9The word mananáp is the word for animal, beast in the Cebu Bisáya, Bagóbo, Tirurái, and Magindanáo Moro languages. Among some of the tribes of eastern Mindanáo, the word is applied to a class of evil forest spirits of apparently indeterminate character. It is noteworthy that these spirits seem to correspond to the Manubu spirits of the Súbanuns as described by Mr. Emerson B. Christie in his Súbanuns of Sindangan Bay (Pub. Bur. Sci., Div. Eth., 88, 1909).
Hence there seems to be some little ground for supposing that the word Manóbo was originally applied to all the people that formerly occupied the coast and that later fled to the interior, and settled along the rivers, yielding the seashore to the more civilized invaders.
The following extract from Dr. N. M. Saleeby10 bears out the above opinion:
10The Origin of the Malayan Filipinos, a paper read before the Philippine Academy on Nov. 1, 1911.
The traditions and legends of the primitive tribes of the Philippine Archipelago show very clearly that they believe that their forefathers arose in this land and that they have been here ever since their creation. They further say that the coast tribes and foreigners came later and fought them and took possession of the land which the latter occupy at present. When Masha' ika, the earliest recorded immigrant, reached Súlu Island, the aborigines had already developed to such a stage of culture as to have large settlements and rajas or datus.
These aborigines are often referred to in Súlu and Mindanáo as Manubus, the original inhabitants of Súlu Islands, the Budanuns, were called Manubus also. So were the forefathers of the Magindanáo Moros. The most aboriginal hill tribes of Mindanáo, who number about 60,000 souls or more, are called Manubus.
[Transcriber's note: Both of the above paragraphs comprise the quotation.]
The idea that the original owners were called Manóbos is the opinion of San Antonio also, as expressed in his Cronicas.11 Such a supposition might serve also to explain the wide distribution of the different Manóbo people in Mindanáo, for, besides occupying the regions above-mentioned, they are found on the main tributaries of the Rio Grande de Kotabáto--the Batañgan, the Biktósa, the Luan, the Narkanitan, etc., and especially on the River Pulañgi--on nearly all the influents of the last-named stream, and on the Hiñgoog River in the Province of Misamis. As we shall see later on, even in the Agúsan Valley, the Manóbos were gradually split on the west side of the river by the ingress, as of some huge wedge, of the Banuáons. Crossing the eastern Cordillera, a tremendous mass of towering pinnacles--the home of the Mamánuas--we find Manóbos occupying the upper reaches of the Rivers Hubo, Marihátag, Kagwáit, Tágo, Tándag, and Kantílan, on the Pacific coast. I questioned the Manóbos of the rivers Tágo and Hubo as to their genealogy and former habitat and found that their parents, and even some of themselves, had lived on the river Kasilaían, but that, owing to the hostility of the Banuáons, they had fled to the river Wá-Wa. At the time of the coming of the Catholic missionaries in 1875, these Manóbos made their way across the lofty eastern Cordillera in an attempt to escape from the missionary activities. These two migrations are a forcible example of what may have taken place in the rest of Mindanáo to bring about such a wide distribution of what was, perhaps, originally one people. Each migration led to the formation of a new group from which, as from a new nucleus, a new tribe may have developed in the course of time.
11Blair and Robertson, 40: 315, 1906.