With our main article being about the Tagbanwa in the Philippines, this little blurb by Jody Crain seemed appropriate.

To simply say that rice is important to the Tagbanwa people of Palawan is a gross understatement. An anthropologist documented that they plant 143 different kinds of rice, giving them nearly 200 words for rice. Before the gospel arrived, a different type of rice had to be offered to the spirits to clear the jungle for a garden, to plant a garden, to weed a garden, to harvest a garden, to offer a ‘Thanksgiving’ to the spirits to eat the harvest, to settle a dispute, to marry (to be eligible a girl had to be able to identify over 30 kinds of rice), and many more activities. Even their creation story says that Tagbanwas came from a rice kernel. But today, since the Creator is known and worshipped, rice is seen as a gift and provision from Him!