Five to six hours by bus from Baguio city lies the Municipality of Tadian in Mountain Province.
About 20,000 residents make up the fourth class municipality with agriculture being its main source of income. Tadian is inhabited mainly by the Kankaney tribe.
The Kankeneys have a rich culture of chants and melodies intertwined with their lives and celebrated thru dance and music. Wanting to preserve this culture, traditional folks in the village thought of doing an annual festival, thus the Ayyoweng di Lambak ed Tadian was born. Literally, the terms mean The Sound and Dance of Tadian.
Now on its fourth year, the festival is also celebrated as a form of thanksgiving for the bountiful harvest for the past year.
The festival aims to preserve the rich culture of the Kankaney tribe by making sure traditions are handed down from one generation to another. This has proven to be a challenge as radio waves, television signals and even the Internet have reached the village.
Generally, the people welcome the new technologies and the modern culture they bring. Theirs is a constant struggle to preserve the old culture while embracing the new.
Ayyoweng di Lambak ed Tadian aims to remind the youth of Tadian what the elder Kankaneys are so they will never forget where they come from.
