Are The Tasadays Genuine Or Hoax?

In the 1970's, the world were introduced to the Tasadays, a primitive group believed to be living for years in a cave, tracing their roots to the pre-historic era and untouched by civilization.

It was wealthy businessman and amateur anthropologist Manuel Elizalde Jr. who gave the miniscule group of Paleolithic humans a glimpse of civilization in June 1971, earning enormous attention that drew headlines, anthropologists, linguists and even Hollywood stars.

The story piqued the curiosity of experts, until it turned out to be too good to be true.

A hunter laying traps in the wild allegedly discovered the presence of the Tasadays and reported it to Elizalde, who quickly jumped into a helicopter to see for himself what could be one of humanity's greatest treasures.

Elizalde, known for being a playboy and drunkard, was in command after President Ferdinand Marcos appointed him as presidential assistant on national minorities.

He was welcomed by the Tasadays as a hero, a god, a savior, and was regarded by the group as "Momo Dakel Diwata Tasadayor" or the "Great Bringer of Good Fortune to the Tasaday."

Elizalde claimed that the leaves-wearing Tasadays were isolated, uncorrupted and existed in the rainforests and caves, without knowledge of the developed world.

The group lived peacefully and had no knowledge of agriculture and hunting for food, running naked in their diminutive community. They were believed to be the last remnants of the Stone Age.

The story of the Tasadays caught the attention of the whole world. Many flew to the Philippines to study the ethnic group, immersing themselves to fully understand the tribe's way of life.

The discovery was even carried as a cover story by the National Geographic. The respected magazine dedicated 32 pages of coverage on the tribe, and featured a full-size image of a Tasaday kid hanging on a vine, identified as Lobo, on the cover.

Veteran Associated Press photographer John Nance also wrote his firsthand experience in a book entitled "The Gentle Tasaday."

Soon, the then serene community was disturbed by inquisitive foreigners, which led to the closing of its doors to the public.

Controlling the access, Elizalde decided to restrict the public around the same time Marcos declared martial law to protect the Tasadays and their home. A presidential decree was enacted in 1976 protecting the 26 members of the tribe and the 46,299-acre land from the dangers of exploitation due to rampant logging and mining as well as experts studying them.

While Filipinos celebrated their independence through People Power in 1986, Oswald Iten, a Swiss journalist, saw the opportunity to check the life of the Tasadays and confirm their authenticity. To his surprise, the once-celebrated Stone Age community was found away from the caves, living in nipa huts and wearing casual clothes, and were into farming.

"They lived in houses, they didn't live in caves and they told me they were in fact not a separate tribe called Tasaday. They told me it was the idea of Elizalde to make them pose as cavemen and Stone Age people in order to become famous," Iten said in "The Lost Tribe."

ABC News made a follow-up story called "The Tribe That Never Was" and quoted another Tasaday about conspiring with Elizalde.

"The Tasaday told us that in exchange for posing naked and playing the Stone Age caveman routine they said they were promised food, clothing and much to our astonishment, they were promised of their own helicopter," the producer of the story, Judith Moses, said in the same documentary.

The debates went for years until Congress, through the Committee on National Cultural Communities, declared the Tasadays to be genuine. The fame faded and the attention was gone for the simple Tasadays.

Decades later, Lobo, the kid holding on to a vine, revealed that their discovery, Elizalde's intrusion and the worldwide attention made their simple lives complicated.

Regardless of their origins, the Tasadays were clearly used by powerful people for their own selfish interests.