This week was a wee bit interesting!
Earlier in the week when me and my companion were walking to the jeepney station from our district meeting, we saw a market building with smoke pouring out of it because the entire building was on fire in the inside... holy cow. The street was way crowded with people, either running from the fire or running to see what was going on, and it took us more than an hour to get home when it should have taken like fifteen minutes, haha.
But, the most exciting thing was the igorot sombaw. On Saturday, we were teaching the grandmother of the entire purok beleng, kind of like one of their elders, and she invited us to something called a sombaw, to "see what real igorot culture is." Here in Baguio and especially in my area, the people are igorot, which is the Filipino version of a native American, like mountain tribal people. So, we accepted.
Holy Cow.
First of all, we had no idea what we were getting into, haha, we being American thought it couldn't last for more than two hours, and if it did we could just politely excuse ourselves. Haha. no. It lasted a full seven hours, and we were essentially told by our recent convert, Sister Rizal, "If you leave... just don't leave. You need to stay." So we stayed because if we did we would offend the entire family, haha. About fifty members of their family, or clan as they called it, showed up, and then the pigs came. The eldest of their clan does a lot of council and praying and then after, the eldest clan prays over a pig about the size of a man. I have a video of it, but (with four men holding it down) the killer makes a small incision on the pig with a machete, and then drives a wooden stake into the wound repeatedly, stabbing out the pigs heart while it screams. Coolest thing ever. Afterwards, still a little bit alive, the pig is blow torched in the face until dead, the entire body is also torched and the hair scraped off with a machete, and the whole pig is then butchered, boiled, salted and eaten. It's actually reeeeally good, haha.
Kind of a cool week. And we got a new investigator while we were there! Enjoy the pictures!
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| The guy with the wool is the eldest in the tribe. He recites a prayer in ilokano before they kill the pig. |
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| Burning off the hair! |
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| After the pig has been slaughtered, the elders of the clan "read the future of the clan" in its liver. This one is supposed to be lucky! |
Feed your fire!
Ingat!
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