The Geography of Religion
The ideological standoff between Paganism and Christianity throughout Benguet is reflected in a patchwork pattern of religious affiliation. Most southern Cordilleran regions are of mixed Pagan and Christian population, with some dominated by the former religion, others by the latter. Christianity has made more headway in southern Benguet than in the north, yet distinct pockets of Paganism persist throughout the south. Significantly, several of these lie in the political and commercial core of the province. The provincial capital, La Trinidad, has an especially strong Pagan community,
and its manbunungs are noted for their conservatism. Bekkel, a small village on the outskirts of Baguio, originally settled by Buguias immigrants, is also strongly Pagan. In many of the small gold-mining communities of the middle Agno Valley, miners observe both Christian and traditional rituals.[2] Catholicism, however, predominates in many of the larger but more isolated Ibaloi villages; Kabayan Central, for example, no longer even supports a single practicing manbunung.
Several remote Ibaloi communities have retained a Pagan orientation, but with markedly simplified practices. This appears to be largely a matter of economics. Throughout Benguet, the prewar bases of wealth (cattle raising, mining, and trade) never reemerged after the war, undermining the elites' ability to finance large ceremonies. Only where commercial vegetables provided wealth could the pedit persist. Many Ibaloi villages saw their last graded prestige feast shortly after the war (see, for example, Barnett 1969: 292), although lesser rituals, such as the memorial service, continue to be observed. A similar movement is apparent in some Kankana-ey districts of northern Benguet, where the more isolated villages, cut off from commercial farming, have lost their ability to support large feasts. Some have turned en masse to Christianity. In Bakun Central, for instance, wholesale conversions to Protestantism and Catholicism occurred in the 1960s (Tauchmann 1974). In Kibungan Central—according to Buguias residents—Paganism remains strong, but it has been refocused on curative rituals as pedit has been abandoned. This tendency is the reverse of that present in Buguias Paganism, where it is curative rituals that are now losing favor.
Along the Mountain Trail within Buguias municipality, diverse practices coexist. Some villages have largely converted to Christianity, but most show a rough split between Pagans and Christians. Voss (1983: 229), for example, found that in Buguias municipality's roadside communities some 52 percent of individuals performed Pagan rituals.
Expensive Pagan ceremonies are less frequent along the Mountain Trail than in Buguias Village. The Mountain Trail Pagans actually tease their valley coreligionists for their incessant feasts. While the Mountain Trail's economy allows lavish ceremonies, its social milieu does not encourage them to nearly the same extent as does
that of the adjacent Agno Valley. The highway villages, having sprouted after the war, did not inherit the intricate religious structure that has been transferred from one generation of elders to the next in long-settled areas. Nor was the geographic structure of "ritual congregations" (traditional village units around which all large rituals are organized) reproduced fully in these new communities. To a large extent, postwar migrants to the Mountain Trail found themselves freed from the dictates of an established elite and a council of elders.
But as prosperous farmers have emerged along the Mountain Trail, many of them have desired to legitimate their wealth in the traditional manner. Thus a significant impetus to perpetuate the old system remains, despite the general relaxing of ritual standards. Indeed, some Buguias residents claim that in the past several years prestige feasts have increased along the ridge, as farmers seek confirmation of their social positions while trying to manipulate the flow of luck. But lacking the strictures of the more conservative Paganism of Buguias Village, successful Mountain Trail residents often try to skip stages in the pedit sequence so they can more quickly rise. The Buguias priests, who often officiate here, generally disapprove of such shortcuts, but sometimes countenance them under the circumstances.
The Eastern Frontier
A distinct religious character marks the villages along the vegetable frontier east of Buguias, an area not missionized until very recently. Owing to economic change, large-scale feasts, never frequent here, largely disappeared after the war. Still, most villages not yet commercialized remain primarily Pagan. With the recent arrival of roads and vegetable growing in select areas came Christian proselytizers, mostly from obscure charismatic sects, who gained numerous converts. Particularly significant is the rise of syncretic cults in this frontier zone. Although these exist elsewhere in Benguet, syncretic movements have had little chance to develop in established areas like Buguias, which are marked by both an elaborate Paganism and an orthodox Christianity. The eclectic faiths are rather concentrated where commercialization is most recent.
Several cults of uncertain lineage thrive in the villages of eastern Buguias municipality. One conspicuous group is Milagro (Spanish
for "miracle"), led by a "high priest" from a small hamlet to the east of Bad-ayan. Lay members also perform the group's characteristic curative rituals, relying on crucifixes and holy water as well as animal sacrifices. Milagro, like true Paganism, emphasizes the acquisition of wealth and the honoring of the ancestors.
Perhaps the most doctrinally complex of the syncretic religions, however, the Church of the Almighty God, is centered not east of Buguias but rather in Abatan. Its tenets are eloquently displayed on a series of needlepoint tapestries. The first, a calendar, indicates the holy days; the second illustrates the "Holy Family of the Three Kings" (the topmost monarch being labeled both with the Pagan "Kabunian" and the Christian "Apo Dios"); and the third presents an unusual map of the Buguias region. Lines representing "underground rivers" form the map's basic structure; some of these are indicated as running hot, others cold. Dots symbolize "growing stones," which are said to cause earthquakes when disturbed. The whole is crowned by the following message embroidered in English: "Believe it or not it is true, but please do not say bad things about the Almighty God." That this small sect so emphasizes underground water may reflect the worsening water crisis that marks each dry season in Abatan.
Buguias as a Center of Modern Paganism
Buguias is now the intellectual and ritual center of southern Cordilleran Paganism. The community no longer supports a practicing spirit medium; for this particular service Buguias residents must travel to Paoay (in Atok municipality), where the southern Cordillera's most famous mansib-ok resides. But as amply attested not only by local residents but by outsiders as well, the all-important pedit feasts, as well as other ritual events, are celebrated here more frequently and by a greater proportion of the populace than in any other Benguet community (see map 10). Moreover, Pagan ideology, especially as it theorizes the relationship between wealth acquisition and propitiating the ancestors, is most explicitly and fully articulated by the mankotoms of Buguias. Indeed, even a few of the leading Christians proudly claim that only in their community does Paganism retain both its traditional spirit and its lavish forms.
Buguias's Paganism is in some respects unique, having evolved
Map 10.
Prestige Feasts Held in Buguias between January and July 1986.
in a direction independent of the traditional religious systems of other southern Cordilleran communities. Among the (once) culturally dominant Ibaloi, the graded prestige feast formerly allowed wealthy couples to legitimate their standing, but it was never viewed as an avenue along which the commoners could advance (see Pungayan 1978). The Buguias ideology, in contrast, holds that all persons may aspire to money and power so long as they are willing to follow the correct path. This tenet, which evidently emerged during the days of the trading economy, has been greatly reinforced by commercial farming. Paralleling this pseudoegalitarian bent is a decline in the position of the manbunung (priest) relative to that of the mankotom (adviser and prophet). In Buguias, the first merely performs rituals, while the latter is both the chief apologist for, and the grand strategist of, Paganism as an explicit ideology. Nowhere else in Benguet is this role so significant (see Hamada-Pawid and Bagamaspad 1985:110).
One index of Buguias's leading position in Benguet Paganism is the frequent employment of its ritual experts by residents of other communities. In June 1986, for instance, the president of the Big Wedge Igorot Mine Association in Itogon Municipality solicited the services of two Buguias manbunungs for a pedit ceremony. Buguias residents in attendance were surprised to find the Itogon youths unfamiliar with the complex procedures and in need of instruction at each step. The resident Bontoc miners were even more baffled, and they took offense on learning that they were expected to eat in village groupings. Buguias manbunungs have also officiated in Baguio City, in migrant Igorot communities in the adjacent lowlands, and on behalf of nominally Christian lowland politicians.