Christian Challenge and Pagan Response

The Spread of Christianity

Although Christianity is relatively new to the area, Paganism has not gone unchallenged in Buguias. Spanish missionaries made little progress in Benguet, in part because "nuevo Christianos" were obligated to pay higher tribute. Catholic priests did missionize several large villages, but they ignored Buguias, by one account because the dispersed settlement pattern made missionizing difficult (Perez 1904:191, 192). American proselytizers also bypassed Buguias, according to local Christians, because the new colonists rushed to convert the headhunting peoples of the north. Only after the war did Christian missionaries arrive in the village.

In the early postwar years, the Catholic Church greatly increased its missionary activity in Benguet. Following a pattern established in the American period, Flemish priests staffed most new missions. In thoroughly Pagan areas, such as Buguias, newly arrived priests sought to understand indigenous beliefs, commonly attending local rituals for a time. Such activities were suspended in the late 1950s, following the establishment of a Catholic church and a high school in Abatan. A satellite church soon followed in Buguias, where the Abatan-based priest would visit for monthly masses.

Protestant missionaries also arrived in Buguias shortly after the war. The Jehovah's Witnesses enjoyed early success along the Mountain Trail after an American missionary reached Natubleng in 1948. When converted laborers returned from the Natubleng farms to their home villages, the religion spread. Its members now constitute a distinct minority in many communities; the congregation in Buguias includes a handful of families. The mainstream Protestant

churches began to proselytize in greater Buguias a few years later. They spread in a geographically discontinuous pattern, each church assigning missionaries to a few specific villages. The Assembly of God established a firm base in Buguias, the Wesleyans set up outposts to the north and south, and the Anglicans attracted a strong following in Lo-o. The Lutherans built a hospital in Abatan but made few converts in the region.

The early missionaries gained converts from a variety of social backgrounds. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Catholicism attracted many college students in Baguio, some of whom saw Pagan practices as thwarting economic development and sometimes as threatening their own educations.^[1] Several students later returned to Buguias to form the community's initial Catholic nucleus. Protestants more often came from poorer families; many saw in their austere new doctrines an escape from the burdens of Pagan ceremonials. But Protestantism attracted a few others also; one fairly wealthy woman joined the Assembly of God after numerous, expensive Pagan rituals failed to relieve her of extreme pain during pregnancy.

Conversion has often followed family lines; this has joined with the usual spatial congregation of kin to form a distinctive geography of religious affiliation in present-day Buguias. One hamlet is predominantly Catholic, whereas others, especially those more remote and those wealthier than average, have remained largely Pagan. Gender also plays a role, since more women than men have converted to Christianity. Men sometimes follow their wives into the church, but not a few remain reluctant Christians.

Members of the three Christian sects of Buguias differ in their relations with the Pagan majority. The Jehovah's Witnesses remove themselves from most aspects of village life. Assembly of God members avoid any activities that smack of Paganism or that call for drinking alcohol, but they do interact with their Pagan neighbors on other public occasions. Roman Catholics are yet more ambivalent, as they are not necessarily prohibited from attending Pagan feasts. While objecting strenuously to the religious content of such rites, the Catholic Church leaders recognize that indigenous ceremonies cement family and community ties. A good Catholic may attend a relative's pedit, but he or she is discouraged from joining in ritual dancing or other sacred activities.

Even among its leadership, however, the Catholic community is divided in its appraisal of Paganism. According to some observers, the local church has waffled considerably over the past thirty years, depending largely on the convictions of the priest stationed in Abatan at any given time. The official position at present advocates toleration and hopes for the eventual "Christianization" of public feasting. Thus, community-oriented redistributive feasts receive favor so long as they are undertaken in a Christian context, such as occurs at a house blessing.

Those most at odds with the Abatan church are the so-called "Chrispas," or Chris[tian]-Pa[gan] syncretists. Members of this group, consisting largely of the metropolitan elite, are Pagan when in Buguias but Catholic when in Baguio. Buguias Christians usually view such heteroclites as true Pagans who only feign Christianity to gain acceptance in the city. The self-styled Chrispas, however, see no inherent contradiction between their two belief systems; each has its own place and each covers its own sphere of activity.

Religious Rivalry: the Christian Position

A few Buguias residents appear to have converted to Christianity primarily to avoid ritual expenses. Devout Christians disparage this motive, and they were not surprised that several economically moved converts returned to Paganism on discovering that their new faith did not bring them wealth. Some persons formerly argued that Christians, being unencumbered by rituals, would become more prosperous than their Pagan neighbors, but this view is no longer tenable. Yet the economic debate continues. The most sophisticated Christian thinkers claim that whereas mass butcherings sensibly disposed of excess livestock in the past, today they only consume scarce capital. Moreover, they argue, a couple that saves in order to educate their children—rather than to feast the community and enhance their own prestige—should be respected as self-sacrificing rather than denigrated as self-serving.

The Christian judgment against Paganism aims squarely at the religious-economic linkage the traditionalists expound. They accuse Pagans of subordinating their religious practices to the base desire for worldly riches. Christians point to the silver coins over

which manbunungs chant prayers as evidence that their Pagan neighbors actually worship money. Similarly, in pedit, taro slices soaked in hog blood symbolize coins, naked evidence of Pagan materialism. Christians accuse traditional priests of asking the ancestors to deliver the wealth of Christian outsiders into the hands of feast celebrants, or to send diseases from Buguias to other communities. Some Christians, most notably the Belgian priest, argue that Paganism is based on fear: fear of the ancestors and spirits, and fear for one's afterlife position. Christianity offers an escape from this fear, they say, through its assurance of love, joy, and salvation for all believers.

Christians also censure fervent Pagans for abusing their bodies by working too hard. Elderly men and women in the Pagan community often continue to toil in their fields even when they are ill, a pattern the Christians interpret as further evidence that they value money above all else. Some also disparage certain devout Pagans for wearing tattered clothing, quipping that one can easily distinguish an elderly Christian from an elderly Pagan at some distance. They also claim that the poor Pagan is effectively more impoverished than a poor Christian because the Pagan has to reserve much of his or her money for religious contingencies.

At least one individual converted to Christianity because he felt betrayed by Pagan practitioners. This man, who was studying to become a Pagan priest, noticed at his father's funeral that the corpse was wrapped in a woman's burial blanket, a grave insult to the dead. He convinced himself that this "error" was actually a deliberate move to anger the ancestors and thus withdraw favor from his family line. Pagan leaders insisted it was an honest mistake, and unsuccessfully urged him to consider his advanced age and investment in traditional learning.

The refusal of the Pagans to allow traditional cultural practices to be unlinked from their religious content has created a final arena of conflict. Unlike their counterparts in most other Cordilleran areas, Pagan leaders in Buguias allow no ritual actions to take place in secular contexts. If one wishes to dance to the gongs and drums, one must mark the event with sacrifices. Buguias schoolchildren's annual community performances thus feature dances from other Cordilleran regions rather than those of their own ancestors. Christians point approvingly to the northern Pagans for their less hidebound attitude in this regard.

Pagan Responses

Pagan rhetoricians are quick to counter the criticisms brought against them, and to level their own charges against what they see as the contradictions of Christianity. Christians are hypocritical, they argue, for while claiming that their faith is based on sharing and love, its real hallmark is selfishness. Pagans feed everyone, even dogs and rats, in their holy ceremonies, but Christians feed only themselves. Pagans sacrifice continually to ensure communal prosperity, but Christians work only for their own families. Several Pagan thinkers go so far as to argue that Pagan ritual embodies true Christian charity, enacting the injunction to love one's neighbor as one's self.

These apologists see no problem in their faith's materialism. Indeed, they point proudly to the intimate connection between the spiritual and physical realms as the cornerstone of their religion, citing empirical evidence to prove that proper ritual performance brings economic prosperity. Their religion, they argue, is based on nature and local tradition and is verifiable through observation; Christianity, in contrast, is supported merely by a foreign book.

Since Buguias Pagans see material fortune as the manifestation of spiritual integrity, they must explain how some Christians become prosperous. The usual explanation for the wealth of the few rich Igorot Christians in other communities is that they received heavenly favor through the actions of their Pagan relatives, if not through their own secret Pagan rites. A case often cited pertains to the Dangwa family of Kapangan. Buguias Pagans insist that the Dangwas continue to honor the ancestors despite their professed Christianity. The wealth of non-Igorot Christians, in contrast, is not considered problematic; lowlanders and westerners merely follow their own customs by adhering to the Christian faith—precisely the goal of the Buguias Pagans in cleaving to their own traditions. Paganism clearly advances no universalistic claims; it is specific to a particular locale and to a people with a common culture and a common group of ancestors.

Pagan thinkers dismiss the allegations that they ignore their appearances and abuse their bodies by turning these supposed vices into virtues. Willingness to wear tattered clothing and to work despite illness show a lofty and spiritual attitude; only the vain spend money on appearance, which does not honor the ancestors and

brings nothing to the community. They also lightly shrug off the charge of "illness transfers." One manbunung countered that neighboring communities can simply respond in kind. "I send a sickness to Kiangan and the Kiangan priest sends it back here—before long we are tossing it back and forth just like a volleyball."

Nor do Pagans apologize for refusing to permit secular performances of ritual dances. To allow this, they claim, would be to debase their religion, offend the ancestors, and risk the well-being of Buguias. They find the prospect of turning their rituals into cultural shows, as has happened in tourist locations in Ifugao and Mountain Province, utterly appalling.

The charge that rituals are so expensive as to preclude education in some families is taken more seriously. The most common response is that a balance must be sought between ceremonial and educational investments. Indeed, the theme of balancing traditional obligations and modern demands runs through much Pagan rhetoric. Several children from Pagan households have received college degrees, and it is difficult to argue that Christians as a group value formal learning more than do Pagans.

An empirical bent underlies both Pagan and Christian beliefs. Arguments for both religions adduce physical evidence in support of supernatural causes. But the same phenomenon may be cited as proof by both sides. In a classic case, a prominent individual on the verge of death converted to Christianity and subsequently recovered. Some Christians argue that conversion saved him; Pagans claim that it was the rituals they performed on his behalf that made the difference.