Flintstone's Club and the Igorota

By Freda Dao-ines

My dad said my calf muscles, butoy in my native Kankana-ey tongue, are big and round camote tubers. My very objective but highly euphemistic friend told me they are the "most developed ambulating device" she has ever seen. And I see my legs as the flogging club that Fred Flintstone carries on his shoulder when he goes out to hunt for dinosaurs.

Yes, I am talking about my calves, which are distinctly muscular, same as almost every Igorot woman-be they pencil-thin or living in the lowlands, chances are their calves will give away their Igorot heritage. I had a classmate before who could have been a Ford model if her body and legs were a bit longer, but once her pants were peeled off her legs, the unmistakable bulge showed up.

The Latin anatomist termed the calf muscles gastrocnemius. The gastrocnemius contracts when one is walking or standing. For a bodybuilder whose goal in life is to flex his muscles, the developed gastrocnemius is welcomed. But for a woman who has to wear a skirt, with half her legs showing, a developed gastrocnemius is a bane, like contraband to be hidden.

A well-toned body, especially the abs and glutes, is sexy, but a thick ankle and calf might be mistaken for a pine branch! This is the fate of the notorious Igorota's calves.

Nobody seems to know what to do with their calves; the Igorotas are even in a love-hate relationship with it. Some Igorotas hail their "flogging clubs" with glowing pride while others shun their "kamotes" from public eyes.

Many theories try to explain why the Igorota's calves were such. The forerunners Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer would account it to their famous mantra "survival of the fittest, elimination of the unfit."

Living in the mountains, with its waterfalls and morning mists, looked tempting only on postcards as my Lolo vehemently agreed to. He was around at a time when men still go out into the woods to hunt for wild boars or any game and even birds, to be roasted for dinner. Women were not exempted from such physically demanding tasks of feeding the family. The women hiked for hours up to plant or harvest their fields in the next mountain from their homes. The gastrocnemius developed then, mainly, for them to survive the twisted paths, endure long hours on the trail, and run after a pig's warm flesh.

On anatomical view, the law of "use and disuse" may shed light on the not-so-mysterious Igorota's calves. Accordingly, a muscle is developed if it is used for physical activity, and may grow to accommodate the person's lifestyle. If it is not used often, it will stay the same if not sag altogether. I don't put much faith in this theory, though, when it comes to the Igorota's legs. Except for the environmental factor, women in the lowlands who can be as active physically as the Igorota still don't have bulging calves.

Young Igorotas today, although they don't have to climb mountains or endure torturous paths as their ancestors did, are still endowed with sinewy gastrocnemius. In a society obsessed with perfect body proportions, its notions reaching the traditional view of beauty, it is understandable why young Igorotas are embarrassed with their legs and forever wrap them in pants. For their ceaseless "why me?" genetics perhaps pose the answer. It is all in the genes, they say; the good ones you would want to flaunt and the bad ones to be treated as a plague. However, one can't say possessing big gastrocnemius is bad, since others see the good in it.

So far, I was not able to dig up myths surrounding the Igorota's calves. I would like to think there was once an Igorot Adam who pleaded to Kabunian to give him an Eve as brawny as he is. So Kabunian fashioned a woman, not just from lumps of clay, but also gave her arms and calves of stone before baking and breathing life into her! Or if it is a contemporary myth, perhaps Flintstone was hunting in the Cordilleras when he lost his flogging club, and here comes an Igorot man who picked it up and gave it to his wife to strengthen her legs.

The measly legend I have concocted in 10 seconds may sound silly, but I have heard others as silly. My former biochemistry instructor's theory is that Igorots eat too much potato that they were stored on their calves! (Perhaps Kabunian did not give the Igorot Eve calves made of stone but of kamotes instead?) I would have accepted her theory if not for the glaring fact that women from other ethnic groups or tribes, if they become fat or ate too much mashed potatoes or French fries, would still have slender legs and calves.

Whatever the reasons behind my bulky, ambulatory flogging device, I couldn't care less. Along with other equally-endowed women, I'd like to think of my gastrocnemius as an Igorota's trademark. It is a trademark of endurance, strength, and a great sense of adventure. Passed on to me through a chromosome strand, my butoys are the trophies of my ancestors' struggles to conquer a savage land, and later live alongside the tempers of nature.

There may be time I wish I also possess the slender and seemingly endless legs of my lowland counterpart, especially when showing off legs are necessary. But I take heart in the thought that mine is also a great asset because I have in my legs a living tradition and the history of my Igorot culture.

Now, don't I wish there were still wild boars to hunt, and a wilderness to get lost in?

Diminishing memories and a tree

By Rachel Pitlongay

THE dispute over the tree began after the last typhoon of October when the new neighbor got to thinking that the tree might get uprooted by one more storm and fall on his newly-built house, such as what recent incidents have shown.

Content with the belief that the old man from whom he bought his land had also included the tree, he immediately filed for a permit to cut it down. It was around that moment that my cousin heard about the neighbor's intentions, reporting it to the immediate heads of our family who immediately contested any possible outcomes that would result to a tree cutting.

The dispute took itself legally and went to the barangay officials where it was summarily agreed that the tree would be cut down to avoid the real possibility of it falling upon the neighbor's head.

My mother was greatly saddened by the outcome, and a little angered by it too, because for her, the tree was a legacy from their late father who planted it to mark the division between his land and the old man's. The memory of her father reminding them to take care of that tree still echoes in my mother's mind, and perhaps this was the reason for her anger, for she feels that somehow, they are betraying their father's memory, which had already begun when her siblings sold part of his land.

I never knew him, this man who planted that tree, but I knew from stories that he was poor; living in a time where having land does not entail wealth, unless it also includes a herd of cows or seeds to plant. He claimed a whole mountain side though, and took care of it, perhaps anticipating the future where his children have prospered by themselves and will need land to build their own homes and to give to their own children.

Such foresight, if indeed it was, proved beneficial as my mother and aunts and uncles built their homes and had their own families. In family occasions of old, these siblings would get together along with their spouses and children, coming up to 50 people at the most, excluding the littlest of cousins or nephews and nieces.

My grandfather's land had diminished as the years passed. Typhoons stripped a little soil and caused bigger landslides. Some neighbors encroached and went beyond the agreed boundaries.

Mostly however, some of my aunts and uncles sold a few square meters, mainly on the sly or perhaps because they believe that it is their right and their other siblings do not deserve to know; causing a great deal of heart ache that was discussed only in whispers.

Like the tree, the land had been the subject of disputes, internally and externally. Unlike the tree however, the land had been saved somehow, and my generation will get its own piece of legacy.

Hopefully, we will keep it better than our elders, even if most of us haven't set foot on that land for years as we scattered around the world. It is yet home. I hope that it will still be there though when everyone comes home, unlike the tree, which would be cut down before this year ends, unremarkable to us grandchildren, and secretly mourned only by my mother, and her siblings as one more thing lost to memories.

To join Ubbog, writers in Ibaloi, Kankanaey, Iluko, Ifugao, Bontoc, Kalinga, Kalanguya as well as in English and Filipino below 30 years old may send manuscripts composed of any of the following: 5 poems or essays or 3 short stories or one-act plays to ubbogcordillera@gmail.com.

Marapait: For the Bitter and the Sweet

By Chinee Sanchez-Palatino

THEY are the beautiful receptionists greeting you a warm welcome amid the frigid breeze as you enter Baguio that you cannot but smile back at them. For some visitors however they are like little stars placed in a green sky -- visibly shining still in the midst of a bright sunny day. It is as if you are only an inch away from heaven, they say. On a gloomy, rainy day moreover they are like cheerleaders trying to perk you up.

With its sun-colored petals, one might imagine it is sweetly smiling. It is one of Baguio's trademarks indeed.

Marapait is the local term for the wild sunflowers growing like grass here in Baguio City -- common and abundant. How it got its name is because of its bitter-tasting leaves. Mara is an Ilocano term for "parang" (like, similar to) while pait, as we know it in Filipino means bitter.

But these Marapait are more than just an apple to the eye. For a Baguio local like Manong Larry, the mere sight of it brings him back to his childhood, to the simple pleasures in life and to the Baguio he had known before.

Having stayed here in Baguio for 32 years now, Manong Larry saw Baguio's transformation in the same way the Marapaits served as a witness to it as well. But his memories with the Marapait when he was just eight or so could never be altered. During his elementary years in a public school, he and his classmates used Marapait as floor wax whenever they were to clean the classroom.

"Pinagdodonate kasi kami ng titser namin 'nun ng floor wax," Manong Larry recalls.

But instead of buying one, he and his other classmates just brought stem of Marapait with leaves. They just continuously beat the stem against the floor. A glossy but greenish floor was the result. This obviously left an impression on his memory for they had fun while doing their responsibility.

Since Manong Larry's recollections was in the early 1980s, there where not much commercial toys unlike today where supplies are overflowing.

He and his playmates call the Marapait game tumba-tumba the goal is to "knock-out" the wild sunflower using a stick. Imagining it is an "enemy" they derive joy when the Marapait finally fall down. Insects living in the Marapait area were, in his own words like snowflakes dispersing as they hit the Marapait.

Moreover, that these wild sunflowers have its proven medicinal value is sutured with his memory of the childhood crush who threw stone at him because he was teasing her. He was hit in the forehead that he and his friends rushed at the back of their campus to get some Marapait leaves.

Of course, they also do the popular "she loves me, she loves me not," picking the petals until there's no more.

Manong Larry had a sudden shift in tone as he recalls how their place in Balsigan looked like before.

But the hills Manong Larry was talking about were now teeming with houses. He said a place near Balsigan was once a vegetable and rose garden but it is now a subdivision.

Bulldozers came and the other areas with a lot of Marapait where flattened and constructed into a road.

As Baguio becomes more and more urbanized, more and more areas are turned in to roads and if not roads residential or commercial lots, more and more Marapaits are cut down as well.

The mushrooming of houses here and there might perhaps be attributed to the growing population of Baguio in relation with its further urbanization.

Sweet smile, bitter taste. In a nutshell, these are the basic characteristics of Marapait. And just like the Marapait, Manong Larry's memories of these wild sunflowers were a mix of the bitter and the sweet. On the other hand, Baguio's continued urbanization is as bitter and as sweet. Today, what is left of the old Baguio, we try to preserve amid developments. For feedbacks and comment please email the writer: Xien81@yahoo.com or text 09174415398. Email Ubbog Cordillera Young Writers at ubbogcordillera@gmail.com.