An obscure and confounding ethnic group in the Philippines is the Kamayo. No mention of the Kamayo is found in old history books. Most Filipinos had no idea who the Kamayo are, and many think of them as an unreachably remote tribe. Even the Kamayo people themselves may know very little about their own roots. Who are the Kamayo? How has their ethnicity become so vague?

The Kamayo Identity

Kamayo is a language spoken on the east coast of Mindanao. The Kamayo people of Surigao del Sur refer to both their language and ethnic group as Kamayo. Yet not all who speak Kamayo as their mother tongue identify themselves as Kamayo. The coastal natives of Davao Oriental speak the Kamayo language as their native tongue, but refer to their ethnicity as either Mandaya or Davawenyo.

The Kamayo Ethnicity

The name Kamayo indeed most often refers to the language, and less to the ethnicity. The truth is, the Kamayo is a subgroup of the Mandaya. The Mandaya is a huge ethnic group considered by non-Christians to be the oldest and most illustrious³.

One mysterious fact about the Mandaya is how they have been known to occupy the greatest part of Davao Oriental as well as the town of Tago in Surigao del Sur, but not the rest of the province in between². It is as if a clan of the Mandaya were simply hurled from Davao Oriental to settle in a remote town of the adjacent province. About 150 kilometers separate a dot of Mandaya settlement in Tago and the bulk of the Mandaya in Davao Oriental.

How can Mandaya natives be missing within this 150-kilometer stretch of land in the middle? What ethnic group actually populates this area? Filipinos would probably find the missing piece of the puzzle when they know that the natives living in between are the Kamayo. The Kamayo were Mandaya residing in Surigao del Sur³ who lost much of their ethnic culture with the advent of Christianity. Christianity disengaged the Kamayo and Davawenyo alike from the native Mandaya culture. See also The Mandaya People of Mindanao.

Kamayo Culture

Ethnic Kamayo culture is similar to its highland counterpart, the Mandaya. However, the incursion into Kamayo settlements of Manobo clans significantly influenced ethnic Kamayo clothing and language. Furthermore, like other lowland dwellers, the Kamayo were Christianized and therefore acculturated. Today, you would seldom see them in native Kamayo clothing and jewelry, except in ethnic festivals, such as the Paladong Festival of Hinatuan.

Popular Places by the Kamayo

Have you seen a Kamayo in person? If you’ve visited popular tourist attractions in Surigao del Sur, you’ve most probably met many. The Enchanted River of Hinatuan, Britania Islands in San Agustin and Tinuy-an Falls of Bislig are among the famous tourist spots around which the Kamayo people inhabit.

Kamayo Language

Kamayo is a language closer to the mainstream Tagalog and Bisaya than to the languages of western Mindanao. Also called Kinamayo and Kadi, the Kamayo language is a variant of Mandaya. Other languages in Mindanao closely related to Kamayo include Butuanon and Surigaonon. Of these two, Surigaonon is fairly mutually intelligible with Kamayo. As proof, here’s how you say ‘Good evening to you all!’ in Kamayo and Surigaonon:

Kamayo: Madayaw na duwom kamayo hurot!

Surigaonon: Maradjao na duyom dijo nahurot!

The Kamayo language is less regarded in the Philippines. While the government implemented the use of mother tongue as medium of instruction since 2016, the language used at school in Kamayo municipalities is, not Kamayo, but Bisaya. This has led to increased difficulty in learning for Kamayo students, as well as the further weakening of the Kamayo language.

The Name Kamayo

The name of the Kamayo people comes from their word for “yours.” Kamayo is plural for “yours”. This name may have been given to them by Bisaya migrants, who have settled in much of Kamayo domain. Speaking to Bisaya migrants, the Kamayo natives may have very often used the word kamayo, “yours” — as opposed to kanami, “ours,” referring to their land and everything that originally belongs to them.

Kamayo Domain

The Kamayo are divided between administrative regions with not a province of their own. Native Kamayo speakers are found from the town of Marihatag, Surigao del Sur to Mati City in Davao Oriental. An attempt to carve out a province covering this area was made in 1956, when Congressman Ismael Veloso passed a bill in Congress creating Davao del Sur Province. However, the same bill did not pass through the Senate.⁴

Today, the creation of such province — which is now better called the Kamayo Province — would pave the way for economic growth in this coastal area. Connecting the cities of Bislig and Mati under the same provincial government would usher development into the towns lying in between. These remote towns currently lag behind in economic progress, particularly in road infrastructure.

The Kamayo Today

The Kamayo are among the ethnic minorities in the Philippines who are quite unempowered. Perhaps the day when Kamayo men and women can say that they are truly free is when their own language is used at school, and they are reunited with the Kamayo speakers of Davao Oriental in a unified political entity, for instance, the Province of Kamayo.

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Footnotes

1. according to Miguel Sadera-Maso (no later than 1939)
2. as published by Manuel B. Ompang in the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) (Accessed October 12, 2017)
3. consistent with accounts that the Mandaya lived along the east coast of Mindanao from Tago, Surigao del Sur to Mati, Davao Oriental by the Annual Report of the Philippine Commission (1900), Dr. David P. Barrows (1903) and Pastells, S.J. (1887)
4. as documented by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) (Accessed October 18, 2017)