Ethnic Groups of Palawan

Palawan, the largest province in the Philippines, is home to several indigenous ethnolinguistic groups namely, the Kagayanen >[1], Tagbanwa, Palawano, Taaw't Bato, Molbog and the Batak tribes. They live in remote villages in the mountains and coastal areas.

It is believed that their ancestors occupied the province long before Malay settlers from the Majapahit Empire of Indonesia arrived in these islands in the later 12th or 13th centuries.

In 1962, a team of anthropologists from the National Museum led by Dr. Robert Fox unearthed fossils at Lipuun Point (now known as the Tabon Cave Complex) in Quezon town that were classified as those of Homo sapiens and believed to be 22,000 to 24,000 years old. The recovery of the Tabon Man and other significant findings in the area earned for Palawan the title, "the Cradle of Philippine Civilization."

Research has shown that the Tagbanwa and Palawano are possible descendants of the Tabon Caves' inhabitants. Their language and alphabet, farming methods, and common belief in soul relatives are some of their cultural similarities.

After the death of Ferdinand Magellan, the remnant of his fleet landed in Palawan. Magellan's chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta, in his writings, described the cultivated fields of the native people populating the Palawan Islands. He also mentioned that these people use weapons consisting of blowpipes, spears and bronze ombard. During his stay in the area, he witnessed for the first time cockfighting and fistfighting. He also discovered that the natives had their own system of writing consisting of 13 consonants and 3 vowels, and they had a dialect of 18 syllables. He further wrote that in Palawan, the local King had 10 scribes who wrote down the King's dictation on leaves of plants.

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