Bagobo Tribe

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“Bagobo” comes from “bago” meaning “new, recent” and “obo/obbo/uvu” meaning “growth, grow,” so that the term refers to a recent formation of people along the coast of the Davao Gulf. When the Hinduized peoples from the south brought in Hindu culture during the Sri Vijayan and Majapahit penetration of Mindanao, these migrants mixed with the native population, forming a new society reflected in the name “Bagobo.” The term may loosely apply to the coastal peoples of Davao Gulf, especially those native groups on the western shores of southeastern Davao. These groups include several ethnicities, such as the Tagabawa, Jangan or Attaw, and Tagacaolo. Spanish missionaries and early ethnographers tended to identify them all as one group because they had common articles of material culture, such as dress and ornaments, tools, blades, and musical instruments. Immigrants from other places also tended to include the Manuvu among the Bagobo groups. The ascription is erroneous, for the Manuvu live in the upland areas northwest, north, and northeast of Mount Apo in interior Mindanao. Furthermore, all the abovenamed ethnic groups speak mutually unintelligible languages. The Bagobo are light brown in complexion. Their hair is brown or brownish black, ranging from wavy to curly. The men stand about 158 centimeters tall, the women 147 centimeters tall. Although the face is wide, the cheekbones are not prominent. The eyes are dark and widely set, the eyeslits slanting. The eyebrows are deliberately shaved to a thin line by both male and female. The root of the nose is low, the ridge broad. The lips are full, the chin rounded. Population estimate of the Bagobo in 1988 was 80,000 (NCCP-PACT 1988).

 History 

The Bagobo were the first ethnic group in Mindanao encountered by the Spaniards at the end of the 19th century. Brisk trade already existed among the various groups and tribes. Horses were used to transport goods to the coast. The Bagobo were excellent riders and showed their pride in this skill by adorning their horses with beads and bangles. Their principal trade item was rice, which they exchanged for lowland goods like salt, fish, clay pottery, and for upland goods like resin, beeswax, and the lumbang fruit which was their source of fuel. From the Muslims they bought iron; they bartered with the Chinese for pots, beads, and other ornaments. Sibulan is the ancient settlement of the Bagobo and was the center of all the Bagobo settlements when the Spaniards came. Datu Manib was the datu of Sibulan and, therefore, the foremost datu among all the other datu. He was between 45 and 50 years old when the Spaniards first came to Sibulan. He was able to trace his genealogy back 11 generations to Saling-olop, a legendary culture hero. Although he cordially received the Spaniards when they arrived, he was later imprisoned for defying the Spanish injunction against human sacrifices and refusing to help them capture a Bagobo fugitive.

Bagobo Tribe - Davao city

Tasaday Tribe

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The Tasaday (tɑˈsɑdɑj) are an indigenous people of the Philippine island of Mindanao. They are considered to belong to the Lumad group, along with the other indigenous groups on the island. They attracted widespread media attention in 1971, when Western scientists reported their discovery, "stone age" technology and complete isolation from Philippine society. They again attracted attention in the 1980s when it was reported that the discovery had been an elaborate hoax, and doubt was raised about their isolation and even about being a separate ethnic group. The issues are still debated. The Tasaday language is distinct from that of neighbouring tribes, and linguists believe it probably split from the adjacent Manobo languages 200 years ago.

Background

Manuel Elizalde was the head of PANAMIN, the Philippine government agency created in 1968 to protect the interests of cultural minorities. He was the son of a wealthy father of Spanish lineage and an American mother. He was a known crony of the late Philippine dictator Marcos. He took credit for discovering the Tasaday, which he did on June 7,[timeframe?] shortly after a local barefoot Blit hunter told him of a sporadic contact over the years with a handful of primitive forest dwellers. He released this to the media a month later, and many excited people began the long task of clearing the thickest forest in the world. Weeks later, visitors were only three hours away when their way was blocked by the PANAMIN guards, who answered to Elizalde alone. Elizalde allowed only a handful of the "most important visitors" to meet them.

Introduction of the Tasaday

Elizalde brought the Tasaday to the attention of PANAMIN. With a small group including Elizalde's bodyguard, helicopter pilot, a doctor, a 19-year-old Yale student named Edith Terry, and local tribespeople for interpreting attempts, Elizalde met the Tasaday in an arranged clearing at the edge of the forest in June 1971.
In March 1972, another meeting occurred between the Tasaday, Elizalde, and members of the press and media including the Associated Press and the National Geographic Society, this time at the Tasaday's secluded cave home site. This meeting was popularly reported by Kenneth MacLeish in the August 1972 issue of National Geographic, which featured on its cover a photograph by photojournalist John Launois of a Tasaday boy climbing vines.
Since these first meetings and reports, the group was subject to a great deal of further publicity, including a National Geographic documentary, "The Last Tribes of Mindanao" (shown December 1, 1972). The Tasaday became so popular as to attract such famed visitors as Charles A. Lindbergh and Gina Lollobrigida.

Badjao or Bajau

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Badjao or Bajau means man of the seas, this tribal group is known as the Sea Gypsies because they move with the wind and the tide on their small houseboats called vintas, they can be found in many coastal settlements and inhabit the waters and shores of the Sulu archipelago.

 A legend tells that these boat dwellers came from the shores of Johore in Indonesia, Princess Ayesha of Johore was betrothed to a Sulu Sultan but she really wanted to marry the Sultan from Brunei. One day, a large fleet of war boats escorted the Princess to Sulu, the fleet was intercepted by the man she really loved, the Sultan from Brunei, who kidnapped her and set sail back to Brunei. The escorting fleet could not return without the Princess and kept on sailing the seas, only mooring at uninhabited islands; some of them turned to piracy and roamed the seas to search for fortune and glory. Others only searched for food and became fishermen, the Sulu Sea had an abundance of fish that helped to sustain their livelihood, and most of the daily catch was bartered with other tribes that lived along the shores and beaches. The Badjao still live in houseboats, clustered near the coastline of Southern Mindanao. But they also built stilt houses near fertile fishing grounds; these houses are a temporary refuge during times that these boathouses needed repairs. These wanderers of the Southern seas are born on the water, live on their boats and say they will only set foot on land to die.

Although that their ancestors were once feared by many in the Mindanao region, the Badjao are primitive and friendly, they are believed to be world's most peace-loving people and consider themselves as a non-aggressive tribal community. Conflict with other tribes is often dealt with by fleeing to other places like the sea. Other tribes looked down on these fisher folk and did refer to them as palao or lumaan (God forsaken), the Badjao were influenced by Islam, but the continuous pressure put on by other Muslim tribes forced them to move to the sea, which gave them greater chances of escape in the case of an attack by hostile tribes. Eventually the sea moulded the attitude and appearance of the Badjao, this rough environment and way of living shaped their typical physical features, the bronze coloured hair and dark brown skin clearly distinct them from other tribes. 

The native religion from these water people is a form of ancestor worship, spirits, deceased ancestors and other relatives are asked for favours during frequent cemetery visits. They offer cigarettes and food and sweet smelling tonic is used for sprinkling the corners of the graves. These spirits are still part of the family; the seafarers of the Philippine South want these sprits to be as happy as the living and will therefore comfort them as much as they can. Some of the traditional pre-Islamic beliefs are offerings made to the God of the Sea, the Omboh Dilaut, whenever a large catch of fish is brought in and by setting a "spirit boat" adrift in the open sea, , mediums are also called upon to remove illness causing spirits from this boat-dwellers community in times of epidemics.

 By tradition, the hardworking and proud Badjao people are sea nomads, travelling by boat from one island to the other in search of fishing harvest. This tribe have sailed the seas for more than a thousand years, but because of over fishing by other groups using everything from high-tech fishing trawlers and even dynamite fishing, threatened by soaring costs for fuel and repairs, their life in the open waters is drying up. These Bedouin of the sea no longer live on boats, they live in thatch-roofed houses on bamboo stilts on a small strip of land that nobody else wanted, somewhere along the coastline of Sarangani. With small, family owned bancas they continue to roam the waters, fighting the current to follow schools of fish, hunting for the bounty of the ocean, trying to make a living and find refuge in the vastness of the deep blue sea.

 Despite the romantic portrayals of the tribe, the Badjao never really had an easy live, when they were still living at sea, they were at least free from the everyday rejection and hardship brought upon by other tribes that live on land. These guardians of the sea have experienced themselves that times are tough on the water, but worse on land. At present the Badjao are the most marginalized ethnic group and one of the poorest tribes in the Philippines, a Muslim tribe that is shunned by almost everyone, still gypsies, but also, unfair and unjustifiable named tramps and thieves. Their vibrant nomadic lifestyle, the way of life bequeathed to them by their ancestors has vanished in most parts of Mindanao. For centuries the Badjao have been a resilient tribal group, they firmly pushed away modernity with both hands, but tossed by modern winds they will have to find ways to maintain their unique lifestyle and culture, otherwise they will remain Godforsaken.