Great discoveries in Banaue
famed guerrilla fighters of the North. His grandfather still alive at 90 plus was a runner between the mountains taking messages from one camp to the other between guerrillas and the US Army. Julius showed us three vantage points to view the terraces, mountains of clearly defined rectangles with the water in them shimmering in the sunlight. Seedbeds were scattered around them growing the shoots that would be soon transplanted into the terraces. It is an awesome sight looking across, looking up and looking down. You see small footbridges hanging over streams and rocks down, down from you. Along the walls there are paths of little steps that take you up, up into the next terraces. The sky was clouded over but it was bright and clear with perfect light for photography. One viewpoint was called the Thousand Peso Point as it was featured from that angle in the old thousand peso bill.
Seeing the plants, the people, the environment of mountain and sky, trees and streams of a far mountain community settled over thousands of years, adjusted to its environment as shown by the rice terraces, now with a life of their own, is always a moving experience no matter how often you witness it. It represents a peoples’ culture evolved through thousands of years, hundreds of generations.
The rest of the day was spent visiting villages, weaving centers, and two museums. The Banaue Museum is the older one and it has marvelous photographs of the tribal peoples and their customs as well as an interesting set of letters between Gen. Yamashita and Gen. Mcgill, commanding general of the US forces in the area just before Yamashita surrendered himself at Kiangan. The letters between both were of highest civility and felicitous turn of phrase. Not unexpected from an English speaker but quite startling from Yamashita who must have had an excellent English speaker among his staff. That it was a cruel war is very much etched into Ifugao memory with Ifugao huts claiming to exhibit what they say are Japanese skulls.
The second museum which is the Museum of Cordilleran Sculptures was mind-boggling. It has a huge collection of carved figures, furniture, rice boxes, spears, sorcery artifacts, textile, everyday artifacts, of the best and rarest quality that were intelligently and clearly captioned with texts showing a depth of understanding about what they were showing that bowled us over. I must be very ignorant because I had never heard of this treasure trove of Cordillera art and felt like a discoverer. I found out later that it has been put together over the years by a plant expert and author, George Schenk, whose wife is Filipina and I would guess maybe from the area. I express utmost appreciation to them for sharing the collection to the public.
Still on my trip and will report more next column.
miongpin@yahoo.com