Villagers meet and talk about culture

HAPPY WEEKEND

By Gina Dizon

SAGADA, MOUNTAIN PROVINCE - “In-in-ni- in id Tuking....” is a popular chant heared among children in the earlier times as they sat lined up the cascading rocks here at sitio Tuking of barangay Demang.

The chants of children with their bonding and camaraderie  finds meaning with villagers of the three Poblacion barangays of Patay, Dagdag and Demang coming together to talk about concerns and issues that concern them as a community.

For quite some time, the annual general meeting at Tuking had been a yearly event  after Bangan plants the first rice seedlings  early December  and others  follow, that is, seven  days  after the cultural ‘wange’ is  done.

And so on December  4, one sunny day when the 7^th day of the cultural ‘wange’  culminated, people from the three Poblacion  barangays met to talk about what is happening in town that needs to be addressed.  

Barangay chairman Boone Bosaing of Demang presided over a mass meeting held here amongst the rocks of Tuking located near the barangay building and near the Anglican Church fronting Dap-ay Bilig.  

A most talked about concern is the culture degraded and abused in the present, a concern brought about by Sangguniang Bayan councillor and women leader Jane Bawing.

Tourists shooting and photographing cultural rituals while these are going on gathered exasperation from the villagers gathered. The cultural ‘begnas’,a three day agricultural feast  is a most visited event by  tourists  with their  digi cameras and high-powered Nikon and Canon lenses  zoomed close, very close to a  pig getting  butchered or  to an elder saying the chant.

While it was pointed out that “we are the ones letting visitors know of a certain cultural event on a certain date”, as elder Joseph Capuyan pointed out, we have to be responsible also in protecting our culture.

A responsibility forwarded is that women should regulate and check tourists from not crossing the prohibition line from the ritual area, to allow the elders do the ceremonial chants free from the clicking and glare of cameras.

For surely,  camera clicks and lights are a disturbance to a ritual being done, a ritual which in the first place is done with solemnity and  sanctity and which in the first place is free from  camera lights.

Another  talked about  prohibition is the  strict prevention of  tourists  from not  going  in the  sacred sites during the ‘iyag’, before the men with their  G-strings and headgears  proceed home to the  dap-ay where  the begnas shall  be conducted .

In sacred sites are the ‘babawiyan’ where old men do some chanting and pig is butchered.  It was earlier observed that some tourists were allowed to go with the men in the ritual sites. It was also talk in the grapevine that the tourist paid the cost of the sacrificial pig so they were allowed to walk with the men on cultural procession.  And among the other don’ts as earlier pointed out:  that  visitors should not be trailing with the men on ritual while they are walking from the babawiyan, on the road, to the rice fields, to the dap-ay.

Walking on the road and rice fields at Bangbangan is traditionally a part of the begnas ritual when the men go home from the babawiyan and do the cleansing and washing at Todey creek before doing the begnas.

Some women while they were huddled together grumbled that that those who violate the prohibitions should pay be fined.  

Sangguniang Bayan councillor and chairman of the tourism committee of the legislative body Dave Gulian said the concerns shall form part of the tourism code being revised.

Another talked about prohibition is the non-doing of rites when these are not within their time to be conducted. Some rituals were reportedly done because some visitors/individuals paid the sacrificial pig even if the ritual was not the time for it to be done.

Community women leader Soledad Belingon pointed out that sacrificial pigs can be handled by community people who shall contribute the cost. With this, the villagers shall get closer, be more responsible and observe  respect to a very own culture.  

The villagers also referred to a shooting done by a foreign firm with the collaboration of some locals who helped document a burial amongst the rocks of Baw-eng. Seen with disgust, the mock burial is part of a film with no dead body placed in a coffin.

Culture is an integral part of a community, of a collective village, of a person who is part of a community such that its very abuse is a social and cultural sin by itself. While there are daring attempts at changing an established culture because of economic and practical reasons, there are cultural rituals that are definitely to be treated with respect and done when the time comes that it shall be observed, or a ritual to be treated with solemnity much as other rites are treated with solemnity and respect.