I JUST POSTED in my Facebook account the
following photo plus an accompanying note:
 |
| Fruit-laden tibig tree in Langka, Dupax del Sur, Nueva Vizcaya. (March 19, 2012 photo by charlz castro) |
These are fruits of the Ficus
nota tree (tibig in Tagalog, tebbeg in Ilocano). Long, long before plastic,
metallic and electronic toy cars came to our part of the country, my friends in
the barrio and I used the fruits as wheels for our sardine-can
"trucks". We also used them as throw-away turumpo (spinning top). And
when we ran out of river pebbles, we used them as "bullets" for our
slingshots when we were assigned to drive away the hundreds of
tamsi/ibon/billit called maya (billit-tuleng in Ilocano) that loved to raid the
milky grains of our ricefields.
IT DIDN'T TAKE long
before comments came cascading in. The first came from a young Isinay guy
working in the Middle East, followed by those from two Isinay ladies now based
in the USA. There's also one from a lady forester working with the DENR, and an
enlightening feedback from a medical doctor in Dupax married to a forester.
I'm sure some more back and forth exchanges will come in but I
couldn't help sharing -- now, while they're still hot -- the excitement I
got and the memories resurrected by the exchanges I had with the initial
batch of reactors.
Here, friends of Isinay Bird, look at what a single
harmless picture could do:
I'm a big fan of your informative posts, uwa charlz. More
please. =)
Salamat, idong. Alimbawa na ta uriam tay naila, dioy si
blogsite u an pangit-ittua^ si mas anduoy on mas kumpleton sinulat u. Just
Google-search Isinay Bird and click the months in the archive section to read
older posts about trees, people, beliefs, etc. especially in our beloved Dupax.
There were a lot of these near the Abannatan between the lot
of Carpio Magno and Nelly Castro before... Madamo pa ang lote ni Nelly noon.
Josie, sayang... Uria^ naila ren pun si lavay siren
namummutoja^ tay. Amplamu siri Pitang ya nayyit naila^ -- andoj-olan omoya lad
di Daya an mangeyat bebbevoy u.
Ay o attoj, to my fellow Isinays in Aritao, Bambang and
Dupax -- the Isinay name for tibig is "lavay". Those of you who have
heard the Isinay "Anino^" songs would probably recall that one
version carries the lines: "Amung lan savung si lavay... anay... susun
bi-alar an navayvay! Mavves lan bebbevoy si lajay... kada lavi an naolay!"
Hahaha! Nice lyrics! Naughty, yet funny and very isinay.
Charlz, maserot an mantanom anut deen atna an ayu toy
mangamung anu net danum? Santuwo isi-a toy forester a ya siguradon amtam de...
Uria amta mu joy tay si panalayapon besan. Saren ayu ya domonan ilamoj si bu-e
ri tuvu na. On biyu-u^, bunga nar te ya^ panlojos si dalah. Pumuraw poda
sanggup nar. Naramita^ lojom darate den navilay tay si Epic toy amoy daya an
mangeya.
Salamat, Sally, toy inpanomnom mu isaon daranen panalayapon
on biyu-u^. Otoy ta man-uluwa^ mot si adyomar an dalah an pumuraw podda sanggup
nar! It would be nice to find out, indeed, if these vanishing edible wild plants
could be propagated.... The panalayapon is a tree called panalayapen in Ilocano
and malarayap in Tagalog. I'm not sure if the biyu-u^ is the same as the du-u
that Ilocanos call ariwat and is a vine (waaj). Aboleyam ta mu omoya^ Dupaj si
satye umaliyar an pista (Abril 21-22) ya anapo^ darane. If Wa Epic got them
from daya, I'm sure my relatives in Palobotan would still know where to source
them.
Ay o attoh, Sally... about the tibig as water collector, I'm
not sure about that. What I know is that this tree loves to grow near streams
or in areas where there are springs (tayo^to^). This is probably why -- a tip
for plane crash survivors or jungle-survival enthusiasts! -- they say that the
presence of a tibig is an indicator of the presence of tubig (water) in the
vicinity.
Kala ko sa amin lang, brod, sa inyo rin pala... Gone
were the days of ingenuity. Sayang, di na naexperience ng mga bata
ngayon.
Sis Roni, tulad ninyong lumaki sa rural towns of Quezon,
panay organic din ang laruan namin noong kami ang batang-paslit. Correct, those
were the days of ingenuity. Ibig sabihin, noong wala pa ang mga PSP, maski
patpat ng kawayan, buto ng sampalok, dahon ng niyog, o palapa ng saging --
happy na tayo noon.
Apion mi iman dalij si latan trak-trakan. Mangeya amit aytun
si niyuj, saru walis tingting, sari di appion min connection na.
Adday, Josie, I didn't know that you were some sort of a car
engineer when you were a kid! Da^mi ilad di poto^ miyar an as-asup Pitang ya
logging truck anumalla ri appion miyar ira Oret Calacala. When we were a bit
older, we made bigger trucks ot darare mot
si pangisahayan mit upa^ si troso on slab on kusut an omoy min eyan siri
sawmillar si sahungon di sementeryowa. (Those of you from Dupax who are now in their late 50s
would probably remember that sawmill as well as the noisy logging trucks that
used to pass by the Dampol bridge.)
Charlz do you know na these fruits are very nutritious? These
are food to native pigs or organically grown pigs!!! We did try it and the meat
is far better than chemical feed-fed pigs... Healthy living... healthy diet...
and stay young and healthy!!!
Nutritious? Coming from a doctor, that's a great revelation,
Manang Jean! All the while, I was thinking na sayang ang maraming bunga ng
tibig kasi as far as I know hindi siya kinakain. I might as well try to experiment
tasting it myself very soon -- for the sake
of science. Who knows, aside from serving as freely available feed for raising
organic pigs (maybe even cows!), the tibig may also be made into candies or
fruit jams.
Try it! What I mean is, for animals especially pigs, so that we eat
the real native pigs not the hormone-fed ones nowadays!!! For human
consumption! We had a project then but nawala when we got so busy, anyway would
like to go into it again! Healthy diet... health and wellness!!!
Good! Sige, try for the sake of science! And better
business... less expense for feed, quality food for every one... especially for
Dupax people.
Real
native versus hormone-fed pigs... I just remembered that to augment my
teacher-father's income, my mother and I raised black pigs when I was little.
Yes, they were certainly organic because, aside from rice bran (duhi in Isinay,
tuyo in Ilocano, darak in Tagalog), we fed them with binugbog (boiled pig food)
that included green native papayas, gabi stalks, kangkong, kamote leaves,
ngalug, kwantung (spiny amaranth the young seedlings of which we call kalunay
in Ilocano and suwit in Isinay), ngalug, and tigi (imbayang in Isinay,
pongapong in Tagalog). For their snacks, I used to gather fallen guavas,
starapples and mangoes for them.
NOTE:
To Isinay Bird friends who wish to have translation for some of the Isinay
texts in this post that you could not understand by context, please feel free
to type in your questions on the COMMENT section below. Alternatively, you can
also please e-mail me at: charlz1951@yahoo.com
Many thanks for dropping by, Ranjan. And thank you, too, for advertising this corner to your friends. Namaste!
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