations) recited by grateful posterity.

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