Mangyan is the generic name for the eight
indigenousIndigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
groups found in the Philippine island of
MindoroMindoro is the seventh-largest island in the Philippines. It is located off the coast of Luzon, and northeast of Palawan. The southern coast of Mindoro forms the northeastern extremum of the Sulu Sea.-History:...
, each with its own tribal name, language, and customs. The total population may be around 100,000, but no official statistics are available because of the difficulties of counting remote and reclusive tribal groups, many of which have no contact with the outside world.
The ethnic groups from north to south of the island are: Iraya, Alangan, Tadyawan, Tawbuid (called Batangan by lowlanders on the west of the island),
BuhidThe Buhid language is a language spoken by Mangyans in the province of Mindoro in the Philippines. It is divided into eastern and western dialects.It uses the Buhid script, which is encoded in the Unicode-Block Buhid .- External links :...
,
Hanunoo. An additional group on the south coast is labelled Ratagnon. They appear to be
intermarriedInterracial marriage occurs when two people of differing racial groups marry. This is a form of exogamy and can be seen in the broader context of miscegenation .-Legality of interracial marriage:In the Western world certain jurisdictions have had regulations...
with lowlanders. The group known on the east of Mindoro as Bangon may be a subgroup of Tawbuid, as they speak the 'western' dialect of that language. They also have an alphabet which is called the Ambahan.
Mangyan are mainly
subsistence agriculturalistsSubsistence agriculture is self-sufficiency farming in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed their families. The typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to eat and clothe themselves during the year. Planting decisions are made with an eye...
, planting a variety of
sweet potatoThe sweet potato is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the family Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are an important root vegetable. The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens. Of the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of...
, upland (dry cultivation) rice, and
taroTaro is a common name for the corms and tubers of several plants in the family Araceae . Of these, Colocasia esculenta is the most widely cultivated, and is the subject of this article. More specifically, this article describes the 'dasheen' form of taro; another variety is called eddoe.Taro is...
. They also trap small animals and wild pig. Many who live in close contact with lowland Filipinos sell cash crops such as bananas and
gingerGinger is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale, consumed as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It lends its name to its genus and family . Other notable members of this plant family are turmeric, cardamom, and galangal....
.
Their languages are mutually unintelligible, though they share some vocabulary. Tawbuid and Buhid are closely related, and are unusual among Philippine languages in having an /f/
phonemeIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
. Tawbuid is divided into eastern and western dialects. Western Tawbuid may be the only Philippine language to have no
glottalGlottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
phonemes, having neither /h/ or /ʔ/. They use
Hanunó'o scriptHanunó’o is one of the indigenous scripts of the Philippines and is used by the Mangyan people of southern Mindoro to write the Hanunó’o language. It is an abugida descended from the Indic scripts, closely related to Baybayin, and is famous for being written vertical but written upward, rather than...
to write.
Their traditional religious world view is
animisticAnimism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
. Around 10% have embraced
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, both Roman Catholicism and Evangelical Protestantism. New Testaments have been published in six of the languages.
External links