The Lesson Plan

These images are very popular here in the Philippines. Every grade school kid would know that these are rice terraces.

But not every grade school kid would know that the images above are of the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces, located approximately 27 km. southeast of Lonsheng County, China.

The Banaue Rice Terraces — which is composed of the Batad, Bangaan, Mayoyao and Hapao terraces — have origins steeped in mystery and majesty most similar to the origins of the Great Pyramids. And culturally, these terraces have been the ‘Great Pyramids’ of the Philippines. Legends have it that the Ifugaos carved the mountain by hand. But these legends never that told us that someone taught them how to do it.

The Banaue Rice Terraces

Declared a UNESCO Heritage Site in 1995, most people make the mistake of calling this an official wonder of the world (the “8th wonder of the world” is a label given to other notable structures in the world that falls outside the 7 wonders). Although to be fair, it is a wonder in itself.

And its history, often untold, is even more amazing. It goes back to China.

From 2205 to 2106BCE, Emperor Yu the Great launched a campaign to annihilate the Miao tribe who rebelled against him. They fled southwards, until some were driven beyond the sea, and it is perhaps then that a few survivors made it to the Cordilleras. But do be careful since any ‘historical account’ of China before the Shang Dynasty is still legendary status. Nonetheless, here is what we know.

The Miao ethnic minority

The long horn Miao, one of the ethnic group’s many variations

The Miao are one of the 55 official minority people groups of mainland China. They live in the cold wet mountainous regions of southwestern China and many villages are only accessible by several days’ journey by foot. A Miao proverb states “Fish swim in water, birds fly in the air, Miao live on the mountains.” Although the Miao originally inhabited the rich river valleys of central China, centuries of oppressive governments pushed them further south and higher into the mountains to seek refuge from their enemies. Because of this dispersion and isolation, the various Miao groups are separated from each other by language, dress, and customs; varying greatly from region to region, and often even village to village.

The Miao are also known for cultivating terraced paddy fields and thus it is this technology, along with several others, which they brought to the Cordilleras. But the influence of the Chinese does not end here. Trade during the Tang, Song and Ming dynasties brought introduced the carabao, cabbage, porcelain jars and plates, and even the Kalinga oranges or ponkan. Chinese features are also clearly seen in the natives of Northern Luzon, and the rituals and traditions of the Igorots, Ifugaos and Kalingas echo those of the Miao ethnic tribe. From us.omf.org, a missionary website dedicated to understanding these ethnic tribes, we have the following description:

Festivals provide opportunity for young people from other villages to meet. The girls will dress in their finest embroidery and don their most exquisite silver jewelry and headdresses, as boys look for a woman they might hope to marry. They dance to the beat of Miao drums, as couples steal off into the forest to sing love songs to each other, or play the romantic melodies on tree leaves or bamboo instruments.

Ifugao women

An Ifugao native

A Miao woman and the Dragon’s backbone

The secret of the Banaue Rice Terraces is that it actually tells the story of Chinese interaction with the ethnic cultures of the Cordilleras way before the arrival of the Spanish. It is also a great example of acculturation, the seamless mix of two cultures taking on a new identity in a different environment.

Perhaps this interaction, long hidden and untold, is what makes this a real wonder of the world. It is a doorway into the past, a reminder of how cultures endure and a picture of how beautiful a world without borders can be.

Let’s not waste it.

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Further reading: How do they make rice terraces?

Taken from newsfinder.org

A casual glance might lead you to believe that farmers carve them into hillsides, using the dug-up rock to build the retaining walls and the excavated earth to level the terraces. Well, looks can be deceiving.

This is the building site for the new rice terrace. A good terrace site has a gentle slope, a year-round water source, and easy access to building materials. The location of some of these materials, gravel and topsoil, for example, should be uphill from the site, and the stones that will form the retaining wall should be close by.

The terrace builders lay down marking stone, so called because they will mark the boundary between the new terrace and the existing one. These stones, sometimes split from boulders manually and carried to the site by hand, will serve as the foundation for the terrace’s retaining wall. Behind the stones the builders add a coarse fill.

The builders continue to work on the retaining wall, adding another course of stone on top of the wall, along its entire length. The builders move a large amount of gravel from the slope above to fill in the area behind the retaining wall. Whenever possible, they use fast-moving water to transport material. The waterway in this example is an existing stream, but builders can also use temporary channels dug into the hillside, a wooden sluice, or some other type of waterway.

Builders add one course of stone after another to the retaining wall. Since this wall is not self supporting, they need to add more gravel fill as the wall rises.

The builders now use the waterway to move earth to the terrace, where they tamp and smooth the material to produce a flat, horizontal surface. They also cover the top layer of the stone wall with the earth.

Again, the builders use water to transport material to the terrace, this time a soft, clayey topsoil. Eight to twelve inches deep, the topsoil is graded so that it slopes downward toward the hill. By doing so, if there’s ever a break in the rim or if part of the wall fails, some of the water will be retained, along with any fish that may live in the pond.

Finally, the terrace is flooded with water. The water depth in the terrace is controlled by an outlet, which also feeds into the terrace below. Later, perhaps the following season or perhaps many seasons hence, another terrace may be built above this terrace.

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This entry was inspired by an article I’ve read in the June-August 2005 issue of AsiaGeo Magazine. It was an issue on the journey of Chinese-Filipinos and it has a feature article on the Chinese influence in the Cordilleras written by Dr. Charles L. Cheng, M.D.