![]() ![]() Today, many indigenous people in the Philippines who have gone through the formal Western educational system can hardly trace their ethnic identity. Children looked up to these experts as they grew in a community where kinship was highly valued. The Henanga considered it prestigious to trace one’s ancestry to a lineage of the mun-alon (arbiters), munpfuni (priests), mun-apfua-ab (skilled in invocation of the ancestors), montapeng (skilled in stone riprapping), and mompakhad (skilled in traditional house structure). ![]() Children were encouraged to know generations of their ancestors and to learn ritual myths, invocations, and technical skills. In fact, parents would direct their children to be exemplar individuals in the community as well as in the neighboring villages. Such desires were normally cultivated in the mindsets of children while they were shown practical examples of living and ways of generating wisdom and skills by traditional priests, arbiters, and their parents. This perspective can also be drawn from the way Ifugaos talk of their past life experiences and also in the eight volumes of Mayawyaw Ritual by Father Francis Lambrecth. This way of living is manifested by good harvests of palay and other crops, especially those that are planted in swidden farms healthy chickens and pigs, which are highly sought during rituals an abundant water supply favorable weather and a house and well-placed environment in which to live. Local people normally desire an abundance of resources and a healthy physical and mental condition. In the past, ap-aphochan chi pi’takhuwan was a phrase that captured a desired way of living in the Henanga community. The Ifugaos have long depended on wet rice farming and have developed a profound rice farming tradition. Known as legendary ancestors, their names are normally invoked during rituals. The Ifugaos trace their ancestry to two legendary figures: Pfukhan and Gwikhan. Mount Amuyao (approximately 2,780 feet above sea level) and Mount Polis, which are among the 10 highest Philippine mountain peaks, are found in Ifugao. Despite being labeled a fifth-class municipality, the province of Ifugao is endowed with rich vegetation. Culture and language variations subdivide this group into three parts: the Tuwali (found primarily in the communities of Kiangan and Lagawe), the Ayangan (found primarily in the communities of Banaue, Hingyon, and Hungduan), and the Henanga (found in the communities of Mayoyao and Aguinaldo). The Ifugaos are among the ethnic groups living in northern Luzon, particularly in the Cordillera region. Formal education, as promoted by the state, has contributed to the marginalization of indigenous knowledge. They thus perceive indigenous knowledge as obsolete or inferior. The Mangyans of Mindoro learn Western poems but not their oral traditions that have been inscribed in their famous ambahan poetry.Īs a consequence, indigenous peoples have developed an ideal type of human development in which Western education is core and is identifiable with progress or civilization. They study mathematics and the Egyptian pyramids are but do not know how their own ancestors built the spectacular mountains of pajaw (rice terraces) and the thatch-roof and nail-free wood houses called phalay in northern highland Philippines. Thus Ifugao students learn about Shakespeare but remain ignorant of their own epics such as the Hudhud and the Alim. Indigenous knowledge and learning systems have long been recognized as indispensable components of indigenous peoples’ education, but formal educational systems usually neglect this indigenous knowledge. A micro-level learning system as practiced by the Ifugao village of Mayoyao in the Philippines demonstrates how these learning systems relate to sustainable human development. Scholars have argued that indigenous peoples’ education needs to be built on context-specific learning systems. Such affirmation challenges how states and civil society look at indigenous peoples’ concerns and how indigenous peoples respond to these concerns. Some international bodies, such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, are currently affirming and promoting indigenous peoples’ rights to education. One of the vital concerns is indigenous peoples’ education that is discussed vis a vis human rights and policies on traditional knowledge. Even with the advent of international declarations and legal instruments that promote indigenous peoples’ rights, discourses on policies and programs affecting indigenous peoples continue to surface in academia and more proactively in international civil society movements.
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