Sagada hopes youths will continue its traditions, crafts
Sagada Mayor Felicito Dula hopes their sons and daughters will continue their culture, traditions, and crafts and also pass the knowledge to their children in the future.
Sagada Mayor Felicito Dula hopes their sons and daughters will continue their culture, traditions, and crafts and also pass the knowledge to their children in the future.
Sagada "etag"
Photo by Aldwin Quitasol
Sagada elder Evelyn Bacolong makes sure of the right combinations of colors to come up with the gebyine design of Sagada-weaved fabric.
Photo by Aldwin Quitasol
Maintaining the authenticity of traditional weaved fabric.
Photo by Aldwin Quitasol
SAGADA, MT. PROVINCE — Sagada town people are celebrating the municipality's 11th "Etag" Festival.
"Etag" is the Igorots' (preferred collective name of the indigenous peoples of the Cordillera) version of the smoked ham or bacon of other countries. They usually select the belly and thigh parts of the pig, salted them, and store them overnight and smoked them for days.
Sagada Mayor Felicito Dula admitted that it is ironic that they are celebrating the "etag" festival every February of each year yet their supply of the preserved meat and the meat to be preserved is not that sufficient. He said the people who are making "etag" have to buy meat from outside Sagada as the supply is lacking.
He said that even though almost every household in Sagada have each own pigpens, they like other places of Mountain Province and elsewhere were also badly hit by the African Swine Flu (ASF). The mayor said they are still recovering from the scare.
Dula said that as the people of Sagada particularly the older "YSagadas" are struggling to maintain the tradition of "etag" production, he hopes the youngsters of the town embrace the art of "etag" making as they also continue the unique culture of the Sagada Igorots of values, dances among others. He said the young YSagadas should not forget the culture their parents taught them amidst the changing of times where modern gadgets and technology occupies almost everyone.
Sagada Municipal Tourism Officer Gloria Langbayan also hopes that the youth will have interest in continuing the Sagada's art of weaving. She said that the Sagada's weaving is being done by the older YSagadas.
She said that together with the members of the different weaving groups and associations of Sagada, they are encouraging the youth to learn how to weave and help in boosting the weaving industry of Sagada.
