Wedding Dance by Amador Daguio he said, "as if--as if nothing had happened.

" He looked
at the woman huddled in a corner of the room, leaning
Awiyao reached for the upper horizontal log which against the wall. The stove fire played with strange
served as the edge of the headhigh threshold.  Clinging moving shadows and lights
to the log, he lifted himself with one bound that carried upon her face. She was partly sullen, but her sullenness
him across to the narrow door. He slid back the cover, was not because of anger or hate.
stepped inside, then pushed the cover back in place.
After some moments during which he seemed to wait, "Go out--go out and dance. If you really don't hate me
he talked to the listening darkness. for this separation, go out and dance. One of the men
will see you dance well; he will like your dancing, he will
"I'm sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But marry you. Who knows but that, with him, you will be
neither of us can help it." luckier than you were with me."

The sound of the gangsas beat through the walls of the "I don't want any man," she said sharply. "I don't want
dark house like muffled roars of falling waters. The any other man."
woman who had moved with a start when the sliding
door opened had been hearing the gangsas for she did He felt relieved that at least she talked: "You know very
not know how long. There was a sudden rush of fire in well that I won't want any other woman either. You
her. She gave no sign that she heard Awiyao, but know that, don't you? Lumnay, you know it, don't you?"
continued to sit unmoving in the darkness.
She did not answer him.
But Awiyao knew that she heard him and his heart
pitied her. He crawled on all fours to the middle of the "You know it Lumnay, don't you?" he repeated.
room; he knew exactly where the stove was. With bare
fingers he stirred the covered smoldering embers, and "Yes, I know," she said weakly.
blew into the stove. When the coals began to glow,
Awiyao put pieces of pine on them, then full round logs "It is not my fault," he said, feeling relieved. "You
as his arms. The room brightened. cannot blame me; I have been a good husband to you."

"Why don't you go out," he said, "and join the dancing "Neither can you blame me," she said. She seemed
women?" He felt a pang inside him, because what he about to cry.
said was really not the right thing to say and because
the woman did not stir. "You should join the dancers,"
"No, you have been very good to me. You have been a in her care through the walls.
good wife. I have nothing to say against you." He set
some of the burning wood in place. "It's only that a man Awiyao went to the corner where Lumnay sat, paused
must have a child. Seven harvests is just too long to before her, looked at her bronzed and sturdy face, then
wait. Yes, we have waited too long. We should have turned to where the jars of water stood piled one over
another chance before it is too late for both of us." the other. Awiyao took a coconut cup and dipped it in
the top jar and drank. Lumnay had filled the jars from
This time the woman stirred, stretched her right leg out the mountain creek early that evening.
and bent her left leg in. She wound the blanket more
snugly around herself. "I came home," he said. "Because I did not find you
among the dancers. Of course, I am not forcing you to
"You know that I have done my best," she said. "I have come, if you don't want to join my wedding ceremony. I
prayed to Kabunyan much. I have sacrificed many came to tell you that Madulimay, although I am
chickens in my prayers." marrying her, can never become as good as you are.
She is not as strong in planting beans, not as fast in
"Yes, I know." cleaning water jars, not as good keeping a house clean.
"You remember how angry you were once when you You are one of the best wives in the
came home from your work in the terrace because I whole village."
butchered one of our pigs without your permission? I did
it to appease Kabunyan, because, like you, I wanted to "That has not done me any good, has it?" She said. She
have a child. But what could I do?" looked at him lovingly. She almost seemed to smile.

"Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child," he He put the coconut cup aside on the floor and came
said. He stirred the fire. The spark rose through the closer to her. He held her face between his hands and
crackles of the flames. The smoke and soot went up the looked longingly at her beauty. But her eyes looked
ceiling. away. Never again would he hold her face.  The next
day she would not be his any more. She would go back
Lumnay looked down and unconsciously started to pull to her parents. He let go of her face, and she bent to the
at the rattan that kept the split bamboo flooring in floor again and looked at her fingers as they tugged
place. She tugged at the rattan flooring. Each time she softly at the split bamboo floor.
did this the split bamboo went up and came down with a
slight rattle. The gong of the dancers clamorously called "This house is yours," he said. "I built it for you. Make it
your own, live in it as long as you wish. I will build "I know it," he said. "I will pray that Kabunyan will bless
another house for Madulimay." you and Madulimay."

"I have no need for a house," she said slowly. "I'll go to She bit her lips now, then shook her head wildly, and
my own house. My parents are old. They will need help sobbed.
in the planting of the beans, in the pounding of the
rice." She thought of the seven harvests that had passed, the
high hopes they had in the beginning of their new life,
"I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountains the day he took her away from her parents across the
during the first year of our marriage," he said. "You roaring river, on the other side of the mountain, the trip
know I did it for you. You helped me to make it for the up the trail which they had to climb, the steep canyon
two of us." which they had to cross. The waters boiled in her mind
in forms of white and jade and roaring silver; the waters
"I have no use for any field," she said. tolled and growled,
resounded in thunderous echoes through the walls of
He looked at her, then turned away, and became silent. the stiff cliffs; they were far away now from somewhere
They were silent for a time. on the tops of the other ranges, and they had looked
carefully at the buttresses of rocks they had to step
"Go back to the dance," she said finally. "It is not right on---a slip would have meant death.
for you to be here. They will wonder where you are, and
Madulimay will not feel good. Go back to the dance." They both drank of the water then rested on the other
bank before they made the final climb to the other side
"I would feel better if you could come, and dance---for of the mountain.
the last time. The gangsas are playing."
She looked at his face with the fire playing upon his
"You know that I cannot." features---hard and strong, and kind. He had a sense of
lightness in his way of saying things which often made
"Lumnay," he said tenderly. "Lumnay, if I did this it is her and the village people laugh. How proud she had
because of my need for a child. You know that life is not been of his humor. The muscles where taut and firm,
worth living without a child. The man have mocked me bronze and compact in their hold upon his skull---how
behind my back. You know that." frank his bright eyes were. She looked at his body the
carved out of the mountains
five fields for her; his wide and supple torso heaved as if She was silent.
a slab of shining lumber were heaving; his arms and
legs flowed down in fluent muscles--he was strong and "If I do not try a second time," he explained, "it means
for that she had lost him. I'll die. Nobody will get the fields I have carved out of
the mountains; nobody will come after me."
She flung herself upon his knees and clung to them.
"Awiyao, Awiyao, my husband," she cried. "I did "If you fail--if you fail this second time--" she said
everything to have a child," she said passionately in a thoughtfully. The voice was a shudder. "No--no, I don't
hoarse whisper. "Look at me," she cried. "Look at my want you to fail."
body. Then it was full of promise. It could dance; it could
work fast in the fields; it could climb the mountains fast. "If I fail," he said, "I'll come back to you. Then both of us
Even now it is firm, full. But, Awiyao, I am useless. I will die together. Both of us will vanish from the life of
must die." our tribe."

"It will not be right to die," he said, gathering her in his The gongs thundered through the walls of their house,
arms. Her whole warm naked naked breast quivered sonorous and faraway.
against his own; she clung now to his neck, and her
hand lay upon his right shoulder; her hair flowed down "I'll keep my beads," she said. "Awiyao, let me keep my
in cascades of gleaming darkness. beads," she half-whispered.

"I don't care about the fields," she said. "I don't care "You will keep the beads. They come from far-off times.
about the house. I don't care for anything but you. I'll My grandmother said they come from up North, from
have no other man." the slant-eyed people across the sea. You keep them,
Lumnay. They are worth twenty fields."
"Then you'll always be fruitless."
"I'll keep them because they stand for the love you have
"I'll go back to my father, I'll die." for me," she said. "I love you. I love you and have
nothing to give."
"Then you hate me," he said. "If you die it means you
hate me. You do not want me to have a child. You do She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling
not want my name to live on in our tribe." out to him from outside. "Awiyao! Awiyao! O Awiyao!
They are looking for you at the dance!"
 "Awiyao," she said, and her eyes seemed to smile in the
"I am not in hurry." light. "The beads!" He turned back and walked to the
farthest corner of their room, to the trunk where they
"The elders will scold you. You had better go." kept their worldly possession---his battle-ax and his
spear points, her betel nut box and her beads. He dug
"Not until you tell me that it is all right with you." out from the darkness the beads which had been given
to him by his grandmother to give to Lumnay on the
"It is all right with me." beads on, and tied them in place. The white and jade
and deep orange obsidians shone in the firelight. She
He clasped her hands. "I do this for the sake of the suddenly clung to him, clung to his neck as if she would
tribe," he said. never let him go.

"I know," she said. "Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!" She gasped, and she
closed her eyes and huried her face in his neck.
He went to the door.
The call for him from the outside repeated; her grip
"Awiyao!" loosened, and he buried out into the night.

He stopped as if suddenly hit by a spear. In pain he Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Then she
turned to her. Her face was in agony. It pained him to went to the door and opened it. The moonlight struck
leave. She had been wonderful to him. What was it that her face; the moonlight spilled itself on the whole
made a man wish for a child? What was it in life, in the village.
work in the field, in the planting and harvest, in the
silence of the night, in the communing with husband She could hear the throbbing of the gangsas coming to
and wife, in the whole life of the tribe itself that made her through the caverns of the other houses. She knew
man wish for the laughter and speech of a child? that all the houses were empty that the whole tribe was
Suppose he changed his mind? Why did the unwritten at the dance. Only she was absent. And yet was she not
law demand, anyway, that a man, to be a man, must the best dancer of the village? Did she not have the
have a child to come after him? And if he was fruitless-- most lightness and grace? Could she not, alone among
but he loved Lumnay. It was like taking away of his life all women, dance like a bird tripping for grains on the
to leave her like this. ground, beautifully
timed to the beat of the gangsas? Did not the men
praise her supple body, and the women envy the way welled up, and she started to run. But the gleaming
she stretched her hands like the wings of the mountain brightness of the bonfire commanded her to stop. Did
eagle now and then as she danced? How long ago did anybody see her approach?
she dance at her own wedding? Tonight, all the women She stopped. What if somebody had seen her coming?
who counted, who once danced in her honor, were The flames of the bonfire leaped in countless sparks
dancing now in honor of another whose only claim was which spread and rose like yellow points and died out in
that perhaps she could give her the night. The blaze reached out to her like a spreading
husband a child. radiance. She did not have the courage to break into the
wedding feast.
"It is not right. It is not right!" she cried. "How does she
know? How can anybody know? It is not right," she said. Lumnay walked away from the dancing ground, away
from the village. She thought of the new clearing of
Suddenly she found courage. She would go to the beans which Awiyao and she had started to make only
dance. She would go to the chief of the village, to the four moons before. She followed the trail above the
elders, to tell them it was not right. Awiyao was hers; village.
nobody could take him away from her. Let her be the
When she came to the mountain stream she crossed it
first woman to complain, to denounce the unwritten rule
carefully. Nobody held her hand, and the stream water
that a man may take another woman. She would tell
was very cold. The trail went up again, and she was in
Awiyao to come back to her. He surely would relent.
the moonlight shadows among the trees and shrubs.
Was not their love as strong as the
Slowly she climbed the mountain.
river?

When Lumnay reached the clearing, she cold see from

She made for the other side of the village where the
where she stood the blazing bonfire at the edge of the
dancing was. There was a flaming glow over the whole
village, where the wedding was. She could hear the far-
place; a great bonfire was burning. The gangsas
off clamor of the gongs, still rich in their sonorousness,
clamored more loudly now, and it seemed they were
echoing from mountain to mountain. The sound did not
calling to her. She was near at last. She could see the
mock her; they seemed to call far to her, to speak to her
dancers clearly now. The man leaped lightly with their
in the language of unspeaking love. She felt the pull of
gangsas as they circled the dancing women decked in
their gratitude for her
feast garments and beads, tripping on the ground like
sacrifice. Her heartbeat began to sound to her like many
graceful birds, following their men. Her heart warmed to
gangsas.
the flaming call of the dance; strange heat in her blood
Lumnay though of Awiyao as the Awiyao she had known which was the stronger of the two, they called upon the
long ago-- a strong, muscular boy carrying his heavy wind to make the decision.
loads of fuel logs down the mountains to his home. She
The wind blew hardest. The mango tree stood fast. It
had met him one day as she was on her way to fill her would not yield. It knew it was strong and sturdy. It
clay jars with water. He had stopped at the spring to would not sway. It was too proud. It was too sure of
drink and rest; and she had made him drink the cool itself. But finally, its root gave way, and it tumbled
mountain water from her coconut shell. After that it did down.
not take him long to decide to throw his spear on the
stairs of her father's house in token on his desire to The bamboo tree was wiser. It knew it was not as robust
as the mango tree. And so every time the wind blew, it
marry her.
bent its head gracefully. It made loud protestations, but
let the wind have its way. When finally the wind got
The mountain clearing was cold in the freezing tired of blowing, the bamboo tree still stood in all its
moonlight. The wind began to stir the leaves of the bean beauty and grace.
plants. Lumnay looked for a big rock on which to sit
down. The bean plants now surrounded her, and she The Filipino is like the bamboo tree. He knows that he is
was lost among them. not strong enough, to withstand the onslaught of
superior forces. And so he yields. He bends his head
gracefully with many loud protestations.
A few more weeks, a few more months, a few more
harvests---what did it matter? She would be holding the And he has survived. The Spaniards came and
bean flowers, soft in the texture, silken almost, but dominated him for more than three hundred years. And,
moist where the dew got into them, silver to look at, when the Spaniards left, the Filipinos still stood—only
silver on the light blue, blooming whiteness, when the much richer in experience and culture.
morning comes. The stretching of the bean pods full
The Americans took place of the Spaniards. They used
length from the hearts of the wilting petals would go on. more subtle means of winning over the Filipinos to their
mode of living and thinking. The Filipinos embraced the
Lumnay's fingers moved a long, long time among the American way of life more readily than the Spaniard’s
vague promises hereafter.
growing bean pods.

Pliant like the Bamboo by Ismael V. Mallari Then the Japanese came like a storm, like a plague of
locusts, like a pestilence—rude, relentless, cruel. The
There is a story in Philippine folklore about a mango Filipino learned to bow his head low, to “cooperate” with
tree and a bamboo tree. Not being able to agree as to the Japanese in their “holy mission of establishing the
Co-Prosperity Sphere.” The Filipino had only hated and
contempt for the Japanese, but he learned to smile gods lavished their gifts aplenty. He does not have to
sweetly at them and to thank them graciously for their worry about the morrow. Tomorrow will be only another
“benevolence and magnanimity”. day—no winter of discontent. Of he loses his
possessions, there is the land and there is the sea, with
And now that the Americans have come back and driven all the riches that one can desire. There is plenty to spar
away the Japanese, those Filipinos who profited most —for friends, for neighbors and for everyone else.
from cooperating with the Japanese have been loudest
in their protestations of innocence. Everything is as if No woner that the Filipino can afford to laugh. For the
the Japanese had never been in the Philippines. Filipino is endowed with saving grace of humor. This
humor is earthly as befits one who has not indulged in
For the Filipino would welcome any kind of life that the deep contemplation. But it has enabled the Filipino to
gods would offer him. That is why he is contented and shrug his shoulders in times of adversity and say to
happy and at peace. The sad plight of other people of himself “Bahala na”*.
the world is not his. To him, as to that ancient Oriental
poet, the past is already a dream, and tomorrow is only The Filipino has often been accused of being indolent
a vision; but today, well-lived, makes every yesterday a and of lacking initiative. And he has answered back*
dream of happiness, and tomorrow is a vision of hope. that no one can help being indolent and lacking in
initiative who lives under the torrid sun which saps the
This may give you the idea that the Filipino is a vitality.
philosopher. Well he is. He has not evolved a body of
philosophical doctrines. Much less has he put them This seeming lack of vitality is, however, only one of his
down into a book, like Kant for example, or Santayana means of survival. He does not allow the world to be too
or Confucius. But he does have a philosophical outlook much with him. Like the bamboo tree, he lets the winds
on life. of chance and circumstance blow all about him; and he
is unperturbed and serene.
He has a saying that life is like a wheel. Sometimes it is
up, sometimes it is down. The monsoon season comes, The Filipino, in fact, has a way of escaping from the
and he has to go undercover. But then the sun comes rigorous problems of life. Most of his art is escapist in
out again. The flowers bloom, and the birds sing in the nature. His forefathers wallowed in the *moro-moro, the
trees. You cut off the branches of a tree, and, while the awit, and the kurido. They loved to identify themselves
marks of the bolo* are still upon it, it begins to shoot as gallant knights battling for the favors of fair ladies or
forth-new branches—branches that are the promise of the possession of hallowed place. And now he himself
new color, new fragrance, and new life. loves to be lost in the throes and modern romance and
adventure.
Everywhere about him is a lesson in patience and
forbearance that he does not have to learn with His gallantry towards women—especially comely women
difficulty. For the Filipino lives in a country on which the —is a manifestation of his romantic turn of mind.
Consequently, in no other place in Orient are women so
respected, so adulated, and so pampered. For his *This phrase refers to Dr. Jose Rizal's defense on the
women have enabled the Filipinos to look upon the colonial spaniard's accuse of the indolence of the
vicissitudes of fortune as the bamboo tree regards the Filipinos. It was published in La Solidaridad in Madrid.
angry blasts of the blustering wind. His essay written in Spanish was in English entitled
"Indolence of the Filipinos"
The Filipino is eminently suited to his romantic role. He
is slender and wiry. He is nimble and graceful in his *moro-moro - a play famous during the Spanish
movements, his voice is soft, and h has the gift of occupation in the Philippines. Its theme always depicts
language. In what other place in the world can you find the fight between a Christian and a Muslim who in the
a people who can carry on a fluent conversation in at end, the Christian (being always depicted as the
least *three languages? protagonists) wins the said fight.

This gift is another means by which the Filipino as *awit - a form of Filipino poetry very popular during the
managed to survive. There is no insurmountable barrier Spanish occupation in the Philippines. One best example
between him and any of the people who have come to is the "Florante at Laura" (Florante and Laura) by
live with him—Spanish, American, and Japanese. The Francisco Baltazar
foreigners do not have learn his language. He easily
manages to master theirs. *korido - a form of Filipino poetry very popular during
the Spanish occupation in the Philippines. It comes from
Verily, the Filipino is like the bamboo tree. In its grace, the word "corrido" in Spanish. One of the best known
in its ability to adjust itself to the peculiar and kurido is the story of "Ibong Adarna" (The Adarna Bird)
inexplicable whims of fate, the bamboo tree is his
expressive and symbolic national tree, it will have to be, *three languages... - it refers to Spanish, English and
not the molave or the narra, but the bamboo. Filipino languages. During the time that the author is
writing this piece, it is notable that Filipinos are required
to study these three languages.
Footnotes:
*bolo - a Filipino sword, usually used in cutting bamboo
and trees. During the Philippine-Spanish Revolution,
Bolos are used by the Katipuneros to fight against the
Spaniards.

*"Bahala na" - a Tagalog phrase which really means

"Bathala na", (Bathala referring to god), which literally
means "Just leave everything to God" or "God will
provide"