Earlier, when we blogged about a video documentary on Igorot soldiers during World War II, we wondered why the producers were giving special mention to Benguet. We denied being nitpicky then but maybe we actually were. (But we also had a point, he he.) Well, this is what we said:
Not to be nitpicky but what’s up with Benguet being specially mentioned? I’m sure there’s a reason but the video didn’t clarify. Did the then sub-province have more soldiers in this particular infantry regiment? Or is the video specifically directed to a Benguet audience?
Here’s a video of our Tingguian/Itneg kailiyans dancing one of several courtship dances in the Cordilleras. Maybe our Itneg readers, kung meron man, can tell us the name of this dance. Kankanaeys (at least those in Sagada) have a similar dance and we call it “palakis”. [Tama ba ako, Pagano? Di ba this is palakis?]
I’m pretty sure those coming from other parts of the Cordillera, have a dance similar to this but would have a different name for it. So our different names for this dance and the different variations of it would be an example of what Dan Peckley was talking about regarding iCordilleras being diverse and yet having a common thread that binds us. So here’s a question, do you have a dance similar to this? If so, what do you call it?
Our friends from the left will be celebrating Cordillera Day in Baguio City on 23-24 April. As you may already know, Cordillera Day was used to be called Macli-ing Dulag Day because it was initially held to commemorate the death of the man who led the people’s opposition to the Chico River Dam. [You may want to read our brief posts about Dulag here and here.]
Our good friends Pagano and Gandang Igorota wrote very interesting comments to our earlier posts on bird banding and bird catching so I decided to publish their comments here so that those who do not read the comments section will not miss the wit of our commenters and the information they add to this topic.