"father of all peaks," or "father of mountains," is the Ararat of
the Ifugaos. Their legend has it that, a flood overcoming the land,
a father and five sons took refuge on this topmost peak, coming down
with the waters as they fell. They even have their Cain, for one of
these five was killed by a brother. This family traditionally are
the ancestors of all the mountain people.

It took us some five hours to ride to Banawe, through a country of
imposing beauty. It was not that we were in the presence of mighty
ranges or peaks, so much as that the alternation of elevation with
depression offered a bewildering variety of aspect. At every turn,
turns as unnumbered this day as the woes of Greece, the landscape
changed its face. No sooner had one's appreciation become oriented,
than it had to give way to the necessity of a fresh orientation. Of
course there must be some orographic system; but to mark it, we
should have had to fly over the land. To us on the trail it was
not evident, mountain shouldering mountain, and valley swallowing
valley, in confusion. And wherever possible, rice-terraces! If we
posit the struggle for existence, then in this view alone these
Ifugaos, and other highlanders as well, are a gallant people. Not
every hillside will grow rice; if the soil be good, water will be
lacking; or else, having water, the soil is poor. But, wherever the
two conditions are combined, there will one find the slope terraced
to the top, and scientifically terraced, too, so that every drop of
water shall do its duty from top-side to bottom-side. The labor of
original construction, always severe, in some cases must have been
enormous, as we shall see later. Many of these terraces are hundreds
of years old; their maintenance has required and continues to require
constant watchfulness. Nearly every year the supply of rice runs
short and the people fall back on _camotes_ (sweet potatoes). And