TASADAY OF THE PHILIPPINES: STONE-AGE TRIBE, A HOAX, OR SOMEWHERE BETWEEN

TASADAY

Tasaday in National Geographic

The Tasadays are a cave dwelling tribe that lives on rugged rain-forest-covered mountains of central Mindanao. When they were "discovered" in 1971 they were labeled "the last stone-age tribe on earth." Just to reach them was a daunting feat, in some cases involving landing a helicopter on a flimsy platform on top of a tree, because the forest where the Tasadays lived was so dense and there was no flat land. [Source: Thomas N. Headland, “Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East/Southeast Asia:” edited by Paul Hockings, 1993; Candida Moss, Daily Beast, August 20, 2017]

When they were discovered—during the final years of the Vietnam War—It was widely touted that the Tasaday language was unique and it contained no word for war. The Tasadays themselves were characterized as being non aggressive. They were listed with the Andaman Islanders of India, the Yahgan of Patagonia, and the Semai of Malaysia as an undeveloped cultures that reportedly have never waged war.

The Tasaday reportedly neither hunted or knew how to grow food. They used no weapons to kill or trap wild animals. All their food they collected from the forest. When they fished they used their hands. The staple of their diet was a wild yam. Their also ate wild fruits, roots, berries, grubs, tadpoles, crabs and frogs. Their favorite food—called ubud—came from the inside of a palm trunk and was never eaten near their caves for they feared eating there might bring bad weather.

The Tasaday group that was the focus of media attention was made up of 24 individuals: four married couples, a widower, a bachelor and 14 children aged one year to 18. When they were discovered the Tasadays wore skirts of grass and orchid leaves or else nothing at all. They said the only wore the leaves to protect the genitals from insects and thorns, Their children nursed until they were three years old. They were more men in the tribe than women. Despite this the men didn't share wives.

The Tasaday said only gathered food when they had to and a lot of their time was spent just sitting around. It was reported that the Tasadays stayed close to their caves but also moved around and slept in lean tos when they needed to gather food. When the were given sugar and jelly sandwiches they gagged. They said they practiced no medicine and left heir sick to die. Most communications was done at first with gestures and pictures.

Discovery of the Tasadays

image of the Tasaday from the : Field Museum of Natural History

The Tasadays were discovered by Manuel Elizalde, a Philippine politician who headed a government agency in charge of all Philippine tribal peoples and was a close friend of Ferdinand and Immelda Marcos,. He “found” the group of 26 individuals and reported that they knew nothing of the outside world—even though they lived a three hour walk from a large village of farmers—used only stone and wood tools, wore leaves for clothing and survived completely off wild food. They became instant celebrities and were held up as alternatives to modern civilization., when it was claimed they didn’t have a word for “war” and were pacifists with few material gods. [Source: Thomas N. Headland, “Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East/Southeast Asia:” edited by Paul Hockings, 1993]

The story gained worldwide attention thanks primarily to a 1972 National Geographic cover story and accompanying film shown repeatedly on television. According to the National Geographic reports the only technology the Tasaday reportedly had were stone axes and a fire drill which took ten long minutes to start a fire. They are said to have no pottery, cloth, metal, art, houses, dogs or domestic plants.

In 1972 and 1973, a dozen or so scientists were flown into Mindanao by helicopter to study the Tasaday but only one, the ethnobiologist Douglas Yen, was allowed to stay more than a few days (Yen stayed for 41 days). Most of the scientist published short articles in the Philippine press. Then, in 1974, all contact with the Tasaday was broken off, presumably to protect the Tasaday culture and their innocence. Nothing was heard of them again for 13 years.

Tasaday Hoax?

In 1986, just a month after the fall of the Marcos regime, stories about the Tasaday resurfaced: this time stating the original story was a big hoax. In the chaos that followed the collapse of the Marcos government, a Swiss journalist named Oswald Iten slipped into the area of Mindanao where the Tasaday lived and found them living in houses, sleeping in beds and wearing regular clothes. They told them that Elizalde told them to pretend they were savages whenever outsiders were present. This was followed up by a visit by a team from the German magazine “Stern” that photographed the Tasadays wearing leaves with underpants visible beneath them. This led to allegations that the whole Tasaday story was a complete fabrication and the Tasaday themselves were “paid performers.” Some say the whole thing was invented by the Marcos regime to declare the Tasaday region a reserve so the government could gain access to its resources. [Source: Thomas N. Headland, “Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East/Southeast Asia:” edited by Paul Hockings, 1993]

Tasaday in 2012

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: Linguists first became suspicious when it emerged that this group of supposed cave dwellers had a word for “roof.” Then, in 1986, a Swiss reporter discovered that the Tasaday weren’t living “like our ancestors” at all, but rather in typical houses in which they dressed in blue jeans and T-Shirts. Elizalde had convinced some members of local tribes to pretend to belong to the tribe in exchange for money. The villagers never saw any support and in the early 1980s Elizalde fled with (reportedly) $35 million of funds ear-marked for minority groups and a harem of teenage girls. Recent anthropological work has suggested that while some of the local tribes in the region were more isolated than others, there was no “stone age” group that was untouched by the modern world. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, August 20, 2017]

A closer look at the Tasaday revealed that they were neither the “anthropological event” or the “hoax” of the century and anthropologists still argue the merits of the case. The general consensus is that when the Tasaday were discovered in 1971 they were a minority tribe people, with primitive technology, that lived where they were found. But they were not a Stone Age people that had no contact with the outside world as was claimed. There are still disagreements on issues like whether or not they used iron and the degree of contact with the outside world.

Tasaday Hypothesis

The generally accepted hypothesis of the Tasaday is that before 1971 and for most of the 20th century the Tasaday were foragers who lived a lifestyle similar to that of to other Southeast Asian hunter-gatherer groups such as the Agta, Batak, Philippine Negritos, and Semang.

Based on linguistic evidence its is believed that they once were members of the Cotabato Manobo, an agricultural ethnic group, and separated from them sometime in 19th century. At that time they moved deeper into the forest and took up a seminomadic foraging existence. After that they were never completely isolated—they traded forest products for food—and raised some food in gardens. About 85 percent of the Tasaday words are identical with those of the Cotabato Manabo. In 1989, linguist Clay Johnston played 1972 recordings of Tasaday speech in Manobo villages; listeners understood the conversations easily, noting only a difference in accent or intonation. Based on differences between the two languages, linguist estimated the two groups have lived apart for 100 to 150 years.

Tasaday likely lived in simple huts, using rock shelters mainly during temporary foraging trips. Their diet included wild foods as well as domesticated crops, some possibly grown in small garden plots but most acquired through trade. In this reconstruction, the Tasaday maintained periodic contact with nearby Manobo farmers—particularly residents of the village of Blit, about 4 kilometers away—and traded minor forest products with groups living up to 40 kilometers from their forest settlement.

Tasaday Misinformation

There was clearly a deliberate effort to mislead the public about the Tasaday. It was later revealed that Elizalde found them wearing normal cloth and told them to get rid of them and “wear their traditional” coverings. Afterwards they were filmed or photographed wearing orchid leaves. It was also revealed the Tasaday possessed trade good such as metal-tipped arrows, bows made from cultivated bamboo, iron bush knives, glass beads and tin cans. Farming people traded these goods for meat from wild animals killed and smoke-dried by the Tasaday. [Source: Thomas N. Headland, “Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East/Southeast Asia:” edited by Paul Hockings, 1993]

The rain forest where the Tasaday live doesn’t have enough wild foods to support people living on them alone. No one ever observed the Tasaday subsisting on wild foods. Even when the scientists were observing them in the early 1970s, people with the Philippines government secretly fed them rice. When the scientists were not there they ate rice, sometimes two or three times a day.

The Tasaday stone tools shown in photographs were not genuine tools. They were made by somebody else. The tools they reportedly used mysteriously disappeared and were never photographed. The bamboo that the Tasaday used to cook their food was cultivated bamboo. It was not wild bamboo gathered from the rain forest.

To clarify the controversy, archaeological investigation is essential. Early claims asserted that the Tasaday had lived for centuries in a cave complex, primarily in what was called “Cave III.” Despite numerous visits in 1972–73, no formal excavation was permitted. Archaeologists have argued that a brief but systematic excavation—particularly of any cave midden deposits—could determine whether and how long humans occupied the site and reveal details of their subsistence practices, potentially resolving the debate conclusively.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: “Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East/Southeast Asia:” edited by Paul Hockings, 1993; National Geographic, Live Science, Philippines Department of Tourism, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Natural History magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Encyclopedia.com, Times of London, Library of Congress, The Conversation, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Google AI, Wikipedia, The Guardian and various websites, books and other publications.

Last updated February 2026