Indonesian martial arts an umbrella term to refer for the martial arts of the Indonesian archipelago. Nevertheless, a number of fighting arts in Indonesia are not included within the category of silat. Western misconception links silat with "jungle tribes" but in actuality, pencak silat was neither created nor traditionally practised by Indonesia's tribal inhabitants, many of whom have unique martial arts of their own. Some of these traditions have been preserved as a complete fighting system, e.g. pencak silat and kuntao. Other methods are either no longer practiced or only exist in a more sportive form such as the spear-throwing of pasola or
Silat been adopted worldwide in reference to professional competitive silat for sport, similar to the Chinese word wushu. Regional dialect names include "penca" (West Java), "dika" or "padik" (Thailand), "silek" (the Minangkabau pronunciation of silat), "main-po" or "maen po" (in the lower speech of Sundanese), and "gayong" or "gayung" (used in parts of Malaysia and Sumatra). The clear distinction between Indonesian and Peninsular silat is a relatively recent one based mainly on post-independence patriotic sentiments. The term silat Melayu ("Malay silat") was originally used in reference to Riau but is today commonly used for referring to systems created on the Southeast