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HISTORY OF BIG SUR COAST

  A new dawn:              Locals had long called for a road along the coast to aid shipwreck victims and improve access to isolated communities.  Construction started in 1919, and 18 years, 32 tonnes of dynamite and 33 bridges later, the Big Sur stretch of California Highway One was complete.               The implausible route, with its myriad twists and turns and dramatic drop-offs, became an instant classic.  The author and painter Henry Miller fled to Big Sur in 1944 and stayed for nearly two decades.  Photographer Edward Weston and Beat Generation bard Jack Kerouac fell under its spell.  By the late 1960’s San Francisco’s counterculture revolution had swept down to Big Sur, and the likes of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell performed on the cliff tops.              ...
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AGRICULTURAL TRADITION IN BANAUE

Agricultural traditions:

Banaue Rice Fields


               All the while, in their partial isolation, the Ifugoa observed a precisely honed pattern of rice growing.  Building, flooding, irrigating and cultivating rice terraces on steep terrain requires an unusual degree of social cohesion, and water – sourced from the rain forests above the terraces – has to be shared equitably between farmers.

                Until recently, Ifugoa shamans called mumbaki were at the heart of rice-growing communities.  They led the rites to ensure the blessing and protection of the gods and spirits.  The rituals, where still conducted, may involve incantation and chanting, rice wine, the sacrifice of chickens and dancing.  Wooden carvings, called bulol, represent the spirits of the rice fields and are the focus of devotions.  Kept in the granaries, the bulol depict men and women seated with a bowl on their knees.  For rituals, dances and celebrations, villagers dress in traditional striped kilts and feather headdresses.

Precarious Future:

                 Traditional Ifugoa rice is highly prized for its quality and flavour, but the work is back-breakingly hard and profits are slim.  The terraces need constant maintenance, all of which has to be carried out by hand: the structures are too delicate for machines.  As young men and women have been lured away by the promise of easier lives in the cities, many terraces on the margins have fallen into disuse.

                  One incentive to maintain the Ifugoa rice terraces is that they have become a major tourist attraction – although, there again, many local people prefer to work as guides or in the hospitality industry rather than toil in the fields.  This landscape is in a critical phase with an uncertain future.  As Ifugoa elders point out, the deterioration of the terraces has coincided with a time when the mumbaki have converted to Christianity, perhaps thereby forfeiting the protection of their traditional local gods.


Location: Nueva Vizcaya - Ifugao - Mountain Province Rd, Banaue, Ifugao, Philippines

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