BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya—The 2017 Bayongyong Festival, officially held every Aug. 3 to 5 annually, has marked a vibrant revival of the vanishing Gaddang culture in this capital town inhabited by more than 60,000 people today.
According to the town’s written history, “bayongyong” refers to the confluence of two rivers. The other meaning refers to a two-meter long bamboo tube used to carry water. Historians believed the town’s original name “Bayumbung” was derived from the word “bayongyong.” The Spanish friars spelled it as “Bayombong,” hence its name today.
The Gaddang indigenous cultural community is widely spread in the Cagayan Valley. Other known Gaddang-dominated settlements are found in the eastern side of Mountain Province and Kalinga, Central Isabela, and some towns of Quirino and Cagayan.
The Gaddangs of Bayombong are riverine folks who were known to traverse the Magat River from downstream to upstream. Articles found in the Nueva Vizcaya Museum trace the pattern of their movement from an old Gaddang settlement in Central Isabela, which is now Barangay Dalig-Kalinga in the town of Aurora, and then travelling upstream to the present town of Bayombong.
Gaddangs love to fish and hunt wild game in the riverbanks. However, their animosity with the inhabitants of the pre-Spanish settlement called Tuy, which is now known as the towns of Bambang, Aritao and Dupax, prevented them from moving further upstream of the Magat.
An ethnologue published in the website of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts says: “The [Gaddang] highlanders have maintained their unique culture, including their traditional costumes lavishly adorned with beads and precious stones. For instance, their ceremonial dress and ornamentation are some of the most elaborate and decorative; clothing of Western cut and commercial fabric are obtained from the lowland market.”
In the early ‘90s, Gov. Carlos M. Padilla, who was a Congressman then, initiated the Nueva Vizcaya Heritage Foundation to preserve the culture and tradition of indigenous peoples in this province.
Aside from the Gaddangs, Nueva Vizcaya is home to the Kalanguya, the Isinai, the Ilongot (Bugkalot) and the I’wak indigenous cultural communities.
