They danced, speared five squealing pigs and roasted them for a day-long feast. Home of the centuries-old rice terraces carved on the slopes of these northern highlands by the Igorot tribe, the Cordilleras have changed over time from scenic wonder to scarred land.
Landslides and burned patches of forests look like wounds on the steep mountainsides. Government officials blame earthquakes and typhoons for the ravages suffered by these slopes, but residents assert that the mining industry and the cash crop economy share much of the blame.
For centuries, tribal peoples of the Cordillera survived on upland agriculture and small-scale mining as their subsistence economy was fully integrated into their culture. During the early s, US colonizers introduced corporate mining and issued land titles that broke the system of communal ownership of resources practiced by the tribes, who lost their ancestral domain.
In ecologically sensitive Cordillera areas, environmental problems are largely caused not by big mining concerns, but by the proliferation of vegetable farming as the main livelihood of tribal peoples in the area. Environmentalists indicate that this would not be a problem if the farms did not use dense woodlands serving as vital watersheds and harboring unique wildlife. This pattern persists despite the environmental costs because of continuing support from the government's highland agricultural development program.
Its projects include roads, seed storage plants, loans to cooperatives and the supply of inputs like fertilizer. Alfredo Pedong, an officer of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources DENR based in the area says conservation efforts here have failed due to lack of personnel and finances. Patronage politics also weakens enforcement of forestry laws.
The communist insurgency, which has a strong base in Cordillera, has also taken its toll on the environment. DENR officers state that the military burns down ambush sites and the periphery of rebel camps to prevent the guerrillas from utilizing them. The military is viewed to be on the offensive in a last-ditch effort to make good on President Aquino's pledge to break the back of Southeast Asia's last insurgency conflict by the time she leaves office in mid Sagada, a nearby town, became known as a stronghold of the communist NPA, especially after when it hosted a big meeting of the National Democratic Front NDF , the coalition of underground leftwing organizations.
Last year, the anti-insurgency drive was focused on Kalinga-Apayao province, particularly in the Marag valley which the military suspects to be a major NPA base. The army had conducted repeated air and ground attacks there, with devastating effects on the minority "Isneg" and "Aggay" tribal groups. The Movement for Justice and Peace, a human rights organization with affiliates in the region, has reported that some 7, troops are being deployed in the Kalinga-Apayao and Mountain Provinces.
That may not happen much longer because young members of the mountain tribes are moving to cities or going abroad for a more comfortable life. Officials believe the way to protect the terraces and the culture is to provide economic incentives that will keep the young at home. Most of the region's roads are unpaved, electric power is inadequate and educational opportunities are limited.
Mountain farmers can grow one crop of rice a year, compared with three in the lowlands. Geraldo Isada of the Philippine Tourism Authority argues that, "We have to provide incentives for people to continue upland farming". Local guides supplement their income by selling marijuana to tourists, mostly young backpackers. Missionaries have worked in the area for generations and many Igorots are nominally Christian. But Christianity coexists with pagan beliefs, including a pantheon of gods whose favor is invoked in complex rituals practiced by the mombakis, or priests.
Tribal culture is rapidly vanishing. Now most of the , Igorots live in tin shacks and wear Western dress, except for old men in loincloths and feathered caps who earn money posing for tourists. Loreta San Augustin, the curator of the Cordillera museum states that "Igorots take the American Indian path to extinction. The unwanted beggars in the streets of Baguio are Igorots, marginalized descendants of fierce headhunters who centuries ago carved mammoth staircases on the steep slopes of their mountain abodes, creating life-sustaining farms where there were none.
The Igorot culture is deteriorating. The million-strong population is not in decline, but almost everything else about them is, in their headlong embrace of the outside world.
Unlike the Aztecs, the Mayas and other indigenous peoples of the New World, the white man's saber and cross were held at bay for years from the semi-temperate Cordillera mountain chain bisecting the main Luzon island. The Isnegs, Kalingas, Bontocs, Ibalois, Kakana-eys and Ifugaos, along with other lesser ethno-linguistic groups that make up the Igorot nation, sometimes go back to the old ways to settle scores.
The monetary economy now obliges parents to send their children to school and few come back to tend the farm. The Cordillera forests are nearly gone, rivers which watered the terraces are drying up. However, the defense of the land still manages to shake up the group. Eloquent chieftain Macli-ing Dulag -- murdered by soldiers in -- inspired the Kalingas to rise in the late s to block a hydroelectric project on the Chico River, which would have put their villages under water.
Manila later abandoned the project, but the peaceful resistance reawakened the mountain peoples' warrior spirit, causing many of them to join the communist guerrillas. Cordero Walrod Andres Illongot Ibilao, Bugkalot. Calrson , Honors Project.
Paper Illinois Wesleyan University. Ilongot Life and Legends by Laurence L. Rosaldo Cruz Serag Isinay Texts and Translations by Ernesto Constantino Into the contra Costa by Danilo B. Galang with Victor J. Paz Tima Early and Thomas N. Headland Hornedo Maree Cordillera Peoples Alliance CPA is an independent federation of progressive peoples organizations, most of them grassroots-based organizations among indigenous communities in the Cordillera.
Ivatan Laji is a project to preserve the indigenous oral poetry of the Ivatan in Batanes. Spearheaded by journalist and poet Dorian Merina, this website contains lyrics and audio and video recordings of this art. The website can be viewed in English and in the indigenous language. Lars Krutak is a tattoo anthropologist who goes around the world documenting and studying various groups who continue their tattooing and scarification traditions.
Peruse through the articles and full episodes for his documentation on Kalinga tribal tattooing and the famed Kalinga tattoo artist Apo Whang Od.
It covers the news in the Ilocos, Cordillera and Cagayan Valley. Tumayaw Village is being constructed by the Provincial Government of Ilocos Sur in Banayoyo to preserve the cultural heritage of the Bogo indigenous people and providing more job opportunities and skills training. This village will be part of the eco-tourism industry growing in the Philippines. Here is a list of Cordillera bloggers found on the blogsite of From the Boondocks , a news and information blog on the Igorots and the Coridllera.
It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. The upper portion of the skull is given a place of honor in the home of the captor. Igorrot man. Early in the twentieth century, historians, anthropologists, and businessmen traveled to the Philippines to both study and bring elements of that culture to the United States, resulting in a massive exhibit at the St.
Louis Fair. In , the National Geographic did a spread on the people of the region. Anthropologist Albert Jenks conducted fieldwork in , and his ethnographic information was used in the brochures describing the tribes people at expositions in the U. Jenks, who worked for the U. The Graphic Arts Collection holds 30 mammoth photographs, recently digitized, taken by an unidentified expedition to the Philippines.
The text pasted on the backing board is often racist and pejorative, only some of which is quoted here. Showing how teeth are filed. The Bagobos live on the Gulf of Davao in Mindinao and are noted as the tribe who offer human sacrifices. In twenty of these people were sentenced by Judge Springer of the Court of first Instance for having taken part in a human sacrifice in the hills near Sta Cruz Davao. They offered a sacrifice of an 8 year old boy to Mandarangan the god of evil as their crops had been bad.
Had their crops been good they would have offered a sacrifice to Dawata the god of good. In any case they must appease the wrath of the gods. This tribe make very showy clothing of beads and hemp cloth and are probably the most picturesque tribe in the Islands.
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