Of gold, Spanish conquistadors, and Ibaloi generational memory / Michael Armand P. Canilao ; foreword by John N. Miksic.

The publication of this book was made possible through a generous subsidy from the Spanish Program for Cultural Cooperation between the Ministry of Culture of Spain and Universities in the Philippines and the Pacific Island.

This work identifies some important preliminary considerations towards an understanding of the early peopling of southern Benguet, and the role of the Ibaloi in the foundation of the earliest settlements in the area. Although to date there is no information on the peopling of Benguet that may be regarded as conclusive, there are seattered descriptions of the Ibaloi as one of the indigenous groups of northern Luzon in ethnographics and ethnohistories written by Spanish and American writers. The locations of the earliest Ibaloi settlements have also been identified by Ibaloi oral traditions. Moreover, the Ibaloi have prominently figured in records of pre-hispanic lowland-upland trade as well as pan-Asian and world maritime trade, primarily because of the demand for Ibaloi gold. While there is general agreement in these sources that the Ibaloi originated from Pangasinan, the dating of the migration movements and earliest settlements in these sources varies, depending on the data sets used. What justiable inferences regarding the early Ibaloi can be consolidated from erchaeology contribute towards a plausible and reliable reconstruction of Ibaloi ethnohistory? These are the questions addressed in this book. The author argues that just as gold played a crucial role in the peopling of numerous highland areas in Southeast Asia., it could have played a similar role in the migration of the Ibaloi to the gold-rich mountain ridges of Benguet between the 14th and 15th century or even earlier. MICHAEL ARMAND CANILAO is Senior Lecturer in the Archaeological Studies Program and Center for International Studies, University of the Philippines Diliman, and Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Ateneo de Manila University. He is also a Research Associate of the Archaeology Diliman of the National Museum of the Philippines.