Ethnic Differentiation 1

GLIMPSES In understanding the peoples of the Philippines, an in-depth study of the different ethnic groups is needed-their beginnings, differentiation, adaptation, distribution, convergence and many other aspects. This books intends to identify all the ethnic boundaries that define their existence and provides glimpse of the different peoples that make up this nation. i ii GLIMPSES PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES JESUS T. PERALTA National Commission for Culture and the Arts GLIMPSE: PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES ©2000 by Jesus T. Peralta. All rights reserved. iii GLIMPSE: PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES ©2000 by Jesus T. Peralta. All rights reserved. First edition, 2000 First printing, 2000 Cover design by Boy Togonon Page composition by Rommel Macaraig The National Library of the Philippines CIP Data Recommended entry: Peralta, Jesus T. Glimpses: Peoples of the Philippines / By Jesus T. Peralta – Manila : NCCA, c2000 1v 1. Ethnic groups-Philippines I. Philippines. National Commission for Culture and the Arts. II. Title. GN495.4P5 305.8’09599 2000 P 200000005 ISBN 971-814-002-6 National Commission for Culture and the Arts 633 General Luna Street, Inramuros, 1002 Manila Tel. 527-2192 to 98 • Fax 527-2191 and 94 email: [email protected] • website: www.ncca.gov.ph The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) is the overall coordinating and policymaking government body that systematizes and streamlines national efforts in promoting culture and the arts. The NCCA promotes cultural and artistic development; conserves and promote the nation’s historical and cultural heritage; ensures the widest dissemination of artistic and cultural products among the greatest number across the country; preserve and integrates traditional culture and its various creative expressions as a dynamic part of the national cultural mainstreams; and ensures that standards of excellence are pursued in its programs and activities. The NCCA administer the National Endowment Fund for Culture and the Arts (NEFCA). iv CONTENTS Preface vii Acknowledgement xi The People: Ethnic Differentiation 1 Ethnic Group Briefs 13 Ethno-Linguistic Group Listings 53 Distribution of Ethnic Groups by Provinces 63 Bibliography 115 v vi PREF ACE The study that resulted in this book started in 1988 when initial inquiries into a more definitive assessment of the people of the Philippines were made. Surprisingly, the number of ethnic groups in the country could not be ascertained. The number varies according to which authority is read. The Republic of the Philippines has been in existence for a long time and yet no one knows exactly who are the different people that make up this nation. The beginning, differentiation, adaptation, distribution, convergences, and other aspects of the different ethnic groups in the Philippine archipelago have never been discussed in a continuous format. The question can even be raised as to why there are ethnic groups at all, or if there still are ethnic groups as they have been traditionally recognized. Many ethnic names are known but little else is heard about the people they refer to. For instance, who are the Balango? Where were they located originally and where are they now? How many of them are there? The Tituray, Ikalahan, I’wak and others are not even been mentioned in the 1990 national census. Studying peoples is a very complex endeavor, and one has to speak about them in the so-called ethnographic present because they continually change. Even the relationships among them are in a state of flux, and are altered when seen from another perspective. Also, relationships are often compounded so that any genealogical tree of kinship between ethnic groups can be graphically stated in a number of ways depending on the perspective used. An attempt to show a dendogram of the relationship of Philippine groups will be made here if only to serve as a point of departure for future refinements. To put all known ethnic groups in a single volume that will allow contiguous glimpses, like still photographic frames flipped through, is the objective of this work. The different parameters that led to the formation of the different ethnic communities that now compose the Filipino people are treated here. How specific ethnicities developed due to the variations in the state coordinates, whether environmental or sociological in nature, are discussed. However, the state of isolation of a majority of these ethnic groups through time has led to the establishment of rigidly maintained and defended ethnic boundaries. During the past few centuries many of these boundaries have become amorphous vii especially where the strictures of a centralized government, modified religious and belief systems, new sets of values, state-introduced systems of education and economy have been established. The breakdown of traditional institutions together with the deterioration of ethnic cultures has become an essential component of the development of a single nation and people, and this now characterized the state of the many ethnic groups. The loss of ethnic culture is a high price to pay for nationhood. This is inevitable for ethnicity by its very nature changes as individual persons alter through time. It is static and constant only in the ethnographic present, but changes in the harsh light of reality. The tragedy of traditions in continual flux is evident now in the Philippine ethnic societies. It is no longer possible to be very positive in the identification of ethnic membership by appearance alone. Before a person could readily be said to be a Kiyyangan Ifugao or a Duluanon B’laan because the patterns and colors of clothing alone would identify him as such. Now unless a person says that he is Kiyyangan or Duluanon, or speaks in this mother tongue, identification cannot easily be done. Before the pagdiwata ritual was performed in the Tagbanua villages on occasions of celebration. Now this is choreographed on stage before seated audiences instead of participating villagers. Given the altered states of Philippine ethnic group it is imperative taht they be located and identified for the rest of the Filipino people who are enmeshed only in of nationhood. Secondly, with the mobility afforded by the infrastructures of government, peoples have moved out from their traditional enclaves into different catchment areas in the country. Thus, communities that have developed in Mindanao composed of peoples from different ethnic groups like the Hiligaynon and Ilocano. Others through internal pressures exerted by their own culture have left their home land, like the Ilongot. There are now more Ilongot in Bulacan, Cavite, and Palawan than in Nueva Vizcaya or Quirino provinces. These matters are discussed in the second part of this study. The second part of this work gives a sketch of a majority of the different ethnic groups, with longer annotations on those groups that are relatively less known. The various names given to these various groups in different studies are included to make the identification more specific, even if to a certain extent it would create some confusion. Some of the ethnic groups have not been described due firstly to the lack of literature or because no fieldwork data have been obtained from the groups at the time of writing. The core areas-places where the population counts are densest while indicating the probable staging areas of dispersal of the different populations are pointed out when possible. This is based on the postulate in natural history that the area of greatest variation of a species is the area of origin. viii The succeeding part attempts to list the different ethnic groupings in varying levels of integrations. With the multiplicity of ethnic subgroup names, there had been a tendency to equate specific ethnicity to a subgroup, or even a sub-subgroup which is actually only a highly localized community with a locative term to identify this member of an ethnic group. The classification clarifies that different level of membership. Thus, twenty six (26) major groupings are recognized, with the rest falling in different levels of integration. There are problems, too where a subgroup at a secondary level, has received anthropological treatment such that the focus had somewhat elevated the status of the subgroup to the level of a major group, e.g. the Tasaday which has been regarded by most as a distinct ethnic group when in fact it is merely as subgroup of the Cotabato Manobo, or the “Badjaw” or Sama Delaut which is only a subgroup of the larger Sama ethnicity. In northern Luzon, there are the Malaweg, Itawit, and Ibanag that culturally for all intents and purposes, have already converged into a single group. Insofar as the Negrito and Manobo groups are concerned, the picture is not yet very clear. At one time, the summer institute of Linguistics, revealed the existence of some 82 subgroups of the Manobo. How they are related is still not clear .the situation call for more field work, and even then once can still not clear. The situation calls for more fields work, and even then one can still expect changes because ethnicity and its relationships with other groups are always in flux. In understanding the peoples of the Philippines, it is an obligation that the status and dispersal of the various groups have to be considered. Time was when an ethnic group is concentrated in a home territory with strictly defined and defended ethnic boundaries. The Itnegs were fund only in Abra, the Ifugao in Ifugaoland , the maranao in Lanao del Sur, and so on. The boundaries are even expressed in terms of village limits. With the development of a plural society in the Philippines where a national economic and market system is superimposed over the various domestic economies, ethnic boundaries have become diffused, interdigitated, and in many instances, anachronistic. The last part of this work traces the distribution of the different ethnic groups in various parts of the country, including an estimate of these populations.

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