 This is my home, the Ifugao rice terraces in and around Banawi in the northern Philippines. For centuries, these magnificent agricultural terraces have been a unique farming community. But this unique culture of my people is rapidly disappearing, as the younger generation seems to have lost interest. I hope this is not true of my two sons, with whom I often take walks in the countryside, where I point out the heritage that is theirs to preserve. Aided in that preservation, for 12 years now, my American husband Jean and I have, through the magic of the video camera, recorded field operations, rituals, and the feelings of the elders, the Mumbaki priests, and experts of the culture like Manuel Gulao. The narration or the story of the origin of rice. The Ifugao developed sweetened farming, including the culture of rice, planting of rice in the mountain sides, until, according to the myth, the brothers Kamigat and Balituk got this kind of variety of rice from Kabulian. They pour the wine and they drink. After a while, they free to and invoke their ancestors on both sides, for the right on the origin of rice. They finish invoking and take out the chickens. They punbless the seedlings to be transplanted. They slit the chickens and sing them. They cut them open and inspect the balsaks. And the signs are good. Over the centuries, during the rice harvest time, while the men led by Mumbaki priests conduct the rituals in the granary above, the women have toiled in the fields below, singing to maintain the rhythm of the harvest. Mr. Chedoro Baguilat, governor of Ifugao province, told me these traditions are worth preserving. Iteresis is primarily an agricultural land as well as a cultural symbol. Let's not preserve the rice terraces for the tourists, I must say, but let us preserve it for the Ifugaos and for the appreciation of the Filipino culture by the Filipinos themselves. I talked at length with Mr. Wandaid, a student of the Ifugao, who had many interesting insights into our culture, particularly the importance of our Mumbaki priests. The Mumbaki is the repository of Ifugao culture. Do not have a written language, a written dialect, everything is there in the head and heart of the Mumbaki. And the Mumbaki is a rare, I would say, quotation mark, rare animal, because once he's initiated, once he learns the responsibilities of a Mumbaki, he becomes now first, he becomes the repository of our culture. You ask him about taboos, customs and traditions, he knows. He's also an arbiter, where there are disputes in the locality, he is the arbiter and he's respected. You may be a lawyer, you may be an engineer, but the people will respect more the Mumbaki in its own locality, because he is the one who holds the culture of the people. I talk of many things with the aging Mumbaki Yogyog Dogapna, truly among the last of a dying breed. He knows this and he is sad. Although many Mumbaki are quitting or retiring, he told me that he will perform the rise and other rituals until his last breath. Like my husband and I, other Ifugao are also using modern technology to preserve our culture. Mr. Mario Lachauna, he uses audio tape materials to perform his rituals. And so as I walk with my sons through the terraces, I try to encourage them to know and be interested in the Ifugao side of their heritage. I am hopeful that they will be able to take the same walk with their children someday. In the meantime, we will continue to record for posterity the activities and rituals of the Ifugao culture and document the people's points of view about its fate.