Ay, hindi pala beri-beri, bracelet pala!
April 13, 2003 | 12:00am
Researching can take funny turns. Here I am sitting by a table with five Samal women in the residence of former Zamboanga del Sur Governor Jose Tecson Jr. with his wife Inday, coming to the conclusion that there really is no difference among women when it comes to vanity.
The Samal women with us are wearing sablays with malongs. One of them teaches us, "Hindi ito malong. Sa Samal, Os ito, sa Tausug, Sabol." Ilocano computer whiz Jojo Briones eagerly asks, "Anya ti nagan mo? Ay, nasa Pagadian pala tayo." The pearl merchant answers, "Kaho Alibasa." Kaho, a 70-year-old, gestures with her hands pointing to anemic looking pearls "Agdagang." Fatima Hawani explains, "She is nagbabaligya." I said, "Ah, to sell." Councilor Trel Arao puts a necklace on with a mother of pearl pendant while Chin San Diego wears the earrings a Samal vendor bought in Indonesia but manufactured in America. See!
Ayub Marombhasar tells Hamsa, a pock-marked Samal selling pearls, "Ang gusto ni madam yung blue pearl gawin mong waistlace." "Ah, kambot ma hawakan." Meaning the waist is called hawakan because the belt rests on the waist. So much common sense. She even says "Waistbelt." Actually that wasn’t hard to figure out between us girls. That it’s a waistbelt, not waistlace.
A man’s voice from the far left rises, "Beri?" examining the woman’s arm. "Hindi, arthritis po ito." "Gallang-gallang," another woman comments. "Please ano yun?" I asked and she’s pointing to my tiny bracelet. Fatima says, "Ah hindi pala beri-beri, bracelet pala." Are we getting confused? No, not at all. Us girls can shift from one conversation to three simultaneously and survive them all. She’s not sick, she’s just vain. The former first lady of Zamboanga del Sur, Alice Arioza arrives holding a Subanon necklace made of tiny petrified coconuts for me. Eight women are chattering and it’s pandemonium. Each holding up a prospective purchase. Ping Tremendol, who’s in charge of the provincial cultural programs, finally decides to buy the brown-bead necklace after an hour of indecision, when the eldest lady says, "Piddih kok ko" meaning, "Ang sakit ng ulo ko." Now who wouldn’t get a headache with the roosters crowing and the women’s voices outdoing each other. Because we don’t have medicines, a Maranao doctor of psychology asks for a glass of water. He prays a verse from the Qur’an from the Al Fatihah. "Tawal ng yan," says Fatima while handing it to the lady with a headache who drinks the blessed water from the glass. Later she claims she’s cured.
There is no limit to the mixed topics and the beauty poses we go through to check if we look pretty wearing these Samals’ items. Although we don’t understand each other totally and we’re not of the same religious denomination or ethnic group, we get along happily well, which makes us united in this universe despite the miscommunication.
The Samal women urge us – Visayan and Luzon Christians – to buy their pearls because they have no money to buy food. But if we buy the pearls, we’ll have no money to feed our group which Manang Inday Tecson translates in Bisaya for the Samals from San Pedro district. We are now without inhibitions and act like old friends even if we have met just an hour ago.
Having warmed up to each other, I ask the Samal woman, "How do you cure your children when they get sick? Do you have any prayers to remain young and beautiful like the Samals in Tawi-Tawi?" All the women are laughing. I really have connected with them!
"I know one about the lips," says one woman. "Write it down please," I ask. "Ikaw na," the other one says. Not that they don’t know how to write. Not at all. With painstaking care, a Samal mother of three and a high school graduate begins composing in its old written form several lines praising the spirit of beauty. With every stroke of the lipstick, the prayer below should be said aloud:
Ako mangiris-ngiris harimud
I will place something on my lips
Ko palmanis marayaw pangiris ko
with the poor of beauty
Manis pangatawan ko.
And sweet smile upon me.
While putting eyebrow pencil this prayer has to be recited in praise of beauty:
Hung pamalagan kilay ko
When I put something
Kaduwa diyangan ko day bus
in my two eyebrow one at a time
Ko biradali I
expect to be as beautiful as an Angel.
"Borak pa," she volunteers. Borak is a mixture of rice and kapok leaves pounded together to put on the face for a smooth complexion. The women of Tawi-Tawi and Basilan still do this. The Maranaw and Maguindanao women living in central Mindanao, however, have more access to modern beauty products. For those who live in the remote areas of western Mindanao, on the other hand, these pharmaceutical products are harder to find. When I wrote about this indigenous beauty concoction on my trip with Dr. Flor Hornedo to South Ubian, Tawi-Tawi, this educator’s phone rang the whole day with calls from women whom he didn’t know, wanting to order Borak, thinking he was a dermatologist.
Teach me, how do you cure sick children? I ask the Samal women from Sitio Puntud, Lopez Jaena. "When my child is kicking the blanket, I know he will be sick because my husband must be having another woman. My child will get well only if my husband admits he is unfaithful to me. If he will not admit his philandering the sickness will travel and cause a plague." Isn’t it frightening for a father to think he has caused his child’s sickness and a village plague and admit to his wife’s accusations?
Like Christians, dreams bother the Lopez Jaena Samals. If they dream of a wedding, someone will die. Falling teeth means death. Happy dreams would bring sadness. To cry in a dream will bring happiness. If they dreamt of cassava, banana, or the excretion of human waste, money would come. If they dreamt of a jackfruit, no money was forthcoming. Dawn dreams come true, early morning dreams will not come true.
Once these Samal women are married, they perform a ritual for them to not feel jealous since Samal husbands can marry several times. Wife number one or two keeps her eyes open to watch her rival do her chores under the house. Then she goes to the floor above and pours water from the bamboo flooring to wet the wife under the house. If this isn’t possible, the other wife can just place one of her garments on the floor and pour water between the bamboo flooring to wet the said garments. This is to keep the wife who poured the water from being jealous at seeing her husband lying between his two wives. While these Samal women are eagle-eyed about their husbands falling in love with someone else, their jealousy is not of the extreme kind, knowing they have to adjust to their husband’s desires.
This is the lifestyle of the Samal women in Pagadian City and Lopez Jaena which says about how they cope with the present while preserving the traditions of the past. To be able to survive the challenges of the present, they have to sell pearls to augment the family income. Remembering the past, meanwhile, comes in the form of rituals they continue to live by, not only when it comes to being beautiful but also in health matters, without the benefit of modern medicine, and living in a man’s world.
The Samal women with us are wearing sablays with malongs. One of them teaches us, "Hindi ito malong. Sa Samal, Os ito, sa Tausug, Sabol." Ilocano computer whiz Jojo Briones eagerly asks, "Anya ti nagan mo? Ay, nasa Pagadian pala tayo." The pearl merchant answers, "Kaho Alibasa." Kaho, a 70-year-old, gestures with her hands pointing to anemic looking pearls "Agdagang." Fatima Hawani explains, "She is nagbabaligya." I said, "Ah, to sell." Councilor Trel Arao puts a necklace on with a mother of pearl pendant while Chin San Diego wears the earrings a Samal vendor bought in Indonesia but manufactured in America. See!
Ayub Marombhasar tells Hamsa, a pock-marked Samal selling pearls, "Ang gusto ni madam yung blue pearl gawin mong waistlace." "Ah, kambot ma hawakan." Meaning the waist is called hawakan because the belt rests on the waist. So much common sense. She even says "Waistbelt." Actually that wasn’t hard to figure out between us girls. That it’s a waistbelt, not waistlace.
A man’s voice from the far left rises, "Beri?" examining the woman’s arm. "Hindi, arthritis po ito." "Gallang-gallang," another woman comments. "Please ano yun?" I asked and she’s pointing to my tiny bracelet. Fatima says, "Ah hindi pala beri-beri, bracelet pala." Are we getting confused? No, not at all. Us girls can shift from one conversation to three simultaneously and survive them all. She’s not sick, she’s just vain. The former first lady of Zamboanga del Sur, Alice Arioza arrives holding a Subanon necklace made of tiny petrified coconuts for me. Eight women are chattering and it’s pandemonium. Each holding up a prospective purchase. Ping Tremendol, who’s in charge of the provincial cultural programs, finally decides to buy the brown-bead necklace after an hour of indecision, when the eldest lady says, "Piddih kok ko" meaning, "Ang sakit ng ulo ko." Now who wouldn’t get a headache with the roosters crowing and the women’s voices outdoing each other. Because we don’t have medicines, a Maranao doctor of psychology asks for a glass of water. He prays a verse from the Qur’an from the Al Fatihah. "Tawal ng yan," says Fatima while handing it to the lady with a headache who drinks the blessed water from the glass. Later she claims she’s cured.
The Samal women urge us – Visayan and Luzon Christians – to buy their pearls because they have no money to buy food. But if we buy the pearls, we’ll have no money to feed our group which Manang Inday Tecson translates in Bisaya for the Samals from San Pedro district. We are now without inhibitions and act like old friends even if we have met just an hour ago.
Having warmed up to each other, I ask the Samal woman, "How do you cure your children when they get sick? Do you have any prayers to remain young and beautiful like the Samals in Tawi-Tawi?" All the women are laughing. I really have connected with them!
"I know one about the lips," says one woman. "Write it down please," I ask. "Ikaw na," the other one says. Not that they don’t know how to write. Not at all. With painstaking care, a Samal mother of three and a high school graduate begins composing in its old written form several lines praising the spirit of beauty. With every stroke of the lipstick, the prayer below should be said aloud:
Ako mangiris-ngiris harimud
I will place something on my lips
Ko palmanis marayaw pangiris ko
with the poor of beauty
Manis pangatawan ko.
And sweet smile upon me.
While putting eyebrow pencil this prayer has to be recited in praise of beauty:
Hung pamalagan kilay ko
When I put something
Kaduwa diyangan ko day bus
in my two eyebrow one at a time
Ko biradali I
expect to be as beautiful as an Angel.
"Borak pa," she volunteers. Borak is a mixture of rice and kapok leaves pounded together to put on the face for a smooth complexion. The women of Tawi-Tawi and Basilan still do this. The Maranaw and Maguindanao women living in central Mindanao, however, have more access to modern beauty products. For those who live in the remote areas of western Mindanao, on the other hand, these pharmaceutical products are harder to find. When I wrote about this indigenous beauty concoction on my trip with Dr. Flor Hornedo to South Ubian, Tawi-Tawi, this educator’s phone rang the whole day with calls from women whom he didn’t know, wanting to order Borak, thinking he was a dermatologist.
Like Christians, dreams bother the Lopez Jaena Samals. If they dream of a wedding, someone will die. Falling teeth means death. Happy dreams would bring sadness. To cry in a dream will bring happiness. If they dreamt of cassava, banana, or the excretion of human waste, money would come. If they dreamt of a jackfruit, no money was forthcoming. Dawn dreams come true, early morning dreams will not come true.
This is the lifestyle of the Samal women in Pagadian City and Lopez Jaena which says about how they cope with the present while preserving the traditions of the past. To be able to survive the challenges of the present, they have to sell pearls to augment the family income. Remembering the past, meanwhile, comes in the form of rituals they continue to live by, not only when it comes to being beautiful but also in health matters, without the benefit of modern medicine, and living in a man’s world.
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