It is spoken in the provinces of Agusan del Norte and Surigao del Norte in the Lake Mainit area of Mindanao, Philippines.
Mamanwa is a grammatically conservative language, retaining a three-way deictic distinction in its articles which elsewhere is only preserved in some of the Batanic languages.
[4] According to Lobel (2013), the Samar Agta may have switched to Waray or Northern Samarenyo, or possibly even Mamanwa.
In addition to this, Francisco Combes, a Spanish friar, had observed the presence of Negritos in the Zamboanga Peninsula "in the Misamis strip" in 1645, although no linguistic data had ever been collected.
[5] The traditional Mamanwas believe in Tahaw as their supreme deity who is given prayers of supplications and petitions, as well as True, a deity of the forest and herder of hunting animals.