in Archiv für Volkerkunde 57-58 : 65-79, issued by the Museum für Volkerkunde in Wienand by the Verein "Freunde der Volkerkunde", Vienna (Austria) The continuity of past and present: The house as crossroads of Mangyan Patag society Abstract. Among the Mangyan Patag in the southeast of Mindoro in the Philippines, the house, as a construction and a social unit, is an organising principle. Houses are inhabited by members of one kindred and different houses are linked to each other. A house (balāy) is built in a named place and it is attached to a territory with a specific spring which links the inhabitants of the house to their ancestors. Most activities in everyday and ritual life, from birth to death, are organised around these houses. The main rituals are linked to the rice culture and the ancestors. The house is the only encompassing social unit that represents Mangyan Patag society as a whole. However, the house is also a place to live in and to communicate with the ancestors through the spring, which links the sky with the earth and the underworld. The Mangyan Patag share the idea of the house as a body with other Austronesian-speaking societies. This paper 1 will show how Mangyan Patag houses, from their foundation in the ground until after their destruction when they are still 'alive' in the memories of the living, are entities of both past and present. It will consider the main features of the house-building ritual as well as other types of houses, as for instance those for exhumed bones or offerings to ancestors. The notion of the Mangyan Patag house will also be considered from the point of view of 'rice intimacy'.