BENCHWARMER

Igorot slant II
RAMON DACAWI

Names hurt when applied with derision and contempt. As one black or African-American pointed out, he loves waking up to his wife’s greeting: “Good morning, my sweet Nigger”. It’s different, he says, when he’s on the job and a fellow worker acknowledges him with a sneer dripping with racial slur: “Hi there, Nigger!”

Tags and labels can also hurt when they tend to stereotype. When he was mayor of Sagada, Mt. Province, now presidential assistant Thomas “Champag” Killip was swamped with text messages demanding him to rectify a national news headline.

It was about the arrest of suspected robbery gang members poking their guns on tourists along the Halsema Highway. The news head identified them as “Sagada-Kalinga Gang”, a term coined by the police who presented the suspects in a press conference.

Killip verified and then called a press conference to announce that while the suspected gang leader was born in Sagada, he never grew up there. The police label, picked up by the media, was as unwarranted and unfair as those that ethnically identify marijuana bust suspects as “Igorots”, but not when the culprits are Tagalogs, Bicolanos or what.

I remember that time a school principal approached me after she visited Kiangan. She said it surprised her to find the old Ifugao capital was so clean, free from red beetle nut spittle, contrary to what she thought. She apologized, perhaps not knowing I trace my roots to Hungduan. Or she must have thought all Ifugaos are Kiangans.

While the debate lingers over the term “Igorot” (which means one from the mountains), it seems the furor has died out among indigenous peoples of America over their collectively being labeled by their European colonizers as “Indians”.

They don’t blame Christopher Columbus who mistakenly thought he had landed in India or the West Indies. As there’s no negative connotation to it, no American also seems to protest that his nationality was coined by German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller in honor of Genoan and Italian voyager Amerigo Vespucci.

The negative connotations of “Igorot” was also borne out of the ignorance of those who do not know us. Still, some of us are as guilty as those who believe we are descendants of an inferior race with tails who climbed down from trees only recently. Some of us still believe some women from Capiz are “manananggals” who, at night, detach themselves from the waist up and, with their bat wings and fangs, fly out against the moon-lit sky in search of blood to suck.

It simply sucks that some of us still attempt to detach and distance themselves from being called Igorot. The least we can do is turn the tables when the occasion comes. I like the sweet subtlety with which Igorot anthropologist Picpican did it when some students from the flatlands visited the St. Louis University Museum of which he was the curator.

The students were amused seeing some artifacts – wooden spoons and ladles. The group broke to hearty laughter when one quipped in wonder, “Ang laki siguro ng bunganga ng mga Igorot, ano?”

“Bakit, wala ba kayong nakitang ganyan sa bayan n’yo?” Ike gently asked after approaching them to tone down their glee. “Wala, sir.” “Wala kayong nakitang kutsara ng mga ninuno n’yo sa museum n’yo?” Wala kaming museum, sir.” “Meron naman siguro . Alangan namang hindi gumamit ng kutsara ang mga ninuno n’yo.”

One time, while on the boat to work in Venice, my son Boogie texted he felt proud to be an Igorot. He was wearing a “pasiking” (rattan backpack) and Italians and tourists on board were admiring its flawless craftsmanship.

Yet when he was young, Boogie was bothered being an Igorot for a different reason. While renting out his pony “Soliko” at the Wright Park, Boogie confronted me with questions about his identity. In their drinking sprees, the other pony boys, mostly Kalanguyas, ribbed him for claiming he’s half-Ifugao yet can’t speak Tuwali, his father’s native tongue. So he steeledhimself with gin, to muster courage to ask why I never taught him the dialect. .

I’m really sorry, it was my mistake, I told him, groping for answers. We’re the only Ifugao family in this (Pacdal Forest Nursery) neighborhood and I doubt if your uncles can speak Tuwali, I added, quite lamely.

He remained inconsolable. How can he be truly proud to be Igorot when he can’t speak the dialect simply because I didn’t bother to teach him? I’m so guilty now as I was then, while grateful to my old man for teaching me.

I can only hope Boogie’s wife, Lovelyn, would teach my grandsons Lukie and Dylan – and Boogie - her native Kalanguya tongue. They’re learning Italian and English, as they have to, and I shudder over the thought that the two boys would later ask the question Boogie had posed.

I’m sure the young couple will tell and remind the kids they’re one-half Kalanguya, one-fourth Ifugao and one-fourth Tagalog – and are Igorots I am certain, too, that my daughter Beng is proud of her Ifugao and Igorot descent.

Let’s move on, transcend the debate that wouldn’t die over our collective name as Igorots, and dwell on more serious issues confronting us in the Cordillera - the loss of our environmental and cultural heritage, including our native tongues.

On this, the words of Dr Lawrence Reid , researcher emeritus of the University of Hawaii, resonate. Dr. Reid, who lived for years in Guina-ang, Bontoc, noted during the recent International Conference on Cordillera Studies at the University of the Philippines Baguio:

“But what I find most disheartening are not the new words and new ways of saying things that are being used today, these are just part of the natural course of events as a result of intensive language contact. What disheartens me is the loss of traditionalknowledge."

Not only is ritual knowledge fast disappearing, but common terms for traditional baskets and their functions are no longer known by young people. The names for all but most common of the flora and fauna of the region are no longer known, or have been replaced by equivalent Ilokano or Tagalog terms. In other words, the unique richness of the dialect isbeing compromised.

Further on, he said: “Who are the people working on Cordilleran languages today? There are relatively few. SIL, Philippines has linguists operating in a few locations, but there is a great need for local people, such as each of you, to take a keen interest in recording the distinct language used in each barangay that marks it as distinct from others.

Remember that there is strength in diversity, and by discovering all of the features that mark that diversity, we are not only celebrating our unique identities, but we are building a hedge against the forces of globalization that eventually would destroy our cultures and what remains of the language we speak.”

He ended: “If you perceive yourself to be part of an indigenous group, whether or not the group is truly one of the original groups in the Philippines or part of the Austronesian cultural minorities, now labeled as indigenous, then you have a basis for claiming these rights, and hopefully recovering some of your fast disappearing heritage to pass on to your children.”

Finally, that quote from columnist Jose G. Dulnuan posted on the IGO website should sort out the debate: “I am an Igorot. Let me be treated as I deserve – with respect if I am good, with contempt if I am no good, irrespective of the name I carry. Let the term, Igorot, remain, and the whole world will use it with the correct meaning attached to it.” Period.– (e-mail: rdacawi@yahoo.com).