The mummies of benguet

Kabayan, Benguet – For many of the younger generation , any mention of the word “mummy” will bring forth in one’s mind scary images from horror movies: dead people stiffly walking, dangling gauze, dripping blood and with the motive of killing someone cursed to die.

However, for 35-year-old Ibaloi Juliet Igloso, “taking care of the mummies in the Kabayan museum is a profession that she is really proud of.

“Without them, we will not know where we came from as they are the best evidence that we now have on our origin,” Igloso said during the visit made by the Batibot Outdoor Club, whose members include this author, at the museum in this town recently.

She said that the museum formally opened in February 1990, but the structure was partially damaged during the earthquake on July 16 of that same year.  The quake created cracks in the ground, caused some of the museum’s exhibits to topple over and some of the mummies on display to fall on top of th each other.

In a monograph, Florentino Merino said that Kabayan folk had mummified their dead for a long time, and that it was only during the time of the Americans that the practice stopped.  The colonizers, Kabayan said, had stopped the Kabayan folk from engaging in the practice because they believed mummification was a health hazard.

Unlike Egyptian mummies, Kabayan cadavers are left with their internal tissues preserved and intact.

Merino noted that the process of mummification starts either before or after the deceased breathes his or her last.  During a dying person’s last moments, he or she is made to drink a solution of water with a good amount of salt.  In the case of a newly deceased person, the corpse is given the same salt-water solution.  After the body is bathed with fresh water, it is made to sit on a high chair, with scarves or clothes draped around it.

A low fire is then lit under the chair to help in the process of drying the body and to help preserve the tissues.  A jar is also placed under the chair to catch the bodily fluids that may seep out of the body; these fluids are considered sacred.  When the body has been rid of its fluids, it is brought out into the sun to hasten drying while the elders peel off the outer skin of the dead person.

During the drying, juices of pounded leaves of the diwdiw, besodak, kapany and native guava were rubbed very gently on the corpse.  Tobacco smoke was also blown into the mouth of the dead person to help preserve the internal tissues and drive out worms.  The “mummies” were then laid in caves, two of the best known of which Igloso identified as Timbac and Bangao.

Cañaos normally accompany the mummification process, which are rituals performed to appease and communicate with the spirits of the ancestors and forest spirits.

Historian William Henry Scott said that when a person dies, his soul does not die but becomes a spirit (anito) that then lives in the village, especially in the caves or rocky places where its former body is entombed.  This spirit, he said, has the power to inflict injury, sickness or death upon the living, generally the dead person’s own descendants.

Nature spirits, meanwhile, Scott said, inhabit stones, water courses and trees, and are generally beneficial or neutral, doing misfortune only to those who do physical violence to their dwelling places.

Igloso noted that the mummification was not really connected with the communities’ behalf in the Gods but that it was done more in the nature of the culture of the people.

But she said that the superstition attached to the mummies could not be set aside.  She cited the “strange occurrences” that surrounded Apo Annu when this mummy was taken out of Kabayan, and brought to various museums in Manila and abroad, like in the US and Europe.

Igloso told the story of Annu’s being stolen and taken out of the cave once, when a heavy thunderstorm and lightning, what locals call padu, occurred.  One of the thieves later died after being soaked in the rain.  Other stories have it that the mummy allegedly moved from one corner of a room to another.  Igloso said the strange happening prompted the buyer to return the mummy to the local government.

Kabayan is approximately 335 kilometers (km) north of Manila or 85 km northeast of Baguio City, which normally takes five to six hours by way of the Baguio-Ambuklao-Bokod-Kabayan raod.  It is predominantly inhabited by Ibaloi and Kalanguya.

The town was named Kabayan after a hunter from Tinoc, Ifugao.  Having lost his way while hunting deer, the hunter declared upon returning to his village in Ifugao that the deer escaped him in kabayaan, which is know to be a place where wild vines called bay grow thick.   

It is one of the towns that nestle on Mount Pulag.  Pulag, which means “bald,” is the highest peak of the mountain, which is predominantly grassland.  With an elevation of 2,930 meters (9,612 feet) above sea level, its 11,500-hectare area is within the Gran Cordillera Forest Reserve that stretches from Pasaleng, Ilocos Norte, to the Mountain Province.