Young
Igorots today may not be aware that our ancestors practised
slavery. It was only upon the arrival of the Americans to the
Cordillera highlands in the early 1900’s that the practice was abolished. All
slaves were then set free.
Among the Ibaloys of Benguet, the rich and influential
families kept slaves who did the menial jobs for them. These slaves
were sold to them by traders who kidnapped boys or girls coming from other
tribes in the Cordilleras. These slaves were not usually treated
well. An old Ibaloy testified that when he was a boy, he saw a man
beating his slave with a wooden club so badly that the slave became
unconscious. The man showed no remorse for his deed. It
was not unusual then that slaves often ran away from their owners.
Slavery was not a good aspect of the old Igorot
culture. While we highlight the good aspects in our culture, let us
not deny that there were bad ones too. These ones needed to be
removed or changed. We need to keep in mind that human culture is
not perfect, and so it needs a constant purification in order to express the
best in people!
For us Christians, culture is purified by the
Gospel. Jesus taught us that God is the loving Father of all, and
that we ought to love one another as he has loved us. Jesus
witnessed to the value of each person by giving his life for each one of
us. Anything then in our culture that falls short of this Gospel
truth need to be purified!
If we have discerned the good and bad aspects in the old
Igorot culture, we need to do the same today. In the contemporary
culture we are immersed, what is in consonance with the Gospel and what is
not? We must continuously discern, purifying today’s culture and
aligning it with the Gospel!
No comments:
Post a Comment