READING IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY

Topic: Tasaday (Hoax)

Affirmative Construction
While Filipinos celebrated their independence, Swiss journalist Oswald Iten saw an opportunity
to investigate the Tasadays and confirm their authenticity. To his surprise, the once-celebrated
Stone Age community was discovered away from the caves, living in nipa huts, dressed casually,
and engaged in farming.

"They lived in houses; they didn't live in caves and they told me they were in fact not a separate
tribe called Tasaday. They told me it was the idea of Elizalde to make them pose as cavemen and
Stone Age people in order to become famous," Iten said in "The Lost Tribe."

According to Oswald Iten's report, a member of the Tasadays stated that Elizalde promised them
money and protection in exchange for pretending to be cavemen.

"Elizalde forced us to live in the caves so that we'd be better cavemen. Before he came, we lived
in huts on the other side of the mountain and we farmed. We took off our clothes because
Elizalde told us to do so and promised if we looked poor that we would get assistance. He gave
us money to pose as Tasadays and promised us security from counter-insurgency and tribal
fighting."

Negative Construction
The Tasaday is not a Cave People but an ethnic group that Manuel Elizalde Jr. fabricated for being
a Cave People.

First, Tasaday was not, as claimed, living in isolation, but was rather a recently created group of
people created by Manuel Elizalde Jr. and his team in the 1970s. Many pieces of evidence, such
as anthropological and linguistic analysis, show that the Tasaday were not a distinct group, but
rather a conglomeration of people from surrounding areas, as well as historical records and
accounts from those involved in the hoax.

Second, why when the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) Television crew under Judith
Moses negotiated to meet some of the original Tasaday for their documentary titled "The Tribe
That Never Was". Visuals document that the Tasaday is suspicious when the crew observed that
the Tasaday are wearing Western clothing under grass skirts.

Final Speech
The big question is why they're not allowing the DNA testing and the Archeologist to work at the
cave site.

When they are in Tasaday, Linguist Lawrence Reid collected 50 hair samples for DNA analysis.
That way could be clarified or even point to the degree of isolation from the Blit people. But the
analysis led to inconclusive results.

In addition, the offer of a group of archeologists to dig in the area of the caves was turned down.
The analysis of the mittens could date the timespan of cave use. The truth is that there were no
mittens ever described to exist at the caves.

Moreover, more serious efforts were also made to clear the Tasaday case. Three international
conferences were held, the first in Manila, the second in Zagreb, and the third in Washington,
DC, all organized by the American Anthropological Association and led by Thomas Headland of
the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Despite Headland's claim that the Tasaday speak a Manobo
dialect rather than a separate language, he still considers them to be a distinct ethnic group but
not a Stone Age.
Summation and Conclusion
Based on the data gathered and presented, the group affirms that the Tasaday is a hoax with the
following basis:
1. When discovered the Tasaday didn’t wear loin clothes made from leaves but textile
clothing.
2. The Tasaday had not a language of their own but rather a Manobo dialect.
3. No one has ever observed the Tasaday gathering food for a longer period. But it was
hinted several times that the Tasaday were not eating wild yam only but rice as well.
4. The Tasaday stood in trade relations with their neighbors.
5. For pure food gatherers the forests of South Cotabato would not have provided for
enough food. Rather their gathering territory would have had to include a large are
containing villages and towns, even an airport.
6. The stone axes were made with metal instruments and clearly unusable.

Sources:
https://www.oswald-iten.com/tasadei/text-english
https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/the-mindbending-saga-of-the-stone-age-
tasaday-tribe-of-the-philippines/news-story/213664d0c7c17bdd3ba6a29c85274869