1903, the year the first Japanese contract workers arrived in Davao, was also the year Arnold Henry S. Landor, an English anthropologist born in Florence, Italy, with help from the American authorities, explored the region southwest of Davao City and documented the Tagacaolo, natives who inhabit Sarangani, Davao Occidental, the western sector of the gulf, and certain regions of Davao Oriental, where they are also known as the Loacs.
As its name suggests, the Tagacaolo (‘from the mountain stream’) lives along watercourses an riverbanks, depending mostly for food from the rivers, swidden farms, and forests. The tribe’s polity is headed by a datu who is an independent leader that presides over the cultural and civic nuances in the community. He is not only the judge and defender of his tribesmen, he is allowed to marry as many wives he can afford to fairly secure.
Landor, in his 1904 book titled The Gems of the East: Sixteen Thousand Miles of Research Travel Among Wild and Tame Tribes of Enchanting Islands, described the Tagacaolo as more of negroid type that has mixed Indonesian blood, were not so much steep in superstition, believed in both benign and malevolent spirits (like the turtledove that “has power to make or prevent people from sneezing of moving four hours if he wishes”), and have physical features similar to the Atas and the Manobos. The Englishman wrote:
“Their nose is extraordinarily depressed, except a sort of button lobule, with nostrils abnormally broad but finely chiselled and not coarse.
“Like the Manobos, they possess ears with undetached lobes. Upon their overlapping, prominent brow-ridges they have luxuriant eyebrows, a rather bulging upper lip to the eye, and very firmly closed lips, the upper lip projecting and curling over the lower—a point in which they have in common with the Atas…
“[They] have small mouths, well-proportioned skulls, and… straight but coarse hair, with a slight mustache, and beard on the chin only. Their eyes are absolutely straight horizontally, the iris generally somewhat discolored in the upper portion. The teeth are filed into a sharp point or else in the Magindanao fashion. Their hands… are stumpy and coarse, with short thumbs.”
Early Tagacaolos embraced nomadic ways of living and gentle. They have no hair on the face and shave the hair of the head, leaving only a tuft on top of the skull. By tradition, the right of succession belongs to the firstborn child, who inherits the upland valley or highland plain.
Modern Tagacaolos, however, shaped by the incursion of western culture, have slowly set aside the values of their forebears. The tribe, now with a population of roughly 125,000, is generally scattered around the gulf of Davao, abelieves in a supreme being that resides at Mount Apo and was known to offer human sacrifices like the Bagobos when they perceived the holy mountain to be angry, as shown by the accumulation of sulphur at its crater.
“The Tagakaolos,” the Wikipedia explains, “can be recognized by the close-fitting suits of red and yellow striped cloth. The majority of the people have hair curled in locks and mutilated, blackened teeth. Shaving the eyebrows and tattooing of the left forearm is also a common practice. One ironic characteristic of the Tagakaolos is being violent, for they are often at war with one another, yet they appear to be quite uniform in type, language, and religious beliefs.”
In Spanish missionary accounts, The Tagacaolos were also found in Mati’s jurisdiction. Jesuit priest Fr. Quirico More, SJ, in his letter dated November 1, 1884, wrote:
“I would have wanted the Tagakaolos of Agamitan [Haguimitan] and Puhaga [Pujada] Bay to choose between Tamisa and Kuabu [as their settlement site]. But those of the former have opted to form a settlement between Balete and Makambol.”
That same year, Davao parish priest Fr. Mateo Gisbert, SJ, visited Malalag, Davao del Sur, a Tagacaolo colony. In his letter to the Mission Superior dated May 22, 1884, talked about the plight and persecution of the Tagacaolo, saying:
“[I am] talking of the Tagakaolos. Brave and numerous, they are defenseless against the others [tribes], since they are spread around the mountains and the valleys, and ordinarily victimized as slaves offered in human sacrifice. This particular group, spread throughout the various points of this extensive mission [of Las Mercedes], seems to be calling loud to the missionary, fulfilling the Savior’s role, as Jesus Christ taught us, to defend and save them. Living apart in the mountains, helped by their spears and arrows, if they had a shepherd to summon them, thousands would follow as sheep within the walls of the settlement.”
Two years later, in a letter to the procurator of the Jesuit Philippine Mission dated May 20, 1886, Fr. Gisbert talked about his return to Malalag and the change of condition there:
“Although I want very much to peak to Your Reverence about all of these races and settlements, in this particular letter I will speak only of the Tagakaolos and their settlements in Malalag. This is a small river debouching into the extreme south of the Davao Gulf, on a sheltered inlet easy for all kinds of boats to enter, considered one of the better harbors in this archipelago. I sailed there for the first time in my vinta two years ago, moved by the good reports I had received from the pagans of those mountain.”
Due to intermarriage, adoption of foreign principles, and the lack of advocacy to preserve the tribe’s great tradition, it is disconcerting to say the Tagacaolo’s culture is fast losing its grip.
