Bukidnon people of the Philippines
“Bukidnon,” from bukid (mountain) and non (people), means “mountain people.”
“Bukidnon” comes from the words “bukid,” which means “mountain,” and “non,” which means “people.” People who lived on the coast of Visayas were the first to call the people who lived in the mountains of the province in north-central Mindanao by the same name. They are not related to the people who live in the mountains of southern Negros. Those people are also called “Bukidnon” by the people who live in the lowlands of the Visayas.
The Bukidnon are also known by the name Talaandig, which is also used for the Manobo. “Talaandig” derives from talaan (mark) and andig (worth emulating). It is still the name that the people of western Bukidnon use to talk about themselves. The people of northern Bukidnon call themselves Higaonon, which means “shrimp taken out of the water” or “one who climbs the mountains from the coastal plains,” which refers to the fact that they moved from the coast to the interior. Some Bukidnon groups get their names from the valleys of rivers where they live. For example, the Tagoloanon and the Pulangien get their names from the rivers Tagoloan and Pulangi, but they are actually part of the larger Bukidnon ethnic group.
The Bukidnon people are from the original proto-Philippine or proto-Austronesian stock. They came from south China thousands of years ago, before the Ifugao and other terrace-building peoples of northern Luzon. Ethnolinguist Richard Elkins came up with the term “Proto-Manobo” in 1984 to describe this group of native people of Mindanao who are not Negritoid. So, the Bukidnon and the Manobo share a lot in terms of culture and race.
Their language, called Binukid, is spoken by four groups: the Bukidnon in the northeastern part of Bukidnon province, the Talaandig in the northwestern part of Bukidnon, the Higaonon in Misamis Oriental, Agusan del Norte, and Agusan del Sur, and the Banwaon in Agusan del Sur. In 1988, the population was thought to be 72,000. In 2015, it was thought that 100,000 or more would die.
Bukidnon History
Before Christ was born, the proto-Manobo people lived in villages on the banks of rivers and along the coasts of northern Mindanao. The number of people kept growing until the Sri Vijayans came, and then the Madjapahits took over. People who were forced into the interior were called “Bukidnons” by the newcomers from the Visayas and “Monteses” by the Spanish.
The Bukidnon are now spread out in the countryside, but their oral history shows that they used to be a single group called Talaandig. Their ethnic unity is also shown by the fact that the datu of Bugabut still has the giling, a black scepter that represents the datu of Bukidnon with the most power. The takalub, which is made of hollow bone or boar’s tusk, is another sign of ethnic unity. A datu carries it when he goes from village to village to settle disputes among the Bukidnon. It is said that the Bukidnon culture hero Agyu gave it to the people. The Bukidnon people think they are related to Agbibilin, who is thought to be the ancestor of all four Mindanao ethnic groups: the Bukidnon, the Maranao, the Manobo, and the Maguindanaon. He gave them the job of judging and settling fights between people in the same tribe or between tribes. This royal legacy is represented by a “jar of oil” that is said to have been passed down from Agbibilin.
The Talaandig had to fight off invaders who were after treasure and slaves. From the west, Moro raiders came, and from the east and south, the Manobo and other tribes attacked. Warriors would bring back the arm of a dead enemy, hold it up for the families of the winners to hit, and then hang it under the house in preparation for a thanksgiving ceremony for Talabusau, the spirit who protects warriors and those who get into trouble.
Around the middle of the 19th century, the Spanish started to have an effect on Bukidnon. At that time, Misamis province was in charge of the northern part of the area, which had not been explored yet. By 1869, Mindanao had a political-military government, and the Misamis-Bukidnon area was one of its six districts. Up until the end of Spain’s rule, Bukidnon was a part of Misamis. During this time, Spanish Jesuit priests were able to get into some Bukidnon communities and spread Christianity there. People from outside the communities were able to get there easier because roads were built to get there.
With the end of Spain’s rule, a new colonial order set up the nation-state of the Philippines. This country was mostly made up of the Christianized parts of the Philippines, which made it easy for the American colonial government to take over. Through the Treaty of Paris, the United States also claimed as “insular possessions” the parts of Mindanao that had fought against colonization. But because these Mindanao groups didn’t want to accept colonial rule, they became a minority.
During the time when America was a colony, the colonial government passed a series of Land Registration Acts that made it legal to take the land of native peoples by force. Lands were registered and given titles to corporations or individuals. Land grants from chiefs and datus were canceled, and it was easier for Christian settlers to get land than for non-Christian lumad (indigenous people).
In 1907, Bukidnon became a part of Misamis and then Agusan. It became a separate province in 1914. American documents say that the reason for the split was to protect the natives from being exploited by the people who lived along the coast and in the lowlands. In reality, the separation made it easier for the colonial rulers to use the resources of Bukidnon. A lot of farmable land was turned into small plots where rice and corn were grown. The cattle-raising business grew by leasing land to non-Lumad allies and foreign businessmen who were good to the Lumad and by turning forests into grasslands. In the 1920s, high-value crops like pineapples were grown on plantations that were owned by people from other countries. The trend of grabbing land and turning it into something else, which would get worse in the decades to come, would quickly clear out the forests and cause a lot of soil erosion, landslides, and flooding.
To make sure that Mindanao’s wealth and resources were part of the Philippine nation-state, resettlement in Mindanao was encouraged. This led to a lot of Visayan migrants and settlers moving to the area. During World War II, many Bukidnon people were forced to leave their farms and homes and go into the backcountry. Others formed guerilla units to fight back. After the war was over, people could move back into the vacated Bukidnon areas. The number of Bukidnon people was cut down to a small number, and the new settlers pushed the less assimilated natives deeper into the mountains. This would keep going on for a long time after World War II. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a logging boom in Mindanao. This made the lumad even poorer, because their ancestral lands were made into public lands and then given to big businesses as concessions for large-scale resource extraction. In the 1990s, the government also gave permission for large-scale mining operations to be done by foreign companies in the area.
In the last decades of the 20th century, there was more fighting in the area because some lumad groups started uprisings against the big businesses that were using their lands and to fight for their right to decide for themselves. Ricardo de la Camara, who was also known as Mabalaw, started the Higaonon group in 1967 to protect their land from loggers. In 1975, Anastacio Saway, who was also known as Datu Kinulintang, led a group of Talaandig to come together. As part of the Bangsamoro resistance, the Moro National Liberation Front and, later, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front were formed. Later, many Higaonons joined the New People’s Army, which is the military branch of the Communist Party of the Philippines, to protect themselves from loggers. Many parts of Mindanao became more militarized because these groups and the hard-pressed landlords fought for their own interests with more and more violence. But the state’s efforts to stop the insurgency, which included arming Christian fundamentalists and paramilitary groups, made things worse.
The Higaonon resistance can be traced back to a number of events that happened together. In 1972, Datu Mankalasi and other Higaonon datus were killed because they wouldn’t let big logging companies use their ancestral lands. In response, the Higaonon started a war called a pangayaw (revenge-killing). Then, Mankalasi’s son Kalasi made the Red Warriors (Pulang Bagani) to protect their land from state and corporate takeover. Later, Hucad Mandahinog, who was Kalasi’s son, added Marxist ideas to the group’s way of thinking. Different stories say that the fighting started when the Higaonon took and destroyed the equipment of a logging company. In exchange for jobs and other benefits, the natives let a company use their land. But the company broke the deal, and the natives felt like they had been cheated. A third story says that Mankalasi was killed because he double-crossed a Dumagat, which literally means “coastal-dweller” but to the Bukidnon means “settler.” Before this one event, there was a long history of the Dumagat taking advantage of the Bukidnon. At the end of the 1980s, 10,000 hectares of the company’s logging concession were made into forest reserves. This stopped the fighting between the Higaonon and the logging corporation. The result was a ban on logging, which gave the government and the lumad people a chance to talk about how to manage resources and take control of land.
The Bukidnon have had a long history of moving around, becoming a minority, and being forced to mix with people from other places. This has led to different levels of cultural assimilation among their different groups. So, from a cultural point of view, they can be put into three groups: the nontraditional, the semitraditional, and the traditional. The first group has become part of the national culture; the second group mixes indigenous and cosmopolitan practices and beliefs; and the third group has kept its native culture because it lives in a remote area. In 1955, it was seen that the lowland Bukidnon had adopted Visayan ways, while a group in the north was still wearing Talaandig clothes and tattooing and cutting their teeth. Usually, the only things that made the Bukidnon stand out were the tangkulo (the male headwear) and the fact that they chewed betel nuts. But there are still Bukidnon who live in the mountain forests and keep their old ways.
To this day, the Bukidnon continue to fight for the protection and recognition of their ancestral domains, the preservation of their culture and community, the recognition of their indigenous leadership, the assertion of their rights to their cultural artifacts and indigenous knowledge systems as intellectual property, and the protection of their community against suppression, exploitation, and conflict.
Bukidnon Economy
Food gathering and swidden farming are the main ways that the Bukidnon make a living. Men fish and hunt, while women collect shellfish and roots from the jungle. Traditional farming was done through a system called huliga or hunglos, in which farmers worked together to till one field after another. This encouraged people to work together and share the harvest.
When certain constellations appear and disappear, it’s time to plant and harvest crops. Magbabaya and other spirits are thought to live in the forests and farmlands, so the land is treated with the utmost respect. Rituals are done at different stages of production to honor the land. During the harvest, ritual singing starts before dawn. Men and women take turns singing while traditional instruments play in the background.
Most of the time, a bow and arrow are used to hunt. The bow is made of flexible wood, and the spring is a thin strip of rattan. Arrows used to hunt birds are made of reeds and have tips with many points. Arrows with metal tips are used to hunt deer and wild boar. Monkeys and wild chickens are caught in pits and traps made of bamboo and wooden stakes. To catch birds, lures are put on trees. The Talaandig fish by putting their hands under rocks and feeling for small crabs, frogs, snails, shrimp, and eels. They could also build a dam across a shallow part of the river and catch the fish that gather there.
Only in remote places where there is still a lot of land is shifting agriculture still used. When the farmer in Rogongan, Lanao del Norte, sees the constellation Giya on a subang (full moon) when the sea is at taub, he or she starts to mark and clear the fields (high tide). The shaman, the datu, and the farmer then do a ritual in which they give food, buyo, and, according to recent stories, a bottle of Tanduay rum to the spirits of the lasang (forest) and uma to ask them to help them (farm). The call of the limukon, a bird thought to carry signs, shows what the spirits will do. If the limukon calls directly in front of, above, or 45 degrees to the left or right of the ritualists, this is seen as a good sign, and the farmer starts lampas, which is the cutting of underbrush, and tumba, which is the cutting down of trees. If the limukon calls from somewhere else, the farmer has to mark a different part of the field to clear. Burning, or pagsunog, is done after the brushwood has been cut, a time for burning has been chosen, and any remaining branches that are standing straight up have been trimmed down. If there are any plants left, a second fire could be started. When the rainy season starts, so does pugas, or broadcasting. Care is taken when choosing rice and corn seeds. During harvest, the best crops are set aside, dried on storage racks, and hung above the hearth until the next planting season. Other crops grown are purple yam (ube), taro (gabi), peanuts (mani), beans (batung), and sili (pepper). When it’s time for ani (harvest), brown husks start to show up in the fields. The harvest is in charge of the women.