The interior of Mindanao is occupied by some ten pagan tribes, the
most important being the Manóbos, Mandayas, Atás, Bagóbos, Biláns,
Tirurais, and Subánuns. These tribes are all remarkably alike in
culture; much more so, in fact, than any other similar group of peoples
in the Philippines; and this culture shows a close resemblance to
that of the tribes in the interior of Borneo. In the development of
their myths and of their religious beliefs, these peoples occupy a
middle position between the more primitive and the highest developed
types of the Philippines. John M. Garvan has recently completed a
very extensive study of the Manóbo peoples of the Agusan Valley,
in eastern Mindanao, and the following beliefs and myths are quoted
from his unpublished notes.