Fragments of Time

It was an audacious task selecting 100 rare images of the Cordilleras, from the north of Luzon-Abra, Kalinga-Apayao, Bontoc, Ifugao-to Benguet in the south, for an exhibition that reveals a rich past

- John L. Silva

An Igorot woman weaving on a loom, a Tinguian wedding dance, a group of wealthy Kalinga women exquisitely dressed in patterned fabric and heavy brass ornaments, two Bontoc men posed for anthropological study, an elevate thatched hut, views of old Bontoc town, the expanse of rice terraces and many others capture a slice of daily life, traditions, and architecture at the turn of the 20th century until 1925.

The exhibition curator, Jonathan Best, senior consultant to the Ortigas Library, chose photographs from the library’s collection, his own, and from several other collectors. He had guidelines for what were to be included in the exhibition. Dogs herded to market to be purchased, dogs to be eaten and anything to do with headhunting, gruesome headless bodies and the like were not in the selection pool.

The mostly foreign photographers weighed down with bulky cameras, instruments and fragile chemicals trekked or rode horses up the mountains to capture images, some harbouring thoughts of proving savagery and therefore Christian conversion, or the need for civilising, or just snapping amusing travel photos of “fascinating” people.

The selected exhibition photographs were digitised and blown-up, matted and framed, each bubble wrapped and gingerly packed in the back of two vehicles, and off they went in May this year on a ten-hour zig-zag mountain ride to St Mary’s School in Sagada, Bontoc.

Sagada is a bucolic mountain town that Episcopalian missionaries came upon and settled in during the early 1900s. With the help of Japanese stone masons and carpenters, a small distinctive church on a ridge was built surrounded by native thatched huts.