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Philippine
Halo-Halo: The Mangyans of
Presenter: Lolita Delgado Fansler, President, Mangyan
Notes from 20
February
2009 Lecture to MVP
You
once were passing this way
It’s
not long since you’ve been here
Your
footprints are still around
a
Hanunuo-Mangyan ambahan
I.
STATISTICS
A.
370
Million indigenous peoples (IPs) in the world, comprising 4%
of total world population but 96% of its cultural diversity
B.
12
Million IPs in the
C.
110
IP Groups in the
D.
Mindoro
is the 7th largest island in the
E.
100,000+
Mangyans in Mindoro, 10% of the total population of
Oriental and Occidental Mindoro, 70% animists and 30%
Christians
F.
8
distinct Mangyan groups inhabit the central mountainous regions
of
II.
MANGYAN
CONTRIBUTIONS
A. Hanunuo
and Buhid Scripts –
Together
with the Tagbanwa and Palaw'an scripts from Palawan, these four
pre-Hispanic scripts
were declared National Cultural Treasures in 1997, and inscribed in the
Memory
of the World Registers of UNESCO
in 1999. Like RP
neighbors, these are Indic-derived ancient scripts.
B. Ambahan
- A rhythmic poetic expression
with any number of seven-syllable lines and rhyming end-syllables.
Often
chanted without musical accompaniment, its purpose is to allegorically
express
life experiences through entertainment while educating the youth on
various
customs such as courtship, decorum and death.
C.
Urukay
– is another form of Mangyan poetry
using mostly 8-syllable lines and a more recent vocabulary originating
from the
Bisaya. It has musical accompaniment and is sung with a distinct
melody, the
style varying from individual to individual. The
Urukay is often
performed during courtship, or to bring cheer to other occasions such
as feasts
and litigation meetings.
D.
The Mangyans are a peace - loving
people who would rather
run away than fight. They don’t have a word for war in their
languages. This is
PEACE in their respective tongues.
|
1.
Alangan - kaalenan
2.
Bangon - kapiyan 3.
Buhid - kafiyaan 4.
Hanunuo -
kahusayan |
5.
Iraya
-
kapiyaan 6.
Ratagnon -
kasadyaan 7.
Tadyawan
-
mapya 8.
Tau-buid -
mabayan |
III.
UNIQUENESS OF EACH MANGYAN
GROUP (each
has its own
language. Their only mutually intelligible language is therefore
Tagalog)
A.
Iraya
– live in Naujan,
Baco, San Teodoro, and Victoria in Oriental Mindoro, and in Mamburao,
Sta.
Cruz, and Sablayan in Occidental Mindoro.
1.
Traditionally,
Iraya
attire was made from dry tree bark, flattened and softened by
pounding.
The women wore blouses and skirts, while the men wore cloth g-strings.
Today
most women wear white one-piece, off-shoulder dresses.
2.
Skilled
in nito-weaving. Known
for their nito baskets, woven into
jars, trays,
plates, cups and other handicrafts of different sizes and designs.
B.
Alangan
– live in Naujan,
Baco, San Teodoro, and Victoria in Oriental Mindoro, and in Mamburao,
Sta.
Cruz, and Sablayan in Occidental Mindoro.
1.
Women
wear a skirt made of long strips of woven nito,
wound many times around the lower
half of the body. A pounded bark g-string keeps what looks like a
“slinky,”
from falling. The upper covering is made from the leaf of the wild buri palm. For modesty, single girls
also wear a red kerchief over this strapless ulango.
Men wear woven cloth g-strings with fringes in front.
2.
At
the middle part of their houses is a "square-like
box" which they call palangganan, built
one foot lower than the floor. This is used as a
fireplace.
In an Alangan communal house called balay-lakoy
(big house), where about 8-20 nuclear families live,
the number of palangganan shows the
number of families living in the balay-lakoy.
3.
Known
for their striking female outfit, rattan weaving and house
design
C.
Tadyawan
– found only in Oriental Mindoro:
1.
Traditionally,
the
women wound a red cloth around their chests, and wore a white skirt
together
with colorful beaded bracelets or necklaces. The men wore
g-strings. At present, women are rarely seen wearing their
traditional
attire, though several men still wear g-strings.
2.
Known
as skilled hat
weavers.
D.
Tau-buid
- live in Socorro, Pinamalayan and Gloria in
Oriental Mindoro, but most of them live in Sablayan and Calintaan in
Occidental
Mindoro.
1.
Standard
dress for
men and women is the loincloth. In some areas near the
lowlands, women
wrap a knee-length cloth around their bark bra-string, while some men
wear
cloth instead of bark. Both sexes wear bark cloth as inner
clothing and
for headbands, women's breast covers, and blankets. Cloth is
made by
extracting, pounding and drying the inner bark of several different
trees.
2.
Known
as pipe smokers
(even the children begin smoking at a young age) and basket weavers.
E.
Bangon
– live along the
1.
Men
wear bahag
(loincloth), but no recorded traditional attire for women who most
likely wore
bark cloth like their Tau-buid neighbors.
2.
Hunters
and farmers
who make pipes and winnowing baskets.
3.
Formerly
considered a subgroup of the Tau-buhid Mangyans, the
Bangons insisted on being a separate group because of distinctions in
their
culture, language, and writing system.
F.
Buhid
– live in Oriental
(Roxas, Bansud, Bongabong and Mansalay) and Occidental (
1.
Women
wear woven black and white upper coverings and black and
white skirts. Unmarried women wear body ornaments such as braided nito belts; blue thread earrings; beaded
headbands, bracelets, and long necklaces. Men wear g-strings; tight
chokers; or
long beaded necklaces and bracelets. Both sexes use a bag for personal
items
such as combs and knives.
2.
Known
for their pre-Spanish syllabic writing system; and pottery
G.
Hanunuo
– the largest and
best known of the 8 groups, they live in Mansalay, Bulalacao, and
Bongabong in
Oriental Mindoro, and in
1.
Men
wear a bahag and
jacket-style shirt; women indigo-dyed ramit
skirts which they weave on back strap looms. Their hand-sewn tops are
embroidered on the back with a cross-shaped design called pakudos. Both sexes wear twilled rattan
belts with pockets around
their waist. Men wear their hair long, tied at the back of the head
with a
cloth band. Women decorate their long hair with beaded headbands. They
are fond
of wearing beaded bracelets and necklaces. The pakudos
design is also found in their jewelry and embroideries, and
woven into their baskets and bags made of buri
palm leaf and nito black fern.
2.
Skilled
weavers of cotton and buri, and in blacksmithing.
3.
Best
known for carving poetry (ambahan)
on bamboo plants and slats, in their pre-Spanish syllabary
script which is Indic in origin. Also known for their black and beige
baskets
and their pakudos design.
H.
Ratagnon
– live in the southernmost part of
Magsaysay, Occidental Mindoro.
1. The
women
wear a knee-length cotton skirt and a breast covering made from woven nito. They also wear
accessories
made of beads and copper wire. The men wear traditional
g-strings and
have an embroidered jacket, which they wear during special
occasions.
Both men and women wear coils of red-dyed rattan at the waist. They
carry
flint, tinder, and other fire-making paraphernalia in a bamboo
container. Like
other Mangyans, they also carry betel chew in a separate bamboo
container or a
hand-woven native bag.
2.
Speak a language similar to Cuyunon, a Visayan language spoken
by the inhabitants of
IV.
COMMONALITIES
AMONG
THE MANGYAN GROUPS
A.
Similar
traits and
practices
1.
Five
Mangyan groups
have straight black hair, brown skin, and are shorter than most lowland
Filipinos. Most Alangans have wavy hair, while Irayas have curly hair
but are
not as dark-skinned as the Aetas. The Hanunuos have fair skin.
2.
Family
size -
generally six children.
3.
They
subsist on rice,
bananas, sweet potato, taro, and other root crops.
4.
They
chew betel nut
to assuage hunger and as a form of socializing.
5.
They’ve
been
practicing sustainable swidden farming with fire-breaks and fallowing
for
generations. However, because land is now scarce, fallowing is no
longer
practiced.
6.
Livelihood
- swidden
farming, crafts making, work in lowlanders' rice fields
7.
Their
homes are made
of nipa, bamboo, and wood.
8.
Almost
all the eight
tribes practice beadwork.
9.
They
have their
respective tribal laws which are carried out by the Council of the
Elders who
are elected community leaders.
B.
Problems,
similar to most indigenous peoples around the world
1.
Loss
of land, livelihood, identity and religion
2.
Treated
as second class citizens in the land which used to belong
to their ancestors
3.
Poor
formal educational opportunities
4.
Poor
infrastructure
5.
Slow
delivery of basic services by the government – i.e.
healthcare, education
6.
The
appeal of the modern world, intermarriage with, and covert
discrimination by, lowlanders have resulted in a loss of cultural
traditions
V.
VOLUNTEERS
NEEDED!
To
visit libraries, museums, newspaper
archives, antique stores, flea markets and dirty attics, in the
Your
donation (even a copy) will help make the
I.
AMBAHAN
SAMPLES (translated
by Antoon
Postma, Mangyan Treasures)
