Local Specialization of Production

The Buguias region had long provided the southern Cordillera with quality ironware and copperware. During the American period, few smiths lived in Buguias proper, but nearby villages continued to supply cooking pots and cutting tools for a wide area. This geographically segregated production system both depended on and helped to support the local trade networks. Within Buguias itself, diverse artisans also provided goods to help fill the back-

packs of local traders. While craft specialization was at best a secondary impetus for exchange, it nevertheless contributed to the integration of the southern Cordilleran economy.

Ironwork

Most larger Cordilleran villages possessed an iron smithy. The smiths of the Buguias region, however, had long been noted for their expert work; others simply could not match the temper they imparted to their implements. Accordingly, they worked in secrecy. The German naturalist Carl Semper (1862 [1975]: 29) could not even learn the locations of the local workshops. Buguias wares—and the smiths themselves—were thus in demand through much of Benguet. Local traders often carried iron goods on their rounds, while outsiders traveled to Buguias to purchase them directly.

In the late American period, iron forging was centered in the small village of Lingadan just north of Buguias proper. The smiths had to live and work in remote, wooded areas, so great was their demand for charcoal. Although legends tell of iron ore once being gathered in the river bed, it is more likely that raw iron was always obtained through coastal trade, its ultimate source being eastern China (see Scott's note in Meyer 1890 [1975]: 63). Buguias smiths fashioned sundry iron tools, most notably bolo knives, culinary knives, digging trowels, iron or iron-tipped bars, and axes. Different grades of iron served for different kinds of bolos: soft but cohesive metal for rough tasks, such as smashing bones, and harder but brittler steel for finer work.

Copper

Copper work was the true specialty of the greater Buguias region, and by the American period the area's forges supplied the entire southern Cordillera. But rather than Buguias proper, it was the small, peripheral village of Ubanga that formed the preeminent copper-working center.

Copper ore originally was extracted in the mineral district extending from Suyoc to Mankayan (see Wilson 1947). A dwindling fuel supply here probably forced the wide separation between the workshops and the mines that was later evident; Mankayan in par-

ticular was deforested early (Marche 1887 [1970]:125). Ubanga, sitting on the edge of the heavily forested Palatang region, offered a prime site for copper works. In any case, by the later American period, imported copper wire purchased in Baguio substituted for local ore in the Ubanga forges.

In Spanish and early American times, the local artisans fashioned a variety of copper and bronze items. Fine ornamental works included bracelets, arm and leg bands, and earrings, the latter finding their main market among the Northern Kankana-ey. Copper smoking pipes moved rapidly throughout the southern Cordillera. Elders still tell of local manufacture of ritual gongs, but these vital items may have always been imported. Certainly in the later American period, richly resonating Chinese bronze gongs were everywhere in use (Goodway and Conklin 1987). Completely discontinued was the making of copper coins, as the imperial government could not abide their circulation.

The large cooking vessels called gambang ("copper"), used for preparing the food of both hogs and humans, overshadowed all other copper goods. Any person raising swine needed at least one large copper pot for boiling sweet potatoes. The Ubanga smiths fabricated gambang in several sizes and shapes for the extensive market; the largest allegedly could shelter a traveling merchant from a downpour. In earlier times, more decorative urn-shaped vessels were also made, the German traveler Schadenburg having purchased one in the late 1800s for the princely sum of four water buffalo (Scott 1974: 312).

Copper working required a team of at least seven, with each individual specializing in one or two tasks. In general, it required more skill and was more arduous than ironwork, which could be done in groups of only two or three. Virtually the entire male population of Ubanga labored in this industry. Boys too young for the workshops made charcoal and gathered the pine bark and halfrotted wood well suited for the slow-burning fires necessary at certain stages of the manifold manufacturing process. The copperware industry also created linkages with nearby villages; forges were made in the neighboring hamlet of Sebang, while clay molds (used for casting) came from the Northern Kankana-ey.

Copper vessels were marketed through a complex network of intermediaries. Buguias and Lo-o merchants carried copper pots deep into the cloud forest, while Northern Kankana-ey and Kalan-

guya traders traveled to Ubanga to buy directly. Individuals also brought in broken pots and gongs for repair, and one Ubanga man made a special trade of searching out and fixing broken copperware throughout the Agno Valley. As a by-product of such business dealings, the smiths had a much better geographical knowledge of the central Cordillera (north of Mount Data) than did most other residents of the Buguias region.

Other Local Specialties

The Buguias people of today do not recall other significant local products, but the American administrator David Barrows, who visited Buguias twice (in 1902 and 19o8), was so impressed with their crafting of smoking pipes, wooden spoons, and effigy figures that he devoted a three-page journal entry to them (1908:91–93). Evidently, several Buguias artisans made four different kinds of pipes from three different materials (copper, wood, and clay). Pipe making must have disappeared soon after his visit; in the later American period Buguias traders were purchasing old pipes from the Kalanguya. Barrow's attention to wooden spoons indicates a subsequent decline in workmanship; the later examples of this art are simple utilitarian objects. The carving of representations of deities and spirits disappeared completely; evidently, as trade opportunities grew, the Buguias people abandoned several of their customary arts. A number of smaller neighboring villages, however, retained notable craft specialties, including basketry and woodplatter carving.