The island inhabitants has been converted to Christianity since
1902 when the Americans arrived and set up plantations of cash crops of
abaca [45] and fruit trees and coconut
palms along the coast, and exploited the forest and a few mines inland.
Migrations began in the 1910s.
The Mandaya (syn. Mansaka) are divided into sub-groups : Pagsupan (Tagum and Hijo Rivers), Managosan or Magosan (Agusan headwaters), Divavauan (very few of them, south and west of Compostela).They are in the south-east of Mindanao, in the high valleys of Caraga. On the eastern slopes of the Davao Cordillera, they are swidden cultivators and occupy the foothills where they take part in the production of abaca ; they are also in the highlands up to 1000 m where their subsistence pattern is based on mixed cultivation of mountain rice and tubers.
These mountain swidden cultivators are increasingly aware of the value of their land and are beginning to reject migrant populations by refusing to sell their land to them (Manuvus of Davao, Manobos of south-west Cotabato) and by discouraging them from settling down nearby (Manobo).
Habitat is mobile : Dwellings adjoin the fields and move every year with every new swidden plot. One dwelling houses one family, the basic production unit.
Distance between swidden plots varies from 0,8 to 3 km; every house is within sight of another house. With the production of abaca, a sedentary activity, dwellings are beginning to come together and form hamlets of 7 or 8 houses (Mandaya).
Property : Land tenure is conceived in terms of rights to cultivate the land and there are no titles to it. The Bisayan from the coast took advantage of this and bought the Mandaya lands in the foothills.
These landless Mandaya either went inland to grow mountain rice or became agricultural labourers working for Bisayan landowners (Mandaya).
Swidden agriculture on secondary forest land : Traditionally, mountain rice was cultivated in combination with tubers. But some groups abandoned rice cultivation because of the rats and especially because of the government ban over cutting down primary forest.
They then grow mainly maize and a variety of tubers (manioc, sweet potato, yam, taro), bananas and many vegetables (Manobo).
The size of a swidden plot (kaingin) cultivated over one season is 2/5 to 1 ha.
Abaca is the only cash crop ; harvested twice a year, it yields 500 kg/ha (Manobo). Converting to Christianity to some extent actually went hand in hand with their involvement in the market economy.
[45] or Manila hemp, Musa textilis.
[46] YENGOYAN, 1988.