Art of Traditions, Culture and Life of the Igorots Found at Burnham Park (Part 2)

On the other side of the structure, it shows the traditional source of living of the Igorot people and their kinds of works.

Agamang(storage room)
Designed like a little house if it was built outside the house to store rice grains not yet pounded but ready to remove the husks. This is no longer found since houses became large nowadays and people no longer need to store rice harvests. Rice millers already does the job of removing the shells of the grains of rice.

Rice terraces
Farming is one of the major sources of food of the Igorots as depicted by the rice fields they made at the steep sides of the mountains creating a “Step-like views.” This can still be seen in Sagada, and neighboring villages, but the most famous is the Banawe rice terraces.

Bayo(Pounding of rice)
One can see a woman holding rounded piece of wood and a lusong(either made up of stone or trunk of wood with a chiseled hole at the center) in front of her. This is the old time way to husk or removing the skin of grains of rice. Two people can do the work by alternating in striking the hole of the lusong to remove the husks of the rice grains inside.

Abe’/abel(waving)
This was the old time manual practice of making warm blankets, sweaters, bakget for women, bahag(G-string) for men, using specially made pieces of wood. Some are still doing this method and it requires great skill, and more than patience. This is picture by the woman sitting with a long material in front of her.

Wood Carving
The Igorots are also very good in wood carving and the people of Ifugao are the most prolific about it.

As shown by the other images, man and woman are gathering sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes also make up one of their major food.

Another image also illustrates the way people carry their food as shown by a woman carrying a waved basket hanging on her forehead.

The kind of houses is also shown which roof is made up of cogon grass. Mostly the house already has in it the agamang as describe in number one.

Did you read part 1 of Art of Traditions, Culture and Life of the Igorots Found at Burnham Park (Part 1)