In the frontier zone of Southeastern Mindanao, the general sociological observation that social reality stands “in immediate relation to the distribution of power” proves to be a much more complex and dynamic state of being. This paper outlines several recurrent conversations about a particular island location in Southern Philippines. The sizeable island of Samal in the Davao Gulf is at its closest point only 15 minutes away from Davao City. It became the “Island Garden City of Samal” in 1998, but before that surprisingly few people in Davao City were even aware that there was an island called “Samal” nearby. Traveling around the island and conducting fieldwork in 1996-1997 I encountered many kinds of people and several recurrent conversations about Samal as a place. These local discourses tell of interregional migration and movement, and reflect active local engagement with the processes of “Bisayanization” and integration within the national mainstream, globalization, capitalism, and modernization in the Davao region. The paper situates each of the different kinds of claims on the landscape within the existing ethnographic, demographic, and historical picture for the region, and ends up describing a setting that is actually many different kinds of reality at the same time. Six narratives of the landscape are discussed: Samal Island as valuable real estate; as mythic place of “giants” and “ancestral domain”; as out-of-the-way and risky, where a visitor should watch out for “poisoning”; as recently settled frontier; as a promised and prophesied land; and, finally, as a landscape also inhabited by unseen beings that are “not like us,” widely feared to be exacting taxes in human life as large scale government and multinational-led infrastructural development proceeded in 1997. The paper examines each of these in turn, as they describe and address larger issues of identity, land and power.

This paper highlights two different fishers’ knowledge systems in the Philippines. These fishers’ knowledge systems underlie distinct strategies for sustaining a continued livelihood from the sea. They encompass paradigms for success in fishing and are oriented to contend with change and uncertainty. They incorporate ideas about closing or opening resources and sharing or exchanging opportunities with outsiders. What fishers seek to manage are the conditions of making a living, which include moral concerns of equity in relation to scarce opportunities. Not all resources are well known and some are highly enigmatic. Fishers’ relations with resources are linked to the current economic and social values of fish within both market and community economies.

Weddings are status events wherein notions and decisions about their proper conduct and procedure are also expressions of identity. This paper examines data from barangays on the east side of Samal Island composed of Sinamal-speaking natives and Visayan migrants who have intermarried and interacted over at least two generations. 'Bisaya' (i.e. 'modern' or 'national' culture) can be said to be dominant or mainstream today, and ideally, contemporary weddings are Christian ceremonies and legally recognized by the government. With the enactment of the New Revised Family Code in 1987 that raised the minimum age of marriage to 18, a recent institution of "temporary" Samal marriage for individuals who are underage has emerged in these barangays. These are formal agreements among the parents, witnessed by local officials of the barangay or by Samal elders, for their children to marry legally when they reach 18 years of age. Called "bongkog", which literally means 'knocking two heads together', a rite that was part of the traditional Samal wedding ceremony, these reveal an evolving local culture that still identiftes with and therefore draws on memories of indigenous Samal traditions--while simultaneously identifying with the nation--to deal with these new circumstances.

Mataw, the traditional capture of seasonal dorado and flying fish by hook and line fishers in Batanes, and the traditional organization as cooperative groups making use of special accessways to the sea called vanua, are described. An important subsistence activity among communities on the eastern side of Baran Island, mataw fishing is framed by an indigenous world view and belief system. These organize the fishers to perform rituals of "cleaning" for the vanua, observe taboos, and enforce laws to control or regulate marine resource use and access. How mataw fishers may confront the challenges of the changing present is also briefly illustrated with the case of a multi-gear fishery in one vanua.

This monograph depicts the world of fishermen known as mataws, engaged in the traditional capture of seasonal flying fish and dorado in Batanes, Philippines. Mataw fishermen are organized as associations of users of vanua--natural access ways for a boat allowing transit between land and sea. Material from four different mataw associations in the municipalities of Mahatao and Basco who comprise some 30 percent of fishermen in these municipalities are presented. Bringing out the native's point of view, the study discusses the (1)economic arrangements supporting this individual fishing enterprise, (2)the ecological knowledge of fishermen, (3)the observance of taboos and the performance of rituals for the vanua, (4)the implementation of the organization's laws, (5)mataw groups' responses to changing aspects of fisheries in Batanes. Using a functionalist perspective, the study discusses how mataw worldview imaginatively and logically negotiates the uncertainties of fishing represented by the special but unpredictable 'fish of summer', the hazardous environment personified by invisible spirit beings, and the competition from fellow fishermen, through the observance of taboos, ritual and laws. The study shows that the ideals of mataw fishing stress individual skill and enterprise within the framework of communal cooperation, and high respect for environment. The rights to fish and use the vanua safely are gained by conducting an exchange through ritual sacrifice with the anitu or invisible spirit beings. The vanua becomes a sacred area for the duration of the fishing season and fishing success is explained within a framework of purity and pollution. Mataw organizations regulate access and exploitation of resources within the vanua and traditional fishing grounds, under the leadership of the ideal fisherman who makes the first fishing trip for the season and who possesses the power to ritually set precedents for the season. With the present innovations in technology and other historical trends, mataws both as individuals and as members of associations are seen to creatively negotiate the conflicting interests of fellow fishermen in the face of the opposed values of the indigenous worldview and dominant modernizing paradigm.