Getting to Know IFUGAO

          A patient once asked me where I'm from and being a proud Ipuggo that I am, I confidently said, "Sa Ifugao po sir" ( From Ifugao sir). He was silent for a moment, seemingly confused, and then hesitantly asked, " Saan yun? ( Where is that?).

            I often get the same question whenever I tell people (mostly my friends from the lowlands ;) ) that I'm from Ifugao and honestly, I'm sometimes surprised that they don't  know where Ifugao is. It's not that they do not really know, they aren't just familiar with the place I guess. 

Here is a brief introduction of my birthplace, Ifugao.

         Ifugao is one of the six provinces of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), situated in North Central Luzon, Philippines. It is a land locked watershed province bounded by a mountain range to the north and west that tempers into undulating hills towards the south and the east. The highest elevation is 2,523 meters above sea level (masl) with the rice terraces lying above 500 masl. The Magat River forms the south-eastern border that separates this hilly region from lowland provinces.

       

       Ifugao has 11 municipalities namely Lagawe, Kiangan, Lamut, Asipulo, Hingyon, Banaue, Hungduan, Alfonso Lista, Tinoc, Mayoyao and Aguinaldo with Lagawe as its capital town.

Ifugao men in their wano or G-string playing the bangibang

      We, the people, call ourselves Ipugo, meaning “from the earth”. The Spaniards changed the name to “Ifugaw” and the Americans revised it to “Ifugao”. An intransigent people, Ifugao are among the communities who refused to be subjugated when the country was colonized by Spain for almost four centuries. In this regard,we were able to retain  patrimony over the land that we inherited, according to custom. However, a long history of assimilation and integration into the dominant culture which started during the American occupation has left indelible marks on the political, economic and cultural landscape.

Tayo, the Ifugao native dance*

           Many theories abound the origin of Ifugaos. The first American anthropologist to set foot on the Philippines soil and in Ifugao, H. Otley Beyer, popularized the “three wave migration” theory which posited that the three groups of people populated the Philippines in successive waves. First to arrive were the Negritos with their dark constitution, curly hair and short stature. They were pushed inland by tall and lean Indonesians.Third were the stocky Malays who in turn pushed the Indonesians into the mountains. Beyer believed that the Ifugaos descended from the Malays and theoretically pegged the age of the rice terraces at three to five thousand years.

          Another theory advanced by Henry Keesing (1962) states that the Ifugaos were pushed by the Spanish in the 17^th century from their original dwellings along the banks of the Magat River to their present location. Thus the rice terraces would never have been built before their exodus. Extant archeological evidence puts the age of the rice terraces somewhere in between Beyer’s and Keesing’s proposals. (Maher, 1972)

( photo from nla.gov.au)

        When the pioneer Western explorers, particularly the Spanish, stumbled into Ifugao, there were no centralized political organization. The Ifugaos were organized in village-level kinship groups. Each household was a socio-political force to reckon with, counting on close relatives and cousins as allies. Disputes were settled with a go-between, the munkalun, who with his oral prowess exerted all efforts towards their peaceful resolution (Barton, 1969)

Praying with the Mumbaki. flickr.com

         Ifugaos have an oral literature. For countless generations, experts have transferred and transmitted indigenous knowledge, cultural practices and historic events. These oral practices facilitated the recording of Ifugao lore in modern times. The mumbaki or native priests, with their specializations in genealogy and folk traditions, are the main repositories of indigenous knowledge and culture.

Ifugao Native House

Children singing the Hudhud, an oral and intangible Ifugao heritage

'Appu' or Grandma in her Tolge or Tapis

Back to the query of the patient of where I came from. Three words and he just beamed - Banaue Rice Terraces. He knew it all along :)

Source:
IMPACT: The Effects of Tourism on Culture and the Environment in Asia and the Pacific: Sustainable Tourism and the Preservation of the World Heritage Site of the Ifugao Rice Terraces