Mangyan Script

Hanunoo Syllabary

The Banai (Interview with Inang)

Mindoro, Island (1992)

I sat down and interviewed my mother about the folklore of our people. She told me scary about forest spirits called, "Labong"that feast on the souls of unfortunate travelers who stray from the trails. As our conversation continued she told me about a forest spirit that was not as devious, nor scary. The spirit is called, "Banai" and has taken a particular interest to children. She lurers children away from their village into the forest. It appears that they are not harmed by this spirit, but instead is protected. Perhaps all the Banai wants is company that it once had in a previous life-time.

Mangyan Poems

Ambahan: This is a poem with 7 syllables per line, the final syllable of every line rhyming with all the others. Extensive use is made of archaic words which have dropped out of conversational usage.

The origin of the ambahan is unkown although the word occurs in some Bisayan dialects with the meaning of "song" of "poem" and be derived from the word amba (Hiligaynon) which means "to sign" . Alzina, in his "Historia de las Islas, e Indios de Bisayas ... 1668" also mentions the ambahan but his definition of the term does not fit the Mangyan ambahan. (P1.51, Postma, p.3)

Modern ambahan deal with everyday subjects and frequently have humorous or even bawdy undertones.

Says the monkey
(Magkunkuno ti amo)

having a head-ache
(Magkasakit kay ulo)

sitting on top of a stone:
(Babaw purantok bato)

Grandmother dear!
(Ido ido anito)

If you will call for a doctor,
(No ga bumalyan kawo)

don't get an inexperienced one.
(Danga sa barubago)

I need a very good doctor
(Sa balyanan matuo)

so that my headache
(Hampay ti sakit ulo)

will not come back.
(Ud yi waydi misalyo)

Or let it come back eventually,
(Sakit bago misalyo)

when I have grey hairs already.
(Mangabukay kang ulo)

Reference Material

UPDATE: Below is a list of articles and books gratuitously provided by the Mangyan Heritage Center for this project.

P1.97
The Function of Folklore in Mangyan Literacy

P1.51
Mangyan Folklore

C1.17
Hanunuo Music from the Philippines

P1.139

Hanunuo-Mangyan Beliefs: their visible and invisible world

P1.75

The Concept of Time Among the Mangyans

Mangyan Folklore

I spent my early childhood years living on the remote hillsides of Mindoro, Philippines with my family and mother’s people known as the Hanunoo Tribe, one of the eight tribes of Mindoro Island collectively known as the Mangyan. I would like to propose spending the Summer Session 2 documenting traditions from my tribal-Filipino background with a focus on their social communication as defined below.

• Folklore- An oral story passed down from generation to generation. My people have many stories, unfortunately they are being lost due to the integration of “normal” Filipino society or in other words, survival to “catch-up” with the present time of working.
• Interpretation- I will dive into the linguistics of this piece by recording the story in my native tongue and interpret it in modern English.
• Translation- The Hanunoo tribe is one of the two Mangyan tribes who still practices its own pre-Spanish syllabic writing system and is one of the four ethnic groups in the Philippines, composed of over 7,000 islands, that remains to write in their original syllabary. The story will be written in Hanunoo and translated in modern English.

Description of the project:

There are about 350 million indigenous people in the world. The Philippine Islands has about 10 million among around 110 tribes.

1. In this project I will document a Hanunoo story by interpreting and translating it in English.
   
   
2. The goal is preserve and share a piece of my culture. The purpose is create a system of archiving these endangered languages and writing, as well as to create a new found interest in learning.
   
   
3. The outcome will yield one story from my Hanunoo tribe fully deciphered.
   
   
4. I have direct connection with the Mangyan Heritage Center located in Calapan City, Mindoro. I will use their resources to write and translate the Hanunoo script into English.
   
   
5. My target audience will be young American kids 5 to 9 years old.