My First Published Article Was On The Salinas Salt Spring

Funny how serendipity works. I've been trying to put some order these past few days to the mountains of books, magazines, newspaper clippings, xeroxed materials, photographs, notes, and other souvenirs of the past that I was able to keep since high school. And among the items I was able to salvage from further attack by dust, humidity, cockroaches, termites, and silverfish in the basement of our house was a folder of clippings and photo copies of some of my earliest published articles.

Among the standouts in the file was the very first article that I ever wrote and got published -- one on the Salinas Salt Spring that included the legend of how the grief of a mountain maiden named Yumina over the treacherous killing of her lover Gumined was rewarded by the gods with the creation of a pearly white hill that for ages and ages gushed forth with salty water believed to be Yumina's tears.

While re-living the wondrous emotions I felt the first time I saw my piece on page 101 of the January 1, 1968 issue of the Ilocano magazine Bannawag, I thought of finding the original copy that gave me my "beginner's luck" as a writer. Here, I took a photo of both the magazine's cover and the page where my piece was:

Cover of the January 1, 1968 issue of BANNAWAG on the left; my Salinas article on the right.

I wrote the piece on pad paper when I was in my senior year at St. Mary's High School in Dupax and mailed it through Uncle Kusep (Jose Castro) who was then working at the Municipal Hall in Malasin where the post office was (there was only one Dupax then).

You may say I probably made history not only at St. Mary's but also in Dupax when that piece came out. For as far as I know, I was the only one from Dupax at the time who ever broke print in a nationally circulated publication. And to think that I was only 16 at the time.

Okay, here's a close-up shot of the article:

This piece was my first writing to see print. Probably it was also the first from Dupax to ever get published in a magazine circulated not only in the Philippines but also among Ilocanos in California and Hawaii.

For those who need magnifying lens to read it, don't worry. Here's a faithful transcription of the text:

Tao, Lugar, Pasamak

CHARLES CASTRO

St. Mary's High School

Dupax, Nueva Vizcaya

Salinas Salt Spring

TANGSIT TI NUEVA VIZCAYA

MAKUNKUNA A TI ubbog ti asin idiay Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya ti maysa kadagiti sangagasut ket maysa a pagdidinnamagan a buya ditoy lubong. Kas makitayo iti ladawan, nakaaramiden daytoy nga ubbog iti dakkel a turod ti asin; agarup a sangagasut a kadapan ti kangatona. No kinapintas ti pagsasaritaan, kapintasan ngatan iti kunak.

Kadakami a taga-Nueva Vizcaya, ti Salinas Salt Spring ti kapintasanen a buya. Ta kas itay kunadan, "There's no place like home." Nupay pangadayuen (agarup sangapulo ket dua a kilometro manipud iti Central Bambang), pagaayatmi pay laeng a mapan pagpipiknikan aglalo no iti tiempo ti kalgaw.

Malaksid iti kasla perlas a kinapudaw ti galpang, adu pay dagiti napipintas a buya iti lawlaw ti Salinas Salt Spring. Masarakan ditoy dagiti nadumaduma a kita ti kayo a kas iti saleng. Nalamiis kem makapabang-ar ti puyupoy ti angin.

Ania ti pakasaritaan ti Salinas Salt Spring? Kasano ti ilulutuadna?

Idi kano un-unana a panawen, adda maysa a prinsesa a kasla birhen ti kinapusaksakna. Yumina ti nagan daytoy a prinsesa, anak ti maysa a datu.

Nagdidinnamagan ti kinapintas ni Prinsesa Yumina. Adu dagiti nagrayo kenkuana. Ngem dua laeng ti kapingetan, da Indawat ken Gumined.

Tapno marisut no siasino ti mangikut iti puso ni Prinsesa Yumina, nagsalip da Indawat ken Gumined iti panagpana. Nangabak ni Gumined ket isu ti nangasawa iti prinsesa.

Kalpasan ti sumagmamano nga aldaw manipud iti panagkasar da Gumined ken Prinsesa Yumina, inawis ni Indawat ni Gumined a mapan aganup iti kabambantayan. Ngem idi makadanonda iti kabambantayan, pinatay ni Indawat ni Gumined. Inyawidna ti bangkay ni Gumined sana imbaga iti prinsesa a natnag ni Gumined iti rangkis.

Napalalo ti paanagladingit ni Prinsesa Yumina. Impaipanna ti bangkay ti asawana iti lugar a nangabakan idi daytoy iti panagpana, sana pinatay ti bagina. Nem sakbay dayta indawatna kadagiti didiosen a magaburanda koma nga agassawa iti adu nga asin a kas tanda iti nakana a panagladingitna.

Nagkubuar ti baybay, nagdalluyon iti kakasla bantay, ket nalayus ti yanda. Idi agkalman ti dilubio, makita ti kasla perlas ti kapudawna a turod ti asin iti disso a nakatayan da Prinsesa Yumina ken Gumined.

Manipud idin agingga ita, kas tuloy ti sarsarita, madlaw pay laeng ti nakana a panagladingit ni Prinsesa Yumina no agpusuak ti naapgad a danum iti rabaw ti galpang.

No kayatyo a paneknekan ti kinapintas ti Salinas Salt Spring ― buya a pagtangsit ti Nueva Vizcaya ― umayyo kitaen. Ngem tapno ad-adda a maragsakankayo, iti tiempo ti kalgaw ti yuumayyo. Narigat ngamin ti bumallasiw iti karayan Bambang no kasta nga agdinakkel ti danum. Mangitugotkayo metten iti kamera a pagalayo kadagiti nadumaduma a buya. ―#

Enero 1, 1968 o BANNAWAG o 101

POST SCRIPT

1. I don't remember how Mama reacted to my achievement but I recall Papa was obviously happy when he saw my bylined article. When he asked where I got the accompanying photo of Salinas Spring, I was about to lie to him (knowing his thunderous voice when he is angry). But then my better self mustered courage and I told him I cut out the picture of Salinas from the page of his NLAA souvenir program that he kept in the lakasa where Mama also kept her valuable clothes and jewelry. When he kept silent, I knew my lucky star held.
2. I got paid five pesos (P5.00) by Bannawag for that piece. I don't recall if it was Uncle Kusep who delivered the registered envelop that contained the Money Order from Manila, but I did recall that I felt I was already a millionaire when I had the check-like item encashed, again thru Papa's oldest brother Uncle Kusep.
3. You may laugh at P5.00 nowadays, but in 1968 that amount was already money then as you could buy at the time an atado of galunggong for 50 centavos, a huge piece of squash for 10 centavos, a small can of Ligo sardines for 25 centavos, a can of Target corned beef for 80 centavos, a ganta of rice for 50 centavos, a bottle of Coca-Cola or Royal Tru-Orange for 10 centavos, an chicken egg for 10 centavos, a Mongol pencil for 10 centavos, a double-cone sorbetes for 10 centavos, and San Miguel beer for 50 centavos.
4. Aside from the popularity I got from relatives in Bagumbayan and in I-iyo who read my Bannawag article, among the "fringe benefits" I got was a fan mail from a certain Mildred Malabed of Batac, Ilocos Norte, also a 4th year high school student at the time. We kept writing each other even when I was already in Los Baños but we got to meet only when she was already in her internship as a nurse at the De Ocampo Hospital and came to visit UPLB with her boyfriend.
5. I wrote an English version of the article in 1974 and, again, I was lucky to get it published in Kerima Polotan's weekly Focus Philippines magazine. It was titled "Witchery at Salinas Salt Spring" and earned for me sixty pesos (P60.00). Unfortunately, I could no longer find a copy of the magazine nor a xerox of the article. I guess this should be reason for me to visit the National Library soon, in addition to doing more research on what that repository and the National Museum have on Isinay and Dupax.
6. Again, the amount that that Salinas article gave me may not mean anything now, but when I was a student it was already manna from Heaven to me. At the time I could already subsist on an allowance of P40.00 per month. You could buy a pair of Levi's jeans near Quiapo Church then for P40; the BLTB fare between Manila and College, Laguna then was P1.10 (or a little more); for faster and cheaper travel from Mayondon to any point before Tutuban, the Metro train then charged a mere 25 centavos; a bowl of mami plus a piece of siopao in any Ma Mon Luk restaurant then was only P1.50; and jeepney fare then was only 15 centavos.

“Sshhh… Keep Quiet and Don’t Go Under the Trees!”

BELIEF IN CRITICAL HOURS

NOTE: This is the third installment of my 1995 essay on folk beliefs associated with trees and forests that I sharpened a bit and retitled  “Of Fireflies and Forest Fairies” in the hope that its form and content, let alone its call for appreciating  indigenous knowledge systems and practices, would make for pleasant reading and not turn off visitors of http://isinay-bird.blogspot.com. Oh yes, if you have queries, complaints, suggestions, or whatever, you’re welcome anytime to prick my balloon via the comments section of this site or, if you are shy (like me), you can pour out some lines and send them to charlzcastro@gmail.com or charlz1951@yahoo.com.

M

any rural communities in the Philippines consider certain times of the day – usually high noon and twilight – as sacred and/or critical. During such hours, it is taboo to go outdoors, climb a tree, build a fire in the fields, throw rocks in the thickets, or engage in vigorous activities like chopping wood. 

The belief is that spirits are active and prone to doing harm to human beings, especially gallivanting kids, during those particular hours.

I recall how in my boyhood days in an upstream barrio of Dupax del Sur, Nueva Vizcaya, the womenfolk often warned us hyper-kinetic boys from straying too far from the village lest the kumaw (called sipay or manunupot in Tagalog) would get us, put us inside the langgotse (rice sack), bring us to a rangtay (bridge) being constructed in the towns of Bambang or Bayombong downstream, and use our blood as atang (food offering) to the spirits guarding the area, so that the bridge won’t easily be washed out when the Me-et or the Magat River went berserk during heavy rains. 

For some time that scare-tactic worked. And so at least, many a bayyek (tadpole) in the carabao pond, many a tuwwato (dragonfly) along the mountain trail, many a bambannagaw (chameleon) by the riverside, and many a pirruka (bulbul) in the bignay or the samak tree have been spared from some naughty kids’ itchy hands and from their slingshots’ raring-for-action mode. The deep parts of the river that we called lipnok similarly became quiet for a while as no right-minded fellow would go take a dip there without the company of big uncles.

Pretty soon, however, we noticed that the rusty trucks that we suspected to be those of the kumaw were hauling gigantic lawaan and bagtikan logs – not naughty kids – from the blue forests further upstream of the barrio. And pretty soon it was open season again for us mango-munching, bird-hunting and river-loving lads.

But then someone revived stories of the marmarna (roving spirits) or the di makitkita (unseen beings) who roamed aplenty at high noon.  Some of my Isinay relatives talked of seeing tiny footprints  –  believed to be that of the dwarf and long-haired lampong   – on carabao trails in hilly areas where not so many kids go. As if on cue, a couple of mysterious deaths of people we knew – one under a bitnong tree, another in his kaingin – also started to go around. It didn’t take long, indeed, before we kids  avoided engaging in raucous outdoor play again or using our ubiquitous slingshots during the hours that Ilocanos call agmatuon (namalintur in Isinay; literally “time when the sun is directly overhead”). 

I’m not sure if such a belief was intentionally nurtured to ensure peaceful and worry-free noontime siesta for the Hispanized farm folk. I suspect however that the warnings about diurnally active ghosts were also meant to give mango-owning neighbors – when the fruits are in season -- time out in guarding their heavily laden trees from slingshot-happy kids on perpetual search for ripe fruits to target. 

In retrospect, I tend to believe now that in my childhood the belief has somehow helped extend the expiry dates of certain birds, reptiles, and other wilderness creatures. 

Holy Week Blues

Photo from

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/primer/primer.html

I don’t know how it is in other rural communities in the Philippine archipelago, but at least in southern Nueva Vizcaya, the enforcement of  the “noontime curfew” was  at its strictest during cuaresma or Lenten season.  For, indeed, it would not be only us malleable adolescents who would observe the ngilin (literally “fasting and abstinence”) but also our basi-loving uncles. If at all they would go out, it would only be to bring the carabao to the river, not to the kaingin.

Thus, no matter how the gurgling song of the clear and cool river was luring us... no matter how sweet it would be to run after the grasshoppers sunning by the side of the carabao grazing field... no matter how seductive were the love calls of the alimuken (bleeding-heart pigeon) or the “come and get me if you can” shrieks of the kilyawan (oriole), it was “stay where you are” command for us. 

For a couple of hours or so, even our enemy tsakuk (Philippine coucal) would have peace taunting us uncircumcized boys with its “kukukukuk… supput… supput” song as the good boys among us would hang our slingshots by the post and do our share in husking the corn, shelling the peanuts, drying the tobacco leaves, baby-sitting kid sisters, squashing the fleas of the dog, or shooing away the neighbor’s hen and her dozen chicks from ruining the newly sown tomato seeds.

If we happened to be in the uma or in the taltalon, we would be expected to have taken the carabaos to their favorite mudhole or bamboo-shaded “parking lot” by then. Then we would join our old folks in the kalapaw (farm hut) to while away the witching hour often by nursing one’s leech bites or squeezing out the thorn of the kwantung (spiny amaranth) lodged in somebody else’s foot. 

More often than not, while doing our “foot surgery” or corn-husking chores , we would get a generous dose or litany of reminders (almost always in reference to our Olympian slingshot skills) the likes of but not limited to: 

“Why don’t you go after the uwak that raided the ripe papaya and banana, instead of the meatless, harmless and sweet-singing sitsitik? Why not pull the barsanga (a weed) or bain-bain (makahiya) off the upland rice patch in the uma instead of combing the hills all day for pugo nests? And why not learn how to make rama (fish aggregating bamboo-cum-river stone contraption) or weave pasiking (rattan backpack) instead of challenging the kids in the ballasiw (other side of the river) to a fight?”

The same curfew would be imposed at dusk when the night cicadas start to sing and it is time to inventory the chickens up in the tamarind or caimito trees and to kindle the dalikan (earthen stove) for supper. In case we needed to go out to urinate or to dump rubbish in the abandoned tupig pit, we would caution the spirits by saying “bari-bari…,” “kayu-kayu….” or “tabi-tabi…”

And when we would eat outdoors whether noon or dark, we would remember to invite the unseen beings who are guarding the place – river, big tree, mountain, farm – by saying “Mangantayo, apo…” (come, let’s eat)  or like what my grandfather himself had been mumbling, “Ne, bagiyo….” (hey, here’s your share). Failing to do such would invite the wrath of the guardian spirit and it would give you stomach ache or some such trouble.

In the Cordilleras

Prill-Brett (1986) relates a similar belief in critical hours among the Bontok Igorot: “There are designated times of the day, from 11 AM to noon and from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM, that are believed to be dangerous for walking mountain trails. These designated times are dusk and the hottest part of the day, times when malevolent spirits that push people over the mountainsides are believed to be roaming around.”

Beliefs like that, Prill-Brett says, are based on the “assumption  that for activities there is a proper time and place to be observed and respected in order to be in harmony with the supernatural beings in the area.” The said belief is the Bontok’s way of structuring their relationships with the environment, since they perceive themselves to be sharing the land with these supernatural beings who hold them responsible for the stewardship of the land.

Looking back, it would appear now that many forest areas -- especially the Benguet pine (Pinus kesiya) remnants that go tinder-dry and fire-attractive in the sweltering months of March-May -- have been spared from despoliation as a positive result of the reprieve brought about by such belief in sacred and critical hours. 

If summed up over the years, those seemingly insignificant “idle times” or times spent doing nothing would have otherwise been used to engage in forms of spirit-harming activity like chopping down saleng trees for use in the fireplaces of Baguio and La Trinidad, or clearing runo-covered hillsides for growing cabbage, strawberry and snap beans.

(NEXT: Belief in Haunted Places. FORTHCOMING: Belief in Unfit or Disfavored Trees; What’s Next for Folk Beliefs?; Appendix: Isnegs Declare Lapat to Conserve Natural Resources)

A Town Among The Hills

There’s a town way up there among the hills

Everybody there’s happy and gay

All the people there are busy all the day

Yet sweet smiles you see everywhere.

Oh town of Dupax… I’ll never forget

My humble home where I freely love to roam

Town of Dupax… keep me closer unto thee

Ever and forever we will sing thee mabuhay!

One's balik-bayan or homecoming would not be complete without a visit to say a little prayer inside the St. Vincent Catholic church of Dupax del Sur, Nueva Vizcaya, Northern Philippines. Older than the churches of Laoag City (Ilocos Norte) and Vigan City (Ilocos Sur), this witness to the Dupax of yore has for over two centuries now (1772-2011) remained the most durable symbol of the Isinay/Inmeas tribe even as the beautiful Isinay language itself is now starting to dwindle -- much like the huge molave and narra trees, the dutiful carabaos, and the Isinays used to build this glorious monument. 

ONCE IN A WHILE a time comes when, walking down a garbage-littered city street the likes of those we now see common in Metro Manila, suddenly a flash of half-forgotten images appears in your mind’s eye and then, although you have set your self for a busy work day in the office, you fall prey to the itch to write.

And so you write or rather pound furiously at the computer, unmindful of the day’s deadlines and do so by consoling yourself that, oh well, deadlines can wait... bosses can wait some more time... but not inspired moments which, when left unattended, will surely no longer come back and as sweet as they first knocked on your consciousness.

A thing like that just occurred to me today, with the song about my town Dupax del Sur, in southern Nueva Vizcaya, above suddenly coming back to my mind and sending off myriad images that, while parading in my memory, surely kept me oblivious of the filth and the garbage and the noise and the concrete and steel jungle that is Metro Manila.

First, there was the image of ricefields framed on one side by gentle mountains and on another by glistening rivers. The blue sky accentuated by a few cirrus clouds here and there, and a gliding hawk out there... give only one message: these fields are fortunately not yet polluted.

Farther back in time, there were the grassy hills west of the Dupax Elementary School. The gurgling waters of Abannatan. The gigantic acacia trees in the St. Mary's and St. Vincent Church compound. The mango and sapang and guava paradise I used to play kites on in Pitang. The starlit skies when there was no electric lights yet in Dupax. The long line of carabaos passing by the house in Domang. The picturesque country road to I-iyo that swirled with dust in summer and was a haven of mud puddles when it rains.

There was also the panorama of the whole of Dupax when you went to gather firewood up there in the remnant forests of Mount Abuwew, or when girls and boys in our part of Domang went to climb the highest hill nearby and set a bandera among the wind-swept rocks up there. And there was the image of the place we called Tamuhaha where in grade school some intrepid upper-class boy would lead us to during very welcome teacher-meeting breaks and we would all troop to the site, like little soldiers, to gather all the pitcher plants we could (for what purposes other than showing them off to our girl classmates I don't remember), and on the way find a muddy guava left unpecked by birds or outdo one another rolling brown rocks downhill.

The images were of course more than the fleeting and intangible shadows of a bygone era when childhood was bliss and all the town was free playground and the rainbows were frequent, for they came in full color -- along with their respective scents and sounds even -- that were part of the now fast vaporizing mementos of a half-century-old city rat compelled to be like that by circumstances all pointing towards the need to earn a decent living and keep family and soul intact.

My town among the hills may not have the luxury of superhighways, glitzy hotels, fast-food centers, and shopping malls that cash-strapped people  may crave for. But at least it has sweet and bird-rich mountains, rice-scented and emerald green scenery, and fish-endowed and unpolluted rivers that are now becoming a rarity in many Philippine towns. Reflecting now on this September 2010 photo of the grandkids of Junior and Isabel Calacala, was it very long ago indeed when as a child in the 1960s up to the early '70s I freely roamed this upstream part of Dupax del Sur myself and enjoyed sun-kissed places, forest-fresh water, and the thrill of "fish jumping as high as the sky"?  

I shall later write vignettes triggered by those returning shadows of those days in Dupax when, oh well,as the lines of the Brothers Four’s song “Time to Remember” go:

...when grass was green and grain was yellow

and dreams were kept beside your pillow

and love was an ember about to billow.

July 24, 2001

Welcome to the Isinay World!

Mavves an ejaw [o mu lavi] ira^yu lom-an, pinavlen man-ange pusunar an iiva! (Good day [or night] to all of you, dear kind-hearted brothers and sisters!)

Manggayjaya on pirayawa^ podda toy ampayla mu man-oj lojom tiye suung di mundowar an panlilliro-an taun Isinay ya naka-ali ayuttu blogspot uwar. (I'm very happy and honored that even as this corner where we Isinays are revolving on is small you still bothered to visit my blog.)

Aboleyan tau mot mu dattut tun lugar si ittuan si osat-osa iritau besan. (Let's already ignore from which place each of us have come from.) Urian tau mot pisyan belengon mu Irupaj man o mu Ibambang o mu I-aritao ri aarua tau war an mambasa on manalinut tien website. (Similarly, let's no longer pay attention as to whether fellow readers and keepers of this website are from Dupax or Bambang or Aritao.)

Mavvesar beyaw appion tau ya mansindara^da tau ta wey mu satien maun-unam poran blogsite/website taun Isinay si satye suwerteyar anun taw-on an 2011 ya bimmutta. (It's better that we help one another so that this very first blogsite/website for us Isinay in this reportedly lucky year 2011 has come out.)

Nanung un ilapu an ipublish ri dee ya poran jayjaya^ an ibolejas si satien Isinay blogsite, iyam-amta^ man di satie iva yuar an Isinay blogger. (Before I start publishing the many things I want to reveal in this Isinay blogsite, allow me to introduce your brother Isinay blogger.) English tay ri gamiton tauwar toy wapay nin i-censor ditau ri mantonar si satien blogging facility mu uran dan tatmoon di pansusutsuran tauwar. (We will use English for the time being lest the owner of this blogging facility would censor us if they won't understand what we talking about.)

My name is Charles Pudiquet Castro. I am a nature-loving, admittedly quite introvert, sometimes seemingly reserved and harmless, university-educated citizen of the Philippines who speaks and writes "passable" Iluko, Isinay, Tagalog, and English, and knows a few words in Spanish, Cebuano, Bicol, and Bangla. I've been a resident of Baguio City since 1978 and have a spot near Kennon Road tthat houses my Igorota wife, my journalist daughter, a grade-school adopted daughter, a jungle of house plants, and a number of cats, dogs and chickens.

I’m a natural born Filipino with 50% Ilocano, 25% Isinay, and 25% Pangasinense in my blood. On my mother’s side, my Apong Lakay (grandfather) hiked for two weeks along with a group of farmers and a caravan of carabao-drawn carts to Nueva Vizcaya in the 1920s from Dingras, Ilocos Norte in search of land to till… and, while working as kaminero (road construction and maintenance laborer) in the Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya part of the Cagayan Valley Road, he met my Inang Baket (grandmother) who also migrated to Nueva Vizcaya along with other tobacco farmers from Tagudin, Ilocos Sur. They later settled in the formerly headhunting territory of the native forest-dwelling Ilongot/Bugkalot tribe in upstream Dupax, subsisted on bunog (goby), paltat (catfish), dalag (snakehead fish), igat (eel), agatol (freshwater crab), tukmen (river clam), agurung (lance-tip snail), bisukol (apple snail), pako (edible fern) and other river edibles; made kaingin (swidden farm) to plant biit (upland rice), diket (glutinous rice),  dippig (plantain), papaya, beans, and squash; and converted katanubongan (reedy river banks) into bangkag (rainfed farm) that they planted to tobacco, corn, sweet potato, cassava, peanuts, sugarcane, and the pinakbet vegetables (eggplant, tomato, bitter gourd, okra). It was my maternal grandparents that taught me love for life close to Mother Nature including tree-, bird-, insect-, vegetable- and fish-identification.

On my father side, I never saw my grandparents but I heard that my lolo was a migrant from Bimmaley, Pangasinan who must have traveled to Nueva Vizcaya as a salt and salted-fish trader, was attracted to the tales of tame usa (deer) and bavuy si eyas (wild pig) in the Dupax of the 1910-20s and, while working as an atsero (axe-using logger) who specialized, I guess, on felling and converting into square logs molave (Vitex parviflora) and narra (Pterocarpus indicus) trees, he met an Isinay maiden who happened to own a dozen or so nuwang (carabaos or water buffalo) and a few patches of payaw (ricefield) in the then sparsely populated Dupax. The result of their union included my father, the youngest of a brood of five, whose first assignment as a teacher was at the Palobotan Primary School in the upstream part of Dupax where he probably caught his first glimpse of an Ilocano farm maiden who would become my mother. They settled near the hills in the north-western part of town called Domang where they housed and schooled me and my seven sisters.

And so it came to pass that one of the offspring of the above confluences as well as the product of such places is your river-loving, tree-climbing, insect-eating, and formerly bird-hunting forester-writer-environmentalist who had this luck (nitivu^ in Isinay; naigasat in Iluko) to speak Isinay and Iluko and to live in two places as a boy — in my parents’ home in the Isinay part of the town and in my grandparents’ place in the Ilocano-dominated barrio east of central Dupax..

As it were, the wind beneath my wings for creating this site for Isinay speakers/advocates/friends/dreamers is the fact that the Isinay world, as well as the Isinay language and the Isinay culture itself, is now fast vanishing. 

I shall let you know more about this sad reality in future blogs but for now let me caution those who will visit this site that, indeed, some words that you will find in the future entries in this site would be Greek, alien or utterly gibberish to you. 

Rest assured, however, that there will also be a generous sprinkling of essays written in English (Filipino English, that is) to give non-Isinay speakers a closer look and/or a vicarious experience at how we Isinays breathe, drink, eat, walk, laugh, cry, make a living, make love, make war, et cetera.

Andiye itsoraar? (How do I look like?) Otoy ye, medyo mango^ngot toy pulimin talaga an Irupaj ri mambevoy si matungar an soy-ang! (Here, somewhat dark for it is in our blood as natives of Dupax to play under the sweltering heat of the sun!)

Charlz Castro with a pawikan (green sea turtle; Chelonix mydas) kept under a Tausug fisher's seaside house on Marungas Island, an hour's ride by pumpboat from Busbus, Jolo, Sulu. [Photo taken in 1983 by Abe Villasin]