The Culture and Art of the

Mangyan
September 2012--The Mangyan
tribe has been included in the
history of Mindoro. Spaniards
have long documented the life of
the Mangyan people. However,
much is still to be learned from
the culture of one of the
Philippines richest ethnic group.
Mangyan refers to the Philippine ethnic group
living in Mindoro Island but some can be found
in the island of Tablas and Sibuyan in the
province of Romblon as well as in Albay, Negros
and Palawan. The word Mangyan generally
means man, woman or person without any
reference to any nationality. Social scientists have
documented Mangyan tribes into several major
tribes. One of the ways to categorize them is
through their geographical location. The Northern
tribes include the Iraya, Alangan and Tadyawan
tribes while the Buhid, Bangon Batangon and
Hanunuo Mangyan comprise the tribes in the
South.
The Culture
Despite being grouped as one tribe, Mangyans
differ in many ways. In comparison to the
technological advance between the two
geographical divisions, the Southern tribes are
more advanced as seen in their use of
weaving, pottery and system of writing. The
Northern tribes, on the other hand, are simpler
in their way of living. Their language just like
the whole Philippines came from the
Austronesian language family.
However, even if they are defined as one
ethnic group the tribes used different
languages. On the average, they only share
40% of their vocabulary words on their
mutual languages. The tribes have also varied
physical and ethnogenetic appearances: Iraya
has Veddoid features; Tadyawan are mainly
Mongoloid; and the Hanunuo looks like a
Proto-Malayan.
The Arts
Mangyans offers a rich artistic heritage
to the history of pre-colonial Philippines.
Like any other indigenous tribes in the
country their art is an expression of
social relations in their community hence
the adage, Art for arts sake does not
apply to them. One of their arts is
the Ambahan, a rhythmic poetic
expression with a meter of seven
syllables presented through recitation
and chanting.
A variation of this is the Urukay,
wherein it uses eight syllables instead.
There are no authors of the poetry and if
one will ask a Mangyan where he
learned the lines of the poem, hed say it
came from his parents or read and copied
it from the bamboo shoots where they
originally write their scripts. The
following are sample of the poems:
 Ara kaw bala kasapo Didnt you notice before
Ga buyong-buyong ang That a boat turns left and
barko right
Yadtong punduhon Where it can anchor
maayo safely?
Nagapangita rikudo Looking for a landing-
place
Pakudos meanwhile is a Mangyan design that is
characterized by simple symmetrical organization
with equal stress on vertical and horizontal
composition and an orderly use of lines and spaces
that are pleasing to the eyes.
Finally, the Mangyan script. When the Spaniards
arrived in the Philippines, the more famous Filipino
system of writing, the Baybayin was discarded.
However, in Mindoro, the Buhid and Hanunoo
Mangyans continued to practice their writing system.
The Mangyan script like the Baybayin is based on
the syllables of the Philippine phonetics. The
National Museum declared this surviving system as
National Cultural Treasures on December 9, 1997.
The UNESCO on October 6, 1999, meanwhile,
inscribed the scripts in the Memory of the World
registry.