Si Mallaki Asta Tarumpu
(Mallaki and the Spinning Top)
An Illustrated Children’s Book
Adapted from the Oral Narration of Matanam Bonifacio Embaan
Researcher/Writer: Vanessa Mae Empasis Segura
Illustrator: Octupus & Whale
Published by: 8 Letters Bookstore and Publishing

CEBU CITY (MindaNews / 10 Oct) – The first Bagobo-Tagabawa Illustrated Children’s Book –SI MALLAKI ASTA TARUMPU (Mallaki and the Spinning Top) – enters the Philippine publishing scene at a perfect time as this coming Sunday is Indigenous People’s (IP) Sunday.

An initiative of the Episcopal Commission on Indigenous People (ECIP) under the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in the Philippines (CBCP), the IP Sunday, which is celebrated every second Sunday of October, is meant to bring attention to the plight of our Lumad/Katutubo communities. Until today, across the archipelago, IP communities are constantly under threat owing to external forces that continuously threaten to displace them from their ancestral domain.

Through the past centuries – since the time of our indigenous ancestors – there have been no stop to the entry of outsiders into Lumad territories, including loggers, ranchers, agri-business corporate firms, mining companies and migrant settlers hungry to secure land to cultivate. Forcibly ejected from their abode along the seas, rivers, lakes and plains, they had moved further to the mountainous areas where primal forests used to thrive.

As populations increased and more encroachments to Lumad territories took place, the IP communities found themselves at the edge of forests with no more territories to explore. Many of them had to find ways to survive. Unfortunately the State apparatus of this country has never been sympathetic to the plight of IP communities. Until the passage of the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) in 1997, there was no law to protect the IPs’ rights to their ancestral land.

And even with IPRA, there still has not been enough guarantee that these rights are respected, primarily because the government agencies who are supposed to protect their rights (namely, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples and even the Department of Environment and Natural Resources) have always favored the interests of those who would deprive the IPs of their rights. Furthermore, the military apparatus has always been used to protect corporate interests so that when IP communities protest their displacements, they are subsequently harassed.

Through these sad historical developments, Lumad cultures and indigenous belief systems have been subjected to the impact of colonization and westernization. The entry of land-hungry migrants, the encroachments of corporations into the IP communities, the setting up of schools and the programs set up by various religious denominations and many other outsiders have compromised IP cultural legacies.

Except for the elders and those who closely hold on to their cultural traditions, younger generations would rather ape the cultural ways of the outsiders. Most aspects of their indigenous culture – their mother tongue, rituals, musical instruments, chants and poetry, ways of producing food and healing diseases and many others – are dissipated to the point where these could ultimately be lost to posterity.

Legends, myths, proverbs and stories passed on from generation to generation are also endangered species among our IP communities. Today, there are only very few Lumad story tellers left and unless these stories are documented, future Lumad children will no longer be able to enjoy these folk tales which thrilled their ancestors of long ago. That this book is published with Bagobo-Tagabawa language as the main text might encourage young members of their communities to make sure to remain fluent in their own mother tongue.

In her foreword of this book, one of the editors, Ms. Leila Rispens-Noel, quoted UNESCO’s advocacy for the preservation of indigenous languages. “For indigenous peoples, languages not only identify their origin or membership in a community, they also carry the ethical values of their ancestors – the indigenous knowledge systems that make them one with the land and are crucial to their survival and to the hopes and aspirations of their youth.”

This is why the initiative of Wimler Philippines Foundation and all those involved in publishing this Bagobo-Tagabawa children’s book – the story narrator, the researcher-writer, the illustrator and everyone else – is commendable! Now Mallaki Tarumpu’s story will not be lost and more children, not just the Bagobo-Tagabawa, will be able to know about this tale. For as long as copies of this book remain in existence, more children will know more about Mallaki.

So that this story could be understood by children of ethno-linguistic communities that understand Bagobo-Tagabawa, Pilipino and English, the texts are in these three languages. What is unfortunately missing is the Cebuano text, since there might even be more Bagobo-Tagabawa kids who would be fluent in Cebuano than in their own mother tongue. Credit goes to the translators, including Matanám Emiliano Undaniel, Bae Berna T. Malang (for Bagobo-Tagabawa), Vanessa Mae Empasis Segura, Joey David Tiempo (English) and Rey Tiempo (Pilipino).

As with most children’s stories, the plot is quite simple. Once upon a time when Davao was still a heavily forested land, there was a boy named Mallaki Tarumpu who grew up to be a handsome man. As was the practice then, when a young man came of age, he needed to leave home to find the land where he would settle down. This meant trekking across the mountain range made up of seven mountains. His request from his father before leaving was that he be gifted with a spinning top as big as he was.

Once he had the spinning top and with food prepared by his mother, he left home. After walking for a day, he made it to the first mountain. At the peak, he spun the spinning top and then the people felt the ground shake. In the next few days, he reached the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth mountain. As he reached the peak of each of these mountains, he spun the spinning top.

Each time he spun the top, there was an earthquake felt by the people of his village. Finally, he reached the top of the seventh mountain, where he stood to marvel at the beauty of the land surrounding the peak. There he planted his big wooden top and it became the Apo Sandawa volcano, the highest peak of this country. There he built his own home and lived for the rest of his life, high above the clouds with the soaring eagles. This then is the legend as to the origin of Mt. Apo.

The 54-page book is handsomely packaged. The colors are so bright that children holding the book would be delighted at the illustrations. The illustrators made sure to take advantage of the beauty of the inabal, the ikat-dyed woven abaca which is the indigenous cloth hand-woven by the Bagabo-Tagabawa women with their stunning designs. Each page of this book is a work of art worth exhibiting in a museum.

The book’s narrator, Matanám Bonifacio Embaan, serves as the chieftain of Barangay Bitaug, located in Bansalan, Davao del Sur. Bitaug is primarily populated by the Bagobo Tagabawas, one of the indigenous peoples (IPs) residing in the foothills of Mt. Apo. Like many indigenous cultures, their way of life is on the brink of extinction. Situated eight kilometers from the town of Bansalan, Bitaug is also distinguished as the home of Salinta Monon, widely claimed as “The Last Bagobo Weaver.” In 1998, she was honored with the prestigious Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan Award.

While there are still elders like Matanam who continue to hold on to their memories the folk tales of their ancestors, these stories would never fade away. However, their numbers are decreasing rapidly. The challenge for their own descendants is to make sure there will always be those willing to accept the responsibility of protecting their living traditions that would guarantee the preservation of their cultural legacy.

The theme of IP Sunday this year is “Lakbay-Laya: Pilgrims of Hope in Ancestral Domain.” As we continue to hope for an end to the displacement of IP communities from their ancestral domain, we also hope that the tradition of storytelling will continue to thrive. And we also hope that Filipino writers and artists would assist our Lumad communities to produce this kind of book to help popularize the rich cultures of our indigenous peoples.

(The book will be featured during opening ceremony of the 2024 PLAI Congress BookTech Fair at the Grand Menseng Hotel in Davao City happening on November 19, 2024. During the first part of this even, this book will be launched.)

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Redemptorist Brother Karl Gaspar is Mindanao’s most prolific book author. Gaspar is also a Datu Bago 2018 awardee, the highest honor the Davao City government bestows on its constituents. He is presently based in Cebu City.)