 Good afternoon. I'm going to talk about traces of Huthutni Itkak or the Huthut epic of the Itkak people in Ifugau. So first of all, there are some acknowledgments due to the people whose names you can see on this slide. And let's start. So Huthut is a relatively well-known epic chant performed in a number of central and southern municipalities of Ifugau province and it was proclaimed as a remarkable example of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO in 2001. Huthut is a predominantly female tradition. It is sung by a lead chanter who narrates the events of the story and the chorus, usually two or more people who finish the line with formulae presenting characters' names, place names, and rhythmic fillers. The tradition has very strong ritual connections and performances occur only in a variety of important rituals, as has been shown in Dr. Maria Sonyakovich works. There are four situational categories. The first one is Huthut for rice harvest, then Huthut for haircutting ceremony, Huthut for funeral or secondary burial, and the last one, Huthut for wedding, is probably extinct by now. And Huthut as genre is severely endangered, there are just few lead singers who are still alive. Before we proceed to talking in more detail about Huthut, I should say a couple of words about the languages spoken in the province. Actually, there are at least seven languages spoken in Ifugau and they belong to two distinct linguistic groups. The first one is central Cordillian, the other one is southern Cordillian. The first group, the central Cordillian languages in Ifugau include four closely related Ifugau languages. It's Tuvali Ifugau, you can see it in the map on the slide in the area on the left, with the centers in Gyanan and Hungduan. The other one is Amganad Ifugau, spoken in the area on the top, with the major centers in Banaue and Amganad. And the two last languages, Batad and Mayuio, are actually lumped together here in the map in the area on the right. The vast majority of the population of the province of Ifugau belongs to one of these four groups. On the other hand, the second group, major group of languages in Ifugau is southern Cordillian languages. They include three languages, Kalanuya, which has been mentioned once today, Kalei and Yatuka. On the map, you can see the area populated by Kalanuya, Yatuka and Kalei speakers. The area as you can see spans across three provinces, Benguet on the west, Ifugau on the north, in the north and Nuevo Vizcaya. The most number of speakers resides in Nuevo Vizcaya. Kalanuya has four dialects, northern, central, southern and western, or Benguet dialect. There are approximately 100,000 speakers of this language. As for Kalei, it is spoken only in two Barangays, Antipulo and Pula, in Asipulu municipality of Ifugau. The approximate population of these two Barangays according to the census of 2010 is 2,700 speakers. And finally, the Yatuka language is spoken in another two Barangays, Hamdintug and Nungawa, which are adjacent to Antipulo and Pula, where Kalei is spoken. And the approximate population of those two villages is also 2,700 speakers. Yatuka is not recognized in ethnologue or glottalogue as a separate language. It is only mentioned as a dialect of Kalei. However, they have, those two groups have distinctly separate ethnoguistic identities. The first description of Yatuka, of the Yatuka language was made by me as my PhD research. So, going back to Hudhud. This genre is mostly known in two closely related languages, Tuvali Ifugau and Amganad Ifugau. They belong to the same branch, the central Cordillian languages as I've already mentioned. However, Hudhud's are also sung in the Yatuka language by speakers of Yatuka as well as speakers of Kalei. So if a lead singer of Hudhud comes from the Kalei speaking region area, they would sing it in Yatuka only. There is no such thing apparently as Hudhud in Kalei. And all the published translated texts of Hudhud records were made in Tuvali speaking areas of Ifugau province. Most were published by Francis Lambert in the 1960s and by Lourdes de Lawan and Nicole Rivell in the 1990s in the Ateneo epic archive. As for Yatuka Hudhud's, there are three transcribed texts in preprint in Yatuka without any line breaks or translations translation. And finally, there are six transcribed and translated records that were made by Dr. Stanikowicz and more recently by myself. Apart from these three languages, Tuvali, Amganad and Yatuka, it seems to be a common knowledge among the local residents that there is no Hudhud in any other language. So for example, when I ask the direct question, do the Kalanguyas have Hudhud? I would usually hear a negative answer. And it stayed the same way until April 20th of 2016 when I was recording a rice harvest Hudhud sung by Hudhud soloist Alfredo Bumainin in Amduntug. Here you can see him on the picture in the middle. And there were a couple of other people in the room who asked him the same question, do the Kalanguyas have Hudhud? And quite unexpectedly, he said, yes, they do. And it's called Hudhud need kak. So who is Alfredo? Alfredo Bumainin. He is over six years old and he's a native Kalanguyas speaker originally from Brangailiwan in Asipulla municipality. And now he now he resides in Amduntug. And he is a Hudhud soloist, however, apparently not practicing anymore because his family and by extension himself are born again Christians nowadays. And later, on a later occasion I interviewed him about the Hudhud need kak that he mentioned. According to Alfredo, he heard it from a woman whose name was Indayu around 1962 in Barangay Kamandag near city of Takak, which is in Barangay Namal. These two Barangays are within the same municipality of Asipulla in Ifugail. Alfredo at that time was a bachelor and the place Kamandag is about half a day walking distance from Amduntug. Alfredo went there to help harvest rice and there were many people among whom was that lady Indayu, a Kalanguyas speaker. And while harvesting, Alfredo heard her singing a Hudhud on one of the days of the work. Also, Alfredo mentioned that Indayu was around 92 years old when she died and probably around between 72 and 82 when Alfredo heard her singing the Hudhud. Later, Indayu told the story of the Hudhud to Alfredo and he mentions that it is similar to that of rice harvest Hudhud in Yattuka with certain differences in the middle but the same wedding scene at the end. Alfredo describes the intonation of her Hudhud as soft or slow, the Tagalog term that was used is Malume, as opposed to fast or Mabilis intonation of the Yattuka Hudhud. And what's important is that according to Alfredo, the lyrics, the words of that Hudhud were in Kalanguya, not in Yattuka, not in Kalei or not in Duali. Alfredo was able to sing two short excerpts from Indayu's Hudhud from what he can remember and I was able to record those two excerpts. There are three and six lines respectively. So the question now was who are the Itkak and how come that normally you do not hear anything about them when you are in Khyangan or in some parts of Asipulu, populated by Kalei and Yattuka speakers. Now, most of the information you can see on this slide was obtained through Marlon Martin's assistance. Marlon Martin is the head of the local NGO, Save Ifugao Rice Terraces movement. And he happened to visit the area of the Itkak in February 2017 where he asked around about the Itkak. So what we were able to find out is that the Itkak, a residence of Siti Takak, it's how it's pronounced in Duali Ifugao or Tekak in Kalanguya or Tokak in Yattuka. And Takak, Siti Takak is located in Barangay-Namal, Asipulu municipality. The isolate that used to be spoken in Takak is mutually intelligible with the surrounding Kalanguya dialects. However, it has a different intonation and some lexical units. Itkak is said to be as far from Kalanguya as Kalei from Yattuka. The Itkak people apparently have or used to have a separate self-identity. They were rice terrace builders unlike the rest of the Kalanguya. Now this fact is important because Hoot Hoot chanting is closely related to rice agriculture, so having rice terraces could open the way to having an epic tradition based on it. And there are probably just three remaining Itkak speakers. One of them is actually the current Barangay captain of Namal. Alfredo Bumeineen also claimed that people in Takak used to be all Itkaks. However, nowadays what they speak is mixed with Kalanguya, Ilocano and Ayangan. Ayangan is an umbrella term for speakers of all Ifugao languages except for Tuvali, which is locally used. On this map you can see the locations of Barangay-Amdontug in Ifugao province and it's on the top, the top most star. Amdontug is where Tukka is spoken. Then you can see the location of the adjacent Barangay Antipulo, where Kalei is spoken and the approximate location of Siti Takak in Barangay-Namal, where the alleged Itkak language is spoken. Next, I tried to find if somebody else could provide any other information on Indayu or the Hood-Hood-Need-Kak that Alfredo mentioned. And the next person who confirmed what Alfredo told me was Appin Gumanen. Appin was around 90 years old when she passed away just a few days after my interview with her in August 2016. She was a Kalei speaker from Barangay Antipulo and probably she was the most knowledgeable among the Hood-Hood-Need singers in Asipulo. She told that she met Indayu in Siti Takak around two to three years after World War II and Appin went to Takak with friends and relatives with the same purpose to help harvest rice. At that time Indayu was already married but still young, probably in her 30s. Appin heard Indayu singing Hood-Hood-Nee-Pagi, rice harvest Hood-Hood, on one of the days of the work, and Appin even joined singing as a chorister. She also mentions that that Hood-Hood was sung in Kalanguya, not in Yattuka, not in Kalei or Tuali. Appin also sang a couple of lines as a sample of what she heard then, and the melody seemed to be the same as what Alfredo sang. However, unfortunately I didn't have a chance to record it on that occasion. The next person from whom I found something about Indayu was Gayan Timikpao Dulluan. She is around 90 years old and she is a Kalei speaker, resident of Barangay Pula in Asipulo. She is a Hood-Hood chorister. She is not a lead singer and she is the last native threadmaker in the municipality, probably in the whole province. She met Indayu in Barangay Pula where Indayu came to attend the wedding. That happened sometime before World War II, and Gayan was still a kid at that time. She just remembers that Indayu was beautiful and a great dancer. She also heard Indayu singing in Hood-Hood however Gayan wasn't able to provide any further details on the language or what kind of Hood-Hood it was, because probably she was too young or too much time has passed. Now, I have two short samples of what is supposed to be Hood-Hood-Need-Kak, as Alfredo remembered it, Alfredo Bomainin remembered it. And having a sample of what is supposed to be that Hood-Hood, we can compare at least the melody in it with the melodies employed in Tuvali and Yattuka Hood-Hoods. Unfortunately I don't have any samples of Hood-Hood in Amganad if you go, so we can just compare only Tuvali, Yattuka and what's supposed to be It-Kak. In all three, the melody as you're going to see in a moment is quite different. So here I'm going to play one line excerpts from three different Hood-Hoods records to illustrate it. The first one is from Tuvali Hood-Hood, published in the Artineu archive, Happy Kharkai by Lorde Stolovan and Nicole Rebell. Now the second one is from Yattuka Hood-Hood, which was recorded by me in 2016. And actually in most Yattuka Hood-Hood records there are two melodies, usually singers start singing it with melody A and then later halfway through they switch to melody B, then switch back before ending the performance to melody A or sometimes happens the other way around, sometimes they start with melody B, then switch to melody A. Anyway, here are the samples of the two melodies. And the second type of the melody for Yattuka Hood-Hoods. And finally I'm going to play the first sample I was able to record from Alfredo. This is a three line excerpt from what he remembers as Hood-Hood-Need-Kak. I know it's no, I know it's no. All right, so Alfredo who sang it was trying to, I'm not sure if it's all in Kalanguya, but he tried to at least imitate singing in Kalanguya, so you can see that he's singing Ganhaden which is the Kalanguya pronunciation as opposed to the usual Yattuka Ganhadon. Here I have the second sample also sung by Alfredo, but it's a longer one, six lines long and probably I don't have enough time to play it right now. So to sum up, Hoot Hoot is known to be sung only in three languages, Tuvalifugao, Anganadifugao and Yattuka, and existence of Hoot Hoot in any other languages usually denied. However, there are three oral accounts of a Hoot Hoot song in a Kalanguya speaking area by the same soloist on different occasions, and according to two out of those three accounts, that Hoot Hoot was sung in a previously undocumented Iselect Itkak. There are no mentions of Itkak in any literature as far as I know. It seems that there are just few Itkak speakers alive and so field work to document and describe that Itkak Iselect is urgently needed as it is highly likely to disappear rather soon. As for Hoot Hoot Itkak, if it indeed existed in the past, it's most likely extinct by now. However, we can try to gather some further evidence from other personal witnesses who might have heard that Hoot Hoot performed. However, there are some major issues involved that might make the field work in Barangay-Namal rather difficult. First of all, it's one of the remotest and most impoverished areas in Asepulu municipality. The roads are really poor and there is no electricity. And second, the area is infiltrated by the NPA, the New People's Army, who are recognized as a terrorist organization in the U.S. and the European Union. And in fact, in February of 2017, there were clashes between the Philippine Army and the NPA fighters in Barangay-Namal. So more than 300 residents with children had to flee to evacuation centers on the gunfire. So that's all. Thank you. Have you published your PhD? No, I haven't. Unfortunately, it had to be written in Russian. So I had to translate it first. If I send you my email, will you send me a PDF? I can read Russian. All right, sure, sure. I was wondering how the soloist passed the knowledge to the next soloist, the next generation. Okay, well, as far as I know, they are an aspiring hood-hood solo singer. Well, first they become a chorister. First they just listen to the performances, then later, when they're feeling that they are capable of supporting the line, they can join as a chorister. And as time passes, I think they just master the whole tradition. Although it's actually a long process because most lead singers are women, around 50, 60, and years old and older. So it takes decades for people to master it. But of course, nowadays it's, I don't think it's going to survive within the following 20, 30 years. Yeah? Yeah, they've been saying that about Sagata rituals since 45. So long as it's there, it's always got a chance. Every generation declares this is the last one. It's been now getting on to a century. But I was going to ask how, I know very much that the Tuali speakers see themselves as a kind of aristocracy within the Ifugal. And that the Kalanguya are, they've been often have long time denied the existence of Kalanguya and are seen as sort of culturally lesser. So how does the Tuali respond to the idea that there's a Kalanguya-speaking group, Delta, who sing a hoodwit? The thing is actually, from my own experience, most Tuali speakers don't even recognize that there are several different groups within the Kalanguya speakers because they refer to speakers of all Southern Cordillian languages or Isolans or dialects, whatever you call them, as Kalanguya. But so mostly, or there is also a term, Hanglulu, applied to residents of Asipulu. So most Tuali speakers that I know of don't even know about the existence of Yetuka and Kalei as opposed to Kalanguya. And well, I'm not sure how to answer your question directly, but the thing is probably I stayed more in Asipulu among the Yetuka speakers and what I can say is that the Yetuka singers consider themselves as the original ones when it comes to hoodwit. And they think that sometimes they express the idea that everybody else copied it from them. I was just wondering, because there's this conflict about the hoodwit that regardless of the ethnolinguistic group, that when they performed the hoodwit, not ordinary singers could do it. Are you aware of that? What do you mean by ordinary singers? My point is, I mean, normally the hoodwit singers are women with no husband or spinster, because they believe that when they might invoke the spirit of Buka, it is a very tragic story about Buka, that they might get the negative spirit that if you are married, your husband would die. Well, among the hoodwit lead singers that I knew, there were elderly women who were widows, there were women with husbands, there were homosexual males, there were males with wives. So it's predominantly still more often it's elderly women, but any kind of... Normally before the practice of hoodwit, as far as the information that I... Sorry, I'm not non-academic or non-things about it, but living in the area, asipulu, I've been in asipulu for quite some time in 97, and actually your photo of Pimig Pao, I have a photo of her with him in 97. So, well, it's a possibility definitely, but the thing is what kind of data do we have to support it? So I can't comment on this, because I don't have any data. That's according to Manuel Tulao, who's a Ford grantee. Oh, yeah, I know him. How much time did you spend in your fieldwork, and did you refer to Nicole Revelle? Or is it something you did after or before your fieldwork? I spent around nine months altogether in Ifugao in several trips, between 2015 and 2016, no, 2014 and 2016. So as for Nicole Revelle, well, sorry, what was your question about Nicole Revelle? Did you refer to Nicole Revelle in Atinaio first before you went, or after? After. Well, I mean, I was familiar with some of her works before that, but when I started my PhD, I started to look into it in more detail. Do singers understand the words they're saying? The lead singers and choristers, as far as I understand, normally do, but it's not supposed to be understood by other people, because it's sacred tradition, and it's supposed to be the language of the gods. So it's partially archaic. So there are many words which used to be used in everyday language, but are not used anymore, and partially it's sacred language, so there are some words which have never been used in the everyday language, and there are some grammar changes as well, if you compare it to the way they speak daily. But as for the lead singers, I think they do understand.