Kalinga - Part VI - Portrait of a Proud People

I'm not yet done with telling visual stories of our amazing visit to Barangay Buscalan, high up among the rice terraced mountains of Kalinga province.

The people of Buscalan may be materially dirt poor, but that they are a proud people with a rich culture is equally apparent. 

And, I must add here, their sincerely warm hospitality belies their history as ferocious head hunters.

Let my portraits do the talking.

Virgie was our able translator

Ti-A and her husband Charlie, barangay leader, were our generous hosts

Ti-A's mother kindly shared her home with us for the night

 Buscalan, Kalinga, 2012

These portraits of a proud people are my contribution to ABC Wednesday where the letter of the week is P.

I am also pleased to share with you (with his permission) this superb video put together by travel mate Jeremiah (shown in Part II with Whang Od). Jeremiah and his three friends hailed from Cebu, and all of us met in Tuguegarao for the start of our journey together. See Part I.

Whang Od from djsparechange on Vimeo.

Part VII still to follow.

H is for Hair in Huangluo

We were en route to the Longji Rice Terraces in Guanxi province when we stopped to have lunch in a small village called Huangluo. 

The village is inhabited by the ethnic minority Yao and it has become a popular stop for tourists. Hence there was an array of minority clothing, jewelry, artwork and intricate embroidery for sale

What makes this Yao village unique is that its women have the longest hair in the world. Really, it's been certified by the Guinness World Records.

We had no inkling of this when we stopped here, but just as we were finishing lunch, I heard a bit of a commotion outside. I grabbed my camera and this is what I saw: a row of women standing on the edge of the river modeling their long hair and how they style it.

By tradition the Yao women cut their hair only once in their lifetime, at an age between 16 and 18 when they are considered adult and ready to get married. The cut hair is kept as a headpiece and is twisted into their standard hairdo.

 

 

The longest of the women's hair can grow up to 1.9 meters (6 feet) and the average is about 1.2 meters (4 feet). Imagine washing that every day... in the river!

  

Seeing these women later in modern street clothes tells me the tradition won't remain pure for long.

 Longsheng, Guangxi, 2007

Location - the red bubble:

If you would still like to see the hair being piled up, there is a short video (not mine) HERE. I posted an earlier photo of a Yao woman HERE.

The letter at Alphabe-Thursday is H.

E is for Embroidery (again)

Decorating textile by hand with needle and thread may be a dying handicraft. Machines can do most of that embellishing work today faster and cheaper.

But in the Chinese southwestern mountain province of Guizhou I still saw a lot of amazing hand embroidery - often on attractive traditional ethnic Miao costumes that I must one day show you.

Today I share with you this intricate silk embroidered bell tower wall hanging that was being prepared for display at a local trade show in the provincial capital Guiyang. [Better seen enlarged, of course.]

Guizhou, 2006

If you are partial to exquisite embroidery, you can see my earlier posts about embroideries I found in Mongolia here and here.

The letter is E at Alphabe-Thursday, so hop on over and see what E topics others have found to post.

U is for Uuld

Before I went to Mongolia, I held the unmindful notion that Mongolians were all one ethnic people. I couldn't have been more wrong. 

There are as many as 20 different nationalities and ethnicities, and the aimag (province) of Hovd, where we spent most of our time, is home to as many as 17. Historically, each group speaks a distinct language or dialect and has its own traditional dwelling and settlement pattern, dress and other cultural features such as literary, artistic, and musical traditions.

Today for Our World Tuesday and ABC Wednesday - where the letter of the week is U - I introduce to you a warm and hospitable family of the minority group Uuld (also spelled Ööld). 

The family compound with a traditional ger (tent) and a converted 20-foot container is in the provincial capital of Hovd. 

 Hovd, 2007

We were first invited into the ger. There we met the extended family headed by the patriarch.

Ruth was on a search for unique footwear, but she was only shown modern Mongolian boots. The youngest two generations no longer wear traditional costumes and I wondered (as I often do) whether our globalized world wasn't losing some of its richness.

I asked the mother of the younger boys, "what do you teach your children to make them feel Uuld, as distinct from Mongolian?"

She replied, "We feel both Mongolian and Uuld. We have commonalities with all the ethnic groups, except the Kazakhs, and there is much inter-marriage these days. We may have different accents, but we all now speak dialects of Mongolian."

When we left the ger, she proudly showed us her vegetable garden.

Finally she invited us into the converted metal container. 

Ruth was slightly disappointed not to find her boots, but for all of us meeting this Uuld family gave us a special and unique glimpse into another way of life... yet really, how different is it?

Dong Bridge

Guizhou, 2006

This is a Wind and Water Bridge built by the Dong ethnic minority people in Guizhou province of China. I find it interesting that the first one I posted (here) ranks as one of the top ten viewed pages on my blog.

Linking with Sunday Bridges and Scenic Sunday.

Another Guizhou Bridge

This is the second bridge I post from the beautiful province of Guizhou in China. It may not be as unique or interesting as my earlier Wind & Water bridge; still the setting with the terraced rice fields is so serene, don't you agree?

 Guizhou, 2006

For Sunday Bridges and Scenic Sunday.

Q is for Quilt

Since 1920 when the Soviet Union annexed Kazakhstan, many families have fled that country to Mongolia. Today, nearly 12% of the multi-cultural population of the western Mongolian aimag (province) of Hovd are Kazakhs. Traditional Kazakh culture here is quite intact and differs in various ways from the Mongolian. Most evidently, they still speak their own Turkic language, but also the Kazakh gers (yurts) are taller, wider, and more richly decorated than the Mongolian version.

Several times over our six days in Hovd we were treated to warm Kazakh hospitality and enjoyed up close views of family life in a ger.  In each of the Kazakh gers we entered, the entire round wall was covered with stunning embroidered tapestries called dream quilts.

Today I show you the wonderful quilt work of one Mongolian Kazakh woman.  In an earlier post here you can see her open her gate to welcome us into her ger. These photos with her various quilts were taken inside her ger.

Hovd, 2007

Cotton and wool threads are used for the extensive embroidery work and fine plush/velvet fabric is then used to make a border typically around three of the sides. Not shown in my photos is that the bottom edges of most quilts are left unfinished. There are two explanations  given. The first is  that life does not end and this is expressed by leaving room for a continuation of  the embroidery. The second, more mundane reason, is that since the bottom is tucked under a rug, table or bed anyway, why  finish it?

If you're into quilting, the colorful details are much better seen with photos enlarged:

In this final photo you can see the quilter with her mother, daughter and grandson - four generations of Mongolian Kazakhs.

Linking at Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday where you will find others playing with topics starting with the letter Q.

X is for Xintan Drum Tower

This pretty drum tower is in Xintan Village, an ethnic minority Dong village in the mountain province of Guizhou in China. 

 Guizhou, 2006

This is linked with Denise's ABC Wednesday, where the letter of the week is X.

Little Mountain Bridge

Here is little stone bridge crossing a creek in the verdant mountain rice terraces of Guizhou province in China. In the distance, you can see a Miao ethnic minority village.

 Guizhou, 2006

Posted for Sunday Bridges and Scenic Sunday.

D is for Drum

These are exquisite reproductions of the Maranao temple drums that in the past the sultan would use to call his people to town meetings.

 

Manila, 2009

I found them at a native craft market called Tiendesitas, but they were likely made by traditional woodcarvers in Lanao del Sur on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The Maranao tribe, largest of the indigenous Muslim Moro ethnic group, is well-known and admired for their beautiful arts and crafts - weaving, wood and metal craft - as well as their epic literature.

The one question I had that I could not find an answer to is why they are called temple drums when followers of Islam worship in a mosque.

Today I am joining Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday where the letter of the day is D. You'll be surprised how many creative posts "D" can make.

Hardworking Hands

Guizhou, 2006

This silversmith, creating exquisite silver accessories to be worn by Miao minority women in Guizhou, has his own clever way to "mass produce" his handiwork.

Posting at Mary's Sepia Scenes, where you will find links to other interesting sepia images.

Organic Indigo

Today we take blue jeans for granted. But before the time synthetic dyes could be made to color cotton yarn, blue fabric was not always so easy to get.

Here in the poor mountain province of Guizhou featured earlier, minority women still extract natural indigo from the plant Indigofera like it was done before the turn of the 20th century. The indigo is used to color their beautiful ethnic costumes and other household textiles.

This ethnic Miao woman is in the process of extracting the indigo blue from the leaves... And I couldn't help wonder how long it would take for her hands to turn back to their natural skin color.

Guizhou, 2006

These images are posted for Alphabe Thursday hosted by Jenny where the prompt was the color INDIGO. Click on the link to see how others posted for the theme.

Minority Woman with Baskets

This minority woman crossing the footbridge may have been collecting the day's vegetables in plots across this river from her riverside town, much like many generations of her tribe before her. 

Longshen Town, Guangxi, 2007

Posted for Louis la Vache's Sunday Bridges. Click the link for links to may more interesting bridges around the world.