 Let's move on to that floor. Hello, good afternoon. Let's go back to literature. My paper is a journey into the folklore of the Mandaya. Mandaya being one of the ethnic tribes, no, ethnic groups in Mindanao, collectively called the Lumod. I chose to focus on folklore because the folk literature for community is a valuable part of its culture. It provides a portrait of life as experienced by a group at a particular time and place. One of the cornerstones of their cultural identity, it encapsulates the worldviews and belief systems of this community. The rapid march of societies around the world into the socioeconomic advances of the 21st century has had dire consequences on smaller communities in terms of preserving this cultural identity. The transmission of oral traditions, a center of cultural practice, is threatened when the elders of the community pass away and the younger generations succumb to the pressures brought by new livelihoods and livestock. So I and my research team went into a particular Mandaya community, one of the most numerous, the most numerous ethnic groups in Mindanao. It has its own share of oral traditions that's worth, what is this? Preserving, is that the politically correct word? So these paper documents this culture through the retrieval of this literature. It draws on Alandon, it says concepts in folklore which holds that the folk cannot be separated from the lore, so the examination of the text must include not only its texture, but also the social setting into which the lore is told. The most, the concentration of Mandaya is actually in Karaga, Davao Oriental, but this, we chose to focus on Manay, Davao Oriental, and we only concentrated our efforts on the three municipalities, not municipalities, barrios, we call it barrio, that's Lambo, Kapaslan, and Rizal. When we consulted the IPMR, that's the Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representative, we were told to just focus on these barrios, on these places because further up in the highlands there are already NPAs, insurgents, they would say. So for our safety, they asked us to focus on only three groups. So the, you know, as a research participants, the final informants of the study range from 45 to 70 years old. All could speak the Highland Mandaya language fluently. Let me just qualify. The Highland Mandaya is the sort of the original Mandaya language because there is a type of Mandaya that's spoken by the lowlanders, where I come from, I'm called a lowlander already. And the language there is not anymore the Mandaya spoken by the Highlanders. It's, in fact, it's already called the Bowenio, and there are some language variations and also in other parts now of Davao Oriental. During the conduct of the, because the indigenous peoples in my part of the world are already aware of their rights, now you can just go into the community and ask them to tell the other narratives, their stories. So we went through an FPIC, free prior informed consent process, which took almost a year, not complete, that involves four community assemblies, the signing of the MOA and the validation facilitated by the NCIP. Now we even had to pay the NCIP staff to accompany us to these communities. In coordination, of course, with the IPMR of the municipality. So the primary tool used was key informant interview. Retailing was done through performance. These were audio and video taped with proper permissions from the community concern. There was peer debriefing and then the transcription by a Mandia scholar, that means a person from the NCIP to translate the folk tales, now the folklore conducted retrieved, I mean. Then the validation of gathered folklore by the Mandia community. We were able to collect 20 folklore and which can be classified into seven specific literary forms, this thing to Mandia literature. Now let me just clarify this. This particular categories like Bayok, Dawot, know the informants themselves, know the elders, would say that this is the description of the story of the song being sung by the participants. They would say, for example, Mag Bayok Ako, I would chant a Bayok. So the first one is Bayok. It's a love and adventure song composed by the singer herself. There was only one Bayok collected during the study and this was composed on the spot. I knew that it was composed on the spot because the elder who chanted the song was actually criticizing me for waking her up early in the morning and telling me to go to a particular place. It's sort of funny in a way, which made the journey and other research exciting and fulfilling. The second one is Dawot, sorry. It's a verse chanted for specific purposes. Sorry, sorry. It's usually chanted by Abalian. Abalian is like a shaman of that particular community, so they started the informant stop after chanting only one verse of the Dawot because she was afraid to offend their new religion. She was already into a trance. They call it takig. She was already into the trance. She suddenly stopped and said, I'm afraid, mom, I cannot continue because my pastor is my son and he forbade me to chant any more the Abalian chants. But you can tell that she was still, she's still Abalian at heart because she was able to harness her spiritual powers and go into all the beginnings of a trance. That's the prelude to the summoning of the spirits. Then we have the bagi. It's a song which can be sung by both men and women during various occasions and for different purposes. There were two bagi collected during the field work. The first one is a song sung during weddings and the second one is a lullaby. We'll give some samples later. The fourth one is the panawaktawag. It's akin to a proverb or a saying. It is a verse chanted over and over by the performer and it's a minor ritual incorporated into a major ritual such as healing or planting rituals. It is performed not only by the Balian but also by other members of the community. For purposes of healing, Abalian performs a panawaktawag to call her abhyan that's a spirit guide to invoke help in healing the ailment of the person being cured. For other purposes like planting and harvesting, a farmer performs a panawaktawag to ask the spirits for help in protecting the crop. Panawaktawag literally couldn't be translated as calling, calling. Next one is the babatokon. The root word would be batok, which means to recover, to remember. It's a form of prose fiction narrating a story for different purposes, such as telling the origin of a place or for entertaining children and friends. There were seven babatokon, there, seven babatokon collected in the study. There's the babatokon ng Rizal. It's a legend about the origin of the place, the name of the place is Rizal. Then we have Dayanon, the last Bagani. It relates the story of a Bagani, a warrior of the Mandia tribe and other tribes actually also in Mindanao. It, the Bagani occupies an important place in the political scene of the community. This particular story recounts the story of Dayanon, who had 28 followers and the tale recounts the death of this warrior. That's why the informant who told the story also said that Dayanon is the last Bagani of the Mandia tribe. Then you have the valiero, which is also about a Bagani, but he's not really a full-fledged Bagani, but he was known for his infamous deeds in the community. One of these is the habit of eating his enemy's liver after killing him, characteristic for which a valiero is known for. The next story is Yang Balian. It tells the story of a Balian and not a folkloric figure who occupies a vital part in the indigenous minds and cultures. These Babatokon centers on the healing prowess, describing the stages that a young female apprentice, a pegaboon, that's the apprentice to become a Balian, undergoes to become a full-fledged Balian. The pegaboon in the story stopped being a Balian after she was exposed to Christianity. So this is quite a common story among many Balians in the community. There were dire consequences, however, to her decision. Her house burned to the ground and all her paraphernalia as a Balian burned, including the Palatina and Sanki. The next story is Don Felipe. It recounts the adventures of Felipe who ventures to another land to seek his fate. So the entire narrative talks about the many trials he overcomes to gain his wife. Next one is one as the young princessa. Literally, that's one and the princess. It's a romantic story of a man's pursuit of his beloved. Unlike the other stories collected for the research, this one is a trickster tale about a poor but smart person who gets the better of a wealthy, powerful ruler. The last babatokon is yang karabau as the tagnok. It means the karabau and the mosquito. It's a fable, so all the characters in the story are animals. It's like a nursery rhyme where you tell the tale and then you add one animal after the other after the karabau and mosquito. The next, let's go back. Okay, the next type of folklore is the uman-uman. We only collected three in the story during the conduct of the research. The first one is buyag au baklog. It means the husband and the wife. Now it's a story of a married couple. Buyag is a term which means old woman among the mandaya. It is also used as a term of endearment for a wife. To show familiarity and affection, the husband in the story instead of saying buyag would drop the B sound and would just say uyag. It's supposed to show familiarity between the two. The wife would also not say baklog, but would say aklog, so the initial consonant B was dropped. There were sexual innuendos in the story which would make you consider that this is not really a fairy tale and not supposed to be for children, but the context of the telling is like a gathering of men and they would laugh. It was actually the people around though when they were performing began laughing while he was telling the tale. Next story is Tamisa. Tamisa means the youngest child in a family, so the tale is told for entertainment which serves to highlight the role of parents in the caring of their child. Kaya is an environmentalist story. It's a story of a man who got sick because the waterspires get angry with him for getting creatures from the river. Kaya means all those living in the water, not just the waterspires. Oh, sorry. Let's go to the Mandia cultural values and traditions. This is an example of the Bayyop and the what we recovered. First one is respect for authority. They call their elders Mankatikadong or Mankatadong and there are also other figures of authority called the Bagani and the Balian or the other one I alluded to earlier. So for the early elders, they are called the Bagani and Balian. The present figures of authority would be the Mankatadong, the elders and the Barangay Kapten, the present sort of tribal chieftain of the community. Next cultural value which we were able to gather is the reverence for nature. Reverence for nature is physical as well as supernatural form. It's part of the way of the life of the Mandia. Preserving this nature is important to them and which perhaps would explain their ties to the land. They're very close to the land and has great respect for it. When they pass through the woods, they would say, this respect for whoever is living in those woods. Next is the importance of dreams. Dreams play a significant role in the life of the community as revealed by the stories. For the Balian, for example, the dream is very important. It's crucial particularly as an indication that you are chosen to become a Balian. So if you are going to become a Balian, you dream about it. Like you dream that you are dressed in white and you are curing the people. Next is the chewing of the betel nut. The Mandia calls it magma. No, the chewing of the betel nut. It performs a social function, actually. It is done when among friends and relatives to pass the time and during conversation. When offered to another, it is taken as a sign of friendship or affection for the other person. Next is the ambivalent role of women. There are leadership roles for women and the community, like the ones enjoyed by the Balian. But although that's empowering, there are also some roles which can be marginalizing. So as empowerment, women are seen as medical and spiritual leaders in the role of Balian. But some women perform the role of advisor to their male partners. And there's also a patriarchal sense of being a sexual object for some of the men. They can be exchanged for favors to a particular friend or an enemy. Okay, to conclude, the folklore collected for the present study is only the tip of the iceberg as far as Mandia folklore is concerned. These texts exhibited linguistic features like the dropping of the initial consonant, like the each, and the texts themselves reveal folkloric heroes such as Bagani and Balian, as well as the elders in the olden days and the barangay captain for the present leadership. The cultural values and beliefs revealed in the stories reflect a worldview that is undertones of present circumstances, those still rooted in old beliefs. Contact with other communities could perhaps explain the use of non-indigenous names in some stories, like if you remember the titles of the stories I presented, some are Spanish names actually, Juan, Felipe, Merenshana. It makes you think about what kind of exposure they've been, they've experienced to come up with these kinds of stories which they feel that it belongs to them, the stories. It's part of their cultural memory. My theory is that Foklor is constantly being created and new in contemporary times. Tales are not fixed, therefore, and reflect the context of the group currently telling the tale. So we could not say that these are bastardized versions of the stories that used to be told with new names and new circumstances. There is a need then to collect Foklor from the new generation of the Mandaya with ethnic identity, not a fixed form present not only among the old folks of a tribe. The present generation recreates their identities to survive among modern conditions and challenges. It would also be a challenge to explore this negotiation of identity through the new forms of Foklor the Mandaya created. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, so whilst the participants are coming up to be on the main table. Does anyone like a quick question?