02/05/2024
In 2008, Floy visited Ilocos Norte, together with his photographer, to witness a traditional gathering of the Apayao who populated four municipalities on the eastern part of the province. This is the introduction to a learned and nuanced essay that features a people he fully understood and respected.
FACES FROM A FESTIVAL
By FLOY QUINTOS
It wasn’t one of those spectacular, tourist–trap festivals, the kind 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 Ilokano lowlanders and the Cordillera people. And the festival demanded a magtaptap, 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 the casual excursionists, Ilocos Norte is all about the great stone churches of Paoay 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 will come to gawk at Bongbong Marcos’ energy-generating windmills towering, Brâncuși-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 that the northern tip of the Gran Cordillera mountain range rises from the foothills of Ilocos Norte. The mountainous jungle fastness bordering Ilocos and the 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?
Photograph by Wig Tysmans
