# Talk:Eskaya people

...the Eskaya tribe, who are sparsely found in the interior hinterlands of some northern towns of Bohol, Philippines, are the object of international archeological studies considering their distinct culture, language and alphabet not found elsewhere in the world? --Pinay06 19:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
or other version:

...the Eskaya writing system is composed of close to a thousand characters, some representing sounds that do not exist in Philippine languages nor in most Austronesian languages, and with some consonant clusters not natural sounds in any language spoken in the region?--Pinay06 21:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Submitted to: "Did you know?" talk page December 2, 2006
See:*Eskaya (2006-12-05)

Amazing. Would never heard about these people or culture without you guys. Keep up the good work Pinay06. It's nice to see others working diligently on other articles about Filipino culture. -- PhilipDM 19:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Pinay06,
Thanks for starting an entry on the Eskaya. 
I have spent the past year researching the Eskaya and as you may be aware, the history of the group is highly contested. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that for almost every statement made about the Eskaya in your article, there is an alternative point of view. This is not to say that your points aren’t correct, but please be aware of the controversy!
You mention for instance, that the Eskaya are the object of international archaeological studies. Such studies were proposed in the early 1980s and are yet to take place. In fact, with a few notable exceptions there have been almost no qualified anthropologists, archaeologists, linguists or historians studying the group. The following researchers did have qualifications in their fields and produced successful studies: Regina Estorba, Cristina Martinez, Fr Milan Ted Torralba and Stella Consul. Some high profile local journalists, moonlighting as historians, have written things about the Eskaya which are purely speculative. The circulation of these unverifiable claims is ultimately harmful to the Eskayan people who do not always agree with these journalists but have no means of redress. The amount of chismis surrounding the Eskaya is extraordinary but the notion that they are a secret society is particularly worrying. Among field researchers they have a deserved reputation for openness and honesty.
I strongly suggest that you visit the Bohol library and ask for the Eskaya file. I have recently added a folder of Eskaya research gathered from archives in Bohol, Cebu and Manila. I have also written a companion document entitled Visayan-Eskaya Secondary Source Materials: Survey & Review Part One: 1980–1993. This document is an attempt to compare and evaluate the hundreds (yes! hundreds!) of contradictions in Eskaya research. Lastly, the document includes a list of research standards ratified by the NCIP.
I’m really glad you have started an article but if you deleted everything for which there was no hard data you would be left with almost nothing! This is why I don’t wish to edit it. It's so hard to be sure of anything!
In any case I am delighted to find a fellow enthusiast of this important aspect of Boholano culture and I am happy to send you any references you may need for your future research. 
Happy research in Bohol!
Piers. 
pierskelly@yahoo.it --Perezkelly 07:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Perezkelly (talk • contribs) 07:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC).

Thank you for your message. I am currently tied up at the moment. But, I will post my response soon. Best regards.--Pinay06 08:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello again! Thank you for your lengthy message. You have provided a very enlightening discourse on the subject. I am afraid that it is physically impossible for me to do a research at the Bohol Privincial Library, much less the Eskaya tribe right now. I am currently not in Bohol. At any rate, here are some points regarding the Eskaya article:

You can see that I based much of the information from the current published internet resources, cited at almost every statement or paragraph.
As I always do in writing articles in Wikipedia, I had to take into consideration the policies and guidelines of wikipedia on WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:V, WP:CITE, WP:NOR, WP:NOT.  I made sure I maintained all of them, at least with Neutral Point of View, Verifiability, Citing sources, and No Original Research. Unfortunately, as of the moment, there is no way for me to determine the reliability of sources. (Although your dissertation gives me some insight on this!)
I have to highlight, therefore, that the current form of the article is based on current published resources, and not original research (a no-no in Wikipedia, unfortunately). In addition, even if I want to do the actual research in Bohol, I cannot use that in the article, unless it is published. The same goes to you.
I am determined to continue improving the article (note that I just started it on 1 December, 2006). As of today, it is in Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 5 December, 2006 (BTW, the main contention you have in your message) is contained there...
Your expertise is certainly needed and welcome, especially any published resources you can provide that we can use to cite, etc.
Please feel free to edit or improve the article. I know you said, "if you deleted everything for which there was no hard data you would be left with almost nothing!"  If you have the hard data, it might help improve the article, and to allow for information on the Eskaya to be known worldwide.  However, we need to be follow the guideliines of Wikipedia as I have outlined above.
I look forward to seeing more contributions from you! Best regards. --Pinay06 23:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

(BTW, were you working at the PPDO?)

Hi Pinay, thanks for your prompt response.
I think we agree with one another but that some points have become confused. Just to clarify, I have not written any dissertation on the Eskaya. I have only written a government report on the classification of the Eskayan language and a kind of ‘companion guide’ to existing published research on the Eskaya. This was for the NCIP. 
My one and only criticism of the article is the Reliability of Sources. I mentioned the Eskaya file at the Bohol Provincial Library for the sole reason that it contains nothing but but *published* material on the Eskaya. There is no original research here and all of it is testable. I agree wholeheartedly with that Wikipedia no-no and never meant to suggest otherwise! One frustrating thing about the Eskaya is that there are many sources but they are frequently contradictory so it is necessary to make a choice based on their relative reliability. A hard task, no doubt about it, but not impossible!
Thanks for the Did you know? update, that’s great. I’d love to send you a pdf of the ‘companion’ document. It contains names of sources, dates, page numbers, quotations - everything you need up to 1993. Just drop me a line at pierskelly@yahoo.it
Cheers,
Piers.
PS. I don’t mean to be at all discouraging – I’m really genuinely thrilled that, thanks to your efforts,  pinoy and Boholano culture have a much higher profile on the web. I just get a bit emotional sometimes because of the many friends I have in the Eskaya community. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.235.8.144 (talk) 00:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

Hello! I cannot begin to tell you, too, how glad I am that there is another person I can collaborate with on this article on the Eskaya. I must tell you that the Did you know...? has caused some attention on the article, check the history! Already, I am dealing with vandalism, etc. I think you should go ahead and edit!  It's been crazy already on my own. (hehehe!)  I understand and empathize how you feel with the Eskaya. Like I said, I will continue to try to improve the article, with your help and expertise. Yes, I will drop you a line at your email address. For the moment, please check the current form of the article Eskaya and edit, or send me your comments again. Best regards.  --Pinay06 01:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Intro - done
Area or Location - done
Demographics
Language
History - to be revised
Religion
Cultural practices and social organisation, marriage, funerals, farming methods, education etc [link to separate Eskaya cultural schools entry?
Mythology
The Old Books
Oral stories
History
Prehistory (very contested!)
The first settlements [with link to separate Mariano Datahan entry?]
World War II
The present era
Theories and controversies —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pinay06 (talk • contribs) 02:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

Just checking on the removal of Eskaya from the Template:Demographics of the Philippines? --Pinay06 02:20, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I made a new template exclusively for the Bisaya. see {{BisayaPeoplesmall}}
23prootie 02:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I now have doubts whethter or not the eskayans are/were Bisaya so I moved them to

23prootie 03:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, the Visayan-Eskaya and Eskaya articles will be merged soon. With regards to the Bisaya vs tribes template, I personally view the Eskaya as a subgroup of Bisaya and not strictly speaking in the same category as other 'highlander' minority groups of the Philippines. However, there are plenty who would dispute this. In conclusion, I think you could get away with putting them in either category. The Eskaya are just one of those ambiguous ones.  58.7.140.252 04:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)PerezKelly

As far as I understand it, the B rating is the highest rating an article can have before passing through the test of good article nomination (see WP:GA), a good article "plus" can get an A rating and the top level is the featured article (it appears in the main page, see:WP:FA). So in brief, the article is quite good (as far as I, a total ignorant on the Eskaya people, can tell): it is well organized, NPOv, sourced and has an small but nice infobox. Guess that adding some images: one or two pics, a map maybe, would help it to become a GA. Not sure: it's more an stylistic matter than anything I can help with, really.  Thanks for the smile, btw. --Sugaar 21:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello!  Thank you for the details. Yes, we will definitely work on the suggestions. The pictures will be uploaded soon. Please include Eskaya in your watch list so that you can be kept updated, too. Best regards. --Pinay06|talk 21:07, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I have a couple of comments on the did you know section. I am no expert on the field, but I agree with Piers comment that I don't know of any international archaeological studies conducted on the Eskaya. I created a list of all archaeological materials/research papers conducted on Bohol and I did not find any that relate specifically with the Eskaya cultural group. My second point is that I thought the Eskaya people lived predominately in inland Eastern Bohol (not northern Bohol which is mentioned in the 'Did You Know'). They live in a number of barangays, except those which have left to work in the Tagbilaran area or out of the province. Thanks Lyndon.
Lyndon patterson 01:28, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

All these above have been incorporated in the major revamp or revision of the article in cooperation with User:Perezkelly. --Ate Pinay  (talk•email) 03:31, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

So much recent work has been done on the article. Any feedback is needed on what needs to be cleaned up? What's broken, incorrect, needs fixing? --Pinay (talk•email) 04:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
First of all I give the article 9.2 out of 10.
* More pictures are needed
* Good amount of general information is visible but, it lacks valuable “hidden” information, this means start focusing on the little information instead of all the outlined info.
* Grammar check, make the article sound more like an encyclopedia
I have no knowledge what so ever about Eskaya, but by simple look and read exercises I found that more information is needed, pictures will need to be added. Once this has been done nominated it for good article status. Also can you review or grammar check my article Ford BA Falcon and if it is good enough nominate it for Good Article status.SenatorsTalk | Contribs 00:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Good article, well-referenced, lots of well-presented information. Two quick fixes based on the GA criteria:
:* Per 1(b) and 1(c) any section with only one or two lines (like population and oral stories) in it probably does not contain enough information to merit a separate section. Please expand those sections or fold them into another.
:* Per 2, if only for ease of reading, the {{Fact}} tags need to be cleared. 
- Mocko13 22:13, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

done as per the above recommendation/s.  Please re-check. Thank you. --Ate Pinay  (talk•email) 03:30, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Passed GA. Mocko13 04:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all {{Infobox Ethnic group}} infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 17:03, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

"Eskaya group is subject for scholars debate whether it is a tribe or just a religious group. When some mediamen who conducted a research about the group in Biabas, Guindulman, they found out that the group is just a religious order. "
This statement was removed from Theories & controversies section as it is unreferenced. I'm not sure who wrote it but I would love to know which 'mediamen' visited Biabas, when this happened and whether their research is available. I've gone through all the media archives I can find and I haven't come up with anything. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be very happy and I will restore and expand the statement.
Perezkelly 07:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Culture and Society" articles. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have made several minor corrections throughout the article. Altogether the article is well-written and is still in great shape after its passing in 2007. Continue to improve the article making sure all new information is properly sourced and neutral. It would also be beneficial to go through the article and update all of the access dates of the inline citations and fix any dead links. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 08:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, I am going to fix up this article based on two pieces of peer-reviewed and published research on the Eskaya. If I end up making significant changes I will give my reasons for this with reference to this research which I will add to the article in the form of an external link so you can cross-reference these changes. If there's anything you disagree with, please let me know. Perezkelly (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 01:50, 17 February 2013 (UTC) 

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Eskaya people/CommentsTalk:Eskaya people/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Last edited at 08:18, 3 May 2011 (UTC).
Substituted at 14:40, 29 April 2016 (UTC)