Would you like to write a column in The Tribune?
So I asked the little old girl. What about?
Well, maybe you could write about the Ibaloys
Oh well, maybe.
So here I am, and hoping to be able to help in telling the story of the Ibalois in a manner that will be of help to them.
The Ibalois today, compared to their fellow people from the mountains, or Igorots, are a much abused group of people. They were the people who owned the mines and the mountains in the land that became known as Benguet, they were the ones who. according to them, their gods chose to use the hills and mountains that have been included in the land now known as Benguet. Of course, they are not the only ones. There are also the Benguet Kankanais, and the Ikadasans, or Kalanguyas.
I say they were the ones who, according to them, their god chose to use the hills, and the mountains and the plains that came to be part of what is now known as the Province of Benguet. My mother said that the old people of Benguet did not call the lands they tilled their own. They ascribed the ownership of these to their god “Kabunian”.
And because they were the ones he chose to use the land, they did their best to prevent other people from getting into it and bringing along with them diseases.- They did what they could to prevent people from other places to destroy their improvements. (See also The book, Discovery of the Igorots, by W.H. Scott).
The Ibalois, or Ibaloys, or Ivadoys spoke and still speak Inibaloi, their dialect which, when pronounced by a shubdaan – smoking Ibaloi old woman sounds like “Nabaloi”, but is actually Inibaloi. Sometimes, they call their dialect Inikholot, or Inigodot with the letter “g” pronounced with a rush of air from the throat that makes it sound unlike “go” as in you go.
The shubdaan is a kind of leaf which the Ibaloi women dried, rolled and smoked. I used to help my lola dry and roll her shubdaan, and also to smoke it when she was not looking. That was when I was a little girl, and we still lived with my lola. I do know that when one speaks a word while one has a shubdaan in one’s mouth, the word one speaks get deformed somehow as when one says Inibaloi which ends up sounding like Nabaloi especially in a foreign ear.
The early Ibalois did do their best with what meager weapons they had, with some degree of intelligence, to send the Spaniards packing. For years, the Spaniards tried to get them to show where and how they got their gold. But the Igorots from the mountains of what is now known as Benguet foiled their attempts for more than 200 years. It was only in the 1800s that the Spaniards were able to get into their domain, and it was not because of the gold that they sought, but because of their desire to stop the Igorot s from getting their hands in the Tobacco Trade which was the Spaniards solution for funding their government.
It was in 1829 that the Col. Guillermo Galvey marched into the mountains of Benguet from La Union. His first target was the place called Benguet (now La Trinidad), a place then known for its large herds of carabaos, cows and horses and irrigated fields of taro, camote and sugar cane. Two days after reaching the place on January 8, 1829, he burnt 180 houses and departed because the villagers “were so hostile that he could not even conduct a parley”. From there, he went to Kapangan, then Kayan where he got hurt before reaching it, but pretended to be all right so that his men will not be demoralized. Thus started the attempt to make the Cordilleras part of the Spanish Colony, but they were not really able to do so as the Igorots sent the last governor packing as the 19th century was ending.
On his return to Benguet after travelling thru the Cordilleras, Galvey establisjed his Commandancia Militar there and renamed it La Trinidad after his wife. Galvey, “the greatest despoiler of the Igorots” died in 1839, but to date, the place still bears his wife’s name.
From her father, my mother said the place was called Benguet because of the foul smell emanating from somewhere in the place after the eruption of a volcano. The people referred to it as “shima khawad an ni eman benguet where the letters ‘ng’ are pronounced in the same way as in the ‘ng’ in the Tagalog word ‘ngayon.’ Other people have other versions of how the place got to be called Benguet, but I find this version plausible in the face of tales that there did emanate a sulphuric smell in the place after a volcanic eruption. The phrase “shima khawad-an ni emanbenguet” means where there is a foul smell. (To be continued).
By: B.T. Pistola
Oh well, maybe.
So here I am, and hoping to be able to help in telling the story of the Ibalois in a manner that will be of help to them.
The Ibalois today, compared to their fellow people from the mountains, or Igorots, are a much abused group of people. They were the people who owned the mines and the mountains in the land that became known as Benguet, they were the ones who. according to them, their gods chose to use the hills and mountains that have been included in the land now known as Benguet. Of course, they are not the only ones. There are also the Benguet Kankanais, and the Ikadasans, or Kalanguyas.
I say they were the ones who, according to them, their god chose to use the hills, and the mountains and the plains that came to be part of what is now known as the Province of Benguet. My mother said that the old people of Benguet did not call the lands they tilled their own. They ascribed the ownership of these to their god “Kabunian”.
And because they were the ones he chose to use the land, they did their best to prevent other people from getting into it and bringing along with them diseases.- They did what they could to prevent people from other places to destroy their improvements. (See also The book, Discovery of the Igorots, by W.H. Scott).
The Ibalois, or Ibaloys, or Ivadoys spoke and still speak Inibaloi, their dialect which, when pronounced by a shubdaan – smoking Ibaloi old woman sounds like “Nabaloi”, but is actually Inibaloi. Sometimes, they call their dialect Inikholot, or Inigodot with the letter “g” pronounced with a rush of air from the throat that makes it sound unlike “go” as in you go.
The shubdaan is a kind of leaf which the Ibaloi women dried, rolled and smoked. I used to help my lola dry and roll her shubdaan, and also to smoke it when she was not looking. That was when I was a little girl, and we still lived with my lola. I do know that when one speaks a word while one has a shubdaan in one’s mouth, the word one speaks get deformed somehow as when one says Inibaloi which ends up sounding like Nabaloi especially in a foreign ear.
The early Ibalois did do their best with what meager weapons they had, with some degree of intelligence, to send the Spaniards packing. For years, the Spaniards tried to get them to show where and how they got their gold. But the Igorots from the mountains of what is now known as Benguet foiled their attempts for more than 200 years. It was only in the 1800s that the Spaniards were able to get into their domain, and it was not because of the gold that they sought, but because of their desire to stop the Igorot s from getting their hands in the Tobacco Trade which was the Spaniards solution for funding their government.
It was in 1829 that the Col. Guillermo Galvey marched into the mountains of Benguet from La Union. His first target was the place called Benguet (now La Trinidad), a place then known for its large herds of carabaos, cows and horses and irrigated fields of taro, camote and sugar cane. Two days after reaching the place on January 8, 1829, he burnt 180 houses and departed because the villagers “were so hostile that he could not even conduct a parley”. From there, he went to Kapangan, then Kayan where he got hurt before reaching it, but pretended to be all right so that his men will not be demoralized. Thus started the attempt to make the Cordilleras part of the Spanish Colony, but they were not really able to do so as the Igorots sent the last governor packing as the 19th century was ending.
On his return to Benguet after travelling thru the Cordilleras, Galvey establisjed his Commandancia Militar there and renamed it La Trinidad after his wife. Galvey, “the greatest despoiler of the Igorots” died in 1839, but to date, the place still bears his wife’s name.
From her father, my mother said the place was called Benguet because of the foul smell emanating from somewhere in the place after the eruption of a volcano. The people referred to it as “shima khawad an ni eman benguet where the letters ‘ng’ are pronounced in the same way as in the ‘ng’ in the Tagalog word ‘ngayon.’ Other people have other versions of how the place got to be called Benguet, but I find this version plausible in the face of tales that there did emanate a sulphuric smell in the place after a volcanic eruption. The phrase “shima khawad-an ni emanbenguet” means where there is a foul smell. (To be continued).
By: B.T. Pistola
(Authority to repost given by Author)
Published at:
Volume 1, No 1
TNT, Baguio City, Philippines
July 20, 2014
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