PHILIPPINE HALO-HALO: THE MANGYANS OF MINDORO

Presenter: Lolita Delgado Fansler, President, Mangyan Heritage Center

Additional Notes to 20 February 2009 Lecture

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 Philippines, 13% of its 90 million total population
C. 110 IP Groups in the Philippines
D. Mindoro is the 7th largest island in the Philippines
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 Mindoro,
from north to south.

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 5. Iraya - kapiyaan
2. Bangon - kapiyan 6. Ratagnon - kasadyaan
3. Buhid - kafiyaan 7. Tadyawan - mapya
4. Hanunuo - kahusayan 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: Naujan, Victoria, Socorro, Pola,

Gloria, Pinamalayan, and Bansud.
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 Binagaw River and the surrounding mountains within
the municipalities of Bongabong, Bansud, and Gloria in Oriental Mindoro and in
Calintaan, San Jose, and Rizal in Occidental Mindoro.
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 (San Jose and Rizal) Mindoro
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 San Jose, Occidental
Mindoro.
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 Cuyo Island in Northern Palawan.
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 Philippines and anywhere in the world! Scrounge for
photographs, postcards, maps, books, and articles on these IPs and Mindoro. Check
out these words: Mindoro, Tribal Filipinos, Minorities, Non-Christian tribes, Indigenous
Peoples, Mangyan, Alangan, Bangon, Buhid, Hanunoo, Iraya, Ratagnon, Tadayawan,
Tau-buhid. When appropriate or possible, please send the title/author/year of the
books, magazines, clippings, video, etc. to mangyanheritage@gmail.com.

Your donation (even a copy) will help make the Mangyan Heritage Center library in
Mindoro have all the Mangyan materials in the world!

Mangyan Heritage Center

B. Finnemann Compound, Calero, Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro, Philippines
Tel: (+63) (43) 288-5318 Fax: (+63) (43) 441-0565 Email: mangyanhc@catsi.net.ph
Website: www.mangyan.org
VI. AMBAHAN SAMPLES (translated by Antoon Postma, Mangyan Treasures)
Ambahan #205
You, my friend, dearest of all
thinking of you makes me sad:
rivers deep are in between,
forests vast keep us apart.
But thinking of you with love:
as if you are here nearby
standing, sitting at my side.
Ambahan #131
This my problem, my headache,
Like the storm not calming down,
Like the rain that doesn’t stop.
But the final medicine
Why did I not think of it?
We must love each other more.
Then the problem will be gone
Carried along by the wind,
Covered by the forest trees:
And we will be sad no more.
Ambahan #110
Here I am a lonely man.
Mother is not at my side;
Father did not come along.
As companions only these:
just my bow with twanging string,
my spear used as walking staff.
I am like a fallen leaf,
blown about by every breeze!
Ambahan #161
One day my luck might return.
Maybe the rain will pour down,
give life to my withered roots.
Even wherever I am,
I can grow and become strong.
Even at the river-bend
deeply rooted, a fine plant,
with leaves spread out on the soil!
Ambahan#237
At this hour of the dark night
we are still together now
on the woven sleeping-mat.
But when the sun will get up
and the stars will be detached,
our bond might break up too.
When we’ll ever meet again,
it is not with mortal eyes,
But the eye-sight of the soul.
Uyan, a young Mangyan said:: “Mangyan
script will be hard to keep alive and pass on
to the next generation. Not too many young
people can write anymore. But language for
daily conversation will be easier because it
remains in the heart and will be treasured for
life.”
An old Mangyan viewed this philosophically:
Bamboos with the climbing vine
Even if the leaves fall down
The trunk will be strong and fine
Firmly rooted, straight they stand
in the good and fertile land.
Ambahan #48 (torn betwen 2 lovers)
Look the Kalansiw bird there;
he just came down in the yard,
walking so uncertainly.
Maybe he walks just like that
because he is not so sure,
whether to the quiet lake,
or the running stream he’ll go.
Ambahan #198
Look! The moon so full and bright,
Shining in front of the house!
How can you explain to me
that the rays are soft and cool?
If a man like us he were,
I would hold him by the hand!
Seize the hair to keep him back!
Grasp the clothes to make him stay!
But how could I manage that!
It is the moon in the sky!
The full moon shining so bright,
going down beyond the hills,
disappearing from the plain,
out of sight behind the rocks.
Ambahan #234
My dear fragrant herb, my wife,
it is true, we have to part,
on this day and on this hour.
If united we remain
and our bond is strong and pure,
you and I, far as we are,
it’s like holding hands again,
it’s like sitting side by side.
The Mangyan Heritage Center owns the copyright to the photos. Unauthorized copying and/or reproduction is strictly prohibited.