Asian Folklore Studies: Kankanay Songs by Morice Vanoverbergh

Kankanay Songs by Morice Vanoverbergh, C.I.C.M., published in Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. XXXVII-2 (Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, 1978), is a 104-page study of the oral song traditions of the Kankanay people of the Cordillera Mountains in Northern Luzon, cataloging seven song types from solemn sacrificial dialogues to swinging-song courtship contests. Vanoverbergh, a Belgian CICM missionary who arrived in the Philippines in the early 1900s and spent his career documenting Cordillera languages, rendered the songs in plain English, making the study a rare bridge between ethnographic rigor and general readability.