Summary of results
Wood carvings from the north of the island of Luzon are usually classified by European museum institutions as anitos. Both in the Museum of Ethnology and World Cultures of Barcelona and in other state museums—the National Museum of Anthropology of Madrid, the Oriental Museum of Valladolid, and the Víctor Balaguer Library Museum of Vilanova i la Geltrú—and European museums—the British Museum of London and the Museum of Ethnography of Stockholm—we can find wood carvings made in the north of the island of Luzon under this same category. According to Albert Ernest Jenks, an American anthropologist who conducted an ethnography among the Bontok in 1902, anito is ‘the general name for the soul of the dead’ (Jenks, 1905: 196). The author notes this presence as an active social force among the Bontok, explaining that all injuries, accidents, illnesses, and deaths were considered to be the direct product of these entities and describing how they were extracted from diseased bodies by specialized persons (Jenks uses the word ‘shaman’).
It is fair to say, however, that there is no reference to any figure by this name in the text, and in the whole book there is only one photograph with the caption: ‘Anito head post in a ko’-mis’. Pérez states that the inhabitants of Tutucan, a settlement to the northeast of the then district of Bontoc, ‘are more fond than those of other [rancherías, small rural settlements] of placing rough wooden statues called anitos on the doors of their palay barns and in the fields’ (Pérez, 1902: 220), but at no point does it mention that these figures wore clothing or any kind of accessory. Although it is probably true that some statues were identified as anitos by some inhabitants of the Cordillera, we do not believe that this is the case of the objects that today are kept under this categorization in the Museum of Ethnology and World Cultures of Barcelona.
The squatting posture in which the artefact MEB 134-288 is found would be the same as that of the bulul, wooden carvings that in the province of Ifugao represent a divinity protector of rice. However, these figures, unlike the one we are discussing here, did not have any kind of accessory. It is possible that this carving was made specifically for display at the aforementioned Philippines Exhibition, and it may have been designed to meet the expectations of visitors, feeding colonial curiosity about perceived ‘exotic’ religions.
Chronological reconstruction of provenance
This wood carving may be the one that appears in the Catalogue of the Philippines Exhibition held in the Retiro Park in Madrid during the summer of 1887, as ‘Anitos o idols, to which the Igorots pay great veneration’ (Catalogue: 298). After the event, many of the artefacts remained in the Museo Biblioteca de Ultramar until it was closed in 1896, but this was probably not the case with the collection of which this artefact is a part, as it probably made its way to Barcelona after the exhibition was closed. The Museo Biblioteca de Ultramar was installed in the Palacio de la Minería, where these pieces were displayed during the exhibition. According to the museography of the Museum of Ethnology and World Cultures of Barcelona, the collection in which the artefact is included was exhibited during the 1888 Barcelona Universal Exposition, although there is no evidence of this and it is possibly an error.
In August 1895, the collection containing the artefact was without doubt already in Barcelona. Specifically, in the neighbourhood of Sant Gervasi, where the collector lived. Between October and November of the same year, a technical commission sent by the Board of Museums of Catalonia examined the collection and, in this occasion, considered that it was not suitable for inclusion in Catalan museums. A year after the loss of the Philippine colony, and perhaps for that reason, it was accepted and finally deposited in the Museo Histórico Arqueológico in 1900.
In 1902, according to the statistical yearbook of the city of Barcelona, the collection was housed in the Museo de Arte Decorativo y Arqueológico, located in the Palacio Real (now the building of the Parliament of Catalonia); in 1903, in the Museo de Objetos Curiosos y Hechos Memorables; and, in 1907, in the Museo de Arte Decorativo y Arqueológico. These last changes were merely nominal, because in practice the artefacts remained in the same place, i.e., in the Ciutadella building.
In 1932, the Museo de Arte Decorativo was dismantled and the collections were divided between the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia (MAC) and the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) for their creation. The collection probably ended up in the latter, given the fact that documents relating to it—basically reports of artefacts—can still be found in the museum’s archives.
According to one of these reports, before 1941, the collections were transferred from the National Art Museum of Catalonia to the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona and the Museo Etnográfico. Although no ethnological or ethnographic museum is known to have existed at this time, according to the museum curators, the project already existed in the 1930s.
The artefacts probably remained in the storerooms of the Historical Archive until, before 1949, the Board of Museums transferred the collection to form the Ethnology Museum of Barcelona, where it remains to this day.
Estimation of provenance
This carving may have been made specifically for display at the Philippines Exhibition in Madrid in 1887. It is most likely that this figure was made in the province of Ifugao, where woodcarving was a much more common practice than in the rest of northern Luzon. In particular, it may have come from the village of Hapao, where the carving of figures for the tourist and collectors’ trade is still practised today.
Possible alternative classifications
Wood carving, bulul made to order.
Complementary sources
Bibliography:
Negociado de Estadística (1902). Anuari estadístic de la ciutat de Barcelona. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona. <http://hdl.handle.net/11703/94371>.
Negociado de Estadística (1907). Anuari estadístic de la ciutat de Barcelona. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona. <http://hdl.handle.net/11703/94376>.
Exposición General de las Islas Filipinas (1887). Catálogo de la exposición general de las Islas Filipinas celebrada en Madrid… el 30 de junio de 1887. Signatura: AHM/633416. Madrid: Biblioteca Nacional de España.
Jenks, A. E. (1905). The Bontoc Igorot. Manila: Bureau of Public Printing. <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3308>.
Pérez, Á. (1902). Igorrotes: Estudio geográfico y etnográfico sobre algunos distritos del norte de Luzón. Imp. de «El Mercantil».
Sánchez Gómez, L. Á. (2003). Un imperio en la vitrina: El colonialismo español en el Pacífico y la Exposición de Filipinas de 1887. Madrid: CSIC Press.
