PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)

Professor Jocelyn Celero

Final Paper
 

Articulation of Shared Spaces and Geographic

Connection: Ifugao oral mythologies and ritualistic
performances

Introduction
The Ifugao society has rich traditional beliefs emphasized by the intricacies and
rich expressions of these beliefs into their ecological environment (Dulawan. 2001;
Andres, 2004). This explains the robust socio-ecological systems and ingenious
agricultural practices and production in the community (Acabado, 2013).

The Ifugaos’ centuries-long intangible cultural heritage underlies this socio-

ecological relationship – underscoring abiding concerns with the competitive
development of land for terracing and rice production, with elaborate traditional rituals
that on all occasions involve interaction with deceased kin (Bulilan, 2007; Acabado,
2013). In fact, the “…absolute blending of the physical, socio-cultural, economic,
religious, and political environments…” of the Ifugao rice terracing tradition became the
basis for the listing of the Banaue Rice Terraces in the UNESCO’s List of World
Heritage in 1995 (Martin & Acabado, 2015).

Araral (2013) speculated that the robustness of the Ifugao’s socio-ecological

system is due in large part to the logic of the Ifugao institutional structures, particularly
their customary laws and a primogeniture system of property rights reinforced by credible
and low cost enforcement mechanisms. Acabado (2013) suggests that the recursive
relationship between the landscape and its users necessitated cooperation among
community, which defined the Ifugao social organization. Furthermore, the socio-
ecological landscapes, which mainly are agricultural, are not just productive habitats for
village sustenance. They are also the sites for ritual practice that integrate and sustain the
social fabric of the Ifugao (Martin & Acabado, 2015; Acabado, 2012). In turn, an
indigenous knowledge and cultural system that helps promote natural resource

Page 1 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
management became necessary to make these sites protected and sustainable (Camacho
et. al, 2016).

Anthropological studies using Ecological Approach establishes the concept that a

society's environmental setting shape cultural concepts of time, space, and cosmogony.
From these ecological aspects of worldview we are led to the encompassing conception
of cultural stability being based in an ecosystem of human population, culture, and
habitat in equilibrium (Helm, 1962). People, elements of the natural world, and other
‘species’ are active participants of a complex web of ecological relationships -
overflowing with communications, interactions sometimes recorded in ethnographies, or
as ‘myths’ and ‘stories’ (Sepie, 2017).

I use this framework in examining Ifugao cultural texts specifically oral literatures
and religious practices. I argue that the Ifugao mythologies and ritualistic practices, as
significant elements of Ifugao religion, do not only portray the construction of this socio-
ecological system but also reinforce them.

In the Ifugao mind, myths are narratives taken seriously as they are the roots of
their culture, history, and cosmology (Barton, 1955). Ritualistic performances
specifically the verbalized invocations and chanting of these myths are the devices used
to experience the spirits-in-the-world whom the Ifugaos share the ‘environment’ with
(Remme, 2016). Myths enter into the framework of the constitution of the culture and its
world viewpoint (Lambrecht, 1963). Rituals, on the other hand, (re)construct and evoke
the myths into the worldview of shared sociality, of the links existing between the
interlocutors and the spirits, and of how the relations between the knower and the known
can be and should be managed. Thus, myths and rituals, as shaped by the Ifugao socio-
ecological system, are texts ingrained in their very social fabric and identity (Remme,
2016).

This essay primarily maps out existing studies on the socio-ecological system of
the Ifugao society including literatures examining the sustainable management practices
by the Ifugao people specifically their architecture and community planning, land use,

Page 2 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
and agriculture and forest production.

I then discuss the epistemological and ontological roots of the Ifugao animistic
religion and the role of their myths and ritualistic performances in this religious
framework. An examination of four Ifugao hudhuds archived by the Ateneo de Manila
University and mumbaki rituals as onto-praxis ritualistic practices follow.

I concur that the tangible and intangible heritage, including the relationship
between them, are rooted on the socio-ecological system of the Ifugaos. With people
engaging in tourism, internal and transnational labor migration to modern educational
system, I then describe the conditions in recent decades that endagers these intangible
heritage, in the midst of this (re)negotiated socio-ecological relationship, which shaped
their cultural practices and traditions.

The Ifugao Socio-Ecological System

From Malthusian theory on population growth and resource depletion; political

theories postulating violent power struggles; sociological theories postulating class
conflict, social dysfunction and mismanagement; to chance events or insuperable natural
catastrophes; and complexity theory, scholars have proposed various theories and
perspectives in trying to answer why some socio-ecological systems (SES) collapsed
while others survived (Tainter, 1988; Diamond, 2005 as cited by Araral, 2013).

Anderies et. al., (2004) defined SES as “an ecological system intricately linked
with and affected by one or more social systems.” This system is an interdependent
system of organisms or biological units. “‘Social’ simply means ‘tending to form
cooperative and interdependent relationships with others of one’s kinds’” (p. 3).
Expounding on this, they said, “social systems can be thought of as interdependent
systems of organisms. Thus, both social and ecological systems contain units that interact
interdependently and each may contain interactive subsystems as well” (Anderies et. al.,

Page 3 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
2004, p.3).

Particular of interest in SES scholarship is its robustness or “the maintenance of

some desired system characteristics despite fluctuations in the behavior of its component
parts or its environment.” (Carlson and Doyle, 2012, p. 2539). A number of local scholars
have examined the Ifugao SES albeit through different frameworks and lexicons but with
concurrent findings.

Araral (2012) examined the robustness of the 2,000 Year-Old Ifugao SES. He
argued that Ifugao collectivism and bilateral kinship, non-centrality of its government and
justice system, and stability of its population density were the salient factors in making
the socio-ecological system of the Ifugaos robust for centuries. This was further
reinforced by the primogeniture system of property rights and customary laws and
practices of the Ifugao community.

Specifically looking at the agricultural system and its relationship to the cultural
system of Ifugaos (which they termed agrocultural), Acabado and Martin (2018)
explored the importance of understanding subsistence patterns in managing tropical
biovidersity. They argue that the intensive cultivation system of the Ifugaos appear to
enhance species diversity by providing various ecological niches, even in the paddy
fields. They concluded that the Ifugao agroecological system is maintained because of its
cultural value rather than their economic returns.

For Butic and Ngidlo (2003), the role of culture in the development and continued
maintenance of the system is pervasive in the muyong system – an Ifugao unique system
of tending forests. They concur that, although not readily apparent to the casual observer,
an intricate web of relationships exists between the human and non-human resources of
the system. The Ifugao culture and laws, which revolve around their physical
environment and further expressed in customs and taboos prescribing the treatment and
use of environment and natural resources, are “very good tools” in promoting forest
development and watershed management, not to mention agriculture.

Camacho et. al., (2012) echoed these findings. They also noted the communal

Page 4 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
forest management system is also important in the context of traditional forest
management like the ala-a system. Through this system, people who go to the ala-a are
expected to brush off weeds, cut branches, which hamper the growth of younger trees,
remove debris and dry branches, which are prone to fire. Ala-a is controlled with a
consensus that the resource has to be shared to everyone (p.5). In another study,
Camacho et.al (2016) cited that that extension programs, which highlight integration of
ecosystems and cultural heritage, including Globally Important Agricultural Heritage
Systems and School of Living Traditions, are regarded as beneficial to promote the
continuity of the endangered agricultural practices of the Ifugaos

Other anthropological studies have also shown that socio-ecological system of the
Ifugao is evident on the community’s architectural, land use, and community planning
practices.

Cecil Tronqued observed that the Ifugao house reflects the Ifugao perception of
space. The house as a one-room affair expresses the Ifugao concept of the self as part of
his environment. She also noted how the modularity of the house, or the knockdown
principle, relates to the tribe’s concept of infinity (Dacanay 1988:42-44). For the Ifugaos,
the house is also a site for rituals akin to their agricultural sites. This further builds the
strong connection with Ifugao architecture, agriculture, and ritual performances.

Utilizing the self-organizing model, Acabado (2013) suggests that Ifugao local
irrigation management practices resulted from the need for cooperation to control water
and land distribution together with pest management. The ritual leader of an agricultural
district called tomona signals rituals, which encourages synchronization of agricultural
activities. Hamlets within a given watershed or agricultural district form informal work
groups called baddang which tasked with agricultural activities. Thus through the
agricultural activities are precursors of the self-organization in Ifugao and must therefore
be associated to it.

This self-organization also illustrates the distribution of agricultural fields across

the Ifugao landscape (Table 1). The ecological, social and cultural factors, including the

Page 5 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
knowledge of how these elements are interrelated and effectively utilized, dictate the
specific rice terrace or swidden field's location. Present-day Ifugao terrace systems
(Figure 1) are a manifestation of these interrelated factors. They are also linked to land-
use categories recognized by the Ifugao.

Table 1. Land use categories in Ifugao, Philippines (Acabado, 2015)

Local Term Land Usage Description

Magulon Grassland exposed ridge and slope land; untilled; with low
herbaceous grasses; public (in any given
region); unmanaged; minimal value; source of
roof thatch, game; not cultivated without new
irrigation sources; usually far from densely
inhabited areas

‘Inalāhan Forest slopeland; undisturbed soil, naturally woody

cover; public (for residents of same water- shed
region); unmanaged; source of firewood, forest
products, game.

Mabilāu Caneland (high grassland, cane grassland, secondary

growth Miscanthus association): mostly
slopeland, unworked soil, covered with various
stages of second-growth herbaceous and
ligneous vegetation dominated by dense clumps
of tall canegrass; some protection and
management (canegrass much used for
construction, fencing, etc.).

Muyong Woodlot slopeland; unturned soil; covered with high tree

growth (timber and fruit trees, climbing rattans,
etc.); privately owned and managed (some
planting of tree, vine, and bamboo types), with
definite boundaries; valued for timber, other
products, and protection of lower farmland from
runoff and erosion.

Uma Swidden slopeland, cultivated and often “contour-ridges”

heavily planted with sweet potatoes; moderately
intercropped (including rice below 600-700 m);

Page 6 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
discrete temporary boundaries for cultivation
period of several years.

Latāngan House leveled terrace land; surface smooth or paved

Terrace but not tilled; primarily house and granary yards;
workspace for grain drying, and so forth;
discrete, often fenced or walled.

Na’īlid Drained Field leveled terrace land, surface ditched and

mounded (usually in cross-contoured fashion)
for cultivation and drainage of dry crops such as
sweet potatoes, legumes; discrete boundaries,
privately owned; kept in this temporary state for
a minimum number of seasons before shifting to
permanent form of terrace use.

Payoh Pond Field leveled, terraced farmland, bunded to retain

water for shallow inundation of artificial soil;
carefully maintained for cultivation of wet-field
rice, taro, and other crops; privately owned,
discrete units, permanent stone markers.

Figure 1. Ifugao terracing system (Acabado, 2015)

Page 7 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
This section mapped out studies that defined agricultural fields as habitus and the
nexus of Ifugao social relationships (Acabado & Martin, 2015). But beyond being the
source of their subsistence, their ecology is the cradle of their mythology. According to
Barton (1946), for the traditional Ifugao, prized are phrases containing names of places
and which really exist in the Earthworld. Furthermore, their immediate environment is
also a site for ritualistic practices. Stanyukovich (1983) claims that rites with which
chanting of mythologies (epic-singing) is connected are based on a belief in increased
reproduction through magical means—reproduction of rice, livestock, and humans. She
further asserted that strong ritual ties were the main reason why the rich epic literature of
the lowland population disappeared altogether in the course of Christianization, being an
inseparable part of native religious systems.

In the next section, I examine the Ifugao religious epistemological and ontological
roots deeming that it is through these roots that we can understand the ritual significance
of their mythologies and its interplay to their ecology. Further, it is only through an
understanding of the Ifugao animism that we can traverse the mythology of the Ifugao
and grasp the nature its ‘storytelling.’

Ifugao Animism

The Ifugao has produced one of the most extensive and pervasive religion that has
been reported, outside of India, at least in ethnographic literature (Barton, 1946). The
religious belief of the Ifugao shares similarity with other insular Southeast Asian
religions with theories even claiming all of them are influenced by the “Indianization” of
of Southeast Asia during the 2nd to 15th centuries A.D” (McCoy, 1982, p. 143).
Interestingly, Barton (1955) has also noted Ifugao epics having loosely joined incidents
remotely suggestive of the Ramayana or Mahabharata (p. 3). The Ifugaos also share with
other Malay societies the popular conception of cosmology to be divided into a
Skyworld, Earth-world, and an underworld all inhabited by large numbers of ancestral
and natural spirits (McCoy, 1982). However, while the spirits of the remote Skyworld are

Page 8 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
often benign, the Earth and Underworld spirits (which are in constant contact with human
society) are actively or latently malign. This is the reason why Ifugaos always take
consideration on the spirits-in-the-world in their everyday and ritualistic practices.

The relational processes from which the Ifugaos emerge are therefore not dyadic
relations between persons, but are better understood as entanglements that are
heterogeneous in the sense of involving many different kinds of entities, including but not
restricted to humans, spirits, animals, and material objects (Remme, 2014, p. 7). It thus
makes sense that these spirits, living or non-living, are known relationally by means of,
and for, social engagement, most importantly through dancing, singing, and, above all,
talking with their invoked manifestations. Bird-David (2004) calls this as relational
epistemology. The personhood of an individual is constituted by the particular
combination of activated social relations (Howell, 2003 as cited by Remme, 2014) and it
is through their religious practices that such relations are enacted and transformed.
(Remme, 2014, p. 10). Remme further theorized that the rituals and the exchanges
practiced in it have effects in terms of bringing relations between the humans and the
spirits into being and transforming them (Remme, 2014, p. 9) within an interpersonal
communicative environment (Remme, 2016, p. 145), which I’ll further discuss on the
next section.

Temporally, Ifugao mythologies are in the present tense, but it is of the nature of
historical present (Barton, 1955). Bird-David (2004) noted this kind of temporal
worldview common among hunter-gatherers societies. They do not envision the past
primarily as a “distant place, a foreign country, something gone by, that was and is never
to return” Rather, they primarily think, in this case, too, in terms not of what but of who,
“focusing on various kinds of persons: predecessors, ancestors, dead persons, and so on.
They sense these persons as relatives who arrive before them, ones whom they join rather
than replace, and with whom they share a home” (p. 407).

Tim Ingold (1996 as cited by Bird-David, 2004) supports this demarcation of

defining the past among hunter-gatherers as that which is not ‘present’ to consciousness
but remains very much with us: in our bodies, in our dispositions and sensibilities, and

Page 9 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
in our skills of perception and actions’’ (p. 411)

It is therefore reasonable that the Ifugao rituals actually creates a communicative

space between those who are present (humans) and those “who have come before us”
(spirits). The practice of accessing this communicative space is a form of onto-praxis -
practices through which a transformation of the ontological life forms of nonhuman
beings is brought about (Remme, 2016, p. 139). Although some of the spirits inhabit
specific places in and around the village, the spirits are normally not visible to humans
and they exist in a dimension which is at both distant and dangerously close (Remme,
2016, p. 140. Both humans and the spirits see the world in a recognizable human way,
although the worlds that they see are different, often appearing as inversions of each
other (Remme, 2017). However, these differences in perspective are neither static nor
total. Humans and spirits may see different worlds at most times, but the boundaries
between these perspectives are both traversable and shifting (Remme, 2017). The
traversing of boundaries in time and space, then, is enacted upon by invoking spirits (and
in the case of some hu’dhuds, the soul of the newly deceased) through performance of
rituals.

Stanyukovich (1981) cites that it is through these religious worldview that epics
play an important role in traditional folk culture. She notes that the Philippine culture,
primarily that of the mountain dwellers, demonstrate salient ties of epic traditions with
rituals. These ties are based on beliefs in the benevolent influence of epic recitation on
the fertility of land—in agricultural activities and agricultural rites, and of humans in life-
cycle rites, headhunting rites, and prestige rituals.

This paper aim to add into the discourse how myths reify social identities and
cohesion. The studies mentioned in this section found that ritualistic performances –
where Ifugao mythologies are instrumental - are essential parts of Ifugao’s “becoming
human” and way of life.

Page 10 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 

Ifugao Cosmological Topography

Similar to common Malayan material, Ifugao cosmology has varied regions

(Barton, 1946). The Ifugao cosmology has five. First is the known earth, pugâ or pugao,
situated between the others both vertically and in the direction of the water flow. Above it
is the Skyworld, Kabunian; below the known earth, on the other hand, is Dalum, the
Underworld. Down the river beyond the known earth is the Lagod, also known as the
Downstream Region. The Upstream Region, Daiya, lies up the river. Beneath the
Underworld is a sort of sub-basement called Dagah-na.

In his ethnography, Barton (1946) has mentioned few studies detailing the storied
Skyworld of the Ifugaos:

“They consider the blue vailt of the sky to be level and clear like the ceiling
of a room and without convexity. They say that this blue vault is capped by
earth of the same shape and that on this there are four regions of the sky
called Hudok, Luktag, Hubulan, and Kabuian. They suppose each of these to
have ten faces or layers, the upper face being earthen and the lowe the
blackish blue stone” (p.11)

The idea of a storied skyworld is giving way to one conceived the image of the
Ifugao’s mountainous habitat. This furthers the idea that the Ifugao’s conception of its
mythology and its religious rituals is intircately, or perhaps ultimately, based on their
conception of their environment.

Hu’d Hud Topography

The Hu’dhud, as an Ifugao folklore, has deeply salient ties with agriculture.
Lambrecht (1962) observed that “nowhere do the Ifugaw hudhud desribe their villages,
their inhabited and cultivated regions, their rivers and mountains, their vegetation and

Page 11 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
forests ex professo, for hudhud literature is a display of the multiple activities of its
characters from beginning to end” (p. 198). While it goes on narrating, hudhud never
stops picturing the scenery. The story continues on focusing on the movement of the
characters from one place to another, step by step. It is through these steps that
topographic references, fragment by fragment, is engendered. Putting all these fragments
together, we obtain a complete topographic description. The hudhud main villages
(Table 2), specifically those have a center teerrace on which the wealthy family of the
region lives, are built on hills surrounded on three sides by rice paddies (p. 199). The
hudhuds has perfectly pictured how each village consosts of seeral terraces, some of them
having one or more retaining stone wall; how houses are built on all of them, in rows,
side by side, or in clusters of three or four. From the border terrace, a large river can be
seen. It folows comparatively short distance from the village beyond the rice field area. In
its bed, large stretches of tall river reed grow here and there.

Table 2. Villages and Landscapes mentioned in Hudhuds

Aliguyun nak Bugan an Imbayagda Bugan nak Aliguyon nak
Amtalao (“Aliguyun, ("Bugan, the Rejected Panga’iwan ("Bugan, Binenwahen
the son of Amtalao”) Child") daughter of ("Aliguyon, son of
Panga’iwan") Binenwahen")

Dumanayan Gonhadan Gonhadan Nanganudan

Banawol Huyadan Makawayan Makawayan

Dayagen Halladung Udungo Nabayung

Kimbulu Hill of Humpatangan Hulnagen Nauyahan

Dulunan Huminang Hill of Naloodan Hill of Ananayu

Dulnugen Banawol Udungo Madadyong

Balokbok Nunggidayan Numbintuwan Dulnuan

Atipulu Bayongbong Madadyong

Dukligan Lumingaling Hallula

Dopdopon

Iliyan

Page 12 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 

Locative and demonstrative pronouns

In addition to a demonstrative pronoun paradigm that occurs, probably, in all

Philippine languages, Tuwali also has a paradigm of locative pronouns (proximal, medial,
distal and nonvisual), which are used to introduce places and grounds of motion. The
same function is performed by the oblique demonstrative pronouns, which are also used
in these languages to introduce some other participants, such as, for instance, recipient.
Hudhud also contain topographical descriptions to elucidate the environment visualized
by the story.

Some Topographical descriptions:

• pantal hi kadaklan - sands by the riverside

• agpawan - village site; countryside
• punbanngan na bananu - paddies/dikes of the ricefields
• dalipen di alang - granary stone yards
• pidipid/atuyug - stonewalls around the village
• dodolla - houseyards of the villagers
• aldattan lita-angan - houseyard/homesite (usually of the hero)
• kagawan di gawana - the very center of the village where lived the
hero/leader
• hinal-on di nunhanal-on na - the faraway and neighboring villages boble
• dallinda, kammaligna - village, villages homesites

Ifugao ritual myths, rites and deities’ descriptive appellation constitute an exception
and of, almost always, literally tell the truth about their points of origin and centers of
diffusion. However greatly ritual myth-versions may vary, they nearly always attribute
themselves the same local of action…These places often exist are often inhabited today
(Barton, 1946, p. 20-21)

Keesing (as cited by Lambrecht, 1965) in his Ethnohistory of Northern Luzon,

tentatively proposed the theory that the habitat of the Ifugaw at the beginning of the 17th
centruy was the region of the Magat River, where they also had learned to cultivte wet

Page 13 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
rice from their neighbors along the head water of the same river. Furthermore, he holds
that, shortly after the first Spanish expedition, coming from the plans of Pangasinan, had
entered the Magat Valley, the Ifugaw immigrated into Ifugawland, where they appleid
and developed the technique of building rice terraces.

The analysis of the hudhud by Maria Stanyukovich, shows how it centers on strong
ritual ties characteristic of Philippine epics. Hudhud characters are not just folklore
figures, they belong to the halupe, a class of deities in the Ifugao pantheon. They control
emotions and memories; they are believed to be ma'ule, 'kind', benevolently disposed
towards human beings and act on behalf of human beings in their interactions with other
deities. The halupe deities form the core of halag, the so-called ‘women's religion’
(Barton, 1946).

They are also addressed in rituals performed by men. Hudhud singing during
agricultural activities (weeding and harvesting), as in the hudhud di 'ani/page 'hudhud of
the harvest/rice', traditionally aimed to remind the benevolent deities of the needs of the
people to secure an abundant harvest. Myths are, then, not just narratives but prayers – a
call to the deities for their needs and to enjoin them in their shared spaces. I discuss in
this section the dynamics of the storytelling and the shared spaces that rituals, in which
myths are significant, open.

Storytelling and Shared Spaces

Myths are devices used to experience the spirits - that is, to interact and
negotiate with the spirits actualized through the myths in an interpersonnal manner
(Remme, 2016). For Remme (2016), the interpersonal environment in which the
negotiation takes place and the negotiation of relations, both between the teller and the
audience, but also between the human beings and the spirits, is synchronous with the
negotiation of meaning (Remme, 2016). The storytelling is thus born out of experience
but also gives shape to it. The meanings produced from the storytelling is what Carrithers

Page 14 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
(1992 as cited by Remme, 2016) calls “perceptual and conceptual consensibility” or the
ability to perceive things in common, to agree upon and to share experiences (p. 146).

The myths sung by the native shamans (mumbaki) and chanters include narratives
as well as memorized and verbalized invocations and chants through which the mumbaki
and chanters make the spirit appear. Through it, the spirits are ‘reproduced’ as persons
reinforced by their interacting with humans as the latter take the former’s needs and
wants into consideration, through engagement in conversations and other exchanges.

The ritualized mythologies, then, is an arena for invoking the spirits and in turn,
shape the relationship of the interlocutor with the spirits-in-the-world. Indeed, as Remme
(2016) establishes, the ritual is a context that (re)produces certain experiences and
perception of the spirits. An image of a continuous world of shared sociality, of the links
existing between the interlocutors and spirts, and of how the relations between the
knower and the known can be and should be managed is (re)constructed and evoked.
Hence, the interactions reproduced is in a context with certain conventionalized
performative protocol, associated with an equally codified imagery (Remme, 2016, p.
148). Here then, is a source for the certain degree of consistency that the
conceptualization of the spirits shows. Thus, the actual ritual interaction with spirits take
place in a wider (meta-) context that is both social and to a certain extent also
conventionalized (p. 148).

Hudhud scholars cite at least three functions of the oral literature piece in Ifugao
society. Firstly, it serves a unifying effect among harvesters needing to work in
synchronization. The second relates to the belief that the singing of the hudhud while
harvesting traditional varieties of rice will spur a miraculous growth of the crop (Pier-
Pereira, 2007). This highly overlaps with other Ifugao mythologies used in ritualistic
performances. The hudhud characters, whom are also the same characters existing in
ritual-based myths, are said to listen to the singing of the hudhud in the field and to be
pleased by it. It is for this very reason Stanyukovich (2000) argued that hu’dhud, though
is not used in rituals performed by mumbakis, is still a highly ritualized genre. In her field

Page 15 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
work, she found out that the term hudhud extends beyond the heroic epic known in
publications to a larger group of female ritual songs, including shamanistic narratives
treating the journey of the soul of the deceased to the abode of the dead (Stanyukovich,
2000).
In R.F. Barton’s (1938) study of Ifugao paganism, the “objective” traditional
world of the Ifugaos was divided into three main zones---the home region, the neutral
zone, and the zone of warfare. Even in the home zone only the relatives were considered
to be real allies. In this context, neighbors might be sources of danger, as representatives
of a different kinship group. In the neutral zone relatives are outnumbered by
nonrelatives. In the hostile zone all the inhabitants are regarded as potential killers and
victims. Besides, every kinship group also has hereditary enemies of their own.

Stanyukovich (2000) in her analysis of the Ifugao galidu (Barton 1955, 46−79) and
the Kalinga ullalim (Billiet 1970), found that friendly and hostile zones overlap. There
are no strict boundaries between them, or rather they are very flexible:

From inside of the home village to the boundaries of the human-inhabited

world. Enemies might differ from playmates of a young hero up to giants,
whose residence is in the Upstream or Downstream cosmological areas,
beyond the boundaries of cosmological Earth. The reasons for killing in these
male folklore genres are either vengeance (vendetta or just a reaction to an
insult) or the struggle with an adversary in order to win a girl’s hand.

The hudhud, on the contrary actually deals with no hostile territory. Its
topography presents a doubled home region. It is centred in a home village with outskirts,
bordering kadaklan (the Big River), which serves as a hudhud analogy of a mythological
river in the waters of which human Earth floats (Stanyukovich 2000). Thematically, no
danger awaits the hero while he travels through the “empty space” that is outside his
home region. Having crossed it the hero comes to a duplicate of his home region, which
is also bordered by kadaklan. It is the marginal place pantal (sandy riverbed), either near
the home region or its duplicate, which is the only place of danger. There the character

Page 16 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
might be ambushed from tubtubuhan, the river reeds. But even at the pantal no death or
injury ever occurs.

She then relates this thematic different to gender. Galidu and Ullalim as male-led
epics, revolve around themes of violence and killing, the unusual female epic found in the
hudhud is thematically different, but complimentary (Pier-Pereira, 2007). Prominent in
hudhuds are the absence of violence and killings. Furthermore, the principal hudhud
characters agreed on a peace pact by exchanging sisters and celebration of their new
unions with marriage, thus effectively ensuring that the next generation will have no
enemies. These female epic chants were believed to produce peaceful solutions to long-
standing inherited resentment and vengeance (Stanyukovich, 2002).

Needless to say, although many of the Ifugao society is not particularly concerned
with making differentiations between the various spirits inhabiting their world, as well
the particularities of each mythology i.e. whether ritual-based or not - they were all the
more concerned with, and knowledgeable about, how this world works specifically on the
ecological realities of the world they are in, as well as the characteristics of the spirits
they invoke and continuosly engage and socialize through their ritualistic performances.

While the whole Ifugao social order, including practical ways of life, social
institutions and rules, morality and everything else, constitute a unitary system, and one
looked upon as a religious phenomenon during rituals and, up to the present are believed
to have peculiar magical powers. The tribal religion is so deeply interwoven with the
whole economic, social, and political system of the traditional Ifugaos, much that the
Spaniards, even after series of contacts, have failed to penetrate (Lambrecht, 1963).

It is through examinations of a traditional culture’s mythology that different

phenomena and objects, including plants, animals, and humans form certain semantic
sequences specific to each traditional culture, are best defined. They are generally shared
by the ethnic community and manifested in different forms in epics, rituals, popular
sayings, and beliefs, as well as in everyday life (Stanyukovich , 1982)

Page 17 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
Her study postulated the predominance of the rice-culture ideology for the Ifugao
hudhud, including the indigenous concepts of its origin, its practical and ritual
implications. Other important issues treated are the hudhud ties with life-cycle rites,
female practices, “female space,” and female ideology, hudhud being a rare sample of a
pipe-making female epic tradition (Stanyukovich, 1982).

These evidences prove and contextualize the Ifugao myths in its Ifugao religious
worldview specifically its significance of its ritualistic performances. It is an attempt to
understand not only how these performances is re(constructed) by the myths itself and
vice-versa but also to understand the influences and the rationale why such these
literature continue to persist until today. In this section, I provided details that the
Ifugao’s conception of its mythology and its religious rituals is intircately, or perhaps
ultimately, based on their conception of their environment. It therefore begs us to ask:
how does environmental and social changes affect these intangible cultural heritage?
Further, how does current actions to document and preserve them aptly provide the
context where it originate and grows from?

Focusing on the Intangible

Contemporary threats and vulnerabilities caused by intensification in

agriculture, and tourism, political and infrastructural ‘developments’, and a
Westernized educational system has opened Ifugao to larger pressures brought by

market forces.

Conservation programs in Ifugao are heavily focused on infrastructure

repair (irrigation canals, collapsed terrace walls, and road improvement) and
recently, developing markets for traditional rice (tinawon) varieties (Acabado &
Martin, 2015). However, the terraces have become a source of income, thus
conservation programs should focus less on the infrastructure, but more on

Page 18 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
Traditional Ecological Knowledge that will be lost because of the changing nature
of production (Acabado & Martin, 2015).

The conservation of the intangible heritage vis-à-vis the Ifugao culture and
tradition is facing concerns especially that it provides little-to-no references to the context
that they are used in. Acabado et. al., (2017) used the hudhud, as a UNESCO-declared
Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, as an example. They
discussed concerns on how hudhud has been incorporated into the curricula of local
public elementary schools to facilitate the continuity of the oral tradition:

Students are taught to memorize snippets of the epic chants not for
their sociocultural significance, but rather for inter-municipality competitions.
These local schools also teach culture as synonymous to lessons on
indigenous dances and ethnic ensemble, a mix of customary musical
implements accompanied by songs and dances. The UNESCO approach to the
conservation of the rice terraces is similar. The importance of indigenous
knowledge in the construction and maintenance of the terraces is disregarded
as long as stone walls appear intact and rice grows in the flooded fields. These
conservation initiatives are fueled by tourism and the income generated by the
influx of tourists. As such, these programs typically ignore cultural integrity,
and communities that are directly involved in the maintenance of the terraces
do not benefit from either the tourism traffic or the conservation programs
(p.11).

They concluded that the long-term conservation of this World Heritage Site
requires a more nuanced understanding of the wider ecological setting, where the terraces
are part of a system that involves sociocultural and environmental components (Acabado
et. al., 2017). The participation of local communities in the conservation programs is also
part of the bigger issue in the business of heritage conservation in the region.They
emphasized how this enables community stakeholders to take hold of studies about their
culture and their heritage, in collaboration with anthropologists and archaeologists,
through this approach.

Blench and Campos (2014) echoes this suggestion. They find how Oral genres
can become a type of currency to be manipulated, both to promote a modernization

Page 19 of 20
PS 215 (Philippine Languages and Cultures)
Professor Jocelyn Celero
Final Paper
 
agenda and the presentation of an anodyne version of a particular culture to an external
audience. It is then recommended for researchers who engage to document these genres
need to be aware both of the changed context and the impossibility of recreating any
natural performance situation. Even performers who may have learnt their narratives
within a tradition are changed irreversibly by contact with an external world for which
that tradition is essentially meaningless (p. 63).

As per Zialcita (2013) the passing down of indigenous knowledge to younger

generations of Ifugaos is of extreme importance to the continuity of the rice terraces.
There is also a need to address the economic inadequacies prevalent in Ifugao
communities that lead to terraces abandonment, land-use conversion or out-migration of
farmers from farming villages. Traditional subsistence economies in Ifugao are becoming
obsolete and communities will have to join the mainstream economic flow or get lost in
the currents of the “global village. However, the booming tourism industry, though
abhorred by indigenous cultures, somehow holds promise if managed properly following
the tenets of sound eco-tourism guidelines.

This article aims to establish that the tangible and intangible heritage, including
the relationship between them, are rooted on the socio-ecological system of the Ifugaos
With the Ifugao tangible and intangible heritages perceived as linked, interconnected, and
reshaped by the its socio-ecological system, it would be therefore imperative and
unmistakable for us to take conservation actions with locus to this connection. If we look
past this intricate relationship, we are still on the risk of losing traces of our indigenous
culture – be it concrete or not.

Page 20 of 20