By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
October is also Indigenous Peoples’ Month. So in this issue we discuss our health as Igorots in the Cordillera where we are the majority. Except for some growing up years in Baguio and Manila, I’ve been living here in the Cordillera since birth and I am witness to how our health, as Igorots, have deteriorated over the years. My perfect example which I always share in my talks is the case of diabetes. In 1981 when I first entered work in government as the rural doctor of the municipality of Bontoc, Mountain Province, there was only one person with diabetes and this person worked in Manila before retiring in Bontoc. This 2017, I couldn’t count the number of people with diabetes and we now have a dialysis center. There’s another dialysis center in Luis Hora Memorial Regional Hospital. This is clearly a deterioration of health, isn’t it?
Some people would debate this opinion, though. They say that there maybe diabetics before but we did not have the gadgets then to detect it or the people did not come to our clinics and hospitals so they were not diagnosed. To counter these arguments, I say that the tests for diabetes is quite simple and we had these already in the 1980s and even earlier. Just examining the urine and blood for sugar is enough. And diabetes is a long playing disease and would manifest in very dramatic ways that people in the community would talk about it for generations – like blindness, nonhealing wounds, urine attracting ants. Remember people in the past used arinola so they would see changes in the character of the urine. And remember also that people in the past had very good memory because they relied on memory, not laptops, for survival. High blood pressure also is another long playing condition and stroke is such a very visible condition so, again, if you ask history of stroke in the family, you will find none. I suggest you take the history of your family while you have elders who know and write them down so you have a family record.
So why is our health, as Igorots, deteriorating? The answer is simple – we changed our lifestyle. We have adopted the western lifestyle, the global lifestyle, thus our diseases have also become global. There is an increasing of number of Igorots who have high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, kidney failure, etc.
There are two major aspects of lifestyle. One is activity and the other is diet. The indigenous lifestyle is filled with activities from dawn to dusk. Even before daybreak, at about 4 o’clock in the morning, the Igorot is up and about cooking food for the family and for the pigs. In Besao, we call this “men-linga”. In some households, they would have to pound rice first before cooking. This would produce the most nutritious rice – newly hulled, unpolished. Then after eating, they would go to the farm till dusk. There was no electricity then so the people maximized daylight. In the farm or in the garden, they would be doing all sorts of work. There’s no siesta in the farm except for some rest perhaps after eating. So all in all, people then would have 8-10 hours of active life everyday! At night, because there was no TV, they would be sound asleep. And life went on. Yes, there were rest days- “tengao” or “ubaya”- where they would have rituals for good harvest or for thanksgiving, but these were few and far between. Nowadays, many Igorots spend more time sitting down in school, at home, in offices, and in vehicles. Sedentary.
Regarding diet, the indigenous diet is simple and pure. “Pure” because there were no artificial pesticides or fertilizers or herbicides or hormones or antibiotics then so the plants and animals produced were organic. They were not contaminated. Foods were eaten fresh and in season. Straight from the Garden of Eden. There was no electricity then thus no refrigerators to freeze them. Of course, those foods that are naturally preserved like legumes and camote were eaten all year round. There was “etag” or “inasin” but only in minimal amounts. There was no market where you could buy food. You had to produce your own food. There was no milk or vetsin, artificial colorings or flavorings.
In those days of natural living, sugar was the “unas” and you can’t “o-os” one sugar cane plant in one sitting. Okay, there was “inti” or “muscovado” but when these were consumed, no more. Even if you prayed to high heavens for more, you will have to wait for the sugar cane to mature before you can mill them. And that was after one year. You see, God sometimes says “wait”. And if he says “wait”, he has good reason. A possible reason which scientists, including the general public nowadays, say is that too much sugar is not good for us . In case you didn’t know this, it is not too late to cut down on sugar. Too much refined sugar is implicated in almost all diseases and ailments – from diabetes, high blood pressure, fatty liver, infections like dengue fever, fungal infection, UTI, etc.
It is not only sugar cane that God gave sparingly. All sources of simple sugars are of much limited quantities compared to other organic foods. These other sources of simple sugars are honey and fruits. God certainly made honey difficult to get – the honeycomb is found in forests or far away places, high on trees, the honeybees sting when you try to get their baby food and honey is not as abundant as say, blueberries. Honey is also available only in season.
Next, let us see how God limited our intake of fruits. First, they are seasonal. So even if you like to eat mangoes all year round, you can’t because you have to wait for its season. Second, they rot quickly. Like you cannot keep bananas as long as you can keep squash. Third, they are small- look at the blueberries, the bugnay, pinit. Fourth, super sweet fruits like mangoes and oranges don’t bear as many fruits every year. Mangoes bear fruit every two years or if they bear every year, the next year is not as plenty as the previous. Look at rambutan also. For the previous years, we have been seeing a lot of rambutan in our friend’s garden in Paracelis but this year, they didn’t bear fruit. We really should be grateful to nature for taking care of us, even if we insist on what we like.
Here’s more changes in our lifestyle. In the past, there were no chairs except perhaps the low-lying bangkito. Thus people would eat just enough, as big as your fist. You cannot really eat much when you are in a squatting or semi-squatting position. Try it if you don’t believe me, this will not take a minute. Nowadays we have the chair that make us so comfortable that we could eat more that the size of our fist. For how long and how far can we live apart from nature?
It’s Indigenous Peoples’ Month. It is our month – to celebrate our rich heritage and traditions from ages past. May we discover and claim the wisdom of our ancestors!**
