In Focus: Why there are no tribes in the Philippines

July 03, 2008

JESUS T. PERALTA, PhD

Put simply, a tribe is a corporate descent group below the state in integration. Its first idea is the manner by which people
explain their social and political organization where leadership is neither formalized nor permanent. It changes with
history and political context. However, it is based on a concept of political identity through patrilineal descent. It is then
associated with unilineal descent systems, usually patriarchal. Membership in a tribe is, therefore, well defined due
to unilineal kinship. In the Philippines, technically, there are no tribes since the kinship system among Philippine groups
is bilateral, although at times there is a matriarchal bias especially with reference to post-marital residences. This is the
reason there are also no ancestors in the Philippine system since it is ego focused and not ancestor focused as in unilineal
systems. It is for the same reason that terms clans or moieties cannot be used to describe Philippine societies since these
refer to unilineal kinship forms.

Originally, it is the third part of the Roman people. Generally it is a collection of people descending from one ancestor
(e.g. the 12 tribes of Israel were the 12 collections of families that descended from the sons of Jacob). Generally, these are
groups with linguistic and cultural resemblances. Etymology – up until the 18th-19 century, it was used to denote the
original European societies in general, but mostly the first Roman settlements. The first use to denote non-western people
was in the 18th -19th century when the established Western view was of the superiority of the Western peoples and
societies over the rest of the world.

Tribe is an organizational concept between the band and the state. Contemporary tribes did not originate from pre-state
tribes, rather in pre-state bands. This came about as a modern practice of state expansion. Such pre-state bands comprise
small, mobile, fluid social formations with weak leadership. These developed when states set them up as a means to
extend administrative and economic influence in the hinterlands, where direct political control would cost too much. Thus
their boundaries became clearer with a more centralized authority that would be more responsive to the state.

In the United States the word was applied to the indigenous peoples because the Americans of European descent could not
accept the indigenous peoples as nations. The word was also universally applied to all the peoples of Africa for the same
reason. The view persists even today. The reason is that the term is used in Western languages which were taught to locals
peoples by Western teachers with their Western viewpoints.

Why is it then so misunderstood and commonly misused even by Philippine officialdom?

The practice has created confusion especially with reference to ethnic identity and definition. The notion is based on its
use as an administrative devise in various concepts prior to, during and colonial rule. To some degree, this concerns
maintained conceptions modified for political purposes. The administrative concepts of “tribe” take on a corporate
identity with fixed territorial boundaries that many “tribes” do not possess, and give privileges and authority to” tribal”
leaders that are dependent on the state organization, and not derived from leadership as understood by the people
themselves – for instance the organization of “tribal councils” where previously there were only councils of elders; or the
concept of “ancestral domain”, where no ascendant ancestor can be identified in the Philippines for any ethnic group.

The problem with the word tribe is that it is not general enough in application since its meaning is not precise except in
the fact that it always implies primitiveness. The term “ethnic group” is generally sufficient in comprehension to
accommodate the meaning of groups of people or societies that are pre-state or sub-national – which is closer to the nature
of groups of people in the Philippines. Anthropologists in the Philippines prefer the use of the term, “ethno-linguistic
group”, because the implication of language includes specific culture.

About the Author:

Jesus T. Peralta is a Bachelor of Philosophy graduate from the University of Sto. Tomas, with a Master of Arts in
Anthropology from the University of the Philippines, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology from the University of
California. He was Director III of the National Museum until he retired in 1997. Most interestingly, he is also a ten-time
winner in the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards in Literature in the field of playwriting. He has more than 120 scientific
papers and publications on anthropology, archaeology, and general culture to his name. He is the author of The Tinge of
Red, Glimpses: Peoples of the Philippines and Insights into Philippine Culture: Festschrift in Honor of William Henry
Scott. He now works as a Consultant for the Management Information Systems Office of The National Commission for
Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
Retrieved 25 July 2017 from http://ncca.gov.ph/about-culture-and-arts/in-focus/why-there-are-no-tribes-in-the-
philippines/
 ACTIVITY: Once upon a time: Applying Sociology at its very sense. Read the story below then
answer concisely the follow-up questions found within the subplots of the story to help
facilitate your understanding. Substantiate your answers with concepts we’ve discussed
about sociology. Enjoy reading!

The story begins with Karapiru, an Awa indigenous in Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest. Karapiru's ancestral
homeland lies in Maranhão state, between the equatorial forests of Amazonia to the west and the eastern
savannahs. To the indigenous Awá, however, the land has only one name: Harakwá, or, "the place that we
know."

The 460 members of the Awá tribe live by hunting for wild pigs, tapirs and monkeys, traveling through the
rainforest with 6-foot bows and by gathering forest produce: babaçu nuts, açaí berries, and honey. Some
foods are considered to have special properties; others, such as vultures, bats, and the three-toed sloth, are
forbidden. The Awá also travel by night, lighting the way with torches made from tree resin.

The tribe nurtures domesticated animals as pets; they share their hammocks with raccoon-like coatis and
split mangoes with green parakeets. Awá women even breastfeed capuchin and howler monkeys and have
also been known to suckle small pigs.

The Awá year is divided into "sun" and "rain"; the rains are controlled by celestial beings
called mai ra who oversee vast reservoirs in the sky. When the moon is full, the men, their dark hair speckled
white with king vulture feathers, commune with the spirits through a chant-induced trance, during a sacred
ritual that lasts until dawn.

For centuries, their way of life has been one of peaceful symbiosis with the rainforest. But over the course
of four decades, they have witnessed the destruction of their homeland -- more than 30 percent of one of
their territories has now been razed to make way for cattle ranches -- and the murder of their people at the
hands of karaí, or non-Indians. Today they are one of the last nomadic tribes in Brazil. As they are so few in
number (there are fewer than 100 uncontacted Awá, some of whom live outside any protected area), they are
surrounded on all sides by hostile frontier forces such as ranchers, loggers and settlers who invade and kill
with impunity; as a result, much of their forest has been destroyed. They are now also the most threatened
tribe on Earth.

1. What do you call the group of Awa people in Brazil? Describe their group in your own words.

2. What is Harakwá to the native tribe of Awa?

3. Based on Symbolic Interactionism theory, identify how the Awa society developed.

4. What cultural values can you relate from the Awa tribe?

5. Describe the means of livelihood of the Awa tribe. How do they live in order to survive?

6. How does the structural-functional theory work in this context?

 Karapiru's harrowing story really begins with a chance discovery in 1967 when American geologists were
carrying out an aerial survey of the region's mineral resources. When the helicopter needed to refuel, the pilot
decided to land on a treeless summit high in the Carajás Mountains. One geologist reputedly noticed a
scattering of black-grey rocks on the ground. In fact, the soil beneath him contained what a geological
magazine would later refer to as, "a thick layer of Jaspilites and lenses of hard hematite." In layman's terms,
the prospectors had just touched down on the planet's richest iron ore deposit.

Their discovery swiftly gave rise to the development of the Great Carajas Project, an agro-industrial
scheme financed by the U.S., Japan, the World Bank, and what was then known as the European Economic
Community (now the European Union). It consisted of a dam, aluminium smelters, charcoal camps and cattle
ranches. Tarmacked roads and a long-distance railway cut through the Awá tribe's territory in order to
transport workers in and minerals out.

The project's industrial showpiece was a chasm gouged from the forest floor -- one so vast that it could be
seen from space -- and one which would, in time, become the world's largest opencast mine.

The Great Carajás Project was devastating for the region's environment and its tribal peoples, despite the
fact that in return for the billion-dollar loan, the financiers had asked the Brazilian government to guarantee
that its indigenous territories would be mapped and protected.

But there was a fortune to be made from the forest, so a flood of ranchers, settlers and loggers soon
began to pour into the region. Huge bulldozers gouged the land, tearing through layers of soil and rock to
reach ore, bauxite and manganese. Ancient trees were chopped and burned; the black of charcoal ash
replaced the deep green of the forest's foliage: Harakwá became a polluted, scarred, muddy vision of hell.

To the invaders the Awá tribe was nothing more than an obstacle to their territory's natural treasure
trove; a primitive nuisance that they needed to fell together with the trees.

So they started killing them.

Some were inventive in their killings: several Awá died after eating flour laced with ant poison; a "gift"
from a local farmer. Others, like Karapiru, were shot where they stood -- at home, in front of their families.

Karapiru believed that he was the only member of his family to survive one such massacre. The killers
murdered his wife, son, daughter, mother, brothers and sisters. Another son was wounded and captured.

7. What was the idea or plan in the area inhabited by Awa?

8. To fulfill this plan, what has been committed against the Awa tribe? Ethnocide or Genocide? Explain.

9. How was the Awa tribe abolished?

10. In what ways has ethnocide been committed?

11. What happened to Karapiru’s family?

12. What do you think are the roots of conflict in this story?
 For the next 10 years, Karapiru was on the run. He walked for nearly 400 miles across the forested hills and
plains of Maranhão state, crossing the sand dunes of the restingas and the broad rivers that flow into the
Atlantic.

He was terrified, hungry and alone. "It was very hard," he told Survival International. "I had no family to
help me, and no one to talk to."

He survived by eating honey and small Amazonian birds: parakeet, dove and the red-bellied thrush. At
night, when howler monkeys called from the canopy, he slept high in the boughs of vast copaiba trees, among
the orchids and rattan vines. When the grief and loneliness became too much, he would talk quietly to himself
or hum as he walked.

He was a man who had spent ten years "fleeing from everything."

Once news spread that a solitary, unknown Indian had emerged from the forest, an anthropologist visited
him. Karapiru tried to recount his story, telling the anthropologist that he had seen his family brutally cut
down; that he had spent a decade in silence and that he was now the only one left.

But there was a problem: the anthropologist couldn't understand the language he spoke. Believing it to be
part of the Tupi language group, he thought Karapiru might be a member of the Avá tribe, so officials from
FUNAI, the government Indian affairs department, sent Karapiru to Brasilia. There he was introduced to Avá
speakers, in the hope they would be able to understand each other. They couldn't. So in a final attempt to
communicate with Karapiru, FUNAI sent a young Awá man called Xiramukû to talk with him.

The meeting with Xiramuku was one Karapiru could never have imagined. Not only could Xiramuku
understand Karapiru's language, but he used one specific Awá word that instantly transformed Karapiru's life:
he called him "father." The man standing in front of Karapiru, talking to him in his mother tongue, was his son.

Xiramuku persuaded his father to leave the farmer's house and live with him in the Awá village of
Tiracambu. After years of isolation, Karapiru once more led an Awá way of life: eating game hunted in the
rainforest, sleeping in a hammock, and keeping monkeys as pets.

Since then, Survival International has discovered that Karapiru has remarried, has several children and lives
near his son in an Awá village. "I feel good here with the other Awá"' he says, "I found my son after many
years, which made me very happy."

13. How did Karapiru live his life in “fleeing from everything?”

14. How did the language become a barrier and how was it solved?

15. What should have been the role of the international community in this heartbreaking story?

Concept Present or not present [Just If present, how was it

tick () or put x mark ] manifested in the story? (in
words or short phrases only)
 Structural-functional
theory
 Conflict theory
 Symbolic-interactionism
 Hypodescent
 Intrinsic racism
 Violence
 Ethnic group
 Ethnolinguistics group
 Nation state
 Indigenous people
 Indigenous cultural
community
 Peaceful assimilation
 pluralism
 Multiculturalism
 Prejudice
 Discrimination
 Ethnocide
 Genocide
 Ethnic expulsion
 Colonialism
 Cultural colonialism