Tayaw Shi Ke’Dot: An Ethnographic Study on the Cultural Significance of Pig Offerings in the Ibaloy Rituals in Loakan, Baguio

Abstract

Tayaw Shi Ke 'dot is a sacred lbaloy ritual that summons ancestral spirits through prayer, dance, and animal offering. This study examines the cultural and symbolic significance of pig offerings in Ibaloy ritual practice in Loakan, Baguio, situating the ritual within ongoing processes of cultural continuity amid modernization. The study employs ethnographic methods, including participant observation and semi-structured interviews with elders and ritual specialists (mambunong), to analyze how pig offerings are performed, interpreted, and transmitted across generations. Findings indicate that pig offerings function as central ritual mediators that reinforce lbaloy identity, ancestral reciprocity, and communal cohesion. The offering facilitates socialization and the intergenerational transmission of ritual knowledge. Ritual efficacy is signaled through the pig's vocalization, while the animal's accessibility enables broad community participation. Gendered roles in caring for, sacrificing, and distributing the pig reflect and reproduce culturally defined social order. Beyond their material value, pigs operate as symbolic vessels linking the living, the ancestors, and Kabunian. This study contributes to symbolic anthropology and Indigenous ritual studies by demonstrating how animal offerings operate as multivocal symbols that sustain cultural continuity, social relations, and cosmological balance within an Indigenous community navigating modern change.