PAGBURNAYAN IN VIGAN

Vigan City of Ilocos Sur is famous for its Heritage Village, a UNESCO Heritage site. However, tourists who visited Vigan also came to know that the place has high quality jars produced from their pot making industry that dates back to pre-colonial times when Chinese traders who opted to settle in Vigan introduced this craft.

The making of a pot photo courtesy by Leah De Leon in this link .

Tourists who wanted to see this craft can visit Brgy. Pagburnayan of Vigan. Thus, pot making here is called Pagburnayan where the word “burnay” to the locals, is an unglazed earthen jar with small opening. I can still remember when I was still a child since I grew up in Calbayong City of Samar when we used to have a jar to store drinking water and it is quite cold when you drink it even without putting some ice on it. Waraynons call it “bisô” for drinking water storage while the “tadiao” is the bigger one usually a water storage in “pantao/pantaw” or bath room.

Jars for Sale photo courtesy by Leah De Leon

These jars actually vary in sizes. Smaller ones can be used to store brown sugar, bagoong (fermented fish) or “dayok” in Waray, salt, tea drinking and local wine (basi). For the locals, burnay jars are also used in the fermentation of vinegar that comes from the sweet sap of the Arenga Pinnata, a sugar palm tree also known as “kaong.”

I did not visit this attraction in my last three visits to Vigan but I visited it the first time I was here. Unfortunately, by that time, digicam was not yet in use and thus the hard copies of pictures I kept were destroyed by Typhoon Ondoy. For purposes again of providing a one-stop convenience for my blog readers, I included this in my post.

My first visit to Vigan City dated April 29, 2000