Dancing and Music - Notes from Guinaang, Bontoc, Mountain Province, Philippines

Abstract

All dancing in Guinaang may be broadly classified as social dancing. The people dance, they say, because they are happy and on the occasions when dances are held, there is a definite festive spirit, testifying to the pleasure which the participants experience. However because all of Guinaang social life is deeply interlocked with its religious life, and because much of its religious life is dependent on rites connected with the now outlawed practice of headtaking, the indigenous dancing may likewise be classified as expressions of religious fervor on the one hand, and remnants of tribal fighting rites on the other.