wild wonders & noble beasts

Last week, we joined the world to celebrate International Museum Day under the theme Museums Uniting a Divided World.

We proudly posted our hometown island’s museum with a majestic artwork of a three-ton carabao at its entrance. The water buffalo is the national mammal of the Philippines. The shockingly sad reality today is the carabao is slowly disappearing from our country’s agricultural landscape.

BAO: the unbowed carabao at The Negros Museum

A new exhibition at the Philippine National Museum of Natural History located in a niche at the landing on the fifth level is a family of carabaos from Nueva Ecija that was especially prepared by the museum’s taxidermists and scientists.

The country’s most prominent national artists have featured the iconic carabao in their various artwork throughout our long and storied histories.

new carabao exhibition at the Philippine National Museum of Natural History

Across the world, in April at the United States National Museum of Natural History’s new bronze bison statues were unveiled.

At the dedication ceremony, Dennis W. Zotigh, a member of the Kiowa, Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo and Isanti Dakota groups and a cultural information assistant at the National Museum of the American Indian, performed a traditional buffalo dance song.

Smithsonian Institution — image by Phillip R. Lee

The bison are iconic animals that shaped North American landscapes for more than 100,000 years and anchored Indigenous lifeways for generations. Pushed to the brink of extinction in the 19th century, bison survived thanks to dedicated conservation efforts. Today, they stand strong as an enduring symbol of survival and resilience.

The relationship between Native communities and the buffalo is a central theme of the National Museum of Natural History’s new exhibition “Bison: Standing Strong,” which opened on May 21.

“Bison: Standing Strong” exhibit

These great mammals of both cultures are of great significance to its peoples. wonder | wander | women relate closely to these powerful creatures as our spirit totems. Which is why it is of significant importance that we keep their presence and value alive and ensure that we remain well informed about their health and survival.

Carabaos or swamp buffaloes are large mammals of grey to dark grey color. Adult carabaos weigh from 400 to 500 kilos. They have horns that arc and curve backward, forming a large letter “C”.

paired carabao art deco sculptures, Bacolod City Lagoon Park

Carabaos symbolize the Asian way of life and were introduced in the Philippines around 300 BC by Malay and Chinese settlers.

Bison have long captured the imagination of people the world over. In paintings, photographs, stories, and sculpture, this powerful animal represents wildness, resilience, and the spirit of the American West.

The historic books, images, and objects on view are drawn from the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives’ rich collection. Explore how people have imagined bison over time.

rare original $10 bill from 1901

From portrayals of bison by Native artists to influential publications that fueled the early conservation movement, this display invites you to explore how ideas about America’s national mammal have endured and changed over time.

In the rural areas, carabao are a valuable component of agriculture and economics. Their heavy build is well suited for the hard labor in the fields. They serve as “living tractors” that help farmers in plowing and harrowing muddy rice paddies and turning the hard packed soil to prepare rows for planting fields.

Philippine Christmas stamps featuring the beloved carabao — #1777, #1827, #1830

They provide meat and dairy products, sustainable farming, and transportation in rural areas in the Philippines. Their hide, blood, bones and horns are all usefully turned into various products — in implements and tools that feed and sustain in many ways. Nothing is wasted and every part serves us well.

In northern communities, especially in the mountain regions of Luzon, they are part of festivals and feasts that validate the social status and prosperity. They feature in a variety of rituals of blessing or healing for many occasions or other rites of passage.

Animal parts — head, tail, horns especially are displayed prominently as part of offerings to spirit, symbols of status and claims of achievement. Prized beasts can take around three years to train and cost as much as 80,000 pesos.

[embed]Philippine carabao fun facts

In rural towns of the Philippine lowlands, a carabao festival is held in May to pay tribute to the Filipino farmers, the hard-working beasts of burden and their patron saint, San Isidro.

Although they are well adapted to hot and humid weather, they can be vulnerable to thermal stress. To cool off and reduce discomfort, carabaos often dip in the river or wallow in the mud. Covering their huge body protects them from both heat and insects or other pests.

Currently the swamp carabao (Bubalus bubalis carabanensis) and the riverine buffalo (Bubalus bubalis bubalis) are considered as subspecies of the domesticated buffalo (Bubalus bubalis linnaeus).

local art featuring our beloved carabao

In 2024, the Philippine Carabao Center along with the Institute of Biology of the College of Science of the University of the Philippines Diliman proposed to revive the 1860 species classification that recognizes the carabao or swamp buffalo as a distinct species from the riverine buffalo.

In the US, environmental historian and Indigenous writer Rosalyn LaPier often encounters a common misconception when they collaborate with international colleagues.

“People from other parts of the world often think that Americans have all seen bison because they’re the national mammal, but many Americans still haven’t seen a bison outside of a zoo.” ~ Rosalyn LaPier, professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

where the buffalo roam, Yellowstone National Park

This lack of familiarity with bison (which are commonly referred to as buffalo) would have been unimaginable to LaPier’s ancestors, whose entire existence revolved around buffalo. LaPier is a member of the Blackfeet Nation of Montana and Canada’s Métis people.

Both are Great Plains Native communities that revered buffalo and utilized the massive mammals for nearly every aspect of their daily lives including food, clothing and shelter.

“Bison: Standing Strong” inspires a new appreciation for the national mammal, whose iconic status often overshadows its ecological and cultural significance.

The exhibition features several items created by Native people, including a tool that Native women used to clean bison hides, a painted buffalo scapula that once relayed an important message on the plains and a toy buffalo fashioned in part from the animal’s woolly fur.

[embed]home to critically endangered wild life, Northern Negros Natural Park

In recent years, Native communities across the Great Plains have attempted to fill this century-long gap by bringing herds of bison back onto their land.

Returning the bison to the prairie is a long process and many herds are still carefully managed and fenced in. But the goal is for these bison to one day roam free like their ancestors, restoring patches of prairie as they graze and stomp about.

Unlike the bison, whatever freedom the Philippine carabao may have had (if any at all) is long lost in history. Let us hope their existence in our current times help sustain our local farmers and ensure better agriculture that preserves nature and our biodiversity.

We humans need to be better stewards.

Originally published at https://wonderwanderwomen.blogspot.com.