<div>Dear Loren,</div><div>Most of the claims of the newspaper are discussed at length in various essays in:</div><div><br></div><div>Thomas N. Headland (ed.) 1992 The Tasaday controversy: Assessing the evidence. Washington, DC: The American Anthropological Association</div>
<div><br></div><div>which also references all the earlier literature. The only later additions to the debate I am aware of </div><div>are the papers by Lawrence Reid, of which the latest (referencing the others) is:</div>
<div><br></div><div>Lawrence A. Reid 1997 Linguistic Archaeology: Tracking Down the Tasaday Language,</div><div>In: Archaeology and Language, I, pp, 184-208 ed by Roger M. Blench and Matthew Spriggs,</div><div>Routledge.<br>
<br></div><div>Since Lawrence is on the list I hope he will correct me if there are further later things.</div><div><br></div><div>As far as I can tell (another non-specialist), the best explanation for the linguistic and other data is that</div>
<div>the Tasaday were indeed a relatively isolated group who did no agriculture of their own after splitting off from Cotabato Manobo less than a thousand years ago. It may well be true that the stone-age image was sexed-up, i.e., they were told to get rid of modern influences from the sporadic 1960s meetings, for the initial studies in 1972, but this does not invalidate the basic explanation as above.</div>
<div><br></div><div>all the best,</div><div><br></div><div>H</div><div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 1:32 PM, Loren Billings <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sgnillib@gmail.com">sgnillib@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">The following obituary appeared recently in the Oregonian newspaper<br>
(by way of my mom). I would welcome comments on the accuracy of claims<br>
listed below. My sense, as a nonspecialist, is that some of the<br>
accounts are a little twisted.<br>
<br>
--<br>
<br>
Loren A. Billings, Ph.D.<br>
Associate professor of linguistics<br>
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature<br>
National Chi Nan University<br>
Puli, Nantou County 545 Taiwan<br>
<br>
<br>
BEGIN EXCERPT<br>
<br>
John Edwards Nance Dec 19, 195 - March 09, 2010<br>
John Edwards Nance, writer and photographer, who chronicled the<br>
Tasaday tribe of the Philippies, died Tuesday, Mach 9, 2010, at his<br>
home in Columbus, Ohio. He was 74.<br>
Nance spent 40 years photographing and writing about the Tasaday, a<br>
group of cave-dwelling people discovered living in the Philippine<br>
rainforest in 1971. He authored 3 books and took tens of thousands of<br>
photographs of the tribe. He also established Friends of the Tasaday,<br>
a foundation that helped preserve their rainforest home, provided them<br>
with education and health care, and taught them sustainable<br>
agriculture.<br>
A graduate of the U of Oregon...Nance left Oregon in the late 1950s<br>
to travel the world... landed a job with the Associated press...in<br>
1968 he was assigned to Manila as AP bureau chief. It was there that<br>
he covered a story about aviator, Charles Lindbergh on an expedition<br>
to meet a group of 26 people discovered by a trapper living in<br>
isolation in the rainforest. John's articles and his subsequent book,<br>
"The Gentle Tasaday," published in 1975, helped catapult the group to<br>
worldwide attention. The peacable Tasaday, whose unique language did<br>
not include words for enemy or war, were studied in the caves by<br>
dozens of social scientists, who determined that they lived a<br>
stone-age like existence, subsisting on roots and tadpoles.<br>
Nance eventually left the AP, moved back to Oregon, and authored 2<br>
more books, "The Mud-Pie Dilemma," and a history of the Philippines.<br>
...<br>
In the late 1980's, the Tasaday fell victim to political intrigue,<br>
when interests eager to claim their rainforest for mining and logging<br>
exploitation engineered an elaborate scheme to declare them a hoax.<br>
Despite the fact that the Aquino government conducted an official<br>
inquiry and eventually declared the tribe authentic, worldwide media<br>
and scientists using second-hand studies pronounced them fake.<br>
Linguists eventually proved their authenticity. Nance spent the next<br>
25 years working on behalf of the Tasaday...<br>
<br>
END EXCERPT<br>
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</blockquote></div><br>