Home for a death ritual in Sagada

BEHIND THE SCENES

Alfred P. Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province – Going home to this rustic tourist town is always a heady experience – a welcome respite from the hectic life in Baguio City. I was home Tuesday for “lap-sag,” a native ritual for my younger sister Bessie who recently died. I seldom go home but every time I do so, I find changes are slowly changing lives of the people. Along with some relatives gathered at the yard while sacrificial pigs were being readied, talks were on how different life is in Sagada nowadays.

My uncle Jimmy Kalang-ad, local municipal registrar, said change is inevitable with the influx of tourists and coming of the internet. He said in the not so distant past, every man was expected to go to forests, cut wood and bring these home for fuel. That’s not the case anymore, he said, as people now use gas for fuel and have modern amenities from high-tech ovens to expensive cell phones.

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Even the use of wood for singeing hair of pigs for rituals like death ceremonies or feathers of chicken for pinikpikan (local chicken dish) has stopped, folks nodded. Blowtorches have taken their place although some still use pine wood as it makes the meat tastier with its smoky flavor.

Another uncle, Bacagan Bosaing, noticing the white “mestizo” pigs being butchered said only black native pigs could be slaughtered then particularly during death rituals. It’s not the case anymore, he said. People seldom raise black, native pigs.

For this particular ritual, two large, fat pigs were offered to the gods, Kabunian (God) and departed souls of kin. It was a ritual to appease and prepare the soul of the departed for the afterlife. The meat (bingit) was chopped and distributed to relatives and neighbors.

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The ritual started in the morning followed by a break and ended at night before midnight when men chanted the liwliwa wherein folks prayed the dead’s journey to the Other World would be comfortable and lives of family members would become better. Through figures of speech or riddles, some chanted those who have wronged the family should change and amend their bad ways.

 The liwliwa is some sort of a blues chant and those proficient in it are slowly vanishing, it was observed. Chants during wakes are called bayao wherein even the dead are castigated for wrongs they did in life. It is not uncommon if a bayao chanter points his finger at the dead and shouts at him for doing bad deeds in life.

The bayao is a cultural norm to make people do good and not do bad things to others – a reason why people here have a word called inayan. It is the indigenous version of the Golden Rule without the idea of getting back at wrongdoers.

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Through the bayao, a person’s life is related. The bad get what they deserve but the good are extolled. Elder Pekdasen Carlin said the bakid is observed once a person dies wherein three pigs and two chicken are slaughtered. This is followed by the lapsag, linuto, magapu, gawa, pangudan, inesa, kinaw-ang and sagi wherein pigs and chickens are butchered.

The kinaw-ang is observed to end death rituals after a year. Pekdasen said during such rituals, the soul of the dead travels within the house. If the soul is near a wall, a ritual is observed. If the soul is near a table, door or window another ritual is held.

The inatep (which literally means roof) is  when the soul is supposed to be there hovering, ready to go to the next world. Animists here say the dead don’t actually go to such place as heaven but live on earth with family and relatives and roam around mountains like people.

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Visitors who have witnessed death rituals here have often wondered why locals butcher 23 pigs to complete death ceremonies. They understand when they are told when somebody dies, locals pitch in money, rice or pigs, so the grieving are not hard up in coming up with food on such occasions. Even pine caskets are made by folks and finished in time for the burial like in the case of Bistang (Bessie’s indigenous name).

People pitch in when somebody dies because it is a social obligation. So if somebody gives a pig, the grieving family has to take note that when somebody dies in the family of the giver, one is obligated to give a pig back. It is the same with money. Although it is an unspoken tradition, a family has to list how much a person gave so that when they need it in time of death of a relative, it is meant to be returned. It is taboo however to return the exact amount. It has to be more or less.

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It is a rare occasion nowadays when the dead inside a coffin is placed in caves or crevices of high and steep mountainsides. During departing rites, the dead is wrapped in a blanket and “folded” into some sort of a ball. From the house, to its final resting place, folks run as fast as they could grabbing the dead from each other.

 It is a belief that liquid from the dead like blood will make people who are splashed with it lucky in life. Nowadays, most folks, even the pagans, are buried at the Anglican cemetery near St. Mary’s Church. “The anitos (spirits) are not feared anymore,” Bacagan said, as places here they were supposed to live in like dark and woody areas have been taken over by buildings, hotels or inns.

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As a kid, we were often told to go home before it got dark if we went to forests to gather blackberries, catch birds or wading (small indigenous fish) in rivers. We were told it was dangerous to be mabanig (being made to walk to some other place other than our destination) by spirits.

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Over the years, I lived a typical Sagada boy’s life (until I went to Baguio for college) and have slept in dap-ays (indigenous hut where men converge to decide community matters, hold rituals or sleep) as a kid. When Jimmy related it was at this time of the year when kids scaled steep rocky mountainside to catch Martinez, a bird in abundance during summer, his remark brought nostalgia. I was in high school when I took the dare to get some Martinez below the Calvary and cemetery now called Echo Valley.

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Never again, I told myself after the experience. To get the bird, a fool is tied to a tree and lowered to rock holes where birds nested. The trick is not to look down or one could get dizzy or frightened as the bottom is hundreds of meters down. Jimmy said it was dangerous to even try it. Nobody does it anymore as kids these days and young men have taken to more lucrative activities like guiding tourists and are earning much from it.

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He said folks tending rice fields are getting fewer by the day as people are now engaged in more lucrative means of livelihood. It was observed a lot of locals have migrated to other places like Baguio for better-earning jobs or businesses.

Jimmy said when they went to Tagum City in Mindanao recently, they found out a lot of Igorots and even those from Sagada made good there by buying lands and planting these with Bananas. The locals, seeing them progress through banana farming, followed suit.

Back to the local scenario, he said it will not be farfetched when even houses could be built within rice terraces between Dagdag and Demang barangays as water is hard to get by for tilling and with increasing population, people need lands to build houses or buildings. The rice terraces are located around a kilometer away from the Poblacion and by the time a road is finished going to the area, business could flourish along the way.

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Reports say tourism is booming here. But last Tuesday, I was told most inns at this time of the year have few tourists as customers. It was observed tourism is at its peak every time a movie is shot during Lent or Christmas seasons. During these times, traffic is horrendous and the local government had to limit vehicles coming in. Traffic aides during such times man entrances to the town and bar vehicles from coming in until one goes out.

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Now that it is raining almost every afternoon, tourists can maximize their time visiting Sumaguing Cave, Lake Danum, Bomod-ok or Bokong Falls or Blue Mountain during mornings when it is sunny. Nearby Blue Mountain is where top singing artists Gary Valenciano, Freddie Aguilar, Noli Cabangon among others recently performed in a concert themed “Concert among the clouds).

This time of the year could be a perfect time for lovebirds or newlyweds to while off their time in cozy inns while the rains pitter-patter on roof tops and drench greeneries. For visitors checking in at warm cozy inns within Poblacion, looking out the window at the lush greenery of pine trees within the Anglican Mission Compound and the mountains from afar as the rains go down on a cloudy afternoon could bring back nostalgia – a longing or sadness of times gone by. Most return – some to get over a break-up or find a new love, but for us, we do so for social or family obligations — like attending to death rituals.