INTRODUCTION : CHAPTER

01
 INDIGENIOUS PEOPLE

The word “indigenous” comes from the Latin word “indigen” which means native or
original inhabitant

Indigenious : continuously used as a form of collective names for caregorization or

representation ( UNPF)

Indigenous peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures

and ways of relating to people and the environment.

2
 1. Occupation of ancestral lands, or at
least of part of them;
According to the International 2. Common ancestry with the original
Work Group for Indigenous occupants of these lands;
Affairs, the historical 3. Culture in general, or in specific
continuity discussed by the manifestations (such as religion, living
Martinez Cobo Study can be under a tribal system, membership of an
characterized by the following indigenous community, dress, means of
factors: livelihood, instant loans, lifestyle, etc.);
4. Language (whether used as the only
language, as mother-tongue, as the
habitual means of communication at
home or in the family, or as the main,
preferred, habitual, general or normal
language);
5. Residence in certain parts of the
country, or in certain regions of the
world; and
6. Other relevant factors.
Article 33 of the United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples underlines the
importance of self-identification, that indigenous
peoples themselves define their own identity as
indigenous
 Who Are IPs in the Philippines
• Indigenous People are commonly referred to as katutubo
• Lumad : collectively called in Mindano to separate them
from the Islamized ethnic groups in the region (Arquiza,
2016).
• The definition of ICCs or IPs in the Philippines in R.A.
8371 constitutes the common elements of the existing
definition of IPs in the literature
• Highlights the need for self-identification, the qualifications
of ancestral roots and descent, the historical continuity of
life, the sustained ancestral language and ancestral land
claim, the persistence of a distinct way of life and status
as non-dominant group and their 20 aspirations to self-
preservation and self-determination. I
 HISTORY
Throughout the 300 years of
Before the advent of Spanish Spanish colonial rule, these
colonialism, the people of the islands communities were able to
in the archipelago were independent
communities or villages of tribes or defend their territories and
clans. Spanish colonization from 1521 evade the colonizers,
to 1896 succeeded in subjugating most maintaining their relative
of the islands of the archipelago, which
eventually formed the Philippines. independence while
However, within the islands some continuing to practice their
communities remained independent
from Spanish colonial rule
own systems and ways of life.
 POPULATION

 There are no accurate figures on the population of indigenous peoples in the Philippines because of
the lack of any formal census

 Disaggregation of data for indigenous peoples in the national census has not yet been done

 The most recent figures based on an unofficial survey conducted by the National Commission on
Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) estimates the population of indigenous peoples in the Philippines to be
12-15 million

 Indigenous peoples roughly constitute 10-15 per cent of the total population of the Philippines and
are present in 65 of the country’s 78 province
 The majority of indigenous peoples (61 per cent) are found in Mindanao, 33 per cent are found in
Luzon, and 6 per cent are in Visayas (NCIP 2009).
 ETHNO-LINGUISTIC GROUPINGS
 The IPRA identifies 8 ethnographic regions in the country, namely: the Cordillera
Administrative Region (CAR), Region I, Region II, Region III and Rest of Luzon, Island
Group, Southern and Eastern Mindanao, Central Mindanao, and Northern and
Western Mindanao

 The Philippine indigenous peoples are made up of widely diverse cultures

 The estimated total number of distinct indigenous ethnic groups ranges from 70 to
140

 Particular generic terms are used to refer to indigenous peoples in different regions
of the country, although the indigenous peoples usually identify themselves as
belonging to a particular ethno-linguistic group or subgroup.
IGOROT • the generic and collective term for the indigenous
peoples of the Cordillera mountain range in northern
Luzon

• derived from the prefix i- (people from) and golot

(mountain) to literally mean “people from the
mountains.”

• make up 99 per cent of the population in the Cordillera

region

• about 1.5 million in population and are composed of

various ethnic groups and subgroups or tribes
LUMAD : a generic term used by others to refer to the indigenous peoples of
Mindanao
• make up the largest number of indigenous peoples in the country

• Visayan term meaning native, indigenous, “of the land”.

• composed of numerous indigenous peoples scattered throughout the

Mindanao island

• There are 18 major Lumad groups

• In Mindanao, a distinction is made between the Lumad or non-Muslim

indigenous peoples and the Islamized population or Moro peoples

• There are seven major ethnic groups among the Muslims in the Mindanao-
Sulu area.
 • used as a generic term for indigenous peoples with
distinct physical features – short, dark skin, curly
NEGRITO hair

• living in different regions of the Philippines from

north to south

• Around 30 groups of Negrito have been identified.

• Indigenous peoples groups in the Philippines are dependent on the land, rivers
and the sea as primary sources of their livelihood (Molintas, 2015; Ishmail &
Ahmad, 2015; Garvan, 1929).

• The extraction of resources and livelihood from the land and water are primarily
influenced by their customary beliefs and practices

• Most IP groups in the Philippines consider their land to be communal property

(Cole, 1915).

• Dumagats of Quezon and Aetas of Zambales, have retained their nomadic way of life
– hunting and gathering in the forest and engaging in swidden-agriculture at the
marginal to subsistence level

• In this day and age, the majority of IP groups in the Philippines have already
established permanent communities in their ancestral lands

• Some are still categorized as semi-nomadic groups and their migration is

influenced by the practice of shifting cultivation or the kaingin method (Rola,
2011; Lynch, 1983).
 Characteristics of indigenous peoples
• Close attachment to ancestral land, territory and resources
• Land is the “territorial base that is indispensable as the living space for the community
and its sources of food and other needs” and is directly related to their culture and
immediate environment (Fernandez V: 1983 in Montillo-Burton: 2003).
• Ancestral domain to the indigenous peoples is a holistic concept encompassing not only
the land but including its resources
• Rights to land are derived primarily through inheritance, investment of labor and actual
improvements on the land
• Indigenous knowledge serves as a collective set of guides in the use and management of
resources within their ancestral domain (Carino 2007).
• Indigenious people practices unique traditions
• Retain social,cultural,economic and political characteristics
• Preserved their traditional ways of living
• However,there is no singulary authoritative definition of Ip’s
so they have the right to determine their own identity.
CULTURE

CHAPTER 2
Culture : “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,
custom, and any other capacities and habits acquired by man as a member of
society
• a patterned way of life shared by a group of people
• encompasses all that human beings have and do to produce, relate to each
other and adapt to the physical environment
• includes agreed-upon principles of human existence
• aspect of our existence which makes us similar to some people
• Indigenous peoples have rich and diverse cultures based on a profound
spiritual relationship with their land and natural resources
• Indigenous peoples do not see themselves as outside the realm of nature, but
as part of nature
• Spirituality is related to the search for the sacred in a person, object, or ritual that is above the
self (Hill et al., 2000).

• The Filipino culture is rich in religious traditions, which include various rituals, devotions and
beliefs

• The deep relationship of Filipinos and “anitos” can still be seen in their religious traditions

• These different practices can be seen not only in different devotions among Filipinos but also in
indigenous practices such as the ones in Mt. Banahaw. On this sacred mountain, devotees
consider rocks, caves, trees and bodies of water as sacred.

• Filipinos were predominantly animists—it is believed that Aetas are also animists who believe
that spirits abound in the environment—in rivers, seas, plants, trees and animals

• The belief in the “anito” (good spirits) and the kamana (bad spirits) is central to these beliefs
(Gaillard, 2006).
Why do we need to study indigenous
languages and literature?
David Crystal (2000) provides the different reasons why we need to
care for the IP languages and prevent their dying or extinction.
These reasons are:

 Linguistic diversity enriches our human ecology;

 Languages are expressions of identity;

 Languages are repositories of history;

 Languages contribute to the sum of human knowledge and each

language provides a matrix of wisdom of a particular group of
people;

 Languages are interesting subjects in their own right.

IP languages’ abandonment or the extinction of IP languages
has been an evident adverse outcome of the process of
language convergence, or they die naturally (Headland, 2003;
Crystal, 2000).
. Role of Indigenous Language :
• the language spoken uniquely by a group people who affiliates with a particular
indigenous group and/or with origins in the particular group (Spolsky, 2002)

• it refers to a language identified with and unique to a particular indigenous community.

(Martinez Cobo Study in 1986)

• The role of IP languages has been reduced to a medium for communications at home
and in the community, which is the result of the need to learn and adopt to regional
and national languages (Headland, 2003).

• IP language must not be regarded as second-rate or indifferent. (e United Nations

General Assembly)

• A particular language embodies the ideas, beliefs, values, and abstraction that
contain their sense of history, psychology and mindset, understanding of the world,
spirituality, and the vision of their community.
• Maintaining distinct languages, at least in part, has also been seen as
an essential part of being indigenous

• The extinction of a language is a great loss for humanity; it

constitutes the invaluable loss of traditional knowledge and cultural
diversity

• The loss of a language is thus “a cause of intense grief and

disorientation to hundreds of thousands of indigenous men and
women who struggle to be themselves without the words to say what
that means.”
Indigenous languages were dismissed as the “gibbering of
monkeys” or “barbaric tongues” that were to be eradicated to
make way for an English (or French or Spanish, etc.) that “all
who are civilized can understand”.
There are 4 indigenous languages with approximately 9 million
or more native speakers:

 Tagalog
 Cebuano
 Ilocano
 Hiligaynon
Tagaloand 10 with 1 million
to 3 million native speakers:

 Waray
 Maguindanao  Bikol
 Chavacano  Kapampangan
 Karay-a  Pangasinan
  Maranao
Surigaonon
• There are some 120 to 187 languages spoken in the Philippines,
depending on the method of classification

• Chavacano are also spoken in certain communities

• A total of 182 native languages are spoken in the nation and four
languages have been classified as extinct: Dicamay Agta, Katabaga,
Tayabas Ayta and Villaviciosa Agta. Except for English, Spanish,
Chavacano and varieties of Chinese (Hokkien, Cantonese and
Mandarin), all of the languages belong to the Malayo-Polynesian
branch of the Austronesian language family.(Ethnologue)
 Eskayan is an artificial auxiliary language created as the embodiment
of a Bohol nation in the aftermath of the Philippine–American War. It
is used by about 500 people

 A theory that the indigenous scripts of Sumatra, Sulawesi and the

Philippines are descended from an early form of the Gujarati script
was presented at the 2010 meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics
Society.