Hiraya Anthology: Lens of the Youth

by Angelyn Shane Estrada                "Manobo" is from the word "Manuvu" or "Minuvu" which means "person" or "people." There is another idea that it may have originally been "Mansuba" which means the word “man” is person or people and suba which means river, thus meaning "river people." A third derivation is from "Banobo," the name of a creek that now flows to the Pulangi River about two kilometers below Cotabato City. Today, they are called Manobo.                The Manobo are believed to descended from the original proto-Philippine or proto-Austronesian people who arrived thousands of years ago from south China, before the Ifugao and indigenous peoples of northern Luzon. The term "Proto-Manobo" refers to this stock of Mindanao's aboriginal non-Negritoid people. They are residing in mostly island of Mindanao beside river valleys, hillsides, and plateaus of Agusan, Bukidnon, Cotabato, Davao...