HANUNOO

Prepared by: Ira Panao

 HANUNOO
 Hanunoo Mangyans can be found in the town of Mansalay and
San Perdro (Bulalacao) of Southern Mindoro.
 Their population is approximately 66,132.
 Hanunoo means "true", "real" or "genuine" because among
the Mangyans they have remained faithful to the tradition of their
forefathers.
 The Hanunoo – the language spoken by Hanunoo mangyans is
still being used today. Their kids speak tagalog but the parents
teach their kids to speak “Hanunuo”. The Hanunuo Language has
Bisaya “Visayan” influence and some words which are bisaya.
 (**Their words have no E or O sound. There are only the U and I
sound.)
PEOPLE
 Hanunuosare fairly tall in
structure and their body is slim
proportioned. They have oblique
eyes, flat nose, prominent
cheekbone, flat forehead, and
olive skin.
 Men have their custom sporting
long braided in the upper part
of their head with the rest of
their hair cut short.
 Women hang up their hair
behind their heads, sometimes
held in place by a beaded band
which serves as a ornament.
Their hair is long and wavy.
CLOTHING
 Rutay ( was the clothing of
Hanunuo ) it is one the most
important criteria in
distinguishing the Mangyan
and non-Mangyan (
damuong ).
 A Hanunuo-Mangyan male
wears a loin cloth (ba-ag)
and a shirt (balukas).
 Ramit an indigo-dyed short
skirt wear by women and
Lambung a blouse. Pakudos
is a embroidered cross shape
design at the back of a
traditional style shirts and
blouses.
CLOTHING
 Hagkos is a tilled rattan belt with pocket wear
in their waist by both sexes.
 Panyo is a cloth hair band used by men to tied up
their hair in one spot at back of their head.
Women also have long hair often dressed with a
headbands of beads.
 The Hanunuo Mangyans of all ages and both sexes
are very fond of wearing necklaces and bracelets
of beads.
Practices and Beliefs
 The Hanunuo Mangyans have no definite religion but
they tend to be animists. Some of their beliefs are the
spiritong nangangaso or hunter spirit and the
spiritong nangsisilo. (silo = noose)
 Animism, belief in innumerable spiritual beings
concerned with human affairs and capable of helping or
harming human interests
 . The spiritong nangangaso is about a hunter spirit
who is in the forest. These spirits have sibat or spears and
will chase after you. If you are speared (not the visible
wound kind), within 3 days you will die.
Practices and Beliefs
 Taong nagmamarayaw is a village priest or tribal
shaman who is a medium that can talk to these “good”
spirits, communicates and asks the spirits about what
happened and what they need to do to “heal” these
wounds and save the life of the Mangyan.
 Spiritong nangsisilo waits in the rivers for people to
pass by and they would silo that person or catch that
person using a noose (not the visible kind) and before
that person reaches their
 They also believe in evil spirits, spirits that eats people
and spirits that shoots arrows. People affected by these
soon die.
Practices and Beliefs
 Part-time specialists, such as masseurs, herbalists, and
mediums (balyanan), perform curing rituals.
 The balyanan send their spirit familiars to combat evil
spirits or extract harmful objects from a victim's body. The
spirit familiars reside in stones that the balyanan carefully
guard.
 Mediums also wave leaves or other plant parts over the
patient's body. Balyanan are present at ceremonies for
deceased kinfolk, area spirits, and swidden (shifting-
cultivation) fields, especially for rice. Spirit offerings consist
of cooked rice, pig's blood, and prepared betel chew, but
spirits especially appreciate glass trade-beads.
Practices and Beliefs
 The Hanunuo mangyans also
believe in superstitions.
 An example of this superstition is
when you are going out, even if you
are all dressed and ready to go, if
you hear the bird “kulo-kulo”
(Mindoro Bleeding Heart)
tweet or sing, you should not leave
your house and wait 1-2 hours
before you do because something
bad will happen to you on the way.
 The same goes if you hear a tuko
(gecko) or butiki (lizard) before
you leave your house.You have to
let an hour or so pass before you
leave. destination they would get
sick because of this spirit.
Sources of Living
 Since before, their way of life has been agriculture. They
plant crops and harvest them. They are busy taking care of
their land to produce crops that is their livelihood. They would
sell these crops to other Mangyan or to the lowlanders.
 The Hanuno'o make occasional trips to the lowlands to trade
their surplus rice, maize, bananas, cacao, and tobacco for salt,
metal (scrap, needles, kettles), ritually important glass beads
(also the standard of value in the south Mindoro pagan
interior), red cloth, Moro gongs, and Chinese porcelain (for
ancestral offerings). They trade these goods obtained from
lowlanders to the neighboring Buhid, their fellow highlanders,
for clay cooking pots.
FOLK ART, CRAFTS, AND HOBBIES
 Using double-piston bellows, men forge knives
and other articles from scrap metal obtained
through trade with lowlanders.
 Women plant, pick, gin, and weave cotton into
clothing and blankets and also grow indigo for
dyeing. Basketry is highly developed, using red-
dyed rattan and displaying fine geometrical
designs.
HANUNUO SCRIPT
 Hanunuo, also rendered
Hanunó'o, is one of the
indigenous suyat scripts of
the Philippines and is used
by the Mangyan peoples of
southern Mindoro to
write the Hanunó'o
language.
AMBAHAN
 The ambahan is the
traditional poetry of the
Hanunuo Mangyans of
Oriental Mindoro. It is
usually written on bamboo
in the Surat Mangyan, a
centuries-old pre-Spanish
script.
ARCHITECTURE
 Their houses are more
permanent structures
made of light materials,
elevated up to four or
five feet to the ground
supported by a bamboo
posts or sturdy forest
lumber, roofed with
mupa materials or cogon
grasses.