Trick or treat and halloween in the Dap-ay

HAPPY WEEKEND 

Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province -- Halloween is most often an exciting occasion for children wearing colorful and  creative costumes and being treated with goodies, biscuits and spaghetti.
               

Here in this tourist town, children at PoblacionSagada were given goodies solicited from parents, business folks, community members, friends and the Sagada Rotary Club.
               

In the old settlement of Dagdag below the Poblacion, some 200 children aged 2  to 12 years old  walked from one Dap-ay (indigenous hut where elders converge to discuss issues or perform rituals) to the other wearing creative  costumes with painted faces, blown out  hair and assorted party dresses or banana mascaras.

               

The children trudged the village’s  four dap-ays -- Maballay,  Dolkigan, Malingeb and Matoba. The children and their parents assembled at the barangay hall at Dageydey sitio and had the Halloween program done at an open field nearby to accommodate the nearly 500  kids, mothers and members of the community.

The four dap-ay structures are now semi-modern with GI sheets replacing the cogon roof. Wooden walls were also replaced by concrete in the late ’80’s to early ‘90s by then Office of Northern Cultural Communities.

               

These venues customarily serve to let community people assemble presided over by men elders to discuss collective concerns. With the death of some elders along with government taking over  to address community issues at  government  buildings, the dap-ay stopped as places  for  decision making.  Some villages though persisted
making use of the dap-ay especially in remote communities where barangay halls were not built.
               

Anyways, here in celebration of Halloween, prizes were given to the most “most creative” or “most resourceful” in making mascara like those made of indigenous materials.

               

A girl named Phoebe donned a creatively made- headdress while another teenage boy had his torn old pants in strips and Inglay with her blown out hair flying in different directions. Ten-year-old girl Dadsek impersonated a grandmother with a wig and a cane while Macmac  impersonated a hunchback.
               

“Most resourceful” were Jethro with banana sheath as mask, eight-year-old Yahweh with skirt made of plastic
strips and Basang with her soot- covered face.
               

The village Halloween initiated a year ago by barangay officials is now in its second year.  Going from one dap-ay to the other was an initiative this year by the program committee. The children’s performances instilled belongingness in dap-ays.
               

Each dap-ay is composed of households considered as members who take part in and socio –cultural activities including their presence in village meetings. In this highly cultural town are observed customary  agricultural festivities such as the year round  “begnas”  done  four to six times a year participated in
by all member households of  dap-ays in the community.

Similarly, the groupings of children during the Halloween program proper was done as per their household membership in their respective dap-ay for them to take note what dap-ay they belonged to. As for this writer, it’s only now I came to know my family belongs to Maballay.             

What a discovery at this older age in my life!

-------------------------------------------------------
More pics here https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=164258467050225&set=a.164240130385392.44233.153434081465997&type=1&permPage=1