Between Worlds: Ritual Food and the Living Cosmologies of the Lamanok Cultural Landscape

Athena Garcia Vitor1*, Cooper Resabal1, and Rachelle C. Lacea2

This paper approaches the Lamanok Archaeological Complex not only as an archaeological site but as the centre of a living ritual landscape extending into surrounding communities in Anda. While Lamanok is known for rock art and precolonial boat-coffin burials, it remains an active ceremonial terrain for tamba’n kinaraan (shamanic healers of the old ways) whose practices embed food, landscape, and cosmology in inseparable ways. Focusing on the rituals Pasaka, Pagikan, and Pabuhat, the study examines how food operates as a material and sensory medium of exchange between humans, ancestral spirits, nature spirits, and sacred spaces. From the perspective of cultural workers engaged in heritage safeguarding, this study argues that ritual foodways illuminate how archaeological landscapes remain active sites of sensing, nourishing, and negotiating relationships between land, sea, ancestors, and other-than-human beings. At the same time, the continued practice of these rituals reinforces community stewardship of sacred landscapes, contributing to the protection and cultural conservation of Lamanok as a living heritage site, particularly as increasing tourism brings new pressures to its fragile archaeological and ritual environments.