Last Threads

Bening Pasca tAkes a pinch of the homegrown burak (cotton fruit) from her basket, gently rolls and spins it through her carved wooden stick to come out with a single thread. This is pagboborong, the tradition of producing cotton thread.

When enough thread is made, the beautiful intricate Mangyan fabric of blue and white can be backstrap-woven and made into a tapis. The entire process can take about three weeks, sometimes more.

For the generation of instant noodles, fast food, text abbreviations and ready to wear garments, the point of this revival effort is readily missed. What’s the point ? It’s easier to buy.

After a long ride and a hike through a parched river, stones hot in the mid-afternoon sun, we finally reach Bait Mansalay, Mindoro, where the Sining at Paglikha (S&P) workshop is being held. One of the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ cultural community development workshops, this attempts to revive and preserve the traditions of the Hanunoo, Mangyan cultural community.

For some of us cultural workers who actually live many of the Discovery channel documentaries, the fascination with traditional crafts can be found in the purity and history of the process. "Galing sa kamay ng ninuno" (from the hands of the ancestors), not machine made or reproduced. Original.

Not that we’re stubborn traditionalists; nor do we resent mass reproductions and industrialization. But, as noted researcher on the Mangyans Antoon Postma puts it, we, particularly the youth, must know what to do with globalization. And the traditions are there as our guide for the future.

"Lahat ng kaalaman natin, minana natin sa sinaunang panahon (Everything we know, we inherited from the early times)," says Bapa ("uncle" in Mangyan), as Postma is fondly called by the Mangyan community where he has lived for 47 years. "Maunlad kita sa bagong panahon, ’wag kalimutan ang sariling ugaling sa dati (Let us develop with the times, let us not forget our culture)."

Culture is holy for us," says Father Dinther of the Mangyan Mission. Citing the Exodus passage where Moses was asked to take off his sandals as he was walking on holy ground, Fr. Dinther sees their work precisely as walking on sacred ground. Their approach to missionary work in Mindoro is to live the Christian life, not to indoctrinate and force religion on an existing cultural community. In fact, since its creation in 1958, the mission has facilitated much of the Mangyan’s necessities such as land titling, health, education.

"Mangyans have a rich culture," says Quint Fansler of the The Mangyan Heritage Center, an ngo that supports and assists Mangyan endeavors in cultural research and preservation. "However, as are all traditional cultures, these are threatened by modernity and change."

The attractiveness of modernity becomes strict competition for tradition. The gitgit, plawta and gitara (violin, flute and guitar) cannot compete with the mobile disco craze of the youth. The handmade tapis or the beautiful beads are nowhere visible during market day, when more ready to wear clothes are available. Even the nicely plaited square bayong of the Mangyan with the cross and swastika design have little appeal against bright nylon backpacks.

The traditional crafts that once encouraged self-reliance, resource-fulness and co-existence with nature are being replaced by the consumerist culture. Instead of producing our own clothes, musical instruments or bags, we succumb to the "paying" habit. We don’t make with our own hands, we buy.

"Lagi kaming sinasabihang ’wag kalimutan ang kultura," laments a Mangyan youth, but in their own homes, they are unable to practice many of the traditions as their parents are so preoccupied with survival priorities. Unless some practical value or application is attached to tradition, modernity wins out.

For a while, the S&P workshop seems like a summer camp. The modules that included gitgit, plawta and gitara making and playing seemed a lot of fun for the eager young participants. An elder who had heard of the workshop walks in to join the recitation of Hanunoo oral poetry and proverbial exchange. He has walked three hours over mountains to join the workshop.

By dusk, our thoughts are overpowered by the simple but beautiful rendering of the Ambahan, an archaic, poetic expression of the Mangyan’s ideas and feelings. The young Mangyans are enchanted with the romanticized metaphors for joy, love, courtship, respect.

Bapa has researched and written on the ambahan, but the S&P workshop is enabling the youth to reacquaint themselves with their wonderful tradition.

Harmonious by nature, the poem’s social character allows its use specially when something awkward has to be said: parents disciplining their children, courtship, hosts speaking to guests. It is a peaceful sound from a peace loving people (The word Mangyan, after all, means peace.) It is certainly more suitable for the mountains, more pleasant than the blasting speaker in the nearby neighborhood, showing a video movie of a candidate.

Next morning, while we prepare for the day’s session, we overhear an elder asking a young man if he understood the ambahan at all. To test him, the elder asks for a recitation of the evening’s session, guiding as the youth summarizes the exchange, pleased to share his father’s father’s legacy with the young.

The ambahan deepened the mission of the workshop with the threading of traditions of the past, the present, and the future.

"I’ve seen the beauty of ambahan," Fansler says of the participation of the youth, "but really…seeing them seeing the beauty themselves and the joy of the Mangyan children and elders..."

"Napatunayan, tama sabi ng mga matatanda. Wag kalimutan ang kultura. Hindi dapat mawala ang kulturang ito," emphasizes a Hanunoo teenager. "Ito ang iginising sa amin na kami ay Mangyan."

Keeping our traditions alive isn’t as irrelevant as many might think. Recent trends in even the most advanced societies show their peoples’ need for traditions to nurture their souls.

Inspite of achieving material progress, people value the connection to their traditions and to nature. The phenomena of spas and wellness centers, organic food, aromatherapy, herbal drinks and treatments, sounds of nature and others–repackaged "green"–indicates the value of what is essential to our lives.

Just as we need to save and protect endangered species, we certainly need to save the endangered traditions and cultures of our people…while the tradition bearers still exist.

On the ferry back to Batangas, I still vividly see manang turning and spinning the burak with her fingers. This time, I am comforted by the thought that the tradition isn’t the last thread of hope, after all.