From Main Ritual to Main Course: Dogs, Dog Meat, and the Igorot Trope

This paper focuses on describing how the rituality and culture of dog sacrifice and consumption tend to shift in meaning, purpose, and representations from the past to present. The paper also explores how rituals involving dogs and their sacrifice have been interpreted over time and have become part of a modern consensus towards trope and identity construction. Although discussing Igorot traditions and rituals involving dogs, I do not go deep into the technicalities and specificities of ritual dog sacrifice as exhibited individually by varying ethnolinguistic groups in the Cordillera. Instead, I discuss how such ritualistic traits have converged and would eventually obtain varying interpretations, leading to more modern apprehensions.