IT WASN’T ONE OF THOSE spectacular, tourist-trap festivals, where hundreds of participants in ersatz costumes parade the streets to the beat of recently invented mythologies.

The site was the town of Dumalneg, at the northeastern tip of Ilocos Norte, at the foot of great, mist-covered mountains. The people celebrating were the descendants of the legendary warriors, the Apayao.

The festival was called Panagwawagi, a celebration of brotherhood between Ilocano lowlanders and the Cordillera people. And the festival demanded a magtatpap, a meeting where the indigenous peoples of the towns of Dumalneg, Adams, Nueva Era and Carasi would come together in a modest, but very authentic show of tribal heritage.

To casual excursionists, Ilocos Norte is all about the great stone churches of Paoay, Dingras and Bacarra; the stately homes of Laoag, Sarrat and San Nicolas; the homey goodness of Pasuquin’s biscocho; the savage beauty of Pagudpud’s magnificent beaches.

Perhaps, on a more futuristic note, they come to gawk at Bongbong Marcos’ energy-generating windmills towering Brancusi-like on the windswept coast of Bangui. For Cordillera heritage, one must go to Baguio, or Sagada or Banaue. But Ilocos Norte?

Why not? We must remember the northern tip of the Gran Cordillera mountain range rises from the foothills of Ilocos Norte.

The mountainous jungle fastness bordering Ilocos and Cagayan Valley are home to the Apayao, just as the eastern ranges of Ilocos Sur and Abra are home to the Tingguian. Where does the Ilocos’ culture end and Cordillera’s begin? Or do they gradually meld together, here in these mist-covered foothills?

On the invitation of Ilocos Norte Gov. Michael M. Keon, an avid supporter of the rights of Ilocos Norte’s tribal peoples, photographers Jay Javier, Lawrence Dionisio and I traveled one Sunday from the landmark heritage resort, Sitio Remedios in Currimao.
We started out at 7 a.m., when the heat and the beach were just beginning to beckon languidly.

Haven of fresh air

In the two hours it took us to get to Dumalneg, the very atmosphere had changed.

Gone were the dry and dusty plains, the quaint towns, the roads winding by the blinding brilliance of a sunlit ocean.
With just a turn on the road east of Bangui, we had left all Ilocos Norte’s “trademarks” behind. Soon, we were winding our way through gentle foothills washed by rain.

Dumalneg itself seemed like a tiny haven of fresh air, amazingly tidy streets and unharried air. And why should it be harried by a town fiesta? The mountains of the Apayao rose above the town, mist and clouds wafting through the jungle.

These mountains had seen merrymaking of a more untamed kind. The Apayao or Isneg, had been studied and observed by travelers like Schadenburg and Worcester, and by anthropologists like Beyer and Vanoverbergh.

Along with the Ilongot of Nueva Vizcaya and the Kalinga, they were often written about as the most inaccessible of the Cordillera groups.

Protected by the dense tropical jungles and bolstered by the culture of the Maingal or headhunter/ warrior/leader, the Apayao resisted Spanish colonization and were only partially pacified in the beginning of 20th century.

Headhunters

Early photographs from the period show a people whose fierce and focused gazes could not be obscured by their colorful costumes. The warriors in these pictures hold large head-axes and wear stunning sippatal necklaces, with mother-of-pearl platelets cascading down the front of their jackets.

Headhunters were distinguished by ornate feather ornaments that made them look taller, larger than they were.

Not to be outdone, the women wound their hair into large cloth turbans, and stuck miniature axes into their headdresses.

Their bead necklaces were distinguished by large shell dividers and Ilocano silver beads traded from the lowlands. Look closely at an old photograph of the Apayao and contrast it with other images of say, the Ifugao or Bontoc.

The Apayao seem like a people from a different country altogether. A tribute, indeed, to the cultural diversity of the Cordillera people.

The Magtatpap: Panagwawagi festival was being hosted by Dumalneg this year. Neighboring towns of Adams, Carasi and Nueva Era had hosted the gathering in past years. These towns have predominant Apayao populations, along with Ilocano settlers and even Kalinga, Bontoc and Ifugao migrants. The morning we arrived, there was word that strong rains would prevent the Adams contingent from coming down their mountains to join the gathering.

Nevertheless, the Dumalneg folk had gathered at the covered gymnasium of the town in preparation.

Proud, inscrutable

Armchair anthropologist that I am, I had only seen old pictures of the Apayao. Suddenly, here they were, gathered in front of us in their finery, sitting on the amp bleachers of the covered court.

Overeager, I asked about the costumes and the beads. Did the women still wear axes in their hair? Did the men still have authentic sippatal necklaces? The old women smiled at my naiveté.

I noticed some of the turbans and wrap skirts were of polyester, and the fabulous bead necklaces may have seemed larger and more ornate in the old photos. What are these but material culture we see as outward signs of cultural identity?

The real signs—the proud glint of the eye, the erect posture, the knowing and inscrutable gaze that took in the overeager visitors and remained unimpressed—these were indeed the Apayao.

We were welcomed by Mayor Francis Espiritu and wife Lairvee, herself a former mayor of Dumalneg. Both were in Apayao finery. They introduced us to the matriarch of the clan, Francis’ mother Angelita, a strong woman who must have been in her early ’70s.

On Angelita’s wrists, I saw the linear tattoos that pronounced the wearer a kinswoman of a respected Maingal. Yes, Angelita told us through her son, her father had been a warrior, and her mother’s own tattoos extended all the way to her upper arms as a sign of prestige.

She still clung to her Apayao name, Libaken, even when she was councilor and vice mayor, until she became municipal mayor in the ’80s, just as her father had been in his time, just as Francis and Lairvee would be in theirs. The transitions from tribal society to municipal town have been steadied by this hereditary transference of power.

After all, the municipality of Dumalneg is officially only 25 years old. The real Dumalneg, Dumalneg of Libaken and other Apayao who posed for us, was much, much older.

Camera-ready Apayao

Jay hit on the idea of taking portraits against a bamboo backdrop, much as the early American photographers had. The difference would be that we would not be colonizers recording a subjugated people.

Today’s Apayao would face the camera and smile if they felt like it, or look at us with bemusement (perhaps even disdain.) As they took turns sitting for us (who doesn’t want to be photographed anyway?), we learned that not all the sitters were Apayao.

Some of them were Ilocano teachers in the high school who were being adopted into the Apayao. In the ritual that followed, Apayao elders stood behind their “adopted” sons and daughters, as they were presented before Libaken, for a ceremonial swig of basi.

Throughout the adoption ritual, Libaken would speak in Apayao. It was a proud statement of the town’s true roots.

Later that day, there would a Search for a Mr. and Ms Ilocos Norte Cultural Communities (INCC) 2008. But the new traditions being born had to go mano-a-mano, so to speak, with the old ones.

In a corner of the gym, a dog stood tethered and nervous. His beheading by Apayao elders would signal the beginning of the evening’s festivities, and a welcome feast to the Adams, Dumalneg, Carasi and Nueva Era Apayao.

Just as we were leaving in the late afternoon, two huge trucks arrived, loaded with visitors. The rains had stopped at noon, and the folk from Adams had made it after all.

A congress of indigenous people was about to take place. I saw a woman in a Kalinga skirt wearing patent leather shoes. There was word some Tingguian would also be in attendance. The Apayao of Dumalneg would speak to them in Ilocano, a language understood by all who came to celebrate their diversity.

Where did Ilocos Norte end and the Cordillera begin? In Dumalneg, that rainy Sunday, the boundaries created by time and politics, by language and geography were blurred. As they once were, as they should be in magical places where cultures seek only to live with and by each other.