Traditionally, the Mandaya inhabited the coastal and interior areas of the eastern cordillera mountain chain in southeast Mindanao, Philippines. Mandaya ethnography has been reported by Cole (1913), Garvan (1931), and Yengoyan (1964, 1965, 1966a, 1966b, 1966c, 1970a, 1970b, 1971, 1973, 1975a, 1975b, 1977, 1983, 1985, 1988); thus, only those aspects of the ethnography that relate to the issue of precedence and egalitarianism will be discussed. On the eastern Davao cordillera, the Mandaya are shifting cultivators who occupy both the foothills up to 1000 feet where they are involved in hemp production, and the interior uplands to an elevation of 3,200 feet in which a mixed system of dry rice cultivation and the planting of tubers is their basic mode of subsistence.

Just as the subsistence base varies, the settlement pattern also covaries with economic demands. With dry rice cultivation, the settlement pattern consists primarily of a single household adjacent to cultivated fields. Households are moved as often as swiddens are relocated, virtually every year, and are synonymous with the nuclear family; thus, each family unit is also the unit of production. Distances between swiddens vary from 0.5 to 2 miles. However, in the relocation and creation of new swiddens, households are situated in visual contact with at least one other household, either across the valley or on top of a range of hills. With the sedentary system based on hemp production, one finds the beginnings of settlement nucleation in which hamlets of five to eight households form a cluster and, in some cases, hamlets are also semi-nucleated in small villages.

The coastal areas are occupied by either Bisayans, who migrated from Cebu, Leyte, and Bohol, or by conquistas, who are the descendants of Christianized Mandaya. In general conquistas have relatively few kinship ties with the interior Mandaya and at the same time they do not claim to have Bisayan ancestry. The conquistas do not consider themselves as Mandaya descendants, but as Bisayan since they have been baptized. In fact, the Christian act of baptism is primarily a means by which one’s identity changes from Mandaya to Bisayan; thus, spiritual rebirth has almost no bearing on the volitional act (Yengoyan 1966a). Other influences are critical to understanding the means by which group identity comes about, but baptism among the Mandaya in the late nineteenth century is the key to understanding the emergence of the conquistas.

Although either wet rice or coconut cultivation has traditionally dominated most lowland populations, over the past twenty years Bisayans and conquistas have moved into the foothills and started hemp cultivation. This penetration into the foothills and the usurping of lands from the upland Mandaya have brought forth considerable conflict, since Mandaya hold land by usufruct and their land is never surveyed and titled, while the Bisayans claim that title to land, and not actual possession, is the sole basis of ownership. Since the 1950s, the foothill Mandaya, who have lost their land to Bisayan encroachments, have either reverted to dry rice cultivation by moving into the forested interiors or have become part of a rural proletariat, working for minimal wages from Bisayan landlords on land they once possessed.

Coastal Bisayans and conquistas not only maintain their hegemony through land control, but most of the political and commercial power is in their hands as well. Although some of the larger shops in towns such as Manay, Cateel and Baganga are owned by Chinese, the local Bisayans have either set up their own shops or have worked out financial arrangements with Chinese in which the Chinese are “up front” with their activities, while the Bisayans have invested in them and/or have offered them protection. Most local political positions are held by Bisayans and a few conquista families, and in a number of cases two or three intermarrying families have developed a web of mutual interest and have virtually sealed off a town from outside intrusion. Because the coastal highway beyond Mati has never been completed and an air service is unavailable, shipping is the only means by which outside contact is maintained.

The Mangguangan are located in the densely-forested interiors where a semi-nomadic life-style is maintained through collecting, hunting and trading for forest products with the Mandaya. As of ten years ago, almost no territorial conflict occurred between the Mandaya and the Mangguangan, since Mandaya swiddens were seldom located at an elevation of more than 3,200 feet and did not impinge on the Mangguangan.

However, the Mandaya have historically raided the interior for “slaves”, especially for young Mangguangan females, who were then raised as domestic servants and later married among the Mandaya. The Mandaya claim that this is an old practice and remark that the Mangguangan are a weak people since they do not cultivate rice though they know its value. Although the Mandaya refer to their slaves as posaka, and in some cases set them apart from normal domestic and religious relations, this seldom extends beyond one generation. The cultural and social hiatus that we attribute to slavery is practically absent, since most young Mangguangan slaves maintain contact with their natal family.

Within this context of competing economic and cultural practices, the Mandaya are in the middle since there is seldom any direct contact between the Mangguangan and the coastal Bisayans and conquistas. The Mandaya perceive the Bisayans as either land-grabbers or potential land-grabbers who have used the political and administrative structure for their own benefit. Thus, the question of tax collection, in which the Bisayans irregularly request that land taxes be paid, simply increases the tension on both sides. The conflict is provoked to higher degrees of tension when Mandaya who have lost their land have decided to remain as labourers. Violence and homicide occur sporadically; the most common cause is usually the Mandaya’s inability to maintain their landholdings against Bisayan encroachment.

Mandaya who think and act like Bisayans (i.e., by converting to the Catholic Church, wearing Western-type apparel, cutting their hair, and taking Christian surnames) attempt to maintain their commercial transactions by selling hemp and acquiring credit with the Chinese merchants in the coastal towns. The Chinese usually deal in straight commercial transactions without nefarious perceptions that characterize Bisayan-Mandaya relations.