A Primer/Disclaimer to the term "Igorot"

Arguments presented here are not just mine but integrates those from relevant scholars in the field.

References, links, photographic credits will be posted at the end.

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"Igorot" as it is popularly defined in the Philippines, is the collective term for all ethno-linguistic groups that inhabit the mountainous regions of the major island of Luzon, the Cordillera Central. A term/identity that's been in question ever since the American commonwealth.

This term has invariably created historical, economic, and political tensions not just among the natives but within the entire discourse surrounding the mononational identity of the "Filipino" and to an "imagined" idea of a Philippine nation that germinated post-independence.

But let's first talk about how the Cordillera and the "Igorots" figure in the colonial history of the Philippines. According to William Henry Scott, fleeting Spanish contact with the Igorots and their failure to effectively colonize the region created a crucial colonial divide.

This divide includes the quintessential abject identity of the Spanish colonial subject, "indio" and the "tribus salvajes", a blanket term for all those outside colonial control i.e.: The encomienda and those outside the toll of its bells. This also aggravated the pre-existing...

lowlander and highlander pre-colonial barter relations. Simply put, the otherwise cordial relationship between the native Igorot and the lowlanders have been forced apart due to Spanish interventions in their frustrated/futile search for the Igorot gold.

On the elusive Igorot gold: Accrdg to Scott, In the 16th century, Spaniards have already occupied the surrounding lowland regions of Ilocos, Pangasinan, and Cagayan, leaving the Cordillera unconquered until Juan de Salcedo’s expedition to find the famous Igorot gold mines in 1572

His discovery yielded truth to gold reserves in the north that began a 50-year history of military expeditions where none of these established permanent colonial settlement in Igorot territory. The reasons for the failures of these conquests vary...

from the harsh geographic terrain and climate to the often exoticized accounts of brutish strength exhibited by Igorot busol, or headhunters. Nevertheless, these circumstances created further schisms to how Spaniards categorized colonial subjects into the binary Scott mentioned.

The "tribus salvajes" branched to the more specific term, "Igorot" as the Spaniards bared down on every successful native resistance. We clarify at this point that the term "Igorot" is NOT a term native to the Cordillera nor is it a Spanish term. Igorot, hispanized to ygolotes...

has local/native language origin. Scott cites Trinidad Pardo de Tavera’s discussion of the term “i” as a prefix common in Philippine languages that means “people of” and “golot” which means “mountain chain” that is also rooted in other Tagalog varieties and lowland languages.

At this juncture, the term espouses local and colonial underpinnings. Colonial, as it has been used by the Spaniards to demonize the "tribus salvajes," the savages of the north at every pulpit sermon, in every colonial journal and military expedition logs. Local, as the term...

merely associates how the lowlanders have seen us: people from the mountains. However, all these seem to be merely how outsiders/colonizers have identified us and not how we identify ourselves: Kankana-ey, Tingguian, Itneg, Isneg, Bontok, Ifugao, Kalinga, Ibaloi among others...

The colonial divide Scott argues gets more complicated as the price of being "unconquered" reveals its most dangerous consequences when the Spaniards officially ceded control of the Philippines to the Americans for twenty million dollars ratified in the Treaty of Paris in 1898.

Before we step into American Colonization, let's look into some notable Spanish/foreign accounts of the Igorot gathered and analyzed by Luisa Igloria ( @ThePoetsLizard) in her paper, “The Igorot as Other: Four Discourses from the Colonial Period” (1994)

One of these accounts was from The French traveler, Paul de La Gironière who documented his stay in the Philippines in his widely published book, Twenty Years in the Philippines. Igloria focuses on La Gironière's graphic portrayal of the Igorots, specifically the Tinguians.

He described them as "savages" who lived in small huts he needed to crawl on all fours to enter, and then leaving because of "nauseous smells." But the most interesting account was his description of a jar filled with a kind of meat stew taken from an Igorot he met on a trail...

He claimed to have withdrawn from it a human hand, and although he provided a footnote stating his “personal inclination to believe that the Igorots were not really cannibals," the effect of this to readers must have been significant. Furthering early Spanish exoticism...

There are no accounts, pre-colonial or otherwise, of cannibalistic practices among the many ethno-linguistic groups in the Cordillera. But accounts such as these conflate to the already problematic term Igorot, which Igloria rightfully concludes as an Othered identity/subject.

To Igloria, the Igorot has been reduced to the “hostile, lazy, barbaric, pagan and cannibalistic,” other, and slippages of this othering appeared in American colonial accounts that also persisted in contemporary fetish and fantasy I have argued here: https://twitter.com/thekervincible/status/1264816457789005829?s=20

Four decades of American colonization of the Philippines had the most profound impact on Igorot life. What the Spaniards failed to accomplish in the region, the Americans have succeeded through “subtler” forms of spatial and symbolic exercises of “benevolent assimilation.”

One must consider that the Americans have learned of their “new” colonial subjects from previous colonial accounts written in varying degrees of veracity from a myriad of colonial "tribalization." What is most interesting is how the they have adopted their own version of “tribal”

Basing what little they knew of the country, the word “indio” according to Gerard Finin was “frequently translated...into one akin to “Indians,” which led them to assume that they were basically dealing with the same “kind of people found in North America’s western frontier”

But the epistemic transfer of the othered into American tribalization became the foundation of succeeding attempts to "discover" the unconquered Igorot through one of benevolent assimilation's institutional forms, anthropology that has dangerously taxonomized the term Igorot.

Enter Dean Conant Worcester, colonial anthropologist, then a professor of Zoology from the University of Michigan. Personally, to even discuss broadly the contribution of this man to our colonization is emotionally draining. But for purposes of exegesis to the term, let's begin.

Now for those who need a more detailed explanation of Dean Conant Worcester's life and colonial intentions, you may read this article by Christopher Capozzola: http://visualizingcultures.mit.edu/photography_and_power_02/dw02_essay01.html

Worcester's presence in Cordillera history is noteworthy for the following reasons: first, he was the only member in the second Philippine Commission otherwise known as the Taft Commission who actually visited the country beforehand. This is remarkable as it is also stupid.

These commissions were designed to assess if the country is ready for independence (insulting in so many levels). One assumes that these should be headed by Filipinos. But here we are, the fate of the country in the hands of white men, appointed by McKinley. Worcester,bottom left

Before we get technical, yes there were Filipino members in the commission, specifically in the Taft Commission. However, their role, other than furthering American control, were perfunctory to say the least. And there were no Igorot representation. But let's focus on Worcester..

Other than the only one with first-hand experience of the Philippines, he was not politician nor a military officer. But he was specifically hired for his scientific "expertise", which he brought in the whole discourse of Philippine autonomy...

His photographic ethnography of various tribes in the Philippines, most notable of these are of Igorots that subjected their bodies into the frames of natural history founded on classifications of human physique that was characteristic of anthropological research back then.

However, according to Capozzola, Worcester exemplified unconventional anthropological framing in his photographs of indigenous peoples. Some of these include styles such as "The Yardstick" "The object/objectified" and the "Mugshot" shown in the following photos from his article:

Within these, are the exaggerated/exoticized captioning such as: “Kalinga man named Lauagan. This man followed us for three days with a head axe, constantly sneaking behind us and undoubtedly seeking an opportunity to kill us...” The veracity of which is questionable.

The proliferation of Worcester's photos in various publications became strategic visual tools that justified the civilizing presence of the Americans in a country at the cusp of seeking independence. These became the impetus for American education and its “civilizing effects”

Probably one of the most profound illustrations of the effects of othering and American colonization on the Igorot identity is the poem "Secret Language" by Luisa Igloria ( @ThePoetsLizard). Note how religion as well is crucial in feeding indigenous exotic fantasies:

As the Philippines transitioned into independence Scott notes an interesting piece of legislation passed in Philippine congress. House Bill No. 1441 otherwise known as the “Hora Bill” authored by Representative Luis Hora of the Third District of Mountain Province in 1958.

This bill is premised on the claim that the term “Igorot” including “moro” were derogatory colonial labels that identified these people as savages and uncivilized (Scott, “The Term” 234). The bill was quashed but raised important issues concerning indigenous identification.

The Hora Bill reflected a growing political sentiment in the region post-independence and from which the Igorot identity was beginning to take shape into a pan-Cordillera identity against the broader "Filipino" national identity.

Other than a distinct colonial experience, the separation of Igorot and Filipino identities came about from the political divisiveness that manifested in the rampant appointment of lowland Filipinos who had political connections in Manila to northern government positions.

This made the Cordillera an extension of lowland politics. According to Finin, having most of these appointees coming from the nation’s capital of Manila have ironically divorced the Igorots from the nation’s political processes.

To generalize the Cordillera indigenous population into the term Igorot continues colonial legacies that conflate to what the nation thinks of who/what the Igorot is, which are sometimes discriminatory but altogether uniformed/un-educated, perpetuating our colonial traumas.

And for us indigenous scholars and activists, to identify as an Igorot is a personal choice in as much as it is ideologically and politically driven. It is both an assertion and subversion of our history largely written by colonizers, which currently carries certain dangers:

These are merely the tip of the iceberg and I leave you to do your own research in this convoluted history of the term Igorot.

Many thanks for reading through this primer/disclaimer. Here are the references I've used and the necessary photographic credits: