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The Kalingas of the Philippines

The Kalingas of the Philippines came into the news a decade ago because they were threatened by a plan by then-President Ferdinand Marcos to build four large hydroelectric dams and one smaller diversion dam in the Chico River Valley. This was to be the largest hydroelectric facility in Southeast Asia and would have flooded 1,400 kilometers of land, displacing some 85,000 people, primarily of the Bontoc and Kalinga tribes. The Kalingas, however, have a strong religious bond with their land and believe that their well-being depends upon the ongoing collective efforts of the living and the dead, and so they believe they must remain where the dead have been buried throughout their history. The Kalinga attribute most illnesses, accidents, and misfortunes to displeased ancestral spirits, and allowing their burial grounds to be submerged would bring down the wrath of angry spirits and produce further disaster (Fay, 1987, 22). The Kalinga have a long history and have been closely examined by anthropologists seeking to understand their customs, laws, and rituals, and the current state of the Kalingas has much to do with the strength of their beliefs and their willingness to fight back when threatened.

The Kalinga are one of several ethnolinguistic peoples in the mountainous terrain of northern Luzon in the Philippines. In the past, the lives of these peoples were marked by feuds, warfare, and frequent headhunting forays, but since the turn of the century, head-taking has subsided. Occasional killings over feuds still occur, however. The kalingas have survived through the institution of the peace pact, for with growing Western influences, guns were replacing spears at the end of the nineteenth century, which would have led to wholesale slaughter had the people not found other ways of settling their disputes (Dozier, 1983, 1).

The Kalinga are organized around three subcultural areas based on geography--the southern, eastern, and ...

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The Kalingas of the Philippines. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 09:10, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690464.html