COLLEGE/DEPARTMENT: DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

SUBJECT: AR-RES METH I RESEARCH METHODS FOR ARCHITECTURE

TIME SCHEDULE: Mon-Tues, 4:10 PM – 6:10 PM

RESEARCH WORK NO.: RSW MT 02

RESEARCH WORK TITLE: “WHAT’S YOUR CLASS”
RESEARCH WORK DUE: September 15, 2022

Reference/s:

Web Source:

STUDENT: CONG-O, Jehan B.

INSTRUCTOR: Sir Josain Limmayog

ILI TYPE - Kankanaey

A. HISTORY OF THE ETHNIC GROUP.
History of the Kankanaey People 
Both northern and southern Kankanaey have
always been rice terrace agriculturists. The
original 34 villages of the northern
Kankanaey, located on high slopes of the
central Cordillera range, are concentrated near
the Kayan-Bauko and Sumadel-Besao areas.
These communities appear to have existed
long before the coming of the Spaniards to the
archipelago. Proof is the extensiveness of their
rice terraces, which must have taken a
considerable period to build. The fact that
these terraces and the names of the first
communities were noted in the records of the
first Spanish expedition to the Cordilleras in
1665 is a confirmation of early Kankanaey
civilization. Moreover, the Benguet area had
some of the largest gold and ore deposits, and
the Kankanaey and Ibaloy who had settled
here had been planning and digging for gold
long before the Spaniards arrived on the
islands.
Several reasons have been advanced for the
division of the Kankanaey into two. One
reason is that the group that went up to the hills could not afford to have another group control the
source of water after they were driven away from the coastal belt. Another reason proposed is that the
salutary climate of the Cordillera highlands, with its lush green vegetation and other natural riches,
may have attracted the ancestors of the present mountain dwellers to go beyond the “malaria-ridden
jungle belt” that stops at the 1,000-meter line of the mountains. The northern Kankanaey occupy a
region that averages 2,000 meters above sea level. They may have arrived at their present location due
to the process of displacement; or they may have naturally gravitated to a terrain more to their liking
or to one that is similar to southern China, which, according to a theory of migration, their ancestors
have left behind. The forebears of the northern Kankanaey started building rice terraces near the
villages.
Because the foothills and coastal plains of the Ilocos region lie across the boundary to the west, the
Kankanaey areas are contiguous to the lowlands. This made them more susceptible than the Bontok,
Ifugao, and other mountain people to external influence, though less vulnerable than the Tinguian and
the Ibaloy who were even nearer and more accessible to both the Spanish colonial forces and the
Filipino lowlanders and settlers. The Spaniards had occupied the adjacent lowlands as early as 1572,
but it was only after a hundred years that they were able to reach the territory of the northern
Kankanaey.
The Spaniards went up the Cordillera in search of the fabled gold. In May 1572, Juan de Salcedo,
grandson of Governor-General Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, led an expedition, which yielded 25
kilograms of gold three months later. This, along with other reports of Cordillera chiefs and their
slaves possessing gold, encouraged subsequent expeditions such as those led by Francisco de Sande in
1576, Juan Pacheco Maldonado in 1580, Luis Perez Dasmariñas in 1591, Francisco de Mendoza in
1591, and Pedro Sid in 1591. However, most of the gold gathered by the Spaniards did not come from
mining but from either the collection of it as tribute or the looting of the gold and heirlooms from the
Cordillera people. The people themselves stopped mining and kept the location of their gold mines a
secret. A series of more expeditions were led by Pangasinan Governor Captain Garcia Aldana y
Cabrera in 1620, Sergeant Major Antonio Carreño in 1623, and Governor Alonso Fajardo in 1624.
The futility of their search led to the Royal Audiencia’s decision to discontinue all subsequent
expeditions.
The Spanish colonizers left the area, unable to maintain their outposts, and for almost 150 years, the
northern Kankanaey were left in peace; what contact there was between the people of the highlands
and the lowlands was indirect. The Spaniards came back in the first part of the 19th century, and
established a comandancia de Lepanto (Lepanto military district) in 1852, measuring 2,167 square
kilometers, bounded by Abra and Bontoc on the north, Benguet and Nueva Viscaya on the south,
Bontoc and Kiangan (Quiangan) on the east, and Tiagan and Amburayan on the west. The
comandancia de Lepanto was composed of five towns and 40 villages, with Cervantes and Mankayan
as principal towns. The Kankanaey, referred to by outsiders and the Benguet-Lepanto Igorot as the
busao (enemies) in the area, put up some resistance.
Spanish control, wielded through the force of arms and proselytization, eventually set in. Mankayan’s
copper mines were opened to exploitation by a Spanish mining company. People in some districts
were compelled by the Spanish authorities to grow coffee and tobacco for the colonial government.
Missions and schools were put up in certain areas.
The homeland of the northern Kankanaey saw access roads from the Ilocos coastal region built to
reach it, and these new routes facilitated the influx of Spaniards, Filipino lowlanders, and Chinese
traders. The opening of the western flank of the Cordillera set into motion acculturative processes that
would have a great impact on succeeding historical periods. These processes would include
Christianization, urbanization, political modernization, and integration of a highland agricultural
society to a market economy.
The eruption of war between Spanish and American forces and the subsequent war of independence
waged by Filipino revolutionaries against the new colonial forces drew the involvement of the Igorot
people. While the nation was undergoing the throes of a full-blown national war, age-old conflicts
over the use of resources and cultural differences between the Kankanaey and their traditional rivals
were revived. A resurgence of headhunting occurred for some time until pacification set in under the
new American regime in 1902.
In 1899, the US army pursued the revolutionary leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, in the Cordilleras. Some of
the former American soldiers returned to the mountains in search of the gold they had heard so much
about. Early reports by American officials about the abundance of gold, particularly in the Itogon
area, contributed to the influx of former soldiers-turned-prospectors. Knowing little, if at all, about
prospecting, they succeeded in finding the gold either by befriending the “Igorot” or by marrying into
kadangyan or baknang (traditional aristocrat) families who already had control of the gold mines.
The Americans established a local government and several regulatory agencies in order to secure its
interests in the mineral-rich Cordilleras and to stop the growing number of miners from usurping
higher authorities. The Mining Bureau oversaw all mining activities, and the Bureau of Public Lands
facilitated mining grants and claims. Laws that were instituted paved the way for Americans to claim
the lands that once were owned, operated, and developed by the local population. Almost half of the
88 sections of the Philippine Bill of 1902, or the Organic Act, pertained to mining. The construction
of an important road, known later as Kennon Road, made Benguet and other gold-rich areas
accessible to Manila and the lowlands. As a result, the total gold production of the country reached
almost half a million pesos per year between 1907 and 1911, around half of which was from Benguet
alone. By 1929, Benguet was yielding 86% of the total 6.7 million peso gold production and 92% of
the 73.7 million pesos just before World War II. Much of the increase in yield was attributed to the
continuously high production and the discovery of new mining sites, most notably in Itogon and
Balatoc.
In 1904, the Kankanaey, particularly those from the town of Suyoc in northern Benguet, were among
the indigenous peoples of the Philippines brought to the St. Louis World’s Fair, in Louisana, USA, to
showcase what the United States called its “possessions.” Together with 70 Bontok and 17 Tinguian,
the 25 Kankanaey composed the “Igorrote Village” at the Exposition. Among them was the
Kankanaey Dang-usan, who was married to Charles Pettit, an American soldier turned gold
prospector in 1900 during the Philippine-American War. Pettit’s fellow prospector was another war
veteran, Truman Hunt, who became Bontoc’s lieutenant-governor and was tasked to put together the
“Igorrotes” for the Fair. Persuaded by Dang-usan and Pettit, the former’s relatives and neighbors
joined the other “Igorrotes” and arrived at the fairgrounds on 25 March 2004. An 18-year-old
Kankanaey woman died of pneumonia a month after their arrival. Referred to in the fair as “Suyocs”
and “miners,” the 25 Kankanaey—fourteen men, seven women, and four boys, with ages ranging
from 6 to 50—demonstrated their skills in blacksmithing, metalworking (i.e., making tininggal or
copper chains), fabric- and basket-weaving, pipe-making (making pek or pipe), beadwork, mining,
and copper and ore reduction. The four boys attended a “model school” with the Bontok children.
After eight months, they left the United States on 13 November with a group of Visayans and
Tinguian.

In the Philippines, the Kankanaey, Bontok, Ifugao, and other Cordillera groups were integrated under
the new politico-military dispensation. Protestantism, military service, and education created a new
Igorot identity for the Kankanaey and the other Cordillera people, especially those who comprised the
new educated elite.
Japanese forces during World War II penetrated through the Mountain Province in February 1942. In
need of much needed resources, the imperial forces headed straight to the province’s copper mines,
including those in Mankayan. Daily production in the Lepanto copper mine in Mankayan, which
operated until the end of the war, reached 1,000 tons.
Soon after the ouster of Marcos in 1986, the new president Corazon Aquino signed a peace pact with
the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA), an armed group that aimed for regional autonomy
founded on the institutionalization of the bodong or peace pact. Negotiations between the government
and the CPLA led to the formation of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) in July 1987. CAR
also reunited the former mountain provinces, including Abra as a special region. But the Organic Acts
enacted by Congress that would have transformed Cordillera into an autonomous region were rejected
in the January 1990 and March 1998 plebiscites.
Reference:
Campoamor II, G.A., Cruz-Lucero, R. & Tindaan, R., Maranan, E.B. (2020).
Kankanaey. Retrieved September 20, 2022 from
https://www.yodisphere.com/2022/09/Kankanaey-Tribe-Culture.html

B. CHARACTERISTICS/DESCRIPTIONS OF THE PEOPLE, CULTURE,

LANGUAGE, PRACTICES, BELIEFS, CLOTHING, ETC.
Beliefs
Because of the long years of missionary presence in the Kankana-ey areas, the people have been
Christianized. Many are now Roman Catholics and Protestants. Some have joined the Iglesia ni Cristo
and other religious groups established within the Kankana-ey areas.
Although many have professed faith in Christ, most of them still engage in pagan practices as shown
in many of their rituals during weddings, rites of passage, planting and harvest, medicine and others.
Cultural
Like most Igorot ethnic groups, the Kankana-ey built sloping terraces to maximize farm space in the
rugged terrain of the Cordillera.

Two famous institutions of the Kankana-ey of Mountain Province are the dap-ay, the men's dormitory
and civic center, and the ebgan, the girls' dormitory where courtship between young men and women
took place.
The Kankana-ey differ in the way they dress. The women soft-speaking Kankana-ey's dress has a
color combination of black, white and red. The design of the upper attire is a criss-crossed style of
black, white and red colors. The skirt or tapis is a combination of stripes of black, white and red.
The women hard-speaking Kankana-ey's dress is composed of mainly red and black with a little white
styles, as for the skirt or tapis which is mostly called bakget and gateng. The men wore a g-string as it
is called but it is mainly known as wanes for the Kanakan-eys of Besao and Sagada. The design of the
wanes may vary according to social status or municipality.
The Kankana-ey's major dances include tayaw, pattong, takik, a wedding dance, and balangbang. The
tayaw is a community dance that is usually done in weddings; it may be also danced by the Ibaloi
people but has a different style. Pattong is also a community dance from Mountain Province which
every municipality has its own style. Balangbang is the modernized word for the word Pattong. There
are also some other dances that the Kankanaeys dance, such as the sakkuting, pinanyuan (wedding
dance) and bogi-bogi (courtship dance).
Kankana-ey houses are built like the other Igorot houses, which reflect their social status.
Language
The name Kankana-ey came from the language which they speak. The only difference among the
Kankana-ey are the way they speak like intonation and the usage of some words.
In intonation, there is a hard Kankana-ey or Applai and soft Kankana-ey. Speakers of hard Kankana-
ey are from Sagada, Besao and the surrounding parts or barrios of the said two municipalities. They
speak Kankana-ey hard in intonation where they differ in some words from the soft-speaking
Kankana-ey.
The soft speaking Kankana-ey comes from Northern Benguet, some parts of Benguet, and from the
municipalities of Sabangan, Tadian and Bauko from Mountain Province. In words, for example, an
Applai might say otik or beteg (pig) and the soft-speaking Kankana-ey may say busaang or beteg as
well. The Kankana-ey may also differ in some words like egay or aga, maid or maga. They also differ
in their ways of life and sometimes in culture.
The Kankana-ey are identified by the language they speak and the province form where they come.
Kankana-ey people from Mountain Province may call the Kankana-ey from Benguet as Ibenget
because they come from Benguet. Likewise, the Kankanaey of Benguet may call their fellow
Kankana-ey from Mountain Province Ibontok.
Reference:
“Kankana-ey History”. (n.d.) Retrieved September 20, 2022 from
http://jephie228.blogspot.com/2014/08/kankana-ey-history_11.html

Kankanaey Costume and Traditional Attire

The traditional garment for the Kankanaey male is the wanes (G-string). Among the northern
Kankanaey, this is usually red with colored borders or sometimes dark blue with red stripes and
decorated ends. The bandala, worn by the men, is a dark blue blanket with white lines.
The bak-ut, also called getap and tapis, is the female’s wraparound skirt. In other areas, the
Kankanaey call this garment gaboy and palingay. The Kankanaey’s skirt reaches only down to the
knee and is thus shorter than that of the Benguet Ibaloy. The everyday getap is white with indigo-blue
bands. A variant of the getap called kinteg is indigo black, with white-and-blue bands. The getap is
kept in place with a inandolo, also called wakes and bakget, a belt 7.5 to 15 centimeters wide, made of
tightly woven cotton yarn and wound twice around the waist.
The aklang is the woman’s cotton blouse: white, short sleeved, and collarless, open in front but
buttoned up at the upper end. The galey or ules is a blanket worn on the upper body as a protection
against the cold. The blanket incorporates red-and-blue panels of varying widths, with mortars,
snakes, or some anthropomorphic figures.

C. CHOOSE SOMETHING THAT IS FOUND IN THE ETHNIC GROUP

THAT YOU MAY CONSIDER AS A GREAT CONTRIBUTION ONCE
APPLIED TO THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINES OR IN THE
VALUES SYSTEM OF THE FILIPINOS.
CULTURAL PRESENTATION. It is how our Kankanaey group or rather the WHOLE
CORDILLERAN, showcases our own culture, beliefs, clothes, etc. to other groups. This means that
IGOROTS has not only preserved our historical traditions but also accepts and promotes the saying
“tangkilikin ang sariling atin”.
This for me is very important in the value system of the Filipinos because this does not only respect
our ancestor’s hard work but will benefit our economic growth. In what way? It would encourage
everyone to promote our own products (showcasing our cultures and traditions) that may interest a lot
of investors, hitting 2 birds with 1 stone. Not only will we draw out other development but we have
also been able to share our culture with other groups of people.