A Dumb Scheme That Enriched a Conman
Pictures of the Tasaday appeared on magazine covers, including National Geographic, and clips of the tribe were featured on news programs around the world. Numerous documentaries were made about the stone age primitives, and a bestselling book, The Gentle Tasaday, was written about them. Celebrities flocked to visit and be photographed with them. When professional anthropologists sought to the study the Tasaday, they and their region were abruptly declared off limits by Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos. It was only after his overthrow in 1986 that the truth came out, and it was revealed that the whole thing had been a huge hoax.
When journalists and anthropologists gained access to the Tasaday, they discovered that they were not primitive stone agers. They lived like modern people, not in caves, but in houses. They did not run around naked and barefoot, but wore shirts, jeans, flip flops and shoes. Investigations revealed that Elizalde had pressured the Tasaday to pretend to be stone age primitives. As to Elizalde? He had set up a charitable foundation which raised millions of dollars to protect the Tasaday, their “way of life”, and their jungle habitat from encroachment by the outside world. In 1983, he fled the Philippines, and took with him millions looted from the foundation.
