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The
ethnic groupings, their manners of dress and typical
adornments follow:
 Cagayan.
This is
the area that is bounded to the East, along the Pacific side
of Northern Luzon, by the Sierra Madre, to the west by the
Cordillera Central and to the south by the Caraballo
mountains. The highlands cradle the Cagayan River Valley.
The region is peopled by a mix of ethnolinguistic groups.
Cagayan was cited as one of the seven provinces of Luzon in
1585.
The
Codex notes the existence of many gold mines in the region
but that the natives do not want to show them to the
Spaniards. There are also stones called bulaganes and
bahandines worn by women as jewelry, which the
natives say they inherited from their ancestors. The
stones have not been identified, except that they are
"black and white."
After
a marathon religious feasting, an old woman leader gifts the
chiefs and brave warriors and their women red necklaces.
During a feast celebrating a bethrothal or a harvest,
"each one wears all the gold and precious stones he
owns and the women all their jewelry." But it is during
a funeral when the Cagayanos of old turn out in all their
finery as the Codex thus notes (The Quirino-Garcia
Translation. 396):
They carry a set of bahandines and bulaganes, five
large, others medium-size, and five sets of bulaganes and
bahandines of many kinds wrapped around the
stomach; earrings that usually weigh fifteen taels of
gold; a choker of beaten gold which they say weighs two taels.
They carry a black piece of cloth over the stomach and
chest with many golden lions and other embroidered figures,
all of much value. Some sticks of gold with feathers which
they carry like a dagger in the head when they go to war,
all of gold.
The women's dress (chinana) consists of a blouse that
comes down to the navel, long sleeves and tied at the back
with a ribbon, and a short skirt reaching the knees. A thin
skewer of bamboo that has been carved is stuck into the hair
shiny with oil. They walk barefoot, even the upper class.
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