The Provincial Tourism Office and Museum of Sultan Kudarat contains fourteen specimens of limestone burial jars. One is a jar with a lid, two are jars that are almost intact, six are fragments of jars, and five are lids that have been separated from the jars that they used to cover. Most of these specimens are placed in front of the tall display case that contains items from the municipality of Lebak. The smallest of the almost-intact jars is inside the display case. The large jar that has a lid has been moved from one spot to another. It cannot be ascertained yet which municipality it came from. It’s the first limestone jar that came into the museum’s possession, and it is a subject of my post more than a year ago. Below are my more-detailed notes on all fourteen specimens.
1—This is a piece of a broken small quadrangular jar.
2—This is a lid that has a circular base and missing top.
3—This is a big cylindrical jar with vertical flutings.
4—This is the base of a quadrangular jar with vertical flutings.
5—This is a lid that looks like an inverted bowl at the base and has a simple tubelike handle. The surface is covered with vertical flutings.
6—This is a piece of a broken small quadrangular jar with flutings on the sides.
7—This is a jar cover that is squarelike at the base and topped by a figure of a bald human head. The right side of the head is missing, including the right eyebrow and the right eye. The left eyebrow, the left eye, and the mouth are excavated. The nose is embossed. The face looks serene; the person buried in the jar might have been a sage or a venerated chieftain. Tiny arms are embossed from the neck of the figure to the edge of the base.
8—This is a piece of a broken small quadrangular jar.
9—This is smaller than specimen no. 8 and probably a part of it.
10—This is the base of a broken quadrangular jar.
11—This is a lid that is square and flat at the base and topped by a round handle. The surface is pockmarked, heavily on the handle and lightly on the base. Tiny and close lines run from the bottom of the handle to the edge of the base.
12—This is a spherical lid topped by a tubelike handle with a missing upper part.
13—This is a tiny quadrangular jar broken on one side. The surface is adorned with horizontal lines that have crisscrossing diagonal lines in between. The lines are thin and straight, which indicates that a sharp and tiny metal was used in making them, which indicates that the jar is newer than the ones that were carved using stone flakes.
14—This is a big quadrangular burial jar with a pyramid-shaped lid. Diamond-like designs cover the entire surface. One side of the lid is broken at the base, forming a horizontal and oblong hole.
Limestone burial jars and other interesting items from
Lebak town
My mother told me, “I didn’t know you wrote something about burial jars for the provincial museum.” I frowned and answered, “No, I didn’t.” She explained that she had been to the Provincial Tourism Office and Museum to transact some business and she had seen a label for burial jars there that mentioned my name. “You wrote that the jars are one thousand five hundred years old,” she added.
I figured out that the staff of the tourism office must have quoted something I wrote online. “No,” I told my mom. “It wasn’t me who said the jars are that old. I was simply quoting an anthropologist who did a test on a bone that was found inside a jar.” I was embarrassed that something scientific was attributed to me, a blogger who has too much time in his hand. I decided to visit the museum to ask the staff there to change whatever needed changing. I also wanted to see the burial jars that my mom had described. She had told me that the museum had several pieces of burial jars from the municipality of Lebak. I had not seen them before. When I went to the museum more than a year earlier, the place only had one large burial jar.
I didn’t see the label that my mom had told me about. It was supposed to be attached to the large burial jar, which had been placed in front of a display case containing Dulangan Manobo items from the municipality of Senator Ninoy Aquino. When I went to the museum, the burial jar had been moved to another spot, and the label must have been lost in the process. But I did see the new burial jars, placed in front of the display case for the municipality of Lebak, and I recognized right away that the label for the jars was a verbatim quotation from an essay of mine that had appeared in Philippine Daily Inquirer. I wasn’t cited in the label, but I didn’t complain. I simply wanted to make sure that no one was quoting me as if I had a PhD and carbon-dating apparatus.
The label says the jars are from Lugping and donated by a certain Ugkaw A. Mamaku. I don’t know where exactly Lugping is. It must just be a sitio, for it’s not one of the barangays of Lebak that are listed in the 2010 Socio-Economic Profile of Sultan Kudarat Province. Mamaku must also be an ordinary Manobo or one of the lesser-known chieftains, for I can’t find his name among the datus who promulgated the Kitab, or Dulangan Manobo Customary Law, in 2011.
The new set of burial artifacts comprises one semicomplete big jar, five jar covers, and six jar pieces. The smallest of the broken pieces probably belong to one of the bigger ones. The specimens are all placed in front of the tall display case allotted for Lebak. There’s an additional semicomplete tiny jar inside the display case. I’ll give you more details about the specimens in my next post. I’ll have an inventory of them so that they can be traced or recovered in case they become missing.
One of the more beautiful specimens in Sultan
Kudarat Museum
A more realistic sample compared to other
anthropomorphic lids
(Update: These jars may be fake. Check out this
post for the explanation.)
You don’t have to come up here in Kulaman Plateau to see the traditional things used by the Dulangan Manobo people. The provincial museum, located in the plains of Isulan town, has such items. The display includes clothes, baskets, and musical instruments. Just a little caveat: If you’re used to going to museums, don’t be surprised with what you will see in our provincial museum, which also functions as the Provincial Tourism Office. The place doesn’t have the subdued look and feel of a standard museum. It is flashy and colorful instead. It seems to me that whoever designed the exhibits has seen a lot of beauty pageants and not a single museum.
The museum has a tall display case for each of the eleven municipalities of Sultan Kudarat Province, and each case has a mannequin or two wearing ethnic clothes. The cut of the clothes is modified, and the cloth is combined with modern materials, and I don’t know why. It’s possibly to make the clothes look “fashionable.” The tribal handicrafts, musical instruments, hunting equipment, and even archaeological artifacts are scattered around the feet of the mannequins like novelty items in a department store. They’re used as mere accessories instead of being highlighted individually. The place is for the eyes and not for the mind.
I can go on endlessly about how bad the provincial museum is, but I’ll focus instead on the good side of things. The place at least has a good collection now. When I visited it last year, it was almost empty. And of course, the province at least has a museum now. It didn’t have any even if it had existed since 1972. Despite my issues with how the place is set up, I still highly encourage you to visit the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Tourism Office and Museum. It’s a two-story small building at the back of the capitol. (Don’t enter the fenced-up capitol grounds. Take the road outside.) If you’re in my province and you want to see traditional Dulangan Manobo objects—and Kulaman Plateau burial jars—the museum is the most accessible site. You only have to ride a tricycle plus a jeepney, depending on where you are from. You don’t have to travel for hours.
The labels are so small, but thankfully, I don’t
have to read them because I know the names of common Dulangan Manobo items.
This is the bottom of the display case for the municipality of Senator Ninoy
Aquino.
By turning ethnic clothes into evening gowns,
the tourism officers of my province have created a showroom, not a museum. The
display case on the left is for the municipality of Lebak. The one on the right
is for Kalamansig.
I wanted to create a map of some kind of where secondary burial in limestone jars were practiced. To my surprise, the map turned out to be more interesting than I had expected. When I identified the villages where there had been confirmed sightings of burial jars, I found out that the three villages could be connected by lines to form an almost perfect triangle. The area inside the triangle, being sparsely populated and largely forested, may have a number of burial caves still waiting to be discovered!
At the right-hand edge of the triangle is Barangay Kuden, Municipality of Senator Ninoy Aquino. That’s where an anthropologist from the University of San Carlos (Cebu) dug up burial jars in 1963–64. At the top of the triangle is Barangay Salangsang, Municipality of Lebak. That’s where anthropologists connected with Silliman Univeristy (Negros) dug up burial jars in 1965–66 and 1967–68. At the left-hand edge of the triangle is Barangay Nalilidan, Municipality of Kalamansig. That’s where burial jars have been found or can be found based on the socio-economic profile of Sultan Kudarat that the provincial government released in 2010.
I must admit that the information about Barangay Nalilidan is not very reliable. Even if the source is an official document, it contains quite a number of errors, both factual and typographical. I found the information on the “list of tourist spots by municipality/city.” Indicated beside “Nalilidan” is “Burial Urns,” along with “Sulfuric Hot Spring” and “Nalilidan Hot Spring.” To help you gauge the reliability of the list, here’s more information from the downloadable report: Indicated beside “Kuden” is “Burial Urns.” This is accurate, though Kuden has no burial jar collection to speak of, as I narrated in a previous post. Indicated beside “Salangsang” is “Salangsang Cave,” no “Burial Urns.” The cave is probably not the same cave where burial jars were found, for according to some published research papers, the cave is named “Seminoho.”
I’m also not a hundred percent sure of the exact location of Nalilidan in the map. The provincial map has no labels for barangays and sitios, so I had to compare it with Kalamansig’s municipal map, which has labels, all right, but barely legible in some parts. Though the two maps seem to coincide on the location of Nalilidan, they don’t on the locations of some other barangays, especially the poblacion—the seat of government, the most important barangay. How could you trust such maps?
All the same, I’m glad to have discovered that there might be burial jars in Kalamansig, and the location is near the coast, not very far from the paved national highway. It will be easier for me to research about them in case I find myself in Kalamansig one of these days.
Based on official records, the province of Sultan Kudarat boasts of twenty caves that tourists can explore. Ten, or half of those caves, are found of course in the municipality of Senator Ninoy Aquino, often promoted as “the town with a hundred caves.” Three of the twenty caves are in the municipality of Bagumbayan, one in Kalamansig, two in Lebak, one in Isulan, and three in Columbio. Only the four caves in Isulan and Columbio are not located in or very near Kulaman Plateau.
The twenty caves are not all that the province has. They are simply the ones that are accessible to or frequented by tourists. There cannot be twenty caves only in the whole province because Senator Ninoy Aquino alone has dozens. The municipality can possibly live up to its seemingly hyperbolic epithet if all its natural tunnels are examined and listed. It’s also impossible that there are only one cave in Kalamansig and two caves in Lebak. Most of the land area of the two “coastal towns” has the same topography as Senator Ninoy Aquino. The area probably has dozens of caves too. The caves have not been discovered yet because the area is sparsely populated and controlled by a private logging company.
For now, tourists who want to go spelunking in Kalamansig only have the Pangaun Caves to visit. Note, though, that the name is in plural form. The caves, located in Barangay Sabanal, may have several mouths and have chambers that branch off in several directions, not just a single straight tunnel. (I haven’t been there, and I’m sorry that I’m not sure of my information.) In Lebak, tourists may explore a cave in Salangsang and a cave in Kalamongog that are named after the villages where they are located. Salangsang is where the burial jars that are now in Silliman University were excavated, so the cave there is historic aside from attractive.
The ten caves in Senator Ninoy Aquino are the following: Midpanga Cave in Nati, Tinalon Cave in Tinalon, Bugso Cave and Tudog Cave in Bugso, Saklay Cave in Malegdeg, and Kiabuan Cave, Lagbasan Cave, Bitogon (also called Casi) Cave, Batasan Cave, and Kalupingon Cave in Kuden. Lagbasan Cave is what I call White Cave in this blog, and the burial jars that are now at the University of San Carlos were taken from a cave in Kuden, though the sacred cave is probably not one of the touristy caves in the list.
Bagumbayan has Pitot Cave in Sto. Niño, Guano Cave in Masiag, and Maetas Cave in Titulok. I’ve explored Guano Cave last summer. Isulan has Kamanga Cave in Laguilayan. Though I heard that the hamlet of Kamanga is in the mountainous part of Isulan, it is populated by Maguindanawons and not by Dulangan Manobos, so I’m not counting the area as part of Kulaman Plateau.
The only part of Kulaman Plateau that has no cave for tourists is Palimbang. Again, this is not an indication that there is no cave at all in the municipality. Palimbang, in fact, may have as many caves as Senator Ninoy Aquino has. It’s just that its mountainous part is barely accessible. Most of the villages of Palimbang, a small fraction of the total land area, are located at the coast.
As mentioned earlier, most of the twenty caves in the list are in or very near Kulaman Plateau. Only the three caves in Columbio are quite far: Datalblao Cave in Datalblao, Panes Cave in Lasak, and Bombed Cave in Lasak and Eday. The existence of caves there, however, is not surprising if you’re aware that Columbio is “the other” mountain town of Sultan Kudarat, the one being Senator Ninoy Aquino.
I wish to explore all the caves above that are in Kulaman Plateau and share the trip with you in this blog—in words and photos. It’s a shame that I’ve only been to two out of the sixteen caves. If I get a few thousand bucks to spare in the future, I will go cave hopping—and burial jar hunting. From the experience, surely, I’ll be able to create more than a hundred posts.
(Photo: A stitched image of the mouth of Guano Cave, in Masiag village, Bagumbayan town)
I saw a civet cat when I visited Kulaman village weeks ago. It was sad that the animal was caged, but I was glad that I could observe it closely and I could take photos of it to share with the readers of this blog. I’d seen a civet cat before—also caged, in another village—but it was smaller. It was probably young. The one I saw in Kulaman seemed to be an adult, for it was bigger than an average-sized adult cat.
I was excited when the civet cat was pointed to me. I stood near the cage, put a finger against the plastic screen, and made a calling sound with my tongue. In a speed that shocked me, the civet cat put its snout against the screen and blew air against my finger. The air produced a sound. In Hiligaynon, we call such an action pusnga.
I stepped back in surprise, and then laughed at my foolishness. It had escaped me that the civet cat, called milo in Hiligaynon, was a wild creature and would likely remain so despite being exposed to human beings constantly. It didn’t repeat the offensive move though, but that’s of course because I didn’t try again to pet the animal.
One of the most interesting things about civet cats is that they’re a source of very expensive coffee. Civet cats are fond of eating coffee, and when they poop, the beans are still whole. The beans are picked by hand and then ground, and the drink made from them are sold for as high as $50 per cup. The more interesting thing is that no one in Kulaman Plateau has made a business yet out of civet cat poop, despite the fact that civet cats are still plenty and coffee is more than abundant in the area—Sultan Kudarat Province produces 25 percent of the coffee in the country. If I were not dedicated to writing stories, I would consider engaging in coffee poop business.
(Update: Isulan has moved its foundation anniversary celebration to August, and the festival has been renamed Hamungaya. I agree with moving the event to the accurate date, but I can’t see why the name should be changed.)
Every September, Isulan holds the Pasundayag Festival to celebrate its foundation anniversary. Pasundayag is a Hiligaynon term that means “show”; thus, the festival showcases the literary, musical, and cultural talents of the people of Isulan, both young and old.
Pasundayag is also a thanksgiving festival of its residents, who are mostly engaged in agriculture. The products of Isulan are rice, corn, vegetables, and African palm, one by-product of which is the kalakat, a weaving that is used as a wall.
The festival is divided into two parts. First, the different activities done in the farm are shown. Next is merrymaking in the form of dance using different materials as props.
Municipality of Esperanza
Hinabyog Festival portrays the diverse tradition and culture and the history of Esperanza from a humble sitio to a progressive municipality despite tribal conflicts.
Agriculture is the primary source of income in Esperanza, and as the population grew, the people began to engage in simple cottage industries to sustain their way of life. Weaving is an important activity. Weavers use anahaw, buri, pandan, tikog, nito, wild bamboo, and rattan, which thrive in the area. From these materials, mats, bags, baskets, kaing, kalalaw, and duyan are made.
The duyan (hammock) is significant to the name of Esperanza’s festival. The duyan does not only give the populace pleasure and rest. It was also used to transport individuals who needed medical attention since motorized vehicles were rare in the old days and animals or animal-driven carts were not always comfortable for people in sensitive or serious condition.
Taking inspiration from the swing or habyog of the duyan, Hinabyog Festival was created. Through arts and culture, the festival aims to keep alive the memories of the pioneers and their successful struggles and to swing the present generation to continue dreaming for a better and more beautiful Esperanza.
Municipality of Bagumbayan
When the Christian settlers in Bagumbayan had established their farms and begun reaping the fruits of their labor, foremost that came into their minds was the offering of thanks to the Almighty. They did this in the form of a harvest festival, which would start with religious prayers and highlighted by merrymaking festivities. The festivity evolved and was enhanced throughout the years as the Christian settlers learned more about the beliefs and traditions of their Muslim and indigenous neighbors.
Thus, the Bansadayaw Festival came into existence. Although the term is a combination of the Hiligaynon words bansa (in full view) and dayaw (praise), the other, non-Ilonggo inhabitants of Bagumbayan are deemed integral part of the revelry.
Bansadayaw also signifies that somebody in full view is lording and above humanity. He is the Heavenly Creator who wants his creation to act according to his will. Therefore, aside from merrymaking, the festival is a means to implore the divine guidance of the Almighty.
The Bansadayaw Festival is a result of the unified efforts of all the tribes in Bagumbayan—Maguindanon, T’boli, B’laan, Dulangan Manobo, Ilonggo, Cebuano, Ilocano, Pampanggeño, and Tagalog.
(Blogger’s note: This post is a part of “The Other Towns” series. See my October 5 post for the overview.)
Of all the villages in Senator Ninoy Aquino, only the poblacion is officially classified as urban, but I must say that only recently did it earn the right to be classified as such, when an Internet café opened along one of the main streets. Although the shop has six or seven units only, it is better than having to travel for three hours to the capital town just to open your email.
The Internet café is in a stall owned by the Flauta family. The father was the town mayor, the son is one of the town councilors, and the mother works with the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples. The local NCIP office is in fact located on the upper floor of the stall. The workstations on the ground floor share space with a “giftshoppe” and a snack bar. If you’re just passing and your eyes don’t catch the small tarpaulin advertising “Meraflor’s Internet Café,” you won’t know that there are computers inside. But because it’s the only Internet café in town, everyone will point or take you to the right place if you ask about it.
More often than not, you have to wait for fifteen minutes to an hour before a station gets vacated. If you have a deadline to beat, don’t wait for the last minute before going to the café. Once in a while, a student or two would peek at your screen while standing behind you. Of course, they’re not really interested in the boring selfies of your Facebook friends; they just have nothing better to do, or they’re subtly telling you to hurry up and leave because they still have to research about something. So please be considerate. Even if you have money to burn, do what you have to do and let others take their turn.
(Blogger’s note: The original version of this text is in Filipino. It seems to have been used by a dance group that performed in the street dancing competition on the province’s foundation anniversary celebration. I omitted more than half of the material.)
Lebak is a place where various tribes have gathered, and though they have different cultures, traditions, and religions, they were made one by a common occupation—tilling the soil. As farmers, all of them had a practice of having a thanksgiving feast after every harvest, though these feasts were conducted separately and in different manners. These separate gatherings eventually melded into one and became what is today the Hinugyaw Festival.
The Christian settlers, being mostly migrants from Panay Island, used to stage their own version of Aklan’s ati-atihan, which was originally a celebration of the aboriginal Aetas. Eventually, as the Christians of Lebak became more acquainted with the other tribes in the locality, the festivity began to form its own shape, becoming less like ati-atihan. Hinugyaw is a Hiligaynon term that means “jubilation.”
Municipality of Kalamansig
( The original version of this text is in Filipino. I have doubts about its accuracy. The Dulangan Manobos call God “Nemula,” not “Manama.” Whoever wrote the original text might have referred to the folklore of another Manobo tribe.)
The Dulangan Manobos rely on the abundance of nature. The bountiful mountains serve as their home and source of food, materials for shelter, and medicine for various illnesses. They are farmers who depend on the fertility of the land, and whenever their crops are lush and bear plenty of fruit, they celebrate Salagaan, which means “plenteous harvest.”
During the celebration, the Manobos dance, play musical instruments, and rejoice as a way of thanking “Manama,” whom they recognize as the Supreme Being. In times like this, the tribe unites to express their common dream of peace, love, prosperity, and happiness.
Municipality of Palimbang
(This account seems like pure invention to me. The original version uses the term Manobo Bagobo. I changed it to Dulangan Manobo since there are no Bagobo settlements in Baluan. I’ve been there myself. The indigenous people there are Dulangan Manobos. Also, a communal system of planting crops is not a prevalent practice among the Dulangan Manobos, according to some research papers that I’ve read.)
In a Manobo village in Baluan, the people were hardworking and united. In spite of their simple life, they were happy and contented of what they had. During planting season, people practiced the bayanihan system to prepare the land for planting. Men and women, young and old, helped each other in the farm. They enjoyed these activities because it was a time for gathering and knowing each other better.
The happiness of the people in the community was short-lived. When their plants were about to bear fruits, calamity struck the whole area, and all the people were saddened and depressed.
They then gathered and tried to look for ways and means to overcome the situation.
With concerted efforts, they eventually won over the plague.
In celebration of their success, they made an offering to the god of harvest to thank him for the victory and the abundant blessings. Because of that calamity, the community valued the spirit of unity and cooperation. They realized that their strength magnified when they joined hands and fight for a common objective.
Based on that story, Palimbang adopted the culture of the Dulangan Manobos and named the annual celebration of the municipality Kalilang/Sanufe Festival.
(This post is a part of “The Other Towns” series. See my October 5 post for the overview.)
Several weeks ago, I was finally able to take a dip in Kulaman River. It had always been one of the things that I wanted to do, along with going to the original sites of limestone burial jars. The river has not been developed to cater to tourists, but there are some touristy things that you can do in it. Here’s some:
1. Swim, of course. Anywhere is good for this, but the best is the spot that is connected to the center of the town by a graded road. The spot is frequented by people, and it has a number of wide calm pools.
2. Ride the “ferry.” The bamboo raft is actually for travelers (and their motorcycles) who don’t want to take the slightly winding national highway. If you’re coming from or going to the west of the central village, taking the raft will save you a few kilometers of travel. If you just want to have fun and you’re willing to pay for it, the “driver” of the raft can take you across the river and then back again for a minimal fee. The fee for travelers is maybe five or ten pesos per head, and only at least three persons is required for every trip.
3. Check out the waterfall. It’s just near the river, but it’s hidden by weeds and trees. Though the fall is neither big nor very tall, wading through the river and trekking to the fall is a brief adventure that people of all ages can enjoy.
4. Jump off the bridge. No, don’t take your own life. Just stand on the waist-high railing of the bridge, leap, and dive into the water. I can’t guarantee your safety, of course, so do this with caution. Don’t do this at all unless you’ve seen locals your size and height doing it first.
5. Wash your vehicles. Save time by cleaning your scooter or wheels while you’re cleaning yourself. Just make sure no one is swimming downstream twenty meters from you. Also make sure that there are no horses or carabaos upstream twenty meters from you. The river is wide and long, and there’s enough space for everyone and everything.
Final warning: Don’t expect to come across an innocent barrio lass wrapped in a wet patadyong. That kind of scene is only for titillating films and for short stories set in the fifties. Most bathers in the river are men of all ages, from prepubescent boys to tottering grandfathers, and many of them are in well-worn cotton briefs.
This jar
cover is creepy even if—or because—it looks
like a mini bust of Jose Rizal.
I know, of course, what burial jars are. They contain dead people. They contain exhumed bones of dead people. They’re small coffins. Despite this fact, they never gave me the creeps. Until I saw one jar cover in Museum of the Filipino People.
The jar cover is one of only three specimens from Kulaman Plateau. While the two others are jars with intact lids, this one is a lid only. It is made of limestone at the bottom and the middle and of clay at the top. It’s a bust. The base is shaped like an inverted bowl. The middle, forming the chest, is a simple short cylinder carved with tiny arms on the sides. The head part is what makes the artifact Halloween-y. It really looks like the face of a human being, and because the material has crumbled, it looks as though one of the eyes is winking at the onlooker and the mouth is forming a maniacal grin.
I wonder why the clay lid looks creepy when the anthropomorphic jar covers that are purely made of limestone are not exactly angelic. Only a very few of them look like real human beings. The others look like lizards (on purpose), penises (on purpose), or monkeys (probably not on purpose). Maybe the reason is that crumbling limestone figures, whatever they may be depicting, look like crumbling stones, nothing more, while crumbling clay looks like decomposing flesh—a much clearer reminder that the jars are not just archaeological artifacts. They contain dead people. They contain exhumed bones of dead people. They’re small coffins.
Don’t confuse the Museum of the Filipino People
with the National Museum. The former is inside Luneta Park and contains
archaeological artifacts. The latter, just across the street, contains mostly
paintings and sculptures.
Despite being placed in the center of the
display case, the Kulaman jars in Museum
of the Filipino People are outshined
by other artifacts. The museum
should look for better and more samples of
Kulaman jars.
The Museum of the Filipino People, being run by the National Museum, is the repository of everything that is important in the natural, historical, and ethnographical history of the Philippines. Therefore, it is only expected of the museum to contain samples of the 1,500-year-old limestone burial jars from Kulaman Plateau. I was first able to visit the museum three years ago, but I have no memory of seeing limestone burial jars there because I didn’t know yet at the time that such things exist. To my surprise weeks later, while reading about the jars in the Internet, I found out that I had missed a good opportunity, that the Museum of the Filipino People in Manila had valuable artifacts that came from my hometown.
When I went back to Manila in October this year, I put the museum in the list of places that I must go to. And go there I was able to. And see the limestone burial jars I did. I also found out why I had not noticed the jars during my first visit, even if I had spent a long time in the galleries, inspected almost every item, and read all the labels. The first reason is that the sample Kulaman jars in the museum are unremarkable. There are three specimens only—a large quadrangular limestone jar with a gable-shaped lid, a medium-sized cylindrical limestone jar with a gable-shaped lid, and one anthropomorphic clay lid. The second reason is that the labels simply state “limestone urn” and does not indicate where the urns are from. The third reason is that the Kulaman jars are outshined by the other “archaeological treasures” in Don Vicente Madrigal Gallery. The Maitum jars, made of clay and have anthropomorphic lids, occupy most of the room. The Manunggul Jar, whose image used to be in the P1,000 bill, is also in the gallery. I must have been too busy staring at the famous jar to notice the lowly limestone ones.
The larger of the two Kulaman jars has a design
on its body
that looks like joined sixes and nines. The smaller jar
In the early fifties, Datu Kudanding Camsa, a Maguindanaon leader, opened a settlement on the western part of the Allah River. It was named Bagumbayan, which came from bagong bayan, which means “new town.”
Bagumbayan became one of the largest barangays of the municipality of Isulan. In November 1965, then-President Diosdado Macapagal turned Bagumbayan into a municipality by virtue of an executive order. The municipality comprised nine barangays taken from the western part of Isulan.
Datu Kudanding Camsa became the first mayor of Bagumbayan, but the municipality existed until April 1966 only. It was reverted into a barangay as a result of a Supreme Court ruling that the president of the Philippines could not create a municipality by executive order.
On June 21, 1969, Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos signed Republic Act No. 5960, recreating the municipality of Bagumbayan. A special election was conducted in November 1969, and Datu Don Ampatuan was elected mayor. In mid 1970, a conflict between Christians and Muslims broke out, and Vice Mayor Martin Forro became the acting municipal mayor.
Municipality of Palimbang
Palimbang used to be called Pula, after the trees that grew abundantly along the river in the area. The inhabitants of Pula were mostly Maguindanaons, who became Muslims when Sharif Kabungsuan came to Mindanao in the 1500s.
The name of the place was changed to Palimbang when some fishermen from Indonesia had to dock on Philippine shores due to bad weather. The natives, headed by Sendale Tambuto, met the foreigners and learned that they came from Palembang, Indonesia. The interaction with the visitors inspired the natives to adopt the name Palimbang as the official name of their place.
Through Executive Order No. 350, dated August 14, 1959, Pres. Carlos P. Garcia created the municipality of Palimbang. The municipality comprised some portions of Kiamba, Cotabato (now Kiamba, Sarangani), and some portions of Lebak, Cotabato (now Lebak, Sultan Kudarat).
(Blogger’s note: This post is a part of “The Other Towns” series. See my October 5 post for the overview.)
The bag is made of three different native materials.
As told in previous posts, I was informed while I was in Kulaman village that I was one of the five finalists in the inaugural F. Sionil Jose Young Writers Awards. I wanted a few things tribal to wear with my black long-sleeved shirt, skinny brown pants, and brown leather shoes, so I bought a tubaw (head scarf) and a kelepi (small sling bag made of native materials). The tubaw is simply a square plaid cloth that is mostly red. It’s a common item among the indigenous and the Islamized people of Mindanao. The kelepi is more interesting, and it will be the focus of this post.
I asked my mother to identify the materials that the bag is made of. She said that the main material is pawa, a kind of native bamboo, which is much smaller than regular bamboo. The black strips interweaved with the brown bamboo strips are nito, a vine that grows in forests. No paint, varnish, or any artificial coloring was used in my kelepi. The sling is made of abaca, a tree that looks like a banana and whose bark yields a very strong kind of fiber. The fiber used for the sling is braided. Pawa, nito, and abaca are Hiligaynon terms because it is the first language of my family. Unfortunately, I don’t know yet the counterparts of those terms in the Dulangan Manobo language.
I loved the kelepi since the first time I saw a sample of it. Weaving one obviously takes time and requires skill. When I learned from my mother how the craftsman has to make use of three different raw materials, I appreciated the output even more. The kelepi is now one of my most-prized possessions. I consider it more precious than the black leather wallet and the modern gadgets that I keep inside it.
Definitely a work of art, the bag itself is as valuable as the things that Manobos put inside it.
Even the minimalist back part looks exquisite.
The cover is snug-fit even without a zipper or a strap.
From left to right: National Artist Bienvenido
Lumbera, me (honorable mention), L. A. Piluden (honorable mention), Dominic
Paul Sy (third prize winner), Joshua Carlo Pile (second prize winner), the father of Joy Anne Icayan (first prize
winner), and National Artist F. Sionil Jose (Photo taken from FSJ’s Facebook
account)
Exactly a month ago today, I won at the F. Sionil Jose Young Writers Awards. Receiving honorable mention in the awards is perhaps the best thing that happened to my writing life this year. I’m not just talking about the award itself. Many other things happened in my three-day trip to Manila. I met old friends, learned of good news about the manuscript of my novel, had a three-hour lunch with National Artist F. Sionil Jose himself, and went to a museum and a gallery to see Kulaman Plateau burial jars.
“Day of Mourning,” the story that I submitted for the awards, is about the Mamasapano incident. Forty-four members of the Special Action Forces of the Philippine National Police were killed in the encounter, and the news outraged many Filipinos. My story, however, is not about the police officers. It’s told from the viewpoint of a Maguindanao woman whose son is a separatist rebel and may or may not have been killed in the skirmish. I remember being quite depressed right after writing the story. I felt that I had created something beautiful, but I was disconcerted that it was borne out of something that shouldn’t have happened at all.
I learned on October 26, during the awarding, that the organizers received 176 entries, all from Filipino aspiring writers who were thirty years old or younger, since only those who belonged to the age group could join. The three judges pared down the entries to twenty-two, from which they were supposed to choose the top three only. In a conversation after the awarding, one judge told me and the other winners that the judges decided to choose five finalists, and the organizers—the family of F. Sionil Jose—agreed. That’s how another writer and I came to receive honorable mention and ten thousand pesos each even if such awards were not included in the original call for submissions. And as promised, the top three winners received fifty, thirty, and twenty thousand pesos respectively.
I had not known before the awarding what specifically the place of my story was. I was just told that I was one of the five finalists and I should pack my bags because I was getting a free round-trip flight to Manila and a two-night stay in a hotel. It was a workshop mentor of mine who broke the news to me, rather accidentally. She congratulated me a few moments after I entered the library of De La Salle University, the venue of the awarding. I thanked her and said, “But I don’t really know if I’m a finalist or what.” She said, “It’s in the program.” I opened the glossy yellow paper that had been given to me at the entrance, and on it I saw my name—the fourth one from the top.
I love the certificate that I
received—minimalist, black and white, onionskin.
My literary mentor had left by this time. Perhaps she had been afraid that I would be devastated to find out that I had not won the first prize, and she had not wanted to see me cry. I felt the opposite, though. I was delighted to receive honorable mention because it meant that I would have two honorable mentions this year; the month before, another story of mine had been included in the shortlist of six in the Nick Joaquin Literary Awards. I like it when good things come in twos. That’s why I always buy an extra copy whenever I see a notebook that I like and my account name in social networks is rj2ortega. The obsessive-compulsive in me might not have been very happy had I gotten a citation in one award and then a numbered place in another award. Besides, I had prepared myself for whatever that would happen in the F. Sionil Jose Young Writers Awards. In the hotel, I had told myself to be just thankful for whatever would be given to me because judges—and publishers, editors, critics, and ultimately readers—owed me nothing. If they appreciated my work, I would be thankful. If they didn’t, it would hardly matter; I had long discovered that I could not simply make myself stop writing. The only worry I had about not getting into the top three was that I would not have extra money to buy the books (and burial jars) that I might want to buy while in Manila, and it turned out that I had nothing to worry at all, for the honorable mention came with a cash prize. I was given an envelope right after the awarding.
The ceremony was short, maybe thirty minutes only. F. Sionil Jose and another national artist for literature, Bienvenido Lumbera, gave the certificates to the winners. What surprised me most was that F. Sionil Jose was visibly touched by the thirty-second acceptance speech that I gave, and I didn’t learn of what happened until days later, when I was already home and browsing Facebook about the event. A member of the audience posted on Facebook that my “words brought tears to Manong Frankie’s eyes.” I wasn’t able to see the national artist because he was behind me on the stage while I was speaking. But I remember that after the awarding, one of his daughters approached me and said that my speech had made her cry. To be honest, I thought she was just pulling my leg. I felt that my speech was for writers who had spent a life of sacrifices for the craft, and as far as I knew, the children of F. Sionil Jose went on to have successful careers but not as a fictionist like their father. Everything made sense to me after I read the Facebook post. F. Sionil Jose’s daughter must have cried because she saw her father cry on stage. My speech wasn’t earth-shaking or anything, but I spoke from the heart:
A few years ago, I decided to spend the rest of my life writing stories, and I believe I don’t have to tell the people here how difficult it is to stand by that decision. This award reminds me that I’m on the right path, that I’m doing the right thing. Thank you to National Artist F. Sionil Jose and his family and Philippine PEN. I am so honored and grateful. I will keep on writing, Sir Frankie. Madamo gid nga salamat.
What happened after the ceremony was a delightful swirl. TV5 took a video of us winners with F. Sionil Jose. The news came out on television a day after, and it can be seen on YouTube. Manila Bulletin also interviewed us and took our photos, individually and as a group, but as of this writing, the article has not come out yet. L. A. Piluden of Benguet (honorable mention) and Dom Sy of Quezon City (third prize winner) were really nice. I believe I struck an instant friendship with them. A professor approached me and said encouraging things about “Rajah Muda,” my novel manuscript. She was a judge in a competition to which I submitted the manuscript, and though the judges were not told of the identity of the authors, she later found out that the manuscript was mine because she was a staff in another competition to which I submitted the same manuscript. My work didn’t win in either competition, but she told me that in the competition that she judged, my manuscript was close second to the winner. (I learned weeks later from another judge that on the second deliberation of the judges, they were just choosing between my work and the eventual winner and it was like “choosing between a polished jade and a rough diamond.” The jade won. But a diamond is a diamond. It’s just waiting to be polished!) I was glad to find out that I had not wasted the eight months of my life that I had spent on that project. The director of a university press also approached me and said that the press would publish “Rajah Muda,” which I had submitted to the press a month or so earlier. I’m not naming, though, award-giving bodies and educational institutions here because the news given to me were not official.
That evening, I had dinner in Malate with Jake and Reno, two of my co-fellows at the 53rd Silliman University National Writers Workshop. Jake, who lives in Makati, had gone that morning to the office of the Philippines Graphic to get for me my Nick Joaquin certificate and copies of my two stories that appeared in the magazine the previous year. I felt like a child who was given free toys.
The next day, my fellow winners L. A. and Dom and I had a three-hour lunch with Manong Frankie and Manang Tessie, his wife. We first met in Solidaridad, the bookshop that the Jose family owns, and then we ate in an Indian restaurant nearby, and then we walked back to the bookshop. At 91 years old, the national artist is still so full of energy when he talks. He told us at the outset to ask him questions about writing because he wanted to share or pass on to us his personal views and techniques on the craft. We were no longer so intimidated by him this time because the previous day, he had showed us the F. Sionil Jose Collection in the La Salle library, which contains his own books, his drafts, and one hundred of his favorite books by other authors. I was already familiar with most of what Manong Frankie said, for I had read interviews of him and I had also been studying on my own how to be a good fiction writer. What struck me most among the things that he said was this advice: “Use folk tales and ennoble them.” He said this was what Homer and Yeats did. I realized that this was what I had been trying to do and this was what I wanted to do. The advice is now at the top of my pantheons of advices, along with Butch Dalisay’s “Push the narrative,” which he said while critiquing my story at the 20th Iligan National Writers Workshop.
Manong Frankie has to walk with a cane and needs some assistance, so on our way to and from the Indian restaurant, he held on to my arm. That gave me a chance to ask him a few more questions. I asked him if he had a secret diet. He said, “Nothing. I eat anything.” I also asked him some things about politics, but I won’t quote here his answers. If you’re familiar with the man, you probably know that his views sometimes cause tempers to flare. When we returned to Solidaridad, he pointed to the shelf at the counter where his books were displayed. “Choose two books, each of you,” he told my fellow winners and me. I was ecstatic. I had prepared for it! Earlier, before meeting Manong Frankie upstairs, I had reserved copies of the American edition of the five-part Rosales Saga, the most famous of Manong Frankie’s works. Dusk costs nearly one thousand pesos and is the most expensive. The Samsons and Don Vicente cost nearly five hundred pesos each and contain two books each. So when Manong Frankie made us choose two books that we could have for free, I presented The Samsons and Don Vicente. He didn’t seem to mind that I was being wise. In fact, he decided to give us more. L. A., Dom, and I also received a copy each of Short Stories, which contains works that are “culled from the author’s five volumes of short fiction.” Needless to say, the books were all autographed.
I now have the complete five-part Rosales Saga
and the best stories of F. Sionil Jose, and three of these four autographed
books are gifts from the National Artist himself.
I could spend a whole day just listening to F. Sionil Jose. Unfortunately, we had to bid goodbye to him at about three in the afternoon. L. A. had to travel back to Baguio, Dom had a class in UP Diliman, and I had to meet Reno to see with him the limestone burial jars in Museum of the Filipino People and in a private gallery in Intramuros. I can’t name the gallery for now and my posts about my trip there won’t be online until late next year because I’m wary of making the information public. I don’t want to help spread the news that the Kulaman Plateau artifacts can be openly bought as though they’re ordinary gadgets. I’m hoping for a miracle to happen in the next few months and for the jars to be returned to their original home.
Reno and I spent the evening in Makati with Camille, who was also a fellow at the 53rd SUNWW. I would commit a literary sin if I forgot to mention that Camille had “workshopped” the story that I submitted to the F. Sionil Jose Young Writers Awards. My win is partly due to her careful reading of my draft and incisive comments. Jake also joined us every now and then, like a butterfly in a garden. We hanged out in a 24/7 convenience store and decided to spend the whole night talking. I guess we truly missed one another; it was our first time to meet in person after a year and a half, after the workshop. I gave them Dulangan Manobo trinkets that I had bought from Kulaman Plateau. When morning came, I headed straight to the airport, taking home with me my honorable mention certificates, my signed copies of F. Sionil Jose’s books, my photos of Kulaman jars in Manila, and a couple of intangible things that I kept in my mind and heart.
On my plane to Manila, I had a good view of Mt.
Matutum despite the haze from Indonesia. I also had a glimpse of Mt. Apo. On my
way back, I had a close and clear look of Taal lake and volcano.
If you want to see the Kulaman Plateau burial jar in Davao City, the first thing you must remember is that Davao Museum, where the jar can be found, is different from Museo Dabawenyo. The former is privately owned and is located in Zonta Building, 113 Agusan Circle, Insular Village 1, Lanang, Davao City. The latter is run by the local government and is near the city hall.
My friend Gracielle, who divides her time between Cotabato City and Davao City, served as my tour guide when I visited Davao Museum. I don’t know my way around Davao myself, so I can’t tell you how to get to Insular Village from any point in the city. But below is a photo of the entrance of the subdivision. That’s where we got off the jeepney that we were riding. If you’re taking a taxi or you have your own ride, I think you may enter the subdivision. Just have your name registered and get a visitor’s ID at the guardhouse.
From the gate, walk for some twenty meters, turn right, walk for some fifty meters, turn left, and then walk for some one hundred meters. To your right is the whitewashed Davao Museum, which occupies the whole area of the two-story Zonta Building. The Kulaman jar is in the Carlos O. Dominguez Jr. Gallery, on the second floor. It is displayed with other burial artifacts, such as wooden grave markers from Sulu and pottery from Gigantes Island and Samal Island.
The limestone burial jar most likely came from Barangay Salangsang, Municipality of Lebak, Province of Sultan Kudarat. I read somewhere before that it was donated by the Ayala Museum. This must be true, because according to a marker near the entrance of the museum, the benefactors of the museum are two Zobel de Ayala dons. The Ayalas co-sponsored the burial jar exploration that was conducted in Salangsang in 1960s by anthropologists who were connected with Silliman University. Some of the jars were given to the university’s museum, in Dumaguete City, and the better-looking ones were taken to the Ayala Museum, in Makati City. The best thing about the jar in Davao Museum is that it is shaped like many of Kulaman Plateau jars. When you see it, you get a glimpse of everything else.
The entrance to Insular Village
My friend Gracielle, a nurse who writes essays, in front of Davao Museum
Because the lighting is controlled inside the
museum,
you can barely discern the flutings on the Kulaman
The limestone burial jar in Davao Museum has no
label, but I know
a Kulaman jar when I see one.
I was in Davao City the previous weekend for the 6th Philippine International Literary Festival. I was one of the three speakers on the topic “New Mindanawon Writings.” I just pretty much talked about myself, which on hindsight is quite embarrassing, so I’m not going to dwell on it. Besides, the speaking engagement isn’t closely related to the topic of this blog. What I’m going to share here instead is my side trip to Davao Museum, the collection of which includes—dun, dun, duuun—a limestone burial jar from Kulaman Plateau!
Gracielle, a co-fellow of mine in two writers workshops, went with me to Insular Village, where the museum is located. The museum is small, just two-story high, but quite swanky. You would be surprised to find out that it was “inaugurated and blessed” in 1977, as a marker near the entrance indicates. Freshly painted, or just well preserved, it doesn’t have the musty smell or eerie feel of most museums. The ground floor has a broad collection of Mindanao traditional textiles, and the second floor has motley of Mindanao artworks and artifacts. I wasn’t really able to inspect each item and take in its beauty. My mind had nothing in it but the burial jar from Kulaman Plateau. Before I went to Davao Museum, I had known that the place has a Kulaman jar, so when I entered the door, all I wanted was to find the jar, examine it as closely as I could, and take photos of it for this blog. The same thing happened to me last month in Manila, when I visited the Museum of the Filipino People and a private gallery in Intramuros.
The jar in Davao Museum is a typical example of a Kulaman Plateau burial jar. The body is quadrangular. The lid is flat and square at the base, on which stands a phallic handle, but the sexual design is not obvious because the upper half of the tip is broken and missing, or at least to my eyes. The entire body and lid of the jar is covered with simple vertical flutings.
The item in Davao is the quintessential Kulaman jar.
The jar is in a display case with other burial artifacts, such as wooden grave markers from Sulu and clay vessels from Gigantes Island and Samal Island. There is no label below or beside the limestone jar, but I’m sure that it’s from Kulaman Plateau because it is stated so in a booklet inside the museum. Treasures of the Davao Museum has a photo of the jar on page 83, and the caption states that “the funerary vessel . . . is from Kulaman, Sultan Kudarat” and “its angular body and its cover with an elongated handle are made of limestone.” It didn’t occur to me to ask if the booklet is for sale. It may be, for it is displayed with local history books that are for sale. To digress a little, I bought a copy of Macario Tiu’s Davao: Reconstructing History from Text and Memory, which contains a section about the Kulaman Manobos of Davao. Tiu says that the tribe must be related to the Dulangan Manobos of Kulaman Plateau. Isn’t that interesting? I have yet to read the section and the entire book fully, though, so I can’t write about the topic in this blog until next year.
I’m thankful to the National Book Development Board for inviting me as one of the sixty-plus speakers in the two-day literary event. I got a two-night accommodation in the swanky Seda. Truth be told, I was hesitant to accept the invitation. I prefer writing to talking about writing any day. My primary motivation in going to Davao was the chance to see a Kulaman jar without spending so much. But I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy the event. I mighty did. I got the chance to buy Macario Tiu’s Davao and Butch Dalisay’s Killing Time in a War Place and have those books signed by the authors. I was reunited with some of my mentors, friends, and younger brothers in writing. I met for the first time some familiar names in Philippine literature. And of course, I learned a lot from listening to them.
The present territories of Isulan formerly belonged to the municipalities of Koronadal (now capital and component city of South Cotabato) and Dulawan (now Datu Piang, Maguindanao).
The municipality of Koronadal, Cotabato, was created under Executive Order No. 82, dated August 8, 1947, by Pres. Manuel L. Roxas. On March 10, 1953, a portion of Koronadal became the municipality of Norala, Cotabato, by virtue of Executive Order No. 572.
On August 30, 1957, a portion of Norala was joined with a portion of Dulawan, Cotabato, to compose the municipality of Isulan. Executive Order No. 266 of Carlos P. Garcia made it possible. Kalawag became the seat of government, and Datu Suma Ampatuan was appointed as the first mayor on September 12, 1957. The name Isulan came from the Maguindanaon term isu-silan, which means “advance.” It is said to be the battle cry of a local chieftain against the invading forces of a sultan.
On June 21, 1969, President Marcos signed Republic Act. No. 5960, creating the municipality of
Bagumbayan. The law cost Isulan more than 85 percent of its original land area—from 336,000 hectares to 49,551 and from 48 barrios to 17.
On November 22, 1973, Presidential Decree No. 341 was issued, dividing the province of Cotabato into Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, and North Cotabato. Isulan was made capital town of Sultan Kudarat.
Municipality of Esperanza
By virtue of Presidential Decree No. 339, dated November 22, 1973, the Municipality of Esperanza was created from 27 of the 34 barangays of Ampatuan, Cotabato. However, due to a petition submitted by prominent leaders, Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos issued PD 596 on December 3, 1974, reducing the area to the present 19 barangays.
Esperanza is a Spanish term that means “hope.” It is said that when Christian migrants from the Visayas settled in the area, the first baby born of them was a girl. She was baptized “Esperanza,” and the people adapted the name for the settlement, for it signified peace, unity, and progress.
Sometime in 1952, a group of Christian settlers established the sitio of Esperanza in Villamor, a barrio of Dulawan, Cotabato (now Datu Piang, Maguindanao). In 1956, sitio leader Silverio Africa requested for a government survey to turn the settlement into a barrio. The request was granted and Esperanza became a barrio, independent of Villamor. Africa became the first barrio lieutenant, or delegado.
In 1956, Datu Into Saliao, a prominent Maguindanaon chieftain, distributed land to the people by lease, share system, and even donation to those who were close to him. Esperanza and the neighboring barrios flourished, and the residents wrote a petition to the government to turn the area into a municipality, independent of Dulawan. By virtue of Republic Act No. 2509, which was enacted and approved into law without executive approval on June 21, 1959, the municipality of Ampatuan was created.
Ampatuan was inaugurated on August 8, 1959, with Datu Abdullah Sangki as the first municipal mayor. The Christian and Muslim inhabitants co-existed harmoniously for almost two decades, until 1971, when tribal conflicts erupted.
In the November 1971 election, no Maguindanaon filed candidacy, so the elected municipal officials of Ampatuan were all Christians. They held office in Barrio Esperanza.
On November 22, 1973, then-President Ferdinand E. Marcos issued Presidential
Decree No. 339, creating the municipality of Esperanza. The incumbent officials of Ampatuan were appointed as first officials of Esperanza. Villamor, which used to have jurisdiction over Esperanza when Esperanza was still a sitio, became one of the barangays of the new municipality.
(Blogger’s note: This post is a part of “The Other Towns” series. See my October 5 post for the overview.)
