PRE-COLONIAL

BISAYAN FOLKLORES
FROM SAMAR

By Fr. Francisco Ignacio Alcina, SJ

(1610 – 1674)

Jesuit Missionary and Historian of the Bisayans

(Historia de las Islas e Indios de Bisayas…, 1668)

 Kabungaw and Bubung Ginbuna
(A Pre-Colonial Story from Ibabao, Northeastern Samar)

On the coast of Ibabao(*) were two celebrated lovers, the man called
Kabungaw and the woman Bubung Ginbuna. Before they were married, these two
had been in love for a long time, and once when he had to go on a certain rather long
voyage, in company with others who were setting out on a pangayaw raid, he left
instructions with his sweetheart that she should go straight to his parents' house to
get whatever she needed for comfort. (He only had a mother or sister since his father
had already died.) She went one time when she had to get a little abaca to weave
clothes for her lover, but was so ill received by her swain's mother and his sister, who
was called Halinai, that after abusing her by word, they did not give her what she had
come to get, so she went back displeased and determined not to return there or even
be seen by her lover again. He learned this as soon as he returned and asked if she had
requested anything, and the bad sendoff she had been given instead, so after much
brooding, he refused to go up into his house until he learned where and with whom
his lady was living.

He did many things and particular deeds (which I am not putting down so
as not to be too long-winded) until he learned that she was on a kittle island where
she had fled with her slaves. He was almost drowned the times he went in search of
her and escaped only by means of supernatural aid, until on the third attempt he
reached there, and pretended to be dead near the house where she was living, until
he was recognized by a slave who reported it to his lady. She went down drawn by
love, and in her presence he recovered the life he pretended to have lost in her absence,
and both rejoicing, they were married. They remained there as lords of that little
island, which they called Natunawan in allusion to the love they had felt on first sight,
because natunawan means that they melted together with happiness, or Nawadan,
which means "lost footsteps. " There, they say, not only men followed them from the
mainland, but even plants, attracted by the goodness of the land and the good
reception from those settlers.

____________
* Ibabao in the olden times was the name for the northeastern region or portion of the island of Samar,
which starts on the present day towns of Catarman, to Palapag, and down to Borongan.

[The above literary piece is an example of a ‘candu’ which means in pre-colonial Bisayan
language a ‘story’. The 17th century Jesuit chronicler and missionary, Fr. Francisco Ignacio
Alcina, SJ recorded this story from a Samareño paracandu (storyteller). The story of
Kabungaw and Bubung Ginbuna is one of the few recorded Pre-Colonial Stories of the
Bisayan region (that is Samar & Leyte) which can only be read in Fr. Alcina’s nine-volume,
Historia de las Islas e Indios de Bisayas…, 1668.]

Source: Scott, William Henry. Barangay: Sixteenth Century Philippine Culture and Society, Ateneo
de Manila University Press, 1995.
 Datung Sumanga and Bugbung Humasanun
(A Summary of a Long & Lost Samareño Bisayan Epic)
There was, so says the singer, a princess in the island of Bohol of great repute
and fame called Bugbung Humasanun, the most renowned among all the beauties and
of the greatest fame for her talent among all the damsels, so secluded and enclosed in
her chamber that nobody ever saw her except by sheerest chance. Her visage was like
the sun when it spreads its first rays over the world or like a sudden flash of lightning,
the one causing fear and respect, the other, joy and delight. A great chief desirous of
marrying her calked Datung Sumanga one day arrived below her house and, giving a
salute, asked for the said princess without going up by calling out her name and
surname and the other names which she had been given for her beauty. Irritated by
his call, and either angry at his boldness or pretending to be, she sent a maid to ask
who he was, and learning his name, acted angrier still that the courtesy had not been
shown according to their custom, and replied, why had he come in person? Had he
no negroes to command or slaves to send, perhaps not even someone he esteemed like
a son whom he trusted as faithful and could send as a friend? So, without replying or
speaking a single word, the chief had to go right off rebuffed.

So, selecting a negro slave, he ordered him to go as intermediary and ask that
princess for buyos, and told him not to come back without them. The negro go-
between went with his message and asked for the buyos in his master's name,
repeating the words of courtesy and praise which were customarily most polite. To
this she responded with the same courtesy, saying that she had neither bongas to put
in the buyos nor leaves to make them, for the bongas which she used came from where
the sun rose and the leaves which she added from where it set. And she said nothing
more.

When her reply was received by the suitor chief, he immediately ordered his
slaves to embark to go and search, some to the east for the bongas, and others to the
west for the leaves, just as the princess had asked for them. This they did at once, and
the same one who had brought the message was sent back with them, and handed
them over and asked her to make the buyos for his lord. To this the lady replied that
she could not make them because she had no lime, since her lime was only found in a
certain distant and isolated island. With only this reply he returned. So the datu
immediately ordered ships launched at sea and sent them flying to find the lime in the
place indicated. This the slaves carried out promptly, and returned with all speed and
delivered the lime, which the same experienced messenger took at once and gave to
the lady on behalf of his master, asking her for those buyos. Her response was that she
was not about to make them until his master went in person to Tandag town on the
coast of Caraga and made a mangayaw raid there and brought her those he captured.

So he started out at once, and with his joangas, or barangays, armed with all
his warriors, embarked for the said Caraga, made his attack, and took 120 persons in
all, whom, before even disembarking or going to his house, he sent to be handed over
to that binokot by the same messenger with the necessary guards, who did so
immediately and asked for the buyos in return for his lord who was exhausted from
the battle.

But still not content with this, she sent back to say she could not make the
buyos until he did the same thing he had done in Tandag in the islands of Yambig and
Camiguin, which the chief set out to do at once. Reinforcing his fleet and taking only
a few days, he brought his ships back full of captives, some 220 persons of all kinds,
whom he immediately sent to his lady, asking again for those buyos by means of that
slave, to which, stubborn as ever, she added that he had to perform the same deed
with the people of the island of Siquihor and the town of Dapitan.

This he did at once and sent her all the captives, who were no fewer than on
the past occasions, though still not enough to win her consent or for her to give the
buyos which the gallant was asking of her. Instead, she sent to tell him that he had to
do the same thing with the towns subject to Mindanao and those of the island of Jolo.
So, undaunted by even this challenge, for a lover, unless he is mad, fears as little as
those who are, he started out on the fourth expedition. He weighed anchor with his
fleet and went to Mindanao and Jolo, where he fought valiantly and took many more
captives than on the other occasions, and sent them all to her, once more asking for
his buyos, since for these he was giving her she must surely say yes and set the
wedding for certain.

But-not even this time was she willing to give in, but rather, sent him another
demand by the fuming go-between, who told him, "Sire, what the princess said is that
she esteems your favors and admires your valor, but that in order to demonstrate you
really love her and so your prowess may be better known, she has heard that not very
far from these islands is the great kingdom of China, a people very rich and opulent
who chirp like birds with a singsong voice and nobody understands them, and she
said no more.

When her lover heard this, he fitted out his ships with stronger rigging,
added more vessels, men, and arms, and undertook the fifth voyage for Grand China,
at which coast he arrived safely, made his assaults on towns little prepared, captured
enough to fill the ships, and made the return voyage to his land with great speed,
laden with captives and spoils, which he immediately sent to his lady with the oft-
repeated plea for the buyos.

But the lady was not won over by even all of this, but rather, setting her
contract still higher, asked for the impossible, for the reply which she gave was to say
(and here the poet speaks in the hyperboles which the Visayans use with much
elegance) that in due time and without fail she would make the buyos if he performed
one more task first, which was that he should bring her something from heaven as
important as what he had brought her from earth.

On this reply, seeing that she was asking for the impossible, he said, "Come
then, let's get started: we will try to conquer heaven. Prepare the ships, " he said, "and
we'll go there. We'll make an attack on the sky; we'll unhinge a piece of it; we'll unfold
part of one of its eight layers or levels, and we 'Il seize one of its greatest thunder claps;
we'll rob the moon of a bit of its splendor, or if nothing else, at least one ray of those
that are forged in its workshops. Come then, we're off, we're off!"

So he embarked, but in vain, and so he sailed, but without end, for of all the
receding horizons, he neither reached one nor could he cover them all, so he returned
satisfied, and sent word to her that he had done what she had ordered but that could
only ldedicate, not give, the thunder and lightning to her, for throughout the many
regions he had coursed, many were heard but few were found. He added that unless
she sent him the buyos immediately which had cost him so much and had so tired
him out, he would come and personally remove her hairpiece and make a sombol-
plume of it for his ship.

On receiving this message, she began to cry and moan, terrified in her heart
lest he dishonor her, and so she decided to make the buyos so many times denied.
When they were made, she put them in a little casket of marble fashioned with much
art, and this inside another little case like those in which ladies keep their jewels, and
sent them with the negro go-between who had so many times come and gone with
messages. But when he told his lord that he had them, he was unwilling to see or
receive them and sent them back instead, saying he would not accept them whole but
only chewed, and that she should send one in a perfumed box of gold, all of which
was a sign of her consent and pledge of their intended wedding celebrations, which
they performed afterwards with the pomp and ostentation fit for their class and
wealth (Alcina 1668a, 4:248-56).
 The First Man and Woman

After the world was made and the coconut palms had borne fruit, two
coconuts, well ripened, happened to fall into the sea on whose shore their palm tree-
was growing, whose waters received them and carried them on its waves for many
days wherever the wind and current wanted, until one day when the sea was raging,
it threw them with violence against some rocks. Ready to hatch—as if they were
eggs—they broke open with the blow and—as if preordained—there came forth from
the larger a man, who was the first one, whom they call Laki, and from the smaller a
woman, whom they call Baye. And from these two as the first parents of the human
race, all people are descended (Alcina 1668a, I: 178).

Why the Bat Is Called Stupid

We will add a Bisayan fable here which gives [these bats] their name and the
reason they go out at night. This is, that after their creation (the Bisayans in their
antiquity did not know who created them, though they had some inkling), all the birds
got together for each one to choose his food, and so that they would not be taking each
others', each would choose according to his desire and taste. When this big bat's turn
came, he chose for his kind the fruit of a tree which is called tabigi here, which is
beautiful to the eye, as big as a medium melon and, seen from a distance, not dissimilar
to the big oranges from China. They all made fun of him because this fruit, although
of nice appearance outside, inside has nothing more than a few seeds as large as eggs,
although of different shapes to fill the shell; they are very hard, bitter and tasteless
(although very good for curing loose stool, most especially bloody stool, though the
birds did not know this quality). From this incident, he was given the name of Kabug,
which means dunce [bobo} in this language, or one who has little sense. They also
have a saying which serves very appropriately for no few occasions, and it is that
when somebody selects what pleases the eye without checking its quality—like a
beautiful woman but foolish, or a handsome man but stupid, and fruit of good color
but rotten, etc.—they say of him, "Daw napili sin tabigi, " which means that, like the
Kabug, he chose the tabigi fruit, good to look at but for nothing else (Alcina 1668a,
2:233— 34).

The Tortoise and the Monkey

From the sayings which are common among these natives about this animal
[the tortoise] we can deduce its characteristics. In one of them they say of it what we
say of doctors over there [in Spain], "He doesn't want it [even as a gift], " because they
tell a story and it is this.

This Tortoise and the Monkey found by chance a bud or sprout of a banana
plant, which we have already said is called sahan. They fought over who would take
the best part, and in order to deceive the Monkey, the Tortoise asked for the part which
had the leaves, which thus seemed best to the monkey and he kept it, giving him the
part with the root, which is what the latter wanted because it is what sprouts, grows
and bears fruit, and so gave signs of wanting the opposite so they would let him have
what he wanted and was more profitable.

So to say of somebody that he is a man of intrigues and plots, they say he is

like this animal's intestines because they have many twists and turns, and even though
small, it knows a lot since it was able to trick the Monkey, which is so much larger and
wiser than it; and also when they give somebody the worst part, they say they treated
him like the Tortoise.

So to continue the story begun above, we say that when the piece of stalk or
root which the Monkey had given him sprouted, grew and bore fruit, the Tortoise,
since he could not climb, went to find the Monkey to climb up and get [he fruit, which
he did gladly, and seated above, began to gather the ripe bananas and to eat them,
throwing down all the rinds or skins on the Tortoise who was down below, with
which he tricked him, or revenged the first trick. And from this fable they get the said
proverbs (Alcina 1668a, 2:202-3).

Pusong of Magtaon

I will tell of one brave whose memory was still very fresh because it happened
not many years before the Spaniards arrived here. This one was an Indio of gigantic
stature called Pusong, a native of the town of Magtaon in the interior of the island of
Samar and Ibabao, who used to make frequent invasions of the towns of Calbiga and
Libunao which are on the Samar side, but not so much around Borongan because those
on that coast were much more feared. Those he had killed were many when they stood
up to him, and even more those who had been captured in repeated tin-les because he
was a great raider, or magahat as they call them, until near the town of Calbiga they
set a trap for him in which he was killed.

This trap was that in a stream he had to cross, which was all flat stones with
very high banks of rock, one of the more daring hid below it on the side he usually
came from, and the other waited for him on the opposite side, with arms ready,
though not trusting so much in them as in the treachery and trap they had set for him.
This One challenged him from the side where he was, with the stream in between, and
when the one from Magtaon jumped over, the one who was hidden below the bank
threw his spear with such great force that it passed through his body, with which he
fell. And the one who had challenged him came down and they killed him—since "a
dead Moro gets many blows"—in the very place where he had fallen with the first
wound, and since this was of very wide flatstones, as I saw when I went there just to
see what traces remained on that rock where, stretched out in the same position, they
had traced and carved out with a chisel the whole body in the very posture in which
he had died.

I have seen these lines or caning which still survive today, and they show that
he was a remarkable man and husky because although he wore a barote [padded
breastplate], the rest of his body was naked except for his bahag, and from the lines
which traced his thighs, legs, arms, head, and body (he had one arm caught
underneath and one leg twisted or bent), it is clear that he was a giant of a man, of
greater stature and build than the tallest ordinarily are (Alcina 1668a, 4:167—69).

[But] what a Calbigan told me, an intelligent chief more knowledgeable about
their affairs than the ordinary (he was incumbent governor of his town when he told
me, as he had been several times before) . . . was that they were pygmies they call
Bongan in their language who killed him, and they were so small that they didn't
exceed half a good-sized man's forearm. The way they did it, they say, was that they
covered the streambed with nipa leaves, and since these were on top of the slick
stones, when he crossed the said stream and stepped on those leaves, both feet shot
out from under him and threw him down on the stones, and immediately many of the
said Bongan, or pygmies, rushed up—like ants that drag things which weigh ten times
more than all of them together—and with their little spears and other arms, they killed
him (Alcina 1668a, 277-78).

Parapat

I will tell an unusual tale which I have heard many times and have repeated
not a few, both because of the oddity of the subject and the nice language of the
wording. It says, then, that there was an Indio called—if I remember right—Parapat,
who was so swift when running along the beach—which over here are of very fine
clean sand— he left no trace or footprint by which it could be known that he had run
across it, and the same song also adds that only on top of the rocks would some grains
of sand be discovered which had stuck to the soles of his feet or between his toes, by
which those who knew his speed and that he was accustomed to pass that way, knew
he had passed by (Alcina 1668a, 4:181).

Bingi of Lawan

There lived in this place a chief called Karagrag, who was its lord and ruler.
He was married to a lady of his rank called Bingi, a name which had been bestowed
on her because of her chastity, as we shall see. (I was not able to find out if she came
from the same town; most probably she was from upstream on the Catubig River,
where she was the daughter of the chief there.) This lady, according to what they
recount, was endowed with many fine virtues and greatly celebrated for her beauty
among these

natives, so much so that, moved by the fame of her beauty, the Datu, or ruler, of Alba)
got ready a hundred ships. This chief was called Dumaraug, which means the victor,
and with all those ships he weighed anchor in his land, and within a short time came
in view of the [Lawan Island] town of Makarato.

His unexpected arrival excited the town, but since itwas well-fortified by its
natural location and it was the season of the Vendavales (the best time for going there
from Albay) when the force of the sea and its waves were strong and turbulent, he did
not venture to go straight in but took shelter instead near the beach which Rawis Point
makes with very fine sand and free of shoals, where, because of an islet across the
entrance from the sea, the surf is less obstructive and the sea milder and calm. From
there he sent a small boat with a sign of peace to announce the purpose of his coming,
which was simply to carry Bingi away as his wife, the fame of whose beauty alone had
left him love struck and with only this would he then return to his land without
making any attack and always afterward remain their friend and protector, since
being more powerful than they, he could do it to their advantage.

Karagrag, rather than making reply, showed them how well prepared he was
by entertaining them, and when his wife was informed of Dumaraug's intentions, she
responded at once that she was greatly surprised that for something of such little
worth he had made such a demonstration and launched so many ships, that she was
content with the husband she had and did not care to exchange him for any other,
even one much more powerful, and that so long as he was alive, she could not think
of leaving him; and if it should be her unlucky fate to fall into his hands captive, he
should understand that though he might carry her off and command her as his slave,
that to make her his wife, she would never consent and was ready to give her life first.

Encouraged by so bold a response, her husband Karagrag simply added that

he was there waiting with his men deployed, and that although they were not many,
they were very good men, and that the place where they were was very secure, and if
he came totry his arms in battle, they would do their duty; and if he should defeat
them, he would be lord of his wife and property, but if not, he would return to his
land empty-handed, if indeed he escaped from there with his life.

With this reply, and in view of the strength and impregnability of the place
for them, with no more arms than spears and shields or at most some arrows, the chief
reconsidered and hesitated a bit but not for long, and without attempting anything
more and risking his men, he returned home just as he had come, leaving both the
chief and his wife Bingi happy.

This happened a few years before the Spaniards came, and is still fresh in the
memory of the natives of the Lawan town, who today are their descendants. Not many
years ago, I buried a chief of the said island, who was more than seventy years old,
whose parent had been alive when this raid took place; and a son of his who had heard
it many times, related it to me with all the aforesaid details (Alcina 1668a, 4:20—23).