This enduring reverence for women in spiritual roles may help explain the remarkable Marian devotion that later flourished among Cagayanos. The deep respect once accorded to female ritual authorities arguably eased the reception of Catholic veneration for the Virgin Mary, as seen in the longstanding devotion to the Our Lady of Piat and the Animas tap Purgatorio of Camalaniugan, both of which date to the early centuries of Christian conversion in the region. As a fascinating case of syncretism, even Our Lady’s of Piat’s first custodian, Ines Manguilabbun, is assumed to have been a shaman herself due to her name literally translating as “seer” or “oracle”. For the Cagayano, Our Lady of Piat is not just a distant icon imported from abroad; she is Apo Baket (The Venerable Matron) rooted from our inherent reverence for elder women. She is the intercessor of nature who prays for rain for the rice fields, and Yena Tam Ngamin (Mother of Us All), a title that reinforces the community as one giant household presided over by a female elder. By subconsciously redirecting their reverence from the minaggananitu to Apo Baket, Cagayanos ensured that the female-led spiritual structure of their society survived by adapting to, rather than resisting, the new religious landscape. In marriage customs, women likewise held significant power. In precolonial times, it was not the bride who brought a dowry; rather, the groom’s family provided the brideprice, negotiated and determined by the woman and her kin– particularly when both parties belonged to the same social stratum.
Even oral traditions underscore the potency of female agency. In one popular version of the epic of Biuag and Malana, the legendary heroes derive their supernatural abilities from a woman, and it is a woman who tests and validates their worthiness.
Across political, spiritual, economic, and narrative spheres, therefore, women in early Cagayan society emerge not as peripheral figures, but as central agents of authority and influence. To understand the matrifocal structure of Cagayan is to observe a system that prioritizes community cohesion over individual autonomy.
The Cagayano tradition indicates that women functioned in important roles long before Western contact, reclaiming a status held since the time of our ancestors– a status where a woman’s word can be uttered with authority and power (Davin Edjae S. Lacambra).