Isinay Songs: "Dattut Ittuwam"

Here's probably the most popular song coming out of, or rather sung by, Isinays especially in Dupax del Sur. In fact, I'm tempted to say that one is not a true Isinay if he/she doesn't know how to sing this one. When he was still teaching at Dupax Elementary School, my father used to sit by the front window of the second floor of our house in Domang and sing this haunting love song to the accompaniment of his ukelele especially during moonlit nights. It was from his frequent rendition of the song that I learned how to sing it myself. In fact, when I was feeling homesick while "vacationing" at the East-West Center in Honolulu in 1986, it was one of the songs I loved to strum the guitar with, along with "Hawaiian Wedding Song" and "Ang Bayan Kong Pilipinas."

DATTUT ITTUWAM

(WHERE ARE YOU)

Dattut ittuwam, o bilay u

Inaru-arun di satien puso

Nirat di sipan muwar

An sa-on si aruwom

Sangkana tie besan

Saon si tinayanam.

(Where are you, my dearest one

You have endeared my humble heart

Where is your promise

That you will love me alone

Why is it nowadays

That you have left me aside.)

Dattuttun lugar si aya^ panganapan

Si inaru-ar an immaddawi

Ejawan ta lavi, eyongawan di saitar

Uar inin-inop uar

Eyongawan di patoyar.

(Where in this world can I find

My sweetheart who went away

Each day and night I feel pain

Each night I often dream

That death is nearing me.)

Nomnomo na^ mu addawi ya

Nomnomom pay ri satie gi^naar

Satie pusu-ar an mandeyoromdom

Mi^bus ysia, aajis di batang uar.

(Remember me while I am away

Think of my hardships

And worrying heart

Just because of you my better half.)

……………………………..

NOTE: This version was sung at the Philippine Folk Arts Theater, July 1978 and at the Manila Garden Hotel, Pagayaya ’78 by the same Isinay group that presented the Imbestida at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1978. And again, the English translation here was done by Mrs. Aida C. Mamaoag. 

Oh yes, those of you who are in faraway lands and feeling "meyongngaw" (homesick) with Isinay love songs like this may be interested to know that there are at least three that are beautifully rendered on YouTube by Ms. Myra Bangad, a music teacher of Nueva Vizcaya General Comprehensive High School (NVGCHS), in Bayombong, NV. In fact, when I was doing this blog post, her duet with a male co-teacher has registered 1,436 views since it was uploaded February 2008 by a certain basteroger. To access Dattut Ittuwam, just google "Isinay Songs" and three frames of Myra's charming face would pop up on your computer screen. 

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