place.
She set herself to her breakfast and another day.
Villagers were stirring. Someone was hawking up phlegm in the next hut. Children were calling like small birds. An old woman was scolding someone in the rapid syllables of the language of the Higuanon tribe. The thud of a metal blade sinking into a piece of wood set a rhythm to the morning as fuel was chopped to feed the fires.
Morning with the Higuanon, a Philippine hill tribe , she thought, creating a mental caption for the sights and sounds around her. She wondered how the process of writing up her notes would leach the immediacy of experience from her description. The smell of morning fires, the cool air of the hills on your skin as you set out with the women to the small clearings known as kaingin . It was here that the Higuanon hacked out a spot on the hillside to grow their crops: corn, dry rice, water grass, sayote, and white beans.
They were a small people, much like the Japanese, light-footed on the narrow mountain trails. But, despite all her preparatory studies, she had not really been prepared for the plunge into their world. They were a people who had fled to the mountains generations ago to carve a primitive living out of the hillsides, steep and covered with vegetation that sprang from the rich dark soil of old volcanoes. On an island of increasingly militant Muslims and evangelizing Christians, they held to the old beliefs of animism. To the Higuanon, the world was alive with spirits, powers for good or evil. The inexplicable, even the inevitable arrival of sickness and death, were the work of unseen forces.
Hatsue had talked of these things with the villagers, curious and yet skeptical. She wasn’t supposed to judge these people, but she couldn’t hide her disbelief. They, in turn, had laughed at her. She came from the world of cars and radios and other wonders. How could she be so ignorant of the basic things in life? The world was filled with spirits. Of this there was no doubt. When she had looked at them in disbelief as they told her tales in the night, the patient datu , the headman of the village, had gently taken her by the hand and led her out of the hut into the absolute darkness of a mountain night.
The villagers rarely left their huts after nightfall. It was pitch dark, and her eyes were still dazzled by the firelight in the hut. Hatsue could feel the hard, dry skin of the old man’s hand as he led her into the village center. The datu grasped her by her shoulders and turned her to face off across the valley. In the distance, cherry red embers glowed on a remote elevation. It was Mount Kamatayan, the center of the Higuanon universe. There, the old man explained in the bubbly language of his tribe, the dead traveled to be judged at the end of their lives. By night, their campfires were visible. Even during the day, the smoke of their fires vented from the mountainside.
The mountain was called Balatukan on her official maps. She knew that the fires and smoke were from the venting of volcanic action. But here, in the close darkness, with the jungle breathing on her, the surety of science and cartography seemed distant and unpersuasive. The world was alive, the old one told her.
Hatsue nodded. Later, she noted the conversation in her journal. But she did not write a word about the feeling of unease the conversation had created. In the darkness, the jungle pressed in on her, speaking in the visceral language of the hills.
After breakfast, she joined the women and children as they wound their way along the grassy trail that led to the fields. Tiger grass , she noted almost automatically, vaguely pleased at her growing knowledge. That morning the villagers were gay as birds, the turbaned women balancing rattan baskets on their heads, the children darting along the trail, alive to the slightest diversion. On their flanks, off among the trees, there were benevolent shadows. The alimaong , the tribal guards, were with them.
The Higuanon
She set herself to her breakfast and another day.
Villagers were stirring. Someone was hawking up phlegm in the next hut. Children were calling like small birds. An old woman was scolding someone in the rapid syllables of the language of the Higuanon tribe. The thud of a metal blade sinking into a piece of wood set a rhythm to the morning as fuel was chopped to feed the fires.
Morning with the Higuanon, a Philippine hill tribe , she thought, creating a mental caption for the sights and sounds around her. She wondered how the process of writing up her notes would leach the immediacy of experience from her description. The smell of morning fires, the cool air of the hills on your skin as you set out with the women to the small clearings known as kaingin . It was here that the Higuanon hacked out a spot on the hillside to grow their crops: corn, dry rice, water grass, sayote, and white beans.
They were a small people, much like the Japanese, light-footed on the narrow mountain trails. But, despite all her preparatory studies, she had not really been prepared for the plunge into their world. They were a people who had fled to the mountains generations ago to carve a primitive living out of the hillsides, steep and covered with vegetation that sprang from the rich dark soil of old volcanoes. On an island of increasingly militant Muslims and evangelizing Christians, they held to the old beliefs of animism. To the Higuanon, the world was alive with spirits, powers for good or evil. The inexplicable, even the inevitable arrival of sickness and death, were the work of unseen forces.
Hatsue had talked of these things with the villagers, curious and yet skeptical. She wasn’t supposed to judge these people, but she couldn’t hide her disbelief. They, in turn, had laughed at her. She came from the world of cars and radios and other wonders. How could she be so ignorant of the basic things in life? The world was filled with spirits. Of this there was no doubt. When she had looked at them in disbelief as they told her tales in the night, the patient datu , the headman of the village, had gently taken her by the hand and led her out of the hut into the absolute darkness of a mountain night.
The villagers rarely left their huts after nightfall. It was pitch dark, and her eyes were still dazzled by the firelight in the hut. Hatsue could feel the hard, dry skin of the old man’s hand as he led her into the village center. The datu grasped her by her shoulders and turned her to face off across the valley. In the distance, cherry red embers glowed on a remote elevation. It was Mount Kamatayan, the center of the Higuanon universe. There, the old man explained in the bubbly language of his tribe, the dead traveled to be judged at the end of their lives. By night, their campfires were visible. Even during the day, the smoke of their fires vented from the mountainside.
The mountain was called Balatukan on her official maps. She knew that the fires and smoke were from the venting of volcanic action. But here, in the close darkness, with the jungle breathing on her, the surety of science and cartography seemed distant and unpersuasive. The world was alive, the old one told her.
Hatsue nodded. Later, she noted the conversation in her journal. But she did not write a word about the feeling of unease the conversation had created. In the darkness, the jungle pressed in on her, speaking in the visceral language of the hills.
After breakfast, she joined the women and children as they wound their way along the grassy trail that led to the fields. Tiger grass , she noted almost automatically, vaguely pleased at her growing knowledge. That morning the villagers were gay as birds, the turbaned women balancing rattan baskets on their heads, the children darting along the trail, alive to the slightest diversion. On their flanks, off among the trees, there were benevolent shadows. The alimaong , the tribal guards, were with them.
The Higuanon
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