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| Blaan children sit under a tree near the Lamlifew Village Museum. The stewardship of the museum will be passed on to them. |
The
National Museum of the Philippines stands august in its neoclassical design at
one part of the Rizal Park, but is largely ignored by many park-goers, who
usually stroll about the variably manicured gardens, sit languorously on the
grass, cuddle each other if they’re lovers, chat among the fountains, or just
pass the time away. The museum is just a few steps away, and if they would
venture into its wonderland, they would be rewarded, if with receptive and
curious mind and hearts, with awe and inspiration from the great works of art,
the fascinating artefacts of past eras, the treasures of tradition and
heritage.
Filipinos are generally not big museum goers,
it is often noted, a disheartening fact. Around Metro Manila, the populous area
in the country, there are several museums but despite their accessibility, most
Filipinos in Metro Manila would rather go to the malls. But about 1,500
kilometers south of the Philippine capital, in the troubled island Mindanao, the
Blaan have built a modest museum in their remote village, one of their efforts
to preserve their fast vanishing culture.
The flight to General Santos City
takes almost two hours. This is the commercial hub of the South Central
Mindanao region that includes the provinces of Sarangani, South Cotabato, North
Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat. Just west outside General Santos City is the town
of Malungon on the western side of Sarangani, about an hour’s drive. Malungon
is the only landlocked town of Sarangani’s seven which nestle around Sarangani
Bay, and the only sites that may interest tourist here may be celebrity boxer and
Sarangani politician Manny Pacquiao’s farm, which has sculptures by Davao-based
artist Kublai Millan and Pacquiao’s memorabilia, and Kalunbarak, a viewpoint
about 750 feet high that affords visitors a commanding view of Mount Apo, the
country’s highest mountain; Mount Matutum, the region’s highest; Sarangani Bay;
and Davao Gulf of the neighboring province Davao del Sur, not much to rival the
most popular tourist site of the province, the white-sand beach of Gumasa in
Glan. The Lamlifew Village Museum of the Blaan recently has been drawing
visitors and adds a deeper dimension to the attraction of Malungon and the
whole province of Sarangani.
The museum is in Datal Tampal, a barangay of 2,667 people. Along the main
highway in Datal Tampal, one goes about five kilometers farther on an unpaved
road into the mountainous area, pass hills and fields of bananas and corn, a
rough terrain of lush beauty. The Skylab, a motorcycle hired by passengers, is
usually the mode of transportation here. The pebbly road seems to end by the
rock-strewn Bluan River. We leave the vans and walk the rest of the way. In
summer, the river is but a small stream, where children bathe in the gurgling, cool
waters. A line of ducks waddle along the riverside, and we amble among the
boulders of the riverbed.
A village elder, Herminia Sande
Talabang Gansing Lacna, in her late 50’s, tells a legend of the Bluan River.
There was no river here long, long time ago, she narrates. To slake his thirst,
a dog named Kay-Kay dug the earth in a place called Datal Barak, where a
mysterious jackfruit grew and died, until a spring appeared. Kay-Kay drank from
it and dug even deeper until more water flowed out. Eventually, a river
appeared. The river comes from that spring until today.
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| The Lamlifew Elementary School is increasingly incorporating indigenous culture in its curriculum. |
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| The sitio of Lamlifew in Datal Tampal, Malungon, Sarangani, is surrounded by hills and fields. |
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| Lamlifew is generally quiet and leafy |
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| Helen Lacna Lumbos, president of the Lamlifew Tribal Women's Association, together with the women and children, welcomes visitors in traditional clothing. |
Along this river, the Lamlifew
Elementary School is a sign of a community, the first thing that will greet
visitors. A sign above a short footbridge made of bamboo poles welcomes them to
this small cluster of concrete bungalows. The school is young and modest but it
has achieved much. Started in 1982 as just a primary school through the effort
of a community leader, Calingo Maluma, it became a full-fledged public elementary
school in 1997. It integrated indigenous culture into the curriculum, such as
teaching traditional Blaan beadwork and clothing in the Home Economics and
Livelihood Education classes, in 2009. Early this year, 2013, the Lamlifew
Elementary School became a pilot school for mother tongue-based multilingual
education, using the Sarangani Blaan language initially to teach English. The
school boasts of producing 14 professionals so far, the most numerous in the
whole of Datal Tampal. Community leaders and concerned outsiders have been
active in seeking assistance from organizations and agencies to better the
school.
Most of the students live across the
river in a generally quiet and leafy neignborhood of bamboo and wood houses
with iron roofs, hemmed in by hills and fields of rice, corn and banana. Yams
may be once very abundant here because some say the name of the sitio comes from the Blaan words lam, meaning “inside,” and lifew or fufew, a wild yam or taro. Lamlifew is about 1,600 hectares with about
250 households, and 98 percent of the residents are Blaan who are mostly
farmers, one of the few dominantly Blaan communities in the province.
The Blaan is one of the many indigenous ethnic
groups of Mindanao, whose name can mean “people living in houses,” because bila means “house.” But “the term Blaan has no definite meaning as far as
we can remember; it is more of a self-ascription,” wrote a Blaan leader Datu
Antonio Kinoc, who authored a pamphlet on the ethnic group.
The Blaan are known by other names—Bira-an,
Baraan, Vilanes, Bilanes, Tagalagad, Tagakogon and Buluan. There are about
250,000 Blaans, living in General Santos City, Sarangani, Davao del Sur, South
Cotabato, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat, and sharing the area with the Manobo,
Bagobo, Mandaya, Kalagan/Tagacaolo, T’boli and Maguindanaoan. There are many
similarities among the cultures of these ethnic groups.
“The Blaans are definitely not highland
dwellers, contrary to claim of recent writers,” Kinoc said. “The Blaan’s
presence in the mountains was the result of later migration.”
The Blaan have resisted becoming Muslim when
Islam came to the island. Of recent, their interactions are mostly with
Christian groups from Luzon and Visayas, particularly the Hiligaynon and
Ilocano, who came starting 1913 when the region was opened by the national government
for homesteading, and became the dominant people. The Blaan have become
acculturated by the Christian groups, thus many can also speak Hiligaynon,
Cebuano or Filipino, and many have been Christianized. With these interactions
and as they enter modern society, many aspects of their culture have eroded.
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| Blaan children of the community welcome visitors with traditional dances. |
But there are efforts to preserve traditional
Blaan culture, especially in Lamlifew, where a group of women is at the
forefront of it. The community has been recipients of grants from the National
Commission for the Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the national agency for arts
and culture, to hold Schools of Living Traditions (SLT). The SLT program,
established in 1995, aims to propagate traditional aspects of culture such as performances,
crafts, oral traditions and language through workshops and lectures in which an
identified “cultural masters” are tapped to teach the community members,
usually young, of an ethnic group in a short period of time. In 2004, several adult
women were trained in traditional hand weaving or mabal and are transferring the skill to younger Blaans. In 2008, an
SLT on the Blaan hand-woven abaca cloth tabih
was also held. The establishment of a museum remains to be the pinnacle of
their efforts, although there is much work to be done.
The Lamlifew Village Museum is the
first community-initiated museum in the Philippines through the efforts of the
Lamlifew Tribal Women’s Association (LTWA), the first cultural organization managed
by an indigenous community registered at the Securities Exchange Commission
(SEC). The cooperative-style LTWA taught traditional dyeing, weaving and beadworks
among its members with the help of expert elders and set up a small-scale sales
arm. It started in 1992 as WID. In 2002, it changed its name to Libon Blaan di
Malngan and then to LTWA in 2004, which was registered at the SEC on October 5,
2005. There are about 35 active members now, says Helen Lacna Lumbos, the
42-year-old president of LTWA. She has been with the organization as bookkeeper
and vice president. The active and lithe Lumbos is also the president of the
local parents-teachers association and a mother of three.
The LTWA first thought of building a
traditional house that will also serve as a communal workshop space for the
community. The idea eventually turned into a museum. The organization received
much help from the Sarangani provincial government’s Indigenous Peoples
Development Program (IPDP), a pioneering agency concentrated on the concerns of
the indigenous peoples created under then Sarangani governor Miguel Dominguez,
a young Boston College graduate, upon realizing that about fifty percent of his
constituents belong to indigenous groups. Support also came from Metro
Manila-based organizations such as the Museum Volunteers of the Philippines and
the Tao Incorporated.
The Lamlifew Village Museum was
launched at the Museum of the Filipino People of the National Museum of the
Philippines in Manila on December 3, 2007. Several Lamlifew women including Lumbos
and her mother Herminia came to perform traditional dances. Scholar on
indigenous traditions and curator Marian Pastor-Roces conducted a brief
lecture-tour of the exhibit, which included rare woven garments on loan from
foreign collections, other crafts and artifacts, and photographs of Blaans and
their way of life with accompanying text, designed by the volunteer Mireille
Ferrari Cooney, a half-Filipino graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design.
The photos are now in the village museum in Lamlifew, which opened on November 26, 2008.
Five years later, the museum is
still functional, becoming the nucleus of cultural activities, its surroundings
a setting for learning and working. It is located just behind the Lamlifew
Elementary School. Visitors are advised to contact the LTWA or the IPDP before
visiting so that the community can prepare and welcome them.
It is a festive and warm welcome. The women and
children are all lined up in front of the museum as we emerge from the thickets.
They are dressed in traditional clothing, top of black albong or blouse, or vest, with different embellishments—the beaded
ones or albong sanlah; the albong ansif, cross-stitched with
patterns of waves, birds and stairs; and albong
takmon, with mother-of-pearl beads stitched like sequins—and colorful
wraparound skirts or trousers. Some women wear falnumfong, peineta with long tassels, on their hair, and sabitan, belt of brass or beads, around
their waists.
Lumbos speaks on behalf of the community and of
the whole Blaan as well, making the museum a conduit for the world to learn
about Blaan culture. Her mother Herminia chants a short prayer. Led by Lumbos, some
of the children start to dance, hands on the waist and feet rhythmically
stomping the ground. The visitors are invited to join in.
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| The museum is patterned a Blaan traditional house of datu. |
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| The museum has photographs, artifacts and other items that show Blaan life and culture |
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| Helen Lumbos explains the items displayed in the museum. |
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| Herminia Lacna plays the kubing by the window of the museum. |
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| Lacna plays the faglong, a wooden, boat-shaped, two-string lute. |
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| A boy tries the kubing while Herminia encourages and guides him. |
Lumbos guides visitors into the
small museum, which is patterned after the traditional house of the Blaan, made
of flattened bamboo with a roof of palm fronds, held together by strips of
rattan and aspirations. It is raised from the ground a few feet by sturdy
stilts. Inside, there are raised portions by the three of the four interior
walls. There is a little loft for sleeping and resting. The windows open like a
drawbridge, letting light in. The whole house opens like a book, introducing guests
to a culture inspirited by the earth and sky. The museum actually was prompted by
a book.
“Noong
2002 at 2003, nagplano kami na magtayo ng
gumne Blaan o tribal house kaso hindi
natuloy dahil wala kaming budget para
magpatayo. Pagdating ng 2004, naaprobahan
‘yung SLT dito sa Lamlifew. Ang
requirement kailangan may school kung saan kami mag-aaral,” (In 2002 and
2003, we planned to put up a gumne Blaan or
tribal house but it did not push through because of lack of budget. In 2004,
the SLT in Lamlifew was approved. One requirement was a school where we can
study.) Lumbos relates. “Noong time na ‘yun, nag-meeting ang LTWA members kung ano ang gagawin at naisip agad na magtayo ng gumne Blaan kahit
maliit lang. At sa taong 2004, may
isang kaibigan na tumulong at nagbigay ng pera para may gamitin pangsimula sa
pagpatayo, kasi nakita nila ‘yung kakayahan ng mga women sa time na ‘yon. Napatayo agad ang mga kubo
kung saan kami nag-aaral tuwing SLT
time. Sa taon na ‘yun, pabalik-balik
‘yung friend naming si Amie and
Jos Jaspers para bisitahin kami, kasama
sina Pastora Tessie Sugabo at
Fely Constantino. Dumating ang isang
araw, nag-text ang IPDP staff na nagsabi may bisita kaming dadating. Ang ginawa namin inayos ‘yung gunme Blaan at
dinisplay ‘yung mga old artefact at
mga crafts na gawa ng mga women. Nag-play kami ng instruments; may nag-demo
sa bawat skills. Dinisplay kasama ‘yung Sinaunang
Habi (Sinaunang Habi: Philippine
Ancestral Weave, 1991) book. ‘Yung
bisita na hinihintay namin, siya pala ang nagsulat ng book na ‘yun! Doon nagsimula naisipan gawing
museum ang gumne Blaan kasi na-touched
ang author ng book na si Marian
Pastor-Roces. Sa libro na ‘yun, makikita
ang mga sinaunang gamit ng mga ninuno ng Blaan. Agad nag-meeting kami kasama si governor Migs Dominguez ng Sarangani, staff ng IPDP at si Ma’am
Marian upang pag-usapan ang pagpapatayo
ng community living museum.” (At that time, the LTWA members had a meeting
to discuss what to do and we immediately thought of building the gumne Blaan, even a small one. During
the year 2004, we had a friend who helped us and gave us money to start the
house because they saw the capabilities of the women at that time. During that
year, our friends Amie and Jos Jaspers regularly visited us together with
Pastor Tessie Sugabo and Fely Constantino. Then one day, an IPDP staff texted
and told us we will be having a visitor. What we did was we prepared the gunme Blaan and displayed old artefacts
and crafts the women did. We played instruments and had demos. We also
displayed the Sinaunang Habi [Sinaunang Habi: Philippine Ancestral Weave,
1991] book. The visitor we were waiting for was the one who wrote the book.
That started the idea of turning the gumne
Blaan into a museum because Marian Pastor-Roces, the author of the book,
was touched. In that book, we can see the ancient implements used by the
ancestors of the Blaan. Immediately, we had a meeting with governor Migs
Dominguez of Sarangani, staff of the IPDP and Ma’am Marian to talk about
setting up a community living museum.)
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| A Blaan elder cooks the llolot anok, chicken with lemongrass and salt, placed inside bamboo tubes and roasted over live coals. |
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| The cook cracks open the llolot anok. |
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| An old man makes smat,
a beautiful boat-shaped receptacle made from young palm leaves, for the food. |
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| The llolot anok served in a smat. |
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| The fuloh,
rice wrapped in alkek. |
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| Bukayo, boiled sweet potatoes and linupak. The one in a smat is the dipping sauce for the grilled tilapia, soy sauce and vinegar with chopped shallots. |
The little hut of the women’s dreams became a rectangular
house fit for a datu, a village
chieftain, they call Gumusek, which means “repository.” Additional help came
from American Women’s Club, which bought some of the items and artifacts for
the museum, as well as from the community itself, which contributed what they
have. Hanging on the walls are photographs and falimak or gongs. Weapons such as spears are arrayed fan-like
against a wall. A large wooden shield rests against a pillar. Samples of rice
varieties are placed in little baskets. The Blaan are said to know 108
varieties of upland rice. Below the loft are glass encasements containing old
brass ornaments. A wooden chest contains old clothing.
“With the financial assistance from
Manila-based organizations and individuals, the Lamlifew Village Museum was
able to fund photography of important facets of life in Lamlifew and other
Blaan villages; the creation of clothing, that comes close to the quality that
was woven and worn 50 or a hundred years ago; and the gathering and purchase of
what antique Blaan weapons, clothing and home implements have managed to elude the
acquisitiveness of Manila-based and foreign collectors,” the LTWA Web site (http://lamlifew.weebly.com/)
informs.
It also says that the photographs serve as
bridges between the villagers and the visitors, affording a glimpse of Blaan
life not readily accessible to visitors, between different Blaan generations,
affording younger generations a view of old traditions that will hopefully
prompt discussions and data gathering.
“With this system, the tasks of data-gathering,
interpretation, editing and conveying information, will primarily be in the
hands of the residents of Lamlifew. It is expected that they, in turn, will
also develop a strong sense of trusteeship over the narratives of other Blaan
in the more interior areas of Sarangani, on one hand, and on the other hand, a
dynamic relation with parties coming from
outside their cultural world,” the LTWA explains.
A flyer
from the IPDP about the museum ably explains the Lamlifew residents: “who have
a two-part knowledge: firstly, the solid understanding of the beliefs, norms
and material culture of their grandparents (who lived in the early 20th and
late 19th centuries); and secondly, a firm and clear-eyed understanding of the
changes endured or embraced by the generations who lived through the 20th century.
They recall, for example, the measures of quality and the distinct weaving
patterns of the ikat-dyed lutay (Musa textilis Nee) before the degeneration of this knowledge. But
they also recognize what constitutes the degeneration. They are able to retrieve
lore surrounding traditional food crops and medicinal herbs, but are also able
to narrate how this knowledge was eroded. They are able to create a museum that
works within the community as a setting for story-telling, so that the younger
villagers can provide the laughter, interest and enthusiasm to tease out data
from the minds of grandparents. And they are able to enjoy making new songs out
of ancient musical conventions, using instruments such as gongs whose origins
predate the arrival of Islam and Christianity into Mindanao. With these gongs—as
well as wooden instruments that have never been documented in ethnomusicology—they
weave together the past and the future.”
Lumbos is an example. Born in South Cotabato, an
offspring of Blaan, T’boli and Kalagan intermarriages, she is married to a
Hiligaynon and speaks Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Blaan and Filipino. She is able to
move into and around the world outside her village but remains ardent in
preserving Blaan traditions especially in Lamlifew where she grew up.
“Ang
naging inspirasyon namin ‘yung aming mga ninuno na kung saan ang aming mga
gamit gaya ng tabih ay nasa libro makikita at dapat naming ibalik at ilagay
‘yung mga naiwan sa gumne Blaan or museum para hindi mawala sa paningin ng mga young generation. At ito’y maalala ng mga kabataan na may mga
importanteng bagay na ‘di dapat kalimutan at ang pinakadahilan ng paggawa ng
museum. At bilang Blaan, may
maipagmamalaki pa kami sa mga kabataan na ganito ang aming buhay,” (Our
inspiration is our ancestors, whose legacy like the tabih can be seen in the book and which we should retrieve and
place in the museum so that it will not disappear from the eyes of the younger
generation. It will make the youth remember that there are important things
that should not be forgotten. This is the main reason for the museum. And as
Blaan, we will have something to be proud about and show to the younger
generation that this is our way of life.) Lumbos says.
As Lumbos attends to visitors, her mother sits
by the window and plays the faglong, the
wooden, two-string lute shaped like a boat, and kubing, the jaw’s harp, providing a soundtrack for a memorable
visit. The children are all around—teasing each other, sliding down a slope
with a piece of dry coconut stem, posing for photographs. A boy clambers up and
tries the kubing while Herminia, or
fondly Laminya or Ya, encourages and instructs him. Herminia has been playing
traditional instruments such as the faglong,
del, falimak and kubing since she
was twelve years old. She also embroiders, sews by hand and does beadwork,
skills passed down by her grandparents. She is also a teller of folktales.
These skills she passes on to her daughter Helen, who also does malem or chant and weaving. Her tabih design won first prize in a traditional
art contest by the Kalinawa Art Foundation in August 1, 2007. Lumbos is passing
on the precious skills and knowledge to her children.
Across Gumusek is a large hut designated as the
weaving house called Gumabal, which is Blaan for the “handloom.” Like the
T’boli, the Blaan weave abaca fibers, colored with plant dyes— roots of the kunalum tree for black, roots of the lagu tree for red and konel for yellow. The act of weaving is
called mabal. Their designs comes
from imagination or their dreams, thus often the master weavers, called libun fanday, are regarded as spiritual
figures respected in their communities. The outside world often calls them
“dream weavers” like the T’boli weavers.
In the Gumabal house, baskets and
bags are also woven using pliant, thin strips of bamboo. Albongs are being embroidered and cross-stitched with designs. Across
the river and by the fields, the LTWA has a little office which is also a
showroom, where some of the women’s products are on display.
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| A woman weaves strips of bamboo into a basket. A bag can also be made. |
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| Women embroider or do cross-stitched designs on the albongs. |
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| A women ties the pattern on the abaca threads before dying. This technique prevents the dye from getting into some parts of the fiber. This is similar to the technique of the T'boli for their t'nalak. |
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| An elder Blaan woman weaves the tabih, the traditional Blaan textile of abaca, which is similar to the T'boli t'nalak. The weaving is called mabal. |
Outside the Gumabal, an old woman is
roasting tubes of bamboo over live coals for our lunch. The bamboo tubes are
cracked open, from which pieces of chicken tumble out, cooked with lemongrass
and salt. This is llolot anok, one of
the native dishes prepared by the community for visitors. Inside the small hut
called Gu Kmaan, lunch is served—tinola,
a chicken soup; dinuguan, or pig’s
blood stew; grilled tilapia; linupak,
made of pounded sweet potato; and fuloh,
rice wrapped in alkek. An old man
makes smat, a beautiful boat-shaped receptacle
made from young palm leaves, for the food. At one corner, there is coffee, made
from locally grown beans, its aroma wafting through the breeze with the smoke
from the dying charcoals. Lumbos is just glad to assist those who wants to know
Blaan culture; her soul is fed.
“Gusto
naming i-preserve ang Blaan
tradition dahil ito ang identity namin at kultura. Bilang isang Blaan
kailangan kong ipagmalaki na dito sa Filipinas buhay pa ang grupong Blaan. Para
hindi mawala o hindi malimutan ng aming mga kabataan,” (We want to preserve
Blaan tradition because this is our identity and culture. As a Blaan, I need to
be proud that here in the Philippines the Blaan is still alive. So that it will
not fade away or it will not be forgotten by our youth.) Lumbos says. “Pangarap po naming para sa museum ay mapanatiling buhay at alagaan kung anuman
ang mga andiyan o ipagpatuloy ang pag-collect ng mga sinaunang kagamitan ng mga ninuno namin. Sana hanggang sa mga
kaapo-apuhan namin ay ‘di kailanman malilimutan kung saan kami nagmula, at
itong museum ang buhay na example para
sa lahat ng Blaan,” (Our dream for the museum is that it will be maintained
and taken care of by whoever will be there, and that they will continue to
collect ancient artifacts of our ancestors. We hope our
great-great-grandchildren will never forget where we came from, and this museum
is a living example for all Blaan.)
Herminia has stopped playing the faglong. The children have gone to their
respective homes. The weavers momentarily leave their looms. A faint gurgling
sound comes from the Bluan River, created by the mythical dog Kay-Kay. May the
people of Lamlifew keep a thirst as persistent as Kay-Kay’s and love to unearth
an ever-flowing wellspring of knowledge and inspiration to nourish their own
culture.
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| The women's products are displayed inside the LTWA office, just by a field of corn. |
To
visit the Lamlifew Village Museum, contact Helen Lacna Lumbos, president of the
Lamlifew Tribal Women's Association in Lamlifew, Datal Tampal, Malungon,
Sarangani, through mobile phone number +63906-8823959 or the Indigenous Peoples
Development Program of the Office of the Governor in Alabel, Sarangani, through
telephone number +63-83-508-3035 or telefax number +63-83-508-2258.
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| And this is me. |
