Cordillera burial grounds and visitors

 CULTURAL NOTES 

Richard Kinnud

There is this story about a lady from somewhere in the Cordillera who once invited his boyfriend to visit her hometown along with their other friends from their workplace in Manila.  After alighting at the highway, they still had to climb a footpath to the home of the lady’s family at a zenith of the mountain.  Except that it was already dark when they were negotiating the climb, there was nothing to write home about.  There were fiercely barking dogs at residences they passed by but these were not really pursuing a bite.  They were gasping as they ascend but there were points they could comfortably rest for a while before proceeding.
     At a point where the lady can already point to their house, there was a flat area which was inviting for another rest.  Fronting it was a slope that was covered by bushes and other plants.  The friends, including the native’s boyfriend, sat and even laid their back and rolled on the grassy flat surface illuminated by the iridescent moon. 
    The following morning, the visitors went out of the house and realized that they were atop the mountain at the middle of a farm.  They went back to the edge where they had their final breather the last night.  The view from that area of the valleys and mounts was astounding.  Then they saw something – some neighboring stonewalling - at the incline fronting the grass where they laid.  While there were wild bushes sprouting, there were plants that were by design intended as ornaments.  Going back to the house, it was confirmed to them that the place where they had a breather is actually a gravesite and beneath the grass where they laid their back are puncheons that had remains of some of the lady’s forefathers.
    The visitors were gripped with shock.  Even as the family said it was just okay, some of them felt ghosted.  Some of them lost their excitement visiting their hosts place and was much more looked forward to going back to Manila.  Some of them even chose to not speak with their host.  My storyteller did not tell if it was the cause of a breakup, but surely it was obvious that their brief hang about at the grave site made them uncomfortable.
    A friend who also heard this story remarked, “It would have been a different if that graveyard is a tourist spot.  If it were, the visitors wouldn’t have been upset but instead took time with selfies and pictures of the graves.”
    I couldn’t disagree with that observation.  At a trail running even in the Mountain Province recently, the event organizers intentionally had the route be a detour from the usual pathway so runners would pass by a very old graveyard.  The coffins and bones including the skulls of some of those laid to rest there where on display beneath a huge rock, which is a usual site for graves in these parts.  I felt scared of the sight but I did manage a click.  For some other runners, the lingered a little while and there are even those who took selfies with the bones on their background.  No one was spooked.  I don’t mean graves are supposed to be spooky.  But tourism certainly took away something from the graves.
    I described the scenario to a friend who traces roots from or about that place.  He was very much surprised that the skull and the bones were on display.  He described it as, it was possibly just to bait attention that the bones were taken out of the coffins.  He pointed to the likelihood that the stance of trying to present something that could be more alluring or arousing of interest to visitors can lead to chances of misrepresentation of cultural traditions.
    Another friend dug deeper into “Apay gamin nga ipalplaubos tayu nga parten ti turismo dagita nga dapat kuma nga pribado nga luglugar?”  (Why are we allowing those supposedly private places as part of tourism?)
    When I took the photo of the grave of people I do not even know, my purpose was as a general reference to write-ups such as this article.  When I lost the phone I used to take it, a friend said, I might have been censured by spirits under that rock.  I could downplay such remark of course as others who took selfie with the bones had them posted on their socmed accounts.  But my friend’s remark surely had a grain of salt.
    Tourism that involves visit of old grave sites here in the Cordillera surely is a way to learn culture, history, and very much probably art in these places.  But certainly, it would also require some watchfulness not only on the part of visitors but also among locals who allow this kind of tourism to happen in our places.  Not much on the anxiety that it may cause as visitors surely have that freedom to proceed to say a graveyard, unlike in our opening story where they unknowingly laid over graves,  but more of having a wrong notion of the culture of a certain place, or possibly even disrespect of graves.  On the part of locals is the distortion or even instances of allowing insolence to what truly is the culture or heritage of one’s own place.