The Mummies of Mt. Timbak

BAGUIO CITY; MAY 17, 2008. Early this morning we set out to summit the ninth highest peak in the Philippines, Mt. Timbak, also known as Mt. Singakalsa.

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But we woke up to a gloomy morning, as tropical storm Cosme has made its landfall the night before, and is now battering northwestern Luzon with heavy rains and gusty winds. Visibility in Baguio City was close to zero. We didn’t realize it yet but the Anitos of the mountain people of the Cordilleras have something else awaiting us in Mt. Timbak.

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Right before leaving Baguio City I made a note on my PDA-phone on who are the members of our Mt. Timbak Climb: There are five of us from the Delbros AB Normal Club ñ our founder and climb leader, Jose Eduardo C. Delgado (JED); his personal driver, Edirey Reyes; Arvin Velbis of Delbros QEG; Gig Hagad of Delwater; Sherwin De Jesus, IT consultant in Delwater; and myself. There’s also Maxi, a young Pitbull who has a been a regular in all our climbs this year. Two professional climbers joined us ñ Sophie Castillo and Derek Bonifacio of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines National Office. We also have the Johannots ñ Daniel, Petty, and their daughter Florence. And of course our climb coordinator and guide, John Dipasupil.

The weather at Atoc, 55 kilometers deep into Benguet Province via Halsema Highway, was not unlike in Baguio when we left shortly before 9:00 o’clock this morning. That forced us to change our plan. The rain-soaked mountain trails and almost zero visibility dashed any remaining hope that we will summit Mt. Timbak. It is not impossible to climb the summit under such conditions. It is not even unsafe. But at that point, we all asked ourselves, ìWhat’s the point?î We could barely see a few meters ahead of us. There would be no majestic view from atop Mt. Timbak.

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But there are far more precious treasures amid the pine-lined slopes of the mountain. Nestled in the safety of huge rock formations are the tombs of the Mummies of Mt. Timbak.†

(mother and child?)

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The Mummies of Mt. Timbak are currently under the care and protection of Ruben Gambulao (Mang Ruben) and his family. Mang Ruben is from the Kankana-ey tribe of the Igorots of Benguet and his family has been residing right at the ìentranceî to the ìcavesî where the Timbak mummies lie in eternal rest. Mang Ruben and his family were recently appointed by the Municipal government of Atoc, Benguet as the official caretakers of the Mummies of Mt. Timbak.

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With one of his sons and a nephew, both in their early 20′s, Mang Ruben led us to the mummies’ tombs. The tombs were relatively a short distance from Mang Ruben’s house.

(Timbak-Two:† The second tomb of Timbak mummies)

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According to Mang Ruben, the Mummies of Mt. Timbak were first discovered during the second world war when people went higher up in the mountains to avoid the hostilities. But it was only in the early 70′s, when people started logging activities in the area, when more of the mummies emerged from their secret resting places and started to attract attention. Nobody knows for sure since when they have been there. Mang Ruben opines that they have been there for a very long time.

(Mummy coffins in a tomb.† Each tomb/cave is resting place of several mummies, with their coffins piled on top of each other)

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The exponential increase in attention that the mummies of Mt. Timbak started getting almost caused their complete destruction. Mang Ruben’s wife showed us a photo probably taken in the late 70′s or early 80′s where tourists were posing with some of the mummies in tow, exposing them to the elements and handling them with neither regard for their fragile state nor respect for the dead people that they are. It was only recently, according to the Gambulao’s, that people have become more ìeducatedî on the importance of preserving these priceless cultural heritage.

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But lack of education was just one of the threats to the mummies of Mt. Timbak. Greed, apparently, is far more effective. Mang Ruben told us of tourists looting the mummies’ tombs, taking with them some of the mummies themselves, presumably to profit from selling them to some museums. What else would motivate people to bring home with them the shrunken remains of fellow human beings?

(JED – up close and personal with one of the Mummies of Mt. Timbak)

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Mang Ruben also told us about the time a former governor of Mountain Province ìstoleî a number of mummies from Mt. Timbak and brought them to the town of Sagada, ostensibly as a showcase for promoting tourism. The devious act apparently did not sit well with the Anitos, the gods of the mountain people, and for one whole month non-stop rains poured down in the whole of the Cordilleras. The tomb robbers ñ the people commissioned by the governor to carry out the unspeakable deed ñ were said to have all mysteriously died within the same period. The governor himself was afflicted with an equally mysterious disease. The signs were unequivocal. The Anitos were enraged by the desecration of the mummies. The governor waived the white flag of surrender and ordered the stolen mummies to be returned to Mt. Timbak. The rains, almost like magic, stopped.†

(“No Maxi, those bones are off limits!”)

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Mang Ruben’s story has all the ingredients of fiction but he narrated it as if it is a fact. He actually believes it to be true and I have no doubt that most people in the Cordilleras do the same. To a certain extent it may even be true. The fact is, I have heard of a very similar story when I was a University student in Baguio City way back in the early 90′s. The details, including the place, are different but the general plot is the same. There are many other mummy sites in the Cordilleras and I wouldn’t be surprised if each has a version of the Mt. Timbak story. Perhaps it is one of the ways the mountain people of the Cordilleras protect their colorful culture and, through lores such as this, hand down their heritage to their future generations.

(Rainsoaked at Timbak-Two [i.e. second tomb/cave].† With Mang Ruben Gambulao, caretaker and protector of the†Mummies of Mt. Timbak, Arvin Velbis of Delbros, and Sherwin De Jesus [behind])

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The Anitos may have sensed the skepticism of some of us, or they may have been displeased that we were disturbing the mummies’ peace in the middle of a storm, for as Mang Ruben’s son and nephew opened the gate to a tomb and lifted the lid from a coffin to show us a mummy, I noticed that the rain became stronger and the wind started to howl. By the time we started our hike back up to Mang Ruben’s house the rain was pouring so hard and the chilly wind was making us shiver. It was a short but torturous hike.

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We all found comfort and safety in Mang Ruben’s house where a hearty meal of steamed rice, grilled pork, and pinikpikan soup awaited us. Pinikpinkan, by the way, is the Igorot’s version of Tinolang Manok, and is characterized by the distinct and unique way that the chicken is ìprepared.î

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Petty Johannot, a former curator of a prominent museum in Switzerland (Daniel is a Swiss national), requested for an interview with Mang Ruben and his father-in-law, the most senior member of their extended family. I didn’t know the Johannots until this trip but somewhere between Baguio City and Atoc, JED somehow managed to inform me about Petty’s previous and present occupations. Aside from being a former museum curator in Switzerland, Petty is presently a consultant at the Ayala Museum in Makati.†

(The carers and the curious.† The Gambulao family with our Mt. Timbak Expedition.)

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Easily intrigued by things bordering the bizarre and the unknown, I was intently eavesdropping on Petty’s interview on the men of the Gambulao’s household. What really stoked my curiosity was when Mang Ruben’s father-in-law was describing how the mummies were ìprepared.î

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The Mummies of Mt. Timbak, and the mummies of the Cordilleras in general, are always in a fetal position. This is because they were tied and wrapped this way so they will would fit into smaller coffins, essentially wooden boxes that look more like baul (i.e. wooden chest). The mummification process is quite ingenious and I am yet to do a research if a similar procedure had been used elsewhere. A makeshift shed, quite similar to a kennel, is prepared somewhere within the yard of the dead person’s house. The cadaver is placed inside the shed and left there for several days while a slow-burning flame is sustained beneath the shed to ìsmokeî the cadaver. It is essentially the same process used in making smoked food (i.e. smoked fish, smoked meat, etc.) except that this is of the morbid kind.

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Petty asked several other very interesting questions and she (or we) were not disappointed by getting equally interesting answers. But I wouldn’t want to preempt Petty, who is planning to write some articles about the Mummies of Mt. Timbak in some prestigious publications such as Business World. It was her interview after all. Besides, I was not even taking notes so my accounts cannot really be trusted. I will be looking forward to reading Petty’s articles when they get published, hopefully soon.

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By mid-afternoon we said our goodbyes to the Gambulaos and thanked them for their hospitality and frienship. Somehow one of Mang Ruben’s sons even managed to sneak a sack of potatoes on JED’s Toyota Fortuner, a send-off gift from the descendants of the Mummies of Mt. Timbak.†

(Bong at the site of the Mummies of Mt. Timbak.† Wet, cold, and enjoying every moment of it.)

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At that point we all conveniently forgot about our original objective which was to reach the summit of Mt. Timbak. The Mummies of Mt. Timbak successfully stole the show.

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We were back in Baguio before 6:00 PM. It is now around 10:00 PM as I am finishing this blog entry. The storm has worsened and our concern has shifted from making it to Mt. Timbak to making it out of Baguio City the following day. Perhaps the Anitos are still angry at us.

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