BUTON (Dutch, Boeton), island off the S.E. of Celebes, one of a group of which the most important are Buton, Muna, Kabena, and Wowoni. Buton Strait, between Buton and Muna, (port, on the E. coast, Raha) is very narrow, and difficult to navigate, but very beautiful. Buton lies in the track from Macas sar to Buru and Amboyna. It is over ioo miles long, and has an area of about 2,000 sq. miles. It has an axial chain of lime stone hills (highest point Kepala-Ogena, 3,5ooft.) thickly for ested as is the whole island. The coast people are mostly Moham medan Buginese, but the interior also has pagan peoples. There are three classes—descendants of nobles, free inhabitants, and slaves. They carry on weaving, and copperwork but are chiefly trading sailors and fishermen, and their well built prahus traverse all the seas of the Archipelago. Houses are built of wood, on piles, and sometimes villages are in shallow water off shore in more or less circular form, with approach by a bamboo causeway. Buton formerly had an evil reputation for piracy, and on the S. coast the old pirate haunt of Wasumba is still to be seen, surround ed by thick walls of chalk-blocked coral, and not far from the vil lage of Wabula. Buton comes under the jurisdiction of Celebes, but there is a local sultan, who is elected by a council in which Dutch officials participate and who lives at Wabula, in a kraton, or fortress, which has bastions, with loop-holes, and is situated on the top of a steep hill, at some distance from the coast. Teak is found, and is used for boat-building, coconuts are grown, and there is some trade in copra, and a kind of small dried fish is marketed. A few of the natives engage in pearl-dealing, but not all the pearls they handle are genuine. The port for the island is Buton, at the N.W. end of the Strait. An assistant-resident is stationed in Ban-Bau (Buton).