Rural/ Upland

Indigeneous Group (CAR)

Members
Torrejos, J
Tadeja, J
Suarez, E
Sumaliling, R
 Philippines Upland Tribal Group

• Another minority, the more than 100 upland tribal groups, in

1990 constituted approximately 3 percent of the population.
• Over the centuries, these isolated tribes developed their own
special identities.
• The folk art of these groups was, in a sense, the last remnant of
an indigenous tradition that flourished everywhere before
Islamic and Spanish contact.
• Igorot is the mainstream, collective name of several of
the tribes in the Cordilleras (the political name of the
area is the Cordilleras Administrative Region or CAR).
• The provinces that make up CAR are Abra, Apayao,
Benguet, Kalinga, Ifugao, and Mountain Province.
Baguio City is also included as part of CAR.
 Ten upland tribal groups on Luzon have been
identified:
Ifugao
Ifugao is also the name of a province, one among six of the
Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR). It covers about 251,778
hectares of territory, 81.77% of which has a slope of over 18
degrees. It consists of 11 municipalities—Banaue, Hungduan,
Kiangan, Lagawe, Lamut, Mayoyao (Mayaoyao), Alfonso Lista
(Potia), Aguinaldo, Hingyon, Tinoc, and Asipulo—with Lagawe
as the provincial capital. The province is known for its rice
terraces that are found in nine upland municipalities.
Bontoc
Bontoc province consists of 10 municipalities and 144 barangays. The
Bontok cultural group resides in the 16 barangays of the municipality of
Bontoc and the eight barangays of the municipality of Sadanga in the
northeast. In Mountain Province, the Bontok comprise 12% or about
18,500 of the province’s estimated total population of 154,187.

Kankanaey
The Kankanaey people are an Indigenous peoples of the Northern
Philippines. They are part of the collective group of indigenous
people known as the Igorot people. A Kankanaey chief from the
town of Suyoc, in Mankayan, Benguet (taken c. 1904).
Ibaloi
The Ibaloy are an ethnic group indigenous to Baguio and the surrounding
environs, which include the majority of Benguet, the Pangasinan mountains, La
Union, and Nueva Vizcaya. The Ibaloy coexist with the Kankanaey and, to a lesser
extent, the Kalanguya in this area. The Ibaloy live primarily in Baguio and the
towns of Kabayan, Bokod, Sablan, Tublay, La Trinidad, Tuba, Itogon, and
southern portions of Kapangan and Atok—all of which are located in Benguet
Province's southeastern two-thirds. Kayapa, Nueva Vizcaya, is primarily Ibaloy.

Kalinga
The Kalinga and other Cordillera peoples are believed to have arrived in separate
migrations from southeastern or eastern Asia. The original migrants of northern
Luzon might have had a common culture, but due to particular conditions of
economy, water supply, population density, and ecology, cultural differences
began to appear among the northern Luzon mountain peoples, resulting in the
various ethnolinguistic groups: Ibaloy, Bontok, Ifugao, Kalinga, and Sagada.
Tinguian
The first occupy the village communities where there are also Ilocano
settlers, particularly the municipalities of San Quintin, Langiden,
Danglas, Lagayan, San Juan, Lagangilang, Peñarrubia, Villaviciosa, and
Manabo. The second are distributed in sparsely populated areas in the
highland country of northern and eastern Abra. The ancestral domain of
the Tinguian covers a mountainous region, which has four valleys and
four river systems joining up with Abra River, which empties into the
West Philippine Sea.

Isneg
The Isneg, also Isnag or Apayao, live at the northwesterly end of
northern Luzon, in the upper half of the Cordillera province of Apayao.
The term “Isneg” derives from a combination of is, meaning “recede,”
and uneg or “interior.” Thus, it means “people who have gone into the
interior.”
Gaddang
The Christianized, lowland Gaddang are now almost indistinguishable from
the Ilokano and Ibanag peoples of the valley, but the highlanders still
maintain a unique culture, including what is perhaps the most opulent
attire on the island of Luzon, involving plentiful beads and precious stones.

Ilongot
Revolves around helpful and dangerous supernatural beings. Illnesses
is believed to be caused by supernatural beings who lick or urinate on
their victims. Shaman preside over curing ceremonies, and spirits are
kept away by bathing, smoking and sweeping.
Negrito
Negrito is the collective term to refer to the Filipino Indigenous
peoples with a hunter-gatherer background, including the Agta,
Aeta, Ati, Ata and Batak peoples. The Negrito peoples represent
the most ancient civilization in the country, dating back more
than 50.000 years ago.
• Technically, the upland tribal groups were a blend in ethnic
origin like other Filipinos, although they did not, as a rule,
have as much contact with the outside world.
• They displayed great variety in social organization, cultural
expression, and artistic skills that showed a high degree of
creativity, usually employed to embellish utilitarian objects,
such as bowls, baskets, clothing, weapons, and even spoons.
• Technologically, these groups ranged from the highly
sophisticated Bontocs and Ifugaos, who engineered the
extraordinary rice terraces, to more primitive groups.
• They also covered a wide spectrum in terms of their
integration and acculturation with lowland Christian Filipinos.
• Some, like the Bukidnons of Mindanao, had intermarried with
lowlanders for almost a century, whereas others, like the
Kalingas on Luzon, remained more isolated from lowland
influences.
• There were ten principal cultural groups living in the Cordillera Central
of Luzon in 1990. The name Igorot, the Tagalog word for mountaineer,
was often used with reference to all groups.
• At one time it was employed by lowland Filipinos in a pejorative sense,
but in recent years it came to be used with pride by youths in the
mountains as a positive expression of their separate ethnic identity vis-à-
vis lowlanders. Of the ten groups, the Ifugaos of Ifugao Province, the
Bontocs of Mountain and Kalinga-Apayao provinces, and the Kankanays
and Ibalois of Benguet Province were all wet-rice farmers who worked
the elaborate rice terraces they had constructed over the centuries.
• The Kankanays and Ibalois were the most influenced by Spanish and
American colonialism and lowland Filipino culture because of the
extensive gold mines in Benguet, the proximity of Baguio, good roads and
schools, and a consumer industry in search of folk art. Other mountain
peoples of Luzon were the Kalingas of KalingaApayao Province and the
Tinguians of Abra Province, who employed both wet-rice and dry-rice
growing techniques. The Isnegs of northern Kalinga-Apayao Province, the
Gaddangs of the border between Kalinga-Apayao and Isabela provinces,
and the Ilongots of Nueva Vizcaya Province all practiced shifting
cultivation. Negritos completed the picture for Luzon.
• Although Negritos formerly dominated the highlands, by the early 1980s
they were reduced to small groups living in widely scattered locations,
primarily along the eastern ranges of the mountains.
 South Luzon Upland Indigineous Groups

• South of Luzon, upland tribal groups were concentrated on Mindanao,

although there was an important population of mountain peoples with
the generic name Mangyan living on Mindoro.
• Tribal groups on Luzon were widely known for their carved wooden
figures, baskets, and weaving; Mindanao tribes were renowned for their
elaborate embroidery, appliqué, and bead work.
• The Office of Muslim Affairs and Cultural Communities succeeded in
establishing a number of protected reservations for tribal groups.
• Residents were expected to speak their tribal language, dress in their
traditional tribal clothing, live in houses constructed of natural materials
using traditional architectural designs, and celebrate their traditional
ceremonies of propitiation of spirits believed to be inhabiting their
environment.
• They also were encouraged to reestablish their traditional authority
structure in which, as in Moro society, tribal datu were the key figures.
These men, chosen on the basis of their bravery and their ability to settle
disputes, were usually, but not always, the sons of former datu. Often they
were also the ones who remembered the ancient oral epics of their people.
• The datu sang these epics to reawaken in tribal youth an appreciation for
the unique and semisacred history of the tribal group.
Thats it! Thank you
and Good Day
Everyone!