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TasadayThe Tasaday (pronounced TAW saw dye or Ta SAH dye) are a tribe of the forested and mountainous southern Philippine island of Mindanao whom, at the time their existence was publicized world-wide in the early 1970's, were reportedly living a stone age lifestyle and had apparently been doing so since time immemorial. At the time of their "discovery", historical contact with other local tribes (known to the Tasaday as the Sandukas and the Tasafangs) was claimed by the Tasaday, but their contact with the modern world was apparently hitherto unknown. In the 1980's, claims were made that the Tasaday's story was a hoax, the authenticity being challenged on three counts: - were the Tasaday (who numbered about 26 in the 1970's) a wholly separate ( culturally, genetically, etc.) people, or simply a few members from a local tribe?
- did the Tasaday really live as a stone age people, or were they faking it?
- did the Tasaday really live in isolation from the modern world until the 20th century?
Studies throughout the 1980's and 1990's resulted in mixed views, but today it is generally accepted that the Tasaday are indeed a unique people who relied, at least mainly, on stone age skills. The degree of isolation between them and the modern world by 1970 has proved a more difficult theme to assess. Claimed First Contacts Their existence was first brought to the attention of Manual Elizalde, Jr., head of PANAMIN--the Presidential Arm for National Minorities (also Private Arm for National Minorities) in the Philippines--and in March, 1972, Elizalde met the Tasaday at their secluded and cavernous home, thus beginning a longtime relationship between the government minister and the tribe. As would later be disputed as part of the hoax claims, Elizalde made contact with the Tasaday via a frontiersman named Dafal (a member of the Manobo Blit, a tribe long known to the modern world), who reportedly had met the Tasaday many years earlier on a hunting foray with his father into the deep interior of the forest. At the time of their 1972 meeting with Elizalde, the Tasaday population numbered about 26. Though sources disagree on the exact figure (National Geographic records 24, others 26 http://www.tasaday.com/ or 27), it is agreed that more marriage-aged men existed than marriage-aged women, and about half the population were children. The Tasaday were said to have remained in complete isolation from outside civilization until their "discovery". They spoke their own language, gathered wild food, used stone tools, lived in caves, wore leaves for clothes, and settled matters by gentle persuasion. The tribe was subject to a great deal of publicity, appearing on the cover of National Geographic (Vol. 142 No. 2, August 1972) and in a National Geographic documentary The Last Tribes of Mindanao (shown January 12, 1972). They were visited by Charles A. Lindbergh and Gina Lollobrigida. Before anthropologists were able to get a more sustained look, however, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos declared a 45,000 acre (182 km²) Tasaday Reserve and closed it to all visitors. Manuel Elizalde, Jr.'s Continued Relationship with the Tasaday Elizalde fled the Philippines in 1983 right after the assassination of opposition political leader Benigno Aquino, some claim along with millions of dollars stolen from a foundation that had been set up to protect the Tasaday. It has been suggested that Elizalde ended up in Costa Rica, squandered all the money, got hooked on drugs, and died destitute, while others note continued efforts to support the Tasaday even after his self-imposed exile, faithful to his death on May 3, 1997. Hoax Claims and Debunking the Hoax After President Marcos was deposed in 1986, Swiss anthropologist and journalist Oswald Iten, accompanied by Joey Lozano, a journalist from South Cotabato, made an unauthorized investigation to the Tasaday caves and reported them deserted. Further, the two men claimed members of known local tribes had only put on the appearance of living a stone age lifestyle under pressure from Elizalde. The claim of a hoax thrust the Tasaday into worldwide headlines again. In 1987, the Philippine Congress held a four-month-long public investigation into the hoax claims, during which Elizalde apparently returned with a Tasaday woman to support the original claims. The investigation concluded in favor of the original claims and denounced the possibility of a hoax. In 1988, President Corazon Aquino also conducted an inquiry and announced that the Tasaday were genuine and had nearly been victimized by unscrupulous scholars and businessmen who wanted their timber- and mineral-rich land. Since 1988, researchers and scholars have debated the authenticity of the Tasaday as a genuine and separate people, the continuity of their stone age lifestyle, and their long-standing isolation from the modern world, concluding with the general acceptance of the Tasaday and their lifestyle as genuine and authentic http://www.tasaday.com/, though perhaps not as isolated as was initially portrayed http://www.sil.org/~headlandt/tasaday.htm. The Tasaday Today Two main factors shaped the Tasaday of the 1970's into the people they are today: want for marriage-aged women and displacement of neighboring tribes closer to Tasaday home territory. Prior to the Tasaday's meetings with Dafal and Elizalde, males outnumbered females, leaving men without wives and boys without anyone to marry in the future (the Tasaday were at that time monogamous). After Tasaday contact with the greater outside world, circa 1980, a Manobo Blit woman married into the Tasaday. This woman later arranged many marriages between the Manobo Blit and the Tasaday, thus beginning a strong cultural mingling between the two tribes. Gradually, the Tasaday began inheriting more modern characteristics: they ate cultivated food, wore fabric clothing, used money, lived in thatched housing and began relying on metal tools. By the late 1980's, Mindanao tribespeople other than Tasaday began moving into the Tasaday Reservation, having been displaced from their ancestral areas. By some counts, these displaced peoples number 3000. As of 2001, the Tasaday/Blit tribe numbered slightly greater than 100 people, 14 of whom were among the original 26 encountered by 1971. 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