Snake Soup for a Senior Isinay’s Soul

ONE OF THE advantages of being a senior citizen, I guess, is that you get some lucky moments that seemed elusive if not impossible to have when you were younger.

I had one such luck in early January this year when, not yet knowing that 2013 is the Chinese Year of the Water Snake, I happened to partake of – and to taste for the very first time in my life – a steaming bowl of snake soup.

Yes, you read that one right. Snake soup!

Soup as in hot soup that you ladle with a spoon then onto your taaw  (Isinay for mouth), or one that you sip straight from a kumaw (bowl).

Not only that. It was snake soup that, because it turned out to be meaty (or one that a noodle soup ad once called “sopas na kinakain”), also doubled as pulutan  and went well with – you guessed it right – Ginebra San Miguel.

Certainly not an ordinary one, friends and readers of Isinay Bird would say.

ANYWAY, here’s the story:

As is my wont when I go home to Dupax to, among other things, refresh and recharge my kinship with the people, the food, the culture, and the language of my birthplace, I once again took a much-needed long walk to my farm upstream of town.

As usual, I was with Boni Calacala, a son of my mom’s friend that (after I recovered a few years back from slight myocardial infarction) my mom insists should accompany me whenever I go out on field or walks far from our house in Domang.

We were only about a couple of kilometers away from our destination when Boni stopped and without any word quickly found a pami^bi (a long stick for beating) then galloped towards a payaw (ricefield) that had recently been prepared for planting.

Before I knew it, Boni was already showing his hunter's prize -- a cobra that was definitely more than a meter long."Amma-i mot tiye!" Boni excitedly said in Isinay, referring to the size of the snake and suggesting that it was already big enough for our meal in case my farm-manager cousin and his neighbors would not be around when we reached our destination.

An all-around free-lance farm-help, Boni used to carry a baris (slingshot) for long walks like this – mainly for birds. But this was the first time, he said, that he forgot his bird-sniping tool. By hindsight, I wonder if he was ever able to corner that snake had he brought his ubiquitous slingshot on this trip.

The place where we found the snake is called Langka. It was on the hills beside this farmland that I had happy moments as a kid munching boiled or roasted corn while watching monkeys race among the burnt bikal and charred tree trunks in my Ilocano grandparents’ uma. It was also further up the hills here that as an adolescent I once caught a suckling of a wildpig (alingo in Ilocano, bavuy si eyas  in Isinay) that I took home to keep as pet along with Mama’s pigs.

I will soon piece together my boyhood memories of this particular place but suffice it for now that I recall it was near this spot when, one summer time we were having noonday rest in a hut under a then tall bitnong tree, a dog of Tata Inggo Batacan was barking and barking non-stop at a grassy dike. Then a few moments  later the dog whined much like a dog in pain. The dog didn’t come back to the hut after repeated whistle calls. When his master went to look, the poor thing was already dead – with merely small, almost imperceptible punctures on its neck.

But back to our story:

I had been walking since dark that morning and didn’t have my usual mug of coffee and a bite of pandesal before I left my mother’s house. But after bagging the snake, it seemed Boni (who said he hadn’t also taken anything for breakfast yet) quickened his pace and, even as I wanted to take more photos of the river and ricefield scenery on the way, I similarly felt my legs negotiate the last stretch of our 10-km hike much lighter and faster than they did many times before.

To cut the story short, upon seeing us approach, Ikko Oreña and wife Osang Bombongan (owners of the house adjacent to my farm) stopped what they were doing, led us into their multipurpose kitchen, and soon treated me and my hiking buddy to hot coffee while discussing how best to cook the iraw (Isinay for snake). I did welcome the coffee as it was also cold in this part of upstream Dupax that used to be near the logging concession of the F.C. Adduru in the early 1960s.

While Osang helped Boni dress then cook the snake, Ikko sent one of his sons to go pick green tamarind, probably to make the special delicacy more mouth-watering. He also brought out a lot of ginger that later all went into the big kaldero along with what was left of the snake that Boni skinned, decapitated, disembowelled, washed in spring water, and later chopped into bite-size lengths.

Using corn grits, Ikko also called his chickens to gather around. While deciding which abeyuwan (Isinay for pullet) to catch, he articulated that the snake that Boni caught was indeed a cobra (immanuy in Isinay, karasaen in Ilocano) and of the tastier and not-fish-smelling type. “Saan a nalangsi,” he said, adding that the reticulated python (beklat in Ilocano, ine^eyaddang in Isinay) is definitely the nalangsi (Ilocano for smelly) type and once you held its meat, it would take a while to remove the stench from your fingers.

Ikko is an Ilocano who has learned to speak fluent Isinay because of his Isinay wife. A hunter and labuyo-trapper when not busy in his farm, Ikko has unknowingly become my consultant insofar as birds, insects, wild plants, forest trees, hunting, Ilongots, upland farming, and yes, snakes, are concerned.

Each time I go visit my farm in Sinagat, I always learn new things from him, the latest of which is how to know when a gabi/taro patch has a resident turtle. Yes, he is a wildlife expert of the barefoot kind who could give DENR wildlife scientists a run for their government salary when it comes to familiarity with the habits and habitats of local wildlife.

I DO HAVE tons of snake-related memories to tell. But to end this particular snake sutsur (story) for now:

As always, my hosts Osang and Ikko made sure that they forego one of their free-ranging chickens. This time I guessed they were concerned that I would be so squeamish as to shun the snake’s meat for lunch.

I was thankful for their hospitality as usual and made it a point to give them the barely touched plastic jar of Maxwell coffee brought home for Christmas by my New Jersey-based daughter and son-in-law.

When lunch of fuelwood-cooked jasmine rice and genuinely organic chicken tinola was served, however, I only picked the chicken’s etoy (Isinay for liver) and batijlungan (gizzard) and focused my gourmet attention on what was left of the snake’s meat and soup.

Facebook, Isinays and the Isinay Language

IF THERE IS one modern technology (aside from the Internet as a whole) that is greatly helping save the Isinay language from the jaws of extinction right now, I can think of no other thing than Facebook.

One day soon, in fact, when I shall be writing the acknowledgement section of the semi-multilingual Isinay dictionary that I have been working on since 2008, Facebook will be one of those that will get very special mention.

Background

YOU SEE, when I embarked on the said Isinay dictionary project, I thought it was only going to be “for domestic consumption.” 

Like I do it just for fun. (I think I even confessed somewhere that I thought of coming out with the Isinay dictionary for lack of better things to do when some health problems sometime ago prevented me from consulting jobs that required travel.)

But the hunting and listing of now nearly forgotten or even mawaywayir mot (moribund) Isinay words later took on a different color. This was when the darauway (senior) Isinays who I would dangarangon (pester) for the Isinay term for this and that each time I would go home to Dupax, were now the ones volunteering Isinay words they remembered being used siriyen poto^ (long time ago). 

Yes, my fellow Isinays were now sort of turning the table around. People who I only got to greet with a nod or a smile not very long ago would now approach me to ask: “Dioy mot si listamar tiye?” (Do you already have on your list this one?) 

I would also receive surprise text messages now and then, sometimes in the middle of the night, reporting the Isinay name of this object and that, or the Isinay equivalent for this Ilocano noun, this Tagalog verb, or that English adjective, etc.

The dictionary project was now a community – nay, even a collective Isinay people’s – project. 

Big Help from Facebook

CURIOUSLY, Facebook (or rather the Isinays who dabble in it) would come into the picture each time I would think there are no more new entries to add to the dictionary. They are not directly saying it but the posts give you the sense that there is an urgent and primary need, indeed, for a dictionary of the Isinay language.

Thus, if one day soon the would-be dictionary would be perceived as sort of light at the end of the tunnel for the Isinay language and, for that matter, the Isinays’ identity as a people, part of the credit should go to Facebook.

Consider for instance that through Facebook, I was able to extensively increase my list of words from both versions of Isinay – Bambang and Dupax-Aritao. Even as a significant part of my childhood was spent in the Buag part of Bambang (which thus made me learn some Bambang Isinay by osmosis), it was actually in Facebook that I got to learn the lexical and phonemic differences between Bambang Isinay and the Dupax-Aritao Isinay language that I grew up with.

Examples of Bambang Isinay words I picked up from Facebook: ansisinno (dragonfly), beyavat (guava), mansijlob (twilight), mansiporopdong (gather together), masing-aw (delicious).

Examples of Dupax-Aritao Isinay words I met via Facebook: anamme-on (on the surface, seemingly), antamotni (I'm not sure now), mamborobdang (dawn, sunrise), sinluayah (cluster, bunch), sinpajapaj (large quantity).

Other Lessons

IT WAS ALSO through Facebook, particularly through the reminders of Mr. Alfonso Castañeda Magalad (based in Melbourne, Australia, and better known to us younger Isinays as Uwa Alipong), that I learned that some words we’ve been using are Ilocanized. For example, the correct Isinay for “nakaila” is inila (we/they saw) and instead of “baket”, better to use bi-al (mature/elderly old woman).

In fact, such a timely interjection by this illustrious Isinay advocate and grandson of Alfonso Castañeda (the first Isinay to become Governor of Nueva Vizcaya) has sent me to weed out a hundred or so Ilocanized entries in my list of words.

If we did not have access to Facebook and did not reach out to our fellow Isinays, we Isinay language activists would have taken many, many years to learn or unlearn many things as regards the usage of many Isinay words and phrases. 

Indeed, apart from being a channel of communication – or language education, if you may – Facebook has also become a virtual library insofar as the Isinay language as well as Isinay-related issues are concerned.

I say library because if we combine the Isinay posts in Facebook, there are now probably thousands of profound exchanges, recent and vintage photos, remembering of the good old days, bits of history,  as well as jokes, prayers, songs, riddles, and even quarrels – in Isinay – now recorded in and circulating all over the world.

There were of course a sprinkling of topics that ruffled feathers among some FB-using Isinays. One of them is the fact that some Isinays are ashamed to speak Isinay in public. A very recent one was the attempted transfer of the cross-topped 1990 earthquake monument that for more than two decades now has served as symbol of Isinay community unity at the St. Vincent Church of Dupax del Sur.

Isinay Unification Tool

LOOKING BACK, had there been no Facebook and we merely relied on email or texting, we Isinays would not have had an exciting, quick, colorful, and enjoyable way of communicating with one another. 

Consider, for instance, that ISINAY GLOBAL ASSOCIATION, the leading Isinay group on Facebook, has as of today 952 members – presumably all Isinays, descendants of Isinays, or people married to Isinays. Another group, TAON YA ISINAI, has 770 members (mostly from Bambang). And a third one, ISINAY FRIENDS, has 336 members (mostly Isinays from Dupax).

Many members of these three Facebook groups are members of two or all of the said three groups.

There’s no discounting, indeed, how Facebook has become a great help in many Isinays becoming friends with one another. FB also was a go-between in many a member's renewing partnerships or finding relatives with their fellow Isinays amplamu dattun suung di mundo war si ittuan da besan (no matter what corners of the earth they are in now) and also no matter how the geographical distances are. 

As an Isinay, I also dare say we FB-using Isinays would not have become more unified at least insofar as reinvigorating the Isinay language – the soul and perhaps the only remaining evidence of the Isinay culture – is concerned.

By Way of Conclusion

I REMEMBER how it was when I still didn’t have an account on Facebook. Back then, I merely relied on documents available in the internet for sources of Isinay words and phrases that either I have already half-forgotten or I have not yet encountered in my word-hunting consultation meetings with friends, relatives and fellow senior citizens in Dupax del Sur.

Take it from me, fellow native language savers. Facebook is a short cut and a time- and resource-saving road en route to finding additional words, phrases and idioms in the language of your interest as well as giving illustrative examples of how to use such idioms, phrases, and words in a sentences.

Matuwa tiye (this is true), the making of a dictionary, particularly a comprehensive one and most probably the first ever for Isinay especially in its endangered state, is a humongous challenge. Mari mos an tajtaje. (It’s no longer a joke.) 

But thank heavens, Facebook has helped energize not only the Isinay soul in many of us but also fanned the dying embers of many Isinays’ love for their Isinay roots. 

I just hope that the embers would soon become bright flames that would continue to burn – no matter how cold the nights are and no matter how strong the winds.

Boyhood in Isinay Country (Part 5)

CONNECTING THE dots now, I feel sad that even those whose childhood was lived near the forest are not aggressively tapping their experience to help keep the Philippines nature-rich and beautifully green.

My favorite nature writer and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau, himself once a forest dweller (when Walden Pond was still sylvan and biodiversity-rich), had a quotation that touches on this: “Each more melodious note I hear brings this reproach to me, that I alone afford the ear what would the music be.”

Another pertinent call comes to mind: “We didn’t inherit the world from our parents, we borrowed them from our children.”

What I’m really trying to say is that we adults have a moral duty to pass on to our children a still healthy and livable world and to guide and hand-hold them on how to keep that world bright and wonderful.

No matter how brief or infrequent, exposing kids to things of nature such as hills and rivers, including the flora and fauna and culture that are associated with them, can work wonders to young people’s attitude and behavior towards nature and the environment later in life.

I happened to walk along this teach-your-children-well trail when, even as I was a weekend father most of the time when my three “forest products” were in their formative years, I made effort to find quality time to teach them to be at home with the things of nature. Yes, through playing under the pine trees and sylvan outdoors that – fortunately for my kids – Baguio still had at the time.

My children are all grown-ups now and (probably as a natural hangover of those days when it was still pure joy to see them delight in playing with pine cones and dandelions) I recently got into the habit of nudging them with these lines:

“When you have kids of your own, don’t forget to give me and your mom freedom to bring them out – like what we used to do when you were small – to play hide and seek under the trees, pick dandelions, chase butterflies, catch tadpoles, pitch tent on the grass, build bonfire and roast corn and camote, etc.”

A FEW MORE personal trips and dips down Philippine forest memory lane:

As a young forester I happened to play bit roles, as it were, in the information, extension and communication (or IEC) aspects of forestry, using my hands-on learning and exposure to forests and nature as, oh well, wind beneath my wings.

Among my pleasant memories was having been part of the UP Los Baños team that tried to seduce teachers in Manila, Quezon City, Pasay City, Caloocan City, Rizal, Nueva Ecija, Oriental Mindoro, Occidental Mindoro, Lubang Island, Iloilo, Antique, and Sultan Kudarat to love forests – and to in turn pass on that sylvan love to their pupils (as part of that nationwide program in the seventies that sought to inject Forest Conservation in the curriculum of public elementary schools).

I was also fresh out of college when the UPLB College of Forestry’s outreach publications – Conservation Circular, Forestry Digest, Makiling News, the Ilocano forest magazine Anaraar – were literally and figuratively my bedmates. And as part of my assignments I once wrote a news story about illegal logging in the watershed of Pantabangan Dam. The item became front-page material in one issue of the Manila Bulletin, was made into an editorial the following day, and reportedly caught the attention of then President Marcos, who consequently sent a phalanx of government foresters to investigate the matter.

I got assigned next to handle the publications and communications activities of the then UPLB Northern Luzon Forestry Extension Office in Pacdal, Baguio City. It was pure joy going to far-flung villages of the Cordillera and the Ilocos region and conduct film showing and community lectures on forest conservation matters. Equally memorable were the climbs to Mount Pulag that I joined to, among other things, be up-to-date with what was happening to the second highest mountain at the time.

Also worth putting on record is that I played supportive role in the training on forestry extension of several batches of Forest Guards of the then Bureau of Forest Development in Baguio City, Benguet, Pangasinan, La Union, Abra, the two Ilocos provinces, and Mountain Province. Courtesy of the BFD officers of Baguio City, these forest guards were mainly the ones who planted the pine trees now serving as oxygen generators as well as carbon-dioxide absorbers around the Baguio Convention Center.

While in Baguio, easily one of my memorable extra-curricular activities was my having been an instructor (on a part-time basis) at the University of Baguio which was then offering the BS in Forestry degree. This was where I had a student who would later become what I call “my beloved forester’s guard” and mother of my “forest products.”

At the time, my little writing skills as a forester started to bear fruit. For instance, I qualified for an assignment as Philippine correspondent of the FAO Forest News (and each time I would get my pay check in dollars from Dr. Chandrasekharan, I would go buy myself a new pair of Levi’s).

When I got “pirated” from UPLB to the BFD central office, I got immersed as one of the water boys of social forestry and upland development. That was in the early 1980s when we were yet convincing fellow foresters to balance timber-focused mindsets with concern for agroforestry and the poor forest-based communities.

Perhaps because there was no one else intrepid enough to do the job, at one time I was a speechwriter – on forestry matters. It was not an easy assignment, being a ghostwriter. But, oh my, how I enjoyed putting words to the mouths of my superiors at the then Bureau of Forest Development and the Ministry of Natural Resources, including then President Marcos!

For a couple of years, too, I was a forestry voice on radio – handling such Ilocano programs as “Kabakiran” and “Kayo: Pagbaknangan ti Tao.” And on the air, I would occasionally insert Isinay lines, particularly to call on my fellow Isinays to go slow in their making soppeng and to instead plant more trees so that our rivers would not go dry (mabdu-anan) in the hot summer months.

Years later, I got lucky to land a Research Fellowship at the East-West Center in Honolulu where – under the tutelage of one of the foremost Filipino forestry communicators Nap Vergara – I co-edited one of the pioneering books on social forestry in the Asia-Pacific region.

My Hawaiian experience was soon followed by a two-year assignment in Bangladesh, this time as Extension/Communication Specialist of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Nandyan na rin lang tayo, may I add a few more things:

1) the little list of books, magazines, journals and newsletters on forest ecosystems, social forestry, upland development, and environment that I edited/co-edited;

2) the almost fifty fellow foresters and a few in associate disciplines who I helped in crafting and/or polishing their MS and PhD theses, most of them at UP Los Baños;

3) the more than a hundred technical personnel of the DENR (particularly those at the Central Office and in Regions 1, 2, 3, 4A, 4B, 5, and CAR), who I shared tips on how to confidently write better, meatier, more readable, and more grammatical reports, office communications, project proposals, and the like;

4) a couple of success-story comics on agroforestry that I did for the Society of Filipino Foresters (one on the Kalahan forest community and the other on a trail-blazing rattan planter); and

5) my little stint with a World Bank-funded project that sought to pump-prime some 120 LGUs in the Bicol, Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas, and Caraga regions en route to their taking care of their natural resources, including watersheds, marine resources, mangroves, ecotourism potentials, wildlife, and remnant forests.

Yes, I guess you could say katas ng kagubatan ang dugong nananalaytay sa aking katauhan.

But I really wish I could do more. A senior citizen now, and with the sunny forests, meadows and rivers of my youth admittedly no longer as poem-inducing as they used to, I feel I no longer have the stamina for forestry IEC work.

Perhaps teaching appreciation for leaves, trees, birds, beetles, cicadas, bees, dragonflies, fireflies, fish, hills, ponds, and rivers to my grandchildren yet to come would compensate for this shortcoming?

Well, I just hope that my fellow senior foresters would follow suit and that, by doing so, the kids would become better and smarter natural resource stewards of the Philippines and, for that matter, Planet Earth, than we have ever been.

- - -

SALAMAT SI TIPE YUAR AN NANBASA SI SATIEN SUTSUR!
(Thank you for your patience in reading this story)

Boyhood in Isinay Country (Part 4)

FOR MANY YEARS we thought that the Amorsolo-painting-like nature of my hometown, especially my boyhood barrio I-iyo (aka Palobotan), would never end. But the picture began to change when bulldozers and strangers on board noisy trucks they called “six by” arrived.

At first we were glad to see new faces. We were also happy the strangers improved the muddy road that passed by our barrio and opened up new routes in the hills that avoided ricefields and river crossings. As children, we were excited, too, each time a logging truck stopped on our way home from the upland farms and the driver allowed us to sit atop his load of gigantic logs. We enjoyed how the wind brushed our faces like we were riding a carabao running non-stop up and down the mountain trail.

But it didn’t take long before our appreciation for such logging-induced amenities faded. The bulldozing of riversides to either build or stabilize logging roads appeared to go on forever. The resulting mud and silt did not only make our fishing fruitless but also drove the fish and other river edibles away. With the new roads and the free rides, more and more people also opened up forested areas to kaingin and settlement.

Opportunities for wage labor were available to locals in the timber-cutting areas and in the sawmill, yes. But only for a few able-bodied males.

As if on cue, incidences of beheading (pamutu in Isinay, pammutol in Ilocano, pamumugot in Tagalog) in the forest fringes vanished as the presence of strangers on the hillsides and riverbanks may have proved too big a challenge to the hardy and jungle-savvy Ilongots.

But as if  in exchange, we got problems we didn’t encounter before. Farm huts (abung-abung in Isinay, kalapaw in Ilocano, kubo in Tagalog) where anyone could seek shelter at night or when caught by thunderstorm, started to lose their resident salt, rice kettle, and firewood. Banana groves, corn fields and peanut farms whose produce have yet to be tasted by their owners had significant quantities of their edible parts missing.

Before the loggers came, our rivers never got murky (mailut in Isinay, nalibeg in Ilocano, malabo in Tagalog) nor ferocious (marange in Isinay, narungsot in Ilocano, mabagsik in Tagalog). But a few years after logging started our swimming holes became chocolate-colored and flood waters (datong in Isinay, layus in Ilocano, baha in Tagalog)  from upstream obliterated or washed away bamboo clumps, food-rich thickets, vegetable farms, and ricefields (payaw in Isinay, taltalon in Ilocano, palayan in Tagalog) by the riverside.

I wrote an essay many years ago for the Forestry Digest about such price my town had to pay for allowing its forests to be ransacked by non-natives. Titled “No More Poems for My Children,” it lamented how my would-be kids and other children would be deprived of their forest heritage. Many years later, my sentiments got echoed by Asin with their “Kapaligiran” song:

                                              Ang mga batang ngayon lang isinilang
                                              May mga ilog pa kayang lalanguyan...
                                              May mga puno pa kaya silang aakyatin
                                              May dagat pa kaya silang matitikman?

(DIOY SI ATUPTUPNA SIRI PART 5)

Boyhood in Isinay Country (Part 3)

MY EXPOSURE to forests had its roots in the fact that as a child I happened to shuffle between two homes both of which gave me opportunity to explore the outdoors. One was my parents’ house near the western hills of town where my playmates were Isinays. The other was my grandparents’ place in the barrio nestled between the river and the cattle-grazing tracts, and where our neighbors were all Ilocanos.

In both worlds, almost all boys in my time were of the outdoors type. As such we often wore slingshots on our necks. We used the slingshot to hunt wild chickens (kalatan in Isinay, abuyo in Ilocano, manok ihalas in Bisaya) and monitor lizard (baniyas in Isinay, banias in Ilocano, bayawak in Tagalog), and to drive away field rats (gandaw in Isinay, utot or ba-o in Ilocano,) and rice sparrows (tulin In Isinay, billit-tuleng in Ilocano, maya in Tagalog) that fed on our ripening rice crops.

The slingshot was a toy but when no one was looking, we also used it to bring down seductive guava or mango fruits. It also boosted one’s bravery when sent for errands that required passing by houses with unfriendly dogs or geriatric trees believed to house sinampade, lampong, kapre, enkantada, ansisit, and other supernatural beings said to be dwelling in forests.

Please don’t get the impression though that playing outdoors was an everyday thing for me. No sir. As the eldest (pangiyuwan in Isinay, inauna in Ilocano, panganay in Tagalog) of eight children, I had to squeeze in time for my books and class projects while doing such chores as sweeping the yard of fallen starapple leaves, feeding the chickens and pigs, watering the coffee and ornamental plants, running errands for my mother, and taking care (mangahayam in Isinay, agaw-awir in Ilocano, mag-alaga in Tagalog) of baby sisters.

Saturdays were not all slingshot time either. I had to be around my father when we needed to mend fences, tend the backyard vegetable garden, or split firewood (manisij in Isinay, agbalsig in Ilocano, magsibak in Tagalog) . It was my duty, too, to bring a cavan of palay to the rice mill and back when Mother’s rice bin (pampurutan in Isinay, pagbagasan in Ilocano, palabigasan in Tagalog) was running empty.

But you will note that even such chores, including the ones I had in the barrio -- such as taking the carabaos to pasture or helping weed the upland rice and the squash and beans in the kaingin (soppeng In Isinay, uma in Ilocano) -- were not completely divorced from the forests and related “fields of the Lord.”

Whenever a hen has hatched eggs, I would search the bamboo groves for termite nest-balls to feed the chicks. To make the rice-bran feed more delicious to the pigs, I would comb stream banks for the herb Amorphophallus campanulatus (called imbayang in Isinay, tigi in Ilocano, pongapong in Tagalog, pamangkilon in Bisaya, tokod-banua in Pampanga, bagong in Bikol, corpse flower in English).

In the barrio, while the carabaos grazed, my friends and I would play hide and seek among the arosip and wild guava trees. If in the ricefields, we chased the tuklingin Ilocano, siboj in Isinay (gallinule) or the wild ducks (engaj in Isinay, papa in Ilocano) that searched the mudholes for stranded shells, frogs and fish. We gorged on the fruits of kaluttit and bujnay in Ilocano, painted our faces ala-Indian with appatut (achuete) seeds, and carried firewood on our sunburnt shoulders on the way back home.

MY TOWN’S FORESTS are not known to have ever hosted charismatic (or ‘elite’) wildlife such as the Philippine eagle, the tamaraw, and the tarsier. Such lack of fascinating creatures might however be counter-balanced by the presence, as mentioned, of the Ilongots. Yes, when I was little, the tribe lent color and a sense of adventure to our forests, apart from having the heart and jungle skills that could put them at par with the American Indians.

Our forests may not have been as photogenic as those of the pine stands of the Cordillera either. But at the time, if one happened to survive a plane crash in our side of the Nueva Vizcaya wilderness, at least there was plenty of wild food he could stay alive with.

For example, bush meat from deer (laman in Isinay, ugsa in Ilocano, usa in Tagalog), wild pig (bavuy si eyas in Isinay, alingo in Ilocano, baboy-damo in Tagalog), civet cat (amunin in Isinay, mutit in Ilocano, musang in Tagalog), fruit bat (pani-i in Isinay, paniki in Ilocano, bayakan in Tagalog), and monitor lizard (baniyas in Isinay, banias in Ilocano, bayawak in Tagalog) were common table fare then.

Each time I had scabies on my legs -- said to be acquired from eating eel (dalit in Isinay, igat in Ilocano, palos in Tagalog) -- Inang Baket would ask my uncles to go hunt monkeys the adobo meat of which would make my skin allergies disappear.

Similarly, our streams and rivers were jungle-survival paradise. Seldom murky then, they always made fishing a delight. With bare hands or with small nets one could get enough shrimps to make into “jumping salad” seasoned with bagoong, fern, and green mango or wild tomatoes.

Not to be outdone, the ricefields have not yet fallen hostage to chemical fertilizers and pesticides at the time. Thus, it was safe to collect the shells that we call basikul, ambeveyo^ and genga in Isinay (bisukol, leddeg, birabid in Ilocano) and the edible freshwater algae we call bahase in Isinay (barbaradiong in Ilocano) that were at the time part and not pests of ricefield ecosystems.

During heavy rains when fish and shells were hard to find, other organic food could be found in the riverbanks or in the fringes of ricefields. They may be considered exotic food now, but pith of the fishtail palm (called umu^ in Isinay, ubog in Ilocano),rattan shoot (tangpat in Isinay, barit in Ilocano), and the edible jungle fern tabahat were common then.

Usually in April-June, many of us became entomophagous (insect-eaters) as the white eggs and nymphs of the tailor ant (eja in Isinay, abuos in Ilocano, kara-kara in Tagalog) became abundant in the trees near the timberline. At twilight we trooped to grassy spots near the river to catch the also delectable May beetle (called e-ve in Isinay, abal-abal in Ilocano, salagubang in Tagalog). We also considered as delicacy the fat yellow worms (called bate-vate in Isinay, tateg in Ilocano) that wriggled under decaying tree trunks.

When rats, locusts, and mayas (tulin in Isinay, billit-tuleng in Ilocano) diminished our rice harvest, we turned to the wild yam (karut in Ilocano and Isinay; nami in Tagalog; kalot in Bisaya) for alternative staple food.

The essayist Maximo Ramos put it well: “We had gizzards of stone.” Indeed, such appetite for genuinely natural and organic food forms a huge chunk of my happy memories of being nurtured by wild food that most children of today will probably not be able to taste anymore.

(DIOY SI ATUPTUPNA SIRI PART 4)

Boyhood in Isinay Country (Part 2)

IF GUARDIAN angels that shield children from harm really exist, the one assigned to me must have worked non-stop 24/7 for many years. This included my pre-teenage years when I would join my grandfather and uncles in clearing, burning then planting patches of ublag (second-growth) forests to make swidden farm (called soppeng in Isinay, uma in Ilocano, kaingin in Tagalog,) and, when going home to our village base after an exhausting day, we would hitch rides on top of huge dipterocarp and narra logs hauled down from the mountains by rickety logging trucks.

There were stories of upland farmers getting stung by the cobra (called immanuy in Isinay, karasaen in Ilocano, ulupong in Tagalog) and getting chased by a simarron (feral carabao). But I only had minor bruises, thorns lodged on the foot, and skin allergies caused by contact with what I like to call the “babies” of butterflies.

Well, as kids, perhaps we didn’t encounter life-threatening situations because we heeded our elders’ counsels, for example: not to use our bolos this way or that way, especially when in the water. Grandmothers cautioned us not to stray too far, not to climb trees, not to start fire, and not to go swimming during high noon, when malevolent spirits were said to go after hard-headed boys.

As was natural for kids in my time, however, we were not always saints. When someone warned us not to go near this part of the barrio because of the presence of honeybees (iyu-an in Isinay, uyukan in Ilocano, pukyutan in Tagalog), we only half listened. Why? Because the mere mention of honeybees awakened images in our mind of super saccharine honey (inintin si iyu-an in Isinay, diro in Ilocano) waiting to fill our little mouths, and how much beeswax (lilin in Isinay, allid in Ilocano) the honeycombs could be made to strengthen our carabao ropes and make fishing lines water-proof.

Finding the beehive was easy as almost always blue-green birds we called kulepplew in Isinay (pirpiriw in Ilocano) would noisily hover around the host tree to feast on the bees. We could not resist applying our slingshot skills on the birds. But when our shots would instead hit the bees, to the river or the nearest farm hut we would run as swarms of the angry insects came looking for the culprits.

We committed venial sins, too, in summer when the song of the cicadas, the call of the birds, and the scent of the ripe fruits in the wilderness were at their most seductive pitch. Thus, if not looking for bird’s nests or ensnaring cicadas (duluriyaw in Isinay, ari-ari in Ilocano, kuliglig in Tagalog) with sticks coated with jackfruit latex, you would find us climbing trees. There were plenty of guava, aratiles, tamarind, anonas, bignay, mabolo, santol, and duhat trees then, many of which were on private lands but, as was the rural norm then, you could pick and taste for free their sweet offerings for as long as you leave some for their owners.

Not even rumors of what they call kumaw in both Isinay and Ilocano (sipay or manunupot in Tagalog) -- said to kidnap gallivanting kids, put them in jute sacks, and squeeze their blood out to fortify bridges in downstream Magat or Cagayan River -- could keep us from enjoying life among the birds and the trees.
Let’s put it this way: Once revved up, it would probably take heaven and earth to wean kids away from Mother Nature.

FOR THE RECORD, one thing was more scary for us than the blood-using kidnappers mentioned above, including tree-dwelling supernatural beings. This was when the bagbag tree (Erythrina species) started to shoot forth its blazing red flowers, signaling the season when Ilongot braves came downhill in search of heads, at the time mostly of Ilocano and Isinay kaingineros, male or female, to collect.

While the kumaw and tree-dwelling spirits may have been fiction fostered by mothers to keep their children from escaping farm or household chores, the Ilongots were real people. Even during off-season for headhunting when they would come downhill to trade their dried venison (laman in Isinay, karne ti ugsa in Ilocano) and wildpig meat, split rattan, and deer-skin with our salt, tobacco, and blankets, we were afraid meeting them outside the barrio. This was because for a couple of summers past we did see their bloody handiwork, swarming with flies while displayed in the plaza for community mourning and proper disposal, minus their heads.

To those who are hearing the name for the first time, the Ilongots are a forest-dwelling tribe, now preferring to be called Bugkalot, whose headhunting tradition has kept virgin forests in southern Nueva Vizcaya and parts of the Sierra Madre and the Caraballo mountains off-limits, first to Spanish missionaries and Ilocano migrants, then centuries later to big-time loggers, miners, ranchers, swidden farmers, rattan gatherers, and yes, even bird-hunting, river-fishing, and fuelwood-gathering kids.

The aviator-naturalist Charles Lindbergh and the Stanford University anthropologist Renato Rozaldo started to befriend them in the 1960s, and soon they stopped chopping off the heads of landgrabbers and other exploiters who dared to intrude into their forest-rich ancestral territory.

(DIOY SI ATUPTUPNA SIRI PART 3)