The barangay is a small flatland about 650 meters (2,100 feet) above sea level, but based on local custom and several national laws, the name Kulaman has been used not just for the barangay but for the much wider area around it, including the whole mountainous municipality of Senator Ninoy Aquino and the adjacent, mountainous parts of the municipalities of Palimbang, Kalamansig, and Lebak, the centers of which are situated in the low-lying coast.
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| Map by Mike Gonzales, licensed under Creative Commons |
The mountains had been home mostly to the Dulangan Manobo people until the influx of Christian settlers in the second half of the twentieth century. The indigenous people's oral tradition holds that the mountains, or at least the present-day Barangay Kulaman, is named after a heroic ancestor or chieftain of theirs who saved his family or community from famine by digging up poisonous tubers and washing them in the river, but he was swept away by the current.
The river also bears the hero's name today, and the municipality of Kalamansig is said to have gotten its name from Kulaman and wayeg (the Dulangan Manobo term for water and river), alluding to the tragic event. Barangay Kulaman used to be part of the municipality of Kalamansig until some barangays of Kalamansig and some barangays of the municipality of Bagumbayan were fused in 1989 to form the municipality of Senator Ninoy Aquino.
As per available records, archaeologist Marcelino Maceda was the first to use Kulaman Plateau to refer to the mountains in the western part of Sultan Kudarat Province. He led a team in 1960s that excavated soft-stone secondary burial jars with anthropomorphic lids in two caves in Menteng, now a sitio (hamlet) of Barangay Tinalon in Senator Ninoy Aquino. Menteng remains remote to this day and difficult to reach even for residents of Barangay Kulaman.
As an outsider and coming from the lowlands, Maceda perceived the small flat area along Kulaman River as a plateau, but for locals, who mostly farm rolling or steep peaks, the area is often called a valley.
As used in this blog, Kulaman Plateau refers to the mountainous area where the Dulangan Manobo people primarily live and where soft-stone burial jars have been discovered.
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| Map of Senator Ninoy Aquino (2012), courtesy of the Municipal Planning and Development Office |
