Ijang

Ijangs are the terraced hillfort settlements of the Ivatan people built on hill tops and ridges in the Batanes Islands of the Philippines.

Aside from both of them being strategically built in high places, 12th-century Sung-type ceramics and Chinese beads and other artefactual materials recovered from an ijang were dated at almost the same time as the foundations of the Okinawan castles beginning from circa 1200 CE.

During clan wars, those attacked climbed for safety to the tops of the ijangs where they defended themselves by throwing stones at the enemy below.

Today, there are still traces of such ancient dwellings, including stone posts standing or lying where the Ivatans left them when they abandoned their pagan way of life for Christianity in the late 18th century.

[citation needed] The Bashi Channel had come to be increasingly used by English East India Company ships and the Spanish authorities brought the islands under their direct administration to prevent them from falling under British control.