Mythical Origin

There are two popular versions of how the town of Tagudin, Ilocos Sur derived its name.
One, which is less known, had it that long even before the Spaniards set foot in the area, the village
was under the protection of an ancestral spirit named Tagudin. This man-spirit lived on the
promontory of that hill overlooking the Amburayan, exactly at the place where the Ilocos abutment of
the Doña Alicia Bridge spanning the Amburayan, and kept watch over the town. So it was, that the
village was known as the village of Tagudin.
The more popular version derived the name Tagudin from the native drying rack
(“pagtagudan”) where raw cotton (“sag-ot”) was spread out and brushed into threads with coconut
husk. The “pag-tagudan” was rather a common tool during the time when Ilocano blankets were
traded in markets as far south as Manila and were well known even to the Igorots on the Pacific side
of Luzon. Legend would have it that when the Spaniards came to the place, their “adelantado”
inquired as to where they are, to a native who was making cotton threads for the framed blankets.
This native mistook the question for an inquiry as to what she was doing, so she answered in the
dialect “agtag-tagudak, apo!” When the question was repeated, the native again thought that the
Spaniard was asking the name of her rack, so she said, “Tagudan Apo!” The adelantado thus took
that as the name of the village.