Rice, Rituals, and Identity: Resistance and Maintenance of Ifugao Agricultural Practice

Summary

The shift to wet-rice cultivation and construction of rice terraces in Ifugao, Philippines has recently been associated with Spanish colonization. Previously thought to be at least 2,000 years old, investigations in the region have now established that wet-rice cultivation was a response of highland populations to the Spanish conquest at ca. 1650 CE. The shift to an intensive cultivation drastically changed Ifugao social organization that allowed them to successfully resist multiple attempts of the Spanish to place them under the colonial administration. Contemporary Ifugao identity is based on the narrative of being uncolonized as well as centered on wet-rice cultivation. Even when the market economy exerts pressure on the agricultural system, Ifugao families endeavor to continue producing wet-rice and sponsor rice-planting rituals. The persistence of wet-rice farming and rice rituals are interpreted as an active resistance of the Ifugao against assimilation to the larger Philippine society and conscious acts of maintaining their identity. Utilizing archaeological, ethnographic, spatial, productivity, and energetics data associated with wet-rice cultivation, this presentation aims to illustrate the continuity of Ifugao struggle against hegemonic cultures. As such, we show that resistance against Spanish colonialism became the foundation of Ifugao identity and resistance continues in the present.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20180