I'll skip my ringside observer account of the final sendoff ceremonies for now (I'll try to whip up a post, complete with photos, one day soon) so I can focus on and do justice to our topic today.
Among the burial-related rituals was the family get-together the day after we interred my mother-in-law in a tunnel-like "resting place" that my wife's uncle and male relatives dug on the steep slope of a hill in the vicinity of their family's terraced rice paddies.
The gathering actually consisted of going to the mountain stream that ran between Latang and Chakaran, two barangays of central Barlig, to fish, take a bath, and have a picnic.
Apart from rice, our entourage brought no other food even as the house had plenty of ducks and chickens, and huge chunks of pork that were part of the "watwat" for folks and relatives who came to condole with the family. Instead, we depended on the gobies (bunog), shrimps, crabs, tadpoles, and other edible creatures that the collective fishing was able to catch.
Among the "other edible creatures" caught were muddy brown insects that they call "chiyayap" in Finallig (the language of Barlig). These were actually freshwater dwelling nymphs of dragonflies that, for the life of me, I never thought were edible.
Indeed, the chiyayap look unappetizing not only due to their drab color but also because of their weird appearance -- yes, very much like miniature Godzillas. But cooked along with gobies, shrimps, and crabs, plus a sprinkling of edible fern, the creatures tasted creamy and much like eve (May beetle in English, abal-abal in Ilokano, salagubang in Filipino).
FAST FORWARD to recent times. In one of my trips to my hometown Dupax, as usual I went to fetch my hiking buddy (and consultant on the Isinay names of certain birds, insects, grass, and trees), Boni Calacala, to accompany me in going to my farm in Sinagat, about ten kilometers upstream of central Dupax del Sur.
As expected, while wending our way to our destination, Boni again gave me an update -- in Isinay -- on who did what and where, who died when and why, and other whatevers, while I was away.
He also related the remote places that he went to work as carpenter, such as the village of Sanggit where "Deem podda ri sappilanar siri… ni-avo'!" [There were so plenty of gobies there... spread like mat!]
My mouth watered as I "viewed" in my mind Boni's excited description of how the Ilongot village was so rich not only with river fish but also large timber, forest birds, bats, deer.
Then he asked if I still know Belino Seupon. "O amta' a... toy peren u ri ivanar Tony an pambatu' Dupaj si 100-meter dash", I replied. (Yes, I know him, of course... his younger brother Tony was my friend and was the bet of Dupax in 100-meter dash.)
Belino (real name: Avelino) now lives in Sanggit, Boni said. It was from Belino, he said, that he came to know the dragonfly nymph's name in Isinay is "siyayap."
Siyayap? Wow! I didn't know that Isinays even had a name for the creature.
All along, we called it "point Manila." I don't know who invented such name, but I recall my Isinay friends and I uttered it when we would chance upon a dragonfly nymph in Abannatan or in the wangwang (river) and we would press the poor thing's abdomen so it would put out its tongue and point to us where Manila is.
I didn't ask my de facto Isinay researcher if the people of Sanggit also ate dragonfly nymphs like they do in Barlig. Already my mind went a-whirring on going to visit the village and other formerly unreachable Ilongot communities of Dupax soon, or at least before my legs go too wobbly to do nature walks along sylvan trails and mountain streams.
I didn't ask... because I was pretty sure Wa Belino and neighbors had all the gobies in the world to feast on, and if they get "bored" of river dwellers, they have other wildlife to give their culinary attention to in lieu of siyayap.
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