The Fascinating Discovery of a Stone Age Tribe in the Twentieth Century
NBC Nightly News viewers on July 16th, 1971 were treated to an amazing discovery: “The outside world, after maybe a thousand years, has discovered a small tribe of people living in a remote jungle in the Philippines. Until now, the outside world didn’t know they existed… and they didn’t know the outside world existed. Their way of living is approximately that of the Stone Age“. Known as the Tasaday, the tribe’s discovery was announced by Manuel Elizalde, head of the Filipino government agency in charge of protecting cultural minorities, and a crony of dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Per Elizalde, he discovered the Tasaday after he got a tip from a local hunter about encounters with primitive tribesmen deep in the jungles of Mindanao.
When he tracked down the tip, Elizalde was astonished to discover that the tribe had been isolated for over a thousand years, with no contact with the outside world. As Elizalde described the Tasaday: “They didn’t realize there was a country. They didn’t realize there was a sea beyond Mindanao. … they did not even know what rice was.” They were also complete pacifists: “They have no words for weapons, hostility, or war“. Overnight, the Tasaday went from unknown to globally famous. Unfortunately, as seen below, the Tasaday were simply a dumb get-rich-quick scheme concocted by Elizalde. Although perhaps not so dumb, since Elizalde did get rich from the scheme.