People, Places and Language

In the Ethnologue, (languages of the world), Majukayong belongs to the family of the Kalinga languages. It is also the name of their village with in the remote municipality of Natonin, Mountain Province in Northern Luzon. According to the Government Social Workers, Majukayong have an estimated population of 10,000, whose inhabitants are small-scale farmers who subsist from the produce of their slash-and-burn method of farming, wet rice fields and mountains planted with coffee trees. Their dominant activity revolves around these cultivated lands that they till and farm. 

The village is surrounded by tall mountains with thick black forests and cliffs that serve as a formidable wall enclosure protecting the village from the claws of progress and commercial activities. But a closer look to its inhabitants reveals some sort of disloyalty and antagonism with one another due to a mass killing from among them in years past. But on the surface they are very hospitable and peace loving except when provoked or hurt, then revenge to the culprit or to the culprit’s family or clan is a must and a value. It is humiliating not to do so. Animistic beliefs are rampant. Omen birds, dreams and spirit mediums are carefully observed. It can determine their well being or bad luck and life or death.