Knowing the Tagabawa Bagobo

Exploring underground tunnels, crossing deadly trails, killing giant snakes: these topics might be interesting for many readers but I cannot amuse you with these tales for these were not my share. Instead, let me tell you about the humble life of indigenous people inhabiting the remote mountain side of Mt. Apo, the Tagabawa Bagobo. For two and a half-day living among them, I gained vast amount of knowledge that I may not attain for years of armchair learning. I hope that my narrative will give justice to their little adventures in life. And I hope that the two and a half-day were rewarding and fruitful enough to compose a good report.

The Tagabawa Bagobo are the indigenous people who inhabit the high grounds of Sitio Malumpine, Old Bulatakon, Makilala, North Cotabato, Philippines. They speak both Bisaya and Bagobo dialect. The whole land area of Malumpine reaches up to 2007.6 hectares. Malumpine is a small community, consisting only of more or less twenty houses. They prefer to be called as the Tagabawa rather than Bagobo because they believe that Bagobo ethnic group is only a recent division from their original ancestors.

In this narrative, an attempt will be made to portray the life of the Tagabawa. The paper will try to discuss small parts about their religion and ritual. However, this study won't deeply focus on religion since understanding Tagabawa's religion may take a large amount of time due to its intricacy and underlying significance. A detailed comparative analysis regarding the shift of Tagabawa's food subsistence will also be presented. I find this topic very interesting since food subsistence shows us how this people adapt to their changing environment vis-à-vis time in order to survive. I hope that this topic is a good start to understand the life of Tagabawa in the most practical way possible.

When we arrived at Makilala, we decided to take the mountain trail starting from New Israel because the usual trail was impractical due to unavailable access on skylabs (public utility motorbikes). Since we knew that New Israel is a famous traveler's sight in North Cotabato, we immediately agreed upon the suggested plan. New Israel didn't fail to exceed our expectation. The place was very pleasing given its striking landscape and uplifting milieu. Not only that, we were also entertained by New Israel's main attraction, the pack of monkeys dwelling on the area. The relation between monkeys and humans in the area was excellent, making the monkeys loosen their feral nature in front of the people.

It was astounding how we were all pumped-up and thrilled to start the long hike. The weather was great during that day, lifting our spirits even more. However, when we started to march along the rising trail, nearly every one of us did not expect that hiking is a hardcore activity. Steep slopes, mud-covered ground, tiny path and etc., is not enough to describe the mountain trail. Calling