Mummies Dearest

Who in their right minds would brave rugged roads (often referred to as "abortion roads" or, to quote an artist-friend, "mala-demonyong daan"), near negative temperatures (which even five layers of thick blankets and three layers of clothing couldn’t take care of), almost zero visibility due to thick afternoon fog that blanketed a whole mountainside, and almost tumbling down a steep cliff due to a landslide (three inches more and our jeep would have ended up in a heap of metal)?

Our motley group of writers and photographers, public relations people, a National Geographic Channel representative, mountaineers and guides plead guilty to such derring-do. The goal? Definitely not for mere fun. Our reasons were much graver (no pun intended) for we were looking forward to seeing the Ibaloi mummies in caves located in different parts of Benguet province.

The whole trip would take the group to two caves – Tenongshol and Timbac – plus a side trip to a mass burial site in Opdas Cave where hundreds of skulls were discovered in 1971. These caves are found in the mountains surrounding Kabayan (named after ba-ay, a kind of wild vine) where the trip began. Months before, a couple of experts from the National Geographic visited the caves to study how the ancient Ibalois mummified their dead for a special half-hour documentary on the National Geographic Channel premiering on July 2 entitled The Mummy Road Show. The Kabayan mummies are just one of the places Ron Beckett, a specialist in endoscopic imaging, and Jerry Conlogue, a radiologist, chronicled in their global trek to track mummies in such places as Kastl, Germany, central Italy, Turkey, and Lima, Peru, to name a few. Our group was to retrace the path these two researchers took and see for ourselves the mummies that beguiled them no end – minus, of course, the x-ray equipment and other hi-tech gadgets they lugged around during their visit.

With the members of the Cordillera Mountaineers Club and Northern Heritage Tours, we trekked towards the first cave, Opdas, located at Kabayan Central. The 10-minute walk on concrete roads and down stone steps, past houses and mini-gardens, took us to the residence of Baban Berong, the man who discovered the burial site in 1971. Now in his 80s, the pipe-smoking Baban could still recall how he dug out countless skulls and bones in a cave while clearing out a part of their land.

"I was planning on building a house and was cleaning an area when I chanced upon a small opening on the ground which turned out to be a cave. Little did I know that I would unearth hundreds of skulls and bones in there," says Baban, who surmises that a famine probably plagued the area in the olden times. Thus, the mass burial site which, after a series of carbon dating tests done at Tokyo University, is estimated to be anywhere from 500-1,000 years old.

Baban uncovered 186 skulls but he maintains there are more beneath which he just covered up with soil. Unfortunately, unscrupulous elements stole quite a number of artifacts. Now, there are only about 150 skulls left in the cave. Whoever wants to pilfer even just a piece of bone from the caves should think twice and remember a chilling story by Baban. It seems that a tourist from La Trinidad pulled a tooth from a skull and ended up in the hospital with a severely bloated face which doctors couldn’t cure. It was only after going back to the cave and asking Baban to pray to the spirits did the person’s face returned to normal. Believe it or not...

Next stop was the manmade Tenongshol Cave which can be accessed from Kabayan Barrio (said to be the site of the first Ibaloi settlement) via an exhausting (for city dwellers, that is) 15 to 20-minute uphill hike over concrete road, a dirt path, a small stream and over fallen rocks (due to a landslide the day before) and on a patch of grassy knoll. Overlooking a raging creek (yes, creeks in Benguet can be considered rivers by lowlanders), Tenongshol is a huge, three-storey-high boulder with holes carved out by ancient Ibalois for wooden coffins to be stuffed in. According to our guides, there are six or seven coffins in the cave. Unfortunately, the coffins are placed high up the boulder and the only way to reach them is by climbing a makeshift ladder. Nobody dared clamber up the rickety ladder and risk falling down the imposing creek.

Well, so much for our supposedly first encounter with mummies. The path to heaven is long and narrow, so they say. In our case, the path to the mummies was long and super-bumpy. No thanks to landslides that dotted – and blocked – our path, what was originally a two-hour route to Timbac Caves turned into a circuitous albeit scenic seven-hour trip that took us right into the heart of Benguet’s peaks and mountain ranges. In hindsight, while our bodies – and butts – were being battered by the rough roads, our minds and spirits were soothed by the majestic sight of either tree-lined (albeit sparse in some areas) mountains or terraced vegetable farms, our senses filled with the combined scents of pine and rain-soaked earth. The only fly in the ointment though were, well, the flies...hundreds of them, in fact, as our vehicle passed through the farms. Blame it on chicken dung, which the locals use as natural fertilizers, says mountaineer Rei Ann Cayetano.

The long road to nowhere, however, gave us a chance to process what we’ve learned so far. Our visits to the two caves, as well as to Kabayan’s National Museum where four mummies are displayed, opened our eyes to the impressive way our Ibaloi ancestors were able to preserve their dead. From what we’ve gathered, the Benguet mummies are said to be more than 500 years old and the mummification was done by the Ibalois, Kankan-eys and Kalanguyas. The practice, however, stopped when the Spanish came and while there had been attempts at doing the process as late as the 17th century, it slowly died down.

The mummification either begins shortly before or right after the individual dies. A large amount of salt dissolved in water is introduced into the body of the person supposedly to flush out bacteria and preserve the internal organs. The dead person is then undressed and bathed in fresh water before being made to sit down and tied on a "death chair" with the corpse’s palms either touching the knees and/or cheeks. Pounded leaves of the diwdiw tree (supposedly to tighten the skin), besodak shrub, kapany vine and native guava are rubbed all over the body continuously for preservation purposes. The body is left to dry under the sun and, at night, is placed under a low fire to quicken the drying process. A jar is placed under the chair all throughout the drying process to catch the fluids draining out of the body, for what purposes we dare not conclude. The outer skin is also peeled off by the elders and tobacco smoke is blown into the body through the mouth (the ears and nose are plugged to prevent insects from getting in). This whole process could take months, or even years, depending on the resources of the family. According to our guides, only the elite members of society could afford the mummification.

In contrast to Egyptian mummies, Benguet mummies are found with their internal organs intact and are placed naked in log coffins. What’s also unique about these mummies is that they’re in a crouching position. Due to the lengthy mummification, a mummy would end up weighing about two kilos on the average.

With all this information running through our heads while taking in the sights and sounds of Benguet, it was easy to understand the local people’s utmost respect for their dead. Kabayan Mayor Ernesto Matuday’s words, as he reminded us and NGC Asia senior marketing manager Richard Silaraks about the importance of paying our respects to the dead, echoed in our minds. Little did we know that we would be learning more when we finally reached Timbac and got to chat with Timbac Caves caretaker Musi Malsino.

Reaching a high of 2,710 meters above sea level, Timbac can get quite chilly during the rainy months. With temperatures going down to as low as three degrees at dawn, a person not used to this kind of clime could end up emulating the mummies’ crouching position. Over a dinner of pinikpikan and shots of tapuy and gin, we learned that Musi has been taking care of the Timbac Caves mummies since 1980 and, at the same time, tending over his vast vegetable and flower farms. The Timbac mummies, he says, were discovered in 1948 by his grandfather who, later on, would relate of hearing noises and voices talking, singing even, inside the caves. His lolo believed that these came from the spirits of the dead.

When asked about the fluid collected from the dead body, Musi said Ibaloi families keep the fluid under their houses in the belief that it would bring them good luck. "There used to be 30 mummies found in Timbac Caves but four were stolen. The last we heard, the mummies were sold to collectors and shipped abroad," says Musi who, at first, was reluctant to show us the mummies for fear of disturbing the spirits. He says he needs to perform an ibunong, or a prayer to ask permission from the spirits to open the coffins and show the mummies to us – a ritual that everyone would be witnessing early the following morning.

With temperature running low at 10 degrees and a nippy breeze hitting our sleepy faces in the morning, we followed Musi down the 260 or so stone steps of Timbac, gingerly stepping over mossy stones and slippery soil. Once in a while, we would glance at the magnificent view of Mt. Pulag to our left and have a quick yet hazy view of Baguio City to our right. The first cave (we didn't have enough time to see the rest of them for lack of time) was bolted by a metal gate and it took some minutes before Musi could open it. It was a small cave with room for only one person; whatever space left was occupied by wooden coffins firmly stacked in the cave’s nook and cranny. A solemn silence filled the air as Musi opened a bottle of gin, pouring some into a shot glass before drinking it. He refilled the glass and poured the fluid to the ground at the mouth of the cave while uttering a prayer in his dialect. One of our guides took out three cigarettes, lighted them and placed them on a rock at the cave’s entrance. All of these, evidently, were offerings to the spirits.

The mummy Musi brought out was that of a female in the familiar crouched position and mouth agape. Her skin – or what was left of it – was leathery, proof of a successful mummification. What was remarkable, though, is how the toenails were preserved.

A peek inside one of the larger coffins, however, made us back out for a second. It was eerie but, while peering over the opened coffin and meeting face-to-face three ancient mummies, one couldn’t help but feel like a trespasser. It was as if we were treading on sacred grounds and invading the privacy of these mummies. Well, in a way, that was what we were doing, though for quite harmless reasons. But we consoled ourselves with the thought that we were allowed to view the mummies by the spirits themselves even for just a brief moment, that we were there to respect the culture and did not, in any way, mean to wreak damage or malign anything. Maybe, just maybe, these spirits saw how we braved dangerous roads, ignoring physical discomfort, and taking everything we learned about these centuries-old mummies as well as local beliefs and traditions to heart, and decided we were worthy of the privilege to finally meet them face to face.