MUMMY CAVES OF TIMBAC, KABAYAN, BENGUET

Photo from:  http://www.ivanlakwatsero.com/2013/05/mt-timbac-too-fast-not-furious.html

 

 

 

 

According to our guide here who's maintaining the mummy caves, the oldest mummy
remains were placed in these caves wayback 200 years ago. Most of these mummies
belong to the wealthy people during there times. They were wrapped and placed
in carved wood then placed in burial caves. They were then preserved undisturbed
and their remains last even to these present time. The coolness of the surroundings
helped greatly in preserving them wholly. - http://www.bubblews.com/news/737220-mummy-caves-of-timbac

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...  A second, much smaller coffin was opened revealing the mummified corpse of a baby. Some minutes passed as we looked this one over as well as the first. None of the locals were moving and I was left thinking that was it.

 

Then someone said, "look in there", and pointed to a larger coffin. A boy removed the lid for me. I had never seen anything like it. Three withered mummies. One appeared to look right at me. Perhaps because these three were propped up in a deep coffin, the impact was far greater than had been from the others. I marveled. Ears, fingernails, skin covered with tattoos. 

And there were to be more; in a second cave a few meters below the first. Three and four mummies to a coffin; wedged deep inside. Fabtastic!

Just ten cultures worldwide throughout history are known to have practiced mummification. Unlike the Egyptians, the Ibaloi people of Kabayan didn't eviscerate their mummies; the body was considered sacred so organs could not be removed.

 

The process was started before death. The dying person swallowed a salt water solution which helped to cleanse the internal organs. Following death, the eldest son blew tobacco smoke into the body through the mouth, disinfecting the tissues and thus preserving them. The body was washed and then dried over a low fire and in the sun. Any draining body fluids were considered sacred and caught in a jar. Once dry, the epidermis was peeled away. Before internment, herbs were rubbed on the body. The process took months to complete ...

 

Read More From:  http://www.madnomad.com/0302_benguet/

 

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LUMIANG CAVE WITHIN THE SAGADA CAVE CONNECTION

Sagada boasts more than a cool mountain climate, forests full of pines and tree ferns, and exotic burial rituals. Our principle reason for coming here was to bone up on our spelunking skills by doing the famous Cave Connection, a four-hour cave crawling tour linking the Lumiang and Sumaging cave systems. This tour requires its participants to repel down vertical shafts, crawl, squirm, dangle off of ledges, slip, slide, wade waist-deep through underground streams, and clamber over wedding cake cave formations – in other words, it’s serious food for your inner child.
 

But the trip is not for the faint of heart. No safety equipment was provided and the entire tour is conducted by the light of a gas lantern. Twenty minutes into our tour, our gas lantern started to malfunction and our guide was forced to return to town to get a replacement leaving us sitting deep within the cave in pitch-black isolation with bats fluttering around our heads for more than 45 minutes. I thought it was hilarious, but the wait was a bit of a challenge for Thomas who suffers from mild claustrophobia.

Further on as we were exploring the lower sections of Sumaging cave, I was slightly behind Thomas and the guide because I had stopped to examine a formation. Evidently, the guide had carefully directed Thomas through a pool, but nobody had thought to tell me. I stepped into what I thought was shallow water, but in reality, I was stepping into the mouth of a water-filled vertical tube. Thomas, who at that very instant was asking the guide to come back with the lantern, said that one moment I was walking through the cave and the next I had vanished. Not realizing I was stepping into a bottomless pit, I simple dropped straight down into the tube miraculously not touching any of the jagged rocks along the way. The effect was pretty much like being swallowed by a giant. Thomas said he was scanning the cave trying to figure out where I had gone when, all of a sudden, I reemerged from the flooded floor. First lesson of spelunking, don’t assume shallow water conceals a solid floor.

Technical difficulties aside, working our way through the cave system was a real adrenaline kick. The first half felt like we were hamsters crawling through the ultimate tube maze. Later it opened into larger karst caverns.

 

In the deepest portions of the cave, far from both the entrance and the exit, we discovered animist faith healers chanting at the base of a monolithic pink stalagmite, which looked like some prehistoric altar. Our guide had never seen such faith healers before and all three of us sat off in the distance curiously listening to the mysterious chanting.

The highlight was certainly exploring the underground stream that flows through the lower reaches of Sumaging. Elaborate waterfalls of stone, beautiful calcium terracing, glittery walls, water-logged stalagmites and glistening multi-hued stalactites greeted us at every turn.

 

Source: lonelyplanet.com