Kalinga Shield

Above is a wooden shield with a handle built into the back and three large prongs towards the top of the shield. The middle prong is long and skinny, with three sticks of wood tied to it with rattan for reinforcement. Along the back of the shield are rows of rattan, which are used to secure six wooden arrowheads.

Unlike most Kalinga shields, which have three prongs on the top and two prongs on the bottom, this shield features a flat bottom. It is uncertain why this design wasa chosen. Shields have a very important use in Kalinga and Igorot culture as a whole, as they contain many cultural motifs important to Kalinga culture. For instance, the inward curvature of the shield shows off the significance of “center” in northern and southern Philippine shields. This inward curvature is even seen in the rice mortars of Igorots, which also sport an hourglass shape. 

Although not seen in this shield, the prong patterns of the shield were both useful in battle and symbolic in meaning. In battle, it was thought that Igorot warriors would use the top prongs to disable their enemies by tripping them, then using the bottom two prongs to immobilize their heads. This goes along with the Igorot reputation of being “headhunters,” in which they would collect the heads of their enemies for display when in battle. When held upright, the shield looks like a rough depiction of a human, with the two bottom prongs appearing to look like legs, while the three top prongs look like a head with raised arms. This is even more apparent when shields from different groups were compared and found that the statures of these “people” matched the statures of the groups that they came from. 
 

Citations:

  1. Andrew, T. (n.d.). Protection, power, and display: Shields of island southeast asia and melanesia. Boston College Museum of Art. (Original work published 1995)
  2. Interior, U. S. N. M. I. S. D. of the. (1877). Bulletin—United states national museum no. 137 1926 [Digital Book]. https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/bulletinunitedst1371926unit