Nature and Culture Fusion in Ifugao Land

North Luzon, 9 hours North of Manila, is like another country. Forget the sea, the bangkas, the fishermen and welcome to impressive mountains: La Cordillera with summits above 2000m! Ifugao people belong to the indigenous tribe who 2000 BC started to carve the mountains by designing rice terraces. They build up ingenious irrigation system and impressive walls to sustain the terraces. The funny thing is that during 4000 years they kept on doing the same thing. They were completely isolated in these mountains and it is only now that development is catching up with them.


Five villages are World heritage Unesco site since 1995. Batad was the most impressive. It was only accessible by foot on the last part of the road. Today, porters still carry food or drinks on their shoulders down to the village. We were welcomed by a very dynamic tourit office information run by young people from the village. We did a tour with one guide, son of a farmer who during the peak season comes back to his "barangay". During the low season he works as a gold miner 6 hours away in Baguio. Rice is produced for family consumption only. In the past, there were pagan ceremonies involving the rice guards (statues) to protect the harvest. All the work is done manually from planting to milling. We saw some old people who have spent their lives bare feet in the rice fields, the result being a kind of deformation. Even today some Igugao villages are not accessible by road and do not have electricity. But young people are reluctant to do this hard work. Honestly they can't be blamed! In Batad, the rice fields terraces are kept well maintained thanks to support from the government and to tourism. Otherwise it would become like our old wine terraces too difficult to look after in Europe.

Rice guards: each family has its own

Typical Ifugao house

Thousands of steps...

1400m alltitude and often in the clouds

Green color: ice has just been planted

Photo

Eduardo Masferre was a famous photograph who took beautiful pictures of indigenous people in the Cordillera in the 50's. Some portraits are amazing, you can check them out in google..