Title | Bamboo Reflections: Undying Faith in the Ambahan |
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Author | Resti Reyes Pitogo |
Pages | 7 |
File Size | 161 KB |
File Type | |
Total Downloads | 123 |
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BAMBOO REFLECTIONS: UNDYING FAITH IN THE AMBAHAN The Ambahan of Hanunoo‐Mangyans does not only represent the “treasure” of the Filipino indigenous culture, but it also symbolizes the philosophical and spiritual depths of the Mangyan creative soul searching. Its rhythmic l...
BAMBOO REFLECTIONS: UNDYING FAITH IN THE AMBAHAN The Ambahan of Hanunoo‐Mangyans does not only represent the “treasure” of the Filipino indigenous culture, but it also symbolizes the philosophical and spiritual depths of the Mangyan creative soul searching. Its rhythmic language, emotional narratives, metaphoric thoughts and poetic symbolisms reflect some fundamental themes that open the doors for Filipino reflection of sustainable development (Kaginhawahang Likas‐kaya). The following reflections based on my unpublished book entitled, Nagmamagandang‐loob Po!, illustrate the richness of the Ambahan symbolic philosophy and eco‐spirituality drawn from a hermeneutics of symbols and metaphors of the Antoon Postma’s collection of 261 Ambahan. Life is Sufficient & Integrated First, you have to believe in the Ambahan and the life it reveals. To the Ambahan, life is naturally sufficient. Scarcity is not the core problem of life. Rather, it is the lack of balance in the human‐cosmic relations and the stability that this required for harmonious living. To the Mangyans, life is not a configuration of situational scarcity, personal survival, and insatiable drives to satisfy human needs. The Mangyans do not fight with one another to get the biggest share of the food. Food may not be plenty, but nature and social life has a way to provide for hunger. It is not the scarcity of food that the Mangyan worries in the Ambahan; rather, it is the lack of sensitivity to others who are hungry that make life dissonant. It is unimaginable in the Ambahan worldview to have someone who is absolutely wealthy but who is not sharing his food with others. Sharing of labor, food and harvest create a life that is socially interconnected and cosmically structured. But kaingin harvests are not just shared among the Mangyans. They are even shared even with animals and spirits. Nature has an ability to nurture all. This is because there is a harmony of all relationships in the Mangyan way of living. The Mangyan relates and works within a balanced personal, interpersonal and social
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means. After all, the Mangyan family and society are a reflection of their ecosystem and sustainable ecology. As such, life is the animating and unifying principle that connects and drives the behavior of plants, animals, humans, spirits, and nonliving things. Life is not fragmented and isolated to one another by individualism and by conflicting interests. Life is an undivided self‐conscious spirit, an undivided personalization & socialization of life that integrates awareness, experience, understanding, decisions, actions and transcendence into harmonious breathing and relating. In the Ambahan, the Mangyans have an integrated sense of life. They don’t divide things into physical or spiritual, like the Gnostic duality of life. They don’t even categorize life into biological, economic, social, political, cultural and spiritual like the contemporary segmentation of reality. They don’t even see life as conflict of cosmic forces (like the gods fighting with another for supremacy in the battle of mortals) that victimize the humans like that of the classical Greeks & Romans. Things are harmoniously united, complementing and counter‐reflecting to create a tonal quality emanating from sung Ambahan drawn in the perfect‐seven syllables. To the non‐Mangyans hearing the sung Ambahan, they may say that it is a monotonously crude piece of music, that the Ambahan is not as exciting as listening to classical, contemporary or pop music. But you have to believe in the imagination and symbolism of the Ambahan in order to appreciate the musical meaning and understand the human‐cosmic philosophy that the Ambahan reveals. For the Mangyans, the Ambahan has the power to convey the unexpressed depth of soul in the individual, in the family and in the universe. It has the power to express the overflowing emotions, meanings and truth they believe as a person and as a people. It is this consciousness that reflects the life of the Ambahan itself. The psyche of one is the psyche of all. You cannot alienate one from the whole. This is probably why the Ambahan continuously exists today. The Mangyan script has preserved the Ambahan in bamboos, but the Mangyan philosophical consciousness and shared body of social‐cosmic meanings has preserved it more in their heart and made it a living icon of their free spirit.
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The Ambahan awareness of life is not confined in the Mangyan poet alone. Rather, life is an undying, universal consciousness living in their society filled with the symbolization of plants, animals and things. A bird is a personal symbol of a Mangyan’s spatial and spiritual journey in the Ambahan. And so are honey bees, pigs, boas, monkeys, and others. They have stories to tell in the Ambahan melodic way. A blooming plant like a bamboo shoot, banana, buri leaves, coconut tree, etc. personifies his human reflection woven in the drama of human beauty and eco‐ existence. To the Mangyan, he is a bird, a bee, or an animal, and will be always a part of the entire universe of the living. Man does not rule nature. Rather, he partakes in it, share life with it, and reflects the inner truths in him. Through the Ambahan meaning, the world is constituted as an integrated home of life – a life that is like the water – a living refreshment of the spirited body. That’s why things are alive and have an existential value. All have a purpose and meaning. Plants are used for decoration, deodorant, medicine, rain protection, food and household purposes. Young green leaves reflect youth and beauty. They grow so attractively that mirror the youth in the Mangyan. A young bamboo shoot reveals the man’s vigor, beauty and youth. A growing plant, blooming in beauty, like the buri leaves, coconut trees, and reflect the beauty of young maiden. Like a gabe, palay, sugar cane, vine, or banana tree, the young Mangyan grows stronger if he is deeply rooted and planted in the appropriate place and time. Animals too have a purpose. They reflect the behavior of a Mangyan. Animals like fish, wild boar, deer, insects, and birds give food. In the Ambahan, an animal personifies the Mangyan effort and journey to live. The honey bee going from one tree to another mirrors the behavior of a young man serenading women in different places. The ram leaving his wife and kids to look for food reflects the story of a man working for his family and facing the fact that he may not be able to return safe. Water in the river, brooks, springs, and bamboo canal has a purpose. It refreshes the body and spirit. It is the home of the spirits with a cleansing power. It eases the mind after taking a bath. Taking a bath, the spirit is purified and is ready to enter to the world of the living beyond death. And the air has a purpose too. It breathes in
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two ways: one in peace and one in peril. The air as wind may be strong, blowing powerfully the poor bamboo house on the top of the mountain, forcing the house maker to move elsewhere. The air comes as a sweet harmony, making the leaves sway and leaving a refreshing kiss of quietness. This is also true with the spirits who live in the forest, rivers, caves, trees, and many parts of their environment. They have a purpose in the Mangyan worldview. The bad spirits may make the person sick. But the good spirit could help the Mangyan overcome the bad spirit and convince the soul of the stricken person to return to his body and get well soon. Spirits live with people as a part of his ecosystem and cosmic life, always leading and influencing them in their living. Philosophical Realities in the Ambahan There are two principles and powers of reality: (1) A firm, strong, dependable, nice, good and happy life, and (2) A weak, frail, unreliable, ugly, dissonant & lonely life. The Ambahan calls the first one ayad. Urog, huyong and linong are the metaphors of life as ayad, which could be seen in beautiful memory of childhood, growth, teenage life and happy home. Beauty and contentment is revealed by urog as a metaphor. It describes a state of quality of fulfilled or happy life. Ayad (or mayad) reflects fundamental goodness, wellbeing and happiness. Linong and huyong like urog describe a delightful condition of things which portrays peaceful stability – exhilarating in sights, words, thoughts, and memories. All these Ambahan metaphors link beauty, goodness, wellbeing, happiness, harmony and completeness in the Mangyan way of living, the environment and the relationships they live. Mayad could be seen in the amban (living together and bonding) among friends, married life, family, and society in general. They could be experienced when relatives and friends visit a family. It brings joys, sharing of betel, stories, food, fun and laughter. It is peace, simplicity, and joy experienced in homely stories. These are metaphors of the strong conjugal love, of filial dearness, of intimate romantic love, of memorable visits of friends, and so forth.
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As such the meanings of these metaphors (urog, huyong, ayad & linong) are so rich that they paint a world of the Mangyans that is strong, sustainable and life‐giving. Life on in the Mangyan world is worthily caring. They are found in plants, animals, man and the nature. Good spirits live with them, bringing sacredness in the meaning of urog, ayad and linong as life to come. When one recovers from sickness, misunderstandings and problems, these metaphors are used. When one is saved from perils and death, these metaphors reflect the faithful caring of parent‐nature. Fear is dispelled. Food is available. No one will be left alone. The Mangyan has a reason to believe and move on. Life is naturally and existentially reliable, despite death. On the other hand, there are realities contrary to what ayad conveyed. The tie‐knot gives up. Some plants don’t grow. Animals attacked the swidden farm. Birds come to take the seeds. Monkeys, pigs, rats, etc. come to eat the kaingin plants. Babies are born dead. The bamboo floor is cold and lonely for lifeless child. Soon the baby will be left alone in the grave covered by earth and sands. How lonely the child could be! Then, the husband and the wife quarrels. The son violates the parent’s advice. Love is forgotten, leaving tears, painful sadness and stress behind. In the Ambahan, the Mangyan uses the negative metaphors of lut‐an (weakness, frailty), sungnan (bad feeling, anger) and magkabayong (pulsating pains in the head). Things bad happen to the Mangyan. A sower is tripped and entangled with grass vine in the swidden farm. The palay seeds fall to the frustrationof the sower. Dried leaves falling on the ground, the Mangyan watch with his dream gone. Wind pounds the bamboo house creating squeaking, fearful noises (magtanggiitan). The homeowner gives up the house, and later decides to move to a safer, more peaceful place. In the Mangyan thinking, one cannot force the issue, disrespecting the natural fact and process of things. Birds, monkeys, pigs and other animals may attack the kaingin farm. Things are not as dependable and reliable as they are. The palay is taken away by birds. Plants and foods are destroyed and eaten. The Mangyan is left sitting near his kaingin, wondering in frustration about what happened.
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These lut‐an, sungnan & magkabayong metaphors reflect daot (evil). Daot is the opposite of ayad (goodness). Daot is portrayed in the painful destruction of the house, the farm, the conjugal bond, and the relationship that starts with internal experience of daot. It is a condition of broken bonds, of poor sick body, of the wondering soul, etc. Daot is the lonely, parentless owl, crying in the night. It is the bird struck by arrows and falling fast on the ground. It is the death of a wild cat or bat on top of a dried river bed. It happens to a tuber eaten by pigs, or to man suffering in pain of thorns. It is experienced by dying sick who can’t be cured. It is the departure of a lonely man leaving his beloved family behind. It is an old butterfly saying he could only reach the place where his wings could bear his life. It is the tragedy of life leading to irreparable, irreversible death. In life there is frailty both seen and unseen. Frailty is there in everything that has life. Where such frailty came from, the Ambahan does not explain. The Mangyan just accepts the frailty of life existence in the cycle of birth, growth, relationship, love, marriage, friendship, and so forth. It is found in the external universe of unseen power in nature that makes life so difficult, where one experiences hunger, sickness, loneliness, anger, destruction, loss of strengths, to loss of faith and death. The Mangyan transcendent belief sustains life But in the Mangyan Ambahan, self‐conscious life does not end in death: Dapat bay una kunman! (Despite this, still . . . ). In the face of frailty (lut‐an) and death (nirway), there is faith in the capacity of this life to overcome frailty. A child may be born lifeless and lonely in his grave, but he still has the living memory of the beloved when he was still in his mother’s womb. A friend may be far away, but his presence is felt and the bond remains ever‐fresh. The sick could recover. And if he dies, his soul will live, experiencing the opposite of pain, loneliness and destruction of the body. His journey will continue. He will meet his forefathers. He will live with the souls of the departed. In the house, a husband and wife may recover from sungnan (anger, disharmony). Like the wooden kalutang, each pole could be reshaped to calibrate tonal quality to
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bring greater harmony. When knots were broken, one can get another vine to tie two things again. And the Mangyan can strengthen the house. He could re‐ cultivate the swidden and plant better seeds. Tomorrow, urog, huyong & linong will come. The fallen banana tree will rise again. There is ayad. A shoot will sprout because of its life‐giving roots. When birds and animals eat the palay, there will be things left for the rest of the family. Nature has a way to protect the weak and the frail. Harvest time will be bountiful of palay, eating, songs and stories. Even death cannot take away the bond of the living and the departed. One’s soul has a destiny beyond the grave. The soul will soon travel; take a bath, and journey far through the rivers, valleys and mounts. He will go to the place beyond— a place filled with urog and ayad. It is a linong place beyond the moon, the stars and the sky. It is a place better than this life where frailty is experienced. The souls will dwell in that spiritual home and will relentlessly share stories of their lives with spiritual betel nuts. It is coming (aban) to the time that they will unite together as a family. Time will stop and everlasting now! Ayad and urog will never end. In the Ambahan, the Mangyan expresses the depth of his fait: Dapat bay una kunman! Hanggan sa manundugan! In believing, life is forever! Resti R. Pitogo Quezon City, Philippines July 3, 2008
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