In 1971, wealthy Filipino official Manuel Elizalde discovered a Stone Age tribe living in isolation somewhere in Cotabato. They wore leaves, spoke their own dialect, and used crude tools like stone axes. Soon, the newly found “Tasaday” tribe became a worldwide sensation, hitting the headlines of Reader’s Digest, National Geographic, and Associated Press.
Fast forward to 1986, Swiss journalist Oswald Iten visited the Tasaday tribe and got the shock of his life. He discovered that the lost tribe did not only wear T-shirts and jeans but also spoke modern local dialects. Turns out, the Tasadays–who were actually T’boli and Manobo farmers–were only forced to act like cave men so Elizalde would give them gifts. Soon enough, the story of the Stone Age tribe were described as the “greatest hoax since Piltdown Man”.
http://www.filipiknow.net/hoaxes-in-the-philippines/
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