On the third week of August, in Mindanao, Dabawenyos hold a celebration of flowers, fruits, and for the year's bountiful harvest - the Kadayawan festival. This celebration is one of the most well-known traditional festivals in Mindanao.

A Bagobo native named Elias B. Lopez initiated tribal festivals in the Poblacion during the seventies. Folk from the tribal communities of the Bagobos, Mandayas, Manobos, Mansakas and Muslims went to the lowland for dancing and thanksgiving. Unfortunately, this celebration was stopped in the early eighties because of the disorder during that time. It was revived as the Apo Duwaling festival in 1986.

The name Apo Duwaling comes from some icons of Davao's natural wealth, namely Mount Apo (the highest point in the Philippines, an active volcano west of Davao City), durian (the "king" of fruits, having a hard, spiny husk, sweet pulp, and pungent odor) and waling-waling (the "queen of Philippine orchids").

Apo Duwaling was changed to Kadayawan in 1988. Kadayawan comes from the Bagobo word, "dayao", meaning "good" and from the Dabawnon word "madayaw", which means anything good, or beneficial.

August to September is harvest time in Davao and in this time Dabawenyos thank their God (or gods, if the case may be), for the abundance of fruits, flowers, vegetables, rice and grains. The five-day festival starting on the third Wednesday of August was patterned after the Bagobos' practice. This celebration boasts of the Dabawenyos' local color with their dances, music and traditions.

The two main attractions of the festival are the Floral Float parade and the Indak-indak sa Kadalanan. Intricately designed floats decorated with flowers and a variety of fruits like durian, bananas, pomelos, mangoes, papaya, and even vegetables are paraded through the lively town. The Indak-indak sa Kadalanan compromises of performers in ethnic costumes gracing the streets, enticing spectators to join in the furor of body movement and ethnic music on the streets. Kadayawan presents Davao's visitors with a celebration of ethnicity and Dabawenyo ingenuity.

Truly, the Kadayawan festival gives one a bite of the Philippine's rich culture.