Rice granary guardian male and female figures (bululs)
MUSEUM LABEL
DESCRIPTION
Bululs are consecrated wooden figures central to Ifugao life. They are invoked to ensure plentiful rice harvests and are regarded as ancestral presences that mediate between human and spiritual worlds. Carved in male–female pairs and often kept in granaries, bululs are distinctive in an Ifugao pantheon of more than a thousand deities, as they are the only ones given physical form.
This pair was likely created in the early 1900s by master carver Taguiling as a commission from Owen A. Tomlinson (b. 1882), an American Constabulary officer and colonial administrator in Ifugao during the early years of U.S. rule. The bululs’ facial features reflect the likeness of their colonial patron. While serving as ritual guardians of rice, they also capture a moment when Indigenous carving traditions engaged with colonial power, demonstrating both cultural continuity and local agency.
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VIDEOS
6
PEOPLE
Paulette
Crespillo-Cuison
President of the Kiyyangan Weavers Association
Member of the Save the lfugao Terraces Movement (SITMo))
Eulalie
Dulnuan
Tourism and Cultural Officer
President of the Ifugao Intangible Heritage and Performing Arts Society
Marlon
Martin
Executive Director of Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement
Co-director of Ifugao Archaeological Project
THEMES
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES