During early meetings between the hunter and the tribesmen at the forest’s edge, it was not known that they lived in caves, and there were no immediate attempts to go deep into the rain forest. The latter decision to visit the caves was made to protect the Tasaday from loggers, farmers, ranchers and miners who were nibbling away at their shrinking realm. Not long thereafter, the president of the Philippines signed a proclamation reserving some 200,000 hectares (nearly 500,000 acres) of land for them.

Entering the World of the Tasaday

March 23, 1972, marked the intrusion of the first outsiders​—and of the twentieth century—​into the world of the Tasaday. The helicopter was the only means of transportation that could effectively bring the expedition to within walking distance of the caves. Since the thick jungle made a ground landing impossible, a wooden platform was lashed to a treetop. The members of the expedition had to jump from the hovering helicopter onto the rickety landing pad that was rocking like a canoe in choppy water due to airblasts from the rotor blades. Lindbergh said his jump was “like passing through the looking glass” from modern to ancient times.

From the treetop, the group descended seventy-five feet (23 meters) to the ground below. There they were met by a young Tasaday man wearing only his leaf G-string. An hour’s hike down a ridge and along a sparkling stream brought the party to the home of the Tasaday: three limestone caves located 15 feet (5 meters) from the ground at an altitude of 4,500 feet (1,370 meters). Here they were, deep inside a tropical rain forest​—damp and teeming with plant life. All around were giant ferns and orchids, rattan, climbing bamboo, wild banana and palm, as well as huge, towering dipterocarp trees shooting skyward to spread their canopies a hundred feet (30 meters) or more above the sides of the sloping valley.

Heads poked curiously from the ledges of the caves, as eyes scrutinized the first strangers ever to set foot in this hidden valley. A boy stepped from one of the caves, wrapped his arms and legs around a slender, white-barked tree and slid fifteen feet (5 meters) to the ground. He joined others who were shouting and bounding down a dusty path to cluster around the visitors.

A close look at the caves, the biggest of which was thirty feet deep and thirty-five feet wide (9 x 11 meters), was revealing. The walls have no drawings or markings, and the floor is swept clean by branches, leaving no debris. There is no furniture, except for a few bark mats. Also on hand are pieces of dried firewood and some bamboo, wooden and stone tools. The cave walls gleam like varnished coal due to years of exposure to soot from the fires used for cooking and heating the caves during the chilly evenings.