Skip to main content
Log in

The Archaeology of Pericolonialism: Responses of the “Unconquered” to Spanish Conquest and Colonialism in Ifugao, Philippines

  • Published:
International Journal of Historical Archaeology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Pericolonial archaeology investigates areas where European military conquests were unsuccessful, but were economically and politically affected by conquests and subsequent colonial activities in adjacent regions. By using a case study from the Philippines, this article focuses on the responses of indigenous peoples in the highland Philippines who appear to have resisted Spanish cooptation. The archaeological record suggests that economic and political intensification occurred in Ifugao coinciding with the appearance of the Spanish in the northern Philippines. This work on pericolonial archaeology shows that the effects of colonialism extended far beyond the areas actually colonized. More importantly, the investigations reported in this essay add to the increasing evidence of the false differentiation of the colonized and the “uncolonized.”

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Acabado, S. B. (2009). A Bayesian approach to dating agricultural terraces: a case from the Philippines. Antiquity 83: 801–214.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Acabado, S. B. (2010). The archaeology of the Ifugao agricultural terraces: antiquity and social organization. PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii, Honolulu.

  • Acabado, S. B. (2012a). Taro before rice terraces: implications of radiocarbon determinations, ethnohistoric reconstructions, and ethnography in dating the Ifugao terraces. In Spriggs, M., Addison, D., and Matthews, P. J. (eds.), Irrigated Taro (Colocassia esculenta) in the Indo-Pacific: Biological and Historical Perspectives, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, pp. 285–305.

    Google Scholar 

  • Acabado, S. B. (2012b). The Ifugao agricultural landscapes: complementary systems and the intensification debate. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 43: 500–522.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Acabado, S. B. (2012c). The 2012 field season of the Ifugao Archaeological Project: the Old Kiyyangan Village, Unpublished Report to the National Museum of the Philippines, Manila.

    Google Scholar 

  • Acabado, S. B. (2013). Defining Ifugao social organization: “house”, field, and self-organizing principles in the northern Philippines. Asian Perspectives 52: 161–189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Acabado, S. B. (2015). Antiquity, Archaeological Processes, and Highland Adaptation: the Ifugao Rice Terraces, Ateneo de Manila University Press, Quezon City.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aguilar, F. (2005). Tracing origins: Ilustrado nationalism and racial science of migration waves. Journal of Asian Studies 64: 605–637.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Amano, N. (2013). The faunal remains from Baguilat Property Site. Unpublished Report to the Archaeological Studies Program, University of the Philippines, Quezon City.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amano, N., Piper, P., Hung, H.-S., and Bellwood, P. (2013). Introduced domestic animals in the neolithic and metal age of the Philippines: evidence from Northern Luzon, Philippines. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 8: 317–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Antolin, F. (1970 [1789]). Notices of the Pagan Igorots in 1789. Asian Folklore Studies 29: 177–253.

  • Arnold, D. E. (1985). Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barton, R. F. (1919). Ifugao law. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 15: 1–186.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barton, R. (1922). Ifugao economics. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 15(5): 385–446.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barton, R. (1930). The Half-way Sun: Life Among the Seadhunters of the Philippines, Brewer and Warren, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barton, R. (1938). Philippine Pagans: the Autobiographies of Three Ifugaos, George Routledge, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beyer, H. O. (1948). Philippine and East Asian Archaeology and its Relation to the Origins of Pacific Island Populations, National Research Council of the Philippines, Manila.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beyer, H. O. (1955). The Origins and History of the Philippine Rice Terraces, National Research Council of the Philippines, Quezon City.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blair, E. H., and Robertson, J. A. (1903). The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898, vol. 55, A. H. Clark, Cleveland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blanton, R. E., Feinman, G. M., Kowalewski, S. A., and Peregrine, P. N. (1996). A dual processual theory for the evolution of Mesoamerican civilization. Current Anthropology 37: 1–14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blumentritt, F. (1882). Versuch einer ethnographie der Philippinen, Justus Perthes, Gotha, Germany.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boserup, E. (1965). The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: the Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure, Aldine, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of the Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1990). The Logic of Practice, Polity, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brumfiel, E. (1980). Specialization, market exchange, and the Aztec state: a view from Huexotla. Current Anthropology 21: 459–478.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter, C. (2008). Seeing Red: Anger, Sentimentality, and American Indians, The Ohio State University Press, Columbus.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conklin, H. (1980). Ethnographic Atlas of Ifugao, Yale University Press, New Haven.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cobb, C. (1993). Archaeological approaches to the political economy of nonstratified societies. In Schiffer, M. B. (ed.), Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 5, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 43–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deagan, K. (1988). Neither history nor prehistory: the questions that count in historical archaeology. Historical Archaeology 22(1): 7–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dietler, M. (2010). Archaeologies of Colonialism: Consumption, Entanglement, and Violence in Ancient Mediterranean France, University of California Press, Berkeley.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dietler, M., and López-Ruiz, C. (2009). Colonial Encounters in Ancient Iberia: Phoenicians, Greeks, and Indigenous Relations, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dillehay, T. (2007). Monuments, Empires, and Resistance: the Araucanian Polity and Ritual Narratives, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dillehay, T. (2014). The Teleoscopic Polity: Andean Patriarchy and Materiality, Springer, New York.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dozier, E.P. (1966). Mountain arbiters: the changing life of a Philippine hill people, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

  • Dulawan, L. (2001). Ifugao: Culture and History, National Commission on Culture and the Arts, Manila.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eusebio, M., Ceron, J., Krigbaum, J., and Acabado, S. (2015). Rice pots or not? Exploring ancient Ifugao foodways through organic residue analysis and palaeobotany. National Museum Journal of Cultural Heritage 1: 11–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernandez, P., and Juan, J. (1969). Social and economic development of the Province of Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines 1571–1898. Acta Manilana 1(8): 59–134.

    Google Scholar 

  • Florendo, M. N. (1994). Ideology and inter-ethnic images: Igorot participation in the revolution. In Tolentino, D. (ed.), Resistance and Revolution in the Cordillera, University of the Philippines College Baguio, Baguio City, pp. 73–92.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geertz, C. (1963). Agricultural Involution: The Process of Change in Indonesia, University of California Press, Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society, University of California Press, Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Given, M. (2004). The Archaeology of the Colonized, Routledge, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenland, D. J. (1997). The Sustainability of Rice Farming, CAB International and International Rice Research Institute, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart, S., Oland, M., and Frink, L. (2012). Finding transitions: global pathways to decolonizing indigenous histories in archaeology. In Oland, M., Hart, S., and Frink, L. (eds.), Decolonizing Indigenous Histories, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 1–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayden, B. (2001). The dynamics of wealth and poverty in the transegalitarian societies of Southeast Asia. Antiquity 75: 571–581.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horrocks, M. (2013). Plant microfossil analysis of archaeological samples from Trenches 6 and 8, Unpublished Report to the National Museum of the Philippines, Manila.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jenista, F. L. (1987). White Apos: American Governors on the Cordillera Central, New Day Publishers, Quezon City.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joyce, A., and Winter, M. (1996). Ideology, power, and urban society in pre-Hispanic Oaxaca. Current Anthropology 37: 33–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keesing, F. (1962). The Ethnohistory of Northern Luzon, Stanford University Press, Stanford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knapp, A. B. (1990). Paradise gained and paradise lost: intensification, specialization, complexity, collapse. Asian Perspectives 28: 179–214.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lambrecht, F. (1967). The Hudhud of Dinulawan and Bugan at Gonhadan. Saint Louis Quarterly 5: 527–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lebar, F. M. (1975). Ethnic Groups of Southeast Asia, Vol. 2 (Philippines and Formosa), Human Relations Area Files, New Haven.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liebmann, M. (2012). The rest is history: devaluing the recent past in the archaeology of the Pueblo Southwest. In Oland, M., Hart, S., and Frink, L. (eds.), Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions In Archaeology, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 19–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lightfoot, K. (1995). Culture contact studies: redefining the relationship between prehistoric and historical archaeology. American Antiquity 60: 199–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lightfoot, K. (2005). Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants: The Legacy of Colonial Encounters on the California Frontiers, University of California Press, Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lightfoot, K., Martinez, A., and Schiff, A. (1998). Daily practice and material culture in pluralistic social settings: an archaeological study of culture change and persistence from Fort Ross, California. American Antiquity 63: 199–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lyons, C. L., and Papadopoulos, J. K. (eds.) (2002). The Archaeology of Colonialism, Getty, Los Angeles.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maher, R. (1973). Archaeological investigations in central Ifugao. Asian Perspectives 16: 39–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mcalister, L. (1984). Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492–1700, Volume 3, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montano, J. (1885). Rapport a’ M. le Ministre de l’Instruction Publique sur une mission aux ıˆles Philippines et en Malaisie (1879–1881). Archives des Missions Scientifiques et Litte’raires, 3rd ser 11: 271–479.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mullins, P. R., and Paynter, R. (2000). Representing colonizers: an archaeology of creolization, ethnogenesis, and indigenous material culture among the Haida. Historical Archaeology 34(3): 73–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, M., Goychoche, E., and Cock, G. (2010). Resistance, persistence, and accommodation at Puruchuco-Huaquerones, Peru. In Liebmann, M., and Murphy, M. (eds.), Enduring Conquests: Rethinking the Archaeology of Resistance to Spanish Colonialism in the Americas, School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, pp. 57–76.

    Google Scholar 

  • Netting, R. (1990). Population, permanent agriculture, and polities: unpacking the evolutionary Portmanteau. In Upham, S. (ed.), The Evolution of Political Systems: Sociopolitics in Small-Scale Sedentary Societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 21–61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newson, L. (2009). Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Nichols, D. (1987). Risk and agricultural intensification during the formative period in the Northern Basin of Mexico. American Anthropologist 89: 596–616.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ogundiran, A. O. (2001a). Ceramic spheres and regional networks in the Yoruba-Edo region, Nigeria, 13th-19th centuries A.C. Journal of Field Archaeology 28: 27–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ogundiran, A. O. (2001b). Factional competition, sociopolitical development, and settlement cycling in Ìlàrè District (ca. 1200–1900): oral traditions of historical experience in a Yoruba community. History in Africa 28: 203–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ogundiran, A. O. (2002a). Beads, Cowries, and Cultural Translations of the Atlantic Experience in Yorubaland, 1600–1850, African Studies Center, Boston University, Boston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ogundiran, A. O. (2002b). Filling a gap in the Ife–Benin interaction field (thirteenth–sixteenth centuries AD): excavations in Iloyi settlement, Ijesaland. African Archaeological Review 19: 27–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ortner, S. B. (1995). Resistance and the problem of ethnographic refusal. Comparative Studies in Society and History 37: 173–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Palka, J. (2005). Unconquered Lacandon Maya: Ethnohistory and Archaeology of Indigenous Culture Change, University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palka, J. (2009). Historical archaeology of indigenous culture change In Mesoamerica. Journal of Archaeological Research 17: 297–346.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Panich, L. M., and Schneider, T. D. (eds.) (2014). Indigenous Landscapes and Spanish Missions, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paredes, O. (2013). A Mountain of Difference: The Lumad in Early Colonial Mindanao, Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, Ithaca.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patanne, E. P. (1996). The Philippines in the 6th to 16th Centuries, LSA Press, San Juan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patanne, E. P. (1972). The Philippines in the World of Southeast Asia: A Cultural History, Enterprise, Quezon City.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauketat, T. R. (2000). The tragedy of the commoners. In Dobres, M.-A., and Robb, J. (eds.), Agency in Archaeology, Routledge, New York, pp. 113–129.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paynter, R. (2000). Historical and anthropological archaeology: forging alliances. Journal of Archaeological Research 8: 1–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, J. A. (1991). Taracahita: the unknown interior of northern New Spain, in Duran, M. and Becket, P. (eds.), Jornada Mogollon archaeology: collected papers from the Fifth and Sixth Jornada Mogollon Conferences, COAS and Human Systems Research, pp. 69–87.

  • Phelan, J. L. (1959). The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.

    Google Scholar 

  • Record Historico. (1911). Del Settlement de Quiangan, Sub-Provincia Ifugao, Provincia Montanosa. Por el Segundo Teniente, M. Meimben, Segun requerido en la Orden Ejecutivea No. 2, Enero 26.

  • Reid, L. (1991). Terms for rice agriculture and terrace building in some Cordilleran languages of the Philippines. In Pawley, A. K., and Ross, M. D. (eds.), Austronesian Terminologies: Continuity and Change, Australian National University, Canberra, pp. 363–388.

    Google Scholar 

  • Regpala, M. H. R. (1990). Resistance in the Cordillera: a Philippine tribal people’s historical response to invasion and change imposed from outside. In Ghee, L. T., and Gomes, L. T. (eds.), Tribal Peoples and Development in Southeast Asia, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Malaya, Malaya, pp. 112–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodriguez-Alegria, E. (2012). The discovery and decolonization of Xaltocan, Mexico. In Oland, M., Hart, S., and Frink, L. (eds.), Decolonizing Indigenous Histories, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 45–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, J. C. (1990). Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, Yale University Press, New Haven.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, Yale University Press, New Haven.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, J. C. (2008). Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, Yale University Press, New Haven.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, J. C. (2009). The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, Yale University Press, New Haven.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, W. H. (1966). On the Cordillera: A Look at the Peoples and Cultures of the Mountain Province, MCS Enterprises, Manila.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, W. H. (1970). Igorot responses to Spanish aims: 1576–1896. Philippine Studies 18: 695–717.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, W. H. (1974). The Discovery of the Igorots: Spanish Contacts with the Pagans of Northern Luzon, New Day, Quezon City.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, W. H. (1994). The Bontoc uprising of 1881. In Tolentino, D. (ed.), Resistance and Revolution in the Cordillera, University of the Philippines College Baguio, Baguio City, pp. 33–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silliman, S. W. (2001). Agency, practical politics and the archaeology of culture contact. Journal of Social Archaeology 1: 190–209.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silliman, S. W. (2005). Culture contact or colonialism? Challenges in the archaeology of native North America. American Antiquity 70: 55–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silliman, S. W. (2012). Between the longue durée and the short purée: postcolonial archaeologies of indigenous history in colonial North America. In Oland, M., Hart, S., and Frink, L. (eds.), Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions in Archaeology, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 113–131.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stahl, A. B. (1999). Perceiving variability in time and space: the evolutionary mapping of African societies. In McIntosh, S. K. (ed.), Beyond Chiefdoms: Pathways to Complexity in Africa, University of California Press, Berkeley, pp. 39–55.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Stahl, A. B. (2001). Historical process and the impact of the Atlantic trade on Banda, Ghana, c. 1800–1920. In DeCorse, C. R. (ed.), West Africa During the Atlantic Slave Trade: Archaeological Perspectives, Leicester University Press, Leicester, pp. 38–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stark, M. (1995). Economic intensification and ceramic specialization in the Philippines: a view from Kalinga. Research in Economic Anthropology 16: 179–226.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stein, G. (2002). Colonies without colonialism: a trade diaspora model of fourth millennium B.C. Mesopotamian enclaves in Anatolia. In Lyons, C. L., and Papadopoulos, J. K. (eds.), The Archaeology of Colonialism, Getty, Los Angeles, pp. 27–64.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stein, G. (2005). The Archaeology of Colonial Encounters: Comparative Perspectives, School of American Research, Santa Fe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Talastas, L. (1994). The battle of Lias: resistance in Eastern Mountain Province. In Tolentino, D. (ed.), Resistance and Revolution in the Cordillera, University of the Philippines College Baguio, Baguio City, pp. 43–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tolentino, D. (ed.) (1994). Resistance and Revolution in the Cordillera, University of the Philippines College Baguio, Baguio City.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trigger, B. (1984). Alternative archaeologies: nationalist, colonialist, imperialist. Man 19: 355–370.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Buren, M. (2010). The archaeological study of Spanish colonialism in the Americas. Journal of Archaeological Research 18: 151–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vizenor, G. (1999). Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weaver, J., Womack, C. S., and Warrior, R. (2006). American Indian Literary Nationalism, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolf, E. R. (1997). Europe and the People Without History, University of California Press, Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Funding for research reported in this study was provided by the National Science Foundation (Award # 1460665 and BSC07-04008), National Geographic Society (NGS-9069), Hellman Fellowship, UCLA’s COR and FCDA Grants, Institute for Field Research, and National Museum of the Philippines Grant-in-Aid of Research. I am indebted to Oona Paredes for introducing me to the concept of Pericolonialism. Greg Schachner, Miriam Stark, John Peterson, John Papadopoulos, Bion Griffin, Oona Paredes, James Bayman, Marlon Martin, Grace Barretto-Tesoro, Alan Farahani, Mauricio Hernandez, Alison Carter, Lon Bulgrin, Adam Lauer, and two peer reviewers provided insightful comments. I alone am responsible for the final product and take responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stephen Acabado.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Acabado, S. The Archaeology of Pericolonialism: Responses of the “Unconquered” to Spanish Conquest and Colonialism in Ifugao, Philippines. Int J Histor Archaeol 21, 1–26 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-016-0342-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-016-0342-9

Keywords

Navigation