Mandaya

(map)

The Mandayas live in a rugged, densely wooded region of the Davao district where the mountains descend almost to the ocean's edge. They say that a great lake exists in the sky, and the spray from its waves causes the rain. The spirits, when angered, break the banks of this lake and allow torrents of water to fall.

Many generation ago, a great flood drowned all the world's inhabitants except one pregnant woman. She prayed that her child might be a boy. Her prayer was answered, and she gave birth to a boy whose name was Uacatan. When he grew up, he wed his mother, and all Mandayas are descended from them.

Fay-Cooper Cole, The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao, Field Museum of Natural History Publication 170, Anthropological Series vol. 12, no. 2, (Chicago: Field Museum, 1913), 173; Frazer, 1919, 225.