User:Greferjun/Cañao

Cañao The word, Cañao is a traditional feast commonly known as Sida by the Benguet Kankana-ey tribe. Sida is a generic term for the Kankana-ey indigenous festival, ceremony, rituals, and the like. During the Sida the people may worship or honor their departed ancestors, deities, and spirits. Sometimes Sida may be performed as an expression of thanksgiving for an abundant harvest and for good community health. Sida can be carried out to appease ancestral spirits and deities, or to ask for material prosperity and bountiful harvest. Sida has a curative powers too, it brings luck and blessings, primarily wealth and prosperity, and it pleases ancestral spirits and deities.

Tereso Casiño writes, “Cañao is the grandest feast celebration in the cordillera community. The observance of this feast varies from one tribe to another, but the essence and intention are regionally the same. Cañao persists as an indigenous feast with regional base and impact due to its sacred or mythical origin"

The Ceremony

1 Traditional Musical Instruments
 * Solibao
 * Gangsa
 * Takik
 * Pistan

2 Dance called, Tayaw

3 Chanting during the ceremony is called, Day-eng. Day-eng is a chant-singing during feast done by a group of people in a seated position with a leadsman starting the chant and chorused by the rest of the group for questions and answers or argumentative debate and to express their wish and desires.

The Controversy When Kankana-ey people are converted to Christianity and join an evangelical church, they are expected not to participate in any form of their traditional feast, and receiving meat slaughtered during the Sida ritual is also prohibited. The Kankana-ey non-Christians already pre-conceived that once they become Christians, they must throw away all their cultural practices whether it is considered evil or not. The Christian’s prohibition poses a problem in the people’s cultural distinctiveness. Thus, prohibiting the Kankana-ey people from this traditional feast is a threat to their cultural make up and identity.