Culture & tradition,  Lens-Artists,  Mountains,  Philippines,  Postcards from the road

A postcard from the Philippines: meet the Ifugao

March 4, 2025 / 61 Comments

Greetings from the Philippines

Meet the Ifugao

The Ifugao are the indigenous people of the Banaue, the area of Luzon Island famed for its UNESCO listed rice terraces. The name means ‘people of the earth’. While these ladies have chosen to wear their traditional dress to pose at this viewpoint in return for tourist tips, many of their traditions are maintained purely from belief in their importance to the group. They practice a mix of an animist indigenous religion and Christianity, using ritual practices, chants, and symbols to strengthen ecological balance.

Only the old farming methods are suitable for their terraces; no tractor or other machine could access them. Rice is planted, harvested and processed by hand on a daily basis, forming the basis of all their meals as indeed it is for all Filipinos).

Travel gives us the opportunity to meet and learn about the lives of other people at first-hand. The more we do that, the better we understand the common ground between us all and value the differences. Not all of us can travel to the other side of the world but we can all make the effort to travel virtually (via books, TV, film, blogs) and not shut ourselves into a bubble of isolation. Believing that our normal is the only ‘right’ normal is a dangerous path.

So my chosen word for John’s Lens Artist ‘Pick a Word‘ challenge is TRAVEL. Of course it is – travel is an important part of my life and the main driver for this blog. John wanted three or four photos so in addition to my ‘postcard’ here are a few more. One shows the rice terraces near Banaue, another looks down at the traditional Ifugao village of Bangaan. This village has been labelled as a Living Cultural Landscape as it still retains a few of the traditional Ifugao houses called bale. The third is of a woman outside her home in Bangaan, proudly showing us her weaving which is done with a back strap to hold the warp tight (you can see her strap on the ladder that leads to her front door).

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