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Paper short abstract

Drawing on the experience of tengtengaw, an event described as being led astray in the forest by spirits, this paper explores ontological ambivalence in Ifugao, Philippines. I suggest that an ethnographic method attuned to uncertainty can reveal the ontological patchiness of the world.

Paper long abstract

We had been walking for two days toward the peak of Mount Amuyao when my local companions and I became lost in the mossy forest of Ifugao, Philippines. As we ascended the steep mountain, the trail suddenly disappeared. We walked in circles, repeatedly arriving at the same clearings, following what appeared to be a single path that nonetheless led us elsewhere each time. Only hours later did we find our way again, reaching the summit just before nightfall. This extraordinary experience is locally known as tengtengaw: an event described as being led astray in the forest by the mischievous pinacheng spirits. Yet what, precisely, had happened that afternoon? Was it exhaustion, disorientation, or the agency of forest spirits?

Rather than treating tengtengaw as a moment of altered belief or the disclosure of a different world, I approach it as an ambivalent, unresolved experience that resists univocal accounts. During and after the event, multiple explanations remained simultaneously plausible, none fully displacing the other. This coexistence of multiple accounts of causality did not resolve into ontological conflicts about what exists in the forest. Instead, the experience suggested forms of ontological entanglement where boundaries between ontologies dissolved. Drawing on this encounter, I propose that an ethnographic method attuned to uncertainty and ambivalence might reveal the ontological patchiness of a shared world.