Geographical Patterns

Although Buguias may well have supported the largest trade network in the southern Cordillera, every important village nested in its own web of exchange. The larger Ibaloi settlements trafficked mainly with the lowland towns of Pangansinan and La Union. Their ties to the east and north were tenuous; compared to Buguias, they were not trade oriented (see Moss 1920a :214). But the other sizable villages of the upper Agno, Amlimay and Lo-o, exhibited a similar mercantile bent. Villages specializing in mineral extraction (Suyoc) or metal-goods manufacture (such as Ubanga, a small copper-working village) maintained different kinds of exchange systems, as they attracted many traders from other areas into their territories. Suyoc merchants themselves were concerned with little other than the gold trade. Adding another layer of complexity, the trade routes of many central Cordilleran villages also extended well into the southern mountains (Conklin 1980:98).

Ifugao miners and traders returning from the Baguio area, for example, often lodged in Buguias where they commonly purchased cattle to lead home. One Buguias family actually specialized in this narrow trade.

In short, prewar Buguias lay at the center of two very different spatial economic structures. One, an extensive trade network, was perpetuated through the efforts of numerous individual traders, its many strands enmeshing with webs centered on other commercial villages. Buguias formed this reticulum's organizational hub, despite the fact that the village proper was not, strictly speaking, a market center. Buguias traders rather established a price-setting market wherever they went, bridging the area of supply (western Ifugao and most of central and northern Benguet) with the seat of demand (Suyoc). This was certainly not a "perfect" market, for the backwoods people had limited access to price information. But it was a market nonetheless; prices varied according to supply and demand, and deals were haggled, not instituted (on the theoretical implications of the Buguias trade system, see Lewis 1989).

Buguias's second economic region was more exclusive, more cohesive, and smaller than this long-distance trade network. At the local level, the village integrated the economies of several neighboring settlements, largely through its financial role. As purveyors of capital, the Buguias elite influenced, and to some extent dominated, the indebted economies of the village's immediate periphery. Their effective hinterland extended along the Agno River north toward Lo-o, south toward Kabayan, and eastward well into the cloud forest of Ifugao province. In so doing, it sliced across several cultural boundaries, encompassing peoples of all the major southern Cordilleran language groups.