Barrio Synthesis Francisco B. Icasiano In the beginning was « bird. Near the bird was a.swaying bamboo tree. The bird alighted on one of the slender twigs oftthe tree. It heard” voices within the bamboo segments: “Peck away, little bird, peck away; and you shall bea god! "And the bird pecked and pecked, andthe bamboo ‘galt tx: data sonal io tof heovaenrrta ee i a Stepped a man and a woman, Malakas (strong) and Maganda (beau- tifid); mythical parents ofthe race that naw dlls in. Inuts clustered along the banks of slow-moving. rivers: In time, Malakas and Maganda raised many children and grandchildren, too. Finally, after a very long lifeo hisndred: on both vanished in the same mysterious way as ad.come, leaving behind a race of sinple, naive, trusting children in a'sort oftrapical Eden. This the myth, ‘The Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, and Portuguese came early to visit them and trade with them and talk to them about their own mythical origins. The children of this garden paradise were friendly to the newcomers and welcomed them as the bamboo, with equal hospitality, welcomes the sunshine, the wind, and the rain, In tum, the strangers trusted them, allowing them credit for goods purchased without any security more binding than their word. ‘Then the Spanish conguistadores eame and discovered the nipa-hut dwellers, and taught them a new mythology which traces the origin of men, their tem; and fall, through a serpent's cunning and deceit, and consequently the necessity for salvation. The natives bent and swayed and finally allowed their souls to be saved. Arid now amid their cluster of houses, they have built a church ora chapel ‘They sing different songs, talk and write differently, draw more marked demarcation lines between property, and try to work: harder. ‘The coming of the Americans incteased'the tempo of their lives with the construction of better roads and bridges, the importation of motor vehicles, the introduction of sanitation, the building of public schools, and the creation of new incentives for expenses and production." God madé the country, man built the tow. And in the man-made towns, tourists and other transients looked for the people: But they see many men who dress as they do, and are quite‘as hardened as they are. If they would see the real people of the Philippines, and meet them and appreciate the greatness of a spirit that is not found in art galleries and war camps and concrete buildings, the visitors must go to the barrio, ‘Now the barrio is usually out of the way of wide concrete or macadam roads builtby hard-working laborers with the people's money. In going to town tomarket ‘their farm produce, the barrio folk ride on open: carabao-drawn carts or on carromatas that jog and jolt on the muddy road. Now and then, especially around election time; the little mud road is covered with sand and gravel, and the folk listen to long-winded oratory extolling virtues of the candidate for mayor responsible for the road improvement. ‘The candidate has Teamed the American system of perpetuating democracy and enjoys its beneficient effects. 167a barrio profits by the pioneering spirit of some Ame: for the Gospel, sanitation, and a high standard of livin, get discontented about the kasama system of sharing produce withthe landlord, the barrio listens to more oratory coming from v. sources more or less contradictory, ‘Somewhat confused by these doings, the barrio man trusts his native ins and allows life to flow complaceatly on. Though admittedly a Christian, he hast not lost his pagan fatalism, encouraged no doubt by the bounty of nature a the absence of any necessity tqsexerbise much will and energy. “When the sum shines in the morning, the, blessings of God will spread all aver God’s earth This, because he has not seen other parts of the, earth elsewhere. The fields ate ‘fertile, the river toems with fish, prawns, clams, and snails. “Bahala na." (Leave | it to Bathala!) He has apparently not heard that God helps those who help themselves, as efficient military forces elsewhere have proved, His fatalism expi ray many things: the growth or failure of his crops, the death of his carabaos | from rinderpest, the ailment of his children, the fall of the flying maya, birth, | and death. What is to be, willbe; and this goes for the election of candidates; & the coming of independence, the use of imported and expensive toothbrushes by schoo! children, and the taxes that he pays at stated periods. His naiveté ma amuse some and exasperte many, but deep in him he holds the seeret of facing the minor tragedies of living. Ever and anon, men have come fo force upon him their notions of suecess, here and now, or in some promised realm, but he is slow | to understand that success is better than happiness, q His nipa house is simple, one-room affair of about four by four meters — about 170 square feet—its pointed roof and walls thaiched with nipa, coconut leaves, or cogon grass. In this house there is no privacy. Through the windows, whose palm leaf shutters are pushed open. with a short bamboo Prop, friendly passers-by are easily seen, loudly greeted, and asked to come in. Within this lit space is every family activity performed—from sleeping on the cool bamboo floor, ‘and eating to dressing and undressing. Thus, the closely knit family ties, Often, 168who help mexplains searabaos ‘ya, birth, aniidates, inushes by ieté may Of facing tupon him eis slow faeters— goconut ¥indows, friendly islimited 40 floor, 8. Often, when the children are of marrying age)the new-additions to the-family’ come to live under the paternal roof. This has ‘not’ always’ been a happy arrangement for the new daughter-in-law; but she is meekand obedientand, being only about fourteen years of age, easily bends her will'to thesnew tyranny. ‘A family institution is the bamboo papag ‘by the Window. A bench in the daytime, a'bed by night, this papag furnishes the ‘of the house in his hours of rest, or when he. ‘broods lightly-over the incompre- hhensible; for he has considerable leisure-while he wai Spalay to grow and ripen during July, August, September, and! ‘October; and far the coconut trees to bear fruit, On his papag, he views the passing panorama—people coming and going, his friendly carabaos leisurely munching their Zacate, chic after their sand bath and their feeding, trees: standing sti ‘changing little in color from dry season to wet, birds oes chirping a simple song from the camanchile tops, rows of slim by the fence, the dog sleeping atthe foot ofthe stairway, the: with bottles stuck in the earth, the thick ‘clouds, the rains falling f ‘a year, the sun, the moon, and the stars. And from these.quietiscenes-and:sights, derives that passivity which is of the bamboo that stands sullby'a while the water flows etemally on with varying motion: 7°") ~ ° Life then moves around us; not we. around life, Let the wars goon in Europe coc in Chino, let other races fight for their major mythologies and: their guperior superstitions, let other nations indulge in relentless activities to produce iniaiyear ‘more goods than the entire world could consume in decades, and let theminvest ‘more Bo sums in armies and navies to protect their tradeand fares the sale Of foods on those who do not need them; the cominion iao in the barrio S08 his ‘papag and sees in such dizzy whirlings something ‘of the turbulence of the river Pare A when the torents swell it and make is waters brown with mad And Ps cmules wisely, forhe knows thatthe flood, after fertilizing the Towlands;always subsides and the stream once more: flows serenely on. ‘And of what use is sanitation to him? He has not seen microbes, cannot ‘believe in their existence. He ‘has faith in chance. He also’ believes in Divine Will which determines that chance. His ancient ancestors offered food to propitiate waif evil spirits when a member ofthe family got sick. His parents attibuted birth, life, diseases, ‘and death to the Great Scheme ‘which the mind of finite man ‘mustnot question. And the microbes, should they be reals ‘while possibly explaining processes of decay andimultplvig thenames of human, animal, and plant diseases, ‘are also part of the Great Scheme. : ating with his hands? He’ cannot see anything wrong with thal. Speons and forks cost money and could'be contaminated:as well; ‘but people are born with hands and fingers, and he ‘and his children would eat the frugal rice and wih and bagoong that his wife and eldest daughter cook. And they eat them fom ‘one common dinulang (earthen: dish) with their ‘moistened fingers,—mark that— not washed, but merely ‘moistened with water from the stream so ‘that the hot and sticky rice-may not cling to their hands. Eating with the fingers is healthy, nourishing; pleasurable. Itis eating with the same fingers that God made for honest toil in the fields and in’the rivers. ‘The dirt that is lodged in his fingernails? That is not dirt but clean soil, soil-that gives. life to the corn and palay. Why can’t 169‘he same cleanisoil in God's spaces, under God's sun and stars, help give man ‘bamboos. Tr sustenance?Why should it cause disease and death? It is the good earth: contributionlg, ‘As forks aged mother's hands, which he kisses every evening atthe sound. away, ond.d of the Angelus, how could they be contaminated? The ld woman never goes anche out, does practically nothing but grind areca nut and betel leaf with lime in first, then ho small sfone mortar, and chew the ground buyo with her toothless. gums. before the w __. But his children go to the small barrio school which he helped build, and ~ eee there they are taught these things about germs and cleanliness and an amusing iiterhe Tanguage. Still naive and trusting, our barrio manis willing to entertain new ideas _ PP vacboo fin ‘bout vaccination, injection of his cattle with vinis; disinfection of canals and yards and of people who die of smallpox or cholera. He regards these practices Soi with tolerance, sees nothing wrong with them, ee Any more than he sees anything wrong in his wife's pinching their 12-year-' = er whichine old daughter for singing before the stove wheze’she is roasting salted sapsap. Ba “Loca! (Fool) You want to grow old a spinster?” Or if she moves from seat to defends herse ‘seat while eating, mother will say, “You will be widowed if you do that.” And EOF thetinizhe, ‘our barrio man smiles at Mother getting alarmed at little Kikoy’s removing the ey plates from the squat table before Biyang has finished eating—"Don't you know cna your sister will be deserted by her betrothed:for:that?” Voie ore Mother believes in many superstitions which Father respects or mildly zl tolerates, just as he encourages her and the children to go to church on Sundays To Nog: and fiestas while he himself stays at home, secretly establishing his filial loyalty cclavecais to his Maker without the agency of public worship. pounding the Occasionally, some children of the barrio leave oe home and study in the city or travel abroad: ‘When they: 7 return; they'find it slightly: difficult at first’to adjust ins themselves to their former environment atid its slow. etegi u | tempo. But realizing how much°they-are:looked:up legs, in the cot to, some of them allow-the-influence of their new somes ae outlook to touch the’ lives of the hero-worshipping How lon folks, and help them to accept progress in light doses. forces beyond Mang Indo consequently bas bought a pump that draws to change. clean water from the deep earth and takes ittight up to his kitchen, Young Tasiang, Heisthe daughter of the tenente del barrio, recently returned from Manila with her hair Kalanting, at bobbed and done:up in the style that the other young girls secretly admire and hardening, fo) their mothers frown upon. Mang Islaw leas everything about the European war proces ti from a Tagalog paper which he gets twice a week. Alll these earmarks of progress notwithstanding, the distance of the barrio from the big centers of population, the almost absohite dependence of the people from the sol for sustenance, anda social relationship implicit insists upon keeping ‘he whole as one happy family, render barrio life shy of speed and efficiency, Such is naive Christianity—sincere socialism developed without benefit of bloodshed. ‘Very soon, in late November or early December, a typhoon lashes at our litle barrio and demolishes many houses. The crops are destroyed, the flood carries. away hogs and poultry anda few other belongings. Whata calamity! How desperate the people must bet But no, they do not despair. The menfolk go out and cut 1705 PRR SR ROR RRS UE bamboos. The women go uptown to purchase nipa with money raisediby voluntary: contributions. The young daughters butcher whatever fowl the flood did not take away, and they cook them for those: who help rebuild, demolished houses. The barrio folk make a fiesta out of their misfortune. The roofs. are built first, then hoisted atop the posts. One family moves in with the aged grandmother before the walls are thatched, and the old woman dies.from a bad cold. Well, death is a condition of birth. Despite his Christian yeneer, the Zao somehow suspects that the anifo, the spirit of his ancestor, floats in the air and watches, over him. ‘Someday he cheerfully hopes to join all the dear dead in an Elys jinn, field bya ‘bamboo-fringed river bank or on'the hilltop. So the barrio folk celebrate a three-night wake, under an awning in front of the house of the departed woman. They recite long prayers in Tagalog, Spanish, and Latin, after which they have much feasting and parlour games—main feature of which is the dupluhan, an impromptu poetical joust in Whit men put up a poetical defense of a charming woman falsely ab defends herself, also in metered verse, to the amusement of some and! the chagrin of the frustrated hero seeking to save her and win her favor. Tf coconut tuba or basi is available, the elderly men hold adrinking contest which often proves noisy and at times, bloody; for, a drunken barrio gallant is jealous of his honor and ready with his bolo. In November, the harvest having well started, the barrio holds the pasinaya, or harvest festival, young men and young women—three to a wooden mortar— pounding the pinipig (rolled rice) to the tune of kundiman songs with, guitar accompaniment, the same which one hears on moonlight nights: when a. BJgvelom lad takes a fancy to a girl's looks and black hair. In a week or $0, it would seem as if there had been no, ee ata 20 10 death. And our barrio tao reclines again on his papag, gently scratching his bare legs, in the comers of his eyes the subtle touch of complacent humor which sugeests somehow that, although he may not know, he can understand : ‘How long this unreality would last seems tobe a’ matter foroes beyond the a's control are at work both without and W to change: e He is the softclay whom,we would bake! sii Se in Kalantiao, and the categorical im ogee ea Cie ae of intellectual hardening, to render hin less sensitive: ci ‘and efficient. Inthe process, this ao may lose his resiliency, his or ‘capacity to adjust his soul tothe forces about him; but he shall-it is hoped-—make up forthis loss by gaining ‘more masculine control over outer forces and: Shape tem arcocting to his asserive will. In a world so hardened by necessity/as to subordinate the individual o the stafe—avowedly for the good of the individual—the nation that is left behind will have the devil to face, according to the current theory. And this iao must not be left to face the devil, if it takes all of the tao’ fatalism to adjust himself to the new orientation — Horizons from My Nipa Hut Manila: Nipa Hut Publishing, 1941