Last quarter I promised to include some library information in each issue of 'Kasama'.
The Igorot International Consultation scheduled for 2006 in Melbourne gave me
the perfect reason to look for writings and artefacts from the Cordillera, the
ancestral land of the tribal peoples of northern Luzon, that are in the
collections of Australian public institutions.
I began my search for the photographs taken by Eduardo Masferre who is
considered by many to be the finest ethnographic photographer of tribal life
in the Cordillera. I knew that the Smithsonian Institution in the USA holds a
collection of his work, as does his family of course, and when I last visited,
there were some pieces exhibited in the Bontoc Museum in Mountain Province,
Philippines. But, to my delight, on searching the National Library of
Australia (NLA) catalogue, I found a reference to copies of his photos held in
Australia! There are 33 'vintage exhibition prints', some hand coloured, of
photos he took between 1934 and 1953 which were acquired by the National
Gallery of Australia in Canberra.
Masferre was born in the Cordillera; his father was Spanish, his mother, a
Kankana-ey from Sagada where Eduardo grew up. From the age of 5 years he
studied in Spain and eventually returned to live in Sagada till his death in
1995.
Totalling more than 1,000 images, most of his photographs were taken from '34
to '56. 'My husband would hike mountains and cross rivers with his bulky
camera just to take pictures of what he foresaw were images that will soon be
gone,' his widow Nena said. 'He was very strict with his negatives and if the
results were not good, he would go back again to the place.'
Copyright restriction does not allow reproduction of his pictures but here is
a photograph of the man himself which accompanies a biography online at
http://www.aenet.org/ifugao/masfere2.htm
My other fortuitous discovery was the Otley Beyer Collection (Philippines) at
the National Library website http://www.nla.gov.au/asian/form/beyer.html. In
1972 the NLA in Canberra acquired the library of Professor H. Otley Beyer.
Henry Otley Beyer was an American scholar, teacher and collector, who spent
most of his adult life in the Philippines. He first traveled to the
Philippines in 1904 to join the Civil Service, and from 1905 to 1908 he was
sent by the Bureau of Education to study the Ifugaos of Banaue. He then
traveled in Asia, Africa, and Europe, furthered his studies at Harvard
University in the USA, and returned to the Philippines in 1910.
In 1912, Beyer married Lingayu Gambuk, the beautiful 16-year-old daughter of
the chieftain of Anganad village who belonged to the kadangyan or Ifugao
aristocracy. Their only son, William, was born in 1918.
Beyer was appointed ethnologist in the Philippine Bureau of Science and
part-time head of the Philippine Museum. He lectured in anthropology at the
University of the Philippines in 1914 and became a Professor and Head of
Department in 1925. Beyer received a number of decorations, honours and awards
for his sixty years of scholarship.
A substantial part of Otley Beyer's library held by the National Library of
Australia is comprised of carbon copies of the bound volumes of typed
manuscripts, indexed and mostly unpublished, known as the Philippine
Ethnographic Series which is considered Beyer's major work. It was compiled by
Beyer and his assistants mainly between 1906 and 1918, with some later
additions up to the 1930s. It records Philippine life in the early part of the
20th century before American influences had reached the rural areas.
Much of Beyer's library was lost during the Second World War. The Japanese
initially allowed Beyer to continue his studies, but he was later interned.
The copies of the Philippine Ethnographic Series acquired by the NLA were the
only full set to survive. The originals were destroyed in 1945 during the
street fighting in Manila as the Japanese occupiers retreated. The NLA has
since had the 160 bound volumes published on microfiche, enabling Philippine
libraries and others to have copies of this valuable resource.
This series is complemented by a collection of photographs which show
Philippine ethnic groups, costumes, houses, weapons, agriculture, religious
and art objects and domestic life. They also date from the period 1906 to
1918, and many were taken by Beyer himself. They are now much faded, but have
been copied onto microfiche for preservation.
The collection also includes a number of significant titles on American
colonial and foreign policies, maps of archeological and tektite sites, and
some rare items of Filipiniana, including works by Rizal, Isabelo de los
Reyes, Pordo de Tavera and Pedro Alejandrino Paterno.
When Beyer died in 1966, two funereal ceremonies were held - one in the Ifugao
tradition lasting several days, the other a Christian service and burial in
the grounds of his home in Banaue.
Eduardo Masferre and Otley Beyer left behind unique collections with which we
can appreciate the complexity of social inter-relationships and connectedness
with the natural environment of everyday tribal life in the first half of the
20th century, and from these have a better understanding of the cultural
fabric of civil society in the Cordillera today.
When you get an opportunity to visit Canberra, your first outing should be to
the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and from there it is but a short journey to the
National Gallery and the National Library where the Masferre and Beyer
collections are held.
THIS ARTICLE WAS COMPILED FROM THE FOLLOWING SOURCES:
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