Manumalo

**Tribe Type**: Starting Tribe
 **Day Formed**: Day 1
 **Highest Placing Member**:Imani (Second Runner-Up/24)

Manumalo was a starting tribe from Survivor: Island of Secrets that was dissolved and later re-established as a merged tribe.

This tribe, containing castaways from the 'South', was initially the weakest of the four original tribes. After being dissolved, Manumalo reappeared as the merged tribe. This new iteration contained three smaller alliances that fluidly worked together at times, whilst also turning on each other to get to the end. Their tribe colour was orange.

## Tribe History

### Starting Tribe

The orange Manumalo tribe was formed on Day 1 of *Survivor: Island of Secrets*, containing castaways from southern regions of the United States. The tribe of five new castaways was also joined by *David vs. Goliath* castaway Christian. Wes believed that Christian would be an easy vote should the tribe lost a challenge, and spoke to the newbies about this plan to get rid of him. Unbeknownst to Wes, many of the newbies wanted to work with Christian and an alliance of four had formed containing Christian, Cynthia, Davis and Shannon. Manumalo unfortunately lost the first immunity challenge. The newbies told Christian that Wes was coming after him, so the alliance of four voted out Wes at their first tribal council.

After winning immunity on Day 6, Christian's core alliance refused to send outsider Imani to the Island of Secrets and instead chose to send Cynthia. She failed to obtain an advantage and then relayed this to her alliance upon her return, but they thought she was lying. Manumalo unfortunately lost the third challenge on Day 8. Cynthia was ostracised from her alliance and was forced to work with Imani the outsider. The pair voted for Christian at tribal council because they hoped Davis or Shannon would flip on him, but this was not the case and the trio voted out Cynthia for lying about having an advantage. Down in numbers against the three other tribes, Manumalo was lucky enough to win the following two immunity challenges they had together. During this time, Davis and Christian were sent to the Island of Secrets on Days 10 and 12 respectively but were unable to obtain an advantage. The first iteration of Manumalo was dissolved during the tribe dissolve on Day 11.

### Merged Tribe

The merged Manumalo tribe was formed on Day 21 with thirteen castaways. On Day 22, Danni, Doug and Heather went to the Island of Secrets where Heather won Chanelle's unused Hidden Immunity Idol from *Mamanuca Islands*. The original Laumei, Sa'ula and Ta'alo castaways had worked together to different degrees during the tribe dissolve and agreed to vote with each other. At the first merged tribal council, this large group split the votes between Shannon and Imani. When neither player had an advantage, Shannon was voted out and became the first member of the jury. Returning back to camp, Sa'ula and Ta'alo formed a smaller alliance in order to get rid of the Laumei castaways. Doug, J'Tia and Sneha went to the Island of Secrets on Day 24, where Doug won the unused Mecherchar idol from *Palau*. At the second merged tribal council, Laumei managed to bring in outsiders Imani and Micah. With Sa'ula and Ta'alo splitting the votes, the Laumei Alliance had the majority and Sneha was blindsided.

Manumalo was fractured between the core three alliances. On Day 26, Declan, Harmony and Heather went to the Island of Secrets where Harmony won Kameron's Idol Nullifier from *David vs. Goliath*. At tribal council, the Laumei Alliance voted for Heather, the Ta'alo castaways voted for Harmony whilst Sa'ula voted for Doug. However, every single vote was nullified when Heather and Doug played their idols whilst Joshua played his idol for Harmony. With Johanna's rock from *The Australian Outback* in hand, Harmony cast the sole vote at the revote to eliminate Declan. On Day 28, Elias, Imani and Joshua went to the final Island of Secrets visit where Elias won Cara's idol from *Argentina*. With the tribe fractured from this null vote, Laumei and Sa'ula made a temporary peace deal against Ta'alo. When J'Tia knew she was on the chopping block, she told Danni and Doug to vote with the tribe to unanimously eliminate her.

The Sa'ula castaways felt like they were in the most powerful position of the game because they had working relationships with both Laumei and Ta'alo. Ultimately, Sa'ula felt like Laumei were bigger physical and strategic threats. Over the course of the next two tribal councils, the SALT Alliance (including Sa'ula and Ta'alo castaways) worked together to eliminate Joshua and Micah. At the Final Seven, Elias and Heather were concerned with the relationship between Danni and Doug. They decided to work with the Laumei Alliance in order to flush out as many advantages as possible for the time being. Doug played his idol, but he was still voted out because Harmony used her Idol Nullifier against it. With Laumei losing power, Heather created a women's alliance with Danni and Imani. At the Final Six, Heather played her Legacy Advantage, Elias played his idol on Danni as a sign of trust and this majority alliance split the votes between Harmony and Anthony. These advantages weren't necessarily important because Harmony still received the most votes and was voted out.

It appeared that Anthony, without his allies, would be voted out at the Final Five. However, Danni and Imani convinced Heather to work with them and eliminate Elias because he had won a majority of the individual immunity challenges. Anthony was still their target at the Final Four, but Danni and Imani thought Heather was their biggest threat after winning three advantages from the Island of Secrets. At the Final Tribal Council, Imani was praised for making it to the end despite insurmountable odds from Day 1. However, she only earned Micah's jury vote because majority of the jury saw her as a goat that didn't have control over the trajectory of the game. Danni was praised for her subtle yet strong social gameplay, which kept the target off her back during the merge. However, she earned three of ten jury votes from Doug, Heather and J'Tia because many felt she played too much of a passive game. In the end, Anthony was awarded the title of Sole Survivor after overcoming the odds as a returning player, as a member of Laumei and as an underdog without allies. He won six of ten jury votes from Declan, Elias, Harmony, Joshua, Shannon and Sneha.

## Trivia

* Manumalo was the only original tribe from *Island of Secrets* where none of its member won an advantage on the Island of Secrets.
* It is the first and currently only orange tribe to be dissolved in *Survivor* history.
* In a rather interesting coincidence, each of the four starting tribes produced a representative in the final four. Imani became the representative of the original Manumalo.
* Manumalo is the second merged tribe after Chuay Jai from *Survivor: Thailand II* to exist in two states. Unlike Chuay Jai, Manumalo was both a starting and merged tribe.