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text by: Carla Ocampo

photography by: Wing Larase, Yo Muan & Lester Valle

photo captions by: Lester Valle

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“It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves… in finding themselves.”

- Andre Gide, French author

‘Twas all rhetoric to me… Until I met the teacher that is Mt. Pulag… and in giving her the guise of the quintessential maestra of Filipino culture — the ever-firm but loving teacher of eager students — I wielded the freedom to call Pulag, Ma’am.

And before she taught me a whole lot about myself, my human capacity, and my life, Ma’am Pulag first showed me things that I may never again see in another place and time.

SHE TAUGHT ME ABOUT BARE SPIRITUALITY

The mountain is peopled by the Ibaloi, the Kankana-ey, the Karao, the Ilocano, the Ifugao, and the Kalanguya (to which our guide Teddy Aguinse belongs).  Just how sacred is Pulag to these indigenous Cordillerans?

A vivid illustration is written by Charles M. Skinner, a turn-of-the-century American author who documented “Myths and Legends of Our New Possessions and Protectorate” (Lippincott, 1900)… of course he was writing about the Philippines. He recorded the Ifugao version of the Creation Myth, which went: [...]

http://weekendwarriorphilippines.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/maam-pulag-mountain-myth-and-reflection/