By Joel B. Belinan
The digital age with proper usage can usher a much faster, cheaper, and can make the whole wide world just at the tips of our fingers. Last week, a Youtube channel got my attention as it popped-up the topic on the similarities of the Igorots and the Nagas (people of Nagaland, India). Opening the channel, I was surprised to see several episodes relative to the culture and life of Igorots. My interest peaked, however, when the Youtuber talked about similarities between people from thousands of miles away in India and that of our very own Igorots. This young Youtuber calls himself Freddie and titled his channel FDG, specializing in videos, skits, commentaries, reactions, actual interviews via video calls or virtual conferences, and short films relative to the Igorots’ life and those of other Indigenous peoples.
Having been a frequent traveler in the Indian sub-continent during the 90s, my first interest was on the episodes on how Igorots and the Nagas are very similar. I saw with my own eyes how the Naga people look like when I had the chance to visit Kohima, the capital city of the state of Nagaland in 1991. The body features, clothing, and colors of skin, of the two ethnic groups are very similar including their being minorities in their respective countries The Igorots are barely 2 million in a country of 110 million people, and the Nagas are 2.3 million people in a country of 1.3 billion (India). What was funny was Freddie’s further research showing the Nagas’ love for country music, just like us. Country music is American and thus we can say that Igorots’ love for this type of music was due to the American influence during the colonial period. Nagas, however, are not American colonized but British.
In another episode, Freddie was scrutinizing the Igorot languages. Anthropological research pointed at the Indigenous people of Taiwan as our closest descendants along with other South East Asian people including the natives of Hawaii, some Islands in the Pacific (Oceana), New Zealand, and far away Madagascar. Hence Igorot languages along with other languages in this country came from the Austronesian family of languages. On the other hand, the language of the Nagaland people may have come from the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. But while the two people may have come from different ancestries, there is no denying that both groups have several similarities.
In the episode about Igorot’s love for country music, Freddie was directly exchanging information with a professor of Anthropology at the Tennessee University, United States. In another segment, he was directly interacting with a DJ of a country music program also in a southern US state. And he shared his video call with a famous country music singer from Kojima Nagaland India.
My point in narrating these is to show how the digital internet technology could be harnessed to hasten research at a fraction of the cost.
Related to the Igorot’s way of life, and after a long period, I got the chance to attend albeit in just a couple of hours a Benguet Canao. This was courtesy of sps. Rogel and Florence Marsan and family which they held at their famous Cosmic Farm in Caban, Beckel La Trinidad Benguet. That family was my foster family for 10 years so I know the entire family are vegetarians. All their children and their grandchildren were born vegetarians. That however did not stop them from holding the canao in adherence of, and to respect, their customary traditions as required by their clan elders. My small group included Francis Hulanio who just retired from the Police Service with a rank of major, Police Lt. Col. Marcus Cacas, Engr. Manuel Diagan and my friend Dorothy Pucay who came home for good from the US and who had a great time attending the event. Canaos are now becoming rare events in the Cordillera due to the changing times. **
