5
The LEGEND OF MOUNT DANGLAY or “How TACLOBAN got its NAME” An Oral Tradition (usa nga Susumaton) Copyrighted by Dulce Cuna Anacion This Tale has been passed down to me by my late Mother, Dr. Rosa Ester T. Cuna, an English and Literature professor of UP Tacloban College, she said this is an oral tradition she gathered from Basey, Samar, where my Father’s relatives come from. Long time ago when the island of Leyte (Tendaya island, named after a chieftain)[1] was still sparsely uninhabited, a young couple lived in the swampy shores of Kabatok, their livelihood was catching crabs and shellfish and crossing the Bay to a village in Samar island (Ibabao or Sibabao island, which to this day the village is named Basey), to sell in a “tabo”(market fair) in that village everyday.[2] Dang, was a strong fisherman, he was a tall, good-looking relative of the Bornean Datu Siagu of the southern side of Tendaya. His body was tattooed (“patik”) all over in the

The legend of mount danglay

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: The legend of mount danglay

The LEGEND OF MOUNT DANGLAY or “How TACLOBAN got its NAME”An Oral Tradition (usa nga Susumaton)Copyrighted by Dulce Cuna Anacion

This Tale has been passed down to me by my late Mother, Dr. Rosa Ester T. Cuna, an English and Literature professor of UP Tacloban College, she said this is an oral tradition she gathered from Basey, Samar, where my Father’s relatives come from.

Long time ago when the island of Leyte (Tendaya island, named after a chieftain)[1] was still sparsely uninhabited, a young couple lived in the swampy shores of Kabatok, their livelihood was catching crabs and shellfish and crossing the Bay to a village in Samar island (Ibabao or Sibabao island, which to this day the village is named Basey), to sell in a “tabo”(market fair) in that village everyday.[2]

Dang, was a strong fisherman, he was a tall, good-looking relative of the Bornean Datu Siagu of the southern side of Tendaya. His body was tattooed (“patik”) all over in the tradition of his tribe, he wore a loin cloth and was agile with the spear and machete he always carried with him. His other possessions were a “bangka” (small boat) and some “taklub”(basket traps for catching fish and crabs in shallow waters). His wife, Mulay was a weaver and basket maker. She made “taklub” to be sold in the Samar village during “tabo”. She was lithe, and agile too, her arms and legs were tattooed with motifs of birds and flowerets and crisscrossed with the patterns of basket weaving. The rest of her body was not tattooed, she wore a “tapis” of cloth made from the tapa bark, kind of bark found throughout the islands of South Pacific. Her chest was bare covered only with leis of shell and coconut. Her long hair was scrimped up into a bun called “tagonibaisat” and adorned with cloth and shell too. On special occasions, both Dang and

Page 2: The legend of mount danglay

Mulay would adorn themselves with gold earrings, necklaces and bracelets altogether with their shell leis to show off that they come from a noble lineage of the Datus. It was said that Gold was still found in the mountains of the island where they could fashion them into trinkets…

Dang and Mulay where childless. So their lives were dedicated to crab and shell gathering, and in some occasions pearl diving and gathering treasures from the sea…Mulay gathered the perennial grass that grew along in the swamp and made them to mats, baskets and cloth…[3]

One day, Dang ventured into the bay that looped around the Kabatok area. The bay was filled with varieties of fish and crustaceans and perhaps, he said into himself, he would gather pearls to sell on the next “tabo”. His bangka reached far off the rim of the bay where the ocean floor inclined deep into the depths of the Pacific ocean. Here he took a dive and ventured into the fathoms..

Underneath, he was enveloped by shadows and noticed a whirl of sand in the ocean, schools of fish darted here and there as if in a frenzy. The ocean floor was moving!

Hurriedly yet curious, Dang tried to make out what the moving shadow was and to his great surprise it was a huge crab which measured three big “balanghays” (big seafaring boats that could accommodate families), and was big as a hill.

Dang swam hurriedly to the surface, rowed his bangka with speed to Kabatok and arrived so excited to tell his wife. They planned to catch the enormous creature for it would indeed be many meals for the coming months and its shell would be fashioned into utensils, weapons or adornment they could sell in the Ibabao markets. The couple built a crab basket to catch the creature that measured as high as a big hill. It was an enormous crab basket (taklub) in which they towed with their boat far into the Bay as a trap.

That night, lit by the fullness of the moon, they were able to capture the huge crab and they towed the big basket with all their might to the shore. They were so triumphant of their catch that they forgot one thing, a cover for the basket so that the creature could not climb out.

Exhausted with the towing, Dang and Mulay settled into a tired sleep beside the enormous taklub. The big sea crab with its huge legs and claws, climbed out of the taklub thru its uncovered opening on top…This woke the couple and Dang, attempting to kill it, threw his spear into the heart of the crab. Yet its shell was too hard that the spear broke. With its huge claws, the crab pinned the couple and dashed them against the rocks on the shore. The last sound that was heard was the scream of Mulay in her terror: “TAKLUBAAAAAAA!!!” (cover it).

The next day, the people in the nearby town of Basey who heard the screams ventured out with their bangkas to the site of Kabatok where the screams emanated. It was to their shock and horror that they beheld the mangled bodies of Dang and Mulay, an enormous broken down taklub and markings in the sand that told of a big creature that had gone down to the sea…

Page 3: The legend of mount danglay

Whispers among them ensued that the couple had angered the Bay God Kabatok by trying to capture one of its Children. The townspeople carried the bodies of Dang and Mulay and buried them in the outskirts of their town in a ritual ceremony. They did not resort to sending the bodies off to the sea in a bangka and burning them there as in the normal tradition, for they were children that angered a sea God. Instead, they believed that burial in the earth to expiate them would be proper, and perhaps the God of the mountains, Ibabao, would pardon them consequently.

Years passed, the site where the bodies were buried grew into a mound, then a hill, then a mountain..a sign that Dang and Mulay were forgiven by the God Ibabao. The people started calling the mountain “Danglay” in honor of the tragic couple.

The swampy “sitio” where the couple lived was called “Takluban”, or “covered” as that was the last scream of the tragic Mulay. No one knows to this day where the creature of Kabatok has gone, it is believed that it still lives deep in the fathoms of the Bay ready to pounce on fishermen and fishing boats that go beyond forbidden territories to scrounge on its hidden treasures, navigated and known only to Kabatok.

____________________________________________________________

[1] Morga, Antonio de, “Historias de las Islas Filipinas”

[2] Cuna, Rosa Ester T., The Spanish term for this type of livelihood in the olden times was “buscada”, or scroungers.

[3] Anacion, Dulce C. “whether it is tikog or bari-is (grass found in Leyte and Samar ) is purely speculative.”

Litho diptych paintings above: "The Legend" by Dulz Cuna, 2012

(The Author: Prof. Dulce Cuna Anacion has a degree of Masters in Art History from UP Diliman. She teaches Humanities and the Communication Arts in UP Visayas Tacloban College. She is a Visual and Performance Artist, poet and a writer, singer and an esoteric art collector. She also is a practicing psychic and divinator (tarot cards). This is a family heirloom she wants to share in her site.)