A Folktale Blog

I would like to thank all those who sent me messages through email and facebook in response to my short story blog. A couple mistook it as an awful folktale, probably because of its title; probably because I mentioned that it was a juvenile. Others commented against too much non-English words and phrases that made it cumbersome to read through. One from Finland politely said that because he's feeling down, he didn't finish reading it. (Bless your heart, my dear friend. LOL) Others considered it as a good or 'very cool' short story, which could still be improved. One thing I appreciated most was the suggestion on how to improve it. The text that I posted was an early draft to encourage my friends and the readers to send in their comments. And promise, the final manuscript have minimal 'vernaculars' (most would still be printed as endnotes), and the story is more cohesive and evocative.

Since some mistook "The Magical Mat" as a folktale, I am posting one of the folktales in my book project, "Bedtime-Pastime: Collections of Short Stories and Bukidnon Folktales. Again, your comments are appreciated. So, please send them in.

Thanks guys.

THE MAIDEN AND THE SKY

Edmund Melig Industan

(A very common cosmological folktale narrated through the eyes of an observer.)


“Imagine a Laga (maiden). She has a nigu (winnower). She balances it on her head. She is flirting with the wind as she pertly swings her hip left and right, walking briskly toward the wooden mortar,” my mother, who was a grade school teacher, introduced differently the most common cosmological story of our tribe.

The children, who were sitting on the mat, which my mom spread out on the floor in front of her, laughed. They squeezed tightly like a canned sardine, but immediately quieted down, to let my mother go on with the story.

“It was very late in the day. The world would soon to be pitch black. Her family, who went to the river to fish, would soon be coming home. She needed to cook the rice; the soonest, the better,” my mom paused, calmly sat on a chair, glanced outside before she looked at the children.

“See, Laga was not a typical Bukidnon maiden. She was pretty than anybody else and her body was curved as a bottle of coke. She also was the fairest. Even the frogs would crook if they would see her walking. How could she not have a fair skin when she just wanted to stay inside their bark-walled hut, stringing hundreds of colorful beads on a thin silvery twined manila hemp, while her friends and family were out either in the field, in the river, or in the forest to gather food? She also was the tallest that, if she would jump an arm-length off the ground, she could already hit the sky. Why? Because during her time, the sky was still real low, very close to the ground. Another thing with Laga was that…she always wore her ruggedly etched crescent bamboo comb and her heavy colorful necklace made from hundreds of neatly strung beads,” my mother said as she showed a bamboo comb and a bead necklace.

The kids were all ears. A pin would probably be heard by everybody if someone drops it on the school’s cement floor.

“Upon reaching the wooden mortar, she tilted the winnower to pour the dried golden unshelled rice three-quarter of the mortar’s hole. Then, she put the oblong winnower on the ground and picked up the wooden pestle, which was a little bit shorter than her height. But Laga was afraid to break her newly finished necklace from constant body quivers while pounding the rice! So…she took it off. She also took the comb off,” my mother said with hands in animation. “But she also was afraid that the chicken and the pig that always lurk around indiscriminately would pick and snort the comb and the necklace! So…she placed them at the other end of the pestle, hoisted the pestle, and glued the comb and the necklace, one at a time, onto the sky.”

“Hala ka! (Oh, goodness!),” many of the girls exclaimed as they slightly flinched their shoulders and covered their mouths with their hands. The boys laughed at their reaction to the story.

“S-h-h-h-h-h!” my mother pressed her right index finger onto her lips as she looked at all of them. “Listen to this,” she whispered, her hand glided on to her right cheek. Then, when she already has all the children’s attention back, she resumed onto her normal tone. “Laga started pounding the rice: thump……thump……thump… thump……thump……Thump…thump….thump…Thump! The maiden gently pounded the rice to avoid spilling. Then, Thump…thump…THUMP! Thump….thump….THUMP! Thump….thump….THUMP! Laga maintained that regular pestle sound for several minutes, intermittently interrupted by “TOK!” as she tapped the side of the wooden mortar to level off the rice. As more grains were unshelled and not so jumpy anymore, Laga got excited and gradually pounded the rice harder. Thump…Thump…THUMP! Thump…Thump….THUMP! Faster and harder: Thump! Thump! THUMP! TOK! Thump! Thump! THUMP! TOK!” My mother paused for a couple of seconds and she hushed, “The maiden forgot her comb and her necklace. She forgot how low the sky was. Mesmerized with the sing-song of the mortar and the pestle; harder the pestle went. BUT to do that, she had to lift the pestle higher. AND THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! TOK! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Finally, she stopped; wiped her forehead with her knuckles, winced, put her hands on her hip, stretched, and flexed backward. ‘Whoa!’ she exclaimed, eyes wide opened. She saw the sky so high already. She tried to reach for her comb and necklace, with the use of the wooden pestle, but the pestle was not long enough. She jumped high and swung the pestle hard. She hit the comb and the necklace, but…she hit them so hard that the necklace snapped scattering the beads all over the sky.”

“And that’s the reason…” my mom looked at all the children smiling as she prolonged the last sound of the last syllable.

“…why the sky has the moon and the stars at night!” the girls completed my mom’s sentence in chorus.

The boys stood up together and in unison said, "THE END!”

My mom smiled. All the children got up. They were laughing and clapping as they went back to their desks. Two of the girls stayed behind to roll the two mats; each looked like 3-arm length suman (SEW-man), a rolled rice cake wrapped with a strip of banana leaf.

“Now, the two of you must have to show me how Laga tried to reach for her bamboo comb and bead necklace,” my mom told the two girls in order to wrap up the story time.

The girls smiled, held the two rolled mat on one end, and started jumping as high as they can to tap the ceiling all the way to the back corner of their classroom, as the others clapped their hands.