BAGUIO CITY鈥擯hotographer Tommy Hafalla once chastised folk dancers who performed a Cordillera dance draped in black-and-white blanket, because the woven fabric is traditionally used to wrap the dead.
Hafalla鈥檚 concern was not just the young generation鈥檚 misuse of old knowledge. Like many people who live in the Cordillera, he believes that these death blankets are some of the few items that help younger Cordillerans connect to their ancestors.
The distinctive blankets, called 鈥渂inaliwon鈥 in Kalinga, are still wrapped around the remains, which are washed and placed inside a wooden coffin.
In Sagada, Mt. Province, the body of the late community leader Lakay Sumbad Pecdasen was covered in a white woven blanket with a black strip in 2007 during what might have been the last ritual where it was propped up on a 鈥渟angadil芒鈥 (death chair).
Ritual feasts in Buguias, Benguet, involved people of various class donning blankets, 鈥渨hich would ultimately serve as burial shrouds,鈥 wrote Martin Lewis in his book 鈥淲agering the Land: Ritual, Capital and Environmental Degradation in the Cordillera of Northern Luzon.鈥
鈥淭he topmost blanket, 鈥榓lladang鈥, along with its five complementary garments, could only grace the community鈥檚 highest echelon. The second highest, 鈥榩inagpagan,鈥 was also restricted to the elite. The lower 鈥榢wabao鈥 could adorn the older and more respected commoners, but most common people were entitled only to the cheaper 鈥榙il-li.鈥 The poorest individuals donned only 鈥榖andala,鈥 a cheap, essentially secular covering,鈥 says Lewis.
鈥楳ortuary textiles鈥
Satin-lined caskets are widely used in the Cordillera, but mourners will continue to fold and tuck these 鈥渕ortuary textiles鈥 in their loved ones鈥 coffins to avoid compromising 鈥渢he relationship the living have with their dead,鈥 wrote Rikardo Shedden, a doctoral graduate in anthropology of Australian National University, in his ethnographic study, 鈥淭extiles that Wrap the Dead.鈥
Shedden鈥檚 piece was published in the September 2009 issue of the Cordillera Review, a journal produced by the University of the Philippines Baguio Cordillera Studies Center (CSC).
A CSC research affiliate, who spent 2008 in Torcao, an upland village in Kalinga, Shedden observed how modern funeral practices, the commercialization of Cordillera woven fabrics and modern education have not cut 鈥渢he immutable, enduring connection people have with the blanket in relation to the ritual treatment of their dead.鈥
鈥淥ne day, [my neighbor, Peter, a farmer in his 鈥50s] spoke to me of Korya 鈥 [who became] a 鈥榤irotoy,鈥 a fearsome spirit who at nights still comes to Torcao [wrapped in a binaliwon] in search of the descendants of those who had killed him,鈥 Shedden says.
鈥淟asting imagery like [Korya] serves to strengthen the connotation local people have of the binaliwon; its connectedness with spirits of the dead (鈥榓chogwa鈥) and the aura of danger it evokes 鈥 People consider it unimaginable to sleep with this blanket, and to wrap oneself with it against the cold would only be a portent of one鈥檚 own death,鈥 he says.
Shedden says people will not display or unnecessarily handle the blanket.
鈥淭hose who own a binaliwon will typically store it out of sight and particularly out of reach of children, who are the most susceptible in these communities to sickness and mortality. And it is not just more traditionally minded members of the community who treat this mortuary blanket with caution. Even younger people who generally dismiss their parents鈥欌 and grandparents鈥欌 old beliefs as 鈥減agan鈥欌 often speak of their unease at even looking upon a binaliwon blanket,鈥 he says.
In his study, Shedden says mourners will fold the binaliwon inside the coffin and speak highly of their dead, lest relatives 鈥渞un afoul of an unquiet achogwa.鈥
Last resort
In her 2008 study, 鈥淭owards a Christian Understanding of Ancestor Reverence in the Benguet Tradition,鈥 Leonila Taray, a faculty member of the Institute of Philosophy and Religion at Saint Louis University (SLU), says that 鈥渨here the imported ways do not seem effective, the tradition becomes the last resort鈥 in the Cordillera.
The study quotes the late Ibaloi writer Gabriel Pawid Keith 鈥渨ho observes that Benguet Christians perform simple or elaborate rituals to remember their ancestors, go to church yet call on the 鈥渕ambunong鈥 (ritual priest) to propitiate the spirits and ancestors, consult the doctor and take the prescribed medicine yet call on the mambunong to perform the healing ritual for them, and when faced with a series of misfortunes or losses, they turn to their deities and ancestors.鈥
Kalinga folk have gradually refashioned the binaliwon鈥檚 significance for other customs largely because of its association with death, Shedden says.
For example, a suspected thief was forced by Torcao villagers to undergo the 鈥渟apata,鈥 a ritual that makes an individual take an oath of innocence 鈥渨ith the strong belief that dire consequences will befall鈥 a guilty man, he says.
Recently, the binaliwon was incorporated in sapata 鈥渢o add an element of anxiety鈥 to the ritual, Shedden says.
The villagers Shedden interviewed bore no stories of the binaliwon鈥檚 origins except to state that the first cotton blankets introduced to upper Kalinga folk were binaliwon traded for sacks of rice.
鈥淪ome elders spoke of how people went to great lengths in the old days to produce cotton blankets,鈥 he says, citing the story of a Torcao family who exchanged its rice field for a blanket to bury a relative. 鈥