Bukidnon and the River Ritual of the Talaandig People

Meaningful Travels Ph
Nov 3 · 4 min read

Everybody was getting ready for the ritual called “Panalawahig”. This year, it was group’s first time to experience such ceremony.

People from the village started to converge down the hill leading to a small creek. Each household carried with them a clueless chicken which would later be sacrificed during the day. I never wanted to have any emotional attachment to the sacrificial animal and so I opted to have our chickens carried by our host, Tatay Nick.

Going down the hill with their chickens.

Datu Migketay, one of the village chiefs and the rest of the Baes (elder women leaders) went on to build 3 altar pieces — one main table for the good spirits, a small altar for the “feisty” ones and the third one, a small boat altar, specifically meant for the water spirits.

“The third one should reach the bottom of the sea within seven days”, as relayed by one of the elders.

The main altar where the offering are laid and prayed for.

I went near the “boat altar” and asked one of the leaders if I could take a photo. He pointed me to a man in his sixties, quietly observing the people building the bamboo structures. I went close to him and asked him questions. It was Datu Magpupukaw, one of the chiefs in the village. Magpupukaw, he explained, means “someone who wakes people up and reminds them of the truth.

“Since when did you practice this ritual?”, I asked.

“Eversince the great flood happened”, he said.

I am pretty aware of these great flood stories across the indigenous groups in the country. The Tboli’s of Lake Sebu spoke about the great flood, even the tribes from the mountainous regions of Cordilleras, such as Ilocos Sur and Abra.

Coming from a Catholic background, I related this story to the story of Noah, which left me with a curious thought, ‘there are survivors aside from Noah and his family?’. Oh well, only heaven knows.

Datu Magpupukaw proceeded with his explanation and said,

“Water has 2 powers, the power to give and the power to take. We do this to say thank you to the water for quenching our thirst, for watering our plants and for us to do this cleansing ritual.

We also say sorry for the times we have abused it. If people will not pay their respects to the water, that is where catastrophe and other disasters related to water can come”.

The Talaandig tribe believes in a great divine spirit called “Magbabaya” (the Giver) and also to the spirits guarding each and every living and non-living thing, which you can relate to as God and the angels, depending on your faith and “terms”. There is a high regard to both seen and unseen beings. Hence all these rituals are practiced.

“When the Spanish (colonizers) came, they labeled our ways as works of the devil”, he said. True enough, it was a cultural annihilation meant to destroy the identity of the people they wanted to rule and subdue. And this is how indigenous cultures could continually die until today, when outsiders would insist their own set of beliefs, not knowing that there is a common thread or theme we share amongst us all, only disguised in different terms and ways of expressing.

Getting ready for the feast after the ritual (above photo). Our lovely host Tatay Nick and Nanay Sarah (below).
Enjoying a conversation under the “sayote” farm with one of the village elders, Nanay Ipa.

I gazed back at the river and observed this group of people. Everyone offered their prayers and later enjoyed a great meal with their family and friends.

I reflected how our lives in the cities can be so disconnected, unmindful of the whole process involved in bringing clean water into our taps. How many trees are needed to hold the rainwater? How many forest rangers have risked their lives running after illegal loggers? As long as we have paid the water bills, we think we have done our part.

The cycle of life sounds like a cliché and no other cycle makes more sense than the “monthly billing cycles” themselves.

If only each and every individual could practice this religion called “Respect” — respect towards our natural resources, people and their different faiths, the world could be in a more peaceful and better place today.

The author Ann Marie with Datu Magpupukaw

(Written by Ann Marie Cunanan, an avid traveler and founder of Meaningful Travels Ph)

Meaningful Travels Ph

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