Sagada Feasts and Countryside Living

Getting away from the crowded streets, the pollution and the stressful ambiance of the metropolis is as easy as eating pie. Sagada is just a drive away to avail of an escapade that regenerates strength and life excitement.

Sagada is a small town isolated from the city noise in Mountain Province. It is populated with Christian Igorots, who combine their rich tradition with Anglican Christian feasts.

In the first week of February, Etag Festival gathers all Sagada people to pay tribute to their tradition of salting and smoking pork. The young festival also showcases others rituals that Igorot forefathers started centuries ago.

Demang, Sagada’s oldest village in the center of the town, conducts cyclic Begnas (or Kanyaw to other Cordilleran tribes) to bless the town villages with more wealth, more guidance and everlasting supply. The sacred set of feasts follows the major developments of rice farming season (rice planting, rice stalk maturing, rice harvesting and rice field plowing).

During summer (Sagada has its own 12-month calendar and every month has its own corresponding popular event), most new couples get married and receive a grand community occasion hosted by their families. The community people gather and play gong, dance, sing, eat and chant for a fateful marriage. Rituals are completed in three to four days, depending on the existing traditions in the village of the couple celebrant.  More than ten pigs are butchered to feed the community, but the community flocks into the house of the celebrants to help prepare everything for free.

When “Ber” months arrive and the air starts to grow colder, birds from the northern skies travel to Sagada to find a new home. Traditionally, Sagada people go to Mount Ampacao during foggy nights to catch some birds for food. They use lamps and nets.

The pouring rain brings free food. During rainy seasons, species of mushroom grow on the floor of Sagada woodlands. These are free to pick. However, one needs to develop a skill of identifying which mushroom is edible and which one is poisonous, for safety reasons.

Wild berries start budding and bearing fruits during rainy seasons. These are mountain gratitude and are free to be picked.

Sagada’s market day is on a Saturday. Crops are sold at very minimal prices. Corn, peanuts, legumes, spices, soybeans, pechay, carrots, cabbage, persimmon and other highland fruits and vegetables are displayed in the market, fresh from farmlands.

To celebrate Christian’s All Saints Day, Sagada people go to their Anglican cemeteries at around five in the afternoon. Masses are conducted to bless the chops of pine wood before these are lit up in front of their forefathers’ grave. Media organizations, including BBC, continue covering this exotic rite during the first day of November.

On Easter Sunday, Anglican devotees climb elevated areas when daylight has not yet penetrated the earth. They conduct a mass facing the east, while witnessing how the sun rises in the east. The natural event signifies the resurrection of Christian’s Jesus Christ.

Sagada living promotes a healthy and simple lifestyle. All people know each other by face if not by name, especially neighbors. They have a strong belief in “lawa” or the concept of “forbidden to do evil things”, so they trust each other. They have close family ties and they support each other during crises and occasions. 

In the old Sagada times, the unit of wealth is farm land or lot (not the money deposited in banks). From time to time, community events happen and staying in Sagada demands 100% participation to these events. 

Observing both Paganic rituals and Christian beliefs is not a threat to Sagada.

Sagada continues to be one of the nationally-recognized cleanest and greenest towns in the country, and a zero-crime community

Source: http://sagadaholidays.blogspot.com