Abstract. – In this article I contribute to an understanding of interreligious encounters that underlines the processes of separation. By an analysis of the meaning-generating processes that were found to be operative in a burial ritual, observed among the Ifugao of northern Luzon, the Philippines, I discuss how the encounter between the traditional Ifugao religion and Protestant belief and practices can be understood to generate separate metaphorical ideologies. I take issue with theories of syncretism and hybridity and argue that a theoretical perspective in which these two systems are seen as tangent can account for the meaning-generating processes that occur in their encounter. [Ifugao, Luzon, Philippines, hybridity, ritual, meaning, metaphor, tangency]