Ifugao ArchaeologyCollaborative and Indigenous Archaeology in theNorthern Philippines

Stephen Acabado, Marlon Martin, and Francisco Datar

The relationship between archaeologists and thecommunities that they work with has often beentenuous. Establishing a strong rapport withcommunity members can be hampered by relativelyshort field time, limited interactions between theresearchers and the community, and unequal powerrelations. The relationship further erodes whenaccess and curation of artifacts are restricted,

ABSTRACT

Recent trends in the practice of archaeology have seen the emergence of the active involvement of stakeholders in the research process.This is an important development, given that the relationship between archaeologists and the communities that they work with has beentenuous, particularly when archaeological findings contest ethnic identities. As a case in point, the findings of the Ifugao ArchaeologicalProject (Philippines) question the bases of Ifugao identity. Ifugao identity is centered on wet-rice production and resistance tocolonialism. Previously, the dating of the inception of the Ifugao rice terraces was placed at 2,000 years ago. The findings of the IfugaoArchaeological Project (IAP), however, suggest that the construction of the terraces coincided with the arrival of the Spanish in thenorthern Philippines. Initially, this finding did not sit well the larger Ifugao descendant communities, but, as our article narrates, thepursuit to actively involve stakeholders in the research process resolved this issue. Our experience in Ifugao has shown that the inclusionof the voices of stakeholders in the interpretation of the past is inadequate because it suggests that indigenous stakeholders are simplycontributors to, and not co-investigators of, research projects. As our work in Ifugao demonstrates, primary stakeholders are nowco-investigators (exemplified by this coauthored article).

Una tendencia reciente en la prctica arqueolgica es la participacin activa de las comunidades de descendientes en el proceso deinvestigacin. Esto representa un desarrollo importante, ya que la relacin entre los arquelogos y las comunidades con las que trabajanha sido endeble, particularmente cuando los hallazgos arqueolgicos tienen el potencial de poner en tela de juicio las identidadestnicas de estas mismas comunidades. Un ejemplo de ello son los descubrimientos del Proyecto Arqueolgico Ifugao (IAP por sus siglasen ingls) los cuales nos obligan a repensar la historia y la manera en que los habitantes de Ifugao, Filipinas, se conciben en relacin a lamanera en que han sido presentados en la narrativa histrica filipina. La identidad de los habitantes de Ifugao est basada en laproduccin de arroz anegado y en la narrativa histrica que destaca el hecho de que los espaoles nunca los colonizaron. Anteriormentese consideraba que las primeras terrazas de arroz fueron construidas hace 2,000 o 3,000 aos. Sin embargo, los hallazgos del IAPsugieren que las terrazas se establecieron en una poca ms tarda que coincide con la llegada de los espaoles al norte de Filipinas.Inicialmente, estos descubrimientos no fueron bien recibidos por la mayora de las comunidades de descendientes de Ifugao. Sinembargo, como se ver en este artculo, el esfuerzo por involucrar activamente a las comunidades y partes interesadas en el proceso deinvestigacin resolvi este problema. Argumentamos adems que limitarse a incluir las voces de las diferentes partes interesadas en lainterpretacin del pasado resulta inadecuado, ya que denota que los indgenas son simpes contribuyentes y no verdaderosco-desarrolladores o co-investigadores de los proyectos de investigacin. Como lo demuestra nuestro trabajo en Ifugao, las principalespartes interesadas son ahora tambin co-investigadores. Un ejemplo de ello es este artculo escrito en coautora.

particularly when it involves ancestral remains.The fragility of the relationship is particularlyhighlighted when archaeological findings questionthe accepted history and the basis of ethnic identity.This concern requires an approach that will mitigatethe impacts of such research findings in therelationship between archaeologists andcommunities.

Advances in Archaeological Practice 5(1), 2017, pp. 111Copyright 2017 Society for American Archaeology

DOI:10.1017/aap.2016.7

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https://doi.org/10.1017/aap.2016.7https://doi.org/10.1017/aap.2016.7https:/www.cambridge.org/corehttps:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms

Stephen Acabado, Marlon Martin, and Francisco Datar

Increasingly, in the last two decades, stakeholder engagementhas been an objective of archaeological practice(Armstrong-Fumero and Gutierrez 2010; Atalay 2012:1; Lyons2013). Community archaeology, as an inclusive approach,promises to bridge the discipline with community concerns. Weconsider archaeology at the intersection of archaeological ethics,practice, identity, and empowerment. As such, a number ofarchaeologists have called for the active inclusion of communitiesin archaeological practice (Atalay 2012; Colwell-Chanthaphonhand Ferguson 2008; Marshall 2002; Sabloff 2008). This results in ameaningful archaeology for both archaeologists andcommunities (e.g., Atalay 2010; Brady and Crouch 2010; Lyons2013; Martin and Acabado 2015; Noble 2015).

In this article, we present a case study in which the communityarchaeology approach facilitated the negotiation between thearchaeologist and descendant communities. In addition, our casestudy supports the contention that community archaeology canbe a decolonizing methodology. We provide a narrative of asuccessful case in which the community had a stake in thearchaeological research. Their involvement enabled them to telltheir story (e.g., Acabado and Martin 2015; Martin and Acabado2015; this article). Our work among the Ifugao of the northernPhilippine Cordillera (Figure 1) challenges the received wisdom ofearlier archaeologists that their rice terraces (Figure 2) were asancient as 2,000 years old. The descendant communities hadpassively accepted this colonial interpretation from the dominantarchaeological discourse of the 1920s and 1930s, discourses thatbecame the foundation of Ifugao identity.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL MODELS OFIFUGAO HISTORYAnthropologists H. Otley Beyer (1955) and Roy Barton (1919)proposed the long history model for the inception of the Ifugaorice terraces (Acabado 2009:802). The long history model wasbased on Beyers (1948) waves of migration proposition, whichwas the first model to explain the origins of peoples who settledthe islands that now comprise the Philippines. The model claimsthat different groups of people, with different biological andcultural sophistication, arrived in succession. Underpinning themodel was a very specific racial typology, with each new wave ofpeople lighter in skin tone as the level of culture got higher. Thismodel posits that the first to inhabit the islands were thedark-skinned pygmies that he classified as the Negritos. Theycurrently inhabit interior mountain ranges across the Philippinearchipelago because, as postulated by the model, of their inferiorculture. They were pushed to the mountains when a secondgroup arrived, identified by Beyer as the Indonesian A and B. Thelast group, the Malays, arrived in three succeeding waves, the lastgroup appearing just before contact with Europeans. Thesewaves eventually were Islamized and Christianized. They settledthe lowlands, thereby pushing the Indonesians and the first twowaves of Malays to the mountains. The first two waves of Malayswere not converted to either Islam or Christianity.

The dating of the construction of the Cordillera terraces wasbased on this model. The Ifugao were considered the secondwave of Malays, who were pushed up to the mountains when the

final third wave of Malays settled the lowlands. Some historiansinterpret this model as a colonial strategy to instill amongFilipinos the subconscious need to avoid confrontation: that theyjust move away every time a new group of people arrives. Notonly does this theory propagate the idea that precolonialinhabitants of the Philippines peacefully moved out of the way ofnewcomers, but it also posits that all development in thePhilippines itself was due to external influence.

Recent ethnohistoric work and archaeological research show thatthe origins of the rice terraces were a response to Spanishcolonial incursions after the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies (Acabado 2009, 2015). The Ifugao rice terraces were apericolonial (Acabado 2016) phenomenon and became thefulcrum of an extremely resilient adaptation to Spanishcolonization. Pericolonialism refers to groups who were notconquered by a foreign force, but show parallel culture changewith groups who were directly colonized. Coming to thisrealization was a community process that engaged Ifugaovillagers as players assessing the ethnohistoric literature andrecent archaeological dating of the terraces.

A CONTINUUM OF PRACTICE: FROMPARTICIPATORY ARCHAEOLOGY TOIFUGAO ARCHAEOLOGYThe processes in Ifugao mirror recent trends in the practice ofarchaeology that have stressed the role of archaeology inempowering marginalized populations (Atalay 2006, 2012;Colwell-Chanthaphonh et al. 2010; Little and Shackel 2007;McAnany and Rowe 2015; McGuire 2008; Marshall 2002). Theinvolvement of descendant communities and other stakeholdersin archaeological research is invaluable, especially in cases whereresearch findings contest ethnic identities.

There is no agreed-upon definition of community archaeology,but Marshall (2002:212) characterized the approach as theparticipation and taking partial (or full) contro