 |
|
|
|
| Story and photos: Kittikan Issara |
|
|
 |
|
Banaue is a small community inhabited by relatively recent migrants who have settled in the quaint town a little over 30 years ago, soon after the construction of a road leading up to this mountain area. Situated at 1,200 meters above sea level, Banaue occupies the middle part of the Grand Cordillera Mountain Range in northern Luzon, which is the biggest grouping of over 7,000 islands in the Philippines. The entire mountain range has also been home to different hill tribes for over 3,000 years, including the Ifugao, the largest and most well-known. |
|
 |
|
Besides being known for their military successes against the Spanish during over 300 years of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines, and their ruthless practice of dismembering their enemies' heads, the Ifugao are also famed for their agricultural prowess, the product of which has been, stairs of rice fields that cover an area of over 3,000 cubic kilometers, situated at between 1,500 - 3,000 meters above sea level. This official seventh wonder of the world, declared part of our world heritage by UNESCO in 1996, stretches out an incredible 23,000 kilometers (if the length of each individual staircase of rice field were to be attached from head to toe), which equals half the distance around the earth, or ten times the length of the Great Wall of China. |
|
 |
|
Whether the consistent fertility of the unusually placed, gargantuan rice fields are a reflection of the Ifugao's - formerly more animist, less Christian - faith, their successful efforts at funneling water from the Chico river on top of the mountain range, or simply a matter of luck and circumstance is up for individual interpretation. The undisputed fact is its value, not only as simply, a source of food and revenue, but also as a celebration of human ingenuity. |
|
| |
|
|
|
