Agta

Table of Contents

Location and Environment

Language

Once in the early 1970s a Philippine Army intelligence officer asked me to check, as I explored up the coast of northeastern Luzon beyond Palanan, if the "Aetas" really had tails. A few days later, as I sat in my first campsite of Agta, star-struck over realizing a nearly life-long dream of living among remote, wild hunters, a little girl walked by singing that oh-so-popular Nora Aunor version of Don Ho's "Pearly Shells." Visions of crowded, touristy Waikiki tumbled through my head. A week earlier I had left my home in Hawaii to spend two months surveying the Sierra Madre in hopes of finding my pristine people. Likely my officer acquaintance //italic texthoped to find more than tailed-Agta. We both were full of foolish notions, false beliefs and information, the product of our respective folk traditions about the so-called primitive peoples of the world.// —P. Bion Griffin (1985:xi)

Picture of P. Bion Griffin and his son, Marcus, hiking with Agta. Shot by Annie Griffin, 1981.

Introduction

The Agta are composed of several groups who were historically foragers. Located in the Eastern portion of the Island of Luzon in the Philippines. Today these groups trade for domesticated crops and also practice limited horticulture in various areas as well (Estioko-Griffin, and P. Bion Griffin 1981:122).

Multiple terms can be found relating to the Agta. Most of these have slightly different meanings, but are often used interchangeably. Aeta is a larger group name given to many groups found within the Philippine islands. Negrito is a Spanish term referring to several indigenous societies throughout Southeast Asia.

Location and Environment

The Agta are one of many so called "negrito" groups that inhabit the Philippine islands. Specifically the Agta inhabit only the eastern portion of Luzon, the main Philippine island. As of the early 1990's there were approximately 750 Agta in the Palanan province and 590 individuals living in the Casiguran province. Both of these groups live along the Sierra Madre mountain range in tropical forests that are threaded by many fast flowing rivers leading east into the Pacific Ocean. Typhoons and smaller tropical storms as well as widespread logging have disturbed much of the traditional area in which the Agta are located however, many Agta maintain a partial forager/partial horticulturist lifestyle (Griffin, P. Bion, and Marcus B. Griffin 1999: 289-90).

The Sierra Madre range divides the Pacific coast from Cagayan Valley to the west. The year consists of a wet period from roughly October through March, and a dry period from April/May through October. The Agta separate this cycle into four seasons: Ahidid, the rainy season (October to January); Kattikel, a transitional interlude (February and March); Kasinag, the dry season (April to July); and Katbigew, another transitional phase (August to September) With rising elevation, the environment and climate of the Sierra Madre changes. The Agta exploit different areas, including: the coast; dipterocarp forest, in which the trees provide valuable woods, aromatic oils, and resins; and montane forest, characterized by oaks and cooler temperatures. (Allen 1985:47-53).

Language

There are eight ethnolinguistic groups of Agta. The dialects are Albat Island, Casiguran, Central Cagayan, Dicamay, Dupaninan, Isarog, Remontado, and the Umiray Dumaget. They align respectively with the places where they are spoken

History

Not much is known about the Agta prior to Spanish settlement in the late 16th century and census data during Spanish and American colonization are incomplete. Since the colonization of the Philippines by the Spanish in the late 1500's the Agta have had to deal with increasing amounts of exploitation, destruction of their native habitats as well as it's theft, and an increased reliance on non-Agta farmers and urbanites for foodstuffs (Griffin, P. Bion, and Marcus B. Griffin 1999: 289).

Subsistence

Agta foragers subsisted mainly by hunting meat. Contrary to the pattern man the hunter and woman the gatherer, both men and women hunt, although women less than men ³. Women may leave their children with an alternative caregiver. Generally, though, the women do stay within a day's travel on foot to their home base. "From these cases we see that a woman's decision to hunt has to do with the variable of foraging returns ( of gathering versus hunting) and childcare practices, not with innate abilities or proclivities selected for early in hominid evolution" ³.

Post 1900's

Several groups of the Agta have been in contact trading and working within with the towns of Casiguran and Palanan since the early 20th century.(Estioko-Griffin, and P. Bion Griffin 1981:122). These groups have also practiced some horticulture using seeds of domesticated plants obtained through trade. More remote groups may practice very limited horticulture choosing instead to trade meat and other items for grains in the towns (Estioko-Griffin, and P. Bion Griffin 1981:124).

Following the Second World War Agta lands have been greatly encroached upon by farmers and loggers leading to widespread deforestation and degradation of the resulting open fields due to poor farming techniques. Also the ongoing guerrilla style war between the Philippine armed forces and the New Peoples' Army has put many of the Agta into harms way either through forced conscription or simply by crossfire between the two factions (Griffin, P. Bion, and Marcus B. Griffin 1999: 289).

The following untitled poem does a good job of artistically portraying the current lifestyle of the Agta. It can be found in its original context in Woman the Gatherer.

by Faith Williams

Lightly she steps across
triangles of jungle grass.
Her young follow. She teaches how to hunt
Country Delight sliced sandwich bread,
how to follow the scent of Flash
lowfat milk. Lounging on nearby cliffs
pale-skinned chiefs display
severed heads.
To her right, sirens bay
of disaster. Darker males
with iron bars escape
in waves. Lightly spring
cockroaches over her feet.
Woman the gatherer embraces
toilet tissue, pale green
sunlight on broad leaves
forages for jello, for juice
and for cellophane tape
to hold up the jungle sky
one more day.

Social Organization

A typical Agta forager group or pisan consisted of between 2 and 5 nuclear families that migrated accordingly to the shifting seasons. There is no central power figure in these groups and usually a group consensus is sought when making an important decision. Older individuals may be asked for opinions though they are not definitive and any individual who disagrees with any consensus is free to complain or leave without dispute (Estioko-Griffin, and P. Bion Griffin 1981:126).

Religion

Traditional Agta religion incorporates many different spirits usually representing living beings and geological structures(Griffin, P. Bion, and Marcus B. Griffin 1999: 292). Their views part the world in two. Agta is the world of the living, encompassing humans, animals, and plants. Anito is the world of the dead. The members of these two partitions inhabit the same place, but exist solely in one or the other. Humans and most animals have souls that enter the body at conception, and leave at death to enter the world of the spirits (Rai 1985:35-36).The majority of these spirits are usually viewed as malevolent especially spirits of deceased Agta, which in many cases harm living people by inflicting disease or other misfortune. Positive spirits may be represented by guiding ancestral spirits such as those aiding in hunting or fishing(Griffin, P. Bion, and Marcus B. Griffin 1999: 292). When visible, the spirits are ash-colored and use rudimentary tools with which to hunt. Because of the capricious or erratic nature of the human spirits, they can also be appeased. Agta make offerings such as modern amenities to the spirits, who, living “traditionally,” cannot acquire them on their own. Also, a spirit is thought to be confined mostly to the area around where it died. For this reason, the dead are buried quickly. They long for human interaction, however, and attempt to maintain kin ties with their living relatives. As the spirits are rarely helpful, this relationship is not beneficial to the Agta. The family moves away and often does not return to the area for an extensive period of time(Rai 1985:37). Also it has been considered by one long time Agta researcher Thomas Headland, that the Agta like many other Philippine indigenous people may also have an over reaching head god figure that on a day to day basis is ignored in lieu of the many other malignant spirits (Griffin, P. Bion, and Marcus B. Griffin 1999: 292).

Healers are those people who have made a connection with an animal spirit, and act as mediators between the living and the spirits (Rai 1985:38).

As of the early 1990's the Agta have begun practicing Christianity, without being coerced by missionaries or other religious groups as a way to organize against outside forces encroaching on their land and rights (Griffin, P. Bion, and Marcus B. Griffin 1999: 293).

Kinship

The core unit of Agta society is the nuclear family, consisting of a mother, father, and children. These units by themselves able to maintain a relatively self sufficient lifestyle though they frequently combine to form pisans that vary in size with larger groups in the wet season and smaller groups in the dry season when food is more scarce. Two to five of these nuclear families will live together united by sibling ties, a common relative, or common parent. The nuclear units are able to disperse at will and may join other groups without resistance so long as other relatives are present in the new pisan (Estioko-Griffin, and P. Bion Griffin 1981:126).

References Cited

Allen Melinda S.
1985 The Rain Forest of Northeast Luzon and Agta Foragers. In The Agta of Northeastern Luzon :Recent Studies. P. Bion Griffin and Agnes Estioko-Griffin, eds. Pp. 45-68. San Carlos Publications. Vol. 16. Cebu City, Philippines: University of San Carlos.

Dahlberg, Frances
1981 Woman the Gatherer. London, England: Yale University Press.

Estioko-Griffin, Agnes, and P. Bion Griffin
1981 Woman the Hunter: The Agta. In Woman the Gatherer. Frances Dahlberg, ed. Pp. 121-151. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Griffin, P. Bion, and Marcus B. Griffin
1999 The Agta of eastern Luzon, Philipines. In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers. Richard E. Lee and Richard Daly, eds. Pp. 289-293. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

Griffin, P. Bion, and Agnes Estioko-Griffin
1985 The Agta of Northeastern Luzon :Recent Studies. San Carlos Publications. Vol. 16. Cebu City, Philippines: University of San Carlos.

Kelly, Robert L.
2007 The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways. Clinton Corners, N.Y.: Percheron Press.

Rai, Navin K.
1985 Ecology in Ideology: an Example from the Agta Foragers. In The Agta of Northeastern Luzon :Recent Studies. P. Bion Griffin and Agnes Estioko-Griffin, eds. Pp. 33-44. San Carlos Publications. Vol. 16. Cebu City, Philippines: University of San Carlos.