The development saga of the tasaday
Gentle yesterday, hoax today, exploited forever
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8415420 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Hyndman (corresponding author), Levita Duhaylungsod |
| Year | 1990 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 38-54 |
| Publication date | 1990-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-4810 • E-ISSN: 1472-6033 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14672715.1990.10413101 |
| OpenAlex | W2320612504 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 5 |
In the 1970s the Tasaday captured popular and anthropological imagination as the archetypal hunter-gatherers of the twentieth century. Although Manuel Elizalde, Jr., was portrayed as discoverer and savior of the Tasaday, as the head of the Philippines Presidential Assistance on National Minorities (PANAMIN), he actually created “Tasaday consciousness.” After the initial avalanche of international interest, the Tasaday have been reported as living quietly in a vast protected zone created by PANAMIN and Marcos. Rather, they lived in T'boli communities because they are indigenous T'boli people who have suffered PANAMIN-abused militarization and economic development by invasion of their lands and resources. Following the assassination of Benigno Aquino in 1983, Elizalde was among the first of the Marcos cronies to flee the Philippines.In response to mounting public awareness of the hoax exposed through national and international media, the University of the Philippines sponsored the International Conference on the Tasaday Controversy in 1986, and the Philippine Congress held an inquiry in 1987. International debates have since been hosted by the International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in 1988 and the American Anthropological Association in 1989. Meanwhile, Elizalde returned to the Philippines in August 1987 and started manipulating his Tasaday creation again. Continuing exploitation of those who posed as the Tasaday has, unfortunately, bypassed the important struggle of the T'boli for indigenous rights to their ancestral domain and self-determination.The Tasaday first came to international attention in 1971 when Manuel Elizalde, Jr., the head of the Philippines Presidential Assistance on National Minorities (PANAMIN), announced discovery of a cave-dwelling, Stone Age people in South Cotabato Province in Mindanao (figures 1 and 2). Elizalde found it remarkable “that this vast and undulating sea of tropical rainforest could be inhabited by man.” As the press in the Philippines picked up on the story, American reporter John Nance began a campaign to establish the Tasaday as the greatest discovery of the century in anthropology. From the pages of the National Geographic, MacLeish and Launois captured international attention when they described descending with Elizalde in a helicopter over this expansive rain forest and finding nearly naked people who “stepped out of the Stone Age into the year 1971 A.D.”
Foreign policy · Hoax · Indigenous · Isolationism · Media studies · Militarization · Political science · Politics · Presidential system · Sociology · Yesterday · History · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,11 |
| Citation span | 1991 - 2019 (29) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |