Aeta tribe

On our trip to the Philippines 2010 we spent one day to visit the indigenous people, to be specific a tribe called Aeta. Of the 90 million people that live in the Philippines , 9 million is considered indigenous. A lot of this people have been forcible relocated. The Philippines consists of 7000 islands. In the regions Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao there are more than 80 different tribes.

They are considered to be Negritos. They are very dark, small of stature, small nose and dark brown eyes. They are considered the earliest inhabitants of the Philippines, before the austronesian migrations.

On the island Cebu they live in a reservation close to the town Carcar. After demanding driving through the bush on narrow roads, we arrived their village. We were received by the chief, also called the president.

The Aeta people have for a long time lived under serious pressure from the
government, which wants to move them to reservation. This will cause loss of land, so that the government can start logging and build plantations. A lot of this is done without the approval of the Aeta people. Also the Aeta people have become extremely nomadic because of social and economic strain on their culture and way of life, which earlier has been unchanged for thousands of years. Their religion is the belief that good and evil spirits live in their environment, like the spirits of the river, sea, sky, mountain, hill, valley and other places. No special occasion is necessary for the Aeta to pray.

The history of the Aeta continues to baffle anthropologists and archeologists. One theory says the Aeta are the descendants of the original inhabitants of the Philippines. In contrast to the seafaring austronesian neighbors that came from the Asian mainland for 30000 years ago. At that time the Philippines were more or less connected to the mainland. The whole time they have resisted against change, and have succeeded more or less to keep their culture and way of life.