Proud Marys - FILIPINO CULTURE

"The barrel man has also been identified as a part of Philippine culture and art, often as the subject of Filipino jokes. 

University of Baguio's chairman for the Program of Indigenous Cultures, Io Jularbal, asserts that the barrel man is a byproduct of Westernization. He points out that before the arrival of foreigners in the Cordilleras that indigenous people freely roamed around with little to no clothing with no shame. Jularbal says that the barrel element was influenced by the Americans, with the concept of "a man in a barrel" denoting poverty or socioeconomic failure."

"In a Philippine Daily Inquirer article in 2007, indie filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik revealed he conducted a study of the sculpture in the 1990s for his consulting group, the Sunflower Collective.

He discovered that the original barrel man was a protest statement of sorts. It was made to play a prank on Americans who made Baguio City their alternative government center and retreat beginning in the 1900s, and in so doing displaced the Ibalois who originally lived in the area.

The Ifugao carvers reportedly took inspiration from the “US dime-store statues of American Indians.” 

-Lazatin, Hannah (December 13, 2019). "Could the Baguio Barrel Man Actually Be a Product of Westernization?"- Esquiremag.ph.