Antonette Dablo Abella

Reading in Philippine History

FIRST INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

The indigenous peoples of the Cordillera Mountain Range of northern Luzon, Philippines are
often referred to using the exony Igorot people, or more recently, as the Cordilleran peoples.
There are nine main ethnolinguistic groups whose domains are in the Cordillera Mountain
Range, altogether numbering about 1.5 million people in the early 21st century. Their languages
belong to the northern Luzon subgroup of Philippine languages, which in turn belongs to the
Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) family.These ethnic groups keep or have kept until recently
timeframe their traditional religion and way of life.vagueSome live in the tropical forests of the
foothills, but most live in rugged grassland and pine forest zones higher up. The Igorots may be
roughly divided into two general subgroups: the larger group lives in the south, central and
western areas, and is very adept at rice-terrace farming; the smaller group lives in the east and
north. Prior to Spanish colonisation of the islands, the peoples now included under the term did
not consider themselves as belonging to a single, cohesive ethnic group. Within the first group
the Nabaloi or Ibaloi, Kankanay (Kankanai), Lepanto or northern Kankanay, Bontoc (Bontok),
southern Kalinga, and Tinggian nearly all live in populous villages, but one ethnic unit, the
Ifugao, has small farmsteads of kinsmen dotted throughout the rice terraces. The second group
—the Gaddang, northern Kalinga, and Isneg or Apayao—are sparsely settled in hamlets or
farmsteads around which new gardens are cleared as the soil is worked out; some Gaddang
live in tree houses. Cultural elements common to the Igorot peoples as a whole include
metalworking in iron and brass, weaving, and animal sacrifice. They believe in spirits, including
those of ancestors, and have complex rituals to propitiate them. There are no clans or tribes,
and political organization is generally limited to the village level. Kinship is traced on both the
paternal and the maternal sides, extending as far as third cousins.

SOURCES:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Philippines
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chokwe