Mangyan Heritage Center

Food and Work

1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5

Obtaining food keeps the Mangyans busy for most of the year: selecting and preparing the field; sowing the carefully kept seed; weeding and cleaning the plants; harvesting the most precious food, cotton-white mountain rice. Unfortunately, an ideal harvest depends on an exact amount of sun, wind and rain. Often though, an extensive drought, a nasty typhoon or prolonged monsoon rains effect the opposite result, hardship and scarcity of food. It is therefore, no wonder that the Mangyans worry about their crops a great deal.

1. Kawayan sa kandumon

2. Nakan nga paghinam-on

3. Inmanggit bay pag-anong

4. Babayi magpasungon

5. Basad sapa tumadong

6. Mabayong di mabayong

7. Maghandom sa kay lumon

8. Nakan way diman kumon

9. Ud yi may karan-unon

Bamboo bush at Kandumon,

It will be cut down one day,

because its creaking sounds nice,

Still the woman seems depressed,

along the Tumadong creek.

She is unhappy and sad,

thinking of her empty fields.

The reason is evident:

she has nothing more to eat!

Introduction to Ambahan
Origin of Ambahan
Ambahan and Its Uses
Birth and Infancy
Childhood
Adolescence
Courtship
Home
Problems
Sickness
Food and work
Traveling
Hospitality and Friendship
Marriage
Old Age
Death