What the dream of dead kin could mean

CULTURAL NOTES

Richard Kinnud

I am writing this on the day I woke up from a dream of two of my grandparents who have already passed away.  The grandmother I dreamt of died four years ago while the grandfather I saw and heard in my dream was gone more than 35 years ago.
    Purportedly in the dream, I have just finished my presentation to an audience on an open ground facing an Ifugao traditional native house.  The native house was blocking the stage in front of the building where the institution that invited me was supposedly holding office.
    I saw a moderator stood up, held the microphone and announced an open forum.  An old woman who was seated on some boulders behind the plastic chairs rose.  The moderator went to her with the mike then she spoke, “On ngadan ay nan alyon yun u’ungah an nipto’ an aton?”   The voice had me recognize that she was my grandmother.  What she said is “What was that which you said, young ones, is the right way to do it?”
    The moderator took over the microphone and said, “Sir, she was asking the right way to do the dance.”
    I was not able to reply immediately as supposedly I was taking care of a younger toddler sibling who was crying at the side of the building.  (In my present reality, I no longer had any toddler sibling.)  With no answer from me, the moderator that maybe I am still preparing an answer and so he asked the audience if there still are additional questions.
    An old man rose from the middle of the audience.  He was in g-string and green shirt with the “bayya-ong” (native blanket/cloth) worn over his shoulder and to his waist.  I recognized him to be my grandfather.  (I had once in my possession a photo of him in exactly the same attire.)  He asked, “On ngadan ay, adi tau kaanon tun bale?”  (Can you clarify, are we not to demolish this old native house?)      He was referring to the structure blocking the stage.
    Before I could utter any answer, I woke up.
    Dreams, especially of dead kin, are believed to mean something in many cultures.  It had me thinking on what could possibly be the significance of it.
    It made remember another time when I have dreamt of the same grandfather.  I was then hospitalized for more than a week of severe chicken pox.  In the dream, he was calling me to a table with abundant food while pointing to the infections on my skin.  When I told the dream to my mother, he secretly went to where the bones of my grandfather and found out that red ants invaded the remains.  She cleaned and wrapped them in new cloth.  A few days after, I was discharged from the hospital.
    Is my present dream up to something?  The present faith of course does not deny of what happened at that time I was hospitalized but the sequence could just be purely incidental.  I think that even if I tell this dream to my elders, it would no longer lead to the performance of a ritual,
    I have heard once an elder say that “in-inop e ya bungan ya abun di nomnomon.”  (dreams are just fruits of what one is thinking).  On the other hand, could they be fruits that should bear other fruits?  In other words, they can lead to some good thoughts.
    In a coffee break when I went to work after my dream, a friend and I had a good conversation on that “professor” in a foreign land who, in a certain program, tried to portray a Kalinga dance while wearing some traditional cloths, one of which is attributable to i-Benguets and and another Ifugaos.  That professor claimed his lineage to be Cordillera.  He was heavily criticized though on social media as inappropriately representing the people of the Cordilleras in his performance.
    The conversation with my friend soon flowed to how we natives sometimes debase our own culture to include cultural resources, icons, practices, traditions.  There are instances when we say things are right even as it may not be as what has been done in the past.  There are instances when present practices totally replaced traditional practices.  Of course, my friend and I agreed that not everything of these instances are cases of bastardizing our own culture.
    Just like the questions my grandmother asked in my dream, “What then, young ones, would you say in rightfully portraying our own identity.”   Just like the question my grandfather asked in my dream, “Are we supposed totally demolish the olden traditions and showcase modern, new, and even foreign ones?”  We have our own answers!