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Updated: May 31, 2025
Another possible source of outside blood is suggested by well verified stories of castaways on the east coast of Mindanao and adjacent islands. While working with the Mandaya in the region of Mayo bay the writer was frequently told that three times, in the memory of the present inhabitants, strange boats filled with strange people had been driven to their coasts by storms.
They live along the headwaters of the Tagum river and are, he believes, a mixture of Ata and Mandaya. The writer believes that the Libabaoan are probably the same as the Divavaoan who are classed as a branch of the Mandaya. See p. 165.
It is worthy of note that the Bagobo spirit Toglat, who is one of the pair responsible for marriages and births, is sometimes addressed as Maniladan. In 1908 a religious movement known as tungud started among the Manobo at the source of the Rio Libaganon. Soon it had spread over practically the whole southeastern portion of Mindanao, and finally reached the Mandaya of the Pacific Coast.
The leading Mandaya were invited to the house of the Moro pandita "to see the spirit Diwata." During several nights the son of the pandita impersonated the spirit and appeared in the darkened room. Over his chest and forehead he had stretched thin gauze and beneath this had placed many fire-flies, which to the imaginative people made him appear superhuman.
Without hesitation the men gathered up their tools and left the plot, explaining that it was useless for them to plant there for the limokon had warned them that rats would eat any crop they might try to grow in that spot. Maxey states exactly the opposite, for the Mandaya of Cateel, i. e., the right side is bad, the left good.
The second, that they thus replaced the dead man with another, "for the slaves are like members of our own family." The decorative art of the Mandaya is similar in many respects to that of the Bagobo and Bila-an, yet in part it differs greatly from both.
BLAIR and ROBERTSON, Vol. XII, 269, XLIII, p. 217, etc. Filed in the office of the Governor of Davao. From this testimony it appears that in a part of the Mandaya territory the spirit Diwata, at least, is represented by images. Asuang. This name is applied to a class of malevolent spirits who inhabit certain trees, cliffs and streams.
By the time the tungud had reached the Mayo district it had lost most of its striking features, but was still powerful enough to cause many of the Mandaya to kill their animals and hold religious dances. The coast Moro, who at that time were restless, took advantage of the movement to further a plan to drive American planters and Christianized natives from the district.
According to Mr. Maxey, the Mandaya of Cateel believe that many generations ago a great flood occurred which caused the death of all the inhabitants of the world except one pregnant woman. She prayed that her child might be a boy. Her prayer was answered and she gave birth to a son whose name was Uacatan.
Except for the cotton garments recently adopted by the Kagan branch of the Tagakaolo, and the suits worn by the Mandaya men, the clothing seen throughout the District is very similar.
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