The Igorots
These people occupy the subprovinces of Benguet, Lepanto, and Amburayan in the Mountain Province. The region of their purest culture is in northern Benguet and eastern Lepanto. Of the religion of this region, we have considerable information from the writings of Fr. Angel Perez, an Augustinian missionary; Sr. Sinforoso Bondad of Cervantes, Lepanto; and a number of personal observations made by myself.
The sun gods, and the deities of the sky world in general, occupy the most important place in the Igorot religion. Place-spirits and animal deities are likewise highly developed. At a place called Kágubátan,[22] at the foot of the sacred mountain Múgao in eastern Lepanto, is a small lake full of sacred eels which the people guard with great care. They believe that if these eels were killed the springs would all dry up and they would have no water for their terraced rice fields. The eels are fed every day with rice and sweet potatoes by the children of the village, who, as they approach the lakelet, sing a peculiarly sweet and mournful song, upon hearing which the eels all rise to the surface of the water and approach the shore to receive their food.
The Igorots have both priests and priestesses, and they perform many public and private ceremonies, both for the benefit of the great deities and for the countless minor spirits which inhabit the sacred mountains, cliffs, groves, trees, and bushes that are scattered throughout the Igorot country. Sacrifices of pigs or chickens are made at every ceremony. The ceremonies of the common people are more or less of a private nature, but those of the aristocracy and of wealthy men are nearly always public and general. The greatest ceremonies are those connected with war and marriage and the great public festival which proves a man’s right to the title of nobility.
The Igorots have a high code of morals which is closely associated with their religious belief. They also have a scientific calendar and a considerable knowledge of astronomy which has effected many modifications in their religion. Their mythology is extensive, and they have a rich unwritten literature of epic poems, hero-stories, and historical legends. Most of the myths are too long to be given here, but for purposes of comparison I give the following short one which was collected by the Dominican, Fr. Mariano Rodriguez:
It has been mentioned above that among their tales and stories they preserve a tradition relating to their origin and beginning, after a great and dreadful flood which, a very long time ago, as their old people relate, covered the earth. All the inhabitants except a brother and sister were drowned. The brother and sister, though separated from each other, were saved, the woman on the summit of the highest mountain in the District of Lepanto, called Kalauítan, and the man in a cave of the same mountain. After the water had subsided, the man of the cave came out from his hiding place one clear and calm moonlight night, and as he glanced around that immense solitude, his eyes were struck by the brightness of a big bonfire burning there on the summit of the mountain. Surprised and terrified, he did not venture to go up on the summit where the fire was, but returned to his cave. At the dawn of day he quickly climbed toward the place where he had seen the brightness the preceding night, and there he found huddled up on the highest peak his sister, who received him with open arms. They say that from this brother and sister so providentially saved, all the Igorots that are scattered through the mountains originated. They are absolutely ignorant of the names of those privileged beings, but the memory of them lives freshly among the Igorots, and in their feasts, or whenever they celebrate their marriages, the aged people repeat to the younger ones this wonderful history, so that they can tell it to their sons, and in that way pass from generation to generation the memory of their first progenitors.[23]
This myth of the great flood, and of the brother and sister who survived it, is common throughout northern Luzon. It is most highly developed by the Ifugaos, as we shall later see.