The Palawan people, also known as the Palaw'an or Palawano, are an ethnic group native to the Palawan group of islands in the Philippines.
Classification
They are divided into four ethno-linguistic subgroupings. These are the Quezon Palawano which is also known as the Central Palawano; the Bugsuk Palawano or South Palawano; Brooke's Point Palawano; and Southwest Palawano. The Quezon Palawano subgroup are found in Southern Palawan, particularly on the western section of the municipality of Quezon including the eastern part of Abo-abo of the municipality of Sofronio Espanola, going southward down to the northern section of the municipality of Rizal. A large group of Palawans can also be found in Sitios Gugnan, Kambing, Tugpa, and Kalatabog of Barangay Panitian. The Taw't Bato of the municipality of Rizal at the foot of Mt. Matalingahan also belongs to this same Palawan tribal group although their language is 15 percent different from the Quezon Palawanos.
Description
The Palawans were originally a tribe in Southern Palawan until agrarian settlers started to occupy their once vast domain. The tribe would exploit the most fertile piece of land and move on to next. Their family units were very small, possibly due to high mortality rates. They built their houses usually on a hillside but close to the river or stream using four skinny trunks of trees. The floor is roughly 15 to 20 feet from the ground. Families used a slanted log to climb or to enter their houses, except for single or bachelor's shanties where a suspended rope is preferred.
They hunt wild animals using spears with a lethal poison at the tip. They catch fish by using a special root sap that is diluted in a shallow stream or river. The tribe hardly domesticate chicken nor hogs although dogs were their favorite pet because they can also be used in hunting. The Palawans do not usually use sea salt on their food. Their usual diet is made up of rice, banana, cassave, vegetables, rimas or breadfruit, fruits, wild pigs from hunting, birds such as wild quails and tikling, wild chicken/labuyo, and freshwater fish. They prepare a delicious festival dish called pinyaram. A kind of cassava or rice cake placed on top of banana leaves that is quite similar to the Tagalog's bibingka.
They were naive in socializing with their outside world, and they would welcome you with extreme precaution as they were always scared of getting sick. At the onset of this fear, they would immediately abandon their area. It is believed that they have the shortest life span of all peoples but no statistical data are however available to support this claim. They do not have a concept of year or years. When asked when were they born, they would reference it to a standing tree, explaining that they were born when a particular tree was just about a certain height.
Their choices of clothing were g-strings for men and patadyong for women or the so-called native wraps similar to the more popular malong.
One of their children's playtoys is a top that is flat, usually about a third of an inch thick that is spun on the ground using a rope of one and a half meters in length.
Influences from Agrarian Settlers, Government and NGOs
The influx of agrarian settlers in Southern Palawan had gradually influenced the cultural orientation and some of the traditional practices of the Palawan tribe. The way they build their houses had slowly changed adopting more and more the styles of their agrarian settler neighbors. Construction materials however had remained the same. As they become aware of the concept of property rights, they started to build small villages and stopped being nomadic people resulting to little linguistical differences among villages. Studies in 1990s had identified four ethno-linguistic subgroups as mentioned above. However, more studies are needed in order to categorize each of the villages scattered in Southern Palawan. Sizes of their families remained small and life expectancy remained low. They now provide hired labor during rice planting and harvesting periods to lowland farmers. However, their main source of income is rattan gathering or production of yantok which is used in nipa weaving or in the construction of nipa houses.