Show and tell: the pitfall of translating proverbs and other monkey business

(c) Caricature 2015 N. Sharief

There was once a time in Ranaū-Irnaūn society when proverbs were so revered, they almost had the force of law. Really. I'm not pulling your leg. Uttering choice proverbs is akin to quoting an article in the Civil Code. This was way before Islam got buffeted into our shores.

When Islam came, the ancient proverbs took backseat and lost their enforceability, yet they're still quoted as a fountain of pithy wisdom, clear thinking, and elegant language. And where a proverb doesn't run roughshod with the imported religion, it is coopted.

Today, however, we often quote these ancient pronouncements like we're making an apology. "Katharo ō mga lokěs." Folk-saying, we'd as quip the excuse. They're no longer entwined with our daily lives as they used to. As a cultural entity, we're losing out fast on the internet. Everything is being swept under us. And to sprinkle salt to injury, we—our very selves—are just too happy to jettison them as if we are relieving ourselves of a burden. You don't hear the old saw anymore. Seldom you'll hear them even from our senior citizens—the supposed repository of our literature.

In weddings and banquets, to give our otherwise modern weddings a flavor of the old, someone is often hired to do a discourse in the ancient language. And when he does, as if he is talking to an audience of newly landed Martians. The audience could not decipher a word he is saying, although you would often see them nod every now and then for form's sake. He could be selling everybody wholesale to the highest bidder and no one is the wiser.

What hypocrisy.

Take the following seemingly innocuous folk saying:

So sarog na matanog a di so kimbaaněn on.

We found this invariably translated  into the English proverb:

Action speaks louder than words.

The conversion is automatic, like it can't be helped. Like converting pesos into dollars at the current prevailing rate. Very careless, because something got pilfered. If I have a peso every time someone translates it this way, I'd be an Andrew Tan. I think the bandwagon is the lazy way out. I know because I'd been a victim of my own ineptitude too. This seems alright until you gave the proverb its proper 3D rendering:

Action is louder than (just) sneezing it.

Now, you are then slowly getting aware that there is a nuance meant in the proverb a tad different from its supposed English equivalent. The Ranaū-Iranūn refrained from using the word "speak" or "talking about it" because it would sound pedestrian and lose impact. "Coughing" about something is what one does when one is shy or inarticulate about what one needs to express. "Sneezing" it  gives it a sense of urgency but it falls short just the same.

The English proverb is broader, if bland, in scope and emphasizes more the clarifying of intention or purpose, while its Ranaū-Iranūn counterpart is about carrying out one's  desire or intention. Given its set of idioms, every culture has its own ingenious way. In the English,  the action could cancel out what is professed if they run against each other because action overrides what is said. The proverb, in fact,  is used as a Maxim of Law that one's action is presumed to be one's intention unless proven to the contrary in court. 

On the other hand, in the Ranaū-Irnaūn, the proverb's mission is to admonish the person being addressed to act on what he wants to accomplish and not just prattle about it like old women gossiping at the well. The gist of it is that munching words accomplishes pretty little, while  grunt work gets the job done. If you got a complaint, it might not be enough to just write letters to Malacañan and go beat about the bush.

Now you know what we mean (and I'm not saying it)…A-a-a-chu!

Abdul Mari Asia Imao: Moro National Artist

Original photo by the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Sepia and background depth added by N. Sharief (c) 2015

(These past few months, I had busied myself tracking some lost, obscure articles and a few desperate fictions I'd written locally some eight to twelve years back. I'm posting the following feature on our only National Artist Abdul Mari Imao because it's relevant to this blog. It was first published in the Manila Times in 2007, but I found it (to my delight) re-posted on the internet by the Zamboanga Journal. I had the rare opportunity to interview Imao when he could still walk without using a crutch. His son, Juan Sajid, had told me that, to date, he still felt that the following piece is the most intimate, if concise, portrayal of his dad. When most of our cultural traits are dying without getting noticed—never mind being mourned—the late Abdul Mari Imao (1936-2014) had been pushing the limit of our arts and constantly experimenting with and giving them a new lease of life.)

There is no escaping destiny. “The carp and the pot will eventually cross path” as one Iranun proverb puts it. Yet the self-discovery of Abdul Mari, famed Moro National Artist, did not take a circuitous route. From the day he was born on January 14, 1936 on the seaside of Tulay in the island of Pata, Jolo, where his clan had lived as fisher folks for centuries, nature had endowed the future Filipino sculpture with a keen eye for details.

Abdul Mari was nine years old when he realized he was to be an artist without having any word for it yet. World War II was raging then but on this pendant of an island, everything—sights, sounds and smell—was magnified many times over to accommodate the senses of the lanky sun-burned boy.

He could not pass by anything without having to muse on it. Abdul Mari found that many of nature’s beauty are fleeting. There must be some capsules in which to preserve this feeling. “Once, I caught a fish I was so fascinated about—its shape, scales, pigment and its glossy snout. I brought it home but as soon as the aroma of cooking drifting from the kitchen skewered my nostrils, fat tears ran down my cheek. I couldn’t bring myself to eat it, and Mother had to comfort me all night long.”

Abdul Mari’s first attempt at serious work was etching trophies for the swimmers in Sulu with the shape of a swimmer atop a pedestal (Jolo swimmers were the best bet the country had for the Olympics at the time). His folks admired his talent but marooned on this small island, his future seemed bleak.

Deus ex machina

It was in 1956 when he finished high school that the LST, a floating exhibit of the Philippine Navy called on anchor. The enthusiasm of the lad on seeing the works of the likes of Fernando Amorsolo, Botong Francisco and Vicente Manansala did not escape the notice of one Tomas Bernardo, in-charge of the exhibit. He asked Abdul Mari if he does painting, and the boy was only too eager to show him his works.

When Bernardo took Abdul Mari to Manila, Abdul Mari made his first move by writing to President Ramon Magsaysay to seek a study grant. With the help of Jose Ma. Ansaldo, aide to the President, Abdul Mari entered college at the University of the Philippines as a pensionado of the Commission on National Integration.

He was popular in campus for he invariably won competitions in painting. Some of his prize-winning works as a student are now in private collections. Some found its way into the National Museum and at the Zobel collection of the Ateneo Museum.

His style was still evolving and he was fortunate to meet professors Guillermo Tolentino, Napoleon Abueva, Anastacio Caedo and Ambrosio Morales who guided him and encouraged him to take up sculpture. Tolentino (who did the Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan City) confirmed to Abdul Mari he was bound to do sculptures.

So Abdul Mari took the decision and in 1959 he graduated with a degree in Bachelor of Fine Arts, Major in Sculpture. Looking back, Abdul Mari said everything had build up to his becoming a sculptor. In his native home, there were just too many bolos, knives and chisels lying around their dockyards to tempt him.

Abdul Mari came from a long line of generations of boat makers called Tokang that dates back to the pre-colonial era. His ancestors supplied the Moro warriors their sturdy and swift prahus and joanggas for raiding forts and villages of the north in the continuing war with the Spaniards. It was only in the last quarter of the 19th century when the Spanish got faster steamboats from Hong Kong that martial boat building waned among the Moro.

Kodachrome America

Abdul Mari’s zest to expand his horizon knew no bounds. Right after graduating he qualified for the top 20 slots of the Smith-Mundt and Fulbright Scholarship.

So in 1960 Abdul Mari went to the University of Kansas in Rhode Island School of Design where in the following year he finished his M.A. in Sculpture, major in Metal Brass Casting. While in the US, in 1962, Abdul Mari won yet another scholarship at the Rhode Island School of Design where he spent a year taking up Creative Sculptor in Ceramic Technology.

To extend his skills, Abdul Mari gained a Columbia Faculty Scholarship in the tuition of Dr. Lloyd Burden, who developed the first color processing for Kodak, he studied photography and documentary motion picture. While in Columbia he also met the physicist Edwin Herbert Land, who in 1947 invented the Polaroid camera.

Edwin H. Land testing his invention. Photo by Polaroid Corporation

Why film making?

Abdul Mari threw back his head and laughed.“You see, everything goes back to my childhood. In my hometown the only movie house was owned by a kin, so I was allowed to peddle sodas, peanuts and whatnots inside the theater. It must have been the countless hours of watching movies in-between peddling when I don’t stare at the star-holes of the dilapidated movie house that developed my sense for motion pictures.”

What did he do in the States when he was not studying? Abdul Mari gave a wink.“I’m a grapho-analyst and I moonlighted as an amateur palmist. I earned some $1800 doing palmistry. I didn’t leave America though without making my mark on this great country. One of my sculptures, ‘South Pacific Trail’ made in walnut wood in concave and convex dugouts was exhibited at the museums.”

To round up his stint abroad, in 1963 the New York Museum of Modern Art granted him a $12,000 travel grant to Europe that allowed him a leisure tour of the museums of the Old World. He would have liked to make a side trip to Islamic countries to examine the Topkapi mosques and the priceless Arabic calligraphies in their museums but his fund was exhausted and he had to travel back to the Philippines.

Full circle

Abdul Mari’s travel opened his eyes to the world, but it also made him realize how woefully ignorant he was on his native culture. As soon as he came back in 1963, Abdul Mari wasted no time and immersed himself in Moro culture and arts. Abdul Mari traveled to Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, and other enclaves like the T’bolis to observe first-hand how things were.

He conferred with local folks and taught the artisans the modern brass casting technique.Butsoon Imao had to earn a living so he went into full time sculpture. In mid-1960s he was already acknowledged as one of the forerunners in sculpting in the Philippines. Even then, Abdul Mari found time for research. In 1965 he did ‘A Documentary Photographic Survey of the Sulu People’ for Ateneo. The following year he did a “Study on Sulu Art” under a CNI Research Grant. Later, he did “A Study of Sulu Tribes” with the UE Research Center for Sciences, Humanities and Cultural Research.

Gift of recognition

The year 1968 was a turning point when Abdul Mari became one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines. “But the best trophy I got that year is a gift from Allah in the shape of my first born, Abdul Mari Imao, Jr. As a matter of edict from my Arab forefathers, everyone in the clan has to be named Abdul. Although I have male children, four in all, I was later to break tradition and had to find other names for the rest of the kids.”

Abdul Mari is married to art dealer Grace de Leon of Santo Tomas, Pampanga. In June, 2005, Malacañang awarded the Presidential Medal of Merit to Dr. Abdul Mari Asia Imao, Sr. for his achievements in the field of Visual Arts. He is one of only two Philippine sculptors who had received the prestigious award, the other being his mentor National Artist Napoleon Abueva.

Sculpture is demanding as an art field which makes painting seem like a dainty work. Compare the hands of a painter and a sculptor and you will know why. A sculpture has no room for errors.

Unlike 3D modeling in computers where you can always resort to a backup, you cannot undo a mistake in the cruel world of sculpting. The imperfection would always show in the finished work. Yet at the ripe age of 70, Abdul Mari is very much active. In 2004, he did the bust on Nicolasa P. Dayrit, a Filipina beauty who nursed the revolutionaries during the Filipino-American war some sixty-one years ago.

Classic answer

Abdul Mari Imao is a breath of fresh air in a world shimmering with mistrust and suspicions. It took three nominations for him to gain the coveted National Artist Award but he was not the least bit upset.

“It only validates our fortitude as a people, the best thesis yet that the Moro population in this country can knock in more to our gross domestic product given equal opportunity.” When Abdul Mari was asked which among his works he considers his best, his riposte was classic enough: it has yet to be done in the future.

At 70 Abdul Mari is looking forward to even finer achievements. His fingers may not be carved for the tactile keypad of a T92 Nokia, but they sure are the fine hands that molded the contour of priceless works that hark back to the days of his Tokang ancestors.

The weight of rain and gold

(c) 2015 N. Sharief

Minsan oray bolawan ī oran sa di ta ingěd, na mapagiroy taděman so tarintik sa ňgganatan.

We seldom hear high-octane proverbs being uttered nowadays. Mostly, to describe our mood or feeling for the day, we shop for some quips from some websites, grab one that titillates us and post it to our timeline to be shared to our friends and be done with it. That's okay in this assembly-line age. We can be forgiven by our friends. They understood.

Ah, but I dig the home-brewed concoctions of the old folks, mostly. They have a telltale grit and a bite that dwell in our thoughts long after they'd been said. "The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs," so said Francis Bacon (1561-1626). And the Ranaū-Iranūn is no exception. They're seldom heard as a drop of rain in the desert. But, oh, when you hear them, it's an oasis you can shelter in all your life.

It was the last week of the hajj season in 1996 (as it is now in 2015). After the farewell circuit of the Ka'aba, the hajjis were thinning out in the radius of Makkah as they started to trickle down to Jeddah on their way home. Soon, after the last prayer rug had been folded, the yards around the Grand Mosque are picked clean that you can literally eat off the white tiles. And the place slowly being reclaimed by the pigeons, the air filling with their chatter.

I found myself walking to the Souk al Dahab just near across the headquarters of the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah. I was accompanying an octogenarian hajj from Piagapo whom I had earlier promised to take to the gold market. She had wanted to buy a few token bracelets for her granddaughter.  Our progress from the car park was tortuously slow because old as she was, she had also sprained her right ankle during the tawaf. Earlier during our drive to the souk, she had confided to me that she was anxious the other hajjis might have bought off all the gold there was in the market. I laughed and assured her they have literally mountains of gold to spare for her.

It was evening when we reached the place and she stopped to gaze at the gold souk. You have to be overawed by the yellow-orange reflection that the display windows cast into the pitch black night. The souk, a good two hectares of it, blazed like the womb of a Caribbean pirate treasure cave.

"Is this real?" she said.

I nodded with a smile.

"This place must be ensorcelled," she said.

And I laughed.

"So this is why you people stay here for so long without ever going back to the Philippines, eh?"

"We earn our modest living here," I said, "and we can send our children to school."

We went  inside one of the shops, and it didn't take her long to choose six slim bracelets, given her budget. "My Dayangimpa will love these," she said as she put them on.

On our drive back to her hotel, she told me something about her granddaughter. Dayangimpa was slated to wed a civil engineer who worked at the Dar al Handasah, one of the big construction consultants in Saudi. This was in 1984 when mail-order brides in Lanao was at its height, and many would-be grooms at home got broken-hearted as their sweethearts get ferreted away to a faraway never-land called the Middle East. But the wedding didn't happen as a feud erupted between the two clans. Now twelve years later, Dayangimpa was matched to another man in the opposing clan as part of a package to mend the feud between them. And she could not afford to be choosy as she was no longer as young as she used to be.

At the lobby of her hotel, the old woman thanked me profusely for having volunteered to help her. Now, is there anything I want from her? she asked. Do I need a bride mailed to me? I had to laugh again and said, Nothing. I just want to help hajjis out whenever it’s the season.

"Well then," she said, "let me leave you a proverb to ponder on while you are here in Saudi."

Minsan oray bolawan ī oran sa di ta ingěd, na mapagiroy taděman so tarintik sa ňgganatan.

"Howbeit it showers gold in distant lands, still one yearns for the drizzle in one's sod."

This proverb is a classic one. The handy equivalent, obviously, is "there is no place like home." It sums up everything, but it's too pedestrian a placeholder as it robs the proverb of its meat.

Old Ranaū-Iranūn sayings are chock-full of contrasts, parallelism, and other devices. The keyword here is oran (rain) and tarintik (drizzle) and iroy ( yearn, pine, or crave).

The strategic device used by the ancients in this proverb was opposing hypernyms against hyponyms. So in our rendition, to uphold the contrast, we oppose "shower" against a mere "drizzle." To enhance it further, we oppose ingěd (country, again a generic hypernym like rain) to "sod" (ganatan is a place a person specifically hails from). Sod is a surface layer of ground containing a matte of grass and grass roots. It also means turf. The downbeat, we hope, reinforces the yearning theme of the proverb. Ditto, we avoided the negative "di ta ingěd" (not one's country) in favor of "distant lands" for musicality (a lá Elton John in the song Skyline Pigeon).

The last hurdle in the proverb is approximating the equivalent of Minsan oray. This is a tough nut. We're all too aware of the pitfall of trying to translate idioms and proverbs directly. I shopped around, couldn't quite locate the word I want, but I settled for "Howbeit." The word adds a dollop of antiquity into the proverb without hurting its integrity.

Finally, we put together the structure, and ripple the keys if it sounds musical to us. If it sounds strained in the host language, and not fluid and natural, then the translation failed. Let's see:

"Howbeit it showers gold in distant lands, still one yearns for the drizzle in one's sod."

The proverb is about pining for home when one is so far away. The employment of the word rain and gold provides the engine that drives the narrative home. Nothing is as enticing as gold, yet the pitter-patter of the rain above you on the roof especially if it's a nipa house makes you sad. In Lanao, you watch by the window wrapped inside your malong up to the neck as it's cold some 3,000 feet or so above sea level. In the Middle East, it's not the rain-patter you're hearing but the steady humming of the air conditioner which drives you insane. OFW workers in the 80s summed it up tersely on their shirts:  "$ versus homesickness."

Edris Tamano, do you hear the rain in Basak calling you, or is it just the refrigerator in your flat kicking into gear for the umpteenth time?

Hanging by the thread

Somebody stop me. I'm in combat mode. The trigger safety lock is off. From single shot, I've slid the lever all the way up to full auto to make sure I don't miss anything. This is going to be down quick and dirty. You can count on it.

I'm not talking about the AK-47 or M-16 rifle variety. I'm talking about my old, sturdy DSLR Nikon, now cradled heavy in my weary arms as I survey the barren landscape. I've been hobbling about since morning looking for a worthy target, anything eye-candy, but I have yet to pull the trigger.

I stopped on the road to check on m SD card. I still have to use one of the available 2,000 shots. Can’t see anything much. I’ve been blinded by a mile-long tarpaulin. Congratulations to this and that. Lo and behold the enthronement of Sultan sa Agama Niyog! And, thanks to Photoshop, the head of his royal highness can be now be grafted onto a ceremonial suit without him wriggling out of his jeans and shirts. No sweat. And what about Baì Macalbi? With her mug-beer lips, no amount of downpour could smudge away the thick wad of lipstick on it.

The sun is pulling up, I'm beginning to worry the best time of day for shooting is passing me by. Feeling the tactile contour of the camera, my finger is etching to depress the shutter, if only to break the ice, but I'm in no luck.

I was up early dawn that day when a call from a dozen minarets bounced in all directions, echoing on the rusting rafters of the houses in Marawi, hastening everyone in singsong voice that "prayer is oft better than sleep." This day is going to be a blast, I told myself, as I rushed out of bed, my feet groping for slippers on the cold floor. It's been years since I've come home, and I was excited as I was certain there were going to be changes this time, if only for change's sake.

The streak of red on the horizon was erasing fast when I brought a 3-in-1 cup of coffee to the balcony to observe the main thoroughfare of the town while I drink and plan my day. Then it had gone 7:30 already and I only saw vehicles and people milling around without any particular intention to commit themselves to real work. I grabbed my camera and hopped down to street level to have an up-close look on things myself.

It was 8:00 and the pointless zombie milling around continued. If anything, it turned even more chaotic and acute as children and students joined the throng headed for school and madaris. By 9:00 the line leading to the entrance of the yet to be opened Land Bank had grown a long tail. It seemed to me this is the only semblance of commerce in town. People were lining up to cash on their salaries, pensions, remittance claims, and anything but business transaction.

A group of crows waddling down the streets caught my eye and I thought they might be worth a click or two. I raised my camera and waited for them to come my way. But they were only a herd of women clad in black, looking at the world through the slits of their hijab like submarine sailors who haven't seen land in months, peering at me through a periscope.

I kept my peace and lowered my Nikon down at elbow level lest there would be misunderstanding. Although I was rooted in Marawi, I have to accommodate the declaration that this was an Islamic city after all, whatever that means. And here the rules are unwritten. We make it up as we go along, and play by the feel mostly. The hijab thing started somewhere in the late 80s during the oil boom in the Middle East. One of my sisters couldn't be talked out of it and when she eats she secretes the loaded spoon through the hem of her hijab and I watch it disappear only to come out magically empty. It reminded me of a horror story where to feed the monster, the keeper slides the bowl of food through a trap door. At least it assures me that my sister still got a mouth to feed. It’s now close to eight years since I last saw the face of a wide-eyed pretty girl who wanted to become a nurse and work in California. I thought brain-washing was a communist-patented item.

Sweating a bit, I went inside a coffee shop swirling in smoke. Men in shirts with crocodile epaulet on the breast were hunched together, holding congress in earnest. They were plotting their next move in the coming election which, a year from now, is around the corner just the same. After all, September in the country feels almost like Christmas. In a far corner, a mayor in one of the towns that dot around the lake was holding office. He was busy signing a thick wad of documents while his driver was standing by to ferret the papers to Cagayan de Oro airport for Manila. Another group, a bit laid back in their Pakistani shirts and shalwal, were having a seesaw debate over a certain passage in the hadith. The lips of a man with unkempt beard and skullcap was pulled back tight while he vigorously brushed his stained teeth with sewak even as he listened. On an isolated table, I overheard as someone warn his companion across that big trouble is brewing in their clan. Their nephew, no more than fourteen, had avenged the death of his father, and they needed to stockpile on ammunition.

A migraine was building up in my head so I paid for a bottled water on the counter and didn't stay.

I walked the way headed to Marinaut. Lots and lots of changes indeed. Badly built buildings trying to mimic a modern one.  An ambitious construction stopped with just the lower half finished, the upper floors no more than twisted strands of rebar trying to reach out to a roofless sky. I couldn't locate old markers and for the first time in my life I felt I was a stranger in my own hometown. Jose Rizal's monument was all cracks about to topple, inaccessible through the cyclone fences and gathering moss in oblivion.

At last I found something that delighted me thoroughly. Clusters of green-orange madang hanging by the sidewalk were on sale. I have a fondness for madang. I used to bring sack-full of them from Madalum when I was in grade school. In the drab surrounding, it was the only thing that cheered me at the moment. I took several shots that made my camera click happily like it was filling up on an empty stomach. The seller, an old woman, was frowning at me. She looked skeptical and puzzled as I kept clicking.

When I had a fill I brought my camera down, selected three madang and asked how much I had to pay for them.

The woman didn't answer but looked at me with the same puzzled look like she hadn't heard at all.

I said, "Yes?"

"Why do you have to shoot them?" she asked.

I had a feeling the woman might charge me some royalty for taking pictures of her merchandise. I answered in the most bland and sincere way. "Because they're beautiful, is what," I said.

The woman shrugged, smirked, and said, "You're in luck. 'Tis the season. The three will cost you a hundred pesos only." She bunched the three madang together and knotted a rope handle to carry them faster than my eye could follow.

I handed her the money and she handed me the madang.

The arms-length transaction consummated, I started to turn. Before I could pull away, she couldn't restrain herself. "You know," she said in an admonishing tone, "you shouldn't be wasting shots on trifles like a madang."

"Huh?"

"Because cameras are meant for shooting people only."

I was flabbergasted. The sheer eloquence of it. I didn't know how to respond. When you try to properly answer a dumb statement, you appear dumber yourself. Liberal Arts is the best education a young person can have. It makes you appreciate the world better. When I was shopping for a course to take after high school, I couldn't see anything in Liberal Arts. So I ended up taking Business Administration. Now I know.

The woman had taken to the mechanical side of life as many of our generation had done so. In Lanao, nobody will appreciate you for being an excellent pianist but they will on your owning a brand new SUV. The woman couldn't see how a camera might be used any other way except for taking picture to have a passport, family album or a portrait for the graduation of her nephew. If she sees me spending a good one hour angling for a close-up picture of a bumblebee in flight, she might take me for someone bound for the asylum.

The lack of appreciation in the humanities, the arts and culture of our ancestors turns us all into endangered species. Nobody reads the Darangan anymore, nobody composes bayok, the dances and poetry. Many of our food recipes were lost because nobody makes or experiments with them. We don't hear the boom of the lantacas and the drumming of the tabu if only for ceremonial purposes. Where is the lost art of the haughty sipa? What I see around is sheer disorientation. If you get inside a Maranao household you'll apt to see an Indian decoration on the wall, ceramic jars from Thailand, furniture from China, and you're likely to see a samurai sword instead of a kris or kampilan.

All these perspective are lost in us. The woman firmly and honestly believed in what she said and no amount of explaining would dissuade her otherwise. It was my turn to restrain myself. And I had to fight off the urge to respond. After all, I'm a Maranao myself like her, and so full of it. But if I made a repartee, no matter how I encapsulate it in a be-all and end all manner, she won't stop, and lash back with her own.

I had to go. I spent ten frames only, and there was still 1,990 shots more to go. I didn't say anything and left her hanging by the thread…

José Rizal and the Moro

If you're to do a Ranaū-Iranūn translation of the Noli Me Tángere, how would the title be?

In the late 80s in Jeddah, I had listened to one of Ahmed Deedat's lectures titled "Cruci-fiction." He said that when Mary Magdalene couldn't see through Jesus's disguise as a gardener, the latter saved her from the confusion and sang out her name: "Mary!" And "mad with happiness" (realizing her Master was still alive when everyone had given him up for dead) she "lunges forward to grab him," but Jesus stopped her on her tract: "Touch me not!" (John 20:17). Why Jesus would not let her to touch him is made plain by the second-half of the verse. "For I am not yet ascended unto my Father." Among the Jews, this is a working-man's idiom intoning: "Hey dude, I ain't dead yet!"

Deedat went on to add that touching him would be excruciatingly painful, given the "violent, physical and emotional ordeal" he had gone through. I venture to add that Jesus was in a state of ablution at the time Mary found him, so it would invalidate it if he was touched by one of the opposite sex (whom one is marriageable). So my take on the title is: "Di ako'ngka mbatalī."

(c) 2015 artwork N. Sharief

For its sheer title alone, the Noli spoke volumes. Anyone caught with a copy of it was persecuted. Rizal foresaw this, and goaded by Father Bardorf and Pastor Ullmer while he was finishing up the novel in Germany, he made some last-minute surgery of it to tone down what the priests thought were "outbursts."

BBL or no BBL, this is becoming an anomaly. Because the Moro in the South had been forcibly woven into the Philippines, so too we were compelled to swallow everything about our national heroes, hook, line and sinker (sans the bait!). Against our will—and our bitter opposition—our generation were made to ape everything and memorize dates that remotely relate to our existence, the most unpalatable of which is getting "discovered" by Magellan, which the innocently and happily naïve Yoyoy Villame keeps reminding us in his song that indeed it was on March 16, 1521. What is continually glossed over is that our Iranūn ancestors had centuries before been routinely riding the monsoon to Zaynun (Ceylon, now Sri Lanka) and even as far as Madagascar (where the famous Ilang-ilang is mass produced till now as a perfume for export).

We can't even say that Rizal inspired us to "revolt" against the Spaniards, because we've been at it from day one. And we were not even revolting; we're just keeping the enemy from encroaching into our turf.

So what has Rizal said about us? (Go ahead, google all you can 'till you drop, and then claw your way back here when you have your yield). Practically, nada. If there had been, people like Ambeth Ocampo and other self-professed experts on Rizal would have jumped at the opportunity and deluge us with their trumpeting free-flowing narratives to show us and say: "Gee, Rizal cares for you people too!"

This is sad. the most you would find is a crumb of a poem entitled The Combat: Urbiztondo, Terror of Jolo. This obscure piece didn't figure among Rizal's famous works because there's nothing redeeming about it. Judged today, it is even counterproductive in the way of nationalism and self-healing (not to mention that it employed tired adjectives, etc.). The poem celebrated the Basque Antonio de Urbiztondo, the Governor-General, heaping on him the title "Lion of Castille" in mythical proportions. And in the fading stanza, poor "Sultan Muhammad" of Jolo had to flee for his life with his tail between his legs.

But let's not censure the good doctor harshly. The piece was written by Rizal when he was an impressionable kid attending the Jesuit-run Ateneo Municipal de Manila. He was just too eager to please his sponsors. A vast tract of knowledge was opening up before him and he was insatiable. That he was able to put up his novels many years later only spoke of the nature of writing. Writing comes with experience, what you have gone through life. That's the reason why that while we could talk about prodigy pianists and chessplayers and the like, we could not talk about prodigy novelists. In the case of Rizal, it's the accumulated frustration and the matured outlook that had allowed the dam to finally burst which culminated into his twin novels, the Noli and the Fili.

Had his outlook on the Moro matured then along with what he had gone through? Judging by the two novels, it seemed that with Rizal the Moro had occupied pretty little space in his thoughts. Again, nada.

If it is any consolation, the version of the Noli Me Tángere released to the public was actually a watered-down version of what he originally wrote. In Germany, the last leg in the writing of his novel, he was cautioned to tone down the content of his novel, so he did so. We could only speculate what items he had left out. Even then, Rizal suffered a lot more than the characters of his novel, which eventually cost him his life.

But let's not dismiss Rizal outright. For one, let's remind ourselves that Rizal went out on a limb to learn classical Arabic and that speaks volumes. Millions of Filipinos in our age had gone to the Middle East (thanks to the oil boom), but how many of them have a good command of fuṣḥá, let alone write?

Between 1889 and 1890, excited by the opening of the Suez Canal, Rizal spent a good deal of what precious funds he had to travel to Europe in his quest to research the pre-colonial setup of the Philippines. He suspected that his country used to be economically prosperous and politically sound to deal with dignity and aplomb with the neighboring countries. He believed that the native population held arts and literature worthy of their generation. He intuited that the Spaniards were playing fast and loose with the minds of the natives. That's why he was seeking a more independent source. Alas, given the state of the world at the time, the best the good doctor could muster, holed up in London's British Museum, was Antonio Morga's work.

Rizal was a fair man. If he were alive today, he would oppose the wrongdoings being done to the Moro.  One blogger, De AnDA (not a Moro), for instance, was so unusually ruffled to remind everyone that the entire province of Rizal was once called the province of Morong:

"They renamed the province after Rizal (as if he needs more publicity). It baffles me why they changed the name? Morong refers to its former inhabitants, the Moros, said to have lived in the peninsula’s mountainous parts. Could this be the reason why? Were they (Americans and Filipino leaders in the early 1900′s) uncomfortable with such a name?"

Yes if Rizal were alive today, he wouldn't be too happy and oppose such a bill and restore the name.

So has that Moro been in Rizal's mind even in a peripheral sense? Ah, in a last ditch to save his skin, he knew that the Moro could be counted upon in dire need, and in a thinly veiled hint, he alluded to it in his defense addressed to the Spanish Court Martial on the charges of sedition foisted on him: "…If I still had had intentions of political activity, I might have gotten away even in the vintas of the Moros whom I knew in the settlements…"

Clutching at straws?

I'm not giving up. If you dear readers hang on, I might be tempted to divulge early some original research I've been saving for a book…

Of tin cans and areca nut sheaths

In the sixties, before the internet, before cable TV, the DXRM radio station in Marawi was the clearing house of social, cultural and political happenstance in Lanao. In addition, it also served as a communication hub for the towns surrounding the lake especially in emergencies. This was a one-way communication before the icom radio handsets came into vogue, and way, way long before the ubiquitous mobile phones. For a minimum one hundred pesos, you could rattle off a dire message to your kin in, say, lowland Basak in sixty-seconds flat.

A typical SOS goes:

Phangĕnin ko ko mga maka sosowit sa radyo san sa Lumbayanague kalaan non san sa Pantao, a kapĕdi pĕdi kano bo na paki tokawi nyo san nggagan ko mga lokĕs, pagari, wata i Lomna Batolakit a zizii sĕkanian sa deneral publik ospital na kabibitinan sa katya, sa oba kano di makaoma nggagaan ka paka papatayin…

"I'm pleading to whoever has his radio switched on there in Lumbayanague, especially Pantao, to please, please do inform right away the parents, siblings and children of Lomna Batolakit that he is confined right now in General Public Hospital and an IV bottle is hanging by his side. So don't fail to come right away because he is on the brink of death."

These are miscellaneous income for the station. But the hefty ones come from political campaigns which are booked for at least an hour duration, some even dragging on for half a day to the detriment of lovelorn youngsters who are waiting to hear their song dedications announced and hear the voice of Eddie Peregrina or Perry Como play on the radio. DXRM was then a battleground for many a political duels between the Liberal Party and the Nacionalistas back then. One memorable tussle that I remembered was the occasion when the late Omar Dianalan, then mayor of Marawi, resented the use of an old proverb by the late Senator Domocao Alonto that went:

Sa di masĕrĕn sĕrĕn na kitang a rĕk ian on.

He who is unassertive ends up with an empty tin can.

 

Dianalan did not relish the employment of the proverb because it seemed to him opportunistic and inequitable. He particularly singled out the use of kitang as exhibiting poor taste. In what context the late senator was alluding to was lost to me because I was too young to understand politics. I was attending elementary grade at the time.

But the proverb caught on instantly with the masses for its picturesque quality and the reverberation of the empty tin can being kicked across the streets of Banggolo had a retentive element in the brain like monkey on the back. To be exact, the ever inventive doyen of Maranao letters toyed with the old proverb and recycled it fresh for general consumption. 

The old one goes:

Sa di masĕrĕn sĕrĕn na kalokop a rek ian on.

He who is unassertive ends up with an empty wrapper.

Kalokop is the sheath attached to the leaf of the areca nut tree better known as betel nut. Before the Maranao started using canned goods (and later patronizing Macdonalds and Starbucks), they had been wrapping their delicacies and preserved sweets in kalokop for centuries. It is a sturdy substance with tensile strength yet light in weight.

We're not done yet.

The long form of the proverb is actually:

Sa di masĕrĕn sĕrĕn na baratamay lumna,

Na sa di matao mbabak na kalokop a rĕk ian on.

The senator loved his wordplay, and although he wanted to update the container to go with modern technology, he might had done well to retain the kambabak word. Kambabak might be loosely translated as leapfrogging but used in the proverb it also evokes a plethora of allusions: kowtowing, aggressiveness or being pushy, undermining and bypassing others by not toeing the line.

Thus:

He who can't leapfrog ends up with an empty tin can.

Now tell me, which one stays longest in your brain, the crackling crunch of wrappers or the pinging echo of tin cans being kicked along asphalt?

The most popular form of kambabak is the Moro you often see in Malacañan every day. You can't miss him. Down the hollowed hallways of the palace he waits patiently by the corridors, and whenever a manicured hand passes by, he ingratiatingly says a "Good Morning, sir," a "Good Afternoon, sir," and a "Good night, ma'am," while clutching a folder and a pen at the ready. Oh yes, the Moro eventually realized that the signing pen proves mightier than his kris. The next morning, you could see him again in the same demure stolid posture, so still, you could mistake him for an antique jar.

Waiting to inhale: the rattle-tattle of black teeth

Pĕphamagapas apas so papas
Ka thalakin kon ko banog
Na di on phaka apas
Ka apai i ba niyan bayog
Na da on kasakriti

Ranaū-Iranūn literature is littered with hoards of compositions that today defy translation into the host language. Like an exotic plant they seem to reject their new habitat. The peculiar elements of culture, customs and environment just would not transplant to a one-on-one correspondence with the target language. Be that as it may, we would not be denied our curiosity (and enjoyment) of them and we try it at our own peril.

The above stanza is an onomatopoeic locomotive that mimics the shortening of breath after, say, a five-mile jog. Many, many years ago, my aunt on hearing that I was a budding writer in English, challenged me to try my hand at translating this old saying which continued to befuddle others.

There are many Maranao sayings in my aunt’s repertoire that I loathe to translate, and this one certainly tops the list. But there she was—my domineering aunt—beaming at me smugly in a you-can't-do-it dare.

I vividly remembered she was having her afternoon fix of betel nut chew, red juice spittle drooling from her lips even while her long fingernails were dug into the slaked-lime compartment of her betel nut box, an heirloom made of bronze inlaid with pure silver in meandering okir she had inherited from her great, great grandmother. The legend in our clan said that it was from the same betel nut box that Baì Pindaw had served Balindong Bésar his good luck send-off betel nut chew before the young man left with his contingent to rendezvous with Sultan Qudrat in the campaign to retake Ramitan from the Spaniards.

The tiny chest had been buffed to a dull sheen through years of use. Otherwise it remained as it had always been before. The only new thing introduced to it was the yard long brass link chained to my aunt’s waist. Wherever she went, the box went with her. She had lately been wary. One of her drug-addict grandchildren had earlier attempted to steal it to auction on ebay. And she could not afford to lose her only link to the past. Sometimes I espied her deeply asleep in her chamber of our clan's long torogan, the chain from her waist extending to the betel nut box lying at her feet. With her snoring, and the gentle rise and fall of her bosom, she seemed like a bobbing yacht on anchor in the French Riviera.

I knew that she really meant me to do my worst, because from what I knew the fourth line ought to read "apai pĕn so sambĕr ian." But my aunt was a an incurable improviser, a top notch who in her salad days held her ground in a marathon banter with Romarĕk ā Tantaoun, Mamayug, Kakaī Panganonĕn and a host of other well-known bards in their heydays. Her supplied line made the stanza even more watertight by introducing another rhyme, i.e. banog to bayog.

So how would you render a saying where the onomatopoeia is deeply embedded within the thought substance and rhymes of the lines? It would be like breaking an encrypted code. It would be like gouging out the inlaid silver on my aunt’s betel nut box. To my despair, I wasn't able to offer any decent mumbling that satisfied the old saw.  All I can remember is, I was left with the desperate parts of a dismantled Kalashnikov, unable to put them back together in a way that made sense, let alone work.

My aunt took pity on me, and before dismissing me she gave it to me as an assignment with no time-lock. My reward: inheriting her betel-nut box. She knew I had always coveted her box, which had a wheeled cart that I used to play with even when I was a toddler.

Over the years, I had preoccupied myself with many things, as a young man eager to see the world. But I couldn't help revisiting the proverb time and again. Sometimes I would be tempted and try to put all the desperate parts back together of the stanza in a new combination or introduce or drop words and phrases hoping for everything to one day just magically fall into place. Wherever I would be, in the toilet or in a posh hotel lobby or inside the cramped confine of an economy seat on a redeye flight, it would steal into my brain unbidden but no matter what permutations I would engage in the words, I would be out of luck. And defeated, I would stow away the disarrayed words and phrases back again into the deep recesses of my brain to hibernate for years. In the 70s it became my Rubik's cube. In the 80s it became my programming nightmare, until I'd all forgotten about it.

I won't be able to remember it again until one day while I was casually checking my laptop of what's cooking on ebay, I stumbled on a Maranao betel nut box that looked like my aunt’s. Everything, from the dimension to the design, to the weight as given was exactly like the heirloom.

A mild panic seized me. I read the description, and it says it was taken by one of the American scouts of the 27th Infantry, who had retrieved it from the siege of fort Bacolod-Kalahui during the campaign of “Black Jack” John Pershing on April 6-8, 1903.  Because it was believed to have been taken from the cadaver of the Sultan of Bacolod himself, the piece’s asking price was rather hefty plus shipping and handling. It said it was first showcased at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. If the supplied history was true then I could relax. But sometimes an invented history is given to an antique relic to fetch the price higher.

I looked around me. I was at the lounge of Atlanta airport waiting for my flight back to JFK New York, where I would change flight to Italy and then Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to get back to the grind of my nine-to-five job. I may be in one of the most posh airports in the world, but I might as well have been stranded in an atoll in the Pacific, with just a lone shark circumambulating to keep me company. People around me were casually calm, and it nettled me. I fumbled for my phone and dialed Basak. I just hoped that the lake would bounce the signal well. I got a mildly choppy answer from one of my cousins.

I asked how aunt Damil was doing. She said, she was sorry nobody had ever remembered to tell me she had passed away. I asked when, and she said, some two years ago. I was halfway around the world, and I decided to go west via LA, Narita, Manila then CDO, and a five hour trek to the lowlands of Basak.

No, nobody ever remembered my aunt saying anything about me let alone about any sayings. Her corner of the old torogan was picked clean of everything she possessed. I shuffled to the far side of a wall and ran my fingers along the dusty shelves that once housed jars of karoménga and other exotic herb extracts yet to be assigned a nomenclature in botany. I walked around me like I was a newly hired interior decorator assessing what elements to place in a vacant house. I stopped and squinted up at the gables, hoping that mayhap, aunt Damil had stowed the box among the rafters, but I would just be rewarded by a pilfering of dust falling down my eyes.

I walked around, pacing some more and sniffed the mildew air. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I thought I was smelling the incense of borok, an old perfume concoction of the folks my aunt couldn't do without.

My eyes clouded with tear. Angry, I asked everyone where the betel-nut box was. Was I disinherited of it? I was told that aunt Damil had never tired of reminding everyone while she was alive that the box belonged to me and me only. Then barely a week after she had died, it was stolen. By whom, no one had any idea.

When the novelty of my arrival wore off on everyone, I was left all alone in the torogan. I was bitter that I hadn't seen my babo one last time before she died. They had offered the explanation that nobody liked to break me the news of the loss of the betel nut box. Quietly I slinked away from the house and visited her unmarked grave in the clan cemetery where everyone in our clan had a plot reserved for him.

It was late afternoon. August is a golden month in lowland Basak – sunflowers in full bloom by the unkempt roadside, purplish spray of butterflies whipped away by a buffalo’s tail from his sugary mud hide, air thick with the ticks of grasshoppers, lazy sun moving through a field in blotches of shadows and patches of umbrella leaves, along a grove of bamboos, susurrating of leaves agitating in the wind, in silver flow of a brook shy among the rocks. A scudding cloud pass in a gallery of ghostlike vintas and prahus  across the outlying mountains, now veiling, now unveiling, now coming down with the wrath of long-forgotten warriors to hug the outstretch of the plains of rice paddies still in their puberty, then ascending to the pillow of a blue sky and resting in gauzy stillness.

Whatever had momentarily lifted my heart was tugging at me now as a downdraft ruffled my hair as my aunt was wont to whenever I en-wrapped myself of her. I could now sniff at her camphor, beeswax, White Flower, Vicks Vapor Rub and the residue mildew of her malong. The stirring brushed the frangipanis in the graveyard, scraping dried leaves across the ground.

I sat on my hunches, closed my eyes, and recited words from the Quran I knew not the meaning of but had memorized by heart. I slaked the plant on her mound with rainwater issuing from the spout of a jug, and offered my piece:

Huffing and puffing, the swift is
trying to catch up with the hawk
But he is not up to the race
For even the backwash of the hawk's flight
He could not keep pace

My rendition, I know, is still a work-in-progress. But this will do for now. Rather than an example of our shortcomings, it is an exhibit of our eagerness. We are the gigahertz generation, and however swift we are, we will never be able to match the deeds of our illustrious ancestors.

A thousand build-up, one single slip and a POV

Life has never been fair lately, if you ask me. I'm not complaining, so let's dish out our proverb:

So sanggibo ā ranon na piatai ā satiman ā tadĕman.

When I first heard this, I assumed it’s a walk in the park. Let's try a translation, nice and easy:

A thousand cares is killed by a single hurt.

Oh-huh. What do we have here? I'm beginning to smell rat, I daresay. The question begs itself: Whose POV was this spoken? Is it from the point of view of the one who brought all the cares (a thousand cares at that and maybe still counting) or the one who was hurt? In short, who has an ax to grind?  Was the hurt fatal that it cancels out the thousand cares? Or was it merely a gripe that it was only made as an excuse.

It isn’t clear. It could swing either way.

The proverb is neutrally said from the point of view of a disinterested third party or maybe a go-between who laments the break up between the two lovers because he wanted them to make up so he can have the choice cut of the carabao to be slaughtered on the eve of the wedding that now is in limbo.

For the sheer fun of it, let’s butt in and introduce some colors to the sepia:

A thousand cares is snuffed out by a single gripe.

A keyword here is satiman(single)  to emphasize  the alone-ness of the gripe. I don’t feel comfortable at all with the word piatay (killed) so we can drop it in favor of snuff because in the modern era, the dominant means of killing is the gun, but snuff is just as instant but more evocative like the wind snuffing out a candle’s flame. In addition, to turn off any device, the Maranao uses the word bono which is a synonym for piatay. This is the genius of his language.

I also toyed with the word erase but I feel the image's dismissal rather gradual.

The most critical word here is tadĕman. Tadĕman used in the negative is bitterness. Tadĕman could also mean a remembrance. From the point of view of the guy who was cherishing, a gripe is not much of a bitterness. So to him, it doesn’t justify snuffing out a patiently built love.

Interpreted this way, the proverb could be referring to the woes a lover is experiencing, who had patiently built his reputation and caring for the object of his love. And after pooling all his thousand-care eggs in one basket (hers), with just one misstep—pow!—he was rebuffed. Everything he had worked painstakingly was cancelled out by a one silly mistake. I figure that the woman is not sincere at all from the get-go; she was just hanging out, waiting for an excuse to happen to get rid of the poor lover. Maybe she saw him kiss an old friend on the cheek or shared an umbrella with an office mate and she would entertain no explanation.

Another word that could come in handy here is to use the word squelch or squash which is very colorful indeed—as in rubbing it in (the pain). Thus:

A thousand cares is squelched by a single gripe.

If the ancients were alive today, they would as likely dig for this:

So sanggibo ā ranon na kidĕs ā satiman ā tadĕman.

I kind of like this improvisation because it emphasizes the absurdity and unfairness of the girl's decision. You squelch an insect, an ant or a lice with your thumb. But here the odds are stack against the thumb 1:1,000.

So far so good.

But then let’s not forget the woman’s standpoint. So, taking her POV, we get:

A thousand cherish is killed by a single bitterness.

Okay, the man may be caring alright in all ways, and they were engaged, the wedding had been set (the go-between is anticipating his carabao meat) except that the day before she saw him with another woman getting into a cab. She followed them and saw the two ended up in a motel with a glowing neon marquee on it. This one is fatal. Kaput.

Pitting one against one thousand is also found in other ancient sayings. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” said Lao Tzu. And of course we have the Arabian tales of A Thousand and One Nights told by Scheherazade.

Oh, I don't know. The old folks who must have had originally said this proverb certainly had an ax to grind.  In the olden days a rebuffed young man resorts to challenging his love rival in a duel to the death. This is not your average cowboy Western gunslinger duel. This is the cut-and-slash dance of kris and kampilan. By the way, did you read about the Spaniard who challenged the Coralat of Combés, Sultan Qudrat himself, in a duel? If you’re merely relying on your school textbook, which during my high school days was mainly by Zaide, then you probably haven’t come across it.

The story was that the young Spaniard was thoroughly drunk when he issued the challenge.

I found one of his kind the other night at a dive in Timog, Quezon City. The bartender refused to give him one more drink. “Go home,” he told him. “Sleep on it.” His butt was slipping off the high stool of the bar, so I yanked him upright just in time as I entered. He looked at me with glazed eyes, and it took time for his eyes to focus before he recognized me. He was not the one in our proverb, but he was an old friend. The story in Marawi was that he had been outbid by a rival in the dowry, so he was drowning himself with San Miguel.

Short of hauling him, I dragged him outside the bistro. He was etching for a brawl and I had to take him away. It was already past midnight, windy, and dark clouds scudding across a full moon overhead. I could not reveal his name, but he got the moniker "GC" from the lost girl, short for "Grenade Catcher." She can't get enough telling everyone that when she asked him how far he would go for her, he replied a Bruno Mars: "I'll catch a grenade for you." Cute line, I'd say. He was sobbing by the asphalt road as we were flagging for a ride. "Hell," he said now, by way of update, "I would have eaten even a volley from an RPG, if she had asked." "Dismiss her, man" I said, "she's worth a nothing."

A few minutes of waiting, then a cab stopped for us. We got in. My friend had mellowed somewhat but not quite. We drove away. It was a Saturday when most radio station played the oldies. Dr. Love had just finished giving a thrashing lecture on a lovelorn listener, and to soothe her, he played a song by way of intermezzo. It didn’t help my friend’s mood on the deserted road.  "All is fair in love, love's the crazy game, two people vowed to stay…"

Yes, all in love is fair. Either way, it’s your POV.

The Palapâ Oath: proof in the pudding

Manila's mossbacks are wont to say to anyone fresh out of the boat from the peer that the thing you're apt to lose first when you're new in the city is your virginity; the last being your accent. In 1971, just three-days after shedding off my high school toga, I couldn't wait to see the Capital and took the defunct Air Manila's last Fokker flight out of Mumungan airport in Lanao (before it had closed down forever) and never looked back. I did struggle with my promdi accent for a while especially in my freshman year but I eventually licked it, and along flowed my innocence as well. Barely a year right out of college, I went abroad and again I never looked back. To think of it, I virtually spent half my life outside the country then, but through all my adventures and miscues, one thing had never left me: my constant craving for palapâ.

Designed for this post by N. Sharief © 2015

Palapâ is a spice no Maranao worth his name could eat without. It's a pounded concoctions of scallion bulbs (sakurab), devil pepper, ginger caramelized by ultra-slow cooking and mixed with a moderate dollop of coconut oil. When done properly in proportionate ingredients, palapâ has a fulsome bite to it that stays in the tongue, its piquant aroma making it irresistible. I grew up eating palapâ, so I never leave home for an extended time without it or its taste would haunt me.

When I worked for Saudi Arabian Airlines in Jeddah in 1979 after a short stint with SGV1 in Makati right off college, I had to do a regular trip to the customs clearing to claim for the lone can of palapâ sent to me by my folks. Those were the snail-mail years when my folks would pour out all their pining in a good-old kirim scribbling and ask me—their orak—what would I want sent to me. I would then write back that I had ran out of palapâ, and slip in a few Benjamin Franklins or King Khalids inside for good measure.

I  was a progressive Maranao then (whatever that means), donning the fashion of the time, virtually lost in the homogeneity of the modern crowd. I did a lot of travelling. But wherever I went I would never be without my stash of palapa. My tongue was a virtual prisoner. It's what gives me away. One time at a formal dinner in downtown Manhattan, I could not stay my hand and found myself unwrapping my palapâ from a sealed sachet out of my coat pocket. The host and the guests at the round table instantly knew as they watched me spooning a dollop of it onto a small plate that this was not something you could just order from the hotel kitchen.

I saw all eyes on me, so I invited everyone, rather shyly, to try this condiment which goes well with any viand. A grand dame beside me with a vaguely European accent made a tentative taste, and her report: "fantastic!" Soon, everyone, tasted it and giving me the thumbs up. I won't bore you with the details of their enthusiastic (if polite) suggestion that I should introduce it in commercial quantity to the state of New York, etc. But you' d be asking: what has the darn palapâ got to do with this blog, unless I'm embarking suddenly on the cuisine aspect of the Ranaū-Iranūn! (And I have to confess upfront that cuisine is my Achilles' heel. My confidence level in cooking goes no further than frying a sunny-side-up egg.)

The Oath of Palapa, Size 200x100 cm, oil on canvas, Soedibio Collection

But the palapâ episode that night allowed me a platform to tell with aplomb a little known episode of  Southeast Asian history to my small audience, which made them better appreciate the condiment I had brought half-way around the world:

Gajah Mada (c. 1290) was a loyal, if passionate elite guard of Majapahit kings and their family. When he rose to the rank of mahapatih (Prime Minister) in 1329 he (Gadia muda in Ranaū-Iranūn) made a solemn oath to the Queen Tribhuwanatunggadewi his famous oath, Palapa Oath. The telling of the oath is described in the Pararaton (Book of Kings), an account on Javanese history that dates from the 15th or 16th century. He said that he will never taste the palapâ until he conquered the islands of Southeast Asia for the Majapahit Empire. At first his friends and detractors alike doubted his sincerity, but the Gadia Muda kept to his promise and pursued relentlessly his quest. Soon Bali fell followed by Lombok (1343) and then he brought the thalassocratic kingdom of Sriwijaya in Palembang to its knees. He then went on to extend the territories: Temasek (Singapore), Malaysia, Brunei, East Timor and the most far-flung, the last frontier, the southern Philippines.

To this day, thus, the modern Ranaū-Iranūn is blissfully unaware that such a sumpa (sapâ) had existed at all, although they relish their palapâ and their culture is informed by this once mighty empire. But such is the twist of fate that in the pungent aroma of the palapâ is trapped the history of our race.

1Sycip, Gorres, Velay & Co.