The language I could not fathom, but my whole being responded in such a primal way to the chant that I could have wept where I stood. Its emotion and keening rhythm were as my own heartbeat, strong and throbbing with life and despair, strength and hope.
It was, I found out later, the Hudhud epic, an intrinsic but dying part of the Ifugao way of life and one of the few surviving pieces of the Philippines‘ vanishing oral tradition.
The chant that so transfixed me in 1995 is now one of only 19 masterpieces of the oral tradition proclaimed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (unesco) as part of the "intangible heritage of humanity" last year, the only one of its kind in Southeast Asia that received the unesco distinction.
This epic is chanted at harvest time and during funeral wakes, mostly by women.
The Hudhud tells the tale of Bugan, a 17-year-old Ifugao warrior-maiden and her quest to find a husband at the behest of her brother Dinulawan. He gives her a scabbard and bids her to go from village to village seeking a husband whose dagger can fit it.
Bugan first encounters the wealthy and handsome Aliguyun, who passes the scabbard test. However, Aliguyun is set to marry Induduli, who has borne him a son. She concludes that Bugan has seduced her husband-to-be and drives her away.
Bugan roams for many weeks, scabbard in hand, until she arrives at the house of Daulayan, who turns out to be Aliguyun’s elder brother. Bugan decides to stay with him and be his wife.
But where there should be peace and happiness, strife strikes and Bugan’s life is again disrupted. Aliguyun arrives at his brother’s house one day to get sugarcane for his wedding feast and he sees Bugan. Aliguyun convinces his brother to renounce Bugan because she is already "used goods".
Bugan, her spirit crushed, transforms from a pretty, 17-year-old maiden into an 80-year-old crone named Apu Baket. Upon her transformation, she chants, "What honor are men always talking about? They decide our honor, then violate us if we do not give it to them."
Dinulawan, having heard nothing of his sister for months, goes in search of Bugan and attacks the first man he meets in Kalbiyan. An epic battle ensues between Dinulawan’s clan and Aliguyun’s. When Apu Baket/Bugan finds out about the war, she rushes to stop the fighting.
Dinulawan calls his sister, herself a skilled warrior, to help defend their clan’s honor. Bugan refuses to fight, to defend an honor defined by a few men, which wastes lives. On the battlefield, Bugan declares that she does not need and will never need a man to tell her whether she is honorable or not.
She leaves everyone in silence and rises above the mountain terraces, following the rhythm of the wind. By refusing to fight, she defeats all men and earns the respect that women had lost.
This story is but the first episode of the Hudhud, which can take as long as three full days to chant in its entirety.
Now, that’s a love story with a much better ending than most, because the woman finds her strength in adversity and rises up above her pain.
While some man-haters may say this epic is a prime example of how stupid men can be, this is not the point of the epic. The point is that women also have great strength, if they have the courage to find it.
Over lunch in his third floor office, CCP Artistic Director Fernando Josef, who is directing the staging of Hudhud at the CCP Little Theater, speaks of his intense connection with the Ifugao culture, starting with his role in a peta play many years ago as Macling Dulag, a real life hero who was slain for opposing the construction of the Chico Dam during the Marcos years. "It was as if he had offered his life, knowing the harm the dam would bring to the Chico River," Josef muses.
It was the humility of Dulag and his willingness to give his life "for something that was bigger than him, which was his tribe and his nation," that inspired Josef as an artist.
That performance required him to immerse himself in the Ifugao way of life, Josef says, and "it made me wish I was an Ifugao."
He relates a particular experience: "I learned to play the flute and, as I was playing a piece I had learned, I was surprised to hear an answering flute. Yun pala, the tune I was playing was a lament and the other flute player was answering me, like he was trying to say I was not alone, that he was with me."
To play Macling Dulag, Josef had to learn the Ifugao war dance, which was very different from the other dance forms he was familiar with, mainly Western-type dances like ballet and jazz. He describes the Ifugao dances as "earthbound, with your feet clinging to the earth and your toes splayed like the roots of a tree." The Ifugao dance forms are rooted in the earth, a reflection of the Ifugao’s agricultural way of life.
The wonderful thing with immersion in one’s own culture, Josef says, is that "it makes you a little more Filipino than before."
The CCP production boasts of the country’s best artists. Playwright Nicolas Pichay did the script and the set was designed by renowned Baguio artist Kildat Tahimik and Eric Cruz, who faithfully reproduce the rice terraces and traditional Ifugao stilt-house to scale for the CCP’s Little Theater stage. Lighting concept is by Monino Duque, executed by Ian Torqueza. Ramon Obusan designed the costumes and the musical score was created by Chino Toledo. Agnes Locsin is the show’s choreographer.
To ensure authenticity, CCP has an Ifugao tribesman by the name of Manny Dulawan as consultant.
The cast is composed of a blend of regular CCP theater artists and ethnic music artists. Apu Baket is played alternately by 17-year-old Philippine High School for the Arts (phsa) graduate Shamaine Centenera and ethnic and alternative music artist Bayang Barrios, winner of the recent Metropop contest.
Bugan is played by a young Benguet-born lass, Mila Rose Romero, as well as Nina Rumbines.
Fickle and heartless Aliguyon is played alternately by Roy Rolloda and Neil Ryan Sese, while Dinulawan’s part is played by Jay Españo.
Carol Bello of the ethnic band Pinikpikan (named after a native chicken dish fondly called "killing me softly chicken") and Angeli Bayani alternate in the role of Iduduli.
Bello shuttles between Manila and her home in the Cordilleras, where her husband is from. For her, being part of the Hudhud production is costly. "Talo ako sa taxi (the cab fare costs more than I will earn), but I decided to do the show" because of the rich cultural value of the performance and the chance to be a part of something uniquely Filipino. In addition, the process of transforming an ethnic chant like the Hudhud into a theater piece attracted her. "It taught me how a specific epic chant from Ifugao (can be) brought to Manila to be shown," blending something ancient with the modern disciplines of the stage.
For Barrios, the opportunity to play Apu Baket appealed to her because it was so different from her cultural roots in Agusan del Sur.
"The dancing is so different. For the Ifugao, you must dance close to the ground, with your eyes on the ground. Where I come from, we dance with our faces to the sky, with our arms moving like wings, as if we would fly," she explains.
Most of all, she is part of the cast because the Hudhud epic deals with a woman’s struggle for self-determination, with her struggle to keep her identity and her honor against all odds. "Malapit sa puso ko ‘yung theme (the theme is close to my heart)," she says. "Babae kasi ako (I am a woman)."
Centenera, who insists that she is not good with interviews, shares simply, "I am here because I want to learn and I have learned about my roots." The first few days of rehearsal, she ventures, were "difficult, torture–but as we learned the Hudhud, we got better at it. It is part of who I am now."
Bayani, a Manileña, says she took the part of Induduli "to learn about the Ifugao culture, if only by playing a part in the retelling of an epic."
As an artist, she says, "learning about my cultural identity and experiencing that culture onstage is important because I am an artist and I am a Filipino."
At the end of the interview backstage at the Little Theater, Centenera and Bayani sing a few bars of the Hudhud for me and I am transported back to that serendipitous sunset in the Cordilleras. I hear the fall of grain onto the threshing mat and feel the bite of mountain cold on my skin again.
Having heard part of the Hudhud in its natural setting and part of it at a rehearsal at the CCP, I naturally notice some differences in language, but the soul of the epic remains pure, remains that of the Hudhud I heard eight years ago.
It is as priceless now as it was then, perhaps even more so, as cultural treasures like the Hudhud are threatened by the growing trend towards globalization. This piece of the Filipino soul is very much in danger of becoming nothing more than a memory.
According to the unesco, "the conversion of the Ifugao to Catholicism has weakened their traditional culture. Furthermore, the Hudhud is linked to manual harvesting of rice, which is now mechanized. Similarly, in the past, it has served to keep people alert during funeral wakes, whereas today it is replaced by radio and television.
"Although the rice terraces are listed as a World Heritage site, the number of growers has been in constant decline. There are very few narrators remaining who know all the tales and (they) are very old, because young people do not feel that this tradition is relevant to them."
To save the Hudhud, support needs to be increased for local researchers through scholarships and assistance with publishing. A collection of historical and ethnographic monographs is planned. The government also aims to support indigenous festivals and expressions, especially the Dayaw festival.
In addition to this, with unesco’s help, a project is planned to support the teaching of the Hudhud to young people through the publication of manuals and of audio and video material.
But, while steps are being taken for the preservation of the Hudhud, many other traditional oral epics from all over the Philippines are in danger of being lost. Bringing an epic like the Hudhud to life on stage is a big step towards keeping our priceless and intangible treasures alive, and our national soul intact.
Hudhud (an Ifugao Romance) is onstage at the CCP Little Theater until March 7. Call Tanghalang Pilipino (832-3661) for show details Tickets available at the CCP box office (832-1125 local 1409) and Ticketworld (891-5610).