It was a beautiful day and we’ve just finished trekking around the most beautiful rice terraces of the world, protected as a UNESCO heritage site in the unspoiled region of Hapao. It is here where meat-eating plants grow and where endemic orchids flourish, with thousands of rice fields in florescent green brightly blaze on terraces. A trekking to remember! And when I thought that’s the high point of my stay, a local priest surprises me. He’s a descendent of the famous Ifugao tribe that build these rice terraces over two thousand years ago.
In the evening you will get an Ifugao name that will stay with you forever, binding you with this place. Bring a chicken, some gin and wine – he told me – and leave the rest to me. The moment of dressing me up in traditional entire, with a few centuries old cotton belt around my waste – an irreplaceable accessory in all ceremonies and tribal competition – was nearing. A group was gathered and the ceremony started. First the priest called the ancestors by chanting mantras and had a talk with them, while looking at me. He talked in an old tribal language, which not even the locals understood. We felt the presence of the dead among us and the group became silent. Indescribable vibrations passed through us until he said: “the ancestors gave you the name CABIGAT.“ What it means is up to me and my actions in life, he explained.
Grad the chicken – he told me – it needs to be sacrificed. Many in the group started turning their eyes, for they didn’t want to be a part of that, but what to do: there was no turning back now. I grab it firmly by the hind legs and neck and it didn’t try to fight me. I thought I was holding it too tightly, but when I let go, the chicken was perfectly calm, as though it had been trained for this. It was as it was born for sacrifice and knew accepted its fate. Probably it didn’t know about the throat cutting. This is it, I thought. It was all quiet, except for the heartbeat and the sounds of the nearby river. The priest spoke to the dead again and walked toward me. He took the knife and while I held the chicken tighter, he slowly cut into its throat. I only hard the sound of the cut. The chicken didn’t resist, didn’t even make a sound. I felt the vibration in my hand, of blood, every now and again, squirting out of the open wound.
The blood was collected and the chicken roasted, but just lightly enough it stopped bleeding. Than the priest cut it along the length to get to the liver, kidneys and bile. The position and shape of the organs indicated the communication with the spirits was not misinterpreted. Happy and content, the priest himself could not believe the organs were so perfectly aligned. All he told me before the sacrifice was correct, see for yourself in the inside of it – he told me.
Now you are Cabigat, my ancestors will protect you everywhere around the globe, your family too, and you will live a long life and always be welcome here. Anytime you return here, you will find a feather of the sacrificial chicken behind the house. Next the whole group drank the wine and the gin from the same mug, as testimony they all participated in the event. Some were still a bit shocked until the ceremony concluded. We waited for them to boil the chicken. It’s not traditional for anybody to turn down the meat of the sacrificial animal. The ancestors might get angry and take their revenge.
The long bureaucratic procedure and expenses connected to it prevent me to enter this name in my personal documents, so I’ve given that up. Anyway, I became Cabigat and my new name will follow me for the rest of my life. My only task is, to give meaning to my name.
Cabigat - Senad Osmanaj
