MANGYANS

WHY WERE MANGYANS CALLED “MANGYANS”?

MANGUIANES, Mangyanes, Mangyan, Malayan-Negrito people of Mindoro. The first written mention of the word "Manguianes" was in 1577 by Fray Martin de Rada. Nothing more appeared until 1630.
We are told by Augustinian Friar Juan de Medina that the island of Mindoro was accessible through Batangas (as it still is) and that it was very large and very well covered with mountains. It had beautiful rivers and lots of fish and, above all, it had a lot of wax that was mainly gathered by "the ancient inhabitants of the country ... the people called Mangyan (forest people)." Although considered "savages," the friars regarded the Mangyan as "simple, honest, temperate people" who were afraid the Spaniards would capture them in order to have them man their boats. Thus, the wax they gathered was turned over to the "Tagals" who used it to pay their tribute.

The Mangyan were not exclusive to Mindoro but apparently also inhabited the interiors of Romblon and Tablas so that the name was collective and, at the time, referred to other communities. These groups were basically nomadic, did not appear to have any knowledge of agriculture or of money and roamed the forests in batches or by families. The men wore g-strings and the women 30 or 40 yards of rattan ("bejuco") around their hips.

WHERE DO MANGYANS LIVE?

When one says Mangyan, he refers to the eight IP groups found mainly in the mountainous regions of Mindoro Island. These include the Alangan, Bangon, Buhid, Hanunuo, Iraya, Ratagnon, Tadywan, and Tau-buid, who comprise 10 percent of the total population of Oriental Mindoro and Occidental Mindoro.

The Alangan occupy northwest central Mindoro. The Alangan Mangyans are found within the municipalities of Naujan, Baco, San Teodoro, and Victoria in Oriental Mindoro, and in the municipality of Sablayan in Occidental Mindoro. Alangan Mangyan, live in communal houses called balay-lakoy (big house), where three to 20 nuclear families of three or more generations reside.

The Bangon Mangyans are found along the Bongabon river called Binagaw and the surrounding mountains located within the municipalities of Bongabong, Bansud, and Gloria in Oriental Mindoro.

The Taubuhid occupy the central highlands of the island in the Occidental Mindoro. They live in a region where mountains tower 1950 m high. The Taubuid Mangyans are found within the municipalities of Socorro, Pinamalayan and Gloria, but mostly they live in Occidental Mindoro.

The Buhid occupy the south central part of Mindoro. Their territory just about equally straddles the eastern and western provinces comprising the island. The Buhid Mangyans are found within the municipalities of Roxas, Bansud, Bongabong and some parts of Mansalay in Oriental Mindoro, and in the municiplaities of San Jose and Rizal in Occidental Mindoro.

The Hanunoo Mangyan live in a mountainous area about 800 sqkm in the southeastern part of the island, mainly in Oriental Mindoro. Their territory is under the municipal jurisdiction of Mansalay, Bulalacao, and a certain part of San Jose, which is the capital of Occidental Mindoro. Christian lowlanders surround them on the east. To the north lie the Buhid, and to the southwest the Ratagnon.The Hanunoo Mangyans are found within the municipalities of Mansalay, Bulalacao, and some parts of Bongabong in Oriental Mindoro, and in the municipality of San Jose in Occidental Mindoro.

The Tadyawan live in sparse settlements in the northeast part of the island. The Tadyawan Mangyans are found within the municipalities of Naujan, Victoria, Socorro, Pola, Gloria, Pinamalayan, and Bansud.

The Iraya Mangyans are found within the municipalities of Puerto Galera, San Teodoro and Baco in Oriental Mindoro, and mostly they live in Occidental Mindoro, particularly in the municipalities of Abra de Ilog, Paluan, Mamburao and Sta. Cruz. The Iraya occupy the northwestern part of Mindoro, where one of the country's highest peaks, Mount Halcon, is located. Historically, however, the Iraya occupied the coastal region in some distant past, until they were pushed further inland by settlers from other places.

The Ratragon occupy the southernmost tip of the island province, quite close to the coast facing the Sulu Sea. They lie nearest the aquatic route going to Busuanga Island in the northernmost Palawan and the Cuyo islands, two places
where the language spoken is Cayunon, which is also used by the Ratagnon. The Ratagnon are found in the southernmost part of the municipality of Magsaysay in Occidental Mindoro. The language spoken by the Ratagnon is similar to the Cuyunon language, a Visayan language spoken by the inhabitants of Cuyo Island in Northern Palawan.

WHAT’S SO UNIQUE ABOUT MANGYANS?

The Mangyans possess a rich and distinctive cultural and literary heritage. They play the guitar, violin, flute, gong, and Jew’s harp. They have what they call the ambahans, which are written with rhyming ending syllables and recited in poetic language or chant without a musical instrument. Ambahans are inscribed on bamboo trees or on bamboo slats with the use of a pointed knife.

As in any society, one can easily spot a Mangyan from a non-Mangyan through his clothing. One can even tell from what tribe the Mangyan belongs. The Alangan and Tau-Buid use materials from local trees and plants for their clothing. The Alangan tribe wears lingeb skirts from woven rattan, while the men wear g-strings made of bark. The male and female Tau-Buids use bark cloth for clothing and blanket. The standard dress for both sexes is the loincloth. The Hanunuo men wear the ba-ag (loincloth) and shirt while the women wear short indigo-dyed skirts and embroidered blouses. The Buhid women wear black and white skirts called abol and the men wear g-strings. One thing is certain. All the different Mangyan tribes love to wear beaded accessories.

Today, one of the Mangyans’ main sources of livelihood is their handicraft made of forest vines, beads and cotton. They also plant upland rice, corn, beans, bananas, and root crops with reverence for the environment. However, their way of life is threatened by the destruction of forests by illegal loggers. Some Mangyans also work as hired laborers of lowlanders on a seasonal basis.

Some say the Mangyans have tails. This is most derogatory. It is believed that the one who observed this and wrote about it was referring to the g-string, or bahag, worn by the men and wrapped around the waist, with the remainder hanging loosely at the back.

Some say the Mangyans are beggars. Only some villages in one community are known to beg. Mangyans are a proud people. It is considered morally and socially inappropriate for them to beg. They pride themselves on the independence of their community and their self-sufficiency. Mangyans center their lives on the principle of co-existence: They do not live off the environment; they live with it.

A typical Mangyan family lives in a thatched roof hut with bamboo floors. Some Mangyan communities, particularly the Alangan Mangyan, live in communal houses called balay-lakoy (big house), where three to 20 nuclear families of three or more generations reside.

Crime, theft or violence among the Mangyan communities rarely occur. Each tribe has its own customary laws, which serve as a guide for the elders when resolving disputes. Illicit drug and alcohol use have been introduced to Mangyan communities, but are extremely rare. Their traditional diet includes root crops, wild yam, wild fruits, banana, corn, and rice.

DO MANGYANS STILL EXIST IN THE PRESENT ERA? HOW?

The province’s existing ethnic tribal groups, the Mangyans, are gentle and withdrawn people but many of them have managed to integrate into the cultural mainstream, largely in the municipalities of Mansalay, Baco, Puerto Galera, Roxas, and Bongabong. The Mangyan tribe consists of various smaller tribes like the Iraya, Alangan, and Tadwanan. They are skilled weavers and craftsmen, producing intricate tribal finery, including baskets, mats, and other items, both functional and aesthetic.

WHAT ARE THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE MANGYANS?

First Mangyan Lawyer

EVEN AS a child, Renato Zosimo Evangelista knew he was different. For one, he dreaded Christmas. Unlike other children who would get excited at the first whiff of the “–ber” breeze, he would get anxious for the coming days ahead.

It gets colder in the mountains during those months. But it was not the cold that bothered him too much; Christmas was the time when his fellow Mangyan would come down from the mountains and ask for money from the lowlanders. As the youngest Mangyan studying in predominantly Tagalog Holy Infant Academy in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro, he was often bullied by his classmates who would tell him: “Bakit ka nandito? Doon ka sa mga kasama mo. Di ka ba mamamasko? Nasaan ang bahag mo? (Why are you here? Go stick to your own kind. Aren’t you going to ask for Christmas charity? Where’s your g-string?)”

Indeed, his life would be defined by people telling him where his place was. But he would defy them all.

He says he was conceived in a church. His mother, a Mangyan adopted by a Roman Catholic missionary when she was eight, had fallen in love with a sacristan mayor from Batangas. It was the early `70s, and intermarriage was frowned upon, much as it is now.

He knew little of his father who left, in shame perhaps, even before he was born. But he carried his father’s name, and years later his father’s brother would ask for his forgiveness, and would tell him that they were proud of him.

And they should be, for Renato Zosimo Evangelista, a Mangyan from Oriental Mindoro, beat the odds to become the first Mangyan lawyer in history. When his uncle said his father’s family was proud of him, Evangelista was already the provincial legal officer in Oriental Mindoro.

The Mangyan are an indigenous people who call the mountains of Oriental and Occidental Mindoro home, and whose history is about 3,000 years old. There are eight major tribes of Mangyan, whose population reaches some 390,000, including those whose names do not appear in the local civil registries. Typically of slight build, some of them still wear g-strings made of bark and cloth even today, including the women, who cover their breasts with pieces of cloth or ulango and rattan nito or yakis. Perennial chewing of betel nut, which leaves the mouth looking as if it were bloody, has also left many Mangyan with teeth that blacken as time passes.

Evangelista, now 34, did not pick up that tribal habit, sparing his teeth the unusual tint brought by the betel nut. His mother, from the Hanunuo tribe, was an activist, a trailblazer who would later become one of the first Mangyan elementary school teachers. In school she would always win in extemporaneous public speaking competitions. Her son describes her as being very vocal and a “fighter.” She used her gifts, he says, to fight for her people’s rights.

THEIRS IS a story of struggle, of fighting tooth and nail for every right that was denied, every parcel of land that was grabbed, every dignity that was trampled upon. Yet at first Evangelista’s young mind could not comprehend the scorn, the utter lack of respect for his people. The jeers — how the lowlanders would sneer at them. How they would be cheated of their products — vegetables, baskets, bags, and hammocks — whenever they sold these in town, how they would be displaced from their land, how friends and family would disappear because the military suspected them of being members of the New People’s Army.

Drivers would not let them sit inside jeepneys, other passengers would cover their nose when they were around, they were not allowed to use the utensils in other people’s houses. Once, he remembers, a boy his age threw a tantrum when the boy’s mother let him borrow the boy’s toys.

He says that in Mindoro, when one does something stupid or shows ignorance about something, people would say, “Ano ka, Mangyan? (What are you, Mangyan?)” or “Mamangyan-mangyan ka (You’re being such a Mangyan).” His people were perceived as dumb, partly because they still clung to many of their old ways and partly because so many of them were bereft of education. In time, however, Evangelista says he learned to ignore the jeers and to listen only to his own dreams. He recalls thinking, “Someday, you will look up to me. Someday I can prove that I can do great things.”

He knew he wanted to be a lawyer even before his mother asked him to study the law. After all, he had been exposed early on to the reality that he had to fight for almost every bit of what was due them. He saw how his mother, as spokesperson and advocate for indigenous peoples’ rights, valiantly tried to protect them from abuse, using her passion and gift of gab. But passion did not win arguments, and it did not guarantee them their rights. The boy Renato realized he had to arm himself with knowledge, and with the same tools lowlanders used to suppress their rights; he knew he had to study the lowlanders’ law.

The Mangyan have their own legal system called kasaba. It is composed of one or two elders from the community who sit as the judge and jury in a “legal” battle. An accuser has his own defender of choice, usually a friend, and so does the accused. The conflicting parties argue until they convince the elders of their guilt or innocence. Once, says Evangelista, he witnessed a tigian, a Mangyan ritual to determine who was telling the truth. An egg was put in a cauldron of boiling water and the contending parties were asked to reach down and get the egg. In the ritual, he who comes out unburned is declared the victor.

But the lowlanders had a different legal system, and Evangelista knew he had to study their laws if he wanted to be taken seriously. So in high school, he endured walking for five hours — three hours to come down the mountain, and two hours from the highway to the Mangyan Education Center in Mansalay — just to attend class. Tuition at the center was free, but parents brought chicken, rice, fruits, and vegetables to augment the school’s food supply. When the school started, it had around a hundred Mangyan. Of that batch, though, only 20 (including Evangelista) eventually graduated from high school.

First Mangyan Priest Ordained

The first ethnic Magyan priest was ordained on April 17 in a ceremony that brought together many faithful. The new priest comes from one of the most ancient and least known indigenous groupings of the country.

Although he had wanted a simple affair, Hanunuo Mangyan Gabayno Calinog Oybad’s entry into the priesthood was welcomed by thousands of Catholic faithful in Bulalacao Cathedral, Oriental Mindoro province.

“This is an event for the whole Catholic church,” said Fr. Ewald Dinter, director of the Mangyan Mission-Oriental Mindoro.

Quoting Pope John Paul II the clergyman explained that a “faith that does not become culture is a faith which has not been fully received, not fully lived.’

The service, held in the local dialect, was presided by Bishop Warlito Cajandig (pic'd here) with the assistance of about a hundred priests, a string tied around their forehead out of respect for local indigenous traditions.

The following day Father Oybad travelled back to his mountain community near the city of Bulalacao where people rejoiced over his ordination.

Asked how he felt now that he was a priest, he said: “I am overwhelmed with the love of God.”

The first Mangyan Tekno Worker

Let us welcome our new worker-trainee, Herbeboy Agustin! He is

one of the Tekno kids from Nangka(Magnot) Mangyan

Community. He’s the number two graduate in high school and the

first to graduate in Vocational Course. We invited him to work

with us this school year so he can serve his fellow

Mangyans before pursuing another vocational course

next year. In same way, he could be of help to his

parents too being the eldest among the seven children.

Herbe said, “ I’d been with Tekno for six year as “Tekno kid” ,

this time it’s different because I am now a “Tekno Worker. This

will be hard for me. I’ll try what I can do.” Pls. pray for Herbe!

Herbeboy, the first Mangyan Tekno Worker

WHAT DO THE MANGYANS OF MINDORO EAT?

A reddish drink was identified as gumamela juice. If that doesn’t make you curious, I don’t know what will.

Listed as one of the drink selections on the menu of the Mangyan Exhibit luncheon at the M Café of the Ayala Museum, the juice is reportedly produced by the Sisters of the Holy Spirit.

Students of the College of the Holy Spirit (once Holy Ghost College) were always made aware of the Mangyans of Mindoro. Our nuns, German and Filipino, made sure we supported their missionary work among these indigenous people. We either gave part of our small allowance or sent our old clothes.

So when the invitation was sent to view a Mangyan exhibit (ongoing until Jan. 23) and taste the food at the Ayala Museum, I remembered my alma mater. And now, I was curious because the nuns never really said much about the Mangyans or their culture. My sparse information never got beyond their unique writing system.

The Mangyan script was there, the syllabic writing system etched with a knife on bamboo. And so were the clothes, skirts made of long strips of dark nito (black fern) wound around a woman’s abdomen up to her thighs, like a series of hoops.

The Mangyan women we met that day, however, wore woven skirts and blouses with cross patterns, the costume of a particular tribe called the Hanunuo.

What struck many of us was how similar Mangyan art was to that of other indigenous peoples in the country. The beadwork, for instance, had almost the same patterns. The basket weaves looked almost the same. We learned of another similarity when someone mentioned the Mangyans’ liking for canned sardines.

The Aetas and the Bagobos of Davao also love sardines. They will gladly exchange their native chicken for them. Aetas and Mangyans advertise their having had a meal of the coveted sardines by using the remaining oily tomato sauce on their hair. Lowlanders find this difficult to understand and deride the cultural communities for the practice.

The inadequate amount or total absence of fish in their diets may explain this fondness for sardines. Canned fish is also portable, has long shelf life and tastes different from what is on their daily menu. It’s a prestigious item because sardines don’t come free.

Owning and eating canned sardines show that someone either had money or had something good enough to barter.

Sardine patties

And so, at the exhibit, it was the first item on our menu—sardine cakes with kaffir aioli. I wondered if the Mangyans with us would appreciate this kind of transformation—pressing sardines into patties, frying them and then flavoring with an unfamiliar kind of lime.

For the others attending the lunch, it was explained that it’s not Mangyan cooking we were to taste. The menu only featured specific ingredients used by Mangyans.

Lolita Delgado Fansler, Mangyan Heritage Center board of trustees’ president, also informed us that the ingredients were also not sourced from Mindoro because the Mangyans didn’t produce enough and, even if they did, the recent floods in the province would make it impossible to bring those to Manila.

The transformation at the Museum Café was done by Sau del Rosario, veteran chef of many restaurants. The sardine cake was treated like crab cake and served with arugula salad and beetroot vinaigrette.

On one side of the plate was the Mangyan letter for M. It could have stood for Mangyan, museum or, and I would have been really flattered, my first name. Our place mats had the Mangyan syllabic script and instructions on how to write our own names.

Poetry

In between courses, we had more information regarding the Mangyan culture. Perhaps the most beautiful was a recitation of an ambahan, a Mangyan poem with a meter of seven syllable lines, by Antoon Postma, the expert on the community’s culture and its indefatigable promoter, researcher and translator. We had a creamy soup of kabatse, their word for patani (lima beans). The kabatse espresso was served with roasted kamote. The main dish was a mix of so many ingredients—poached chicken, upo salad, ube ravioli, kalabasa fritters, pesto sauce. And then a bread stick, black sesame seeds embedded into it. I suppose the chef had so many ingredients to work with and had to use them all. Finding out that black sesame seeds were part of Mangyan ingredients was a surprise and I thought how those seeds were considered exotic by chefs. For dessert, it was banana and kasuy worked into a chocolate mousse in a tart shell and tasting like a banoffi pie.

It might seem odd to many people that we were not served genuine Mangyan cooking. Fansler explained that the Mangyan had basic roasted and boiled food, with salt for flavoring. So she thought that if café diners were made aware of the ingredients that Mangyans used, they might become curious enough to see the exhibit, too. Or the other way around.

MANGYAN PICTURES

Hanunoo-Mangyans playing flute

Ambahan session

Hanunoo-Mangyan girls

Cotton spinning to produce thread for weaving is one of the traditional practices of the Hanunoo-Mangyans.

A Hanunoo-Mangyan woman embroidering a cross-like design called pakudos at the back of their traditional shirt.

A Hanunoo-Mangyan father shows his son how to inscribe the Mangyan script on a bamboo slat.

Basket weaving using indigenous materials like buri and pandan (palm) leaves is a common practice and one of the sources of livelihood among the Hanunoo-Mangyans.

Hanunoo-Mangyan girls playing their traditional guitar

The Hanunoo-Mangyans' age-old custom of weaving is being taught to the younger generations in a culture training held in a Mangyan community recently.

Alangan Mangyans in their traditional attire

Alangan Mangyan girls in their traditional attire

Alangan Mangyan family

Tadyawan Mangyans

Bangon Mangyan

Mangyan Girls