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)

Nourished by Bananas

I’M CURRENTLY working on the production of the very first dictionary of the vanishing Isinay language of Nueva Vizcaya (particularly Aritao, Bambang and Dupax) and each time a new entry emerges from the caverns of my mind, almost always my memory comes alive with images, sounds, tastes, people, places, and events associated with the word.

For instance, while I was thinking of the Isinay term for the Ilocano agpaluom (literally, "to make something ripe"), I thought of the bananas (and also the mangoes, anonas, jackfruits, and avocados) that we used to goad to ripe during those days when buying such was not yet in our household vocabulary.

Never mind that up to when I sat down to write this piece, I was not still contented with what I came up with, that is, “mampayutu” and “mampajinuj” – derived from “nayutu” and “najinuj” (which both means "ripe"). This is because, at least, the remembering brought back to life images of people who played big roles in my boyhood — like Inang (my maternal grandmother Feliza Pudiquet y Lacandazo), Apong (my maternal grandfather Pedro Pudiquet y Duldulao), Papa (Vicente Castro y Mambear), Juan Reyes (my favorite barber), Carlito and Carmelito Lacandazo (my deceased barrio playmates and uncle-cousins), and Bonifacio Campo (a muscular neighbor who Papa often relied on for carrying sacks of rice to the rice garanry that we called kamalig in Ilocano or e-yang in Isinay).

Yes, as a kid, I derived much nutrition from bananas. In my grandparents’ house in I-iyo, we used to have tumok, dippig, lakatan, gloria, immasukar, camarines and other such varieties that my indefatigable Apong and Inang raised in the lower part of their upland farm in Langka and some in their defunct and formerly kasoy-lined bangkag (rainfed farm; gitaw in Isinay) on the left side of the Palabotan Elementary School. I remember Inang had two large earthen jars (burnay in Ilocano; mawaga in Isinay) that she used as container to make the ripening of the bananas faster and even. Presumably bought from Ilocos and used earlier by Apong to brew sugarcane juice into basi (sugarcane wine flavored with fruits of the samak or binunga tree) when the dadapilan (carabao-powered sugar mill; pan-asotan in Isinay) owned by Uncle Berong Miranda was still operating, the burnay were perfect storage containers for bananas as they kept the heat well and they were impervious to rats. Inang would drop a couple of thumb-sized karburo (carbide) stones from Apong’s lampa (carbide-powered lamp used for fishing) and then cover the mouth of the burnay with banana leaves then keep the resulting lid in place by tying it with a strand of lapnit (dried bast fiber from the bark of the bitnong tree that is called tan-ag in Tagalog).

When I was still in the elementary grades at Gabaldon and even when I was at St. Mary’s High School, I would sneak into my grandparents house in I-iyo (we called it Surung then) each time I felt like going there. The bananas were a magnet to me that became easier to go to when Papa bought me a bulldog bicycle. Of course, I would bring home some for Mama and my sisters, but not after gorging on a whole sapad (bunch; sapar in Isinay) of the nutritious fruits that my doting grandmother allowed me to, even if the bananas were meant to be sold outside of Surung.

Lest you get the impression that we didn’t have bananas in the ili (poblacion or town center), particularly our house in Domang, let me tell that Papa and I spent countless hours of father-and-son bonding trying to grow some in the solar (fondly called Mangga by my sisters) when it was still arable enough for planting, among other crops, cowpeas (iris in Isinay, kardis in Ilocano), stringbeans (gayya^ in Isinay, utong in Ilocano, sitaw in Tagalog), mungbeans (betung in Isinay, balatong in Ilocano, munggo in Tagalog), eggplant (balaseno in Isinay, tarong in Ilocano, talong in Tagalog), and kamote (sweet potato). Papa’s favorite was the señorita (a banana variety that had small or bite-sitze and fit for kids and very sweet fruits). Uncle Ermin (Herminio Castro) also grew the same variety but also had gloria in his beautiful road-on-all-sides lot across our house, the one where the houses of Ellen and Ninfa now stand.

In Langka, we would know when bananas are ready to be harvested when the crow or raven (gayang in Isinay, uwak in Ilocano and Tagalog) hovered and made loud “kwak-kwak-kwak” among the banana groves. If Apong and Inang were busy in their other farms (such as in Palabutan and Arwat) or had their hands full with their tobacco leaves (aggatud and agtunus, no Isinay terms for these; I guess because Isinays didn't grow as much tobacco as the Ilocanos), the crows and the martines would beat them to the bananas.

Sometimes, the neighboring farmers would help themselves to the ripe ones but would later tell my grandparents about it in the spirit of being neighborly. Often we would have one or two bulig (bunil in Isinay; this is the whole set of fruits along with their “petiole” or “cob”) loaded in the kariton (carabao-powered cart) and we would bring these home to I-iyo. When I was around, it would be my chore, in addition to washing the dishes (manajpat in Isinay, aginnaw in Ilocano), to convert into sapad (bunch) the still green bananas. You could do this by using a sharp knife, but in my case my favorite was the tip of the panabas (huge knife or bolo) used for cleaning the ricefield dike (tambak in Ilocano; tamnang in Isinay) if not the barusok (iron-tipped dibble used for planting upland rice; called asad in Isinay).

Inang would next take over setting the bunches in the burnay (mawaga in Isinay) while I would dump the “cob” in the abandoned tupig pit converted into garbage pit. And then, depending on the time of the day, off to the river or the hills I would go, along with whoever friends in the village were around. A couple of days or so later, the bananas would start to ripen and, because my grandparents were so permissive to me then (which I observed was not the case with my cousins), I would be free to help myself with all the bananas I could stuff in my mouth.

IN THE HOUSE at Domang (I have to tell here that I had some kind of a "dual personality" then, living with my parents in the town on schooldays and staying in my grandparents' house in the barrio on weekends or during vacation from school), Mama and Papa had a different way of ripening bananas. Yes, correct, we did have some stands  in the solar and in the then backyard garden that we used to have in that spot where Mama’s house (also known as Tessie and Romy’s house) now stands.

I always took delight in doing the panagtebba of a banana "tree" (I’m a forester, so I have to be careful here). I forgot the Isinay and Tagalog terms for this activity, but it is simply involved the felling of a banana "plant" whose fruits are ready for harvest. The joy of doing the task simply stemmed from the fact that it would entitle me to whatever ripe fruits there would be in the whole bulig (all right, let’s use the term “bunch” for lack of proper English word). There would always at least be a couple or more of such ready-to-eat fruits in the bunch which I would share to any sister (at the time Baybee, Judith, Tessie, Arlyne, and the late Merlie) who would be around. But they would often not be around as it was either they were too busy with their girly plays or Mama scolded them if their dresses got stained with the banana’s fluid (stain is mansa in both Isinay and Ilocano, mantsa in Tagalog).

As always, I would also process the bananas into small bunches, taking care not to injure the fruits. Then Mama would bring out a carton box and place the banana bunches there and cover them with fresh madre cacao leaves before putting the box beside or atop the pile of firewood (itungu in Isinay, pagsungrod in Ilocano, panggatong in Tagalog) near the kitchen. By the way, the box we used to ripen the bananas usually was a discarded “pagikkan iti mureng” (place for putting soiled clothes) which originally was a grocery goods container box  from the Chinese merchant Co Peng in whose puwesto (stall) in the public market in Malasin my mama and I would regularly go to encash Papa’s tseke (paycheck; usually not more than 200 pesos, if my memory serves me right).

I have not yet told of my tales about the banana that could probably make it to Guinness' book of records for having the most number of seeds. We called such variety saba ti sunggo in Ilocano/Iluko and majanilan si araw in Isinay, which both mean either "monkey banana" or "banana suited for monkeys." But I have to park for now and save the other tales for separate postings later. -- CHARLZ CASTRO

Some Isinay Birds Revisited

A chance remembering of such Isinay birds as Teyay (panal in Ilocano), Tittiwaddon (kinkin-od), Plepplew (pirpiriw), Siggu^(sakuk), Tulin (billit-tuleng), and other feathered creatures

“Listen to the man on the forest trail for he too has good stories to tell.” This line, I guess, has not been used before by any author. So if you try to Google it one day and find nothing of exact wording, it would help unknown authors like yours truly if one of these days you please remember that you encountered it first in this essay.

I used a similar line a little over two decades ago in a piece I wrote about indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) for the Tropical Forests magazine (“It’s high time we listened to people in them thar hills”) and then again in a paper I presented on IKS (“Beware of Trees with Fireflies”) where I mentioned something like “If you meet an unlettered man on the mountain trail....”

I happened to think of that line when I ruminated on a brief talk I recently had about Isinay birds with a distant relative, Bonifacio "Bob" Campo. The guy may not exactly be a mountain and unlettered guy but as an Isinay-raised fellow when he was young (even as his mother was Tagalog), I think I find him a good resource person for the Isinay-English dictionary that I’m working on, particularly on the taxonomy of birds, insects, snakes, trees, herbs, vines, etc. that Isinay kids in our part of Dupax were supposed to know by heart.

I wish Bob would be re-admitted as an employee at the Hamada’s Baguio Midland Courier soon or at least be accepted as Barangay Tanod (or “Barangay Tagay” as he said) in the Kisad and Gen. Lim area of Baguio City currently headed by Barangay Chairman Billy Hamada. For then I would have a ready person to consult for Isinay flora and fauna and other terms that I would need help with.

For instance, if Bob didn’t come to the house along with my sister Nenette and her two boys for the chicken adobo dinner we organized to celebrate Beia’s and my birthday, I would not have been able to talk with the native Isinay speaker and include the terms teyay and siggu^ in my Isinay dictionary. Not that I didn't know the birds they were referring to, but sometimes not using the names for a long, long time has a way of making one forget them unless resurrected by another fellow who remembers them.

I have yet to verify what bird Bob was referring to with the teyay he mentioned. But based on his descriptions -- it’s brown and as big as the pinuu^ (bulbul; pirruka in Ilocano; scientific name: Pycnonotus goiaver) -- and cross-checking them with what I remember in my slingshot-using days with the Calacala brothers Oret and Base, the teyay may be the migratory bird panal (shrike; scientific name: Lanius lanius cristatus).

Siggu^ is of course the chocolate-colored and long-tailed cuckoo or coucal (Centropus bengalensis). We called the bird sakuk or chakuk and my then uncircumcised friends and I hated it so much because each time it crowed ku-ku-ku-kuk in the thickets and following this with sup-put… sup-put, our uncles or circumcised older playmates in the barrio would tease us to go undergo kugit (circumcision) next Huebes Santo (Holy Thursday).

Bob was not sure of the manaleban (a term I heard our former Calacala neighbors use when I was little). He nevertheless suspected it was the Isinay name for the Ilocano tiktikrubong (warbler; scientific name: Megalurus palustris) and even recalled that this was  the bird that follows the carabao each time the big animal grazed thick lomo^ (grass). I surmise the bird was after the grasshoppers and other grass-dwelling insects driven out of their hiding place by the incessant "mowing" of the carabao.

The Isinay in Bob went on to discourse on other Dupax birds (amid the interruption of my Red Horse beer- and Ginebra San Miguel-tipsy bayaw or brother in law Edward Fiadchongan who I requested to come cook four of our old and ayam- or mite-infested Chinese chickens). For instance, when I asked him the Isinay for tukling (barred rail; tikling in Tagalog; scientific name: Rallus torquatus), he took time to jog his brain in vain but nevertheless recalled the bird ran so fast and was colored mandirito^ (red). When I tested his bird knowledge by suggesting the Isinay for tukling must be tulin, he said "Mari ah.. sare tulinar ya man-oj an mantetteyav and mangan si pahoy ot sare tuklingar ya mangan si dalaj." (Translation: "No, the tulin is a tiny bird that feeds on rice while the tukling is a fish-eater.")

Tulin, indeed, is the ricebird that flies in droves -- sometimes by the hundreds -- and are considered pests in many rice-growing towns of the Philippines. Called maya in Tagalog and billit-tuleng in Ilocano, these birds are the targets of the rag-clothed scarecrows (bambanti in Ilocano; tinahutahu in Isinay) one sees in the taltalon (ricefield; payaw in Isinay) specially when the rice start to become "pregnant" with grains. I heard someone say there are two types in Dupax -- one brown and one black. I guess these are the chestnut munia (Lonchura malacca) and the scaly-breasted munia (Lonchura punctulata).

Bob also mentioned a brown bird similar to the tukling and a “burik” (striated/speckled) one called kebkeb. I knew the latter so I said kebkeb was a lot bigger than tukling. As for the brown bird, he imitated its head’s upturned position and said the bird stood still when it sensed somebody going near. I told him that that bird is named tangad (cinnamon bittern; scientific name: Ixobrychus cinnamomeus). Incidentally, the Ilocano name for this bird is teggaak, this I learned later from Boni Calacala (another mestizo Isinay who, like Bob, is still a bachelor and prefers a wife-free and hand-to-mouth life like birds).

He was at a loss as to the name of the blue birds that rejoice and fly in the sky at the onset of rain. I told him they were called plep-plew in Isinay and pirpiriw in Ilocano (blue-tailed bee-eater in English; scientific name: Merops philippinus) and were often around whenever there are many honeybees (he interjected iyuan when I pretended not to know the Isinay for the Ilocano uyukan).

I think I also tested Bob’s avian knowledge when I asked him about the tiny bird (smaller than the maya) called kulipattung in Ilocano. He didn't have a name for it but surrendered when I said that the male is black with white parts on its wings (like that of a martines) while the female is brown. Yes, he said he saw such a pair and the male indeed looks like a martines.

In our animated conversation in Isinay, such names as gayang (crow), kalatan (wild chicken; abuyo in Ilocano and labuyo in Tagalog) and labban (hawk; kali in Ilocano, lawin in Tagalog) also came out.

Wagtail photo from Wikipedia

To keep my Igorot bayaw from feeling left out in the conversation, I mentioned to Bob the wagtail bird (scientific name: Motacilia cinerea) we called tittiwaddon in Isinay. In Barlig my wife says the bird is called tittiwad. And indeed, both Edward and Bob knew the bird (called kinkin-od in Ilocano) and went through the motions of describing its pumping action as it sunned along the bank of the river.


I also interjected that what we call amunin in Dupax Isinay refers to the wild cat but in Barlig amunin refers to the domestic cat. As for the buwet (cloud rat) I stressed that in Dupax it is called buwot, remembering the gandaw an sin-ammain si kuting (rat as big as a cat) once caught by the Reyes guys as it fed on coffee fruits or coconut flowers near that wooded solar (lot) near the Dampol Bridge. Bob said he had not seen such animal in his wanderings in Dupax while Edward recalled that we once had a pet in the house like that, to which I said it eventually escaped and must have been eaten by dogs in the neighborhood – "or it may have returned to the forest," the two gin-moistened guys dueted in Ilocano.

Bob also recalled a bird that came out and became noisy when it was about to rain. While writing this, my wife just said there are also birds like that in Barlig and flew with unmoving wings. That’s the glider they call pipingngaw in Isinay, sallapingaw in Ilocano, and layang-layang in Tagalog (scientific name: Collocalia troglodytes).

In English, the pipingngaw must be the swiftlet or the swallow which sometime back Dean Rex Cruz of the UPLB College of Forestry and Natural Resources (when I went to see him and other members of the College Executive Committee in their very first meeting at the North Phil TREES in Baguio) was telling as the tourist-attracting bird they once drove for in Cupertino (in California?) and on their long drive home to Arizona almost had a fatal car accident along with his now US-based bilas Roy Pollisco who, as a boy at the Makiling Heights area of the Forestry campus where I stayed in my senior year, came to see the fledgling Philippine falconet that I found – but which I later set free -- near Dr. Chito de Guzman’s swing one summer day.

In passing, I also mentioned to Bob the term immanuy, the venomous snake that bit the arm of his grandfather Pasio^ one time he was doing soppeng (swidden farm; kaingin) and he mistook it for a wa-ah (woody vine; lanut in Ilocano). Insisting that immanuy is not cobra, Bob didn’t seem to know that the python which is called beklat in Ilocano is called ine^eyaddang by Isinays.

I also quickly mentioned to him that his father Rogel still knew me the last time we saw each other in Dupax but his Uncle Pacual didn’t recognize me until I mentioned my name. Bob said his father and his Uncle Otong both know me but that his Uncle Pacual probably didn’t recognize me as he doesn’t go to town often from the formerly forest-rich and sawmill-site Banila, a barangay further upstream of my boyhood barrio Iiyo.

Oh well, the birds that "came out of hiding" as a result of this chance conversation and recollection are by no means all the birds you would find in Isinay country. I have not yet included the engah (wild duck; papa in Ilocano), the gayang (crow or raven; uwak in Ilocano), the taltaliling (woodpecker; tagtaga in Ilocano), the seya^sa^ (kingfisher; salaksak in Ilocano), the uwop (owl; puwek in Ilocano), the ammo^ (quail; pugo in Ilocano), etc.

Maybe in a future post I may have to mention the many species of titit (sunbird, flowerpecker, hummingbird; sitsitik in Ilocano) that competed with us free-spirited Dupax kids as we went climbing the fruit-laden sarisay (aratiles in Tagalog; scientific name: Muntingia calabura) of the neighbors. I may also have a separate piece on the ever-present osberd (housebird, tree sparrow; mayang-bahay in Tagalog; scientific name: Passer montanus) that were often the first targets of Isinay and Ilocano boys like me for trying their Olympian-class skills in using the baris (slingshot; palsiit in Ilocano). -CHARLZ CASTRO

When pencils, beetles, and tadpoles were toys

IT SURELY was a different life we had then when my sisters and I were young. Back then, we spoke both in Ilocano and in Isinay -- very much unlike kids in Dupax today (be they of Ilocano or of Isinay ancestry) who no longer speak a word of the native Dupax tongue -- only Tagalog which they learned from watching too much TV, and reinforced by the educational system that gives preference to using Filipino and English for instruction. We also had insects for toys and playmates then (such as the cotton weevil or baka-baka in the photo above) -- compared to the play stations and computer games that kids now commonly have.

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We had indelible pencils that papa brought home most likely from his election duties at the Dupax Elementary School (which oldtimers used to call then Gabaldon). We didn’t know why there were such pencils then. I recall we would put the pencil’s tip on our tongue each time I would use one on the pages of Mama’s notebook for her dressmaking measurements or when Arlyne would draw her stick figures on her part of the cabinet where she and I were sent to sleep on summer afternoons when Mama would be singing Tennessee Waltz and Changing Partners to whoever was her baby that needed to be sung to sleep then (most likely Merlie and Tessie). Our lips would be blackish violet due to that pencil then.

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There were tadpoles and grasshoppers and dragonflies and bumblebees and alutiit (house lizard; batbatilaw in Isinay) and atlas moths and large green worms around the house in Dupax then. Plus litlit (bats) in the roof, owls at night, pirpiriw (bee-eaters; plepplew in Isinay) up in the kapok trees, baka-baka (cotton bugs) in the fallen kapok cotton capsules, black ants in the guyabano, ulmog (chicken mite; alin-amut in Isinay) in the poultry, flies in the kitchen, ipes (cockroach; baya-i in Isinay)  in the aparador, lamok (mosquito; imu^ in Isinay) at night, and kiteb (bedbug; itov in Isinay) in the bamboo bed and the rattan chairs. We also had pag-ong (turtle; bau-u in Isinay) in the pagarasawan, rats in the kamalig, noisy pigs in the pigpen, housebirds in the saraguelas and starapple trees, and titit (sunbirds) in the zigzag flowers. In the dry parts of the house’s periphery there were red ants that bit my sisters’ feet (that’s why Tessie had nabo^gan toes). And there were ant-lions we called sunud-sunud that we caught by getting one and tie it with long hair then let it dive on the conical hole on the dust and the resident ant-lion would come out of hiding to bite the intruder. There were also baka-baka in drying kapok fruits and we delighted the red and black color of them with their young of all sizes as they crawled just like cows grazing on hilly land. There were seeds colored red and black that we used to collect, and lipay seeds from Surong that we used as pamato.

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My dog then was named Dargo. It was a gift from Uncle Osio (Ambrocio Mambear). I think it was the second dog we had at home because before then we had the bitch Brownie that bit me on my toe and which later "was put to rest" when its mouth got froth (they called it agu-uyong in Iloko and natahe in Isinay) and started to chase anybody (particularly women who had long dresses) who came to the house, including Mama's dressmaking customers. We also had a cat that was always giving birth and we gave its kittens to neighbors or relatives. We also always had a martines on a cage (often given by Mama's friend Nana Lita Dicen-Calacala whose husband Tata Ikko was Judith's favorite barber) and a mother cat that always gave birth in Mama’s box of dirty clothes. Of course there were also the rats in the rice granary (kamalig in Iloko; e-yang in Isinay) and in the rice bin (pagbagasan in Iloko; pampurutan in Isinay). I always had fun holding the pink babies of the rats on my palm, even as they always chewed Papa’s old combination black-and-white shoes including the tolda (canvas) that he would bring each time we went on a picnic to the river in I-iyo and we caught fish the old way by damming or diverting the stream and make the goby (sappilan), river crab (ahasit), and shrimp (ahdaw) easier to catch.

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My toys then especially in I-iyo consisted of whatever was available in the trees or around us kids. If the tibbeg trees (Ficus nota) bore fruits, we would have endless supply of easy to reach fruits to make into wheels. We also treasured the fallen sheath of the betel nut palm as it was good for our trak-trak – one rode on the wide sheath while another pulled the petiole. It was, however, the May beetle (abal-abal in Iloko; salagubang in Tagalog) that gave us the most fun. When they started to emerge during the first rains of April, the abal-abal season meant we would have plenty of games, almost all of which were cruel, using the poor insects as protagonists. For instance, we chose the most agile pairs and made them do a tug-of-war (ginnuyudan) and locking of horns (sinnangduan). At times, we asked our aunties to thread them with a needle and a strand from the pagabelan (weaving loom) then we would delight at letting them fly here and there (pinnatayaban) -- failing which we would throw the lazy ones (beetle plus strings and all) to the ever-alert mother hen. If we got tired of insects, there were always flat cans of Rosebowl sardines that we turned into gargarusa (toy trucks) whether wheeled with tebbeg fruits or just plain pulled with a bast-fiber string. We also played with the itchy atattaru worm by making them crawl or burying them in the tapok (dry soil) that we had plenty of in I-iyo. Depending on the mood, we also had palsuot, salbatan, torotot and kadang-kadang. Of course the more common toys we had was the palsiit (baris in Isinay) and the daldalig (dalij-dalij in Isinay). All of these we brought with us when we went to the farm or brought the carabao to take a cool dip in the river.

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Surung and Pitang were our foraging as well as play grounds, especially for me. Surung was when I was Ilocano; Pitang was when I was Isinay. But either way, both places meant lots of sunshine that "almost all the time made me high" (to borrow from a song by John Denver). That clinches it: I was always "high" each time I was out there in the great outdoors, cold rain or searing sunny weather. Ah, the memories! Looking back now, I'm not only thankful I was (and I still am) a country boy but grateful too that I have lived during those times when Dupax was still green country and crystal-clear river and gentle hills and bird-rich and there were no NO TRESPASSING signs... so much so that I can relate to "Greenfields" and other such songs of summer by the Brothers Four, and the poems of Hiawatha ("Minnehaha, the laughing water"), and the nature writings of Henry David Thoreau (taking long morning walks at Walden Pond) and Aldo Leopold and John Muir.

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I went to school with no money. So during recess I joined classmates who heeded teachers’ word to eat guava. We raided Latar family’s fence, braved the Benitez dogs and the old man himself. Abused Bunyeng’s anonas trees. We had a term: “recess ti-ve” (literally: having snacks at recess time only to have constipation). One time my friend Ariston Laccay bought ice cream from Oppie Ferrer, the sorbetes man. He gave me one tip of the cone filled with the delicious thing. The next time around, I saw myself finding opportunity selling toyo and suka bottles. But not enough. So twice I secretly put and egg from the baki  on my pocket and sold them to Linda benitez on the way to school for diyyes (10 centavos) each – enough for a double icecream cone, pad paper at the store of Anut Suput and Incion Pawa, a new pencil (not the Mongol) or a mammon bread or candy with lastiko. Later I would be saved by Inang who would often give me salapi (50 centavos) which at the time was already very generous. She gave me money each time on weekends I would go and help in the farm work even if only to make bubon (shallow river well), tend the stove fire, weed the corn of overgrown kalunay, gather paltong or beans, and in the evening help “pusi” (pry the kernels from the cob) the corn and then do “surgery” on their soles to remove kwantung (spiny amaranth; suwit in Isinay) thorn that got their foot swollen.

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Accidental deaths of our pets occurred in our house — with me around the scene of the crime. For instance there was the case of a hen and a puppy (her name was Mona, after Mona Sulaiman, the fastest Filipina runner at the time) that went to kingdom come when Abeth was being baptized. A distant uncle, Karting “Manmanaas” Jasmin was around to help Uncle Atong butcher and cook the pig for the occasion. Oh, even as I was thankful he was the one who dug the hole when we buried the puppy while someone dressed the chicken, I hated it when he kept saying that the puppy died of a cracked head or something and even went to the motions of showing how the animal’s forehead became soft. And yet, I swear to high heavens that I was only holding my puppy’s two forelegs then. The case of the hen was of course a different one. I remember it was making lubbon (occupying the baki nest of another hen) and so I took her out and threw her on the ground. Mama was angry and so, even as the guests were enjoying their snacks, I stayed in the corner contemplating what happened. Could it be that I got mad at the chicken out off frustration that the newest member of the family was again a girl and not somebody I could call brother?

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We went to school using the church bell as clock. It rang at 7 then at 1. We called it “koling” (calling). Ah, the church bells were the strongest sound one could hear in Dupax then. We could hear it even when we were gathering firewood at Abuwew, flying kites in Pitang, or gathering slabs and trimmings at the sawmill. At 6pm, the bell would be pealed again to signal vespers time which  oldies called “dalas”. Time to get home for dinner. Dalas also meant getting the right hand of elders (in our case, particularly Apu Dalin Mambear, Papa’s maternal aunt who I never heard speak a word of Ilocano) and putting the back of their palm on your forehead. If you don’t do it and one who was aware of the revered Isinay custom remembers, you would hear the Isinay command “Naveyandah, mammano ayu!” (By golly, go kiss the palm of your elders!).

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There is a hill we used to call Kudus. Kudus is of course Isinay for cross. When I was a boy the word was used to refer to that hill above Uruddu or southwest of that part of town where the house of Uncle Ado Boada and those of the Daran families and the cluster of houses they call Kadingrasan (on account of the folks surnamed Raza, de la Cruz, Ramos, and others who were said to have migrated from Dingras, Ilocos Norte). It was one hill I have yet to climb.

Bits and pieces of information I got here and there from conversations of old folks and Isinay classmates revealed that Kudus Hill was called as such because in the olden days there was a huge cross on its peak that served as end-point of the Way of the Cross prayers done around town, with the small lime-and-brick dome-shaped structures as stations.

The structures were also called kudus. We had one such in front of the Salirungan house, on the intersection of the road to Auntie Tibang’s house. We used the said kudus mound to test our prowess at jumping from up high. It was for us kids then a big thing and woe to those who could not climb on it then jump down on the grass below. Once in a while we would use the kudus structure as “save” when on fullmoon (tallivung in Isinay) nights we would play tuttut or kukulandoy (hide and seek games). One such structure stood in front of the Boada family’s house. I think I have climbed that also when the Boadas would tender a lunch gathering for the Castro, Boada, Daran clan to celebrate Uncle Ado and Aunti Tanacia’s wedding anniversary or something.

Probably built in the 1940s or earlier, very few remnants of such structures are left and I feel the urge and the duty to one of these days take photographs of them for posterity. --CHARLZ CASTRO