Gaddang people

The Gaddang (an Indigenous Filipino people) are a linguistically identified ethnic group resident in the watershed of the Cagayan River in Northern Luzon, Philippines. Gaddang speakers were recently reported to number as many as 30,000, a number that may not include another 6,000 related Ga'dang speakers or other small linguistic-groups whose vocabularies are more than 75% identical.

These proximate groups (speaking mutually intelligible dialects which include Gaddang, Ga'dang, Baliwon, Cauayeno, Majukayong, and Yogad, as well as historically documented tongues such as that once spoken by the Irray of Tuguegarao) are depicted in cultural history and official literature today as a single people. Other distinctions are asserted between (a) Christian residents of the Isabela plains and Nueva Vizcaya valleys, and (b) formerly non-Christian residents in the nearby Cordillera mountains. Some reporters may exaggerate any of the differences, while others may completely ignore or gloss them over. The Gaddang have also in the past implemented a variety of social mechanisms that incorporate individuals born to linguistically different peoples.

The Gaddang are Indigenous to a compact geographic area; the theatre for their story is an area smaller than three-quarters of a million hectares (extreme distances: Bayombong to Ilagan=120 Km, Echague to Natonin=70 Km). The living population collectively comprises less than one-twentieth of one percent (.0005) of inhabitants of the Philippines, sharing one-quarter percent of the nation's land with Ifugao, Ilokano and others. As a people, Gaddang have no record of expansionism, they created no unique religion or set of beliefs, nor produced any notable government. The Gaddang identity is their language and their place.